Supporting Texts: Psalm 95:1-6; Daniel 6:10; Acts 20:36.
Imagine for a moment that you went out and purchased a new car. Knowing a great deal about the car, you knew how to start the engine, engage the transmission, and, in fact, knew fully how to operate the vehicle. Yet after you drove it home, you never used it to go anywhere. For years it was simply parked and was never of any value to you at all. Prayer is like that for many Christians. It is the birthright of each one, yet so few ever pray. On the other hand, it is also possible to know very little about an automobile and yet use it every day to travel hundreds of miles. In much the same way, it is possible to know much about the Bible – its doctrines, interpretations, moral and ethical values, promises and warnings – and yet not live by those truths.
In the first three chapters of Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians, the apostle gave the basic truths about the Christian life. He has instructed us about our basic identity in Christ and the great and unlimited resources we have in Him. Beginning in chapter four and running through the rest of the letter, Christians are exhorted on how to live in this present life according to these amazing truths with the resources God has provided. Ephesians 3:14-21, then, is both a conclusion and a transition. It is a prayer that concludes with a doxology because of the great things God has done and a transition to the teaching on the practice of a godly Christian life. It is a prayer for believers to know God, to know the power He has graciously granted to each one, and an encouragement to use the resources God has given.
This points to two things a pastor should be most concerned about, which are, first, telling his people who they are in Christ, and, second, urging them to live like it. In other words, the pastor helps his congregation to understand their spiritual power, and then he spiritually motivates them to use the truth God has given. A pastor, who is a faithful steward of God’s truth seeks to bring his people to the place of maximum power as mature, fully functioning Christians.
The Apostle Paul, who is ever a model of Christian living, through his prayer, urges us to pray. The Bible includes dozens of examples of faithful prayers which are useful for our study and templates for us to follow. We have Daniel’s humble prayer in Daniel chapter nine, as well as Jesus’ amazing prayer of John chapter seventeen. We have examples of intercessory prayer, which are prayers for other people, and prayers of supplication, which are prayers for needs. In this prayer, I think Paul’s main purpose is to teach us to Whom our prayers must be addressed. Paul prayed to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. His requests were directed to them and, as part of his prayer, he lifted up his heart in worship to this triune God. He was mostly interested that God be glorified.
Prayer is a sensitive issue for many Christians. Most of us have lifestyles that make developing a consistent prayer life difficult. One of the more persistent struggles is about what to pray for. The passage we will examine today will focus on prayer. We will see that prayer brings power from the Holy Spirit and enables the love of Christ. Paul’s prayer shows us that prayer fills with God’s fullness and that it empowers true worship. We begin with the power the Holy Spirit brings to our lives through the prayers of God’s people.
PRAYER BRINGS POWER FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT. Ephesians 3:14-16
Bow Before God the Father. “For this reason,” returns Paul to his original thought expressed in verse one. Evidently, as he began to pray, he temporarily diverted his attention to the important doctrinal issue of unity of the church, particularly, between Gentiles and Jews. With that explanation completed, he returned to his prayer. Paul tells us that he bowed his knees before the Father. Remember, at the moment he wrote these words, he occupied a cell in a Roman prison. He was not in his comfortable home or in a consecrated chapel, but in a dark and lonely jail cell. Yet this now aged apostle still fell to his knees on the stone floor to address his Lord and God. Kneeling in prayer is a common posture in the Bible. The great prophet Daniel knelt in prayer. Although he knew his prayers endangered his life, Scripture teaches, “Now when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously” (Daniel 6:10). In Acts 20, as he bid farewell to the elders of the church of Ephesus, Paul “knelt down and prayed with them all.”
Psalm 95 also speaks of this posture in prayer: “O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand” (Psalm 95:1-7).
The Blessing of Being in God’s Family. The phrase in verse fifteen, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name” does not teach that God is the spiritual Father of every being in the entire universe. It does not teach, as some have thought, that there is a universal fatherhood of God and a universal brotherhood of man. In fact, the Bible clearly teaches there are two spiritual fatherhoods: God’s and Satan’s. God is the heavenly Father of those who trust in Him and Satan is the spiritual father of those who do not. I know you are wondering where this principle is found in the Bible.
These two opposing fatherhoods are found explicitly distinguished in the eighth chapter of John’s gospel. The unbelieving Jews had rejected Jesus as Lord and Messiah, yet presumed to claim Abraham as their spiritual forefather. Yet, “Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father” (John 8:39-41) The Lord continued, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God. You are of your father the devil and you want to do the desires of your father. There is no truth in him” (John 8:42, 44). Later, the Apostle John wrote, “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10).
“Every family in heaven and on earth” refers to the Redeemed of every age – some of whom are now in heaven and some, like you and me, remain on earth. Those who have been redeemed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ are the only ones who legitimately derive their names and family status from God the Father. Every family of believers in Christ is a part of one spiritual family of God, in which there are many members but only one Father and one family.
Strengthened with Power through His Spirit. Almost every prayer of Paul’s that is recorded in Scripture was for the spiritual welfare of others, and this is no exception. He wanted all believers to have the spiritual riches God has for all of them. The amount and quality of these riches is staggering, because His riches are limitless and completely without bounds. His first request is that the Holy Spirit strengthen them with His unlimited power in the inner man. Yet most Christians never seem to get to this first step, not knowing what it is to see God’s power full at work in them. They end up suffering, the church suffers, and the world suffers because the inner man of most believers is never strengthened with the Holy Spirit’s power and therefore languishes in desperate spiritual weakness.
What does “the inner man” mean? It may be easier to describe first of all what it is not. Inner man is opposed to the outer man. Instead of a focus or concentration on the outer person, we are encouraged to focus on the inner person. It’s amazing the number of things our world has invented to do to the outer person. I’m amazed at the number of products designed to make us look better, smell better and feel better. Many people are obsessed with fixing up the outside of a person. Even the government has mandates on what we should eat and how we should exercise just so the outside looks better. Some people spend a fortune on the way they look. Let me ask you a question, do you spend as much time on your heart as you do on your outward appearance?
This “inner man” is an expression of internal godly character. It’s what we are inside. Character qualities are things like wisdom, forgiveness, integrity, courage, dependability, responsibility, gentleness, self-control, meekness, love, holiness, joy, patience, peace, enthusiasm, goodness, faithfulness, honesty, and fairness. If I asked you to evaluate yourself in these and other areas, to see where your strengths and weaknesses are, what would they be? But I think a more important question is “What are you doing to develop these areas in your life?” The Bible reminds us of the importance of inner spiritual character in Second Corinthians, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
PRAYER ENABLES THE LOVE OF CHRIST. Ephesians 3:17-19a
Jesus At Home in Your Heart. The Greek word for dwell means to “be at home,” “or make feel comfortable.” Someone once asked me what I would do if Jesus came to my house. What would you do if you heard a knock at the door and looked to find the Lord standing there? Beg Him to come back later? Or, open the door and eagerly and enthusiastically encourage Him to enter? Would there be places you’d rather not have Him look too closely at? Or, would He feel at home anywhere? Notice, the text is not talking about your physical dwelling, but your heart, your mind. Is the Lord comfortable with your thought life? Every Christian must come to the place that the Lord Jesus Christ is the dominating factor in our attitudes and behavior.
In John 14:17, the Lord Jesus tells us what it means to have the Holy Spirit dwell in us. “The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” For the Lord to feel at home in our hearts requires willing obedience to His truth revealed in the Bible. In John 14:23-24, Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.” We allow Christ to dwell comfortably in our hearts when we put Him first in our lives and live the way He wants us to live.
Comprehend Christ’s Love. Paul continued his prayer by repeating his request that Christ be the center of believers’ lives. He stated this in a mixed metaphor of biological and architectural terminology: “being rooted” (like a plant) and “grounded” (like a building) in love. The participles “being rooted and grounded” are in the perfect tense, indicating a past action with continuing results. How can we comprehend Christ’s love? First, we understand that God lovingly created us. We are not the product of some cosmic accident, but are the result of a loving act of creation by a holy God. Second, we comprehend the Savior’s love when we receive Christ as Lord and Savior. It is not nice feelings or warm sentiments that bring such love, but the actual working of God’s Spirit and God’s Son in our lives to produce a love that is pure, sincere, selfless and serving.
The breadth and length and height and depth of love suggest the vastness and completeness of the love of Christ. In whatever spiritual direction we look we can see God’s love. We can see loves’ breadth reflected in God’s acceptance of Gentile and Jew equally in Christ. We can see love’s length in God’s choosing us before the foundation of the world for a salvation that will last through eternity. We can see love’s height in God’s having blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and in His raising us up and seating us with Him in the heavenlies. We can see love’s depth in God’s reaching down to the lowest levels of depravity to redeem those who are dead in trespasses and sins. God’s love can reach any person in any sin and it stretches from eternity past to eternity future. It takes us into the very presence of God and sits us on His throne.
PRAYER FILLS WITH GOD’S FULLNESS. Ephesians 3:19b
Filled with God’s Fullness. What does it mean to have God’s fullness? Please allow me to illustrate: A homeless man lived on the streets of a large eastern city begging each day for food to eat. One day he touched a man on the shoulder and said, “Hey mister, can you give me a dollar?” As soon as the homeless man saw the stranger’s face, he was shocked to see that it was his own father. He said, “Father, Father, do you know me?” Throwing his arms around his son, and with tears in his eyes the father said, “Oh, my son, at last I’ve found you! I’ve found you. You want a dollar? Everything I have is yours.” Think of it. One moment he was homeless begging his own father for one dollar, when for eighteen years his father had been searching for him to give him all that he had. To understand the fullness of God, we have to think about His attributes and characteristics. We must consider His power and majesty; His wisdom, love and mercy; His patience, kindness, longsuffering and all else that God is and does. We are told to be filled to the full. How often we allow our lives to be filled with other things. God wants us to be filled with Him.
Embrace God’s Sovereign Control. Colossians 2:9-10 tells us, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” For us to experience the Lord’s fullness, He must be there with complete rule and authority in our lives. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus who tells all who choose to be His disciple: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). For example, the Bible tells us theologically that we are all one in Christ. But there is one more step: we must apply it to our lives individually by loving each other as Christ loves us. Only in this way can we begin to experience God’s fullness.
PRAYER EMPOWERS TRUE WORSHIP. Ephesians 3:20-21
God Is Able. The last two verses form a doxology, a hymn of praise to the Lord. Notice how the focus of the praise is on the Lord Jesus and the purpose of giving Him glory. He could have said, “To Him who is able to do all that we ask or think,” and that would be enough. Paul adds three words that make that verse explode with worship: exceeding, abundantly, beyond. I think He is saying, “You can’t even begin to imagine all the great things God has in store for His people.” Trust Him and give Him glory.
Nobody would ever think that Jews and Gentiles could function together in one body. But with God’s power of love in each believer’s life, Paul was confident that Jewish and Gentile believers could function and love one another. This is astounding and though it is not naturally possible, God is able to accomplish it. This is still true in the church today. Few would imagine that a group of people could serve together in a local church and that they would be able to love each other and worship the Lord together. But God is able to make that happen.
To Him be Glory. Paul therefore attributed to God glory which is to be manifest in the church, where the miracle of love will occur, and in Christ Jesus, who made the union of Jewish and Gentile believers possible. Praise to Him for this accomplishment will continue throughout eternity. This doxology serves as a fitting conclusion not only to this prayer but also to this book’s first three chapters. Paul closed the doctrinal section of the book of Romans in a similar way: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to Him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36).
When we submit our will to God, He is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. And it is only then that the church is truly effective and only then that He is truly glorified. Remember, God deserves glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations (including this one) forever and ever. To this all God’s people say, Amen!
Allow me to remind you of the words of the British pastor of the nineteenth century, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “We cannot all preach, but we can all pray; we cannot all be leaders, but we can all be pleaders; we cannot all be mighty in rhetoric, but we can all be prevalent in prayer. I would sooner see you eloquent with God than with men.”
