“...that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.”
The first thing I have an obligation to point out to you as we begin, is that we’re still in the middle of Paul’s prayer; a prayer for the church he’s writing to, but also, as we have said and agreed upon, for all who would come after, including us.
So I want to stand back, as it were, and take in this prayer as a whole today, at least up through verse 19 (even though I would include his anthem of praise in verses 20 and 21 as part of the prayer), and sort of dissect it in order to see it’s individual parts more clearly.
First of all there are several phrases that establish some conditions that must exist. Now this doesn’t mean that there are some things you and I have to work toward; some goal to be met by our striving, before this prayer can apply to us.
I’m saying that since Paul is addressing Christians, these conditions do indeed exist in each believer, so we simply need to be made aware of them, and aware that by their very nature they declare the objects of Paul’s prayer to be Christians already.
Skipping through these verses from 14 through 19 to see these conditions then:
1. “I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name”. So we see first that all he is going to ask comes directly and independently from the Father of Glory, God Himself, the One who is the generator of all life in heaven and on the earth. “...it is He who gives to all, life and breath and all things, and has made from one every nation of mankind...”
There is no other source of supply, there is no other source of blessing, there is no other who can regenerate, who can grant eternal life, who can give growth and development to the spirit. So Paul bows the knee to Him.
2., we see that Paul asks his petitions be granted ‘according to the riches of His glory’. In this, we are made aware of two things. The first is that Paul is not asking God to give some paltry prize here. He’s not begging for penance. He is not hoping to wrench something for us from the hands of some miser in the sky.
He knows that God’s mercy and grace abound toward His holy ones, and He’s asking according to God’s will, that which He is confident that God is not only able, but willing and anxious to provide, ‘according to the riches of His glory’, which, by the way, are limitless in quantity and eternal in quality and duration.
3. The next pre-existing condition we see is that Paul is praying for people who are ‘rooted and grounded in love’. You may remember our coverage of this term several weeks ago. This is very important to what we will be talking about later in this sermon, because being filled to all the fulness of God is absolutely dependent on our being rooted and grounded in love.
Let me say that another way. Think about the illustration Jesus used of the vine and the branches in John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Remember that several weeks ago I pointed out that Paul did not tell the Ephesians that they were rooted in knowledge, but in love. And just as the vine is rooted in nutritious soil, and takes up that nutrition and gives it to the branches, so we, who are the branches, are rooted in love as the vine is. Now we may not have the capacity that the vine has, but we have the exact kind of love flowing in and through us that comes from the vine. There is no difference in essence. I’ll come back to this briefly later.
4. The fourth thing we see is that it is a prayer for all the saints. It is not for any who are not saints, but it is for all who are saints. No saint is excluded. Not new Christians, not what someone might refer to as ‘carnal Christians’, ~ although I have to seriously doubt the existence of such creatures ~ and it is not only for the preachers and teachers and dedicated foreign missionaries. It is only for God’s holy ones, but it is for all of God’s holy ones, meaning all born again believers.
5. Lastly, and this may not sound at first like a condition, but it is one. I’m referring to the phrase “which surpasses knowledge” in verse 19. Remember that I said none of these things are something we are required to attain to. In point of fact, we could not attain to them through some exercise or effort of the flesh. They are simply conditions that exist as a part of being a spiritual person; and by that I mean a Christian. One who is born of the Spirit and has the Spirit living in him.
And that is why I call this one of the conditions; because that which surpasses knowledge is spiritual, and cannot be comprehended by one who is not a spiritual being. If you are not a Christian, then you cannot understand the love of Christ, because it surpasses knowledge, and for the unbeliever, fleshly knowledge is all he has. His knowledge cannot possibly extend beyond this world; beyond the here and now.
So seeing those 5 conditions and understanding that they are simply part and parcel of what a Christian is, we should now be focused very sharply, and clearly understand that the things Paul is praying for are for all believers, and only believers.
So let’s look briefly at the list of his petitions for us:
1. “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man”. Remember, he’s praying for believers, so we come to the conclusion by the wording of this request, that being a born again believer is not enough in itself, to fully experience the Christian life and relationship. We need from God’s Holy Spirit a strengthening with power, the power of the Spirit, in the inner man.
It is with sadness, not with harshness or condemnation, that I declare to you fellow Christians, that we are living in a time of weakness in the family of God. For so long, and increasingly so, the church in our society has been so afraid to offend or to bore or to confuse with the facts, that from far too many pulpits the message has been held to the basic facts of the gospel, (and in very many cases even that is missing), and from there only a week by week admonition to live as good Christians, and good citizens, sprinkled occasionally with railings against the ills of society, the ills of national and international politics, and the ills of the American home.
Christians in general are weak, and desperately in need of strengthening by the power that is in and from the Holy Spirit, because they are neither taught that this strengthening is available, nor are pastors taking any time to pray for themselves or their people to receive it.
I think I was in my pre-teen years, when someone whose name I did not hear at the time said this half in jest, but it made its point with me when I heard it and has stayed with me all these years. . He was British, and talking to an American pastor when he said, “The problem with you American ministers, is that you have an ‘office’ instead of a ‘study’. I’m sure there are plenty of British ministers who have the same misled mindset, but as I said, he made his point.
We have our big oak desks and book-lined walls and degrees to impress, and comfortable chairs for someone to sit in while being counseled; what this Brit was implying that too many of us look at it as a sort of throne room for the pastor, more than a closet in which to humble ourselves before God, and seek inspiration and revelation from God’s Word.
The clergy as a whole in this nation has no right to decry the misconceptions the general populace has of the church, or the dearth of dedication and zeal that marked previous generations in the church, until they go back to their books and their bibles and learn so that they are able to teach, and fortify their message and their daily pastoral duties with prayer, prayer, prayer!
I can not speak for all Bible colleges and seminaries. I only attended one and have no experience with any other. I can only say that in the school I attended we were required to take homiletics classes (learning to prepare and deliver sermons), but there was no class called “Pacing and Ranting”, and there were no classes called, “Pleasing All the Laymen At Once”.
When preachers get lazy and stop learning, and when they settle into a one-message mentality and beat their congregations with it week after week, month after month, and never take them deeper than the fundamentals of the faith, they are cheating their congregations and they have deserted their calling from God ~ if indeed, they were ever called in the first place.
The writer to the Hebrews penned an exhortation that should sound as a last days trumpet call to every church leader who can read the signs and has any sense of urgency about him at all.
“Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, or instruction about washings, and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And this we shall do, if God permits.”
- Hebrews 5:1,2
It would be a good thing for the church, if pastors would take these two verses and tape them to their bathroom mirrors or their coffee makers.
Now before I go on from this phrase, let me say something to you that I want you to understand very clearly. I don’t want anyone hearing (or reading) this to go out and misquote me.
Hold on to the edge of your chair if you think you might need to, but please hear me out until I’m done.
For so many decades, the non-Pentecostal church has been so afraid of sounding like they might come anywhere near agreeing with the distinctive doctrines of the Pentecostal movement, that they have largely thrown the baby out with the bath water.
I will concede that some of the practices of the Pentecostal churches have been unscriptural, and detrimental in that for so many years there was a strong emphasis on the emotional and the physical manifestations and too little teaching about the biblical truths of their doctrines or the spiritual application of their teachings.
But people, in an effort to avoid smacking of ‘Charismania‘, we’ve become afraid of letting the Holy Spirit of God move among us.
What if we did just open up, raise our hands toward the ceiling, and from our hearts invite the Holy Spirit to do anything He wills to do in us? What if we totally yielded ourselves like clay in the potter’s hand, and said, “Lord God, by your precious Holy Spirit, strengthen me in the inner man, search my heart, cleanse me from all that is not of you, and Lord, I surrender myself to your use without reservation. Do anything you want in and through my yielded members, now and always. Amen”
Has He given us any reason not to trust Him that much? Of course He has not. But in ten years of attending Baptist churches, I haven’t been in one where when someone raised their hands in prayer, they didn’t get any weird stares. Not that I want to tell you that if we don’t lift our hands we’re not worshiping; but the apparent embarrassment an entire congregation seems to feel when some visitor stretches out their arms and openly praises the Lord, I think should make red lights go on in us that something is wrong...something is missing. Where’s the joy we should have when assembled as one to praise our King? Where is the freedom?
And so far, I haven’t heard a Baptist preacher preach unabashedly about the second chapter of Acts without trying to put a hobble of some kind on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, so no one would think he’s agreeing with the Pentecostals.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, maybe we could use a little bit of chandelier swinging, to loosen us up a bit.
In any case, Paul prayed, not for spiritual babes, but for all Christians everywhere, that God would grant them according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened in the inner man. And notice that the next two words are “so that”
“So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that,” ... we ...”...being rooted and grounded in love,
2. “...may be able to comprehend...the breadth and length and height and depth...
(of) the love of Christ,” and that we would know that love which is beyond human knowledge.
Do you see the progression in these requests?
That we might be strengthened in the inner man so that we might fully experience Christ in us through faith, so that we might comprehend the greatness of this love in which we are rooted and grounded, so that we might know the unknowable, referring again to the love of Christ, also by the power and enlightening work of the Holy Spirit,...so that, we may be filled up to all the fulness of God.
So now we come finally to our primary focus today, and we will stay here. I know it was a long trip, but it was necessary to get the full impact of this expressed desire of Paul’s.
There is an underlying message in these verses nearing the end of Ephesians 3 that I believe Paul had in mind, along with the more obvious things, when he penned his prayer for them.
That message is that we do not yet have all that God has to give, and wants to give.
Now don’t get me wrong; I said in the very beginning of this study on Ephesians that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Jesus. Actually, Paul said it...I stressed it...
And it is true that as His adopted children we are inheritors of all the riches of Heaven and eternity in Christ. But that is not to say we already have the experiential use and possession of all that God has stored up for us, just like a 5 year old prince does not have actual possession and use of the kingdom he will one day inherit.
As I pointed out a minute ago though, each of these petitions Paul has made has been a stepping stone toward this aim; that we may be filled up to all the fulness of God.
Now let’s discuss just what this word ’fulness’ refers to, so we may apply it practically to ourselves.
I promised I’d come back to the illustration of the vine and the branches. We can hardly go wrong using this analogy, since Jesus Himself introduced it in John 15. He said that He would abide in us as we abide in Him. Staying with this picture for a moment, think of the very essence of life that comes from the main vine and flows to all the branches.
Some branches are small, and some of the older ones might be quite large, yet they all are only branches of the vine; but as branches connected to the vine, abiding in the vine, they are all filled up to the fulness of the life of the vine itself.
That does not mean that the smaller branches will stop growing, or that the larger ones will now stay as they are; but as each grows and lengthens, their capacity for what fills them only increases. The essence of the life in them does not change; but their capacity for it does...yet at each step along the way their status is that they are filled with the life.
As I researched for this sermon I saw a couple of other illustrations being used. One explained it as a bottle and a large tank, both full of the same essence, yet different in capacity.
Another spoke of a balloon. He said you might blow it up just a little and then say it is full of air, and you would be correct. But then you could continue to make it larger and larger, and it would still be full, and full of the same substance, but only larger in capacity.
So the idea that Paul is expressing is not that we would have all of God in us; that would be impossible and is silly to consider, for anyone who has the most basic understanding of the attributes of God, who is omnipresent and who contains all things.
He is also not saying that this filling is a once and for all thing; as though we would reach some plane of maturity and be full and never need to bother with it any more.
Reverting back to the illustration of the vine and branches; the branches are constantly filled with the essence of the vine, but that essence is constantly flowing in and through them. If it stopped, they would not retain it long and they would die.
Think of it this way. If I wind a rubber band tightly around my finger it would not be long before I would lose that finger. It is constantly filled with the same life that fills the rest of my body, but it does not stay filled on its own. If I cut off the source, my finger would die.
Now let’s tie all of this together and hear what Paul has said to us in our text.
The main thing is this. Becoming a Christian is not an end in itself. It is only a beginning.
Hearing the gospel message, repenting of sin and making a confession of Christ, and being born again is not the end goal of God for us.
If it was, we wouldn’t need most of the New Testament. There would be no exhortations to ’grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ’. There would be no admonition to put off the old man and put on the new.
Jesus would not have had to include in His discourse of the vine and the branches, “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”
And
“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up;...”
In this prayer of Paul’s, believers, he is revealing to us that we have a need, beyond salvation, to be saturated with Christ. To be constantly and increasingly strengthened in the inner man, the new man, by the Holy Spirit, and enlightened constantly and increasingly to the deep, deep love of Jesus,.
In other words, abiding in Him and He in us, so that we might be so filled up to the fulness of God that we manifest His very nature just as the branch does the vine.
Thriving with the life of the vine, and bearing its fruit out of that fulness.
Let me draw to a close by talking about how we can recognize this fulness in ourselves and our brothers and sisters.
If I am a branch, abiding in the vine, then you will see very little of me that is independent from the vine itself. I will look like the vine on a smaller scale, I will bear the characteristics of the vine itself, and the fruit that I bear will in itself be a proof of the nature of the vine.
“Look, grapes! This must be a grape vine” Is what people would say. Not, “Look, grapes! This must be a grape branch” The glory and credit go to the vine.
So what does your fruit testify to? What fulness are you filled up to?
Does God control you? Are you so filled up with Him that your thoughts, your actions, your feelings testify of His presence and His control?
Can you honestly say to yourself, without your conscience condemning you, that the desire of your heart, fundamentally, is that His will be done over your will?
More importantly, are you aware of your will becoming what His revealed will is?
The one who is filled up to the fulness of God will desire what God desires, and there will be no conflict.
The one who is filled up to the fulness of God will manifest Christ through his life. He will love as Christ loved. He will walk in humility and obedience as Christ walked.
This is Christianity, friends! Yielding to the sanctifying, conforming, enlightening power of the Holy Spirit, and being made into the very image of Christ; not some day when we get to heaven, but right now! Daily. Every day, submitting to His will, asking for His filling, and gaining and ever-increasing comprehension of what Jesus meant when He said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” Jn 17:3
Can you see why our emphasis in recent weeks has been more pointedly on knowing Him...knowing His Person, than on just knowing about Him? You can know about a person without ever meeting him. But you cannot personally know a person without learning more about Him.
What Paul wanted for his Ephesian readers and for us is a vital, significant, intimate personal knowledge and relationship with our Lord; filled up with His fulness.
This is what made the difference between Saul the Pharisee, and Paul the Apostle. And it is what makes the difference between the saved church-member, and the joyful, peaceful, loving, dynamic servant for Christ.
It is what he knew and experienced, and he wanted us to know it too.
That we might be filled up to all the fulness of God
