Tag: prayer

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Bible Study Theology

Ephesians 3:14-21 Rooted and grounded in love

This is the third day of looking at Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian believers…

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 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, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

As I continue in this study, it is going to become more and more necessary that you read the preceding posts to follow what I am saying, but since I have no way of knowing whether you will actually do that, let me try to summarize what I have said thus far.

1)  The end result of the progression that the prayer walks through is our being “filled with all the fullness of God” (v. 19)  God is in a process of forming in us his very image.  Someday, when his work is complete, we will bear his moral likeness.

2)  The first step necessary to take us to that destination is an experience of the manifest presence of Jesus in our lives through the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Through the Holy Spirit we can be with Jesus!

Now, let’s pick up at the end of verse 17.  Here we have another participial clause that serves as a link between Paul’s petition in vs. 16-17a and the next petition in v. 18.  When we experience Jesus’ presence in our lives through the indwelling Holy Spirit, the result is that we are “rooted and grounded in love” Once we have been rooted and grounded, we can then begin a process of going deeper and deeper in our experience of the love of God until we are “filled up to all the fullness of God.”

What does it mean to be “rooted and grounded in love”?

Paul brings in the concept of Christ’s love almost as an aside, but it quickly becomes the centerpiece of his prayer.  Notice how he moves from the idea of “Christ dwelling in our hearts” to the state of “being rooted and grounded in love.”  Is there a connection here?

It is almost as if Paul assumes that it is obvious that the experience we have of Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit is an experience of his love.

Going back to my illustration yesterday of the child being adopted, you can see this more clearly.  When I, in Los Angeles, adopt the child in New York, that child knows he is loved.  Why else would I adopt him and promise him that we will live together and that I will provide for his every need?  He can know, to a certain extent, that I love him.  But when I actually arrive in New York and see him for the first time and take him in my arms and give him a great big Daddy bear-hug and tell him that I will always be with him, that is an experience of my love for him that he will never forget–the beginning of many happy years together, even though we most certainly will face difficult times in our relationship.

It is one thing to hear that Jesus loves you.  It is quite another thing to experience that love first-hand!  This is what Paul desires for his brothers and sisters in Ephesus–an experience of God’s love through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

I’m convinced that this is the need of many believers as well.  They have never been rooted and grounded in the Father’s love for them.  They know it intellectually, but their experience of that love is limited to just seeing his love displayed in circumstances or in the “common grace” ways that all mankind is loved by God.  The love that Paul is asking for here is of a different sort.  To say that we know God loves us because he feeds us and clothes us would be like the adopting father in my illustration above sending checks to the adopted son in New York.  Sure, it is a way of showing love, but it is not a relationship.

In Romans 5:5 Paul says,

“…and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Through the Holy Spirit we experience firsthand the love of God in our hearts.  I find it hard to put this into words because it is like trying to express the love that we experience in any relationship.  When I tell you that I love my wife, I certainly mean that I feel love for her, but it is so much more than that. In the same way, through the Holy Spirit we know not just in our heads but with our hearts that God is with us and that he loves us.  This is what it means to be “rooted and grounded in love.”

I’ll never forget something I heard Pastor John Piper say about Romans 5:5.  He said (this is not a direct quote) if you wonder if you have really experienced the love of God being poured out within your heart by the Holy Spirit, then ask God to do it to you!  Say, “Lord, do Romans 5:5 to me!”  You need to know by experience that God loves you.  You need to be convinced of it.  When you know by experience that God loves you you are rooted and grounded in his love.

“Rooted and grounded in love” is a mixed metaphor.  Paul mixes an agricultural metaphor with a construction metaphor.   When you are certain of God’s love for you then you are “rooted” like a plant.  You can begin to grow and flourish and bear fruit.  When you are certain of God’s love for you, it is like the foundation of a building.  The word translated “grounded” is used for the foundation of a house.  You are “established” on the foundation of God’s love and the building can then be constructed.

But how do we avoid a frantic, subjective search of our own hearts to see if we really are “rooted and grounded” in God’s love for us?  We all know how fickle our hearts are.  No matter what experience of Christ’s love we have experienced in the past, the moments will come when we doubt everything and are tempted to despair that he has ever really loved us or that he will continue to love us, especially when we’ve really blown it!  Perhaps even as you are reading this, you are thinking… “Have I really experienced this?  Can I be sure that Jesus loves me?

This is why Paul is praying! He knows that the knowledge and experience of God’s love for us is the only way we will ever reach the goal of being “filled up with all the fullness of God.” So we need the constant strengthening of the Holy Spirit, who reveals the presence and love of Jesus to us.  Without this “root”–this “foundation” of God’s love, we will never be filled with the fullness of God.

I’m not sure exegetically how closely we can tie the “strengthening with power through his Spirit” of v. 16 with the “through faith” of v. 17, but we desparately need to be strengthened in our faith by the Holy Spirit if we are going to be assured of Christ’s love for us when doubts assail us.  We can’t forget that it is “by faith” that Christ dwells in our hearts.  When our faith is weak, we must cry out for the strengthening of the Spirit to believe the message of the gospel that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

More tomorrow!

Categories
Bible Study Theology

Ephesians 3:14-21 Paul’s astounding prayer

Throughout the years, I have often prayed with great longing the same prayer that Paul prays in Ephesians 3:14-21 for the Ephesian believers.  It truly ranks as one of the greatest prayers ever prayed, and if God were to do in us what Paul asks him to, we would be forever changed.  Do you believe that God wants to answer Paul’s prayer for you?  Trust him to do it!  Not just in you, but in your spiritual family as well!

In the next several posts, I want to explore this prayer with you. I will not treat all of the exegetical questions that this passage presents (along with the scores of additional beautiful insights that a fuller study brings), but will try to give you a brief summary of what I think Paul is asking God to do for his beloved brethren at Ephesus, and by extension, for us as well.  My prayer is that God will use this to bring you to a deeper experience of his love for you and to a deepening maturity in your walk with him.

Here is the prayer…

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 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, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

It might be helpful to look first at where Paul is heading in this prayer and then see how he gets there.  In this first post, we will look only at Paul’s “destination”, then in future posts, I will take up the steps that get us there.

Look forward to the end of verse 19 and you can see what the end result of Paul’s petition is:  that we as believers might be “filled with all the fulness of God.” The “fulness of God” refers to the very nature of God that is imparted to us by the Holy Spirit.  The new life that God has implanted in us as regenerated sinners is nothing less than the very divine life that is in Jesus himself (see John 5:26).  Jesus doesn’t just give us part of himself.  He gives us his whole self.  He gives us his fullness, Paul says.

When the Holy Spirit indwells us at our conversion, we become united with Jesus.  Remember what Paul says of Jesus in Colossians 1:19  “…in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (cf. Col. 2:9).  Because we have Jesus as the source of our life — and because the fullness of God dwells in Jesus — through our relationship with Christ, it is possible for us to be filled up with all the fullness of God!

This doesn’t happen all-at-once in our experience, however.  As we mature in Christ, we begin to “partake” more and more of this glorious inheritance of God’s fullness that we have been given in Christ.  That is why Paul is praying this prayer.  He wants the Ephesians to experience this fullness that is already theirs by virtue of what Jesus has done for them in saving them.

That is also why the apostle Peter says in 2 Peter 1:4, “…(God) has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature…” Note that Peter doesn’t say we “have become partakers,” but that we “may become.” We are already united with Christ so that all that he has is ours, but we are also progressively receiving from him more and more of his nature so that we become more and more like him in our experience.

I believe that one of the marks of a genuine Christian is a desire to be like Jesus.  Praise God for a verse like Ephesians 3:19 which gives us hope that we can indeed achieve that by the grace of God.  Praise God for his “great and precious promises” that fill us with hope that we can partake more and more of God’s own moral excellence.  It is possible to be filled with all the fullness of God. Believe that!  God wants you to experience this and that someday you will.  Keep reading in future posts to discover from Paul’s prayer how we can be “filled with all the fullness of God.”

Categories
Ministry Sermons

The Ministry of the Isaiah Watchman

Yesterday, I talked about the difference between the Ezekiel watchman who has a ministry of proclamation, and the Isaiah watchman who has a ministry of prayer.  The Ezekiel watchman is probably the better known of the two, but consider what Isaiah 62:6-7 tells us about the important ministry of the Isaiah watchman.  In this post, I’ll point out three important aspects of the Isaiah watchman’s ministry:

6 On your walls, O Jerusalem,
I have set watchmen;
all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent.
You who put the Lord in remembrance,
take no rest,
7 and give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it a praise in the earth.

1.  The watchman reminds God of his eternal purpose.

“You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give HIM no rest UNTIL he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.”

God is saying this:  “I have chosen watchmen who are going to tirelessly ask me to do what I have already determined and promised that I am going to do!  If you read the rest of Isaiah 62, you will hear God declaring all of the wonderful things that he is going to do for Jerusalem.  And then God says, “these watchmen are going to REMIND me of all these promises I have made.”  Think about what this verse implies about prayer. 

Prayer is putting God in remembrance!  Prayer is NOT convincing God to do something that he does not want to do,  or that up until the time you asked, he hadn’t considered doing.  Prayer is not giving God advice about what he should do.  Prayer is not adding some ethereal power of “faith” to God’s power to accomplish something.  

Prayer is an assignment, given to us by God, to faithfully remind him of what he has already revealed to us that He is going to do.  

Now do you think we REMIND God of these things, or “put the Lord in remembrance” as it says here because he has FORGOTTEN?  Or because he is so busy with all that he has going on in the world that he needs us to act as his secretary reminding him of his commitments?  Of course not!  

The fact is, God could do what he has decided to do without us ever praying at all!  Prayer is one of the great mysteries of the Bible, and part of this mystery is that God uses our prayers to accomplish his eternal purposes.  

Now some people see in that an excuse not to pray.  “Well, if God already knows what he is going to do, and has already determined to do it, then what is the point of me asking him for it!?  That sure seems like a waste of time.”

And I think THAT objection is a good place to bring in the second aspect of what it means to be an Isaiah watchman.

2.  The watchman (as he prays) expresses his desire to see God’s purpose fulfilled.  

Those who use this excuse (God’s gonna do what he’s decided to do, so there’s no point getting involved through prayer) betray that they don’t have a heart for lost people.  When God reveals to us that he wants us to pray for the lost, and we do not do that, we are saying that the lost do not matter to us.  Dare I say that using this excuse to not pray for lost people may even betray that the person with this attitude has no relationship with the Son of Man who CAME to seek and to save the lost?

The Isaiah watchman doesn’t pray for God’s purposes to be fulfilled because he’s obligated to, but because he has been chosen by God for such a glorious task

One of the great reformers (Calvin) said that prayer is digging up the treasures that God has already prepared for us.

I would add, NOT PRAYING shows that we don’t value what God values.  We don’t treasure what he has revealed to us that he is going to do.  And if we truly treasure gold or silver, we are willing to toil in our digging to get to it, and when we truly value what God values, we will toil in our prayers until we see his purposes accomplished.

The text says that these watchmen “shall never be silent”  and they “take no rest”.  Do you see in these phrases the revelation of what is in the watchman’s heart?   It is an ever-present desire that God’s eternal purposes would be accomplished.  And that heart attitude that is always present frequently erupts into a verbal expression of longing for God’s will to be done.  And that’s prayer!

So the Isaiah watchman is reminding God of his eternal purposes because he longs to see those purposes worked out.  But there is still one more aspect of this watchman’s ministry to point out.

3.  The watchman prays for the establishing of Jerusalem.  

In the Bible Jerusalem represents the meeting place between God and his people.  We know that as holy history has unfolded, that place is no longer a geographical location in the Middle East.  Jesus said in Matthew 18:20  “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”  The CHURCH, not the cathedral, or the sanctuary, but THE CHURCH, the Body of Christ, made up of Jews and Gentiles, Male and Female, Slave and Free… this is where God meets with his people.  So the establishing of Jerusalem is the establishing of Christ’s Church!  

That is what these watchmen are commissioned by God to pray for.  That is what they are to remind God of constantly:  that he has sovereignly determined to build his church!    

How I desire for God’s people to see that prayer for missions is so much more than just praying for the messengers.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with praying for missionaries.  Paul asked the churches to pray for him.  But in your prayers for missions, don’t forget to pray for those lost people that Jesus desires to bring into His Church!

And as you pray for the lost millions of whatever people God has called you to be an Isaiah watchman for, here is what is so wonderful:  GOD is the one who commissioned you to pray for them!  And he is asking you to remind him of what he has already determined to do!  And he WILL find those lost people whom he has chosen, and for whom you are praying.  

In Matthew 18, vs. 12-14, we read this…

What do you think?  If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?  And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.  So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that ONE of these little ones should perish.

Do you see what this parable is teaching in Matthew?  The man is not going to rest until all the sheep are saved.  Jesus compares this shepherd to his Father.  He says, “It is not his will that one… should perish.”  The Father is not going to leave a single sheep behind!  He is going to “establish Jerusalem.”  He already knows those who are His among the people here where I am living, and HE WILL save them.  Speaking of his followers, Jesus said in John 6:37…

“All that the Father gives me will come to me.”    In verse 39 he said, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose NOTHING of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”

In John 10:16 Jesus said,

“And I have other sheep that are not of this fold.  I MUST bring them also…. and then in verses 27-29  “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

Jesus has sheep right here in… (where I live)… that the Father has given to him!  Right now, they are lost, but they WILL BE FOUND.  As the Good Shepherd, he has committed himself to that, and he wants us to remind him of it!

As an Ezekiel watchmen preparing to labor among this unreached people, that encourages me!  And it should encourage you whom God is calling to be an Isaiah watchman for this people group.