We’ve all heard the old adage “Home is where the heart is”. But I think if the Apostle Paul was here with us today, he would probably rearrange the words like this:
“Heart is where the home is”
That is the essence of the passage that we’ll look at this morning as we continue our journey through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Let’s read our passage out loud together:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
Ephesians 3:14-17a (NIV)
This morning, I want to take a few minutes to provide you with some introductory information about this passage, but then I want to spend most of our time together focusing on the concept of Christ dwelling in our hearts.
The beginning phrase of this passage probably looks familiar to us. You’ll remember that Paul began chapter 3 with that very same phrase - For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles. And then, as we’ve seen over the past several weeks, Paul does as he often does and inserts this big parenthesis for the next 12 verses. In those verses he describes how God is carrying out His eternal purpose through the body of believers called the church. And now as we come to verse 14 Paul picks up with the thought that began back in verse 1.
Do you ever think about why we pray? I mean really think about the reason why we pray. We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the sovereignty of God in the firs three chapters of Ephesians. It is God who chooses us, God who predestines us to become part of his family, God who redeems us and God who guarantees that we will one day receive the inheritance of all the spiritual blessings that He has promised to us. So it only seems fair to ask, “If God is going to do what He wills anyway, why should I pray?”
I think Paul answers that question with his phrase “for this reason.” It’s interesting to see how the various commentators treat this phrase. Obviously, it refers back to what Paul has written previously in this letter, but what exactly is the reason for which he is praying?
Is it because he is imprisoned and he doesn’t want his readers to be discouraged? Is it because of his interest in the welfare of his readers and his desire for them to enter fully into their privileges in Christ? Is it because of the reconciling work of Jesus that has brought Jews and gentile together in the church and because of Paul’s understanding of this mystery?
Perhaps all of those thoughts entered into Paul’s reasoning. But it seems that the immediate context has to do with the fact that God’s children have been gathered together in the church for the purpose of making God’s manifold wisdom evident here on earth and in the heavens. So Paul is praying because he is confident that God will do the things Paul is praying for in our lives in order to prepare us to be fit vessels to carry out God’s sovereign plan.
Next, Paul writes that he bows his knees before the Father. Paul is not indicating here that we have to bow our knees when we pray. In fact, throughout the Bible we find people praying in various different positions. But the idea of bowing our knees is a picture of submission, reverence and awe. It pictures a subject coming before the king to bring a request. The point Paul is making here is that when we come before God to pray, we need to come with a right heart. We can come boldly, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, because our access is based on what Jesus has done for us. But we also need to come with reference and awe.
Then Paul uses an interesting phrase to describe God. He calls him “the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.” Frankly we could spend our whole time just looking at this phrase this morning, but let me just make a couple of quick observations. First, there seems to be a reference here to creation and the fact that all created beings owe their existence to the Father. But because of the context here in Ephesians, Paul seems to be emphasizing the idea that in the church, we all have the same Father. It doesn’t matter whether we are Jew or Gentile, male or female, black or white, rich or poor. We are all God’s children and God loves all his children equally. He doesn’t play favorites. So when Paul prays, he is praying for all of God’s children, including all of us who are followers of Jesus Christ.
We’re going to spend the rest of our time this morning focusing on the first part of Paul’s prayer. Let’s read that portion of his prayer again:
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
Paul’s desire is that Christ would dwell in the hearts of his readers. The word translated “dwell” is an interesting word. In Greek, as you might expect, there are several different words that mean to live or to dwell. The one that Paul chose to use here is a word that means to “settle down and be at home.” [Wuest].
When Mary and I decided to look for a new house several years ago, we looked at dozens of houses before we finally settled on a floor plan and location that we liked. Once we decided to buy that house, we had to make a lot of decisions about things like paint colors, carpet, tile, counters, and appliances. And then once the house was completed and we moved in, we still had a lot of other things we needed to do to make that house our home. We had to put up window coverings, place our furniture where we wanted it, put up our prints and other wall hangings. Since then we’ve also done a lot of other things to modify our house to make it fit our tastes and our lifestyle. We’ve landscaped the backyard, painted some walls, and changed some switch plates and fixtures. We’ve done all that because our plan is to make that house our last home. Obviously, God could change all that, but we look at that house as our permanent residence, so we have invested our resources to make it a place where we can settle down and be at home.
By the way, if you need some help with some of your projects around the house, you might be interested in this email I received this week. It has some great suggestions about how to use some common household items to tackle some of those difficult jobs. My favorite was this one:
Aunt killer: Peppermint oil and chili powder.
So I guess if any of you have an aunt that’s bugging you, you know what to do now.
Paul’s prayer for us is that we’d be able to do the same thing spiritually with our hearts that most of us do with our homes - to make it a place where Christ can take up permanent residence. Even though Jesus comes into my heart at the moment that I commit my life to Him, Paul’s prayer here makes it clear that my life is not quite ready at that point for Jesus to settle down and be at home there. So, as we’ve seen throughout our study of Ephesians, we embark on this process of having our lives transformed so that we can become more and more like Jesus and to prepare our hearts to be the place where He can come and settle down and be at home.
Let’s look at Paul’s prayer and see if we can’t pick out some practical principles that will help us to make sure that our heart is where God’s home is.
HOW TO MAKE MY HEART GOD’S HOME
1. Rely on God’s riches
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power…
When Mary and I tackle various projects around our house, we’re limited to whatever resources that we have available – time, materials, tools, money and physical ability. But the great thing about preparing our hearts for Christ to take up permanent residence is that we’re not dependent on our own resources. As Paul writes, we have access to the glorious riches of God.
We’ve been reading about those glorious riches from the very beginning of Paul’s letter. We’ve been chosen by God and predestined to be adopted into His family. Jesus has redeemed us from an empty way of life through his death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit lives in our lives as a guarantee of both present and future spiritual riches. We’ve been joined together with other believers in the church for the purpose of revealing God’s wisdom both here on earth and in the heavens. And if God has already done all that for His children, don’t you think that He is capable of equipping us with everything we need to prepare our hearts so Jesus can come and make Himself at home there?
Paul reinforced this principle in another of his letters:
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19 (NIV)
Isn’t it a great relief to know that I’m not limited by my own resources? In the process of preparing my heart so Jesus can settle in there I have the glorious riches of God at my disposal. But how am I able to plug into that power that God provides? That’s where the next three principles come in.
2. Submit to the Spirit
…through his Spirit…
We very clearly see all three parts of the trinity at work here in Paul’s prayer. He prays to God the Father, who is the source of the glorious riches and the power that is available to us. And the purpose of that power is to enable us to prepare our hearts so that His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, can come and take up residence. And it is the Holy Spirit who is the conduit through whom that power and those resources flow into our lives.
The Holy Spirit has a number of functions in our lives. We’ve already seen in Ephesians that he serves as guarantee of our future inheritance of the riches of God. But one of His other important roles is to point us to Jesus Christ. Just before He went to the cross, Jesus described that role:
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
John 14:26 (NIV)
So at least one of the ways that the Holy Spirit is the conduit for the riches of God is that He reminds us of the teachings of Jesus and helps us to apply those teachings in our lives. Although we get all of the Holy Spirit that we’ll ever get at the very moment we become a follower of Jesus Christ, the Bible is very clear that we can impede His work in our lives.
This first verse is one that we’ll look at in much more detail when we get there in our journey through Ephesians:
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God…
Ephesians 4:30 (NIV)
And then there is this passage in another of Paul’s letters:
Do not put out the Spirit’s fire
1 Thessalonians 5:19 (NIV)
Although we don’t have time this morning to explore these verses in great detail, they both make it clear that the Holy Spirit will not force us to respond to the revelation that He brings into our lives. We can grieve the Holy Spirit and we can quench His work in our lives. Whenever the Holy Spirit leads us and reminds us of the teachings of Jesus, we can either choose to respond by submitting our lives to that work of the Spirit and making the changes we need to make to get our lives in line with that revelation or we can choose to ignore that revelation.
If I want to make my heart God’s home, I need to develop the habit of submitting my life to the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. As I read the Bible and pray, I need to do it with an attitude of humility and submission. I need to be willing to respond to the work of the Holy Spirit in my life even before I know what He will reveal to me.
3. Emphasize the eternal
…in your inner being…
…in your hearts....
This principle is so important that Paul uses two different phrases to describe the idea of developing our inner lives. Both the inner being (literally the “inner man”) and our hearts describe the very center of our being. That includes our personality, thoughts, will and emotions. And it is that part of our lives we need to develop in order for Jesus to come and be at home there.
Although Mary and I have made a lot of cosmetic changes to our house, what is even more important to the long-term ability for our house to serve as our home are some of the things that are not nearly as visible. If I paint a wall, but the drywall hasn’t been hung properly or the builder used inferior lumber when framing, or even worse, if the foundation is not adequate, that paint job is not going to last. Or I can change out the switch plates and outlet covers all I want, but if there is a problem with the wiring inside the walls, my lights and outlets still won’t work properly.
The same thing is true with our lives. We can spend all the time we want on the outside, but if we don’t take care of the inner man, our hearts, then all the work we do won’t last. So how do we make sure that we develop that inner man? Paul gives us some hints about how we do that in another of his letters:
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)
There is far more in that short passage than we could even begin to tackle this morning, but Paul makes it quite clear that the way that we are renewed inwardly day by day is to fix our eyes on those unseen things that are eternal rather that the temporary things that we can see. In other words, I need to focus on developing on those things that will last for eternity – my character, my convictions, my thought life, my devotion – rather than those things that will pass away – my body and my material possessions.
I’m not saying, and I don’t think Paul is either, that we are not to take care of our bodies or be good stewards of the material goods God has entrusted us with. In fact, the Bible clearly teaches that we should do both of those things. But he is saying that our main focus should be on developing those parts of our lives that will last for eternity. It only makes sense that if Jesus is to be at home in our hearts, that is where we ought to focus our time and our resources.
4. Trust in God’s truth
…through faith…
When Paul writes that Christ dwells in our hearts through faith, the faith that he is describing is much more than just some intellectual belief. In fact, it is even broader than what we normally think of as faith – trusting in Jesus Christ alone as the means of being made right with God. That’s certainly part of faith, but it’s really only a starting point. If we want Jesus to be at home on our hearts, we need to have a much more encompassing kind of faith. James is really helpful in describing that kind of faith:
But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder.
James 2:18, 19 (NIV)
There are some people who will try to claim that James’ writings contradict Paul’s claim that salvation is by faith alone and not a result of our works. But if you read Paul’s letters carefully, you will find that both of them are actually very much on the same page. James is pointing out that real faith will be demonstrated by our actions. As he points out, even the demons have an intellectual belief about God and His Son. And I think we’d all agree that kind of faith is totally inadequate as a basis for our salvation or for making our heart a dwelling for Jesus.
If we want Jesus to come and make Himself at home in our hearts, then we need to have the kind of faith that trusts that as we obey the teachings of Jesus and the leadings of the Holy Spirit, God will accomplish what is the very best for us, even when we can’t see how that can be. Here’s how Jesus put it:
Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
John 14:23 (NIV)
If we want Jesus to come and make His home with us, then we need to trust him enough to obey His teachings. That means when someone wrongs me, instead of trying to get revenge, I forgive and pray for the other person. It means that when I have the desire to engage in a physical relationship outside of marriage, I refrain from giving into those desires, because I trust that is in my best interest based on the words of Jesus. It means that I don’t worry about my material needs because God has promised to provide them for me.
This morning before you leave, I want to ask each of you to pick up a copy of the booklet entitled “My Heart, Christ’s Home” which was written by Robert Boyd Munger. We have enough for one copy per family. I can’t think of a better guide to help you put into practice the principles that we’ve looked at together today. I’d like to close this morning by reading a short excerpt from this booklet.
In this book, the author uses the analogy of the rooms in our house to describe the different areas of our heart that we need to allow God to prepare so that he can live there. I’m going to read to you the section about the hall closet, which is an excellent illustration of how to apply all four principles that we’ve looked at this morning.
One day I found Him waiting for me at the door. An arresting look was in His eye. As I entered, He said to me, "There is a peculiar odor in the house. Something must be dead around here. It’s upstairs. I think it’s in the hall closet." As soon as He said this, I knew what He was talking about. There was a small closet up there on the hall landing, just a few feet square. In that closet, behind lock and key, I had one or two little personal things that I did not want anyone to know about. Certainly, I did not want Christ to see them. I knew they were dead and rotting things left over from the old life. I wanted them so for myself that I was afraid to admit they were there. Reluctantly, I went up with Him, and as we mounted the stairs the odor became stronger and stronger. He pointed to the door. I was angry. That’s the only way I can put it. I had given Him access to the library, the dining room, the living room, the rec room, the workroom, and now He was asking me about a little two-by-four closet. I said to myself, "This is too much. I am not going to give Him the key." "Well," He said, reading my thoughts, "If you think I am going to stay up here on the second floor with this smell, you are mistaken. I will go out on the porch." Then I saw Him start down the stairs. When one comes to know and love Christ, the worst thing that can happen is to sense Him withdrawing His fellowship. I had to give in. "I’ll give you the key," I said sadly, "but You will have to open the closet and clean it out. I haven’t the strength to do it." "Just give me the key," He said. "Authorize me to take care of that closet and I will." With trembling fingers I passed the key to Him. He took it, walked over to the door, opened it, entered, took out all the putrefying stuff that was rotting there, and threw it away. Then He cleaned the closet and painted it. It was done in a moment’s time. Oh, what victory and release to have that dead thing out of my life!
