Please read the passage carefully before reading the sermon!

Ephesians 3:14-22

• PRAYING FOR POWER AND KNOWLEDGE

  You can tell a lot about a Christian by listening to their prayers. Out of our mouths come the deep thoughts, anxieties and hopes of our hearts (see Mt 15:19). Our hearts are like springs that bubble up in our prayers.

  This prayer of Paul is one of the most sublime expressions of a Christian heart that you will ever hear this side of heaven; it is a beautiful revelation of a heart for Christ. It is also a fantastic pattern or model for our prayers but here I want to think about Paul’s sublime prayer.

• PAUL PRAYS FOR A REASON

  We have an unparalleled treasure in Christ; through him we are raised to life and incorporated into the church of God. Everything Paul has said so far is the reason for his prayer. The Christian heart cannot help but pray when we reflect on what God has done for us. Even if we don’t fully understand our salvation the new life of Christ in us instinctively reaches out to our heavenly father in prayer. A lack of this instinct must call our Christianity into question.

  For Paul prayer is an important business; he kneels to illustrate the seriousness of his intention. Our body posture may be very important in prayer.

  When we pray our confidence is based on the new relationship God has established; freedom and confidence are a hallmark of Christian prayer because God is the father of a new family. Read chapter 3: 12-13 again. Paul is motivated by the open-hearted welcome of his Father. And for him prayer is very much a family affair (see v 15) and is undertaken as part of our corporate responsibility. It is not primarily a private matter.

  Another foundation for confidence is the immense wealth of good will in our Father. He can and will answer (1Jo 5: 14) because of the relationship of love he has established.

• PRAYER FOR POWER

  Paul prays first of all for spiritual power; to strengthen us, power that equips us for Christ to dwell in us, a power in the deepest core of our lives. This is not about being strengthened to fight but to contain the life of God. It is power to stand; not a superficial or temporary experience but a lasting and persistent state. We need power so that we may be host to the living and eternal God; Christ in us. It takes a vast concrete and steel sarcophagus to contain the decaying atomic power of Chernobyl; how much to host the power of the presence of the living God?

  The purpose of power therefore is to create a holy of holies in which the glory of God can live.

  When Paul talks about Christ dwelling in us he means that we should be his permanent home and not just a temporary lodging.

  There is more than a hint of the need of group strength to contain this mighty blessing as Paul moves on to his next point

• PRAYER FOR KNOWLEDGE

  This next stage of attainment is only available corporately. Paul prays that we may know the essentially unknowable love of Christ in all its dimensions. This, he says, can be done if we are rooted in love and we are “together with all the saints.” No individual can do what Paul is about to mention, even strengthened by the power of God it is too big a thing to be done alone. We are faced with a gigantic challenge; to grasp (understand and appreciate) the full extent of the love of Jesus Christ, to know what is essentially unknowable, grasp the infinite. We will have to go back to the cross and look again at God bearing the full anger of God to understand the true dimensions of Christ’s love.

  To know is to be filled to the measure of God’s fullness. This is the exalted privilege of the children of God; to be filled with the eternal majesty and to live heavenly lives. We can be in the presence of God and reign with him. We aspire to nothing less than being filled to the fullness of God’s measure. That is pretty big!

  It’s too big a prayer and too big a stretch for any of us. But God can do more than we can think, imagine, conceive or ask him for.

  Once again it is the resurrection power of Christ that works this miracle. Once again God is glorified by his wonderful son and by the church he has graced into being.