Filled with the Fullness of God

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Reference

Ephesians 3:14-21

Discussion Questions

1. Read Ephesians 3:14-21 together and take a moment to silently reflect. What about this prayer sticks out to you the most?

2. What is the difference between comprehending and knowing? How does the one lead to the other?

3. Why is it important to understand the character of God as Father in light of this prayer?

4. What often stops Christians (and you, specifically) from believing that God loves you right now?

5. What does it mean for "Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith?" How is this different from what happens at conversion?

6. How does the image of a tree and the image of a house's foundation help us understand the four directions (height, depth, breadth, length) of Christ's love?

7. What's one way you want to grow in your capacity to experience Christ's love?

Sermon

It is one thing comprehend something—to understand it intellectually. But it is another thing altogether to experience the reality of that thing. You can look online at a recipe for a Crème Brûlée, the classic french dessert of silky vanilla custard topped with that rich, brown caramelized sugar crust. You can read about the history of the dessert dating back to 1691, and appreciate all the various ingredients that make up the Crème Brûlée, and drool over the instagram-worthy pictures of the finished result, imagining that it is you sitting there in that cozy French cafe, holding your spoon, preparing to take the first delicious bite. It’s one thing to comprehend all that a Crème Brûlée is, but it’s another thing altogether to experience the reality of a Crème Brûlée and actually take a bite.

Or consider travel. When Melissa and I were engaged, we had dinner at a family friend’s home where we shared excitedly about the 7-day honeymoon trip we were planning to Costa Rica. After patiently listening to us gush about all the things we’d planned—the hiking, horseback riding, beaches, resorts, all of it—this friend said, “Why would you want to spend your money going somewhere like Costa Rica when you could just stay home and watch videos online? Or explore the country using Google Maps instead?” He was serious. Thankfully, much to Melissa’s relief, I chose not to follow his advice and we took the trip, and it was wonderful. It’s one thing to comprehend the existence of a beautiful country like Costa Rica, and even to appreciate it from a distance, but it’s another thing entirely to go there and experience it for yourself.

We live in a day of vicarious pleasures and experiences. We desperately want to renovate our home, but we bristle at the effort it would take, so we take pleasure in watching someone else do it on TV. We long to travel, but lack the time or money, so we watch travel vlogs on Youtube. We want to get in shape, but maybe lack the motivation, and so we get our fix by reading an inspirational book about how someone else transformed from a couch potato to long-distance runner. Or, this one blew my mind, recent reports are now showing that more people today would rather watch someone play a video game online then play themselves.

I wonder whether you would consider whether this vicarious, secondhand living that so many of us do through our entertainment has trickled down into the way we experience the love of Christ? Most of us can comprehend the love of Christ. We can read in passages like Matthew 9:36—the text Noah preached last week—of the compassion Jesus had for the crowds who were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. We can hear stories of how others were radically converted and transformed by the love of Christ. We can listen to meaty, theologically-dense sermons on the heinousness of sin, and the love of Jesus displayed in paying for those sins at calvary. Yes, we can comprehend the love of Christ displayed in scripture, and we can long for what we see of it in the lives of others, but it is another thing entirely to experience its reality for ourselves.

This morning we are going to look at a prayer that Paul prays for the Ephesian church—a prayer that I believe we as Quinault Baptist Church desperately need answered as well—a prayer that we would not only comprehend the love of Christ and see it from a distance, but experience it. That the love of Christ would not simply be a doctrine that we ascribe to, but an overwhelming reality that would flood our hearts with fresh affection for Jesus and love for one another. Oh how I desperately need this for myself! I don’t want to be an anemic Christian, subsisting off of the fumes of the others’ faith! I want to know—to experience—the love of Christ in a way that surpasses mere knowledge. How about you? If this is you, take heart.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

This might be my favorite prayer in all of the Bible. A prayer that God—by his power, in a way that only he can—would help us to comprehend and experience the love of Christ afresh in our hearts in a way that—amazingly, mysteriously—would cause us to be “filled with the fulness of God.” As we work through this magisterial prayer of Paul, I want us to notice:

The Person Behind the Prayer
The Power Behind the Person
The Purpose Behind the Power

1) The Person Behind the Prayer

Look with me at 3:14

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named…”

Now, before we answer the question of who the person is behind the prayer, we first need to answer a more immediate question in verse 14: when Paul says, “For this reason,” what is the reason? Here’s a free tip to grow as a Bible reader: When you’re reading the Bible and come across a phrase like, “for this reason,” or “therefore,” you should press pause, and look back at the previous section. And so, for us, we need to figure out what connection is Paul trying to make between this prayer and what he said before.

Paul opens chapter three by cluing us in to the “mystery of the gospel” that God entrusted to him to preach to all the world—a mystery that was hidden from all previous generations but has only now been revealed through Paul and the other apostles. How intriguing! How tantalizing! And what is this great mystery? Look at Ephesians 3:6:

“This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

I think we need to stop here and recognize that the revelation of this great mystery probably doesn’t strike us the same way it did Paul’s original audience. This idea that God would pour out his mercy not only on Jews, but non-Jews might not, at first blush, seem all that remarkable to us. Yet this says more about our modern, self-important conception of ourselves than it does about all that this mystery entails. To the Jews in Paul’s day, who had Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses as their forefathers, who were entrusted with the oracles of God—the children of the promise—it was totally astonishing that God might extend forgiveness of sins to Gentiles, those who previously were enemies and alienated from God. And not only extend forgiveness, but full adoption into the family of God along with the Jews! Some of the Jews, hearing Paul’s mystery, responded like Jonah did to the Ninevites, asking, “God, why did you show mercy to them?,” when they should have been like Paul, the self-professed “chief of sinners” and “least among all the saints” asking, “God why did you show mercy to me?”

I think that we, too, can learn something from this.

So, with this great mystery echoing in his mind and burning in his heart, Paul opens his prayer in Ephesians 3:14. Paul writes,

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named…”

Who is the Person behind the Prayer? Paul says, “I bow my knees before the Father.” Christian prayer is always directed to the person of God, and not an impersonal God, but a God that Paul addresses as Father. And how much beauty and warmth is wrapped up in such a simple word! Who is this Father God? Listen to how Paul has already described him in Ephesians. This is:

“The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 1:2)
The Father who, in love, predestined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:5)
The Father who, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2).

This is the Father God Paul prays to. A God so rich with mercy toward sinners like us. A God full to the brim with grace and kindness that he just can’t wait to lavish upon us in even greater fullness in the life to come.

And notice the posture Paul adopts as he begins his prayer—”I bow my knees before the Father.” This is a posture of submission. Paul’s deep understanding of the richness and kindness of God does not lead him to presume upon God’s grace, but to a place of deep humility. Just a few verses before in 3:8 as we referenced earlier, he says, “To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” The grace that the Father poured out on Paul didn’t lead him to pride, but caused him to see his own unworthiness all the more clearly, and to pray not on behalf of his own worthiness, but according to God’s abundant, undeserved mercy.

Just as a quick aside, when was the last time you prayed on you knees? Physically, on your knees? Don’t be so quick to say, “I can pray anywhere! While I’m driving to work, waiting in line at the grocery store, or doing the dishes.” Yes, of course! God can hear our prayers no matter where we are or what we’re doing. But consider this—we don’t pray on our knees to incline God to us, we pray on our knees to incline us to God. You were created as an embodied person—this is part of God’s good design! What you do with your body affects your soul, and what you do with your soul affects your body. When you kneel as you pray, and you put yourself in a physical posture of submission, you are shaping your soul. You are reminding yourself, like Paul, that you (and me) are the very least of all the saints, the one most unworthy of God’s kindness, the one least deserving of having your prayers answered. And yet, God invites you to call him Father. He delights to hear and answer your prayers. How stunning!

And he is the Father (verse 15) “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” The word “every” is probably better translated “whole”, as in, “the whole family (both Jews and Gentiles)— including those who have died and passed into heaven, those still alive, and those who will join this family in the ages to come”—this Father, who has welcomed in all who would trust in His Son, is the Person behind Paul’s prayer.

2) The Power Behind the Person

So, Paul prays, on bended knees, before the Father of the whole family of God—the God who is overflowing with mercy and grace for undeserving children like you and me—that he would open wide the heavenly storehouses and unleash all the firepower of heaven for one singular purpose. What is that purpose? We’ll spend time considering this purpose in our third point, but I want you to experience the full weight of what Paul is asking for in this prayer. Look with me again, 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 according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to…

What? To comprehend and to experience the love of Christ! When I began studying this passage earlier this week, I was totally dumbstruck by this; that Paul would pray down the infinite might of God to… help Christians know that Jesus loves them. We might read verses 14-17 and expect instead that Paul would say something more like,

“I pray that God, according to the riches of his glory, would strengthen you to… lay to waste the spiritual powers and principalities of darkness.” Or,
“I pray that God would empower you through the Spirit, and your grounding in your faith to… destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.”

And Paul does pray for these things elsewhere, but not here. No, here he prays for something that, to us, feels much more ordinary. And yet, this passage teaches us that it will take nothing less than a miraculous act of God to help ordinary Christians like you and me to truly know the love of Christ.

Let’s consider now the essence of this miraculous power that God the Father is working in us—what puzzle pieces that need to be in place to achieve this end. Let’s consider the two elements within The Power Behind the Prayer: 1) The Proportion of the Father’s Power and 2) The Working of the Father’s Power.

a. The Proportion of the Father’s Power

Look again at verse 16. Paul prays according to the riches of God’s glory. This isn’t the first time Paul has used this kind of language in Ephesians:

2:7 – “[He saved us] So that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
1:18 – “[I pray,] Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he [the Father] has called you, [and] what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.”
Or, consider this verse, right at the beginning of Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus: 1:7 – “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us.”

We have forgiveness of our sins, according to, what? A crumb of God’s grace? A moderate portion? Just enough to get by? No, we have redemption and forgiveness according to the riches of his grace. And how, according to this verse, did God dole out out this grace to sinners like us? He lavished it upon us. He is not a miser who throws out a few coins to the poor, waiting to see what they will do with this small gift before giving them more. He doesn’t give according to our worthiness, but according to the riches of his own glory. Praise God!

And Paul wants the Ephesian church to know, and us to know, that the same proportion of glory and grace that fueled God’s work in redemption is the same measure he now aims at this second miraculous work—enabling us to experience the love of Christ.

This is so important for us to draw attention to. Friends, it has been my experience that most Christians struggle less with believing God’s love for them in the gospel; but they struggle far more with believing God loves them right now. As we struggle with sin, doubts in our faith, and our own faithlessness—it can feel impossible to believe that God might still have love for us. Have you ever felt this? Are you feeling this even this morning? If so, I want you to see just how committed God is to you experiencing the tangible, right-here, right-now love of Christ. How committed is he? How big is Gods bank account of glory? Infinite! Unsearchable. Inexhaustible. It’s according to that measure—infinity—that God is ready to lavish his love upon you in Christ. He stands ready to answer Paul’s prayer according to the riches of his glory.

b. The Working of the Father’s Power

We’ve considered the proportion of the Father’s Power—how able and willing he is to answer Paul’s prayer; let’s consider now just how it is that that power is put to work. Look again at verses 16-17:

“…that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love…”

Paul prays first that God would strengthen us with power through his Spirit in our inner being.

This power to comprehend and experience the love of Christ is a work of the Holy Spirit. It’s a power totally outside of us; not something we can conjure up on our own. Can I ask, what typically happens in your life when you don’t feel the love of Christ very strongly? If you’re like me, you might be tempted to immediately jump to what you can do to change that. Maybe you put on your favorite worship playlist, or you go spend an afternoon by yourself on top of a mountain, or maybe (and rightly) you pick up your Bible. All of these things, as wonderful and as helpful as they are, are powerless to warm our cold hearts if the Spirit of God is not at work through them. We need, as Paul prays earlier in Ephesians 1, to have “the eyes of our hearts enlightened” (1:18).

We need the Holy Spirit to strengthen us in our inner being, or “inner man.” What does Paul mean by “inner man?” To answer that question, it might be helpful to ask what the opposite would be? If there’s an inner man, there must also be an outer man. When a person comes to faith in Jesus, they become a “new creation.” The “old creation,” or the flesh, which once held us captive to sin and disobedience is overthrown by a new and stronger ruler—the Spirit of God who makes his dwelling in the heart of every Christian.

And yet, though our old, sinful flesh has been dethroned, it has not been totally exterminated, at least not yet. As we live life on this side of heaven in the “already-but-not-yet” promises of God, our flesh—our outer man—still wages war against us to make us obey its passions. The faithful Christian life is not a life that is absent of sin, but it is a life where, empowered by the Holy Spirit inside of us, we kill our sin and become more and more refined into the image of Christ. Paul’s prayer is that this Spirit-empowered work of inner renovation would continue more and more so that…

v 17 …Christ may dwell in [our] hearts through faith.

At first blush, this seems totally perplexing. If Paul has already established that we have the Spirit present in our inner being, then why does he pray further that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith? Isn’t this the same thing? Isn’t this the one-time event that occurs at the moment of salvation?

I think the key here is to understand that Paul is not speaking of the reality of Christ dwelling in us—if you are in Christ, Christ is in you (John 14:23—”If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”). I think that Paul is instead speaking of our experience of Christ’s presence within us. If this is true, this would also help us make sense of those two words, “through faith.”

Imagine a home. Faith is the front door by which Jesus enters in. By faith, at the moment of salvation, we repent of our sins and place our trust in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus on our behalf. Jesus now dwells in our home. However, Jesus is not just content to be let into your home, standing in the foyer. He is not your houseguest, he is Lord of your life! He owns your house. And the Christian life is a life where, through faith, we continue to open up the rooms of our hearts to Jesus, even the dark and scary rooms that we would rather remain hidden from his view. We hand him the keys. But brothers and sisters, those of you who have been a Christian for any length of time, what have you found when you have opened up more of your heart to Jesus? When you have let the light of his glory pierce the darkness and sweep away the cobwebs? You have found his unconditional love! His great mercy and compassion in your weakness, his grace and his help.

John Calvin has this beautiful quote in his commentary on this phrase in verse 17, “by faith.” He says,

“By faith we not only acknowledge that Christ suffered and rose from the dead on our account, but, accepting the offers which he makes of himself, we possess and enjoy him as our Savior. This deserves our careful attention. Most people consider fellowship with Christ, and believing in Christ, to be the same thing; but the fellowship which we have with Christ is the consequence [or result] of faith. In a word, faith is not a distant view [a one-time event that occurred in the past], but a warm embrace, of Christ, by which he dwells in us, and we are filled with the Divine Spirit.”

As you open the home of your heart more and more to Jesus, and as you are met each time with more and more love, it creates a virtuous cycle. When you see how Jesus beautifies the home of your heart with his love, you want to open up more of your heart to him! You want the fingerprints of Jesus everywhere! Everything he touches becomes more and more lovely to you, because he is becoming more and more lovely to you.

And something else happens. As Jesus continues to expand his loving reach in the home of your heart, you will find that your capacity to experience and enjoy his love likewise expands. There is more room in your heart to, like Calvin said, “possess and enjoy him as your Savior.”

I think this also helps us to understand the second half of verse 17. Let’s look at it again:

“…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love…”

Being “rooted and grounded in love” is a consequence of Christ dwelling in our hearts. As Christ continues to make his home in our hearts, we become like a tree who, as his roots extend deeper and deeper into the earth, finds himself growing also in another direction—height. As we plant the roots of our life down deeper into Christ, our branches expand higher and higher into the sky.

And as we are grounded on the unmovable rock of Christ’s love—as we continue to find him to be a firm foundation for every step we take, the breadth and length of our life’s foundation expands.

What happens when a tree’s branches and leaves expand higher into the sky? There is more of the tree for the sun to shine upon! Its capacity to experience the sun’s warmth grows. And what happens when a house’s foundation grows in breadth and length? You can expand your home! Its capacity increases.

I think this is the essence of what Paul is asking God to do. He is asking God to prepare his people—to deepen our roots, heighten our branches, expand our foundation—to receive and enjoy more of the love of Christ than we ever have before.

Do you want this? Do you find, like me, that your heart so often grows cold to the love of Christ? Do you find yourself reading your Bible, or praying with your family, or even coming to church to listen to a sermon like this and just feel like none of it is penetrating your heart? Perhaps one answer, simply, is that your capacity to receive and experience Christ’s love needs to grow. To go back to our illustration of a home, what rooms in your heart still need to be opened to Jesus? Are there patterns of sin or idols of comfort that are closing off large areas of your home from the radiating warmth of Christ’s love? It can be terrifying to open those rooms—to submit every square foot of our heart to the Lordship of Jesus—but it is also the only path to truly experiencing his love. There is no other way.

And this is exactly why Paul fashions his prayer the way that he does. We need God the Father, according to the riches of his glory, to strengthen us with power through the Holy Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ would more powerfully and more fully dwell in our hearts through faith. Only God, with his immeasurable power through the working of the Spirit can strengthen us to exercise our faith so that more and more of our heart would be open to receive and enjoy the loving presence of Christ.

3. The Purpose Behind the Power (18-21)

We’ve finally arrived at the purpose of Paul’s prayer. What is the thing Paul is actually asking God to do now that all the groundwork has been laid and the hearts of God’s people are ready? He asks that we, together as a church, would comprehend and know the love of Christ so that we may be “filled with all the fullness of God.”

Comprehending and Experiencing

We return here again to this idea of comprehending versus experiencing. It is one thing to comprehend something—to grasp the concept intellectually—but it is another thing altogether to experience it’s reality. And yet, in Paul’s mind, there isn’t a false dichotomy between comprehending and experiencing—both are vital. In fact, the Bible tells us with certainty that there is no experiencing the love of Christ without first comprehending the love of Christ. The one naturally leads to the other. Remember that we are jumping in halfway into the letter of Ephesians—we’re in chapter 3 of 6. What Paul is doing in the prayer of Ephesians 3:14-21 is “praying down,” into our hearts, all the theology he has presented in the previous 3 chapters:

How God, from before the foundation of the world, chose to save us through the loving and willing sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
How Jesus’ shed blood and indwelling presence not only saves us from the condemnation of our sins, but seals us and keeps us until the day of his return.
How it is Jesus’ perfect work, and not ours, that guarantees our salvation.
And how the blood of Christ has not only reconciled us to God, but to one another.

Paul prays that we would be strengthened to comprehend the love of Christ. And we must! But he doesn’t stop praying there, because God doesn’t want us to stop there. You can intellectually grasp the love of Christ and yet not be a Christian. Even the demons believe, James says, “and shudder” (James 2:19). The comprehending must lead to knowing with a knowing that surpasses knowing. And how do you “get” that? You pray, like Paul does here! It is only an act of God, through his Spirit, strengthening you through faith, that comprehending the love of Christ can turn into experiencing the love Christ.

So, Paul prays that we together as the church would comprehend the love of Christ, and know the love of Christ with a knowledge the surpasses knowledge. And all of this comprehending and knowing culminates at the end of verse 19—that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

The final question we need to answer is this—what does it mean to be filled with the fullness of God? There are some in the prosperity gospel movement who have twisted this to mean that Christians can come to literally possess the divine attributes of God along with his authority over life and death. Others who hold to a new age mystic worldview believe that Ephesians 3:19 teaches that all people possess an “inner divinity” that can be awoken to help them achieve their god-like potential. This should go without saying, but both of those interpretations are demonic and wrong.

Instead, I think the answer is much simpler, and an answer that Paul has already clued us into earlier in his prayer. Look with me again at verse 18:

“[I pray that you] may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of the love of Christ].”

Consider these four directions—breadth, length, height, depth. Now, imagine with me again our illustration of the home of our hearts. What happens when more of Jesus and more of his love expands into our home? To the very widest and furthest corners? To the the highest ceilings and the deepest foundation? We become filled with him. Filled with the fullness of God. And what does that do to us as a person when we are filled with the fullness of Jesus? It causes us to see him and enjoy him more! He consumes our view and occupies our thoughts like nothing else! Why should you be consumed with earthly pursuits like wealth, social status, or career advancement when you can possess Christ in all his fullness! Why would you give into the fleeting pleasures of sin when you can be filled with the all-satisfying love of Christ, the lover of your soul!

And even more, how does being filled with Christ influence how you view and treat others? You no longer need to depend on your spouse or your friends to meet your needs and fill your cup because you already have everything that you need in Christ! You no longer need to be enslaved to the opinions of others, because you possess Christ and are secure in his love! You no longer wait for others to prove their worthiness of your service because you know how Christ serves you despite your own unworthiness. Brothers, sisters, all of this is yours in Him.

Calvin again, says so helpfully,

“Paul now expresses in one word what he meant by the various dimensions. He who has Christ has everything necessary for being made perfect in God; for this is the meaning of the phrase, the fullness of God.”

Oh how I long for this myself! How I long for this for every one of us here at Quinault Baptist Church! What could God do in our midst if he by the power of his Spirit, would strengthen us in our inner being so that Christ would dwell increasingly more and more in our hearts through faith, so that we would comprehend and know the height and depth and breadth and length of his love and be filled with all his fullness?

Oh friend, let this be the aim of your life! Do whatever it takes, give up whatever you must, in order that Christ would have access to more and more of your heart! Don’t be content with secondhand Christianity and half-hearted love. Commit to praying this for yourself every day. Commit to praying this for every other member of our church every day. That we, as beloved bride of Christ, might be filled more and more with his fullness.