Let us turn to God's Word in
the portion that we read in Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter
3 and at the end of the chapter of course we have one of Paul's
prayers. In fact he speaks of the access
that we enjoy through the Lord Jesus Christ in verse 12 in whom
We have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him. And having spoken of such a blessing
as we can enjoy through the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
then find Paul himself engaging in prayer for the Ephesians. He turns, as it were, from addressing
them and begins to address God on their accounts. And we have
this prayer here at verse 14, following for this cause he says,
I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so he goes on through to
the end of the chapter to make his prayer and finishes of course
with the familiar Amen. It's not the first time that
we see him engaging in prayer in this chapter. We have it also,
of course, at the end of the opening chapter, there at verse
16. In the following verses, again
we see him engaging God's ear, praying on behalf of the Ephesians.
He would not cease, he says, to give thanks for them, making
mention of them, in his prayers there at verse 16 and so he prays. He prays often times as he feels
that great burden for the churches which under God he had been so
responsible for the establishment of. Well as we turn to this third
chapter this evening, I want us to consider one of the The
verses that we have in that concluding prayer, the prayer we might say
begins at verse 14 to the end of the chapter, but centering
your attention in particular upon verse 17, that Christ may
dwell in your hearts by faith, he says. The G being rooted and
grounded in love. Ephesians chapter 3, and verse
17, that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith, that ye
be enrooted and grounded in love. As we come to consider the text
I want to invert the order that we have in this particular verse
and so first of all to say something with regards to that love of
God in the Lord Jesus Christ that he's spoken of at the end
of the verse, being rooted, he says, and grounded in love. There is not this, really the
beginning of salvation, this love of God of which he is speaking,
this love of God which we might say really lies at the very heart
of his prayer 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." What a remarkable prayer is this. He prays that
they may be enabled to comprehend something that he says is really
incomprehensible, something that is beyond passing knowledge. He wants them to be able to grasp
something of the wonder of that great love of God, that they
might be filled with all the fullness of God, he says. We know that God is love. John declares that most profound
truth twice in the fourth chapter of his first epistle. In verse
8 and again in verse 16. God is love. We sometimes speak of love as
one of the attributes of God. As holiness, as righteousness,
as justice. mercy, grace, these are all attributes
of God and so is love. But in another sense we might
say that love is really the very essence of what God is and who
God is. And we see that, do we not, in
the great doctrine of the Godhead, that God subsists in three persons,
that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and there is that
loving relationship between each of those divine persons, though
there be no other object outside of God that God could love, yet
He is loved in that relationship that is sustained. How the son
loves the father, the father loves the son. The Father and
the Son love the Spirit. The Spirit himself delights in
the Father and the Son. God is love. They say that this really lies
at the very heart of what Paul is praying with regards to these
Ephesians. He wants them to be rooted and
grounded in this love of God. Now he speaks of course principally
of that great work that God accomplished in the Lord Jesus Christ, the
eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. He
speaks of that in verse 11. And in Christ And in that work
that Christ has accomplished we see how God has dealt with
the sin of his people, the enmity of his people, that those who
in their very natures were alienated from God, they were in that condition
whereby they were very far off from God. And the Lord Jesus
Christ has come and he has made propitiation for the sins of
his people. The justice of God, the wrath
of God has been satisfied by what Christ did when he made
that great sacrifice for his people. He is the propitiation
for our sins, says John. And the significance of that
technical word, propitiation, again John uses it a second time
later in his first epistle. Here in his love he says not
that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to
be the propitiation for our sin. And remember that the word, it's
a theological term, yes, but it's a biblical word, you find
it here in the scriptures. And it's a word that ever reminds
us of the Godhood aspect of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because God is a holy God, and a righteous God, and a just God,
as we said, as well as being a God of love. And God's holiness
must be satisfied, as must his justice and his righteousness.
and the Lord Jesus Christ has come and he has made satisfaction
to all that God is. He has dealt with the matter
of the sins of his people. But then also the Lord Jesus
Christ deals with the mammoth aspect of sin. Besides the wrath of God, that
burns against all sin there is that guilt that guilt that attaches
to those who are the transgressors or the sinner stands condemned
before the Holy Lord of God is guilty and that guilt must be
dealt with and we use another technical term we speak of that
guilt being expiated whereas propitiation speaks of the Godward
aspect. The word expiation speaks of
the manward aspect, and it is but another aspect of the work
that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished when he died upon the cross. We see it in the way in which
Paul addresses the church at Colossae. He speaks of Christ
making that great sacrifice on their behalf. There in chapter 2, at verse
13, following, he says, you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven
you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances
that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out
of the way, naming it to his cross, and having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them, he did. All Christ has come and Christ
has died and Christ has reconciled the sinner to God, the sinner
that was afar off, the sinner that stood so guilty before God. This is the great work then of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ's work upon the cross
is not something that has made it possible for God to love the
sinner. There are some who speak loosely
we might say, speak foolishly like that. They say it was the
work that the Lord Jesus Christ did when he died upon the cross
that made it possible for God to love sinners. And in making
such a statement they go on to make a false distinction. They see the God of the Old Testament
as a very austere judge. And they make a distinction between
the God that we see in the Old Testament and what we see in
the New Testament in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they say that in Christ we
see a God who is loving. But that is a false distinction
that they are making. In fact, it is blasphemous to
even say that because the God of the Bible, the God of the
Old Testament, the God of the New Testament is but one God.
Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. It's not that
the Lord Jesus Christ came and made it possible, by the work
that he accomplished upon the cross, made it possible for God
to love sinners. It was because God loved the
sinner that the Lord Jesus Christ came to accomplish that great
work. This love of God lies at the
very basis of all the work that God has done, in and through
the person and the accomplishments of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are we not told quite clearly,
many times in the New Testament, when the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law that they
might receive the adoption of sons. Here is the reason why
Christ came. It was to fulfil what God had
purposed from all eternity. It was not that Christ came in
order that God might be reconciled to the sinner. God loved the sinner. and because
God loved the sinner he sends his son and he sends his son
to suffer in the sinners room and stage to make that great
sinner turning sacrifice God commended his love toward us
in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us says Paul
God commends his love He is the one who sends Christ in the appointed
time, the fullness of the time. Again, the familiar words of
John 3 and verse 16, God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son. Oh, why did God give His Son? It's love that lies at the basis.
of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and all that the Lord
Jesus Christ did here upon the earth. God sold off the world
that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Now, what are we to understand
by the word world in that familiar text? Does it mean that God loved
everybody without any exception? That God loved all the world
in its totality and therefore he gives Christ to come and make
his sacrifice for everyone? That's the way in which the Arminian
would interpret that text of course. He believes that the
The work of Christ is truly universal. When he died, he died for every
person who has ever lived upon the face of the earth. And we
know that the logic of that position must lead to universalism. If God has loved all the world
and sent Christ into the world, that he might die for every sinner,
then no sinner could ever go to hell. How could a just God
send a sinner to hell if he's already punished their sins in
the person of his Only Begotten Son? That would not be an act
of justice? And Toplady of course brings
it out in his hymn, Payment God Cannot Twice Demand. first at
my bleeding surety's hand and then again at mine. Oh, that
would be an impossibility of Christ as died as the surety
of every man as their substitute in their room and in their stead.
No one can ever go to hell, all must go to heaven. That's the
logic of the position that the Armenian is taking. They don't
accept that of course. Because ultimately what they
say is that whilst Christ has died for all men, he's got to,
the man himself, some way or other, has got to make what Christ
has done effective in his own case. The only way he can make
it effective is by believing. That's what the Arminians said.
Christ has died for all, but it's only those who believe.
The same. Unbelief is a sin. And Christ
has died for all sins. Has he not died for their unbelief
also, we might say. The position is such an impossible
position that the Arminian is sacred. If Christ died for all
men, we say all men must go to heaven, or you are saying there
are some particular sins that Christ did not make atonement
for. So we come back to that great statement in John 3.16,
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. What are we to understand by
the word world? Well, are we not to see it in a sense
in a Jewish context? This is what John addresses time
and again. not only in the gospel but in
his epistles. It's the Gentile world as well
as the Jewish world. The words then indicate that
God's love with the coming of Christ is no more confined simply
to the nation of Israel. That was true in the Old Testament.
He says, you only have I known of all the families of the earth
to the Jews. Oh yes, there were certain Gentiles
who might be converted to the true God. There were those proselytes
to the Jewish religion, but it was to Israel that God gave all
those holy ordinances. All those Levitical
sacrifices, they were the people who were favoured as no other
nation. The end of the 147th sharps army
show us his word unto Jacob. His statutes and his judgments
unto Israel, he hath not done so with any nation. And as for
his judgments, they have not known them. That was in the Old
Testament. And you see with the New Testament
we have the revelation of this great mystery, and this is what
Paul speaks of, of course, in the former part of this chapter.
That mystery which is the calling of the Gentiles. And Paul is
the great apostle to the Gentiles. This is a mystery that was concealed,
but has now been revealed, says Christ. In other ages it 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 unto the same body and partakers of the
promise by Christ in the Gospel. And so when we read the word
world, often times we do understand it in the sense that no more
is God's grace confined to one nation, God's grace now goes
to many nations, to Gentile nations. God so loved the world. Oh, it's much larger than Israel,
you see. The grace of God, it extends
to the ends of the earth. God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son. There's such a fullness in salvation
that it can reach the sinners of the Gentiles. but then also
we can understand the word world in another sense we can think
of it not quantitatively but more qualitatively when we think
of how that word is sometimes used, the word world all that is in the world says
John the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the
pride of life. He's not of the Father, but he's
of the world. And again, at the end of his
first epistle, he says, the world lieth in wickedness. You see, what God loves is that
that is the very opposite to himself. God loves the sinful
world. God loves the sinners of this
world. And that's what lies behind the
great work that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished here
in His life. Not that we loved God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. It all begins with God, it all
begins with the love of God. We love Him because He first
loved us. And here is Paul praying, you
see, that these Ephesians might be rooted and grounded in this
love, that they might have an understanding of the great wonder
of this love of God. And how this love is really a
particular love. God has loved particular sinners. Again we have that golden chain
as we sometimes call it in Romans chapter 8. And remember where
it begins. It begins with the foreknowledge
of God whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his Son. Moreover, whom he did predestinate
then he also called. And whom he called then he also
justified and whom he justified then we also glorify it. Those
glorious links of the chain and it reaches from eternity past
to eternity future, we might say. It finishes in their glorification. But where does it begin? God's
foreknowledge. Now again, how the Arminian in
his approach abuses the scripture. He says that the foreknowledge
there is to be understood simply in terms of foresight. God foresees. God dwells in eternity, of course.
And he beholds time from eternity, and so God sees the beginning
of time, and God sees the end of time. And God, therefore, says the
Arminian, can foresee what sinners are going to believe. and those
that he foresees believing, he predestinates. That's our understanding,
the foreknowledge. Knowing a thing before it happens. But when we think about it, that
means really that salvation ultimately is dependent not upon
God, but upon man. It's not what God has purposed,
It's what man has decided for himself. I mean, why is it that the sinner
believes? Why does any sinner believe?
Well, the Arminian seems to imagine that he has that capacity within
himself, he can believe. But no one can believe if they're
dead in trespasses and sins. In order to believe, the sinner
must be born again. And from whence does that birth
proceed? He's born from above. is born by the sovereign activity
of the Spirit. The wind bloweth where he listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof. But canst not tell whence he
cometh, nor whither he goeth. So is everyone, says Christ,
that is born of the Spirit. Clearly the foreknowledge that
we read of there in Romans chapter 8 is not just a foresight, a
foreseeing of things. No, it's more than that, much
more than that. It's the knowledge that is associated
with love. It's intimate knowledge. We have the word used in relation
to the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. Adam knew his wife.
Adam knew his wife. What was the consequence? There
is the conception of the child. It's an intimate knowledge. This
is how God knows his people. He sets his love upon them. And
he knows, because he has set his love upon them, and because
he knows them so intimately and so lovingly, he predestinates
them to be conformed to the image of Islam. All this love, you
see, is the very basis of salvation. Jeremiah says, The Lord hath
appeared of old unto me, saying, I have loved them with an everlasting
love. Therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn them. It's an everlasting love. He
has loved his own from eternity. And he loves them to eternity.
In our opening hymn, of course, Godsby brings it out so wonderfully.
the fullness of that love of God, the richness of that love
of God, the prophet Zephaniah says of God, He will rest in
His love. Oh, how God rests in His love,
and He gives us this day of rest, this Sabbath day, this Lord's
day, and He rests in His love, and we are to be those who are
resting in Him, and resting in that love of God. Here then is
Paul's prayer, I say at the very heart of his prayer, we see the love of God and he
prays for the Ephesians, the G being rooted and grounded in
love. Rooted and grounded. We have,
we might say here, a double similarly we think of a tree. Our tree
is rooted in the ground so that it will withstand the storms
that be thrown at it. But we have this other simile
of a building, not only rooted but grounded. There's a foundation
think of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ as he comes
to the end of his sermon on the mount and he speaks of the wise
man and the foolish man and the foolish man builds his house
upon the sand but the wise man he digs deep and he lays his
foundation upon a rock whom when the storms come and the winds
blow the house built upon the sand how quickly it falls but
that that he's built upon the rock it withstand Here is this
double simile then that Paul makes use of as he prays for
these Ephesians. He wants to see them rooted in
the love of God. He wants to see them grounded
in the love of God. Because this is the believer's
comfort. His only comfort in the midst
of all those trials and all those troubles that might come upon
him. He needs to know something of this love of God. being rooted
and grounded in love, may be able, he says, to comprehend
with all science what is the breadth and length and depth
and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge
that he might be filled with all the fullness of God. His prayer then, in the first
place he speaks here of God's love in the Lord Jesus Christ. God's love to sinners. And then
we said we'd invert the order. We come to the first part of
the verse where we read of the sinner's faith in Christ. That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith. That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, the Jew being rooted and grounded in love how
vital is faith here? we can only know these things
by faith but how can we know such faith
as Paul is speaking of? well we know it and we can only
know it by the ministry of the Holy Spirit I've said before that when we
come to the scriptures we have to remember that the divisions
that we're so familiar with, the chapters and the verses,
in a sense they're artificial. They're very useful to us, because
it helps us to find our way around and to locate particular statements,
but the chapters and the verses are not part of the inspired
text of scripture. And we need to see the connection.
between the verses and the chapters, we need to see every statement
of scripture in its immediate context, but we also need always
to bear in mind what the old writers call the analogy of faith,
the general context. Everything has to be interpreted
by other scriptures. The scriptures interpret themselves
in that sense. Now here you see, We have to
recognize that at the end of verse 16 and the beginning of
verse 17 we have statements that are really synonymous. Now speaking of the same thing,
there is repetition of course. That's so necessary in teaching,
is it not? It's line upon line, line upon
line, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, here a little,
there a little. And so Paul, as he writes under
the inspiration of the Spirit, he says a thing, he repeats a
thing, he doesn't just repeat it exactly the same, he says
it in a slightly different fashion, and in a sense that's what we
have in these statements at the end of verse 16 and the beginning
of verse 17. Part of his prayer, you see verse
16, is that they be strengthened by his Spirit in the inner man. that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith. How does Christ dwell in the
heart by faith? It's that work of the Spirit.
It's the Spirit of Christ who comes to dwell in the inner man. If any man, if any man have not
the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, what is it? Anathema. He's lost. He's undone. He's none of Christ. If any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his. All the ministry of the Spirit,
is he not the Spirit of Christ? Isn't that how the Saviour speaks
of him in those chapters in John 14, 15, 16 where he speaks of
the coming of the Comforter and he comes from the Father, he
comes to bear testimony to Christ when he is come. He shall testify
of me, says Christ. He shall take of mine, he shall
show it unto you. Often so we need to be careful
lest we should grieve the Holy Spirit. Grieve not the Holy Spirit
of God, says the Apostle, whereby ye are sealed On to the day of
redemption we have it here. In chapter 4 and verse 13. Now
why does Paul give such an exhortation? Because we are those who are
likely to grieve the Spirit. We are likely to grieve the Spirit. To quench the Spirit. We have to look to ourselves,
examine yourself. Prove your own selves. Know ye not your
own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you? Except ye be reprobate. Is Jesus Christ in me tonight?
Is Jesus Christ in you tonight? If Jesus Christ be not in us,
what are we? Where are we? Are we reprobate?
If we have Christ, and without God, we have no hope in this
world. And we can only know the Lord Jesus Christ by that gracious
working in those sovereign operations of the Holy Spirit. And how believers at times fear
that they have grieved the Spirit of God and quenched His work. How believers sometimes are made
to feel their own barrenness. They look to themselves, we examine
ourselves, We try to know ourselves and we look within and what do
we see? The psalmist cries out, leave not my soul destitute. Are we ever fearful of that,
to be destitute? We don't just want a mechanical
sort of religion, we want something real, we want to know that gracious
working of the Holy Spirit. Now observe, observe carefully
where it is that the Lord Jesus Christ is said to dwell. That
Christ may dwell in your hearts by fire. What of our hearts? What of our hearts? God saw that
the wickedness of man was great in the earth and every imagination
of the thought of his heart was evil. continually, that's our
heart. Every imagination of the thoughts
of the heart, all that we are, evil. The heart says, God through Jeremiah the prophet,
the heart is deceitful, above all things and desperately wicked,
who can know it? That's the heart by nature, We
have deceitful hearts. We can't deceive God. We can
never deceive God. We might deceive others. We might
deceive ourselves. A very solemn thing to consider
is it not that we could be deceiving ourselves. The heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know which eye
of the Lord serves the heart? I know the reins to give to every
man according to the fruit of his doing. For God knows us,
you see. The Lord Jesus Christ knows the
hearts. And the Lord speaks to those
religious men, those self-righteous scribes and pharisees who were
so quick to find fault with his disciples because they followed
not the traditions of the fathers. And what does Christ say? to these
religious men who make so much of ritual washings, it reminds
them, those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the
heart and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies. These are the things which defile
a man. But to eat with unwashed hands
defileth not a man." Out of the hearts, you see. Out of the hearts
of men proceed all manner of evil. And so we sang it, did
we not, just now, in that hymn of Joseph Hart, concerning our
heart. Can ever God dwell here? All
friends, do we ever feel that? Really feel it when we look to
ourselves? Do we know anything of that self-examination? To
prove ourselves. And are we not brought to cry
out, can ever God dwell here? John Gill says, where no good
thing dwells but himself and his grace. That's the only good
thing that is in the heart of the child of God. I know that in me, that is in
my flesh, Paul says, there dwelleth no good thing. That's right. I'm full of all concupiscence,
all evil desire. The only good thing that dwells
in our hearts, if we're the people of God, the only good thing is
God and His grace. There is so much, you see, that
is contrary to the believer. But here is faith, you see. Here
is faith. Here is that remarkable work
of the Spirit of God, in bringing that faith that is of the operation
of God, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit, His Spirit
in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Oh, there's so much contrary,
and yet here is faith. It lives, it livers, on the low,
so damp it never dies. When we see it, do we not, in
the father of him, who is the father of all the faithful
ones, Abraham, What do we read concerning Abraham and his faith?
Against hope. He believed in hope. That's right. Everything seemed to be against
Abraham. Would he ever have the promise
to see the sun? He's a hundred years old. Sarah's
ninety years old. Against hope, Paul says, Abraham
believed in hope. He staggered not at the promise
of God to unbelief. but we'll strongly fight, giving
glory to God. Now we need then to pray for
such a fight as that, to know what it is to have the love of
God shed abroad in our hearts. And as that love is shed abroad,
as we know something of that gracious ministry of the Spirit
in the inner man, oh, then we'll come to this. We'll come to fight we'll believe and we'll know
those blessed comforts that come from an understanding of the
love of God as it shed abroad the psalmist says mine eyes are
unto thee O God the Lord that's the one we have to look
to our eyes have to be to him we have to call upon him and
cry to him in thee is my trust leave not my soul to desolation And we need to be those who would
be much then in prayer and pause here. He gives an example of
prayer. That's what he's doing as he
addresses himself to the church at Ephesus, as he speaks of prayer
there in verse 12, and that in Christ we have boldness, we have
access, and access with confidence, It's all by the fight of Jesus
Christ, and as he gives that encouragement, as he were, to
be praying, so he himself goes on to give this wonderful example
of prayer for this cause, because he knows, you see, that he can
come with such boldness and confidence before God and enjoy the blessing
of access. 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 be enrooted and grounded in love. The Lord grants that we might
know such prayers and know that love of God in our hearts and
that sight that comes by the Holy Ghost. The Lord bless his
word to us.