Most of you know that I was gone last week because I went to Oklahoma for the funeral of my longtime friend, Doug Heck. We were friends for 49 years. And a couple of years ago, during one of my visits to Tulsa, we were at a restaurant somewhere and Doug said he wanted me to speak at his funeral when he died. And he gave me a text to speak on because he said this was his favorite all-time text of scripture. And it's not one of those standard, my favorite verse texts. but it's a really good one and so I've been mulling over this passage for the past 10 days or so and obviously I couldn't say everything I wanted to say about these verses in the time frame normally allotted for funeral sermons and so I decided to make it our text for this morning. It's Ephesians chapter 3 verses 14 through 21. And by the way, I realize this is a foolhardy choice for me to preach on because as you know, John MacArthur is currently preaching through Ephesians, and he's going to be covering these same verses in just a few weeks, so don't tell him anything I'm saying. And I hope I don't steal any of his thunder, but this is such a rich passage, it's so full of important ideas that it won't hurt to study it more than once. J. Flowers was talking to me this morning, he said, At least you're doing it before, John, and not after." I said, I think I'd rather do it after because then I would know what he said and I wouldn't either mess it up or say something that he wanted to say. And so Jay said, well, you should tell everybody not to take notes this morning. You're fully warned, don't take notes. I'm sure John is going to bring out and deal with some of the truths that I'm going to have to more or less skim over. So I'm not going to get into the nuts and bolts of this passage. My goal this morning is to show you the framework of this passage and to explain why it's here and especially how it fits in the context of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. And so I hope to sort of fix the big picture in your mind And so that when John takes a closer look at some of the details of this passage, you will hopefully appreciate how all of it fits together. But this passage is like a condensed inventory of the essentials for sanctification. It's a to-do list for anyone who wants to pursue a holy life. And that's one aspect of what I want you to see. This is Paul writing to a church he founded, explaining why he hopes to see in their collective growth in grace the work of the Holy Spirit conforming them to the image of Christ and of course this passage also therefore applies individually to each member of the fellowship and furthermore by implication it informs us, you and me, what we ought to be praying for and pursuing not only for our church collectively, but also for ourselves as individual believers. So it's a good passage, and the passage is basically a short outline of prayer requests. It reads like a prayer. It is a prayer, and the two final verses of this section are a formal benediction. If you look at it, it has an amen at the end. So that's the format of this text. This is Paul's prayer for the Ephesians. and there is a single theme that ties all of Paul's prayer requests together. Namely, he is praying for them to persevere in the faith in order to live up to the unspeakably high calling they have as the people of God. Because they are, he says, the living temple in which God dwells, and the temple where God's glory is supposed to be on display. And as you'll see, that theme runs through this, you'll see it clearly as we examine the context. But first, here's the text itself, Ephesians 3, verses 14 through 21, and I'm going to read it from the Legacy Standard Bible today, which probably most of you don't even have, but follow along in whatever translation you have. Ephesians 3 verses 14 through 21, Paul writes, For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would give you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being firmly rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ. which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand, according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Now, that is the second, actually, of two prayers that the Apostle Paul includes in this epistle to the Ephesians. The earlier prayer is the closing paragraph of chapter 1, verses 15 through 23 of chapter 1, and like our passage, that prayer at the end of chapter one is a prayer for the church it's Paul's prayer requests for them and in that first prayer he prays that their eyes would be opened to see and appreciate the hope that Christ has called them to and also the vast treasury of spiritual riches that Christ has bequeathed to us as believers he's praying for the Ephesians to first of all to see and to make use of the spiritual wealth and all the sanctifying resources that belong to them and belong to all of us because of our faith in Christ. And so the whole theme of that first prayer in chapter one is that they would be enabled to see clearly. In our text, the second prayer is a prayer that they would be empowered to stand firmly. And in our passage, he prays for them to be sanctified and settled and strengthened. And he points again to that vast legacy of spiritual resources that belong to every believer in Christ. And he says, those spiritual gifts that Christ has given to us, the resources he's given to every believer, those are the instruments through which you will be built up and fitly framed to be a suitable habitation for the God of all glory. This is an amazing statement. And you know from many texts that we've studied over the years, this is a theme that I constantly harp on, the glory of God is not only the ultimate reason for which you and everything else under the sun exist, this is why you exist, for the sake of God's glory, God's glory is also a more precious, more priceless, more profound treasure than all of the wealth of the world combined, so that the world's material riches all eventually will come to complete and total ruin. You know, moth and rust destroy, thieves break through and steal, and eventually the physical universe itself is going to disintegrate. 2 Peter 3.10 says, the heavens will pass away with a great roar, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. But Scripture says the glory of God is eternal, and that same eternal glory is the reward that ultimately awaits all believers. An eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, Scripture says. And Jesus referred to that inheritance of God's glory as an unfailing treasure in heaven where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. Paul refers to it here in verse 16 in our passage as the riches of his glory. And he uses that word riches five times in the first three chapters of Ephesians. It's his central theme. And that word riches is from a Greek word that means not just wealth, but superabundance. It's massive wealth. And the root of the Greek word itself speaks of something that is filled up, full. And in fact, one of its synonyms is fullness. And that's another word that's repeatedly used in this context. You'll find the word fullness four times in the English translation of the first four chapters of Ephesians. So fullness and riches, this is the theme that runs through it. You see the word fullness actually alongside one of its own variants right here in verse 19 where Paul says his prayer is that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. See, he's writing to the Ephesians to remind them of the wealth that belongs to them. If you've been listening to John McCarthy, you know this already. This is the whole point of this epistle, the whole thing. He is basically saying to the Ephesian church and to all believers by extension, he's saying, you are way richer than you think you are. And in chapter one, he's praying specifically that they will see and apprehend what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And that's the start. He starts by praying that they will see that, and here in our passage, he prays that they're going to be rendered strong and secure according to those same riches of divine glory. So he keeps pointing them back to the spiritual wealth that already belongs to them. And notice also that both of these prayers in Ephesians are preceded by the same identical introductory phrase. He says it in chapter one, he says it here again, for this reason. And then he goes on to say how he prays. So he has a specific reason in each case for praying in that particular manner. So look at the first prayer, chapter one, just briefly. You can turn back there for a moment. The prayer portion that brings chapter one to a close actually starts in verse 15, but notice what precedes it. Those first 14 verses of the book. He outlines a short list of the profound blessings that belong to every believer who has truly laid hold of Christ by faith. Chapter 1 verse 3 says, God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. That is comprehensive, purposely. He's saying that in Christ you have everything you will ever need for God's glory, for your own salvation, and for your continued growth in grace. You don't need anything additional if you've got Christ. And furthermore, he says, that was God's plan for you from the beginning of time, from before the beginning of time. And here at the start, he introduces a doctrine that he's going to weave through the rest of the epistle the absolute sovereignty of God. It's a very Calvinistic epistle. He's saying God chose you before the foundation of the world, verse 4, and he even decreed how you're going to turn out in the end. He says, verse 5, you'll be holy and blameless before him. In other words, he predestined us, verse 5, to adoption as sons, so that when He chose us, He chose us to be members of His family, chose us for the adoption of sons. So hold on to that thought, we are members of God's family, His household. That's going to come up again. And so verse seven, we have redemption including the full and free forgiveness of our trespasses. Verse eight, he lavished grace upon us. Verse nine, he made known to us the mystery of his will. And then Paul discusses what God's eternal purpose is for all those who believe. And ultimately it is all about the glory of God. Verse 14, God redeemed us as his own possession to the praise of his glory. And if you're a genuine believer, you know that belonging to God, being possessed by him, being a slave of Christ, being adopted into his family, and having any role whatsoever in the display and adoration of God's eternal glory, that is a privilege that transcends every possible earthly pleasure. Paul understands, even if the Ephesians haven't quite grasped it yet, he understands that they will be partakers of God's glory for all eternity and so the privilege that they share, particularly the promise that awaits them, it simply dwarfs whatever struggles they might have. In the words of Romans 8 18, the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. That's a common theme of Paul's, by the way. And therefore, he says, Ephesians 1 15, this is that first prayer, for this reason, I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which exists among you and your love for all the saints, I do not cease giving thanks for you. And he says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And then I love the portion of his prayer that comes next, verses 20 through 22 of chapter 1, is a neat little summary of gospel truth. He's putting on the record for the Ephesians what they believe if they have truly trusted Christ. And I want you to notice this, all of it, every word of it is about what God through Christ has accomplished on their behalf, what God has done for them. There is not a word in that entire prayer about anything they must do, nothing about any kind of merit or saving efficacy that they can add to the salvation that they've already received in Christ. And that again is also a theme through Ephesians that it's not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. He just wants their eyes to be opened to see that clearly in all of its eternal scope and all of its magnificent glory. What the privilege you stand in is, you haven't yet grasped it. That's true of all of us as well. Now our text, you can turn back now to chapter three, our text is the second prayer in this epistle. And this time, as he thinks about what God is doing in them and through them, he prays for them to persevere in the faith and to stay diligent in the pursuit of their sanctification. So if you haven't turned back to chapter three, do this. And I want you to pay careful attention here to the flow of Paul's logic. By the way that's important whenever you read Paul's writings because Paul sometimes interrupted his own sentences and then he'd go off on a different subject for a while, this one of the distinctives of his writing style, he would start to say something then he would break off with a digression in order to add a thought or chase a rabbit that popped up in his thinking while he's writing and that rabbit trail then becomes a parenthesis in the flow of his teaching You have to see it as it gets surrounded in your mind with parentheses. It's an interruption, but Paul will come right back. to where he left off and he will eventually complete the half sentence that he began earlier. He does that famously in Romans 5, one of the most difficult passages in scripture where he breaks off Romans 5 verse 12 mid-sentence and then he doesn't come back and finish that sentence until verse 18. We've studied that before so I won't go over it, you can look it up for yourself. But he also does it in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 6 where he starts a sentence then he interrupts the thought with verse 7 and then he returns to his original thought in verse 8 you can also look that one up for yourself that's 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 6 but here's a one verse example of what I mean Paul interrupting himself in 2nd Corinthians 2 5 you don't have to turn there it's a short verse I'll read it to you 2nd Corinthians 2 5 he says this if anyone has caused sorrow he has caused sorrow not to me but in some degree in order not to say too much to all of you So that's a complex sentence as I read it out loud, but here's the sentence boiled down to its gist. He says, if anyone has caused sorrow, he's caused sorrow not to me, but to you. That's the gist of what he's saying. But he interrupts himself in the middle as if to say, he has caused sorrow not to me. Well, maybe they did cause some sorrow for me, but I don't want to say too much about that. And then he continues the thought. That's his style. And sometimes his digressions are short like that. And then other times, like in our passage, his self interruptions actually go on for several verses. And it's vital to understand that pattern because he almost never abandons the thought he began, he'll just come back to where he left off. and he expects his readers to follow. It's not always easy to do, but because we have it written down, it should be possible pretty easily, and that's what he does in our text. Notice this chapter, chapter three, starts with an interrupted sentence, verse one, and notice, by the way, that he is addressing Gentile believers in the Ephesian church in particular. For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles, And there he stops mid-sentence and he shifts gears. If indeed you've heard of the stewardship of God's grace which is given to me because he wants to explain why he's writing to the Gentiles in particular and so he spends the next 12 verses talking about his unique apostolic role which was to bring the gospel to the Gentile world. That's what he was called to do and there's some divine irony I think in the fact that the twelve apostles who had traveled and ministered with Christ during his earthly ministry, they were all fishermen. and working men. They were not members of the priestly class or the ruling hierarchy and their ministry was to Jewish brethren. But Paul, who had actually devoted his life to Judaism and he grew up in the strictest sect of Pharisees, he was the only apostle who was actually a trained Old Testament scholar and a lifelong religious professional. Paul was the one chosen to be the apostle and the teacher of the Gentiles. Kind of ironic, isn't it? And in fact, that was the formal title that Paul often referred to himself. He uses it, for example, in Romans 11, 13, he says, I am an apostle of Gentiles. So he wants to make sure that the Gentile believers in Ephesus understand his calling. He has a rare and singular affection and concern for them as Gentiles and newcomers to the messianic promises of the Old Testament, which wouldn't have been as familiar to them as they would have been to their Jewish brethren. But he also wants them to know that they are, and this is important, they are full members of the body of Christ. They are not second-class church members. Verse 6, Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. That's a definitive statement. There aren't two groups or two kinds of Christians. If you're a believer, whether you are Jewish or Gentile, you're part of one body. The church is one body. The people of God are all united in Christ. Romans 8, 14, and as many as are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. We are all adopted into the same family. Chapter 2 verse 19, you Gentiles are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household. So he's already covered this a chapter earlier, but he reiterates it again. You Gentiles are not just strangers and sojourners, you're fellow citizens. Now, we're going to come back to this idea when we get to verse 15, but do not miss or minimize the fact that in verses 2 through 11, he has much to say about how the gospel is supposed to unite all believers. Jews and Gentiles alike, and also every tribe, tongue, and nation, all of us, regardless of skin color or anything else, all are one body, the church, verse 10, so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church, to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. Who are the rulers and authorities in heavenly places? He explains this repeatedly. He's talking about angelic beings, both good angels and fallen angels. And so this verse means that the very existence of the church, the fact that Jews and Gentiles and people of all ethnicities are united in one body, that fact stands as a vivid display of God's wisdom and his glory in the eyes of both angelic and demonic powers. So that regardless of what it might seem like from an earthly perspective, from heaven's point of view, the church itself, and he's talking here about the church at Ephesus, as well as Grace Community Church, the church is a symbol and a monument to the triumph of the cross and the eternal preeminence of Christ. So that the cross, which may seem foolish to the world, It has put the manifold wisdom of God on display in the spirit world. Worldly people may think that the gospel looks like foolishness, but the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and even if people on earth don't know that, all the angelic beings do. the living proof of God's wisdom is that the church that was purchased by the blood of the cross exists so that the church and a church any given church might look shabby and ordinary to worldly eyes but to both angels and demons the church is living proof that the foolishness of God is wiser than men and therefore Paul says verse 13 I ask you not to lose heart This is his argument. Christ is triumphant, so that even if Paul is under persecution or in prison, and he was when he wrote this epistle, Christ is triumphant no matter what happens in the visible world, no matter how bad the political situation becomes, no matter what plagues and pandemics threaten us with death or disability, no matter even if the person you look to for spiritual leadership is locked up or laid up with sickness or has his eyes closed in death, the perseverance of the church against all of those barriers proof of the eternal triumph of Christ and Christ himself said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. he's fulfilling that pledge even now he was fulfilling it in Ephesus even though that church was beleaguered therefore Paul says I ask you not to lose heart at my afflictions on your behalf which are your glory again he's writing from prison so his afflictions he's talking about our formal governmental persecution against him he says that's your glory so we have to ask the question how are Paul's afflictions a thing of glory that the Ephesians should rejoice in. Well here's what John Gill says about that verse, he says, their perseverance and constancy in the doctrines of the gospel, notwithstanding the scandal of the cross, would be an honor to them. So he's saying, stay steadfast, persevere, because even in the midst of suffering, that is your glory. And that's the context here. And then at that point, verse 14, Paul, notice, returns to the sentence he began in verse one. And this time he completes the thought. For this reason, I bow my knees. Now, bowing the knees is, of course, one of the typical postures for private prayer. But in Paul's time, this was not the most common prayer posture. You remember, Jesus said of the Pharisees, they loved to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners. And in Luke 18, you have both the publican and the Pharisee, and they stand to pray. So standing was probably the most common Jewish posture for prayer. In fact, it kind of still is. You'll see it if you visit the Western Wall Jerusalem, they're standing against the wall to pray. And there's nothing wrong with that, Mark 11 25, Jesus himself said, whenever you stand praying, forgive. He didn't condemn standing to pray, in fact we do that in our worship services every Sunday, we stand to pray. Jesus wouldn't countenance a hard and unforgiving heart, but he didn't condemn the standing posture, nothing wrong with standing to pray, but Kneeling was a expression of extraordinary passion, like the leper in Luke 5.12 who fell on his face at Jesus' feet and begged him, saying, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. He is making that request with the utmost passion, so he kneels and falls on his face to do it. In Gethsemane, Jesus himself, according to Matthew 26.39, fell on his face and prayed. Some 40 times in Scripture, people fall on their faces, and it always signifies great passion. Kneeling to pray also signifies importunity. Calvin says the bending of the knees is an expression of reverence that is commonly used when it's not an incidental petition, but a continued prayer. This is something I pray continuously, so I get on my knees to do it. Or to quote another commentary on this, Paul's expression here is a simple natural figure for prayer, earnest prayer. It's not as if Paul actually knelt as he wrote. He's not saying, while I'm writing this I'm on my knees. So I think what he's describing here is a prayer that he routinely prayed for this church. And since he starts verse 14 with the exact same words he started to say in verse one, I'm convinced that those words, for this reason, we ask what reason? I think it has to point back to the end of chapter two, because that's where he started to say, for this reason. So you have to look at what he just said at the end of chapter two, where Paul says, you are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. And so the sense of all of this is this, he's saying, because God is working in you and through you to construct his own eternal dwelling place, here is my prayer for you. He's praying for a temple under construction. And by the way, the second person pronoun there, you, is plural, so it means all you all, all you who believe. The people of the Ephesian church were being built, he says, together. into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. So Paul prays that they will together be empowered and well grounded and filled with all the fullness of God so that the temple of God can be full of glory which is only fitting. So this is a prayer for the Church of God collectively. It's a fitting prayer not only for the Ephesian Church, but everything Paul prays for here applies to every assembly of Christians who have ever repented from their sins and confessed their need for a Savior and put their full faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul says that this applies to all of us collectively. We constitute a holy temple. building built as a dwelling place for God that's what he's doing with us as a matter of fact this echoes what Paul says in 1st Corinthians 3 9 he says to the Corinthians you are God's building and then seven verses later he says you are God's temple and the Spirit of God dwells in you so that's true of the church every church every true church we are a living temple where God dwells so that the church an abiding citadel that symbolizes Christ's triumph over sin and death. The Church's Scripture says a pillar and buttress for the truth of Scripture and we are equipped with the Holy Spirit's power. Now you look at that and you go it doesn't sound like a lot of the churches I know because the truth is the church might not seem like much from an earthly perspective We're a big church, it doesn't make us any better or any more of a symbol of God's triumph than a smaller church. Most churches from an earthly perspective don't look like much. And I think when Paul wrote this epistle, the church at Ephesus was no doubt small and totally unimpressive by any human standard. They didn't have a big cathedral. They probably didn't have a parking lot. And I guarantee they didn't have a youth building. if they had property of their own at all. It doesn't suggest that they did. In fact, Paul wrote this epistle about a decade after the founding of this church, and the beginning of the church at Ephesus was slow and shaky, described in Acts chapter 18 and 19. There was a profound and abiding hostility against the church and the gospel in the city of Ephesus, and even a decade after its founding, believers in Ephesus would still have been comparatively small minority this was a large and important city and the believers didn't number a great number possibly they even had to meet in a borrowed venue it's unlikely that they had a building with a steeple and a big sign advertising themselves to the community and furthermore the members of that church would not have been the pillars of high society Just like in Corinth, there were not many wise according to worldly standards, not many powerful, not many of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. So the church wasn't anything impressive to human assessment. Nevertheless, Paul says, it was clear to every principality in power, from the heavenly realm to the underworld, they knew that the church stands as a monument to the triumph of Christ and nothing will bring it down. And so Paul's prayer for the Ephesian assembly was that this church would persevere, not just the church as a body, but in particular, the individual saints who made up that church. This was a prayer for them to pursue their sanctification with their eyes firmly fixed on the glory that awaits us all in eternity. So follow the thread of his logic here, chapter two, verse 22, he says, you're being built together into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit, then chapter three, verse one, for this reason, in other words, because you are being outfitted as a temple for God to dwell in, for that reason, And then right there he drops the thought and doesn't pick it up again until verse 14, but in verse 14 he starts over with those same four words he used in verse 1, for this reason, that's the same reason he was about to talk about at the beginning of the chapter, for this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. Now, I need to comment on the expression at the end of that verse. In Greek, it's kind of ambiguous. The words, every family in heaven and on earth can also be translated, and if you're using King James or the New King James, it is translated this way, the whole family in heaven and on earth, the entire family of God. So, which is it? Is it every family or God's whole family? Frankly, I think the answer is obvious because Paul just devoted most of chapter 2 and then several additional comments along the way in chapter 3 expounding the fact that the whole church is one body consisting of all believers. Gentiles and Jews, Greeks and barbarians, there aren't several races of humanity. We are all one blood, according to Acts 17, 26. And according to the book of Genesis, all of us descended from a common ancestor, Noah. And likewise, there are not multiple peoples of God. There aren't different classes of Christians or different peoples of God. In fact, that's an old notion among classic dispensationalists, the idea that Israel and the church are such differing entities that believing Israelites from the Old Testament and also from the millennial era, Jews who come to faith in the millennium, that's national Israel and they're going to be eternally separate from the church. And so the idea is that in eternity the church will reside in the new heavens, and Israel will inhabit the new earth, so you have two separate peoples of God detached from one another throughout all eternity. I don't believe that, and in fact one of the reasons I don't recommend the Schofield Bible is it perpetuates that idea. Schofield wrote that Christians are the heavenly seed of Abraham, but Israel are the earthly people of God. And in his note on Revelation 19.7, Schofield said, the church is identified with the heavenly Jerusalem and must be distinguished from Israel who's identified with the earth. And in his notes on Hosea 2, verse 2, he says, Israel is Jehovah's earthly wife. The church is the Lamb's heavenly bride. So he keeps them separate for all eternity. But one of the central points Paul makes in this epistle is that all believers, genuine believers, constitute one eternal family, one sanctified household for all generations forever and ever. Those are the closing words of the chapter. And remember, chapter two, verse 19, he says to the Gentile believers, you are no longer strangers and sojourners, you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household, singular. So when Paul says here in verse 15 that the whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name from one heavenly father, he's actually making a statement about what theologians call the communion of the saints. He's speaking of the truth that every redeemed person, whether dead or alive, still belongs to one family, one household, the household of God. God is our Father, and from Him the whole family derives their name as true sons of God. And so notice, this is not a statement about universalism. He doesn't believe in the brotherhood of all men under the fatherhood of God. He's talking here about believers in every age and from every nation and from every ethnic group, and that includes every faithful assembly of saints worldwide, believers who are already in heaven, believers who are still on earth, and perhaps even the faithful angels, I don't know. But every assembly of saints from the church in Ephesus to Grace Community Church, every assembly of saints is part of that one great family with God as our Father. And again, this is not inclusive of unbelievers. No matter how good or how religious they might seem from a human perspective, remember that Jesus told a group of Pharisees, and they were the most meticulous, legalistic sect, probably the most thorough biblical scholars from a academic scholarship point of view ever, and he said to them, you are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desire. That is the case with all who are not redeemed by Christ. Jesus speaks again to the redeemed, or to the unredeemed rather, the unsaved people, the unbelievers, in John 8, 23, and he says to them, you are of this world, I am not of this world, and unless you believe in me, you will die in your sins. So there's that stark division between believers and unbelievers but among believing people there is no division we're all part of one household and the believers in Ephesus were already members of that family a family that is larger and more far-reaching and full of more potential than they could possibly fathom And they were in the process of being formed and fitted into a dwelling place for God. Not only His expansive household, but also His eternal temple. And now, this epistle, by the way, was written around AD 62 or thereabout. As I said, Ephesian church was hardly a decade old at the time. There was, at this time, a magnificent temple in Jerusalem that was the centerpiece of Jewish life, and it was literally the high point of the city. Every other building in Jerusalem was made of pale brown limestone, still is to this day, but the temple was made of gleaming white marble so that it shone brightly there on that elevated height of the Temple Mount and it was designed purposely to be a reminder of God's glory but you also remember that the last time Jesus walked out of that temple he said this is your house he'd always called it my father's house now he says this is your house and it's left to you desolate. and he departed from the temple. Now, construction on that temple was actually begun by Herod the Great in 12 BC, more than a decade before the birth of Christ, and that temple was still under construction when Jesus went there, and in fact, it was still under construction when Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians. 74 years after Herod started building it, they were still decking it with glory, and that gives you an idea of what a magnificent structure it was. But then six years after Paul wrote this in AD 70, the entire city of Jerusalem was sacked by Titus Vespasian and the Jewish temple was purposely reduced to rubble, absolute rubble. The Romans tore it down to the very foundation and they crushed those magnificent marble walls into gravel. But here, just a few years before Herod's temple was destroyed, Paul is telling believers, including you and me, that we are part of a spiritual construction project for a temple that will last for all eternity. God is the one building it and he's building us into a temple for his own habitation. He dwells among his people. We are his temple. And so Paul prays specifically for three things that will make us suitable as God's eternal temple. The three things are strength, stability, and splendor. It's a great alliterated outline, and normally I'd ask you to write it down, but like Jay said, don't bother today. Strength, stability, and splendor. We'll look at those prayer requests in order. Number one, strength, verse 16. He prays that God would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man. Now, as God's temple, we need strength, but this is not talking about physical fitness and agility, thankfully. This is talking about spiritual strength, the power of the Holy Spirit, specifically in the inner man. He's praying for inner stamina, for them to endure suffering and trials, and also backbone, moral backbone, to defend what they believe against the relentless assaults of false teachers and devilish deceivers and the enmity of this pagan society. Plus, he wanted them to have both energy and endurance to stay faithful in their service to Christ. All of those things are part of the strength he's praying for because he knew that they would need a tremendous amount of power to see them through the difficult times that were coming. Four years from now, the temple in Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. And so many of the same threats and obstacles that they faced, if you think about it, same kinds of things that currently loom on the horizon for our generation. Persecution is definitely coming and it's already here in some measure. Bad teaching and superficial religion threaten churches worldwide. There are more bad churches than good ones today. And discouragement and fatigue threaten the saints like never before in my memory. And Ephesus was in a similar state when Paul wrote this, struggling with feelings of imminent defeat. They needed empowerment, power. It's therefore one of the themes that dominates this prayer. Verse 16, he prays that they will be strengthened with power. Verse 18, and you don't see it in our translation, but he uses a word that speaks of having full strength. A literal translation would say that he prays that they may have full strength to grasp the love of Christ. And then in verse 20, he talks about the power that works within us. And so each of the even-numbered verses here mentions power. They needed strength and stamina and durability and Paul says, such strength is to be found in the Holy Spirit who is and always has been the only true and reliable source of spiritual power for Christians. And notice Paul is talking about spiritual power that strengthens your inner being. produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, the fruit of the Spirit. People today think of the Holy Spirit's power as something that is displayed primarily through marvels and mysteries and magical spectacles but what Paul is praying for here has absolutely nothing to do with public exhibitions of signs and wonders. He's talking about strength in the inner man and by the way Paul would have zero tolerance for any brand of religion that produces nothing but false prophecies and phony miracles. He wouldn't be a charismatic today. He wants the Ephesians to be fortified in their inner man, encouraged and empowered and equipped through the Word of God for every good work. That's the true ministry of the Holy Spirit to believers. And it's the strengthening of the inner man, verse 17, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Now, think about that. If you are a believer, Christ does dwell in your heart. Galatians 2.20, Christ lives in me in the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God. Romans 8.9, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he doesn't belong to him. John 14 20 Jesus said I am in my father and you in me and I in you in other words we are if you are a believer you are in perfect union with Christ we are in him he is in us and if he doesn't indwell you scripture says it's because you're not a true believer So why here does Paul pray, verse 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith? Here's why. He uses a word that actually means to settle down, to make oneself at home, to feel like you're at home. He's not suggesting that Christ hasn't yet taken his rightful place in their hearts. He's simply praying that their hearts would be a suitable dwelling place for him, a fit temple in which The Spirit of Christ truly belongs. And that, again, is the theme of this prayer. Since we're being built together and furnished as a dwelling place for God, we need to be built with strength and stability and splendor. And so he prays, first of all, for that inward strength. Second, he prays for stability. He prays, verses 17 through 19, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you, being firmly rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. That's the longest request in this prayer. By the way, most of this is all one sentence in the Greek. They've broken it up for us in English, which is helpful, but it's all one sentence in the Greek, but this request all fits together, and it's the longest one in this prayer, and the centerpiece of it is the love of Christ, meaning not only, when he talks about the love of Christ, that's not just Christ's love for his people, but also the love that is shed abroad in our hearts, love for one another, love for our neighbors, even love for our enemies, but above all, love for God, That's the gist of the love of Christ. Love, he says, is what keeps them stable and well-anchored. They need to be firmly rooted and grounded in love. And the word rooted obviously evokes the idea of a tree, and grounded, that's the word you would use to describe the foundation of a building. Now tree roots and structural footings both need to be deep and firmly established. Any builder will tell you that the higher you want to go with a building, the deeper you need to go with the foundation. And in this case, it's a foundation that goes immeasurably deep. Paul has already mentioned how the foundation of this temple is being constructed. Ephesians 2.20, the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone. And there he's talking about the material on which the building rests. so that the apostles and apostolic doctrine are like the iron beams that support the superstructure, and Christ is the rock that actually bears the weight of both those beams and the superstructure, but the entire foundation is sunk very deep into the ground, and the ground into which all of that is driven, the substratum on which it is firmly rooted and grounded, is the love of Christ. which is the deepest possible base into which a solid foundation can be planted. We sing a hymn about the deep, deep love of Jesus. There frankly is no adequate way to describe the sheer depths of Christ's love for his people. And notice verse 18 names four dimensions of Christ's love, the breadth and length and height and depth, four measurements that are all infinite in their scope. John Gill says, the love of God in its length reaches from one eternity to another, in its breadth to all the elect in all ages, places, and nations, in its depth to the saints in the lowest state of life, and in its height to bring them to an exalted state in glory. And in verse 19, Paul says Christ's love surpasses knowledge. I want you to know it, but he says, surpasses knowledge. Christ's love is infinite, it has no boundaries and we can never actually wrap our minds around it, that's what he means when he says it surpasses knowledge. You know, it's like anything that's infinite, we can conceive of the idea, in fact, you can't do math or think of time and space without coming face to face with the concept of infinity, but we can't ultimately fathom the reality of anything that doesn't have limits. And God's love falls into that category. It truly has no limits. We do know about it, and we can even know it somewhat from experience, but in the fullest sense, the love of God is incomprehensible. You can apprehend it, but you can't comprehend it, if you get what I mean. So that means no matter how far you go, no matter how remote the distance or how deep the hole you descend into, the love of God will be there. That's why Paul can say in Romans 8 39 that neither height nor depth nor any other thing will be able to separate us from the love of God. Now listen to this, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So when he talks about the love of Christ it's talking about God's own love, Christ's love for the saints is a manifestation of God's infinite love. And here in this prayer for the Ephesians, Paul says that love, Christ's love, is the very ground into which the foundation of God's temple is firmly rooted and grounded. God is building that temple as an eternal dwelling place for himself, so make sure that you are firmly fixed on the foundation. Because if you are, nothing can move you because this is where Christ is building the church and again, even the gates of hell aren't going to prevail against it. Now here's a sad thing about this. Just one generation later, the people in the Ephesian church drifted away from the foundation and in Revelation 2.4, Christ sends them this message, I have this against you that you have left your first love. As firm and secure and immovable as the foundation is, we need to be anchored to it as securely as possible. So stay with the flow of this prayer. Paul prays, verse 16, for them to have strength. He prays, verses 17 through 19, for them to have stability. And finally, starting in the second half of verse 19, he prays for the living temple of God to be arrayed in splendor. Verse 19, a temple fit for the God of glory must itself be decked with glory, and so he prays, verse 19, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. And that word, the Greek word translated filled up is pleroo. It's a word that literally means crammed full, chock full, filled to the brim, full to the bursting point. It's the same word Jesus uses in the parable of the dragnet in Matthew 13. The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea and gathering fish of every kind. When it was filled, pleroo, they drew it up on the beach. The word can also mean finished or fulfilled or perfected. He's praying that they will be adorned on the inside and the outside, filled to the brim with all the fullness of God. And that, as a matter of fact, is a perfect summary of the whole point of the book of Ephesians. If you are a believer, you have at your disposal an untold wealth of spiritual resources, power, love, grace, and glory, and if you put all of that to good use, that's what you should be doing. It's more than enough for you to meet every need that you have, and that will make you a fit habitation for the Lord. And this in fact is what the entire process of sanctification is all about. 2 Corinthians 3.18, as we behold the glory of the Lord we're being transformed into the same image from glory to glory and so that in our glorified state we will not merely reflect the glory of God, it will radiate from us because of our spiritual union with Christ. Isn't that amazing? I mean, is that not sufficient motivation to pursue Christ-likeness even now, even over and above all the rusting treasures of this passing world? Now I'll close quickly, but I want you to see that Paul adds a two-verse benediction to this prayer, and it is yet another prayer that God's glory would be the defining feature of the whole household of God from now to eternity, verse 21, to God be the glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. So that the temple of God, he's saying, must be a grand edifice of unspeakable splendor, because nothing less would be suitable to show God's glory. If you understand and share that goal, pursue His glory here and now. Be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man. Make your heart a comfortable home for Jesus. Be firmly rooted and grounded in love and seek to be filled up with all the fullness of God. Now perhaps you've noticed I've tiptoed around and mostly skipped over the most familiar verse in this whole passage, and it's the beginning of Paul's benediction, verse 20. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand according to the power that works within us. Then he concludes his benediction. That's a great promise, isn't it? You know, I know that you've heard John MacArthur quote it frequently because he always stresses how after more than a half century of ministry as our pastor, he looks back with amazement at how super abundantly the Lord's blessings have exceeded anything he ever thought or expected. I would echo that testimony from my own life as well. And someday perhaps I'll preach a whole sermon on that verse. It is a brilliant description of the way God graciously uses His infinite power to make all things work together for good. That's Romans 8, 28, all things work together for good. It's the same word all, that's a key word here in verse 20 as well. It's comprehensive, God is able to do all that we ask, and Paul layers that statement with multiple superlatives. God is able to do more than all. He is able to do more abundantly beyond all. He is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, and then Paul returns to this idea of power and strength once more God does this according to the power at work in us. Remember that it is the indwelling spirit who empowers us. The strength he gives us is ultimately supplied from his own omnipotence. It's as measureless as the endless love of Christ. And so, in essence, there is no end to the blessings we receive from the gracious hand of the Father by the boundless love of Christ and according to the infinite power of the Holy Spirit. And by the way, you study this passage and the broader context of Ephesians one through four, you can't help but notice how many times Paul uses Trinitarian formula as he explains the riches that belong to us. And if you wonder how sinners like us can ever be built together as a dwelling place for God, just look at the end of chapter 2 again. The design for us is accomplished in the Spirit according to the power that works within us. That's why it's what God does for us and through us and in us that is exceedingly abundantly above all we would ever ask or think. Now notice again this is a prayer for the church, it's a prayer for believers. If you are not a believer in Christ you need to come to Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and receive the gift of eternal life and not only eternal life but also spiritual union with Christ and therefore entrance into the body of saints that this prayer applies to. That's the promise of the gospel. And it also comes with this promise from the lips of Christ, the one who comes to me, I will never cast out. So that nothing but your own sin and unbelief hinders you from turning to Christ and embracing him with a whole heart. You can do that today where you sit and lay hold of all the promises in this passage. Let's pray. Father, we do know, not only by faith, but also from our real life experience that you indeed can do for us far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand. Scripture tells us you give more grace and grace upon grace and so we ask that you would empower us in the battle against sin and unbelief in our own hearts. Work in us both to will and to do your good pleasure and conform us to the likeness of Christ in whose name we pray, amen. You have been listening to Pastor and Teacher Phil Johnson. For more information about the ministry of the Grace Life Pulpit, visit at www.thegracelifepulpit.com. Copyright by Phil Johnson. All rights reserved.