The Fullness of Christ
Ephesians 3:14-23
Ephesians: Riches in Christ, part 6
Turn to Eph chapter 3
Continuing in our series on the book of Ephesians.
Eph 3:14-21 (NLT)
14 When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. 17 And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. (might want to underline that on your outline)
20 Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. 21 May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.
Once there was a woman with nothing.
She had no husband,
no food, no money, no income, no prospects of any improvement in her situation, nothing.
She had two sons,
but her creditors were coming to take them away as slaves.
And in her emptiness,
she went to find the prophet Elisha.
The story is found in 2 Kings 4
And this is what he told her.
Elisha said, what do you have in your house?
Nothing, she said, except for a little oil.
Now this desperate, terrified woman,
was about to learn something, about nothing.
Because then Elisha told her
go ask all your neighbors if you can borrow their empty jars,
and don’t just ask for a few, ask for a bunch.
Then go inside and shut the doors,
with just you and your sons.
Now this is a strange story.
Its like the prophet was saying,
I know you have almost nothing,
I know that your life seems completely empty,
but you don’t have enough of emptiness.
I want you to really get, really empty.
So he said,
I want you to gather up all the nothing you have,
all the emptiness you have,
and then I want you to go to all your neighbors,
and borrow all their emptiness too,
then go back to your house,
close the doors with the 2 boys that are about to be taken from you,
so they’ll be emptiness too.
And after you’ve done that,
then lets see what God will do in your life.
So the woman did that.
2 Kings 4
She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one." But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing. She went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left."
Notice:
When did the oil stop flowing?
When their was no more emptiness to fill.
All the emptiness had become fullness.
If you are not experiencing God’s presence and provision in your life,
maybe its because you’re not empty enough.
Many times we won’t look to God for help,
and look to him for strength,
until we have no other option,
until we realize our emptiness.
I want to talk this morning about how God turns emptiness into fullness.
Because that’s what Ephesians is talking about in Chapter 3.
Paul prays a prayer for the Ephesians,
and in that prayer,
he tells us the process by which
God turns our emptiness into fullness.
Before we get back to Ephesians though,
I want to look more at what the rest of the Bible says about emptiness and fullness.
Because Jesus whole ministry was about
turning emptiness into fullness.
Remember when Jesus was with his disciples,
and a great crowd gathered to hear him,
and Jesus had compassion on them,
because he said,
they’re like sheep without a shepherd.
When Jesus looked at them, he saw that they were spiritually bankrupt,
spiritually empty.
They had nothing.
And not only nothing spiritually,
but nothing physically,
nothing to eat.
So Jesus asked Phillip,
how can we feed all these people?
And Phillip looked at all those thousands of people,
and said, there’s no way.
Even if we had 200 denarii…
equivalent of 10,000 dollars
But Jesus said,
have them sit down to eat.
Because Jesus wanted to demonstrate
what God can do,
with nothing,
with emptiness.
When you think about it,
its surprising that the disciples would have doubted at all
that he could feed thousands.
Because Jesus very first miracle was essentially the same.
He took nothing,
he took emptiness,
and made it fullness.
Maybe you remember the story ----
the wedding of Cana.
The proud parents, and friends and relatives and neighbors are all gathered for the wedding feast,
and they’re celebrating, and enjoying themselves,
when all the sudden the worst thing happened
that could happen in a wedding feast, in that day.
They ran out of wine.
Immediately they began to panic,
and they’re embarrassed,
and they’re saying,
what are we going to do?
At first just the few people coordinating the wedding knew,
but then the word began to spread,
and the guests found out,
no more wine,
and then even Mary, the mother of Jesus got involved,
and she goes to Jesus and says,
Jesus, what can you can do about this?
Now you have to remember that
Jesus had never done a miracle up to that point,
this was his first one.
But somehow Mary knew, even then,
that Jesus could turn emptiness to fullness.
So she told the servants,
do whatever Jesus tells you to do.
And you know the story,
Jesus tells them to fill 6 huge empty waterpots with water,
and he turns it to wine.
He turns the emptiness to fullness.
You see, throughout Jesus ministry on earth,
he was always interested in the emptiness of people.
He was drawn to people who had nothing,
no money,
no hopes.
no reputation,
no respect,
nothing.
Because Jesus knew that he could fill that emptiness.
Remember the story of the woman at the well.
Jesus gets into a conversation with this Samaritan woman,
who has had 5 husbands,
but now isn’t married and is living with a man.
which in that day would have caused her to be considered a prostitute.
So she had no husband,
no respect, and no faith in God.
Nothing.
And then along comes Jesus,
and says,
I see your emptiness,
and what you really need,
is not this well water,
let me give you living water.
John 4:13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
Jesus says,
I can give you living water that will fill you so you’ll never be empty again.
And of course she jumped right on that.
Because who wouldn’t want to feel totally fulfilled,
when you’ve been running on empty?
You see,
God specializes at turning emptiness
into fullness.
God specializes at making something
out of nothing.
Heb 11:3 (NIV)
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
This says
God even created the universe
out of nothing.
that’s His specialty.
So He’s not stressed out when you come to him,
with nothing to offer,
feeling spiritually empty.
He can bring fullness from emptiness.
But what he wants is for you to realize you’re empty,
so that He can fill you.
Let me ask you,
are you running on empty this morning?
Maybe you look fine on the outside,
but you’re just going through the motions,
because on the inside there’s a lot of emptiness.
God wants to take your emptiness this morning,
and turn it into fullness.
I read a story about Richard Wurmbrand,
a Romanian pastor who spent 14 years in prison,
back when the communists were doing their very best to stamp out Christianity.
He was subjected to brainwashing attempts, physical and mental torture, and threats to his family.
In 1950, his wife Sabina was imprisoned for 3 years as well, Following her release, the Romanian authorities informed her that Richard had died in prison.
It wasn’t till years later she found that wasn’t true.
Richard spent three years in solitary confinement,
in a cell near other Christians who’d been jailed.
During those 3 years the Christians were so desperate for communication that they designed a way to tap on the sewer pipes in a secret code.
(like POW camps in Viet Nam).
Soon the Christians were talking every day by sewer pipe tapping.
Richard was the only pastor in the group,
and one day a man tapped to him,
“I would love to be able to have communion.”
And Richard tapped back,
“I’d love to serve you communion,
I’d love to offer you the bread, and the wine,
but I have nothing.”
And the Christian tapped backed on the sewer line,
“God specializes in taking nothing,
and making it into something.
Lets have communion.”
When Richard was released after 14 years, he said that the greatest communions he’d ever experienced, were in that solitary cell,
where he would open his hands,
and picture the bread, that was in remembrance of Jesus,
and break it.
And then he would tap on the line,
the Bible verse,
this do in remembrance of me.
And the prisoner in the next cell would do the same,
and pass it onto the next prisoner,
till it made it all around the prison,
and they’d all shared the communion bread.
Then Richard would picture himself taking the cup, and drinking from it,
and he’d tap on the line,
and they would all drink from the cup,
And he said later,
the most sacred hours I’ve ever had with God,
were the hours when I had nothing,
but God came and filled my emptiness with his presence.
Finally he was released and allowed to leave the country in 1965.
24 years later, in 1989,
the communists lost power in Romania.
And so in 1990 Richard Wurmbrand was allowed back into Romania.
The Christians in Bucharest met him,
and they were so excited about a Christian bookstore they had started, and they took him to it.
Richard was thrilled to see that for the first time in Romania people could buy bibles and Christian books.
And he was overwhelmed by the number of bibles they had,
but they said, Oh this isn’t all of them, we have more in storage.
Let us show you.
And they took him underground,
and all the sudden they opened a very familiar door,
And Richard saw the cell where he had spent 14 years of his life,
and the cell was now a storage room for bibles,
for the Romanian people.
Richard was overwhelmed,
as he realized how
God took nothing,
and made something out of it.
God specializes at doing that.
God took the apostle Paul’s emptiness,
and turned his life around,
and made something great out of it.
And he can do that for each of us.
But that isn’t something that happens just once,
when you first become a believer.
Sure there is a time,
when you first ask God to fill the emptiness in your life,
and come into your life,
and you ask him to fill you with his spirit.
But that doesn’t mean we always live in God’s fullness.
Its like eating.
After you eat, you feel full,
but you don’t stay that way.
You eventually get empty again,
unless you do something about it.
So Paul gives us several keys in Ephesians,
to living in the fullness of God.
God wants us to live in fullness,
not emptiness.
There are 3 things that Paul prays for the Ephesian Christians,
and that we can pray both for others,
and for ourselves,
And Paul tells us that these things result in spiritual fullness.
So if you’re feeling empty this morning,
this is the way to experience God’s fullness.
There are 3 requests in Paul’s prayer, but they’re not isolated, individual requests. These 3 requests are more like 3 parts to a telescope.
One request leads into the next one, which leads to the 3rd one,
which leads to spiritual fullness.
Lets look at those quickly.
PRAY FOR INNER STRENGTH THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT
Verse 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit.
There comes a time when we all realize that our own strength is not sufficient.
You have serious health problems, you lose your job, your kids are near the edge, there is death in your family, your marriage is in trouble, your finances are shot... these things happen to us all.
In 2 Corinthians the Apostle Paul is telling about all the hardships he has been through.
But then Paul stops and says:
When I was in the middle of all these problems,
Here’s what Jesus said to me.
2 Corinthians 12:9
he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
So then Paul says,
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
Paul is saying,
my first step is to recognize and admit, I’m weak.
I’m empty.
Because that’s when God can fill me with power and strength.
Some of you here today are going through tough times right now.
And you’re desperate for inner strength and power,
to cope with the problems.
The first step is to admit that you’re weak,
and then pray for inner strength from God,
through the Holy Spirit.
No matter how hopeless things may seem, God cares about you and he will provide the strength you need to make it.
There is an old saying, “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”.
Well God takes that situation that’s about to kill me,
and if I’ll just admit my weakness and ask him,
He’ll use it to make me a stronger, deeper, better person.
No wonder Paul wrote these words ...
in Philippians 4:23
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Paul begins by praying that God would give us mighty inner strength in the Holy Spirit.
What does that mean?
First, it does not mean self-discipline or the power of positive thinking. This is not making a New Years resolution, or turning over a new leaf.
Paul is praying for inner strength through the Holy Spirit.
He’s praying for spiritual strength,
not physical or mental or emotional, but spiritual.
We can build physical strength by hard work in a gym or on a running track.
But, the inner spiritual strength that He’s talking about here, is a gift of God that comes through prayer.
So Paul prays that from his glorious, unlimited resources God will give them mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit
Paul’s making the point here,
first, God’s resources are glorious,
they’re better than anything we can imagine,
and 2nd, they’re unlimited.
God has more than enough to go around.
And Paul says, specifically,
God’s got more than enough of strength,
so he can give it to you,
and He will, if we ask.
So that means,
one of our constant prayers for ourselves, and for each other should be that God would give each of us inner spiritual strength.
That is the first thing that Paul prays for
when he prays for these Christians in Ephesus:
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit.
The 2nd part of praying for fullness is:
2) PRAY FOR CHRIST TO BE AT HOME IN MY HEART
Next verse, Verse 17 And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him.
You might say, "Wait a minute. I thought Jesus came to live in my heart when I was saved?
Why is Paul still praying for this to happen?"
Paul is not praying that Christ will come into their hearts,
but that He will be at home in their hearts.
There’s a big difference.
Robert Munger wrote a little story called: My Heart, Christs Home,
that sold about 10 million copies.
The story is very simple,
he just pictures Jesus actually moving into his heart.
Let me read you just a part of it.
(read the rest, go to billygraham web-site)
One Evening I invited Jesus Christ into my heart. What an entrance He made! It was not a spectacular, emotional thing, but very real. Something happened at the very center of my life. He came into the darkness of my heart and turned on the light. He built a fire on the hearth and banished the chill. He started music where there has been stillness, and He filled the emptiness with His own loving, wonderful fellowship. I have never regretted opening the door to Christ and I never will.
In the joy of this new relationship I said to Jesus Christ, "Lord, I want this heart of mine to be Yours. I want to have You settle down here and be perfectly at home. Everything I have belongs to You. Let me show you around."
The first room was the study, or library. In my home this room of the mind is a very small room with very thick walls. But it is a very important room. In a sense, it is the control room of the house. He entered with me and looked around at the books in the bookcase, the magazines upon the table, the pictures on the walls. As I followed His gaze I became uncomfortable.
Strangely, I had not felt self-conscious about this before, but now that He was there looking at these things I was embarrassed. Some books were there that His eyes were too pure to behold. On the table were a few magazines that a Christian had no business reading. As for the pictures on the walls - the imaginations and thoughts of the mind - some of these were shameful.
Red-faced, I turned to Him and said, "Master, I know that this room needs to be cleaned up and made over. Will You help me make it what it ought to be?
"Certainly!" He said, "I’m glad to help you. First of all, take all the things that you are reading and looking at which are not helpful, pure, good and true, and throw them out! Now put on the empty shelves the books of the Bible. Fill the library with Scripture and meditate on it day and night.
As for the pictures on the walls, you will have difficulty controlling these images, but I have something that will help." He gave me a full-sized portrait of Himself. "Hang this centrally," He said, "on the wall of the mind."
I did, and I have discovered through the years that when my thoughts are centered upon Christ Himself, His purity and power cause impure thoughts to back away. So He has helped me to bring my thoughts under His control.
From the study we went into the dining room, the room of appetites and desires. I spent a lot of time and hard work here trying to satisfy my wants.
I said to Him, "This is a favorite room. I am quite sure You will be pleased with what we serve.
He seated Himself at the table with me and asked, "What is on the menu for dinner?" "Well," I said, "my favorite dishes: money, academic degrees and stocks, with newspaper articles of fame and fortune as side dishes." These where the things I liked - secular fare.
When the food was placed before Him, He said nothing, but I observed that He did not eat it. I said to Him, "Master, don’t you care for this food? What is the trouble?"
He answered, "I have food to eat that you do not know of. If you want food that really satisfies you, do the will of the Father. Stop seeking your own pleasures, desires, and satisfaction. Seek to please Him. The food will satisfy you."
There at the table He gave me a taste of the joy of doing God’s will. What flavor! There is no food like it in all the world. It alone satisfies.
From the dining room we walked into the living room. This room was intimate and comfortable. I liked it. It had a fireplace, overstuffed chairs, a sofa, and a quiet atmosphere.
He said, "This is indeed a delightful room. Let us come here often. It is secluded and quiet, and we can fellowship together."
Well, as a young Christian I was thrilled. I couldn’t think of anything I would rather do than have a few minutes with Christ in close companionship.
He promised, "I will be here early every morning. Meet me here, and we will start the day together."
(goes on to talk about more rooms, but you get the idea).
That’s a picture of what it means to pray for Christ to be at home in my heart.
And that’s the 2nd step to spiritual fullness.
Paul says,
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him.
The third step to spiritual fullness:
3) PRAY TO UNDERSTAND AND EXPERIENCE GOD’S LOVE
Verse 17-19
May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it.
Have you ever been in a relationship where you were afraid to give 100% of yourself, because you knew you were going to get hurt if you did?
Of course, it usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; if you can’t give love in a relationship, the relationship can’t last.
But if you don’t trust the person you’re in a relationship with, you have to be careful. If you let yourself get too vulnerable, you end up getting hurt.
That’s human wisdom.
God takes a completely different approach with you and me.
He knows from the start that he will be hurt. He knows that we will sin, and our sin will break his heart.
Yet he loves you anyway, and he doesn’t hold anything back.
God’s love for you is different than any other love you will ever experience.
Others may love you for what you do; God loves you for who you are.
Others may love you temporarily; God loves you forever.
Others may love you for the things they see on the surface; God loves you even though he knows the deepest, darkest parts of your life.
Others may love you in an on and off manner; God’s love for you is always on.
He doesn’t hold anything back.
There’s a book in the bible called Hosea,
and its the story about a prophet named Hosea.
The story begins with God telling Hosea to marry an adulteress woman named Gomer.
How would you like to be named Gomer?
I wonder if she looked anything like Jim Neighbors.
(Gomer Pyle)
God knew that Gomer would be unfaithful, and yet God wanted Hosea to marry her anyway. What in the world for?
Because Hosea’s marriage to Gomer was a picture of God’s love for you.
You see,
After Gomer gave birth to three children, she left Hosea and became a prostitute. Hosea stayed home and raised the children alone, while Gomer traveled around the countryside, selling her body to strangers.
Years passed, and Hosea began to search for his wife. He wanted her back.
Finally, he found her living with another man as a slave, And for a few pieces of silver and a few bushels of barley, Hosea bought back the wife who had deserted him.
He took her in his arms and he said to her, "Come home. You’re to live with me now, and I will live with you."
You say, Ken,
what does this story have to do with anything.
This story of Hosea’s love for his "runaway bride" is really the story of God’s love for you. That’s why God told Hosea to marry this woman,
and then to write about the experience.
God did all this just so He could describe his love for us.
So that 3000 years later,
we could read a story about God’s
amazing, tremendous, unlimited love for us.
You see,
God loves you even though he knew in advance that you would be unfaithful to him.
All of us are like Gomer.
At times, we’ve all been unfaithful to God,
and put other priorities ahead of him,
we’ve wandered around the countryside
pursuing other things,
when God wanted us at home with Him.
But God never wavers in His love for us.
Every time we wander off,
He comes to find us,
he forgives us again for what we’ve done,
and brings us home.
The truth is,
you may not have great relationships in your life.
Maybe you don’t feel very loved.
But if you can just begin to understand God’s love, and begin to experience it,
then you will never spend another day feeling unloved—
because you will be filled with love from the one who matters most,
your father in heaven.
Listen to what God says at the end of the story in Hosea.
Hos 2:18-20 NLT
I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as LORD.
When God loves you, he holds nothing back.
He’s not watching you from a distance with his arms folded, waiting to see if you can become worthy of his love.
He already loves you, and he always will—
no matter what you have done. no matter what others think of you, and no matter what you think of yourself,
God looks at you right now, this morning,
with a heart full of love.
In fact, God demonstrated that in a way far more powerful than the story of Hosea and Gomer.
God showed his powerful love for us,
when he sent his son into the world to die for the sins of the world.
He did it for that one reason:
Love. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..."
No matter how alone you may feel, you are not alone. No matter how unlovely you may think you are, you are not unlovable.
God loves you. There is nothing you can do to deserve that love, you can only accept it.
And try to understand and experience it.
That’s Pauls 3rd request, in his prayer.
Notice the words he uses to describe his love –
width, length, depth, height.
What is the "width" of Christ’s love? It’s wide enough to encompass everyone in the world!
What is the "length" of Christ’s love? It’s long enough to last for all eternity!
What is the "depth" of Christ’s love? It is deep enough to rescue even the worst person who ever lived.
What is the "height" of Christ’s love? It is high enough to reach all the way to heaven, and to take us there to live forever with Him.
Now what’s the result of all this?
If we pray for and receive the 3 things we’ve talked about,
what’s the result in our life?
4) THE RESULT --- FULLNESS
Verse 19
Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Notice:
the fullness of life and power.
Doesn’t that sound awesome?
Isnt that how you’d like to live every day?
In the fullness of life and power.
That’s how I want to live.
Let show you what that really looks like,
when we live that way.
All we have to do is keep reading the next verse,
verse 20,
and it tells us what it looks like.
Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.
Wow!
Did you hear that?
he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.
You think of your wildest, most outrageous request that you could ask God in prayer,
and He is able to accomplish infinitely more than that.
That’s what fullness looks like.
And that is exactly what God is doing
in the lives of many of the people in this church.
Now none of us live like that all the time,
but some of us do a lot of the time.
And when you get together enough Christians who are actually living in that kind of fullness,
they do incredible things,
like starting homeless ministries,
and starting food pantries that serve 1000’s every month,
and showing so much love to people
that hundreds get saved and baptized each year.
That’s our church I’m describing.
But it depends on all of us living in fullness.
which comes from these 3 steps ---
First, we receive the inner strength of the Spirit that leads us to make Christ at home in our hearts,
that leads to our understanding and experiencing God’s love,
which leads to "the fullness of God."
In Colossians 1:19, Paul wrote, "For it pleased the Father that in Him [Jesus] all the fullness should dwell."
What does fullness look like?
That word literally means "to be overflowing, like a cup that is overfilled."
It means coming to come to the place in your life where you are totally overwhelmed by God’s presence in your life.
Hank Williams wrote a song called "Hey Good Looking" and described it this way...
I’m going to throw my date book over the fence
And buy me one for five or ten cents
I’ll keep it till it’s covered with age
Because I’m writing your name down on every page.
Thats the same way we should approach our relationship with Christ. We are so in love with Him, that his name is on every page of our life.
All of the things we went after before we met Jesus — all our dreams, our goals, our desires— those things are ancient history. Now we have a new way of thinking. We have a new focus in our life.
We go from emptiness, to fullness.
Think of an empty cup. How can you get all the air out of the cup?
There is only one way… you have to fill it with something else.
How do we remove the weakness, the unloveliness, the sin from our lives?…
By being "filled with the fullness of God."
Are you willing to pray that kind of prayer
along with Paul? Are you willing to say, "God fill me up so that my life is all you and none of me." I want to live in the fullness of life and power that comes from You.
Stand for Prayer
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. 17 And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. 20 Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. 21 May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.
