Deep Roots and Solid Ground

you. Good morning. I’m very excited to be here with
you all this morning to worship and to delight in God’s word.
And it’s really a remarkable thing to me that The providence
can have such a wide footprint for the kingdom. Even this summer
preaching in at least three, maybe four different congregations,
being a sincere blessing for many saints all across the Colorado
and Wyoming northern region. It’s a remarkable thing. Thanks
for sparing Pastor Frasco to Casper. I have family in Casper,
so I’ve been praying for his work there that would either
directly maybe or indirectly bless them now or in the future.
But it’s a delight to be able to fill in for him here while
he’s laboring there. And I also want to thank Patrick
for reading and for Dylan’s prayers over this sermon and this service,
particularly the reading in Luke. Our passage today is in Ephesians,
and the very stone rejected is the cornerstone that we’re going
to be considering today as the firm foundation for the Christian
life. And so it was a perfect fit metaphorically
and literally for today’s passage. So let’s go to the Lord in prayer,
and then we’ll consider his word together. Heavenly Father, thank
you for adopting us, for bringing us into your family, for giving
us your name. Father, I praise you for the
work that you’re doing in our lives and the work that you’re
accomplishing in the world through through our efforts to be faithful
as we live out the imperatives of your word. So I just ask that
you would guard my lips today, that I would be faithful to you.
I ask that you would open the ears of your people, that you
would call your people to yourself, that this would be a time of
blessing to them, and that they would be strengthened for the
days ahead, as a result of our consideration of your word today.
We are so grateful to you for your word, which is a foundation
upon which we can build our entire lives. So we lift this time up
to you to that end. Amen. All right. So today’s passage, if you’ll
turn with me to Ephesians, we’re going to be dwelling in chapter
3, verses 14 to 21. And while you’re turning there,
I just want to spare a comment on why Ephesians chapter 3. It has actually been preached
from this pulpit before, although I trust eight years is enough
time to revisit what I a passage I personally cling to, and it’s
a well-worn and beloved one. So we’re coming back to this.
But over the summer, we’ve been in Romans. And Romans is, as
we’ve discussed together, the greatest theological text ever
drafted. I mean, it’s magnificent. And
Ephesians is closely connected to Romans. It’s sometimes called
Little Romans. And I find, not that Romans is
devoid of pastoral care. I’m not suggesting that at all.
But I find Ephesians especially is very pastoral in its approach
to theology. And in this particular passage,
as we’ll see, I think it serves as a very nice complement to
our journey through Romans. And so I’m preparing this message
and bringing it before our attention in order to inspire and encourage
you in light of our work through Romans. So that’s kind of why
I always wonder what, and it’s not always clear what guest speakers,
why they chose what they chose. And so I just want a little background
before we dive in. So hopefully you’ve had a moment
to turn there. Ephesians chapter 3, starting in verse 14. 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 glory in
the church and in Christ Jesus to all the generations forever
and ever. Amen. So this passage is a fascinating
look at Paul’s prayer life for the church in Ephesus. And it
comes at the turning of the tide in the book of Ephesians. For
the first three chapters in Ephesians, it centers heavily on indicatives. This is a term for truth statements. And so Paul has been building
out these detailed descriptions of why the Gentiles are grafted
into God’s family. And this particular prayer, it’s
kind of an interesting one, because at the beginning of chapter 3,
Paul kind of loses his thought for a moment to unpack why he’s
saying all of these things to the Gentiles in Ephesians. And
so he’s kind of picking that up again when he says, for this
reason. So he’s really referencing back to the end of chapter 2,
at least the scholarship that I read indicates that. We have,
at the end of chapter two, Paul is bringing this magnificent
treatise for why the Gentiles are grafted into the church,
into the family of God, why they’re adopted into the family of God.
He’s bringing that, in some sense, to a close here. And he says
in verse 20, having been built on the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, that stone
which was rejected. in whom the whole building being
joined together is grown into a holy sanctuary in the Lord,
in whom you also are being built together into the dwelling of
God in the Spirit. So when Paul says, for this reason
I bow my knees, he’s talking about that for the reason that
the Gentiles in Ephesus, the faithful saints as we’ll see
in Ephesus, are being built together into the dwelling of God on the
foundation stone of Christ Jesus. So this, for this reason, is
backward looking. It’s kind of like a therefore.
And so this is where we pick up our line of thinking today.
And I mentioned at the beginning that this passage sits at that
confluence. We have the indicatives, the
truth statements at the beginning of Ephesians through the end
of chapter two. These are the things that we
know to be true about the nature of God and our relationship to
him. One, that God chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the world. You can reference Ephesians 1, 4. That we are predestined
for adoption. as God’s children, 1 5. We have
redemption through his blood, 1 7. He made known the mystery
of his will, so this is a mystery that he has made known to us,
1 9. In chapter 2, Ephesians, still chapter 2, we were dead
in our trespasses, but God made us alive. That’s chapter 2 verses
1 to 5. We are saved by grace through
faith, not works. 2, 8, and 9. And we are his workmanship
created for good works. 2, 10. There are, of course,
many others. I think there’s like 21 specifically. These indicatives, these truth
statements, these foundation stones that Paul has been laying
for the church in Ephesus. And here, we’re shifting our
focus. Moving on in Ephesians, the rest
of the book is filled up primarily with what are called imperatives.
Imperatives are the thing you build on top of the foundation.
They’re where you go from here. If all of this stuff is true,
what do I do? What’s the response? How does
this change the way I live? And so there is a call in Ephesians
4 to walk in a manner worthy of the calling. 4.1. To be humble,
gentle, and patient, bearing with one another. 4.2. To put
off the old self. and to put on the new self in
Christ Jesus. That’s 4.22 and 24. To be angry
and not sin, 4.26. To let no corrupting talk come
from your mouth. To be kind and tenderhearted
and forgiving. To be imitators of God as beloved
children. To walk in love. To walk as children
of light. And there are, of course, others
besides. And so we have the indicatives, the truth statements, leading
to commands. commands to act in a certain
way. And without the section we’re looking at today, these
commands are an enormous burden. They weigh a person down. And so before Paul gets to the
what you do with all this truth, he strengthens the people in
Ephesus. And so too, I hope to strengthen
you in our message today, in our consideration today, as I
have been strengthened. So I have succeeded in my task
today before you if you are strengthened in your faith, if you understand
the promises of God to you more clearly and you delight in them
more fully, that you know the love of God, that you are inspired
to pray as Paul has prayed here, acknowledging that he is able
to do more abundantly for you beyond all that you ask or understand. Then finally, that you desire
Christ to dwell fully in your life at the center of all you
do. So that’s the mission that I’m
on, is to strengthen you for the days ahead in light of the
truths of your salvation in Christ Jesus, so that you can accomplish
the good works that have been set before you to do, whether
it is in times of pain and suffering or joy and delight, that you
would be filled with the strength that comes from a genuine faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. All right. So that’s the background. That’s the big picture. That’s
the goal. So let’s go deep. Paul bows his
knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and
on earth is named. That’s verse 14 and 15. If you were here over Christmas
Eve, you might remember, preached a really weird passage for Christmas
Eve, the commandment not to take the Lord’s name in vain, because
naming things is essential to their nature. So we have the
same idea again here that our name is from God now. If we are in Christ Jesus, if
we are part of his family, we take on his name, my own children
take on my name till it’s in, it’s an indicator that they are
in some sense from me and part of my household. And so this
is true here. Paul is affirming that the Gentiles,
as much as the Jews, are a part of the household of God in Christ
Jesus. So that’s what he’s referencing here. Of course, there’s much
more to say about that if we preached all the way through
Ephesians, but that’s where he’s going back to. That’s who he’s
praying to. That’s who he’s asking and beseeching
on behalf of the church at Ephesus. That the spiritual richness of
God’s glory would strengthen them with power through God’s
spirit, his spirit. This is a deeply Trinitarian
prayer. I really like that. Again, probably
an entire sermon could be preached on the Trinitarian nature of
this passage. It’s not necessarily my goal today, but I wanted to
at least draw your attention to it. Okay, so that’s what Paul’s
praying, that’s the background for why he’s praying, and kind
of his response to all of these truths. So let’s see what he
prays for, for the church at Ephesus. He prays that he would
give you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened
with the power of his spirit in the inner man. Paul prays
that believers would be strengthened with power, strengthened for
the work ahead. strengthened for understanding.
And this strength is coming from God’s storehouse of glory. It is a glory to God that we
be strong in our understanding of Him, that we seek out a full
understanding of Him. We’ll look at that more detailed
towards the end of today’s passage. It is this strength rooted not
in our own willpower, so all of the imperatives, all the commands
that come, in the second half of Ephesians are not commands
that we can carry out on our own strength. We need the strength
of the Spirit of God in order to execute on these commands.
So it is like receiving and inheriting a vast fortune. This fortune
of ours is the strength of the Lord. It’s not riches. It’s not
physical strength. It might be a disappointment
to you guys, but this is not a promise that you’re going to
be able to carry an ox up a hill or something. That’s not the
kind of strength that that God is giving to the church at Ephesus
here, that Paul’s asking God to give to the church at Ephesus.
This is a spiritual strength in the inner man, the life of
the mind, the deepest recesses of our character and nature.
This is the kind of strength Paul is asking for. And to me,
this is an enormous encouragement, for I often feel weak knowing
Knowing that I have a father who adopted me out of the world,
out of my own sin, that I can lean on and expect to ask for
strength and receive that strength to carry on his mission in my
life, especially when times are not good, is a deep comfort to
me. And I hope and trust that it
is to you as well. And indeed, that’s part of why
I chose this passage, that it is a strengthening thing for
me to read on it and think about it, that it is not my own strength,
but rather it is from the Spirit that I do the things He’s laid
out for me to do. I think on the man from Mark 9, 22 to 25,
you don’t have to turn there, but this man, his son had a demon. And would throw him into the
flames, in the water, trying to destroy his son. It would
be a terrible, terrible thing. And Jesus says to the man, if
you can’t, oh, the man is saying to Jesus, if you can do anything,
take pity on us, help us. And Jesus says, if you can, like,
you didn’t think I am. If you can, all things are possible
to him who believes. Immediately, the boy’s father
cried out and was saying, I do believe. Help my unbelief. I think there’s the same heart
in Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians here. He’s not praying that new
people would come to the Lord. It’s not something that’s not
Paul’s desire, but that’s not what this prayer is about. This
prayer is about the strengthening of those who are already believing.
And so it is the nature of the Christian, I think, to continually
go before the Lord and lean on his strength. It’s not a one-time
deal. You didn’t sign on the dotted line, and now you’re good
to go. You’re strong enough. And we see that throughout Paul’s
life, his ministry, and his preaching and teaching, that strength is
something we must continually ask the Lord for. We’re not just
done. We need it continually. I believe. Help me in my unbelief. So Paul
is praying. for believers, that they would
have the strength of the Spirit in their innermost dwelling,
their deepest recesses of their heart and their mind. What is
the cause of this strength, or what occurs when this strength
is received? That Christ would dwell in our
hearts. So Paul is praying, again, for
those who are already Christians, he’s not praying that they would
be saved, but that Christ would dwell in them more fully. You
can grow in your Christian life. You can become more like Christ. He can dwell more fully in your
life. The Spirit gives the strength
for this to happen. I love this image of dwelling. The Greek word to dwell is found
throughout scripture, a couple of other places of note, but
one in Psalms 27, Psalm 27, verse 4. One thing I have asked of
the Lord that I will seek after that I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty
of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. It is this image
of permanent settlement and not just stopping in. Christ isn’t
popping by for a visit He’s not dropping in to ask for a cup
of milk or to see what the latest going on in your life is. This
is not what Paul is praying for here. Paul is praying that Christ
would settle in to your lives, to the lives of the people in
Ephesus. That Christ would become the master of the house of their
hearts. And by implication, we, his servants. I enjoy this poem. the spiritually fatal poem in
many ways by William Ernest Henley. It’s a 1920s poem. You’re probably
familiar with it. It shows up in, I don’t know,
junior high or middle school pretty frequently. And so the
poem is spiritually fatal, but as you’ll see, I like to modify
it. So yeah, I guess, sorry, William. My middle name is William,
so you know. Let’s see what he says. It matters
not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the
scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my
soul. You can see that this is our
natural condition, and it is a fatal one, eternally fatal.
Paul is imploring that Christ and Christ alone would be the
master of the house of our fate in this prayer, that he would
dwell fully in our lives. that the great captain of man
would take the helm of our mortal vessels and steer it wherever
he wills. And so I eagerly flip the poem towards truth. It matters
not how straight the gate, how charged with punishment the scroll.
Christ’s the master of my fate. Christ’s the captain of my soul. Our lives must be indwelt with
Christ, rooted and grounded in him. It must be our full identity,
our entire being founded in the life of Christ, whether we are
at home or in the workplace, whether we are laboring or recreating,
Christ the center. I think of this idea of dwelling,
rooted and grounded through kind of an image that I have in my
mind. Hopefully I can communicate it
to you. It’s something that I can close my eyes and see, and perhaps
you have an experience similar that you can reference, but I’ll
invite you into mine at least. that when Christ dwells at the
center of their lives, it’s similar to my father-in-law, Mike O. He’s a man who dwells deeply
at times in his easy chair after a long day of labor. And when
the grandkids are around, they center their activities around
his location in the home. They’re coming and going. They’re
showing him things. They’re telling him stories.
He’s reading them books and joking with them and playing with them.
and loving them, and they orbit his recliner with infinite activity.
But all the activity in the home is centered around his dwelling
there. And it is this image I have in
my mind of Christ’s dwelling in my life, in the lives of the
Ephesians here. that he dwells in the center
and all my activities orbit around that dwelling. Whether I’m at
work teaching students how to be engineers and make things
or at home playing with and laboring with my kids or helping out or
whether I am working on the car or helping someone else with
their projects. that Christ is in the middle
in the activity’s orbit, that Christ-centric life. So this
is what I think Paul is describing here with Christ dwelling in
their hearts. And it is through faith that
he dwells there. So how do we strengthen our faith? How do we shore up the foundations
of faith to become rooted and founded or grounded? in the love
of Christ. These two interesting metaphors
or references, one rooted like a tree, one I think founded like
a temple, just kind of referencing chapter 2 as we already kind
of talked about. Founded like a temple, Paul broke off that
discussion in chapter 2 and He was talking about the foundation
of the dwelling place of God being built on Christ Jesus. He’s the cornerstone. We’ve already
looked at that a couple of times. Every well-made structure has
a firm foundation. The one we’re in now, very firm
foundation. But it may be unremarkable. I
doubt that any of you, many of you anyways, have seen the foundation
of this structure. I certainly haven’t. When I watched
the construction of the new laboratory I worked at for a few years,
it seemed like nothing was happening for months leading up to the
establishment of the structure. It was trucks coming and going
in these big rigs, up and down and up and down and up and down.
And they were drilling down, down, down, pouring concrete
into holes in the ground. And they drilled all the way
to bedrock, because it’s an industrial laboratory. It needed firm foundations,
or the engines we run would shake it all to pieces in a time. And so I think of this foundation
being sometimes invisible, especially from the outside. And yet, without
it, the whole thing will come crashing down, the foundation
being our faith in the love of Christ. So we have our foundation. And so it is with our faith,
Christ the foundation, his presence, his love, and our knowledge of
him, and our belief in his promises. Ephesians 2.20. Oh, I apologize. Yeah, I read that at the very
beginning. I’ll skip that now. Okay, so to grow your foundation, you
must become more and more familiar and acquainted with the promises
of God to you. You must build your love of Christ
by prayer and pursuing the knowledge of who he is by studying his
word. That’s how you build a firm foundation. Paul also references to be rooted
like a tree. Trees are interesting. They have
both height and depth. We just planted an apple tree
in our backyard. His name is Frank. He was a cast
off. There was a pallet at Home Depot,
80% off. He looked pretty rough. So I
brought him home. We dug a hole. There he stands.
And he hasn’t really gotten a whole lot taller, although he’s producing
a lot of apples, so he’s a pretty happy tree. But his roots are
deep. He dug a really deep hole. Our
dog was very interested in that proceedings. And so trees have
height and depth. The taller the tree goes, the
deeper the root system must be. A tree that lacks this depth
might grow quickly, but it will not survive a storm. I heard,
I have a friend at work, his family lives in the springs,
and we were looking at images of forest devastation. Apparently, a tornado blew through
at like 10,000 feet, which I didn’t know they could develop that
high. It was like last week, so this is recent news. And it
was just, it was crazy to see these 100-foot trees just laid
over, you know, and their roots sticking up. And so a high tree,
a high Christian life without the firm foundation below it
is not a stable thing. You need to dig your roots deep
into a knowledge of Christ. Tree that lacks, oh, I said that
already. So too, we will grow in our love and understanding
of Christ as we pursue a knowledge of him and that will bear fruit
as we’ll see. Psalm 1, 1 through 3. If you’ll
turn there with me, I think this is one worth reading together. How blessed is the man who does
not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way
of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight
is in the law of Yahweh. And in his law, he meditates
day and night, and he will be like a tree firmly planted by
streams of water, which yield its fruit in season, and its
leaf does not wither, and whatever he does, he prospers. So we see
that we are like trees, and we are firmly planted in the law
of God, the word of God. So I think Paul is asking that
the church in Ephesus would have deep roots and firm foundations
in the love of Christ. I think you would ask the same
for us. Let your roots grow deep in Christ’s love. Let your life
rise up in strength from that foundation, bearing fruits in
season, standing firm in storms. So what is the natural progression
of a strong foundation? Christ dwelling at the center
of your world. You’d be grounded in love. It’s that you will 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. I love this. This is a crazy
paradox of biblical truth that we need to know what is surpassing
knowledge. Isn’t that a weird thing? You
know something that you can’t know, and that all saints are
called to do so. This is not a command to scholars
to hit the books a little harder. No, no, this is a command for
all of us, this fascinating paradox. And this is one of the things
that I think is so compelling about the Christian life, so
compelling about the gospel. It’s not a set of facts. It’s a story that God is working
out in history through his son and now through us. He invites
us into that story wherever we are, from children to the wise,
from the simple to the most intellectually rigorous. There is an invitation
into this full knowledge of the love of God. There’s a spot for
everyone, and this knowledge of the love has some dimensions
to it. All right? It’s got breadth. It’s wide enough
for all of God’s people, all those he calls to himself, in
all the situations they find themselves in. It’s got length. It stretches from eternity past
all the way to eternity future. It’s infinite in length. It’s got height. It lifts us
up from our mean and lowest state to heavenly fellowship with God.
And it has depth. There is no suffering, no shame,
and no sin from which you cannot be redeemed. God’s love can reach
those depths. I think Paul wants us to comprehend
the unknowably large scope of God’s love. There are two kinds
of knowledge I think Paul has in mind, just looking at the
context of this passage. One is theological knowledge.
He just finished this treatise on all the indicatives, the truth
statements, the this is what we’re here for statements, theological
knowledge. the crisp black and white theory
of the Christian life, the way it works on paper, this paper. But there are supporting documents,
ones that are profoundly helpful, the creeds and doctrinal statements,
the systematic theology books. I like those. That’s why we treasure
those resources. It is an academic type of knowing,
but it is, first and foremost, this kind of knowing. The second
is knowing in practice, that is to go out and live in light
of Christ, live in light of this love and this knowledge and this
truth, to experience and step out in faith, to find that before
your foot even hits the ground, the foundation of Christ is there,
ready for you. I am here not arguing for charismatic
experiential knowledge of God, but rather saying that we must
live in light of this theory, this black and white foundation
stone of our world. And even when things are messy,
we have to know that this will serve as a deep root for all
that we do in life. I think to fully understand what
it means to know theologically and experientially, we can turn
to Lewis in Mere Christianity. Here he’s juxtaposing the Christian
life to visiting the beach. Any beach goers here? It’s pretty
good. We just got back from the sandy
beach. And it’s a very, so this was helpful to me. If you looked
at the Atlantic, or in our case, Lake McConaughey, so not really
quite as good as the Atlantic. I think it still works, though. You see and experience the ocean. Then he goes, this man Lewis
is talking about, and looks at a map of the Atlantic. So he
will also be turning from something that is real, tangible, the beach,
the ocean, the sand between his toes, to something less real,
a paper map. The map is admittedly only colored
paper. But there are two things you have to remember about it.
In the first place, it’s based upon what hundreds and thousands
of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. So it is a
real thing. And it’s more experience than
any one person could ever have. So Lewis says, in that way, it
has behind it the masses of experience just as real as the one you could
have from your visit to the beach. Only while yours was a single
glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together.
In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, a map is absolutely
necessary. As long as you are content with
walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than
looking at a map. But they are incomplete. So this
is our map. But we cannot just know this.
We have to live it. We have to let it dwell in us. Christ has to dwell in us. So
we can know the theory, but we have to have the experience as
well. Without knowing one perfectly,
without knowing either one perfectly, rather, a child can paddle around
in the ocean or Lake McConaughey. We can take a bottle of seawater
and sand home and still never exhaust the ocean’s depths. So
it is with the love of Christ. I think this is what it means
to know what is unknowable. We have the map, we have our little
image of the beach, but we have not yet exhausted our knowledge
of the ocean. We never will. So it is with Christ’s love.
You can know it truly without knowing it completely. This love
is not merely to be analyzed, quantified, or exhausted, but
rather to be realized in our lives. So this is what Paul is
asking for the Ephesians that in the dwelling of Christ, they
would know the full dimension of his love, both tangibly and
in reading and studying God’s word. So with this as his foundation
stone for his prayer, Paul concludes with doxology. I think this is
great because we have this weighty passage, and we have this magnificent
prayer for strength for the saints at Ephesus, all the saints at
Ephesus, the simple and the wise, that they would know this unknowable
love of God. And what does Paul do? He turns
to doxology. He praises God. It is the Christian
life to be doxological. is the crescendo of confident
celebration in God’s power and purpose, that rich inheritance
which Paul and all the Gentile saints at Ephesus and all the
church, even now today, are a part of. So God is able not merely
to meet our needs in this prayer. Oh, I should read it, I apologize.
Now to him, Paul says, 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. So here we see that
God is not able merely to meet our needs, the things we must
have, but exceed them beyond what we could ever imagine. And
yet Paul’s pointing back to our most profound need of all, to
be filled with Christ Jesus, to be indwelled by Christ Jesus.
He, Christ, is not distant, not disengaged, not uninterested. His power is at work within us. The very spirit that Paul prayed
would strengthen us is working in us. When we ask in accordance
with that power, And when Christ dwells in us, and we are rooted
in his love, our prayers be aligned with his purposes. They will
not fall short. As a result, such spirit-empowered,
Christ-indwelled living glorifies God. As all good Christian theology
is, this is ultimately about God’s glory. We are strengthened
for the work ahead. We are filled with the spirit.
We are founded on Christ Jesus, not for our own comforts, not
for our own amusements, but for God’s glory. And it is from that
glory that we derive our strength. So it begins with glory, and
it ends with glory. This is a firebrand of glory
that Paul is praying for. And so God will be glorified
in the church, in Christ Jesus, in Jesus’ work, in every generation,
Paul’s day, in our day, and all the generations to come, forever.
So this is the assurance, the frame for how we pray, how we
hope, and how we live. So before we move to our practical
implications, the way we apply this in our daily lives, let’s
summarize. Because of the great redemptive
work of God, uniting Jews and Gentiles, building the church
on the foundation stone of Christ, we have access to God. This access to God requires strength
to know. We have the love of God, but
we cannot know it without the strength of the spirit of God.
This spirit is drawn from the rich storehouse of God’s glory. This strength is for a purpose.
It’s not a strength that you get to use for whatever you want.
Like I said, carrying oxes up hills or singing good songs or
something. It’s a strength that you use
to know the love of God. And this strength has purpose,
that Christ would dwell in your hearts fully through faith, that
we would be rooted and grounded in love, and that we would have
the power to comprehend the unknowable dimension of Christ’s love. So this is the purpose that Paul
prays for the Ephesians, and I think for us as well. The result
of all this is that we are filled with the fullness of God. So
in short, God strengthens us by his spirit, so that Christ
may dwell in us, so that we may know his love, so that we may
be filled with his fullness. And all of that is from and for
the glory of God. That’s the one-sentence summary.
Maybe that was two sentences. I’ll let you decide. This prayer
builds from our identity and experience in Christ Jesus. So
what do we do? First, we must anchor our whole
identity on Christ and on Christ alone. All of the other parts
of our identity, our vocations, our interests, our internal thoughts,
must become subservient to the great and glorious name that
we have in God our Father. We need to pray, as Paul prayed,
for strength of the Spirit of God to indwell us with Christ,
that we would know his love. This isn’t a secondary goal of
the Christian life. It is central that we go before the Lord daily
asking for the strength. And this prayer leads to praise. The Christian life is doxological.
It is a delight in Christ Jesus. We must be fully and exclusively
indwelt by Christ. There is room for just one. Christ
does not share. He does not cohabitate with idols.
He will not tolerate your old self. You must put him to death. Put to death that old man and
let Christ reign, reign fully. Christ, the master of your soul. We are indwelt and strengthened.
And when we are, we delight fully in God. Whether we are in success and
ease or in suffering and pain, we will endure suffering with
peace, knowing that the strength of God is here to strengthen
us. That it is a gift. We don’t have to bear it up on
our own. He provides what we need. And we surrender joyfully,
even when obedience costs us dearly. We will advance the kingdom
through preaching the gospel in our homes, our workplaces,
and churches. For it is a Christ-centric life
that we lead. We will tear down the strongholds
of our enemy. through preaching truth in humility. And we will live boldly with
confidence in the promises of God. We love others deeply. And this will bring glory to
God in our generation, in the church, in this church, in Christ
Jesus, through all generations, the ones that proceed after us
forever and ever. To him be the glory. Amen. Let’s
pray. Father God, thank you for this
time consideration of your word. I ask that you would fill us
with the strength of your spirit for the work that you have for
us to accomplish. That work would be Christ-centric,
that everything we do in our jobs, in our homes, in our innermost
thoughts would be orbiting the central truths of the gospel
that we cling to. So I just ask that your people
would be filled with strength, that in their suffering they
would find solace in you and in your word and in their knowledge
of your love, that they would see clearly the dimensions of
your love for them and live in accordance with that love. We
know that you offer a firm foundation and a deep tap root for all of
our lives. So I ask that you would use this
time and all the times which follow as exercises in building
that foundation and strengthening the faith of your people. And
I ask that. If I have erred, that you would
call me to account and that we would be only dwelling on the
truth of your scripture and nothing else. As we lift these people
up to you, for they are yours and you love them. Amen.