Ephesians 4:14-21

Christ Dwelling in Your Hearts

The Scriptures give us much instruction on how we might call upon our Father in prayer, including that prayer taught to us by our Master Teacher, but one way we can improve our knowledge of how to call upon the Lord and the content of our prayers is to model our prayers after the prayers of the missionary to the Gentile people.  This morning as we listen in on Paul lifting his voice to heaven on our behalf we learn a great deal on how and what we should be praying for one another in the body of Christ.  As you listen in on Paul's prayer for you be sure to hear his theme of God acting on your behalf out of his fullness, abundance, and riches.  God is working for you from eternity to accomplish all that he has ordained for you in Christ out of the abundant riches of his grace and glory.

In v. 14 "for this reason" Paul picks up where he left off in v. 1.  Before Paul can begin his prayer, in vv. 2-13 he launched into a digression of sorts to enrich you to an even greater degree with the further knowledge of what God is doing on your behalf in Christ.  In those verses we were reminded that God's Spirit works through the church, particularly the means of grace, to bring us to spiritual maturity in Christ (3:10).  Paul's prayer is rooted in the ministry of the church and his intercession on your behalf flows out of the ministry of Word and sacraments.  In other words, Paul's prayer teaches us what is the goal of the ministry.  Because you have received such a glorious gift of salvation through the work of Christ, Paul prays that you would not only grow in your knowledge of this salvation (which was the primary focus of 1:15-23) but by knowing more of this great salvation that you would be strengthened by this hope so that you might now walk in the fullness of the light of Christ.  As we come to the conclusion of the first half of Paul's letter, he not only wonderfully summarizes the first half but he prepares us for the content of the second half of the letter.  This prayer acts as a bridge in the letter joining the theology of chaps. 1-3 with the practical living out of that theology in chaps. 4-6.

Though each of Paul's requests are intimately connected to one another, we can discern three things Paul prays for you:

1.  That you would be strengthened through God's Spirit through Christ dwelling in your hearts by faith (vv. 16-17a).

2.  Building upon the first request, that you would comprehend more fully the four dimensions of Christ's love for you (vv. 17b-19a).

3.  And then concluding, that you would be filled up with the fullness of God who is working on your behalf (19b).

And then Paul appropriately closes his prayer with a glorious note of praise to the God who has blessed us with every Spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (vv. 20-21).

Having now been further enriched and built up by Paul's reminder of how God has worked out our salvation for us in Christ and included us into the family of God, Paul begins his prayer by bowing his knees before the Father.  Notice how Paul displays his humility and dependence by paying homage to the King of the universe.  In great reverence and submission before the Father, Paul already bows a knee in this life which reminds us that there will come a day when all mankind will bow their knees at the name of Jesus and confess with their tongues that he is Lord, to the glory of God (cf. Phil. 2:10-11).  Also, notice how Paul views prayer:  he is bowing before the Father.  He is in the presence of the eternal King when he prays.  How is this?  Remember that Paul went to great lengths to remind us that God has united us to Christ so that his life has become our life and where he is, there our life is found.  Paul, by faith, realizes that when he prays he is there before the throne of God in heaven and he has complete access through the agency of the Spirit to God (cf. 2:18, 21-22; 3:11-12).  Paul has complete confidence that he has access to God because of the work of Christ.  When you pray, you are ushered immediately into the very presence of God that you might find help in time of need (Heb. 4:14-16). 

Paul further describes the object of his prayer as the one "whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name."  Again, Paul's language harkens back to 1:10 where God promised that he is summarizing all things in the heavens and on the earth into Christ Jesus.  In Acts 17 Paul speaks of God as forming and ordering the entire creation as a kind and loving father.  Surely sin destroyed the unity of this one family, which originates from the hand of Almighty God, but God is now working in Christ to make a new family from every tribe, tongue, and nation.  Paul presses the image on our minds that he is interceding on our behalf to the God who has created all things after his image and we can be assured and confident of having access to this one who has supreme power and authority to speak this creation into existence.

Paul's first petition is rooted in God's riches of his glory.  Here Paul reminds us of what he has already prayed on our behalf in 1:18 that "the eyes of our heart may be enlightened . . . riches of the glory."  God is not simply working for you in a way that correspond to his glory, but he lavishes that glory upon you (cf. 1:7, 18; 2:4, 7; 3:8).  God gives to you as only he can give and his gift corresponds to his limitless wealth of glory.  Paul said to the Philippians, "And my God will fully meet every need of yours in accordance with his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:19).  In chap. 1, Paul prayed that you would know the surpassing greatness of God's power that is at work in you.  That power is the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.  Paul has already spoken of God in his powerful work of creation.  In v. 20 Paul will praise God who works according to this power within us.  There, Paul prayed that we would "know" that power that is able to raise the dead.  Now, he prays that we would be strengthened by the knowledge of that power, which brings all things into existence and is able to bring life out death. 

In particular, Paul prays that you would be strengthened in the inner man.  Paul uses this phrase "inner man" in other letters to speak of the interior of our being, the seat of our personal consciousness.  We are more than just our bodies.  We have a soul, what the biblical writers usually refer to as our hearts, where God begins his work of renewal in Christ by regenerating us by the Spirit who unites us to Christ through faith (cf. 2 Cor. 4:16).  Paul's hope is that just as we are being renewed in our inner being now, from one level of glory to another, that in the resurrection our bodies will join in that renewal and we will be fully and completely raised up in Christ.  But Paul's prayer is that what will take place in the bodily resurrection on the last day, will begin now in our inner being.     

This prayer grows out of Paul's preaching of the gospel (3:1-13) that through the preaching of free grace in Christ that the Father would grant you to be strengthened with that (creation/resurrection) power through the Spirit in the inner man.  Paul explains how we are strengthened by the power in the inner man:  it is through the Spirit who brings about our union with Jesus Christ who dwells (or tabernacles) in our hearts through faith.  Paul uses a very particular word for "dwells" for a permanent dwelling, rather than a temporary one.  The goal of the ministry is that you would be strengthened in your inner being, which is another way of saying that you would come to spiritual maturity, through faith in Christ.  Paul will speak of the means that Christ has given to the church for this spiritual maturity in 4:11-16 as the ministry of Word and sacraments.  Through that visible, tangible means of grace we are assured that God is strengthening and building us up in Christ through faith so that we might grow and become mature in Christ.

The second petition that Paul offers up to God for you is that you may comprehend the fullness of Christ's love for you (17b-19a).  Paul begins this petition with agricultural and architectural metaphors.  Your new life in Christ is "rooted" and "established" in the love of God who has brought about your salvation in Christ (cf. 1:4-5; 2:4).  God's love for you is the source of your salvation (cf. Rom. 5:5, 8; 8:35-39).  Being rooted and grounded in this love, Paul prays that you will comprehend with all the saints what are the breadth, length, height and depth of Christ's love for you, which surpasses all knowledge.  It is clear that Paul is referring to Christ's love for us, and not our love for Christ, because only his love "surpasses knowledge."  We love him only because he first loved us (1 John 4:10).  Paul wants you to comprehend, to understand the fullness (the four dimensions; cf. Rom. 8:35-39), the magnitude of Christ's love for you which accomplished your salvation.  You have been rooted and grounded in this love beforehand so that you are now empowered to grasp the vast dimensions of that love.

But how can Paul pray that we would know what "surpasses knowledge"?  Is Paul contradicting himself?  No, all he means is that Christ's love for you is so encompassing, it is so unfathomable, it is so remarkable that no one will ever be able to plumb the depths or comprehend the magnitude of his love for you.  No matter how much you know the Christ's love or how fully you enter into that love there will always be an eternity set before you to know and experience more of that limitless love.  We cannot grow spiritually unless God empowers us to grasp the limitless and abounding dimensions of the love of Christ.

This leads Paul to the final petition of his prayer which really summarizes everything under the "fullness" of God.  What more could Paul pray for?  He could have prayed that you would be filled with the wisdom of God, or the power of God, or the love of God, etc.  But Paul prays that God would fill you with all he is in the fullness of his perfection.  In Col. 1:19; 2:9-10 Paul makes it clear that the fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ in bodily form.  Therefore, Paul is ultimately praying that you would be filled with the fullness of Jesus Christ, that you would be fully conformed into the full maturity of Christ.

Finally, notice that even in the doxology that closes the prayer that Paul has you in mind.  He wants you to be assured that what he is praying for you God is able to bring it to pass.  First, in v. 21 he sees you in complete union with Jesus Christ that he links the church and Christ together as the very realm where God's glory shines.  It is in your union with Christ that Paul praises God who is able to not only do abundantly, but far more abundantly and even beyond what we could think or even ask.  Some may wonder if God's power to accomplish your salvation is in any way limited.  Someone may suggest that it is not that God's power is limited, but that God limits his own power to our measure of faith, whether or not we are willing to receive it.  But Paul has already gone to great lengths to remind us that even our faith is God's gift to us.  There is no limit whatsoever to what God can and is doing for you.  He is working all things, including your new life in Christ according to his limitless power so that you might not lose heart, but that you would be strengthened in Christ dwelling in you through faith.

Amen!

-SDG-