Experiencing the Depth of God’s Love (2)

(God’s Magnificent Work Through Christ)

Ephesians 3:14-21

-Paul is a Prisoner of Christ

-The Mystery Revealed to Paul

-This mystery now revealed to the Gentiles.

“Servant of the Gospel” declaring the Good News to all nations.

What I love in Paul’s attitude is that he does not draw people to himself, but his focus is on Christ and on the Good News of the Gospel to everyone.

Toscanini was great orchestral conductor. On one occasion when he was conducting one of the Beethoven’s symphonies, he said to the orchestra, “Gentlemen, I am nothing; you are nothing; Beethoven is everything.”

-The ATTITUDE of PRAYER: Paul in total SUBMISSION to God

“For this reason I kneel before the Father…” (vs. 14)

“For this reason…” What is the reason that Paul is praying?

Again he is reminding us of everything t God offered and the response of the people- cause and effect. God has a wonderful plan for humanity. God revealed his plan to Paul, and he revealed it to all nations. Now the church has the responsibility to carry on this plan. Paul is praying that the church understands this fact and becomes ONE Church, united in Christ.

“I kneel before the Father…”

To come on one’s knees and bend is to show total submission to God. Lately I have been studying 1 Samuel in the Hebrew language. I realized that God often spoke to Samuel when was lying down, in total surrender.

Also our College and Career, and the Faithbuilders are studying the prayers of Jesus. We find that praying is very essential in our life; it is absolute surrender. Unfortunately often we do not take it seriously.

- The content of Paul’s prayer

1. Christ takes permanent residence in them

“Pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” (vs. 16-17)

The apostle is interested that the inner man of each person will be empowered by God’s full power through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit does miracles in our lives. Paul experienced that starting from the road to Damascus and he wants the new established churches to learn to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Barclay describes three areas of the inner man:

a- There is a person’s REASON. Paul is praying that God will strength his friends’ reason so they can discern between what is right and what is wrong.

When I look at the world and to the leaders of the world, I wonder what happened to REASON.

b- There is the CONSCIENCE. Our conscience should be more sensitive towards God. We can close the door of our conscience. That is very dangerous. We do not hear each other or God. The door is closed.

c- There is the WILL. We can have reason, and conscience, but if we do not have the will to implement, to execute, what can we do? If we do not have a strong will, we can collapse every time a new problem arises.

In one word allow God’s Spirit to dwell in you permanently. The word Paul uses for “dwell” is katoikeo. It means permanently dwell, not from season to season, or from crisis to crisis.

(Illustration) There is a story attributed to Cherokee wisdom:

One evening a grandfather was teaching his young grandson about the internal battle that each person faces.

"There are two wolves struggling inside each of us," the old man said.

"One wolf is vengefulness, anger, resentment, self-pity, fear...

"The other wolf is compassion, faithfulness, hope, truth, love..."

The grandson sat, thinking, then asked: "Which wolf wins, Grandfather?"

His grandfather replied, "The one you feed."

-What do we feed our inner man?

-Does Jesus PERMANANTLY dwell in us?

2. Paul also prayed for Experiencing God’s love in Depth through Christ

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (vs. 17-19)

Here we come to the climax of today’s passage. Paul wants to experience God’s Love in Christ, in all dimensions, length, height and depth. Three dimensions of God’s love.

We find the same picture in Ezekiel 40. God gave new measurement for a new temple and new city. God gave then man a measuring rod, measuring width, length and depth.

We are the new temple. We are the new living stones as Apostle Peter said:

“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.” (1 peter 2:5)

When Nanor was a child, I used to ask her, “How much do you love me?” She used to say, “As big as the sky” and she would open her arms as wide as she could.

How long is God’s love? God did everything to rescue the sinner. He sends His Son for this reason.

How deep is God’s love? Jesus went all the way to depths of hell to rescue sinners.

How high is God’s love? His love lifts us up all the way to heaven.

Examine God’s love, and find how deep God’s commitment to us is. Words are indescribable. We are the new temple of God. This new temple is built with living stones and not dead stones.

3. Glory to God (20-21)

Paul ends this part, in fact the first part of Ephesians, by another doxology. All Glory goes to God that His glory will be revealed from generation to generation all the way to Christ’s second coming.

-How do we end this sermon ?

-What does God’s love do to us?

Paul was not prisoner of Rome. He was liberated from that by God’s love. Paul was a prisoner of Christ.

I want to illustrate God’s love by showing a short video I recently received from France. It is a video called “Hrant Dink- Mercy and Truth have met together.” (Let us watch the DVD).

We are seeing Hrant Dink’s wife Rakel Dink, saying her final farewell to her murdered husband. She is talking in Turkish and thousands of people are listening. The Turkish media is there. She says goodbye to her husband by quoting scripture. She quotes from the Gospel of John 15:13 where Jesus says: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Can you see the impact of this testimony, instead of hate? She talks about the Love of God. She says she can do this because of Christ’s love in her hear and Hrant’s heart.

I would like to end with a quote from the NIV commentary about Paul’s life in paradox.

“In connection with this passage Barth describes Christian living as a paradoxical existence. Paul was a prisoner, but was seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. He was less than the least, but a recipient of revelation. He found glory in suffering and knew both the now and the not yet. He emphasized both new creation and the eternal purpose of God who created all things. He knew what it meant to lose life in order to find it. The Christian life is a life of tension — creative, peaceful tension— and of balance and depth.” (NIV Ephesians p 175)

May we experience the DEPTH of the LOVE of God. Only through Christ we can experience it. May we allow the Holy Spirit to dwell permanently in our lives.

Amen