Well, you can open with me to Ephesians chapter three. We're looking this evening at Ephesians three verses 14 to 21. It's been a while since we've been in Ephesians. Some of you may not even know that we've ever been in Ephesians, but we are in Ephesians. It's just been three months since we've been there. And so I will read all of chapter three. to provide a little bit of the context for the passage that we're looking at this evening. So Ephesians chapter three, beginning in verse one. For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief, By referring to this, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit. To be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me according to the working of his power. To me, the very least of all the saints this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things, 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. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in him. Therefore, I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. that he would grant 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 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 think, 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. Some of you may remember the name from a couple of months ago in a sermon that I preached from Ephesians 1, Timothy Henry Gray. Out of curiosity, does anyone remember the name? You will when I say this. Okay, Jordan does, so there you go. If you don't remember, or if you weren't here, let me remind you who Timothy Henry Gray was. Timothy Gray was in the news back in 2010, and his life is a sad story. At 60 years old, Timothy was living as a homeless man in Wyoming, and on a cold Wyoming morning, Timothy was found frozen to death under a bridge. What Timothy never knew, and certainly what would have radically changed the entire course of his life if he had known, was that he was the rightful heir of a $34 million inheritance from an extremely wealthy aunt. So Timothy, by right, was extremely wealthy. He was a rich man. But Timothy lived the life of a poor man, of a very impoverished man, a homeless man, who died alone under a bridge on a cold Wyoming morning. And I mentioned when we were back in Ephesians 1 in connection to the idea that we have been lavished with the abundant riches of God's grace, that we often are at danger of running the risk of not really taking advantage of what has been given to us in Christ. We've been made eternally and spiritually forever rich by Christ and in Christ, and yet we run the danger, we run the risk as believers of never really fully grasping, apprehending, and making full application of the riches that have been given to us in Christ. The powerful and transforming and abundantly rich truths of the gospel tend to stay too far out there somewhere and never work their way deep into our hearts to the degree that we live as, because of Christ, the rich, the spiritually wealthy people that we've been made by his redeeming love. And so we have to be careful then as believers not to live lives like Timothy. not to be eternally and spiritually rich and yet live as spiritual beggars, but to fully apprehend or at least strive to fully apprehend and understand and grasp and apply and live on the abundant riches of God's grace and his love and his power that have been lavished on us in the gospel through Christ. And as we come to this prayer in Ephesians chapter three, this prayer from the Apostle Paul, I think he is, not I think, he certainly is continuing that same theme of wanting believers to know. Just like in Ephesians 1, he spent a long time trying to explain the riches of God's grace poured out into the life of the believer through Christ. And then he ends chapter one with a prayer that they would be given spiritual understanding and revelation to be able to know what is the hope of his calling, what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe. So he speaks for a long time on the riches of the gospel and then he prays at the end of chapter one that the Holy Spirit would grant real understanding would give eyes to see, to really know the riches that have been given to you in Christ. And in the same way, he's continuing now to the third chapter, and Paul once again, after having explained the abundant riches of the gospel and all of their implications, at least many of their implications in the life of the believer, he pauses once again and he prays. And he prays that the truths that he's just communicated would now find their way deep into the hearts of the believers in Ephesus. And by implication, we could say deep into our hearts this evening. That the truths of the gospel would sink deep into our souls. That's the continued idea here in Ephesians chapter 3. Paul, in these first three chapters, his goal is to convince you with the help of the Holy Spirit to convince you of your wonderful new identity in Christ Jesus. He wants you to see, he wants you to believe what Jesus has done in you and for you and the new identity that you've been given as one who is united to Christ Jesus. And he finishes this whole section these first three chapters. Before he moves into chapter four, which begins the what to do section of Ephesians, beginning in chapter four, verse one, Paul will go on to say, this is how you should live. This is how you should live out your Christian life. Before he gets there, he finishes this section, the first three chapters, with this prayer. I want you to know. I want you to experience, I want you to be transformed by the truths of the gospel. Because it's only when you know and experience and are transformed by the truths of the gospel that you are ever going to be in a position to be able to then say, how then should I live? What should I do? How do I begin to live as a Christian? If you're starting your Christian life with the question, what should I do? Then you're starting in the wrong place. The Christian life begins with, who am I? Who has he made me? What is my identity as a believer? And it's only when we know our identity as beloved children of God through the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ that we'll ever be in a position to then say, okay, how now should I live? What should my life look like? What does it look like, in the words of Paul, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which I have been called? And so the prayer then that we're looking at this evening is a prayer for the truths of the gospel to take deep root in your soul. It's a prayer for strength. It's a prayer, on the other hand, for knowledge. And it's a prayer of praise. So these will be the three main points of this sermon, broken the prayer down into three sections. First, a prayer for strength. And then a prayer for knowledge. and then a prayer of praise. Paul begins the prayer by saying in verse 14, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. So before we get to the actual essence of the prayer, we have this introductory phrase from Paul. Everyone with me? Cut out for a second. We have this introductory phrase from Paul, I bow my knees before the Father. Then he says, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. Okay, so what is Paul talking about when he says every family in heaven and on earth derives its name from this Father? Well, I think it's helpful if we jump back and we remember how we've gotten to verse 14 of chapter 3. Especially in chapter 2, the second half of chapter 2, and then into the first half of chapter 3, Paul has been laboring to show that there is now one family of God, that there is only one family of God, that there is no longer a distinction to be made between different groups within the family of God. Children of Israel, children of Gentiles, one having special privileges, the other not. His point has been, am I still cutting out? Can I do anything about that, David, or just keep plowing ahead? All right, great. His point has been to show that there's one family of God. There's one family of God. All of God's children share in the full inheritance of redemption. That's been his argument from really chapter one through the verses we're in this evening, is that there is one family of God sharing all of the rightful privileges of the inheritance in Christ Jesus. There is one body, there is one church, and they're all redeemed through one blood by the same Savior. That's been his point. And so there's no longer two groups, there's no longer two different parties within the church of God, but they've been reconciled, not just to one another, but both of them reconciled to God through the body of Christ. They've been made one new man in Jesus. And as one new man, they share equal access to the Father. That's especially made clear in chapter two, verse 18, where Paul says, For through him, Christ Jesus, we both have our access. That's both Jews and Gentiles. For through him, we both have our access in one spirit to the Father. So Paul's point has been to show all believers, no matter where you're from, no matter how long ago you were saved, no matter what ethnicity you are, you are part of the one family of God, redeemed by the one Savior through his blood, and you now have the same access to the Father by the Spirit that every other believer has. We have one Father. And so when Paul comes to verse 14 and 15 of Ephesians chapter three, and he prays, from whom the every family on earth derives its name, what he's saying is this father is the same father of believers from all over the earth. In fact, that phrase in the NASB, which is translated every family, NASB says, the translation says, from whom every family derives its name, that phrase can actually be translated as it is in the King James Version, the whole family. from whom the whole family derives its name. And this idea of family, it's in direct connection to the word itself in the original language, looks very much like the same word for father. Pater and patria, very similar. And what Paul is saying is that no matter where you're from, no matter what your background, no matter where you came from, if you are in Christ, you have this one father. And he is trying to drive that home into the hearts of the Ephesians. And I hope that it gets driven home into our hearts this evening as well, that we have access to our Father. He's not the Father of other believers out there. We're not disqualified because of our sin. We are disqualified because of our sin, but we've been made qualified through the blood of Jesus so that now every single one of us has access to go to this one Father through the blood of the Son. And so Paul's saying, I'm bowing my knees before this one Father, and I'm praying on your behalf, Ephesians, for these things. And first, he prays for strength. He prays for strength. Verses 16 to the beginning of 17. I'll read just 16 for now. That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man. that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man. Paul is reminding you and he's reminding me that we lack the needed resources to live the kind of life we're required to live and expected to live. You do not have the resources that you need to live the steady, consistent, joyful, persevering, grateful, glad life that you're supposed to live as a Christian. You don't have them. You don't have the resources. You don't have the strength. And so what he's doing then is he's reminding us there is strength to be had, and I am praying on your behalf that the strength you lack will be provided to you. And he says this strength will be strength that's given to the inner man by the Holy Spirit. Strength in the inner man. So what is Paul talking about then when he talks about strength in the inner man? There's a helpful passage in 2 Corinthians that I think gives us a good picture of what it is to be strengthened in the inner man. You can turn there if you want. It's only back to the front of your Bible, a couple books. 2 Corinthians chapter four, beginning in verse 16. The apostle Paul says, 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. So Paul is making a distinction between the outer man and the inner man. He says the outer man is wasting away. Though our outer man is wasting away, is decaying, he says, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. And he says that happens as we set our eyes not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are not seen. In other words, this is what the Apostle Paul is essentially saying. He's saying the inner man of who you are, the whole soul, your heart, the deepest part of who you are, can experience real, genuine, and powerful strengthening, no matter what outward circumstances you're experiencing. For Paul, no matter the persecution, no matter the suffering, for us perhaps, no matter the sickness, no matter the trial, no matter the discouragements we're faced with, what Paul is saying is that no matter the circumstances out here, It is possible to be strengthened in the inner man, in the depths of soul, in the deepest part of our hearts in a way that is renewing and refreshing day after day. There's other helpful parallels in Paul's letters especially where he talks about being strengthened in similar ways, strengthened by the Holy Spirit or strengthened with power. And when we look through some of those passages, it helps us understand what does it look like for us to be strengthened in the inner man. If you were to pray for me or for someone else, I pray that this person would be strengthened in the inner man. What are you praying for them? What kinds of things come to mind? As we turn to some of these other passages that Paul has written, I think it provides us with a little bit more context for what it looks like to be strengthened in the inner man. In Colossians 1, which is, again, just close to Ephesians, it's two books over. Colossians chapter 1, another prayer. In verses 11 and 12, this is what Paul prays for the believers in Colossae. He prays that they would be strengthened with all power. So that sounds a lot like Ephesians, strengthened with power in the inner man by the Holy Spirit. He says strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. Again, that sounds similar to Ephesians. According to the riches of his glory, he prays there. So strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. And then this is the effect of being strengthened. He says, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience, joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. What does it look like to be strengthened in the inner man by God's power according to the riches of his glory? What does it look like? It looks like being given patience to endure trials. It looks like being given joy in the redeeming work of God on your behalf. It looks like being able to have a thankful heart filled with gratitude, perseverance, endurance, that's the idea. When we're strengthened in the inner man, God enables us to have joyful, enduring, patient hearts, no matter what outside circumstances we're experiencing. And he prays something similar for the church in Rome, in Romans 15. You don't have to turn there, I'll just read it. Romans 15, he says, now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. What does it look like when the Holy Spirit begins to powerfully strengthen your heart? It looks like being able to say, I am experiencing joy. I am experiencing peace as I believe the promises of God and His Word. I am abounding in hope because the Holy Spirit is working in my heart a deep conviction that the Word of God is true and that it's true for me. That's what it looks like for the Holy Spirit to strengthen us in the inner man. He fills us with hope and joy and peace, steadfastness, endurance, patience, thankfulness, gratitude, all the things that we could never muster up on our own, especially not in times of trial and discouragement. And so I think that is something of the idea that Paul has in mind. When he prays for the Ephesians, that they would be strengthened with power by the Holy Spirit in the inner man, I think he's praying for that sort of encouraging, renewing strength of soul for them. But he goes on to say something else that's helpful in understanding what he means. In the beginning of verse 17, he says, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So strengthened by God's power through the Holy Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Which raises the obvious question, does Christ dwell or does he not dwell in the heart of every believer? If Christ already dwells in the heart of every believer, then why is Paul praying that Christ would dwell in the heart of believers? So does Christ dwell in the heart of every believer? Yes, certainly he does. We've already seen in the book of Ephesians, again, several moons ago, that we have been given the Holy Spirit. Every believer, whether Jew or Gentile, no matter where you're from, every single believer has been given the Spirit of God. In chapter one, if you wanna jump over a couple lines or possibly pages to Ephesians chapter one, in verse 13, Paul says, In Him, in Christ, you also, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession. You were sealed with the Holy Spirit. You were given the pledge of the Holy Spirit. He has been given to you. He dwells in you. Or if we jumped over to chapter two, the last verse, where Paul is talking about the church being one body, one temple, this is what he says of the church, of every believer. He says, in whom you also, believers, the body of Christ, you are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in the believer. Paul has made that very clear, which is amazing, and we could spend a lot longer there, that God has chosen to take up residence by his Spirit in the heart of believers, in the church. Romans 8, Paul says, if you have the Spirit, then he directly connects it and he says, then you have Christ in you. If you have the Spirit, you have Christ in you. So does Jesus Christ dwell in your heart if you're a believer? Yes, personally, the glorious King of Kings dwells in your heart through faith, if you're a believer, by his Holy Spirit. So then why is Paul praying here that the Holy Spirit would dwell in our hearts or that Christ would dwell in our hearts? Well, he's certainly not saying that we don't have the Holy Spirit, but he is saying that all of us have room to grow in the sense of our hearts becoming a home for Christ. All of us have room to grow in the sense that our hearts need to become an increasingly welcoming place for the dwelling of the King, of the Savior. D.A. Carson describes it this way. He says, when Christ by his Spirit takes up residence in us, he sets about turning this residence into a place appropriate for him, a home in which he's comfortable There will be a lot of cleaning to do, quite a few repairs, some much-needed expansion, but his aim is clear. He wants to take up residence in our hearts as we exercise faith in him. D.A. Carson, in that same section, he gives this illustration of a family who buys a home, and when they first buy it, there's terribly ugly wallpaper all over the house, the appliances need to be replaced, the countertops are a disaster, there's stains all over the carpet. It is not a very inhabitable place. It is not a pleasant dwelling, but it's theirs. They own it, they possess it, and they live in it. But little by little, over the years, they go about cleaning it, and they replace the wallpaper with far less tacky wallpaper, and they replace the countertops with countertops that are not falling apart, and they rip up the rugs, and they lay down new flooring. Many of you know that experience if you've bought a home, and you know the process of turning a house that you purchase into a wonderful dwelling, a home that you like, that you enjoy living in. Well, Christ, in the heart of the believer, little by little, He goes about making it His home more and more. He dwells there, but there's quite a bit of work that needs to be done until every part of our heart becomes a full dwelling place of the King. In full and glad surrender, that hymn that we sometimes sing as the lyrics leave my head, in full and glad surrender, we give ourselves to Thee Thine only and forever, yeah. But anyway, reign over us, Lord Jesus. Reign over everything. Oh, come and make, man, this is terrible. This is like the one thing you don't do in preaching, try to quote a hymn and not do it right. Someone help me. Who said it? No, okay. Reign over me, Lord Jesus. What's next? Anyway, he says, come and make my heart your throne. That's the idea. There's a line in there. Come and make my heart your throne. So, take that part away. That's what I wanna stick. Make my heart thy throne. Of course, Jesus does reign over us. Of course, our heart is his throne. He owns us. We are his. We, as believers, we gladly submit to him in an objective, comprehensive sense. We belong to him. We love the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ over us. But then at the same time, we pray, make my heart thy throne. Come, reign over us, Lord Jesus. We want you to reign over every single part of our hearts so that there's not any part of us that resists your rule and your reign and refuses to submit to your authority. And I think that's something of the idea here. Paul is praying for the Ephesians, that their hearts would be strengthened. And the inner man, that they would be strengthened and empowered with faith, with joy, with perseverance and endurance, so that their heart becomes a place where Christ can gladly dwell. And I think Paul also knew the kinds of arguments that we raise against that sort of thing and the types of wrestling in our own minds when we hear this idea of being strengthened with joy and endurance and patience and steadfastness and hope and peace so that our hearts become a glad, welcoming place for Christ to dwell. Perhaps we think that sounds great. in a sermon or sounds great in writing, but it's never been something that I have been able to experience the way that I wish I could. My temptations right now are far too great. The despair, the discouragement, perhaps even the struggle ongoing with doubt and unbelief that we would be ashamed even to confess. Those things are too great, maybe we think, that our weakness, our inability is too deep. Our discouragements have lasted too long. And this idea, maybe even there's a cynical response in our heart to this. This is just Bible talk, and it's not really for me. I want to know it, but I've never been able to get it the way that I want it. And I think Paul knew that we would wrestle with those types of things. And I think often we think that way, perhaps we think that way, that we never can really know and experience the kind of joy and strength that Paul's talking about. Because we think of our lives kind of like the Egyptians treated the Israelites. So if you think back to Exodus chapter 5, the story of Israel's exodus out of Egypt, and when Pharaoh gets angry with the Israelites, he says, don't give them any straw any longer. Make sure that they meet the same quota, but don't give them any straw, don't give them any of the resources that they need. Continue to lay the same heavy burdens on them, but don't supply them with the needed resources. And I think sometimes we think of the Christian life that way, like God has laid on you this heavy burden of being joyful, this heavy burden of enduring trials, this heavy burden of overcoming temptation and discouragements and despair, and he has laid that quota on you and he requires you to perform, but he says, go get your own straw, go get your own strength, and provide your own resources to be able to do it. And Paul reminds us that God has never required you at any point in your life to look to your own resources to try to come up with the strength that you need, ever. He has never said, go, find the strength, come back, and make your heart a place for Christ to dwell. Instead, Paul says, God gives this strength according to the riches of his own glory. according to the being of his own eternal nature, his own attributes, out of the wealth of his being, an endless supply. God grants this strength to us. And so Paul is turning our gaze away from all confidence in self, all hope in our ability to muster up the strength that he's talking about here, and he says, I go to the God of endless supply on your behalf. And I pray for him out of the abundant supply of his infinite mercy and his infinite glory to pour out into your life the strength that you need. And it is entirely adequate It is not lacking in anything. It's not deficient. It's sufficient to give us the needed strength in the inner man, no matter the trial that we may be facing, the discouragements that may plague our hearts, or even the unbelief and doubts that we struggle with. So that's the first aspect of this prayer. Paul is praying for strength in the inner man. It's a prayer for strength. And then secondly, it's a prayer for knowledge. The second half of verse 17 through the end of verse 19, Paul prays, that you, being 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. So the idea here then in the second half of this prayer is simply this. Fullness in the Christian life, a sense of abundance in the Christian life, flows out of a certain rich personal knowledge of the limitless love of Christ. Fullness, abundance, spiritual fullness in the life of the believer flows out of a certain personal knowledge of the limitless love of Christ. Paul begins with an important phrase there in the second half of verse 17. If you look down, second half of verse 17, Paul says that you being rooted and grounded in love. In other words, that's the context of being able to know the love of Christ. You being, being in the condition of being rooted and grounded in love that you may be able to comprehend and know the love of Christ. So the imagery here is of a tree, a tree being rooted firmly in the ground, or it's the imagery of a building being grounded, literally having a foundation in the ground, so that when the winds come and the rains come, just like Jesus' story in Matthew 7, the house stands firm. It doesn't fall, it's rooted. The tree stands firm, because it has its deep roots into the soil. The house has a firm foundation in the ground. And so Paul is saying, being rooted and grounded in love, is the context in which you'll be able to know the love of Christ. But here's the question. Whose love is Paul talking about? Whose love are we rooted and grounded in? Some people have taken Paul to mean here that we will be rooted and grounded in our own love for one another, or for the Lord. So as the church is a community of people who are rooted and grounded in their love for one another, we will, as a community, begin to grow into the knowledge of Christ. I think that's possible. That certainly is true. That as we love one another as a body of believers, as we're knit together in love, Colossians 2 talks about how we all together, being knit together in love, attain to the fullness of the wealth of knowledge which is in Christ. So there's a sense in which, yes, being rooted and grounded in our love for one another will lead us to a greater knowledge of the love of Christ. And we should long for that, we should pursue that, but I don't think that's what Paul is saying here. I think the love that Paul is talking about is not our love for one another because he hasn't talked about that love in this letter. This whole letter has been about love in one direction. Not our love to God, but God's love to us. And I think what Paul is saying here is that as believers, we are rooted and grounded and stable and secure and steady and firm and fixed, not in our constantly changing love, but in the unchanging love of our God who has redeemed us. And so he's praying that as we know, as we have our roots dug deeply down into the soil of God's love, as the building is built firmly upon this soil, this solid ground, this solid rock of God's love, It's then that we'll be able to begin to understand and know something of the love of Christ. Up to this point in the letter, Paul has worked hard to show you and to show me how much God loves his children. Let me just do a quick recap of a number of references from Ephesians 1 to 3 on how much God has loved you. In chapter one in verse four, Paul tells us that you were loved before the foundation of the world. Then in verse five, he says that you were adopted as God's own son through Christ. And then in Ephesians 1.6, he says that God has lavished his grace on you and continues to do it in abundance according to the riches of his grace. And then in verses 1, 13 to 14, he tells us that as a gift to us to make sure that we know the certainty of our inheritance, he gave you the gift of his own Holy Spirit to say, I love you. The inheritance is yours. And he gave us the Holy Spirit to convince us of it. And then in verse four of chapter two, he loved us by finding us dead in our sins. And because of his great love, because of his mercy, he made us alive together with Christ. And then in verse seven, he tells us that he loves us by having this plan for the future, which involves the unending display of the riches of his grace in kindness towards you forever. That's God's plan for you as a believer, is that forever, in the ages to come, he will ceaselessly demonstrate the riches of his grace and kindness to you. And he has loved us in verse 13 of chapter two by finding us when we were far off and bringing us near to himself, into his own home and into his own family by the blood of Christ. Then in verse 18 of chapter two, he tells us that God has loved us by giving us confident access to himself as our father, that we can actually address him with boldness and confidence as our father. And then in verse 22 of chapter 2, he tells us that he loved us by causing us to be his temple in which his Holy Spirit dwells. God has loved you, and Paul has tried to show you that by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in these first three chapters of Ephesians. He has shown you the magnitude of God's love for you. And now he's saying that you as a believer, being rooted and grounded in that kind of love, understanding the depth of the strength, of the stability that you have, because your well-being eternally is not based on you. It's not based on your strength. It's based on the God who loved you before the foundation of the earth. Because of that, being rooted and grounded in that, He wants us then to move on to really understand it, to know it, to grasp it, to understand and to know what's conditionally true of you. You are in the love of God. You live there, you dwell there as a believer. But it's one thing to live there and dwell there, it's another thing to know that you live there, and to know that you dwell there, and to have it penetrate the depths of your soul in a way that causes you to be convinced of it. And so Paul is praying then not only that they would be rooted and grounded in that love, but that they would be able to begin to comprehend it. That you would 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. Now some have suggested here as well that Paul when he says breadth and length and height and depth, that he's connecting each of those dimensions with something specific, with something in particular. So some have said that when he talks about the breadth of the love of Christ, I believe he's talking about the love of Christ, and when he talks about the breadth of the love of Christ, he's referring to the fact that Christ's love, it's broad, it includes all peoples of all nations. He brings them all into his family through his redeeming blood. Some say that his length refers to the fact that his love endures forever. It is long-lasting. It never ends. That's how long and enduring God's love is. And some have said that its height, it refers to the fact that he loves you from his exalted position at the right hand of the Father, and his love brings you up to it to seat you at his right hand. The height of God's love in Christ. And then some have said the depth that refers to his love reaching down into the depths of our broken and fallen condition in our sin, stretching even as far as our sin, finding us in it, even there, loving us and redeeming us. And maybe Paul had some of those ideas in mind when he wrote this, but at the very least, this is what Paul is trying to say. The love of Christ goes far beyond in all directions. It is of a magnitude that could never even begin to be grasped in its fullness. It's just huge. And whether each of those is connected to a specific attribute of Christ's love or not, what we know to be true is that if we think that we have understood in the fullness of what it is, the love of Christ, then we've not begun to know anything of the love of Christ. The way that Charles Hodge says it is this. He says, kind of technical, but follow the thought. To know what is infinite and which therefore passes knowledge can only mean to have some due appreciation of its nature and of the fact that it is infinite. In other words, how do we know that we have come to know the love of Christ? How do we know that we're thinking the right way about the love of Christ? Because in our experience, in our knowledge, we have come to see that it can't be fully known. How do we know we know the love of Christ? Because we know it can't be known, at least not in its fullness. We know a lot about the love of Christ. We have had the love of Christ poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We've experienced something of it if we're believers. We know that it's true. We know certain aspects of it. But to know the love of Christ is to know that we could never know it in its fullness because it is the love of an infinitely loving Savior. The image that comes to my mind is of a mother holding her newborn child, perhaps a month or two old, holding her child with a heart full of love for her infant. And perhaps the child, I don't know how the psychology of a child works, but maybe that baby is able to grasp something of the mother's love for him. Maybe he's, through the snuggles, through the warmth and the cuddles and the affection, maybe the baby is able to understand something of the love of his mother. But anyone who's grown up, old enough to understand at least anything of the love of a mother, would know that baby has no idea how much that mom loves him. And we are just infants in the arm of Christ. We know something of it. We've experienced something of it. We can know the warmth of his love to some degree. We see it on the pages of the scriptures. We see the gospel showing us the love of a father who would send his own son and the love of a son who would lay down his own life to redeem us. but we're just infants in our understanding of it. God is looking off from a distance, perhaps, even this evening. Actually, he's not looking off from a distance. God is in the midst of us this evening by his Holy Spirit, and certainly he's thinking, you have no idea. You have no idea how much I love you. You have tasted the very beginnings of it only. You have an eternity An eternity to delight in the never-ending, unending, infinite love of God. That's what Paul wants us to get and grasp. And we can't. We can begin to, but to grasp it is to know we can't grasp it. And so I hope that we walk out of here this evening with a sense of, that was the most confusing sermon I've ever heard. He wanted us to know, but then he said we couldn't know. Yes. That's the idea, to walk out of here saying, oh, what a wonderful love Christ Jesus has shown me. I could never know it. And to walk through this week to come and say, what a wonderful savior who walks with me. He loves me when I'm alone. He loves me at work. He loves me as I struggle to raise my children and struggle to live out the marriage that he's placed me in. He loves me with an everlasting love. I hope that God, by his Spirit, drives that home so that we walk out of here confused. What is this love? What wondrous love is this? The hymnist asks. What wondrous love is this, that the Lord of bliss would lay his life down for me? Paul wants us to know it, and he says it's in knowing it that we'll be filled up to all the fullness of God. What does it mean to be filled up to all the fullness of God? That is another mysterious phrase. How could a teacup be filled with the fullness of the ocean? It can't. It's impossible. But it can be filled up as much as a teacup can be filled up. If you were to lower the teacup into the ocean, it would be in the midst of the ocean, filled with the water of the ocean, certainly not holding all that there is to be held, but certainly filled to its fullest. Paul wants us to be filled to the fullness of God. In John 17, Jesus, in his prayer to his Father, he says, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. This is eternal life, that they may know you and the son that you sent, that they may know the living God. Eternal life, as Jesus is talking about it there, is not just life unending, it's not just length of life, it is quality of life, it is fullness of life, it's abundance of life, it is a rich life, a life that is not deficient or lacking in anything. Because it's a life that is full of the personal, relational knowledge of the eternal God. That is eternal life, to know the living God, the eternal God. And when you know him, you experience, you know now and eternally, the fullness of eternal life. But we know in our own experience that we've entered into eternal life, we now have eternal life because we're in Christ, life is ours, but we know we don't always experience it to the same degree. There are times where we feel the very weight, at least something of the weight, and the joy, and the freedom, and the abundance of eternal life. And then there are other times where we feel like that eternal life is far from us. Like we're somewhere out in the wilderness, and eternal life is somewhere over there, far from our own experience. We experience eternal life now truly, but we experience it in degrees. Sometimes we know it more, sometimes we know it less, sometimes we experience it to a greater degree, sometimes to a lesser degree. I think what Paul is saying when he prays this for the Ephesians is he's praying that that sort of life that Jesus talks about, this life of knowing in a personal, real way the living and eternal God, that that kind of abundant life would flood our souls and would overflow in fullness because we are filled with him. And we will have that at times in greater degrees, and we will have that at times in lesser degrees. But Paul is saying, oh, I pray that you would be able to consistently walk in it. That you would be able to consistently, day after day, know the fullness of God in your life. And the way that that will happen, the way that we will live lives of full, abundant life in the fullness of God, is by having and increasing in this knowledge of the immense love of Christ. Fullness of life, eternal life experienced in the here and now will come to the degree that we know and are convinced of and experience the unending and unlimited love of Jesus. In other words, here's the point. You can't make yourself full. You cannot make yourself full. You can try to, and really that's the pursuit of every human heart, trying to make ourselves full. The problem is we reject the God who can make us full, and we look for fullness in all other things, relationships, pleasure, money, power, experiences, identity, and something else. We try to find fullness, but we never find it because we're created to find fullness in God. And we can't do anything to make ourselves fool. Even as believers, we cannot do enough of the right things to make ourselves fool. We cannot practice enough right religious duties. We cannot discipline ourselves enough. We can't read enough religious books or stir up enough religious zeal in our hearts to make us fool. We cannot do it. That is the religion of the world. Every religion of the world, whether it is a religion of theology or a religion of secularism, whichever your religion is, the essence of it is, I have to make myself full. Christianity says, you can't make yourself full. There is a God who can make you fool, and He has given His Son to make you fool, so that you can know the life of God in His Son. And what Paul is saying here is that as believers, don't try to make yourself fool. Yes, apply the means of grace to your life, search the Scriptures, pray diligently, but recognize that it is your Father alone through the Holy Spirit who can make you full, and rest in Him, and believe the truths of the gospel, and look to Him, and let all of your duties not be a means of working for the fullness, but let all of your duties of searching the scriptures, applying the means of grace to your life, be in this spirit of prayer that says, Father, I cannot make myself full. But in your words you've revealed to me the depths of the love of Christ for me. And so as I open up your word, as I apply the means of grace to my life, Father, make me full with yourself. And it is God alone who's able to do that. And he will do that as he convinces you by his spirit that you are a loved child of God if you are in Christ. The degree to which you will experience fullness is the degree to which you are personally convinced of the depths of God's love for you in Christ. Paul prays for strength. He prays for knowledge. And then lastly, and very briefly, it's a prayer of praise. He praises God. This is a doxology, a response of worship. Really, it's a response of worship not just to this prayer, but it's a response of worship to the first three chapters of Ephesians. Paul looks back now at all that he's written in these first three chapters. He's about to transition into a new section of the letter, again, where he's going to tell us how to live. But before he gets there, he looks back on all that he has said with regard to the gospel of the glory of God in Christ Jesus, and he responds in worship, and he says, Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, 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. You may remember way back in chapter 1 that the three titles of the sermons started with, to the praise of his glory. to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory. And the reason was, because three times in the first chapter of Ephesians, as he's communicating the riches of the gospel to us, he says that phrase, to the praise of his glory. Back in chapter one in verse six, Paul says, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. To the praise of the glory of his grace. And then in verse 12, He says, to the end, that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of his glory. And then in verse 14, he says that we've been given this pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory. So three times, in the midst of describing to us the riches of God's grace, Paul reminds us, it is for his glory. He has redeemed you, he has saved you, he has made you a part of his people, brought you into Christ and into the church, so that in Christ and in the church, through you, through your redemption, now and throughout all eternity, he will put on display the wonders of his love and his grace and his wisdom and his power. As small as our lives might feel, and hopefully they at times feel small, we recognize how small we are in such a big, vast universe. As small as our lives may feel, the reality is that every single life of the redeemed children of God is one more resounding echo of the glory of God's love and his grace. And it will burst forth throughout all eternity as we, the glorified church, worship our king in wonderful array. Paul is saying here, glory to that God. Glory to the God who would redeem such a lost people, so that in Christ and in the church, he would receive all the glory. He would put on display his wonderful attributes, his love and his mercy, his wisdom and his power, so that all might say, what a wonderful God, would redeem such a sinful people, and would make them so wonderfully beautiful. That's what God has done for us in Christ. And so he is to receive the glory, and Paul says he is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. Again, I think Paul is just looking back at the first three chapters here. And he's talked about this mystery of God that's been revealed in Christ, and this mystery, it was hidden in the mind of God. No one knew it. This plan of redemption, this plan to reconcile and redeem his people, both Jew and Gentile, to bring them into one body, to make them his eternally so that he might put on display his glory forever. This is the mystery of God. Nobody knew it. Nobody would ever think it. Nobody would ever think to ask for it. But it is in the eternal mind of God. It is perfectly wise and perfectly powerful and perfectly loving and perfectly gracious. And it has now been put on display in our redemption. And Paul looks back at what he's described with regard to this mystery of God, this plan of redemption, and he says, that is far more than anyone would ever ask, than anyone would ever think. He has done more for us than would ever enter into the mind of a human being, of any finite creature. To think that the eternal God would ransom and redeem a sinful people by taking on flesh, becoming a man, and dying in their place, and rising from the dead in order to gather them to himself, nobody would have conjured that up. It is the wisdom of God, and nobody would have ever been able to accomplish it. It is the power of God. And Paul says he's able. We look back, we see this eternal mystery of God revealed, things that we would have never asked or thought, and it stirs our hearts now to pray to the God who can do far more abundantly than anything that we would ever ask or think. Do you pray to God in light of what he's already done? Do you pray to God in light of the redemption that he's already accomplished? With the kind of confidence that says, God, if you have redeemed me, if you have loved me like this, if you have not spared your own son, but you delivered him over for all of us, then oh God, would you not hear me and answer me when I pray? He's able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, and he's proven it to you. and the redemption that He's accomplished for you in the life and in the death and in the resurrection of His Son. And our response as His people should be to pray, to cry out to Him, to earnestly seek Him because He's able to answer. And our response should be, glory to this God. Glory be to this God. Not now, just now, not just in these days, not just in these moments, but glory be to this God for ages without ceasing throughout all generations. Stir the hearts of our children to worship this God, to love this God. Tell them about the glories of this God so that they resound and sing his praises. And then throughout all eternity to come, this God will be glorified by us. through our mouths, through our redemption. And so we ought to respond now in our hearts and in our mouths by saying, glory be to this great God. Would you pray with me? Our Father, we do thank you that you have accomplished for us a redemption that goes far beyond anything that we would ever ask or think of. It is far beyond anything that our finite minds could have ever begun to grasp or imagine. And yet, Father, You've made it known to us by sending Your Son to die for us, by making it plain in His life and in His death and in His resurrection what Your plan is for Your people, now and forever, Father, to receive glory in Christ and in the church. We thank You, God, that You have loved us with an everlasting love. We thank You that this love that you have for us that's been revealed in the person of Christ, that it goes far beyond anything that we could begin to wrap our minds around. And our Father, as weak as we are, as small as our hearts seem, and certainly as small as our minds seem, Father, we pray that you would give us the ability by your Holy Spirit to comprehend and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. And we pray that we as your people, as a church, would be filled up to all the fullness of God, and that you would receive glory and praise and honor in the lives of your people. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.