Let us read together from God's
holy word from the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians in chapter
3 Ephesians chapter 3 Ephesians chapter 3 For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner
of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation
of the grace of God which is given me to you, Wart, how that
by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore
in few words, whereby when ye read ye may understand my knowledge
in the mystery of Christ which in other ages was not made known
unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles
and prophets by the Spirit that the Gentiles should be fellow
heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ
by the gospel. Whereof I was made a minister
according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by
the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than
the least of all saints, is this grace given that I should preach
among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make
all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the
beginning of the world have been hid in God who created all things
by Jesus Christ to the intent that now unto the principalities
and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church
the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal purpose which
he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness
and access with confidence by the faith of him. Wherefore I
desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is
your glory. now we have a prayer of the Apostle
for the Ephesians for this cause I bow my knees unto the father
of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and
earth is named that he would grant you according to the riches
of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the
inner man, 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
ye 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. As we have gathered this evening
for prayer, I feel that it would be good
for us to consider this prayer that we have read, which was
prayed by the Apostle Paul for the Ephesian church and he said
to comprehend with all saints so it's clear that he is speaking
to not just one unique individual but the whole church and since
scripture is given down the ages for the church of God it is to
the believers today that Paul is praying this prayer And as
we meet for prayer, what are we to pray for? What are our
desires? What are we really seeking after? Well, may we compare our thoughts
and our prayers with this prayer that Paul prays for the Ephesians. And may we be found praying this
prayer for ourselves, for our loved ones, for our congregation,
for the churches, that there may be this blessing. Paul, we believe, was writing
this epistle to the Ephesians from prison. He was not in externally outward
circumstances which were easy or pleasant. He was in great
difficulty And he says that in verse 13 of the chapter. Wherefore
I desire that ye faint not at my tribulation before you, of
which is your glory. Paul was in difficulties. Paul
was experiencing many disappointments or trials in his pathway. And yet he does not want that
to be a stumbling block. to the Ephesians. They may look
at Paul and see the difficulties that he's passing through, the
sadnesses, the disappointments, the persecutions, the injustice,
and they might come to the conclusion, well if that is the Christian
faith, if this is an eminent apostle in the Christian faith,
Well surely this is too difficult for us, we cannot follow such
a faith, this is too disagreeable to our natural mind. Paul therefore
prays that these people might be blessed with the knowledge
of the love of God. Paul says rejoice in the Lord
always, and again I say rejoice. Paul was the one that was in
the prison cell with Silas in Philippi, having been beaten
and whipped because of their godly preaching earlier in the
day. He was the one that sung praises
at midnight in the Philippian jail. How could he do such things? Did he not have any understanding
of his outward circumstances? How could he rejoice under such
externally difficult circumstances? This prayer that we have got
before us here, commencing really at verse 14, gives us the secret
of the Apostle Paul, and the secret of not just the Apostle
Paul, but the secret of all Christians, how they are to continue, to
continue to be rejoicing, continue to know true peace and true love
in their hearts, when the external circumstances are utterly and
completely against them. Paul was one who endured much
hardship, and yet he was one that was was one that rejoiced
in the Lord. And how could these things be?
Well, surely he was an outworking, a living example of what he praised
for, the Ephesians. For this cause I bow my knees
unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family
in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, this
is a gift of God, the gift of God, that Paul prays that believers
would know this gift. They were believers, they were
classed as the church at Ephesus. And yet he prays that they may
not say, well, I'm a church member, I've made an open profession
and therefore why should I need anything greater or anything
more? No, Paul is encouraging these
believers to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ. And this is what he prays for
them. that God would grant you according
to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by
his spirit in the inner man, I'll come back to that, 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 ye might be filled
with all the fullness of God. If you consider what I've just
read, you can perhaps understand now how Paul could rejoice in
the Lord always. How he could have that strength
to go on even though he had much opposition against him. The source
of his joy was not coming from external things around him. It
was not coming from the number of people that patted him on
the back because they enjoyed his ministry. It was not coming
from external things of that nature. Although he did receive
blessings at times externally, but the point I'm making is this
prayer is an internal prayer for the internal work of the
Spirit of God to be active in the Ephesians, that their source
of joy might come from this realisation of being loved with an everlasting
love and being a child of God. And no prison cell, no persecution,
no outward circumstances could separate Paul from this enjoyment
that he was a child of God. And I think perhaps if one can
speak for others, we can easily fall into this way of linking
our happiness with external things, external spiritual things. The
church prospering, for example, and prosperity in Zion, and we
are to pray for these things. But Paul is saying the deep joy
of his heart was Christ. That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith. That was his desire, that Christ
may be in them. But you might say, well surely,
is not that true? Every child of God is not Christ
in them? Isn't that the definition really
of a child of God? But you see we don't always feel
and we are not always conscious of the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit and of God in our hearts. We do not always realise it. Paul clearly makes this clear
when he speaks in the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19. He says, what, know you not that
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you? In
other words, he's saying, have you forgotten? Have you forgotten
that Christ is dwelling in you? And of course we do at times.
Forget that. But Paul is saying here, his
prayer for them is that they would come to realise this presence
of God dwelling in their hearts. And then you see their joy could
be full and completely detached from their external circumstances. They could have joy in the Lord
amidst the most outwardly difficult, sad and disappointing circumstances
because they had Christ in them. that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, which is verse 17. But you say, surely this
isn't, it's not this high language that you 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 passes knowledge. Yes,
it is high language, but that's why we have verse 16, that he
would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be
strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man. Yes,
if you are going to have a revelation and a consciousness of Christ
in you, the hope of glory, Christ dwelling in us, we are going
to need strengthening. You see, our natural frame cannot
cope, as it were, with the glory. And we see that many times when
Christ appeared to people in the Bible. They fell at his feet
as dead. That was true of John on the
Isle of Patmos. When he saw that sight, he fell
at his feet as dead. This was the effect of many as
they, as it were, came up against the power of God. Well, we need
to be strengthened with might in our inner man. that we may
be able to know these things. You see this is a prayer of the
Apostle for the Lord's people. It may be a prayer for each of
us and in a sense it would be good as a result of this prayer
meeting address that you may, as it were, pray this prayer
for yourself, that the Lord would dwell in your hearts, that you
may have this joy which comes not from external circumstances,
but from knowing that God is your God, from knowing that He
has loved you with an everlasting love, that Christ may dwell in your
heart by faith, that ye be rooted and grounded in love. In the
Colossians we have those similar words, Colossians 2 verse 7,
rooted and built up in him and established in the faith. So
Paul is saying here that we are to be rooted and grounded in
love. You see, it's so clear that it's
well known with children, if they're brought up in a home
where there's love, and they are loved, it makes a huge effect
on the rest of the life of that child. to be loved and to know
that they are loved has a huge impact on their lives. Well,
this is also the case spiritually. If we as Christians comprehend,
that means grasp, lay hold of, something of the love of Christ
to sinners and something of his love personally to us, that will
change our lives. It will change the way we think.
You see children that are not loved have all sorts of problems
later on because they're crying out for something they have not
had. But Paul does not want Christians to be like that spiritually.
He wants them to be rooted and grounded in love. and may be
able to comprehend with all saints. You see, a root is something
that gives stability in the storms, and a grounding gives stability
to the foundation, stability to a building. But you may be
able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length
and depth and height, the breadth of the love of God, stretching
to every kindred, nation, tribe and tongue. The length from everlasting
to everlasting. His love, it has no beginning
and it will have no end. The depth, it's stretched down
to the deepest of our sin. The deepness of our fall. Our
fall in Adam and our fall by the fact that we have confirmed
that fall by the fact that we are sinners ourselves. Fresh
sinners. Yes, it reaches to the depths
of that, and also it lifts to the heights of glory. It lifts
us, the beggar from the dunghill, the breadth, length, depth and
height, and to know the love of Christ. Not know about the
love of Christ, but to know the love of Christ which passeth
knowledge. It's almost really It seems a
strange way to put it, to know something that's unknowable.
Well it's a vast ocean you see and the picture is often painted
of like an ocean. You can go and stand at the ocean
shore and you can paddle at the shore of that ocean and you can
start swimming into that ocean but you can never plumb the depths
of that ocean with your swimming. You can never swim across that
ocean which is so great and so vast. Yes you can know it but
you can't know it all. It's infinite. and to know the
love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled
with all the fullness of God. This is what Paul prays for the
Ephesians. if you like, a prayer that we
should compare our prayers with. Are we praying for these things?
Is this our desire that we may know these things in our own
hearts, personally? But you might say, well, surely,
aren't we to pray for others? Aren't we to pray for the external
things that are visible about the building up of the church?
We are. But Paul knows this, that if
the If this love is shed abroad in our hearts, it will have practical
effects in all of our lives. It will not just stay in our
hearts and have no effect. Paul had these blessed times,
but was Paul one who was unfruitful? No, he wasn't. He said, I laboured
more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God
in me. Paul was one who laboured greatly,
but this was a secret, and he praised that this secret would
not be unique to him as an apostle, or unique to some favoured, as
it were, upper Christians here today. But no, this was to be
that you 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. You see, he knows that if we
know something of the love of Christ, we won't be falling in
love with the world anymore. We won't be seeking to try and
live as close as we can to the world, because the love of Christ
would constrain us, because it would overflow and our whole
minds would be filled with him. So that you 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
ye might be filled with the fullness of God. It's been likened to
a bottle that's in the ocean. The bottle can fill up with the
ocean. In a sense, the bottle is full
of the ocean, isn't it? But it's not containing the whole
of the ocean, is it? It's only containing a small,
small part of the ocean, and yet it is full of the ocean. That ye may be filled with all
the fullness of God. Now, unto him that is able to
do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think,
God is able to do these things. He's not saying this for you
to say, well, this is too high, too great, I cannot attain. We
need to pray. He prayed for the Ephesians and
we should pray for one another. We should pray for ourselves.
We may know such blessings. May the Lord have his blessing.