Ephesians 317, that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may
be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and
length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge that you might be filled with all the fullness
of God Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above
all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in
us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout
all ages, world without end. Amen. We won't look at all this text
this morning, but just a verse or two. And in the text that
we look at, I wanted to read this prayer because Paul is asking
for some things from God. That's what we do. We come before
our God and we ask. That's what he taught us to do.
Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you'll find. Knock and
I'll open the door. That's a precious promise from
our Savior. And he also said through his
apostle James, the reason we don't have what we need is because
we don't ask him. And so in this text here, Paul is asking for
some things from God. And he's doing it from a certain
posture. And we touched on this some last time, but I want to
look at this again in a little different light. This is important.
There's more than one consideration with regard to this thing of
bowing. People consider this the correct posture for prayer. But they do so without really
realizing, I fear, what bowing is. Not just a posture. It is possible, in fact, I believe
it's, I fear that it's quite common, I'm sure that it is,
to take up this posture when praying. People say their prayers,
you know. They teach their children to
get down on their knees, say their prayers, without understanding
what it means to bow to God. It's not just about supplication. It's about submission. How many bow to ask for things
who have not bowed to God's sovereignty in salvation, for example? Very
few people, religious people, relatively speaking, bow to the
sovereignty of God in saving sinners. or even his sovereignty
in providence. They speak of the free will of
man and how God's done what he's going to do and now we're kind
of running things now, you know. God is sovereign in providence.
Not a paradise is ruled without him determining what comes up.
Not a heart turns a certain way without him. The heart of the
king is in his hand. And he said, I'll have mercy
on whom I will. I'll save who I want to save.
My hand is not hindered that I can't save who I want to save.
If I want to save you, I'll save you. If I want to throw you where
you belong, I'll do that. He said to Pharaoh, I raised
you up so that I might throw you in hell. Have you bowed the knees to God
and not the heart? So many, many do. And so when
you come to God in prayer, this posture, it's not just the way
to pray. It's a place to be before God
in the heart. You're not praying, if you're
not praying to the God that saves whom he will, who has mercy on
whom he will have mercy, and who doeth all things after the
counsel of his own will. Things that you like and things
that you don't like. If you're not praying to the
God who does all that he pleases, always what he pleases, whenever
he pleases, with whom he pleases, then you're not praying to God.
That's what we see in here. I'm bowing my knee to the Father
because He's God. Not because that's how you pray. God receiving the glory that
is his due. And us honoring him and worshiping
him in his lordship and his authority and his prerogative in all things
is directly related to our receiving what we need from him. That's to the ones to whom he
said, ask and I'll give it to you. Who? The ones who bow. Not just because they think you're
supposed to pray like that. but because he's God. In other words, if you can't
bow your heart before God and you can't without his mercy,
let's face it, he bowed Saul of Tarsus, we saw that before.
Saul is saying, I bow now. He wasn't always saying that. And the reason he's saying that
now is not because he made a decision for Jesus. It's because Christ
put him in the dust where he belonged, in spite of him. But if you can't bow your heart
before God, then bowing your knees is a farce. It's a joke. It's worse than that. Don't say and believe that God
is not sovereign and then ask Him to do what only a sovereign
God can do. How many people do that? I've
heard it now. People will preach that we're
the masters of our own destiny and then pray, Lord, direct my
steps. What are you talking about? People
will preach that God has done all He can do and now it's up
to us and then pray, Lord, save my children. What? I thought it was up to them.
People will preach that faith is our part in salvation and
then pray, Lord, give us faith. Somebody's confused and it's
not God. When you bow to pray, make sure
that you're really bowing. And I'm talking to myself too,
submitted. submitted to God. Paul said that
the problem with his fellow Jews, and they were very religious,
I bet there was a lot of knee-bowing among the Jewish people. But
he said their problem is they haven't bowed, they haven't submitted
to the truth that righteousness before God can only be had in
Christ. You see, when you bow before
God, that's bowing. You're not just taking up a prayerful
posture, it's acknowledging That God is my only hope in all things,
in salvation, in his providence, in every aspect of my life. I am needy and only he can provide
what I need. I need righteousness. Where are
you going to get that? Well, we're going about to establish
our own righteousness. You're not bowing. You haven't
bowed before God. Your knees may be bent, but you're
not bowing before God. That's Romans 10.3, by the way,
where I quoted from Paul's word about the Jews not submitting
to the righteousness of God in Christ. They go about to establish
their own righteousness. And then they bend their knees
and say, God do this and God do that. That's not bowing. The very act of physical bowing
can itself be a refusal to bow. You think about that for a second.
The very act of bowing my knees, that very act can be in itself
a refusal to bow to God. Think about that for a second.
It's not a riddle. It sounds like a riddle, doesn't
it? Well, it's a simple answer. I've seen pictures of men bowing,
haven't you? And people like to do that in
public. whether on the sideline of a football game or somewhere
else, are they bowing? You think about that because
God specifically said don't do that. He said when you pray,
don't pray to be seen of men. Don't do that. Go in your closet
to do that. So the act of bowing is a refusal to bow to his will.
Is that clear? I just want to define what bowing
is this morning, if we can, from God's Word. There's a reason
why people fell on their faces before the Lord Jesus Christ
when they came to Him. Oh, I think about that leper.
Worshipped Him. He fell on the ground and worshipped
Him. John on the Isle of Patmos, he said, I fell on my face as
a dead man. People came and they fell on
their faces before Him. Why? There's a reason for that.
And not just because they wanted something from Him and knew that
that was the right way to pray. It was and is when people do
that now. The reason is because He's God. That's why. It's real simple.
It's because of who He is. We bow not to get something,
but because of who He is. The outward posture is just an
expression of inward submission. You can bow without bowing. And you can certainly bow without
bowing. May the Lord teach us this and
cause us to truly bow before God. Submit to His righteousness,
to His will, to His way. I don't want a free will, do
you? If you do, you're in trouble.
Let me just make that real clear to you this morning. If you want
a free will, you don't have one whether you want one or not,
but if you want one, you've got a big problem before God. You need to bow to His will. Now, Paul asked for strength.
We saw this, we just touched on it last week, by the Holy
Spirit of God. Through the Spirit, he said,
strengthen us with might in the inner man by your Spirit. He
prayed for those who he was praying for, that they'd be strengthened
in the inner man. And this is not only a great
thing to pray for, but it shows that a work in us is necessary
If God's gonna do anything for us, we're always wanting God
to do something for us. Paul's saying, Lord, do something
in us. And I mean now, when I say before
he can do anything for us, I mean things for us that we ask for.
God did things for us before he ever did anything in us. But
I'm talking about things, if he's gonna give us our requests,
There's gonna have to be first a work in us and Paul recognizes
that here It ought to be our priority before we ask for things
for jobs for relationships and things However, honest and commendable
those things are we ought to make our requests known unto
God. That's good and right But remember these spiritual things
that Paul asked for a paramount If we cannot have Goods and grace
It's an easy choice, isn't it? May he make us realize how much
more important grace is than any good That the Lord could
give us in this world We spoke already of the strength for which
he asked Our enemies are strong, aren't they? We need to acknowledge
that now That's why we pray for strength Because we don't have
any And we need it. Our enemies are strong. Temptations
of the flesh are strong. The cares of this world, the
concerns of this world, the Lord said, they'll choke out the Word. They have the power to do that.
Now the Lord is all powerful. But that's why we pray for strength
from Him, because He's able to give it. Our enemies, Satan,
is strong. The power of this world now,
the influence of this world is strong. Is it not? If you don't
realize how easy it is to get caught up in it and you're just
not very perceptive when it comes to yourself, then me neither. It's easy to see in other people,
isn't it? Oh boy, they're getting a little too out there, you know.
Guess what? Every day we fight it. All of
us fight it. Our own evil nature is strong. Our Lord said the flesh is weak.
But another way to look at that is the weakness is strong. You know what I'm saying. The
flesh is weak and it's strong in its weakness. And so we pray, Lord, strengthen
us. And then look at our verse this morning, just for a little
while, verse 17. And that Christ may dwell in
your hearts by faith, And we'll really just focus on
that first part. Because this next part goes with
the next verse mostly. But we'll look at it a little
bit. Ye being rooted and grounded in love. Now this is related to give us
strength. This is related because it's
really just another way of saying it. If we have any strength,
it'll be Christ in us. Not us. Christ which strengtheneth
us. Do you remember those words?
They're in Galatians 2.20. Listen to it. I can do, well, it's not in,
this is not Galatians 2.20. I'm gonna read that to you in
a minute, but Paul said, I can do all things through Christ
which strengtheneth me. And so, he prayed for strength,
and then he says, that Christ would dwell in you. That's our
strength. Christ would strengtheneth me. And then listen to Galatians
2.20. Paul said, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I
live. I wasn't physically crucified
with Christ. I still live in this world. Yet, not I. Not the old me. Not the me that
you know and thought you knew. But Christ liveth in me. Anything
in me that can truly and genuinely be called life is Christ. Everything else is death. This
is the body of this death. But Christ lives in me. And the
life which I now live in the flesh, we're not talking about
the future, we're talking about right now in this flesh, I live
by the faithfulness of the Son of God. by the faith of, not
faith in the Son of God, the faith of the Son of God who loved
me and gave himself for me. Christ crucified is not just
a doctrine that I acknowledged and said yes to and now I'm saved
and now I'm going on. Christ crucified is my life.
You see that there? The life that I live in this
flesh, I live by him who loved me and by Christ crucified, him
who gave himself for me. He's my life now. And then those
key words in that passage of scripture right there, Christ,
heart, and faith. You think about those three words
for a minute. Christ, heart, and faith. And faithfulness the
faithfulness of Christ is referred to in Galatians 2 20 But in our
verse in chapter 3 of Ephesians in verse 17, it says that Christ
may dwell in your heart by faith By your faith in him Christ in
your heart by faith think about this faith in Christ The gift
of God The faith that he gave me in his son, I believe I By
His grace, I believe. And faith is more than just believing.
It is believing God. It's believing Him. It's trusting
His Word. It's acknowledging that He's
who He said He is. It's acknowledging that everything
He says is right and every man's a liar. But it's more than that.
That you're being rooted and grounded in love. See, that goes
with faith, too. True faith is falling in love
with the Master. They're never separate. Well,
I believe, but I don't, I'm so cold, my heart's so cold. Well,
yeah, we're full of unbelief and we're full of coldness and
all that, but the fruit of the Spirit is a fruit, not fruits. And faith and love are the fruit
of the Spirit. They don't come separately. Faith in Christ. Because of that
gift of faith, that Christ may dwell, live, abide, take up residence
in your heart by faith. What is he saying? Well, God
gave me faith in his son. It was his gift. Not of works
lest any man should boast. And because he did, since he
did, and by that precious gift, my heart is a home. for the Savior. He doesn't just have a place
in my heart now and then, you know, not just when I go to church.
He lives there. He lives there in my heart. Do you remember in Hebrews where
the new covenant is described? Let me try to make a comparison
here and illustrate this. And this may I hope it's clear,
I hope this is clear. In Hebrews, the new covenant
is described and it says, God said, it's my new covenant, I'm
gonna make a new covenant with you, my people, my elect, my
chosen, my sheep. And it's not gonna be like the
old one. The old covenant said this, do and live. It was a covenant
that was dependent upon us and it was based upon our perfect
obedience to the terms of that covenant, which is God's law.
this do and live. The do's and don'ts of the law.
You obey them and I'll bless you and I'll be your God and
you'll live. But the new covenant's not gonna
be like that one. And he talks about the, one of
the blessings of that covenant that he described is this. I
will write my laws in your mind and in your hearts. Now what
are we talking about? Christ dwelling in my heart. The law also lives in my heart. That's one of the blessings of
God's covenant. We know that in the old covenant, the law
was just written on tables of stone. They were a cold standard,
an inflexible standard that we were to measure up to if we're
going to receive the blessing of God. And we know that God
found fault with that covenant and that we were unable to keep
it. God wasn't surprised that we
weren't able to keep it. He didn't give the law so that
we would keep it and be safe. He gave it to drive us to Christ. Now this is one of the ways in
which that new covenant is not like the old. It was written
on tables of stone. The law was written on tables
of stone. Now he said, I'm going to write it in your heart. And
under the old covenant, the law was that cold and flexible standard,
and God's blessing depended upon perfect obedience to it. Under
the new covenant, the law of God is in our hearts, and we're
able to say with the apostle from Romans 7, though I still
can't obey it, I still, I don't do the things I would do and
the things I don't wanna do, that's what I do, but I love
the law of God. You know why he loved God's law?
Because God put it in his heart. So think about this. He said,
I want to keep it. I can't do the things that I
would do, but they are the things that I would do. I want to, don't you? I want
to worship him this morning. I don't want to just go to church.
I want to worship the master. He's so worthy. I see that. Why? Because it's in my heart. Another blessing of the covenant,
think about this now, is that God said, I won't remember your
sins and iniquities anymore. Your sins and iniquities, well,
I remember no more. And this is true, why? How can
God just forget my sins? Well, they're blotted out, they're
washed away. How? By the blood of his son, the
precious blood of Christ. Christ, by the way, who perfectly
kept God's law as our representative. also shed his precious blood
to wash our non-keeping of the law away. So in the new covenant,
Christ kept the law for us and makes us love the law of God
and want to keep it. And by faith we honor him in
our hearts. Does that make sense? We're talking
about God putting it in your heart. He didn't make me able
to keep His law. He kept it for me in His Son
and made me wish that I could be like Him. Don't you want to
be like Him? I want to be like Him. Why? Because
He put His law in my heart. Christ dwelling in your heart
by faith is kind of like that. The law being written on your
heart is not the same thing exactly, but it's like it in that the
difference is between letter and love. The difference between
the letter of the law and a love for the law is a big difference.
And I'll tell you this, the difference between acknowledging Christ
in the scriptures and agreeing with the doctrines of Christ
and saying yes and giving mental consent to some words, the difference
between that and loving the Lord Jesus Christ so that you got
to have him, so that you can't stay away from his house because
that's where he meets with us. That's where he speaks to us.
That's where he communes with us. That's where we hear of his
glory and blessing and love for us. I don't come just so I get
a gold star by my name. I come because I love him and
I've got to be with him for a while. In a way that I just can't be
anywhere else. There's a big difference. You see the difference?
We let her in love. That thing of God putting the
law in our hearts. Boy, what a difference. What
a difference. It's not like the old covenant.
Where, oh yeah, I agree. God's law is right and true and
boy, I'm gonna try my best to measure up to it. But oh, Paul
said, Something that no sinner can say by nature. I love God's
law. I wish to God I could keep it.
I wish I could honor Him in all that I do. I wish when I prayed
it wasn't so cold and dead, don't you? I wish my worship wasn't
full of so many distractions and such selfishness. I wish my service to Him, my
commitment to Him wasn't so lukewarm. So mixed with concerns of this
world. That's talking. You know what
that is? That's in the heart right there.
That's God putting it in your heart. That's not the flesh changing. That's God doing something. And
that's what this is like. Christ may dwell in your heart,
not just be somebody you talk about and somebody you agree
with and some doctrine. I believe in the doctrine of
the crucifixion and the resurrection. Martha, I am the resurrection.
That's the difference. That's the difference. Oh, may
God show us this. When Christ, when Christ dwells
in your heart by faith, you no longer just agree. with the gospel
but you love him who is the gospel. The gospel is not just a set
of doctrines to you anymore. The gospel is a person. The truth of God is not just
a set of facts anymore that you might even agree with, not just
doctrinal truth anymore now that you categorize and maybe even
defend. Now the truth is a person, the
gospel's a person, and the doctrine is not just words in a book,
but it's a person, and it's somebody you can't live without. You don't just believe in the
resurrection anymore, but you can say he is the resurrection
and the life, the life that I now live. I live by him who loved
me and gave himself for me. This is the distinction that
many remain unable to see, but it's life and death. And this happens how? By faith. Thank God for faith. Thank God
for this grace. God's grace upon us is experienced
by us through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what
Paul is praying for here now. that you might be strengthened.
And this is how we're strengthened. The more we hear of Him and know
Him and believe on Him and love Him and have communion with Him,
the more we abide in the vine, the more fruit we'll bear. He's not just praying now for
it to be true, it seems here, either. It either is or it isn't.
We either abide in Him or we don't. He either is our strength
or He's not, in a sense, a very true sense. But I believe He's
praying also here that it be more so. Don't you think so?
That it be more so. Lord, increase our faith. Christ,
either in your heart by faith or not, that there is an increasing
of faith that's greatly desirable. Lord increase our faith and as
faith increases our love for Christ increases. More and more he becomes our
all. We take his word over all others. We'll make everybody
else mad at us now if necessary just to please him. That's love now. That's him becoming
more and more our all in all. I don't want you mad at me, but
if... Do we please men or God? To have Christ dwell in your
hearts by faith is described in another way in John 6. This
is exactly the same thing. Look at John chapter 6 here. Verse 48. I'm going to read some of the context here, beginning
in chapter 48, so we understand the whole thought that our Lord
is teaching here. Verse 48, He said to the Jews,
I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness and they're dead. That manna was just physical
food for their physical bodies that the Lord provided for them
because it was necessary. But that's not life. What is
life, Lord? I am. I am that bread. They're dead, but this is that
bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof
and not die. That physical manner in the wilderness
was just a picture now. This is what our Lord said to
the Jews. You search the scriptures because you think you have life
in your knowledge of the scriptures, but they testify of me. I am
that bread. I am that bread. I am the living
bread, verse 51, which came down from heaven. If any man eat of
this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The
Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, how can this man give
us his flesh to eat? And then Jesus said unto them,
verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the
Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Who so eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last
day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him, that Christ may dwell
in your hearts. How? By us physically eating
his flesh, religion has concocted the most bizarre foolishness to account for this,
that some wafer turns into his body or something like that.
Christ dwells in your heart by faith. By faith. You eat his flesh and drink his
blood by faith. That's how that happens. He dwells
in you and you in Him by faith. I in Him, verse 57, as the living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth
me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna and are
dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever by faith
he is the very sustenance of our souls by faith by grace through
faith we can't live without him what is food what is to eat his
flesh and drink his blood there's a couple of considerations there
his flesh and blood why why is there a distinction there why
didn't he just say me well Paul said we preach Christ and Him
crucified. It's the person and the work,
the body, the incarnation of God in this world. God with us.
God sent His Son. God so loved the world that He
sent His Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish. And
the blood is His work. What did He do? He gave Himself
a ransom for many. He shed His precious blood to
wash our sins away. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree and suffered the penalty for our sins. And that's
pictured in his precious blood. So we eat his flesh and his blood
and we do it by faith. To eat is what? It's to live. We eat and drink to live. But
more than that, we can't live without him. He's the sustenance
of our soul as meat and drink is sustenance for the body. But he's also our pleasure. I
don't just eat to survive, do you? You could probably survive
on spam, but I don't eat spam. You could survive on it, but
I don't like it much. I like him. You see what I'm
talking about? I don't eat just to survive spiritually
either. I eat because there's just about
nothing in this world that I enjoy anymore. You think about that
for a second. You say, oh, well, I don't, I
don't, you know, I don't live to eat, I eat to live. You might
wanna think that over for a second. We work primarily to buy food. You think about it. Food is by
far my greatest expense. How about you? You think about
it. We go to buy it. We spend time
buying it. We pick it out. We store it. We have an entire room in our
house for the preparation of it and another one to eat it
in. We prepare it and carefully do
so and do some research probably in order to prepare it in a way
that will be pleasing to us. Much of our social life is based
around food. We think about food a lot. Food
comforts us, and pleases us, and sustains us, and gives us
strength, and we're able to do everything we do because of food. That's Christ in our hearts by
faith. We're comforted. We're sustained. We enjoy, take great pleasure
in Him. Really, everything we do, in a great sense, is because
of Him. That's just the truth of it. We're not bragging now, we're
just acknowledging what He's done. And our society, our social,
we're social creatures, aren't we? But our bond, the reason we come
together and have fellowship with one another, enjoy one another's
company, and what we talk about is what? Christ. Christ. That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith. And that has a lot to do with
love, doesn't it? And we'll talk about that, Lord
willing, next time. Let's pray together.