Getting To Know Him

1.19.25 Ephesians 3:14–21 (EHV)

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the entire family in heaven and on earth receives its name. 16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he would strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner self, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 I pray that you would be able to comprehend, along with all the saints, how wide and long and high and deep his love is, 19 and that you would be able to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled to all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him, who is able, according to the power that is at work within us, to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.

Getting to Know Him

When two of our children get married this summer, their spouses will become a part of our family. Lauren will move into Tristan’s house and also receive his last name. That might not mean much as a Pankow, like it might if it were Musk or Trump or something. But nonetheless, it will still change her identity a bit, right? She won’t be living in the same town or have the same name anymore. She’ll have to change jobs and go from Nebraska to Wyoming. Eventually she’ll learn the good, bad, and ugly of the Pankow name. That’s the way it works.

So then we think about what Paul says in today’s text. I kneel before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the entire family in heaven and on earth receives its name. He’s talking about Jews and Gentiles here. No matter what race you are, when you become a Christian, you receive HIS name. It happened in our baptism, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

When you receive that name, it has implications. This isn’t meant to be a light hearted relationship where you text someone once in a while. Paul said, “I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he would strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner self, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” Paul recognized that faith has to be a supernatural thing. The Holy Spirit would have to do a lot of work in you, powerful work, of bringing Christ to live in your hearts.

Well, how does that work? Paul answered this prayer by writing this letter to the Ephesians and going on mission trips and writing letters to the churches. He called people to repentance and preached Christ crucified. It was difficult and painful work sometimes. It’s kind of like getting in shape. You don’t get in shape by just buying exercise machines. You have to use them. You don’t get to know Jesus by owning a Bible. You have to use it, listen to it, and apply it to your life. If you’ve sinned, don’t just think about changing. Take it seriously! Repent. Take the Supper! Go to Jesus! Ask for forgiveness. When you’re worried about something, pray about it! Then you give the Holy Spirit a chance to strengthen you in your faith, to believe in what God promises you. In this way you will find yourself more resistant to temptation, more relaxed in times of trouble. You’ll find yourself actually singing in church. You’ll start looking forward to coming to worship and Bible study, when you could be sleeping or doing a thousand other things. He brings us to an Epiphany of Christ!

That wasn’t enough for Paul. He wanted even MORE for the Ephesians and for us. Then, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 I pray that you would be able to comprehend, along with all the saints, how wide and long and high and deep his love is, 19 and that you would be able to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled to all the fullness of God. Paul compares the love of God to measuring something. Take for instance a box. You get the tape measure out. You measure the height, the width, and the length. But then He goes even deeper. He goes from three dimensions to four dimensions. He adds DEPTH at the end. Why does he do this? Isn’t that just a part of the height? What he’s doing is showing us that there is an extra dimension to God’s love that we wouldn’t even consider or think about from a surface view. Imagine seeing a mountain in the middle of a sea. It’s one thing to see it’s beauty from flying over the mountain. But what if got on the mountain, put on scuba gear, and dove down under water? You’d discover a much deeper beauty! So also God’s love is DEEPER than we could ever think or imagine.