Find Ephesians 3 with me. This is the second week to look at one of the most beautiful prayers in all the Bible. It's as if you are on an escalator moving right into Heaven itself. It's obviously a prayer from the first words in verse 14, "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father."
I am challenging our church to use this prayer to pray for a teenager or child in the coming weeks. Generation Z may not be a familiar term for you but are those young people born between 1995 and 2010. Gen Z will quickly become the largest American generation yet. They are today's teenagers and children 18 and under. If we would begin to pray for God to do the things in this prayer, we would see the transforming power of God unleashed in our lives, in churches, and in the next generation as we have never seen before.
Let's read the passage one more time: "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in Heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen" (Ephesians 3:14-21).
This is a prayer for people who already believe in Christ, who already possess the Holy Spirit in their spirits. The magnitude of that prayer is so immense that you and I need divine assistance to get our minds around this. You and I will never get anywhere near the experience of God until the first thing you do is bow your head and you say, "I haven't the slightest idea what these words mean. I've hardly even tapped. I've tasted three drops out of an ocean. Help me, Father." Let's pause to pray together.
Prayer
Father in Heaven,
There's no way for us to understand this supernatural love your Word speaks of. It's on a whole other love and as strange to our ears as something from a physics textbook. Lord, we need you here in our minds and in our spirits. Quiet us and focus us. We are praying for a spiritual breakthrough that is a hinge moment for our lives. Drown our minds in your presence. Flood our spirits and souls with you in the moments to come. We need you to enter into us at this moment.
In Jesus Name,
Amen.
Gen Z Sermon Purpose
Again, I am calling our church's collective attention to Generation Z, the students around us. These are those 18 and under. I want to ask you to ponder how can you encourage them. How can we fan the flame of faith in this generation born between 1999 and 2015? And how can we specifically pray for them. Many of you have children and grandchildren that are Generation Z. I'm asking you to pick at least one of these to pray for by name. Specifically, I want to challenge you to pray this specific prayer as a model prayer for a believing teenager or young person in your life. Would you join me in adopting Ephesians 3 as a model prayer for one person of the Next Generation to have a spiritual breakthrough? Let's unite together to call out to Almighty with a tremendous passion that the next generation would have a spiritual passion and a hunger for God.
1. Strengthen Me with Your Spirit
There are so many layers to this prayer: "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love…" (Ephesians 3:17).
Paul mixes metaphors here. He uses a planting metaphor for the farmer and then he uses a construction metaphor when you are building. "[R]ooted" is agricultural, and "grounded" (literally, founded) is architectural and they combine to show us the sense of what is being prayed for. In essence, he's praying, "that you, being rooted and [foundationed] in love…" The Bible calls on us to pray for believers to be "rooted" and "grounded" in Christ in our hearts.
1.1 Your Inner Being
Very little of the Bible makes sense if you think of the word heart as being a synonym with emotions. The heart is your inner core self so verse 17 is mirroring what verse 16 says: "that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being…" (Ephesians 3:16). Until you recognize that you must start in your inner being, you'll get nowhere.
1.2 Prayer Survey
A 2014 survey sometime back asked over 1,000 Americans what they prayed for. Now, some of these prayers were noble.
82% said they prayed for their families and friend.
37% said they prayed for their enemies (of course they didn't say what they prayed for).
38% prayed for people in natural disasters.
Listen to this one: 21% prayed to win the lottery.
14% prayed for God to avenge someone who hurt them.
13% prayed for their favorite team to win a game! (God help us!)
7% prayed to find a good parking spot.
7% prayed to not get caught speeding.
Now, let's be honest: We don't know what to pray for.
1.3 Your Inner Being Continued
So how are we to pray? Paul says, "I don't want you to faint, so I'm going to pray your inner being and your inner life is strengthened." The Bible calls on us to pray for believers to be "rooted" and "grounded" in Christ in our hearts. Paul is saying in essence, "Some of you think this morning your big problem is a financial problem, that somehow if that was set straight you'd be okay. Some of you think your big problem is a physical problem, or it's a relational problem." Paul says, "You're wrong. If you had this you could handle all circumstances. You need this more than anything. This is what you need. This is the big need in your life." In essence he's praying, "that you, being rooted and [foundationed] in love…" See, if Christ is dwelling with them, if they're knowing Christ face to face, if they're strengthened by might in their inner being, all these other things are actually like mosquito bites.
Are you praying for your inner being? Are praying for intimacy with Him?
1.4 My Experience with Jesus
Jesus is my refuge in times of conflict. He's my rest in times of toil and my ease in times of pain. Jesus is my medicine when my heart is broken and He's my peace in times of war. He's my smile when tyrant's frown and my glory in the midst of shame. He's my power in times of weakness and my freedom when I'm in bondage. He's my light in times of darkness and my help when no one else is around.
The Bible sees this fuller knowledge of God as a more critical thing to receive than a change of circumstances.
1.5 Prayer Confusion
Let's all be honest. If you were in a group of people and I asked you, "Do you have any prayer requests?" Do you know what 99 of those requests will be for? Sick people - to heal Mike's cancer, may the operation for Susie go well, and to give Rick strength as he battles this sickness.
Let me emphasize. There is nothing wrong with praying for sick people. In fact, we are commanded to pray for sick people. Then, sometimes it will be a prayer for a financial need (Larry lost his job, Mark needs a job) and sometimes we just pray, "Lord, I wish the guy next door to me would just do his job!"
Let's face it.
We are a lot more concerned for our physical health and our financial wellbeing than we are for our spiritual breakthrough. Nothing reveals more about what you really believe about God than your prayers.
1. Strengthen Me with Your Spirit
2. Load Me with Your Love
Now, it is possible for Christians to live their lives with a high degree of phoniness, hollowness, and inauthenticity. As a pastor, I witness this in Christians all the time. How do we counter this? One of the ways we counter phoniness is through prayer, real prayer.
Look at verse 18 with me: "may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:18-19).
I want your insides to be strong enough to understand God's love. That's a powerful statement. I want your insides to be strong enough to understand God's love. In effect, he's praying "so that you might be strong enough inside to comprehend the love of God with all the saints."
2.1 Spanish Inquisition
In the Spanish Inquisition, a prison was found, and this prison was more like a cave. And, a man had been put in that prison for his faith, and when they unearthed the prison, there was just a skeleton. And, that man had gotten a rock, and on the wall of that cave, he had made a cross. And, at the top of it, he put, "Height." At the bottom of the cross, he put, "Depth." On one arm, he put, "Breadth." On the other arm, he put, "Length." The resources of this verse offered this man hope to power through while wasting away in prison.
Prayer is a striving to "take hold of God" (Isaiah 64:7). The way in ancient times people took hold of the cloak of a great man as they appealed to him. We are to grab hold of God in prayer and not let go. Most of us know about the love of God, but we spend our lives searching for love and approval from everyone else. How calm and settled we would be if we truly experience the love of Christ in our inner being!
The farthest galaxy we have ever discovered is 13.4 billion light-years away. The deepest hole is an abandoned super-deep borehole in Russia that reached 7.5 miles below the earth's surface. Christ's love goes beyond the boundary of time and the border of space. Christ's love reaches from the zero gravity of space to the one thousand times our atmospheric pressure of the deepest sea.
2.2 The Dimensions of Christ's Love
What is the "breadth" of the love of Christ? He's asking, "How WIDE is the love of God?" He's probably thinking about this particular truth in Revelation 5, where it says, "… by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation…" (Revelation 5:9b). In verse 11, it says, "… numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands…" (Revelation 5:11). A multitude no man can number. The Bible is saying "Even if you have killed somebody, even if you have blood on your hands, my love is wide enough to embrace you. It doesn't matter who you are or what you have done. It doesn't matter if you have killed people. If Jesus Christ died on the cross so that you are saved by grace alone, then my love is infinitely wide. It is wide enough for you."
What is the "length" of the love of Christ? He's asking, "How LONG is the love of God?" The length of God's love is, "It doesn't matter what you do, it doesn't matter how far you go, you cannot outrun me. You can't outrun me. My love is longer than your stamina if you're trying to outrun me. My arm is longer. My reach is longer than your reach."
What is the "height" of the love of Christ? He's asking, "How HIGH is the love of God?"
I am reminded of Jesus' words on the cross where He prayed to His Father, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46b).
What is the "depth" of the love of Christ? He's asking, "How DEEP is the love of God?" The depth of God's love is probably where He wants to take us. We don't even know what He's after in our lives. We're told in 1 John 3, "what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2b). We will be with Him. Because the gospel is all by the grace of God, we know Christ's love is infinitely deep, infinitely wide, infinitely high, and infinitely long.
2.3 Surpasses Knowledge
Look at the first half of verse 19 with me: "and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…" (Ephesians 3:19a).
He says, "I pray that you would know this love that surpasses knowledge." "to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge" is confusing. Wait a minute – what did He say? "I want you to know something you can't know?" How can you know what is beyond knowing? You may not be able to know it, but you can experience it.
2.4 Comprehend Christ's Love
"may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth…" (Ephesians 3:18). The word behind the English word is the Greek word, katalambano, and it means to ambush or to seize. The word means to attack.
2.3.1 The Second Coming Surprises You
The Bible speaks of the Second Coming and uses the same word: "While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief" (1 Thessalonians 5:3-4). Paul says, "Lookout. Judgment day is coming. Don't let it surprise you."
He uses the word katalambano. Again, the word was used to mean an ambush. When you're ambushed, you're surprised, and you've conquered through the surprise. There is to know something theoretically, and then there's an experience of something.
"may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth…" (Ephesians 3:18). In many of your translations, it's the word grasp, and it originally meant to besiege a city and to break through the gate and take it, or to sack a city. In Ephesians 1, it says, "I don't want you just to know about the power of God theoretically; I want your eyes to be enlightened to see it."
2.3.2 Job Comprehended
When Job actually experienced God at the very end, he said, "I've heard of you with my ears, but now I see you with my eyes," even though we know from the text he didn't see a thing physically. There was a whirlwind, and that was it.
2.3.3 Peter Comprehended
"So Peter opened his mouth and said: 'Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him'" (Acts 10:34-35). Peter had been a racist and didn't know it. He says, "Then understood it. I 'katalambano-ed' myself and God. It became real. I was ambushed. I suddenly said, 'I knew it, but I didn't know it. "may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:18-19).
Have you really comprehended the love of Christ? Has His love seized you or ambushed you? It takes more strength than you personally have to comprehend the love of God. Pray in effect, "Lord, load me down with your love."
1. Strengthen Me with Your Spirit
2. Load Me with Your Love
3. Fill Me with Your Fullness
We all know people that you are full of themselves, right. The Bible calls on us to pray that we are full of Christ. "and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:19). Paul doesn't pray for parking spaces or for health or wealth. He says in effect, "Don't waste your prayers on this silly stuff. Instead, pray that you would be filled with God Himself." God wants to fill you with Himself.
One of the things we should pray for ourselves every day is that we are empty of self and full of God.
Conclusion
God can move mountains. And prayer moves God. Prayer does change things, all kinds of things. But the most important thing prayer changes is us. Again, prayer is powerful because prayer connects us to the ultimate source of power – God. When we pray, difficult situations change. And unexplained miracles occur. Prayer opened the Red Sea and brought water from the rock. Prayer called bread down from Heaven and made the sun stand still. Prayer brought fire from the sky on Elijah's sacrifice and prayer overthrew Sennacherib's army. Prayer has healed the sick and prayer has worked to save men's souls.
