IMMEASURABLY MORE

IMMEASURABLY MORE

 

Ephesians 3:14-21

“For this reason . . . “ 

Again, we are drawn back to the previous verses.  For me, this draws me back to my prayer for the next generation, living in my children and grandchildren.  “For this reason” I pray now this prayer of Paul for them.

Taking these verses one by one, part by part, we see what a magnificent prayer Paul has shared with us.  His posture is humility, his devotion to the Ephesians is manifest, and his prayer is bold. 

·        “For this reason I kneel”

o   What reason?  He started this chapter with the same words, but then digressed a little.  So, I go back to chapter 2 to find the reason.  We are made alive in Christ (2:1-10) and Jew and Gentile are reconciled with God together under the blood of Jesus.

o   Paul kneels before His Father.   I think we need to kneel more when we pray.  It puts us in the right aspect and attitude before our Creator.  Someday, when I see Him with my eyes, I won’t even be able to kneel.  Face down in the dirt, like Abraham & Moses so often found themselves before God will be the only comfortable place for me.

·        “before the Father”

o   Sometimes we forget to whom we are praying when we pray, right?  Sometimes it seems like, instead of praying to the Creator of the ground upon which we kneel, we have the idea we’ve crawled up into the lap of the department store Santa Claus with our wish list!  Paul didn’t forget-and that’s why this prayer is so powerful.

·        “from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name”

o   Genealogists, listen up!  If every person who ever lived traces his or her family line back far enough, they’ll land in Eden!  God is the Creator; and He is not only THE Creator, He is the SOVEREIGN Creator.  He has chosen your family for you and you for your family.  Paul is “putting himself in his place” before Father God; his posture is correct.  To do other than kneel before this God is to put yourself on dangerous ground.

·        “I pray that out of His glorious riches”

o   What riches?  His attributes! 

§  He’s eternal, uncreated;

§  He’s the uncreated Creator;

§  He’s omnipresent-there is nowhere that He isn’t.

§  He’s omniscient-there’s no idea, no particle of wisdom, no plan, no intent, no earthly mechanism, no science, no heartbeat, no nothing of which He is not the sole author and proprietor.

§  He’s omnipotent-He is absolutely alone in the scope of His power.  There are no competitors in the ring with Him because His kind of power is only faintly known on earth.  We can look at nature and see His power in a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake, but those are just a mere whisper, a shadow of the power of God.  The real power of God is something completely unknown and unknowable by humanity:  the power to redeem a soul, to change a heart from arrogant rebel to devoted slave.

§  He’s sovereign in His rule of the known and unknown universe-He reports to no one.  His sovereignty is unhuman, completely foreign to our way of life.  We have examples of sovereignty-kings, queens, presidents, governments, bosses; but all of those so-called “sovereigns” are accountable to someone, and lastly to God.

§  He’s holy-and here is where we have the most trouble understanding.  The holiness of our God, what is it?  Language is unprepared and inadequate to explain.  The words “never” and “always” can’t be used because He’s eternal!  We can explain our “holiness” by saying we’re “set apart” for God’s use, but for whom is God set apart?   So that doesn’t work!  The best we can do is to say that of God’s holiness, there is nothing in our present existence that can be compared to it; His holiness eternally pre-exists us and will continue forever in unapproachable light.  He doesn’t set the standard for our holiness, He IS the standard.

These are but a few of His attributes.  We must always remember that God is not made up of these attributes, like parts of a machine that work independently; He is ONE God, the great I AM, with all of Himself accomplishing His plan perfectly.  No mistakes, no re-do, no “take 2”, no repeats.  His plan for the universe He created moves forward and will be complete the first time around. 

So, “I pray that out of His glorious riches” is much more magnificent to me now that I’ve dwelt upon what that really means.

·        “He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being”

o   Out of all of Himself, the Triune God, uncreated One, perfect in every way (which I can’t even comprehend-that word “perfect”!), He strengthens me to walk with Him.

o   His Spirit has lived in me since I was 14.  That was 47 1/2 years ago!  I’ve not even begun to touch His inexhaustible supply of power!  He wants to drench me with it and I put up an umbrella so I won’t get wet!  He wants me to plunge in and still I hesitate like a child afraid to jump into the pool, even though her father’s arms are outstretched to catch her.

o   His strength and power are available for my outward life, but also for my “inner being”-that place in me that others can’t see, where my sin nature resides.  All of Himself is the source of power to overcome sin in me, where sin starts-in my mind-and where it ends-in my actions.  It’s too much to wrap my head around, but I want to have fun trying!

Father, I pray for myself today, that I would continue to meditate upon You, seeking to try to understand with my feeble, limited mind the power that rests in Your Person; that power that raised Jesus from the dead-that same power You impart to me for resisting sin and serving You.  Father, I have no excuse for caving in to sin, knowing this mind-blowing power is there for me.

·        “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”

o   So, think of it!  God, from eternity past, zooming through space and time (in which He does not routinely live!), coming to rest for awhile in the womb of a teenage girl until being born in the normal, human way; being snuggled by His mother and father, diapered, fed, completely helpless and dependent upon others to care for Him.  And then, He grows up and gives Himself to be killed by the wicked humanity He came to rescue!  And here’s the clincher:   He does all this “so that Christ may dwell in” my heart through faith.  I’m part of that wicked humanity!  And still He looks on me with love, pride, passion!

·        “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”

o   What is faith, really?  It’s walking into a dark room and flipping the light switch with every expectation the room will be flooded with light.  It’s drifting off to sleep without even wondering if morning will come.   Without that kind of innocent faith, the kind of faith that is unquestioning trust in God’s goodness, it’s impossible to please God because without faith, Christ will not inhabit my heart, my inner being.  Remember those wonderful attributes?  Creator, holy, sovereign, all those “omnis”-omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent? Paul’s teaching is that because God’s very nature is what It is, when I place my heart in His Hands, He dwells in it.  That should make me gasp in wonder every time I think of it!

·        “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love”

o   What is a root?  What is a root’s function?  My dictionary has several applicable definitions:

·        “A part of the body of a plant that develops, typically, from the radicle (root of the root!), and grows downward into the soil, anchoring the plant and absorbing nutriment and moisture.”

·        “A similar organ developed from some other part of a plant, as one of those by which ivy clings to its support.”

·        “The source or origin of a thing.”

·        “An offshoot or scion (a descendant).”

·        Roots:  “a person’s original or true home …”

·        Roots:  “the personal relationships, affinity for a locale, habits, and the like, that make a country, region, city, or town one’s true home.”

·        “The fundamental tone of a compound tone or of a series of harmonies.”

·        “To implant or establish deeply.”

So, we see Paul praying for the Ephesians (and us) to be implanted and established deeply in love, that love which has its source in God.  We are to cling to God, our support, absorbing spiritual nutrients from God; we are scions of our Father; we are to view Him as the one life fundamental of Whom we cannot do without, and heaven as our true home; and we are to view our relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ as “coming home”, as sacred family relationships.

·        “May have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ”

o   The only way I can understand, or grasp, how deep the love of Jesus is towards me is by the power of God.

o   The love of God has dimensions, like a structure:  wide, long, high, deep.  Yet, this structure has no boundaries!  It’s endless, bottomless, will never be over-filled, and will never be shaken or destroyed.

·        “and to know this love that surpasses knowledge”

o   God’s love for me has dimensions, but I can’t see the bigness of it. 

o   The love of God for me defies explanation; no human language can adequately describe it.

o   God’s love goes beyond all human knowledge of all subjects of study:  the sciences, the arts, ethics. God’s love is by itself in its own category, outside of the world of men, outside of human experience.  Yet . . .   

o   God wants me to know His love, but there’s no way that I can know it-but He wants me to keep trying to know it.

o   How can I try to know it?  By obeying God’s commands as revealed in His Word & explained by the Holy Spirit to me.

·        “That you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”

o   Now here’s something I really can’t explain!  Jesus died so that I might experientially know God’s love and be filled to the brim with Him!  How is that possible?

o   I have a physical body with more and more limitations being added daily the older I get!  So how can I be filled with God, Who has no such limitations?  It defies words!

o   How was Christ filled with God while He lived among us?  By ordering every step He took to go in the direction of Calvary.

o   How can I order my steps to go in the direction God wills for me?  Check out the next phrase . . . !

·        “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine”

o   Immeasurably more than my imagination can come up with?  Some people have more developed imaginations than others-I’m one of those!  

Father, I deeply desire Your “immeasurably more”!  When I say a prayer for my children & grandchildren, my church, I can trust that He will not limit Himself in His answer to the puny limits of MY imagination, but will give them His “immeasurably more”!

o   Perhaps we should end our prayers with, “. . . and we pray in the ‘immeasurably more’ power and name of Jesus the Christ!  Amen!”

·        “According to His power that is at work within us”

o   What power is at work in me?  The “immeasurably more” power that raised a dead-as-a-doornail poor, itinerant preacher to life; but not Life as we know it!  Jesus was raised to life bursting with joy, passion, and forever-ness!  That’s the power that’s at work in me.

o   For what is that power working in me? 

§  To get out of God’s way and let Him be glorified in my thoughts, speech, and actions; in my relationships and in my circumstances. 

§  It works in me (if I let it!) to overcome my sinful habits and attitudes. 

§  It works in me to be and do what He had in mind when He called me into physical being.

§  And when I come to die, that power will bring me into Life, an “immeasurably more than I could ever ask or imagine” Life, a forever Life serving Him in His forever Kingdom.

§  I WANT THAT POWER IN MY LIFE EVERY DAY!

·        “To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen!”

o   God gets the glory.  He will not share it. 

o   He will glorify Himself if we refuse to give Him the credit He deserves.

o   God will get the glory in His Bride, the Church.

o   The Father is glorified perfectly in the Son.

o   He will receive all the glory from every generation ever lived or still to live.

o   And that glory will go on into infinity, a concept barely understood by even the most brilliant minds.  His glory will never end.

o   So be it!

Father, for this reason I kneel before You.  I pray that out of all of Your riches in the universe and in Yourself You will strengthen me with power through Your Spirit in my inner being, where dwells the real Debbie, the Debbie You created me to be.   Bring me out of any bondage to selfishness, laziness, cowardice, and rebellion I harbor there; bring the real Debbie into the Light of Your presence so I may know You and serve You.  I pray that You will dwell in my heart more deeply than ever through faith.  I pray I will live rooted and established in love so that I may experientially know how wide and long and high and deep is this majestic love of Christ for me.  Fill me, Father, to the measure of all Your fullness.  Father, give me Your “immeasurably more” life-I plead with You to do in me what’s necessary to that end, according to Your power that is at work in me.  May You glorify Yourself in me, in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, starting with mine, forever and ever! 

Father, I lift up the next generation that lives in my children & grandchildren.  May none be lost!  Father, You have worked in me to bring me into the Light of Life and I trust You to do the perfect thing for each of them.  I pray, as I mentally tuck each one in at the foot of the cross, that each child will grow up to love and serve You with total abandon, and that our “circle” will be unbroken when I arrive at my real Home.

AMEN AND AMEN!