Ephesians chapter 3. I titled this message, For This
Cause. For this cause, Paul said, I
bow my knees. I bow my knees unto the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now Paul, in verse 14, picks
up his thought from verse one. You see in verse one, for this
calls I Paul, which is really just a continuation of what he
was saying in chapter two. I like having chapters and verses,
it makes it easier to read and remember scripture. But sometimes
it breaks the flow of the thought. You know, when you start breaking
it down like that, we lose the flow of it. And in verse one,
Paul says, for this cause I Paul, and then he takes a little detour
for the next few verses to speak of his ministry to us Gentiles
and how that God included us in his family. See, that was
part of the mystery of the gospel was our inclusion into the family
of God, along with the Jews whom the Lord would save. And so in
verse 14, he comes back to his original thought of what he was
talking about in chapter 2. In chapter 2, he speaks of what
we were by nature and what we are by grace. He speaks of us
being strangers to the covenants of promise, being strangers without
hope in this world, without Christ, without God, and without hope
in this world, and now we are citizens. We are citizens. And
for this cause, this reason, that God has saved a people,
a multitude of people from among Gentiles, out of all nations,
kindred, tribes, and tongues under heaven. Paul says, I give
thanks to God for that. He doesn't thank the Gentiles
for it, he thanks God for them. He said, I thank God, and for
this cause I bow my knees unto the Father. It's like he was
overwhelmed. As he thought upon this and wrote
about it to the Ephesians, he was just overwhelmed with the
grace of God. How far-reaching is the grace
of God? It reached me. It's reached some
of you. That's far-reaching, isn't it?
If you understand where God brought you from, what He saved you from,
and lifted you out of the pit, you realize and understand how
far-reaching is the grace of God. It's far-reaching. And Paul realized this, and he
said, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's ours. I noticed that jumped
out at me. The Father of our, He's our Lord,
He's our Savior, He's our Redeemer, He's our Substitute, He's our
High Priest, He's our Prophet, Priest and King, He's our Righteousness,
He's ours, given to us of God in a covenant of grace before
the world began. God's a God of order. I was telling
someone that yesterday, someone I was talking to, I said, God's
a God of order. Everything has been ordered. He's not a willy-nilly,
let's see what happens. That's me and you. That describes
us. Let's do this and see what comes
of it. No, God's a God of order. He's ordered all things. That's
what David said. He's ordered all things and sure. God made
a covenant with me, ordered in all things and sure. God's a
God of order. So Paul comes back here and he
says that, "...For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ." And Paul calls God the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ because as a man and as mediator, God
is his Father. As God the Son, He's eternal.
He's one with the Father. But as far as that man, the man
Christ Jesus, God the Father created Him in the womb of a
virgin. Unto us a child is born. Unto
us the Son is given. The child is born, but the Son
is given. Talk about the eternal Son of God. He's given. He can't
be born. He's eternal. But the child can
be born. He shall grow up, He said in
Isaiah, as a tender plant. You see, He's got to be... The
ancient of days became an infant of days. He became a child. He came into this world as a
child. and grew up, and He's ours. And as a man, God's called
His Father. Christ said this, I go to my
Father and your Father. My Father is the same one as
your Father. We have the same Father. Not
everyone has the same Father. God's not the Father of everyone.
He's God over all. He's judge of all, but He's not
the Father of all. You know, I've got two brothers
and four sisters, a father and a mother, and he's not the father
of anyone here, but he's my father. He's my father. And God's my
father, and he's the same father as the Lord Jesus Christ, as
the Lord has. We are taught to pray, our father,
our father, which art in heaven. This speaks of his goodness,
our father, he's our father. And our father which art in heaven
which speaks of his greatness and we should never forget that.
Let us never forget the greatness of our father. Hallowed be thy
name. Always keep that in front of
us. We have a holy reverence of our father. Now we speak to
him as children we speak to their father. But we have a reverence
for our father who's holy and good. of whom the whole family
in heaven and earth is named. There's not two families. There's
not Gentile family and Jewish family. There's only one family
that makes up the whole church of God from the beginning to
the end, and that whole family has its root in God. That's what
he's saying. You know, the Jews called themselves
the children of Abraham. They said, Abraham's our father.
You see, Abraham was the root of that nation. God took Abraham
and began that nation. Well, God is the root, the cause,
the Father of all who are saved, of the whole church from beginning
to end. He's the Father of whom the whole
family in heaven and earth is named. Now, I would to God we
could get a hold of this prayer. This prayer that the Apostle
Paul made, this is how we should pray. This is for what we should
pray. I know you and I, and I know
this by experience, you and I are so concerned with ourselves and
what's going on immediately, and our pain and our suffering,
and we are to take our cares, it says, and cast them before
the Lord. For He cares for you. Cast your cares on Him, for He
cares for you. That's so. But here's our greatest need,
what the Apostle Paul prays for is our greatest need. And if
we grow in this, it will make everything else so much easier.
Here's his first request, that God, the Father, that He would
grant you, give to you, according to the riches of His glory. Not according to your faith,
Not according to your spiritual maturity. If that were so, we
wouldn't get much at all, would we? No, in spite of me, in spite
of ourselves, that God would bless us according to his riches,
his glorious riches, the riches of who he is. You can't measure that. It's
infinite. It's infinite. but according to He would grant
you according to His riches in glory. Paul prays for God, the
Father, to deal with them and with us according to His super
abounding grace, grace upon grace, His infinite grace, His infinite
mercy, His infinite riches. And here's his first request.
What do you think it'd be? to be strengthened with bite
by His Spirit in the inner man. This I realize as I grow older
in the Lord, that I need to be strengthened day by day in the
inner man. Because this is where my problem. My problem is not believing the
doctrines of the gospel. My problem is living day to day.
My problem is walking out there in the world. My problem is indwelling
sin, overcoming indwelling sin. You know, I ask the Lord all
the time, forgive me of my sins. And I always ask, not only to
forgive me of my sins, but to help me to overcome indwelling
sin. I need that too. To be strengthened with the power
of God, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit, His Holy
Spirit, in that inner man. You see, Paul had spoken of what
God has done for us. He blessed us in Christ with
all heavenly blessings before the world began. He chose us
in Christ. Christ is our Redeemer. We have the forgiveness of sins
through His blood. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit.
You were the children of wrath. Now you're children of God by
nature. But now he's going to speak right
where we live. He's going to speak of the experience
of grace, the application of grace, which is exactly what
we need right now. We need this. I need this. I
need this more and more day by day. I need it. This is a request for a growth
of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not a request for an increase
of faith in the doctrines, but in character. It's an increase
of faith to be strengthened with might in the inner man. It's
speaking here of our character. Our character. Paul knew this. He knew that many trials would
come their way. He knew this was a life-changing
experience for them. They lived in idolatry. They
lived in adultery. You name it, they lived in it. And now the Lord has saved them. And now He's put them on a new
path. They have a new walk. They have a new talk. And now
He's saying here, I pray that when these trials and these temptations
come, that God would strengthen you with might in the inner man
to stand against them. No, I don't want to go there
no more. No, I don't go to that place
no more. I don't, I just, you know, I don't have an interest
in that no more. Many trials are going to come
and we need grace to conduct ourselves in a godly manner where
we work, in our homes. And here, wherever we find ourselves,
that we would be strengthened with might in the inner man to
conduct ourselves in a way that is God-honoring. That's what
Paul's talking about. That you conduct yourself in
a way that magnifies the grace of God to you. Henry said this
in the message. He got this from somebody else. I don't need faith. To shut the
mouth of lions, I need faith, an increase of faith to shut
my mouth. To shut my mouth. That's what Paul's praying for,
that you'd be able to, in wisdom, speak a word in season, that
you'd be able to resist Those old temptations, those old friends
that come along and want you to do this or that, you can say,
no, no. It's the strength to withstand
the attacks of Satan which is coming. It's coming. And this strength belongs, listen,
this strength belongs to the inner man. It belongs to the
inner man. And this strength is given, he
says here, by the Spirit of God. And you know how the Holy Spirit
gives this strength? By feeding you on the Lord Jesus
Christ. You know you get your strength
by what you feed on? You do. The strength of your
body is basically based on what you feed on. The strength of
that inner man is its feeding on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you and I haven't even began
to exhaust the knowledge of Christ, the wisdom of Christ, the person
of Christ. We've not even begun to scratch
the surface of who He is. Oh, He says, I pray that you'll
be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.
We start out as babes in Christ, but we don't stay babes. There'd
be nothing more more ugly than somebody 40 years old acting
like a baby. Now, a baby can act like a baby and get away
with it, right? Well, that's cute. It ain't cute at 40, or 50, or
60. It's not cute then. Paul said, when I was a child,
I acted like a child. I spoke as a child, but when
I became a man, I put away childish things. I put away my childish
attitude. I put away these things, and
I became a man. You see, we start out babes in
Christ, but we don't stay babes in Christ. We become young men
and women in Christ, and then we become old men and women in
Christ. We not only need the power of
God to save us, I do not only need God to choose me, to call
me, to save me by His Spirit, to save me by His grace, I need
His power imparted to me so I can walk in this life, in this ungodly
world. That's what Paul's talking about.
You and I have a life to live, you know that? We have a life
to live. I don't know when it's gonna
end, God does, God has it on his calendar right down to the
second. But I have a life to live. And I wanna live it, and
you wanna live it, and this is what Paul's praying for, live
it to the glory of God who has saved us by his grace and by
his blood. Paul said in Philippians 3.10
that he wanted to know the power of his resurrection. And what
he's saying is, I want to know the power of his resurrected
life in me. Day by day. Day by day. These are the things we need
to pray for. This is what we really need, to be strengthened
with might in the inner man as we go out and live out our life
in this world. We live it out by the grace of
God in honor of God. That's what Paul's writing about.
And then here's a second request in verse 17, that Christ may
dwell, take up his abode. You know, our Lord said that
he and his father would take up their abode in us. We keep
his commandments, we love him, he'd take up their abode in us.
I can't imagine, I've been trying to think about this throughout
this week, that God liveth in me, Christ liveth in me. That's a reality, you know. That's
a reality, that Christ liveth in me. This thing of salvation
is not me believing some doctrines, some facts, and I believe it,
and I'm saved, I believe the story, I believe the gospel story,
I believe... No, it's more than that. It's
more than that. That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith. That Christ may dwell in your
affections. Your heart is the seat of your
very being. It speaks of your affection.
It's what you're taken up with. That Christ may dwell in my affection.
Peter, do you love me? He didn't ask Peter if he believed. He knew that. But what he wanted
to bring out of Peter was this. The Lord said this to Peter,
lovest thou me more than these. Whatever these are. Do you love
me more? Peter said, Lord, you know all
things. You know I love you. You know I love you. That Christ
may dwell in your hearts by faith. Not visit. Not visit. This is not a visit. This is
actually literally taking up His abode in you and living in
you day by day. Day by day, living in you. That's
the reason I picked that song, Christ liveth in me. He lives
in His people. He dwells in His people. He's
speaking here of a continual fellowship. We don't have to
come here on Sunday to have fellowship with the Lord and then go home.
Fellowship with Him is day by day. You fellowship with the
Lord at work, at play, whatever, or wherever. You can fellowship
with the Lord. It is that continual awareness. It's that awareness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's a continual fellowship that
he may dwell more richly in me, that he may dwell more fully
in me. And I would live out my life
more aware of his presence. Someone said this, I thought
it was interesting. He's talked about three stages of a believer's
life. He wrote that as a baby in Christ,
the Lord is present. You know that he is, and he's
present. As a young man in Christ, he's
prominent. He's prominent. As an old man
and woman in Christ, he's preeminent. He's preeminent. He goes from
being present, to being prominent, to being preeminent. He's everything. He's literally everything to
the believer as they mature in grace. He must increase until
we are filled with the fullness of God. And he says here thirdly, that
you being rooted and grounded in love, in the love of Christ. Rooted, it is our love is rooted
in the Lord Jesus Christ. My love for you and your love
for me has its roots. in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the reason we love each other as brothers and sisters. He's the reason why a Jew and
a Gentile can get along. Can get along. He's the reason why love can
come from us to those who are opposite of us. You can love others that are
not like you. Henry said this in the message
I listened to. And he's talking about this being
rooted in love. He said, where you find bigotry
and prejudice, you find a lost person. He said, that person
is lost. They don't know the love of God.
The love of God has never been shared abroad in their heart.
The love of God joins the family of God together as one. Joins
us together as one. If your love is rooted in the
love of Christ, come what may, you'll stand, and you'll stand
together. You will stand, and you will
stand together. And not only being rooted, but grounded, settled. You've heard this old saying
here, he's well grounded. He's well-grounded. He's mature. He's seasoned. He's settled. Settled. Are you settled? Is Christ enough? Are you happy
in the Lord? Do you rejoice in Him? That's grounded. You're grounded
in the faith, you're grounded in how God saves sinners, you're
grounded in the love of Christ. You're convinced, now listen,
you're convinced of His love for you. Are you convinced that the rooted and grounded in that love
spoken of in 1 Corinthians 13. That's the love he's speaking
of there. You know, it thinks no evil,
it speaks not evil against one another. You go read that chapter.
That's the love he's talking about being grounded in. That's
the love of God. That's the love that's shed abroad
in our heart. Here's how you know the love of God is shed
abroad in your heart. Well, let's go over there. I'm not going
to try to quote that. because I will mess it up if
I do." Listen, here's the love that
he's talking about being grounded in. You know, when the world
speaks of love, it's this mushy feeling, there's no substance
to it. There's no substance to the love
that the world speaks of. But this is substance here. In
1 Corinthians 13 verse 4, love suffers long and it's kind. Here's
the love we're grounded in. Love envies not. Love vaunteth
not, is not rash, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly,
seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices
not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endureth all things.
Love never fails. This is the love he's talking
about being grounded in, right here. This is the love of God
that's shed abroad in the heart. This is what it produces, this
kind of love. This is what it produces. And
that's why he's talking about being grounded in. And this love
he's talking about is a relationship. It's a relationship with the
Lord Jesus Christ. And then here's his fourth request
in verse 18, that you may be able to comprehend. Don't ever
stop learning. We never learn all we need to
know, do we? Listen, I'm satisfied with how
God saves sinners. I'm satisfied with Christ. Christ
is enough. But I'm not satisfied with what
I know. I want to know more. Paul said,
Oh, that I might know Him. Well, Paul knew Him, he met Him.
The Lord met with him and he received the Gospel directly
from the Lord Jesus Christ. But Paul said, Oh, I want to
know Him. Know Him more and more and more. that you may be able
to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, length,
depth, and height of this love. Paul prays for a growing illumination
in the divine fullness of God. And the only way this can happen
is through his divine strengthening in the inner man. And that inner
man coming to know and comprehend the love of God in Christ Jesus,
that you may have a fuller grasp, you may have a fuller grasp of
the riches that you have in Christ, that you may have a fuller grasp
of the love of Christ for you. We haven't began to touch that.
He said that you may know more of the love of Christ in its
breadth, in its length, in its depth, and in its height. In
its breadth, the love of God came to you Gentiles who were
far off, who were in darkness. His love reached over boundaries. It reached across this world.
It reached in all nations and tongues and people. It is reached
out there. The breadth of it is who can
fathom the grace of God and the love of God? And the length of it is from
everlasting to everlasting. There was never a time He didn't
love me. I can't comprehend that. But there was never a time He
didn't love me. And the depth of it, having loved His own,
He loved them to the end. He loved us when we were unlovable. He loved us when we were ungodly.
He loved us when we hated Him. He loved us. And the height of it, it transcends
all love. It transcends all understanding.
It passes knowledge. It passes all human understanding.
It passes all human comprehension. This love is divine love. It's divine love. And to know, listen, to know,
that is to know more fully the love of Christ, which passes
human understanding, knowledge. To know by experience. Brethren,
this ought to be something that just burns in our heart. This
ought to be burning in our heart, to know by experience the deep,
deep love of Jesus Christ. Why He saved me. that He saved
me. He could have left me alone.
That astounds me that He could have left me alone. There are
some He has. He said to His disciples concerning
the Pharisees, you know what He said? Leave them alone. You don't want God to leave you
alone. You're in deep trouble if He does. To know His love
by personal possession of Him. It's a spiritual and experimental
knowledge of that love. To increase in that knowledge
that is beyond comprehending completely, beyond knowing completely. And here's the purpose, here's
the purpose in verse 19, that you may be filled with all the
fullness of God. Now I can't put that in words
because I don't know all the fullness of God. but I know what
he means by it, that you may be flooded with God Himself.
You know, it's like this, if you are filled with the fullness
of God, you know what that's saying? There's no room for anything
else. There's no room for self. There's no room for attitude.
If you're filled with the fullness of God, that you may be filled.
Can you believe that, that you and I, Now, see he's talking
about now, he's not talking about after we leave this life, he's
talking about right now, that we might be filled with God,
that God would fill us up. This is a fullness which can
never be exhausted. The fullness of God, that you'd
be filled with the fullness of God. It is God taking possession
of your heart. It is God taking possession of
your affection. That you're filled with the fullness
of God, you see God in everything. To you, God is everything. To
you, God is everything. To know Him, to be with Him,
to be filled with the fullness of God in such a way that you
become hungry to live this life and be with Him. I hope that
I can come to that point. I hope that when I come to the
end of my life, whenever it is, that I can rejoice, and I can
bid farewell. I can bid farewell to the family,
You know, I have told Vicki this, we've talked about this, especially,
you know, dealing with mom and dad right now. I said, let's
enjoy each other as much as we can, and when it comes time to
let go, let go. Because I'll see you in a little
while, or you'll see me in a little while, whichever one goes first.
It doesn't matter. But I'm telling you, enjoy, and
the Lord given you a helpmate, and both of you believe, enjoy
each other as much as you can. And when it comes time to go,
let go. And I'll see you later. See you in a little while. That
you can be filled with the fullness of God, that everything else
is easy to let go. And God doesn't have to break
your fingers to make you let it go. Paul said, oh, that you'd be
filled, that you could comprehend with all saints the breadth,
the length, the depth, and the height of the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus, that you could get a hold of this, you'd
be filled with the fullness of God, that you would know Him
more and more. And then he just breaks out into
this doxology. Now unto him that is able There's
nothing that God can't do. Your problems are never too big
for God. You know, God's never had a big
problem. We do. We have big problems, don't we?
But it's not a big problem to God. He don't have problems. We do. Unto him that is able
to do exceeding, abundantly, above all that we ask or think.
Ask large of God. Ask large. My soul. Our prayers reflect our faith. Our prayers reflect whether we
believe God or not. I would to God He'd fill this
place up with His sheep. I do. And you know what? I believe
He can. I believe if He will, He can.
It's not a problem. If it's no problem for Him to
save one like me, it's sure no problem for Him to save someone
else like me. Now unto Him that's able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think according to the power that works
in us right now. There's a power working in you.
Why do you think you're here this morning? Why do you think
you have an interest this morning? Because God is at work in you.
Unless He'd leave us alone, we'd leave. Just like the first Adam
did. Oh, that power 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. So be
it. So isn't that a beautiful prayer?
This is how we ought to pray. Now we can pray for things we
need. I know that. We cast our care on him. But
let us not forget to pray that that the Lord would fill us with
his spirit. that he would fill us with himself,
that he would make me, enable me to set my heart and mind,
my affection on things above, not on the things of this earth. All right.