God is doing some amazing stuff at Umass, opening doors for me to meet students. We have been having some great Doubt Nights, which have just ended up being at my house on Tuesdays, which was not the plan, but kind of cool anyway. We feed the students, which any college kid can appreciate, and then have some great conversation about everything.
I promise to blog more about this next week, as I will have nothing to do, as well as the following weeks. I will be in N. Carolina for a week and Florida for a week, so won't have much to do but write and speak places, so I will catch all of you up on what has been going on in my life and in my mind. For now, here is this weeks sermon.
It has come to my attention that I have been to harsh on Umass basketball in my sermon a few weeks ago. It seems that the Umass teams that exist today are nothing like the teams when I worked t the Mullins, since these teams may be good. So I apologize to any Umass fans out there. However, as I say this, I would like to draw your attention to the Amherst College Quidich team, who from now on will be getting the blunt of my sports jokes, because even if thy are good, they are playing Quidich. I am glad that you laugh because, I you remember the school yard come back, “Did you stay up all night to think of that?” well in my case the answer is very often yes, and if you don’t laugh it makes me feel sad inside.
We are back to Ephesians this week after a brief break for Easter and we will be finishing up the third chapter of the book. Now, for the first half of the semester, as we have been going through the first half of the book of Ephesians, Paul has kept us in the heavenly realms. His language and prayers are lofty and theological. And there is good reason for this. In the second half of the letter Paul is going to talk about some pretty practical stuff. But before he brings us to the day to day workings of church, he realizes that there is a need to ground us theologically.
There are some very good reasons for this. How can we begin to do church if we don’t fully understand God, who he is, and what he has done. This is also a subtler point than we may think. Our theology defines us. Paul knows this, and so is trying to get the church all on the same page, trying to get them to think correctly about who they are and their relationship to God, and then after this task is complete, we will tell them how to live then, with this knowledge.
So then is this final section Paul is going to pray on last prayer. With this prayer he is going to try to cement in the minds of the Ephesians, what for Paul, is the most important of the theological concepts. And what is this truth. Turn with me to your programs:
Ephesians 3:14-21
14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16that 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, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and 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.
What Paul is praying is the following: that we would be strengthened by the Spirit, that Christ would live in us more fully through this power, and that we would fully grasp what is meant by God’s love for us. That is a paraphrase, but it is the crux of the prayer. There then seems to be three parts, and at the risk of being redundant, I will repeat them. 1. That we would be strengthened by God, 2. That we would be filled more with Jesus and 3. That we know, truly know, God’s love. We will spend a little time on each of these things, and actually see that one flows from the others.
All that being said, a few weeks ago, we may remember that I preached about a section in Ephesians 2 where Paul fist prays for the Ephesians. In that prayer Paul talks about the overwhelming power of God. He reminds us about what this power is. He tells us that it is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. In that section he is praying the Ephesians may know what the power of God is. Here he is praying that they might have it.
Very practically we need to know what God’s power is before we can have it, but it also does no good for us to understand God’s power on an intellectual level if we don’t use it. Paul knows this, and is praying that first we would understand, and then, that we would do. Paul here is asking that we would be strengthened with the Spirit in our inner being. And this strength is going to be important for the remainder of the book. It is this strength that is going to allow us to live as Christians. As I said last time we looked at a Pauline Prayer, very often I find that we as Christians live defeated lives. This is partly due to our ignorance of the strength of God. Earlier Paul prayed that we would be able to grasp this strength. Today Paul prays we would have it.
Paul is praying here that we would be strengthened in our innermost being. In our innermost being. This is far more than some surface, good for one time, get out of jail free, kind of strength. This strength isn’t that we would be able to walk away from temptation on occasion, but that our whole being would always have this supernatural power. That this power would just become us. That we could consistently walk away from temptation. That living redeemed lives would be something, we don’t just long for, but actually do. Paul is praying here that the power that raised Christ from the dead would not just be some clever phrase that we pass along, but something we know to our core. He is praying that our identity would be fulfilled. We would not just speak in lofty language and fill our hearts with empty promises, but that we would become who God has called us to be. That we would live lives God has called us to live. That we would be strengthened in our inner most being.
This is something I have had a little bit of experience with. And I am actually not going to talk about drinking this time, though certainly it pertains. See drinking is part of my story, but it is really only small part. The truth is that all of my life was screwed up, and drinking was a symptom more than a cause of that. And then I went to detox and my life was all better. At least that is how I tell the story right. Well the truth is much more than this. See what I hadn’t done before detox was know the power of God. And it wasn’t just with drinking. In fact drinking may have been the last thing in my life to go out of control. My life was a mess in every aspect well before I picked up a bottle. I felt alone and powerless in other aspects of my life, and in a way that is what drove me to drink. Anyway, I went to detox, came out, and really what had changed was two fold. One, I knew the power of God, and two, I had it in my innermost being.
It was the only reason I am able to be here today. It is not like temptations have gone away. They haven’t. God did not remove my desire to drink, per se; he offered me His strength, which allowed me to fight the temptations as they came. In fact, I would almost say I have more temptations today. It is a lot harder to be a father and husband and obey Jesus than it ever was to be single. Today I have to deal with all the same issues single guys do, alcoholics do, but I also have to sacrifice myself for my wife and love my kid. Which seems like it would be easy because they are awesome, but when it is 4 am and you have to work in 2 hours and your kid won’t go to sleep, and your wife won’t make her go to sleep, it is a lot harder to love them selflessly, because they are a lot less awesome.
Anyway, the point is that I have been strengthened by his Spirit, through grace. But this strength has become me. I know I can rely on him in the future because he has proved himself faithful in the past. This Spirit who raised Christ form the dead, this Spirit of God the Almighty, is not only living in me, but accessible. Not only accessible, but abundantly so. Paul is praying that we may be transformed by this truth in all that we are. That the deepest darkest places would also be strengthened and transformed. That it is all possible, that God himself would do it. And notice then what happens. We are strengthened and through this we are brought closer to Christ.
Now this doesn’t mean that God has favorites or that if we sin less than our neighbor God somehow loves us more. God’s position doesn’t change, ours, however can. When Paul writes that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith in verse 17 and further that the fullness of God might fill us in verse 19, he is not saying that it doesn’t already. If you are a Christian, you have Christ in your heart. Jesus doesn’t leave you because you are struggling. We read throughout Scripture, beginning in the Law that God will not leave nor forsake us, his children.
What I believe Paul is communicating here is something about ourselves. It is what happens to us once we have been strengthened by His Spirit. Paul is communicating the change that occurs when we not only understand the power of God, but we live it. Paul is telling us about what happens to our condition when we stop living defeated, and instead accept the strength of God, let Him change our entire being, and begin to have the redeemed life He has planned for us.
And this is sort of a gradual change. The way I has worked in my life is that I accept a little bit of His strength, and somehow I am able to stop being sinful in a certain way, and this brings me closer to Jesus, which in turn gives me more strength. It is not that Jesus was any less in my heart, but that I was able to experience more of Him.
Let me give you an example from my life.
As I have said before, I was not the greatest husband when Sarah and I first got married. I am not knocking myself here; I don’t think any guy is a good husband at first. I had a wife whose needs were completely different than mine, and I had no idea how to handle this. For a while I threw myself into work, because it was easier to do that come home and work on a relationship. But I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but didn’t know what to do. After Sarah miscarried it got worse, and we were strangers passing in the night. At the same time my spiritual growth was not the best it could be either. Well there as a marriage conference hosted my MERCYhouse and after it Sarah and I were able to begin working on things. What I thought I couldn’t do, like change the way I talked, or be more selfless, began to change because of prayer and repentance. And soon we had a marriage again. And also my relationship with Jesus was better.
Part of the reason for this is when I knew I could not change I my own strength, I would have to cry out to Him and he would change me, in his strength. Once I was able to us the power that the Holy Spirit was providing, I was able to be the husband that God called me to be, and through this, He drew me to himself. Every time Sarah and I had a fight, I would run to God, ask him for his strength, and then approach Sarah, ask for her forgiveness, and try to make things right. I was able to do things that I never thought I could do, like humble myself, because I was relying on the Spirit and his power.
So, as I was strengthened each time, I was brought closer to Jesus. His fullness was more able to shine though, I let him live more fully through me. This is what Paul is saying here. And the converse is also true. If we are not living in His strength, we often feel alone and far away from God. I know I do. The times I feel furthest from Jesus are not the times I am suffering, or the times when I don’t know how we will pay our bills this month, or when we have had real pain, like death. The times I feel most unfilled with Christ are the times that I did not rest in His strength and decided to sin. The times that I have looked both temptation and God in the face and chosen temptation. The times I am felt as though Christ does not live in me are the times that I have tried to kick him out so that I might do as I wanted to, instead of what he would have me do.
This is one of the reasons that I drank for so long. I was sure that God wanted to be far away from me, a terrible sinner. I was sure of my salvation, but less sure that Christ would live in such a man as myself. And occasionally I still feel this way today. I would be lying if I told you that once I had experienced Christ’s power I never faltered. My relationship with God has not been one of a straight line up. There have been days and weeks and months where I would forget that the Spirit of God was in me and filling me with unimaginable power, and because of this would not live redeemed, and my relationship with God suffered.
But at the same time, I can say with assurance that as I have grown those times are getting fewer. Each moment hat I am able to walk away from temptation and rest in his strength, I am brought closer to Jesus. And this is Paul’s prayer for all of us. That we would not only know God’s power in theory, or have a relationship with Jesus in theory, but that we would be transformed down to our core, that we would have a real and vibrant relationship. That Jesus would be our strength and portion, savior and friend.
And all this brings us to the last prayer of Paul’s, which is where our sermon really lies. He prays that
…you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
Paul’s prayer is that we would understand God’s love. Before we move on here, I want to make a few technical remarks. First, there are multiple words for love in Greek, and we need to know which one is being used. Also note that each word had specific and distinct meanings. There was eros which is a romantic love, but could also be used for beauty. So it could be conceivable to use the same word for your spouse and a picture. Then there was philia, which is a friendship love. Next there is storge, which is a love for a family member, and thelema which is love for prominence and such, and finally we have agape, which has no romantic connotation like eros.
Agape has to do with holding one in high regard. It also has a self sacrificing aspect, as well denoting a total commitment to the thing being agaped. Also, when used in the New Testament, it is found to refer to both friends and enemies equally. It is the word used by Matthew when he quotes Jesus as saying, “love your neighbor as yourself.” As well as the love used in John’s gospel when he talks about God. And it is the love used here. Again, this love has nothing to do with natural relations, like storge, and not romantic like eros. It is a sacrificial love.
Another technical note before we go further. Just because this love surpasses knowledge, as Paul says, doesn’t mean it is not knowable. I mean, this is what Paul is praying that we would do, know this love. How can this be the case though? I think the only way to explain it is by analogy. This first analogy is kind of the opposite of what we have going on here, but I think it is helpful to get an idea if the difference between different types of knowledge. It gives us a glimpse into the difference between knowing and knowable.
I tutor in Math occasionally. (And I’m really good if any of you need help.) As I have tutored, I have picked up on a curious phenomenon. People will know a formula, but have no idea what it means, when to use it, or how it works. What I mean is that they know some combination of letters and numbers and signs is supposed to be true, but they can not apply it. For example
If a > p then there exists a b, such that 0≤ b≤ p-1, and b is congruent to a mod p
What this means is simply that any number that is greater than p, when divided by p will have a remainder b. This isn’t really what this means, but this is church, not a math class, so I won’t get you all excited about geek-dom.
The point is that for a specific class, knowing some formulas about modular mathematics, which is what that last equation deals with, is very important. But now all of you know that equation too, but you don’t know it.
What happens when tutoring is they truck thorough the problems, knowing what formula they are supposed to use, but not understanding why or how- and then something happens. A light clicks, the wheel starts turning, and then they are making jumps that the book hasn’t told them to make yet. They know modular mathematics. It is a part of them. When they look at a problem, what they see isn’t numbers, symbols, and letters, they see math.
What they knew in theory, they now know in their being. That is an example of how English fails us, and how something can be known, yet unknown. Again, I think we have here a basic English problem. In other languages there are multiple words for various English ones. The French even have two words for knowing, savior and connaitre. Savior has to do with facts and connaitre with persons- and not facts about persons, but actually having met them and gotten to know them. So, in French at least, like math, you can know something, like the fact about a person, but not know it, because you have never met them. We can know a lot about famous people, but most of us don’t really know them.
What about what Paul is talking about. How can something be knowable but beyond knowledge? Clearly Paul thinks that God’s love can be known, but is beyond all knowledge. Can we find something else that can be known but at the same time beyond knowledge. I think the French gives us some clues to how this may be possible. I can know all the facts about falling in love with someone- how it is supposed to feel, how I will act, etc., but I will not know what falling in love is until I have done it. That example may seem like cheating since Paul is also talking about love, so I will give another. I am stealing this example from John Edwards, so if you have a problem with it, take it up with him. I am pretty sure he is just over the bridge.
Edwards’ example is relatively famous, and yet it is so simple- honey. I hope all of you have the spoons that were given out. I am going to pass out some honey; I don’t want you to eat it yet, but get a little on your spoon. I am now going to tell you some things about honey. It is made by bees. It is sweet. It is made also from flower nectar. It is also super sweet. In fact it is sweeter than sugar. More than this, it has other subtler flavors (like a good wine) that depend on the type of flower the honey is made from. Bears like it a lot. It is also wicked sweet. Did I mention it is sweet?
Now you all know that honey is sweet, right. Well if you don’t, I am telling you that it is. Here is the thing though, until you eat it, you don’t really know how sweet it is. You can eat the honey now. See, it is really sweet. God’s love may be beyond knowledge, i.e. facts and figures and things that can be expressed clearly in words, like the sweetness of honey, but it can also be known by tasting it, like the sweetness of honey. And this is what Paul is praying for the church. That we would know, eat of, drink in, know, God’s love.
So now, with the technicalities out of the way, let’s begin to dive into this love. Paul prays we would know the breadth and length, the height and depth of God’s love, this love that surpasses all knowledge. Now I just gave some compelling arguments about how something can be known, yet be beyond knowledge, but I now want to real that back in and say that, on some level, Paul is trying to communicate that God’s love can not be fully known, at least not yet. That is not to say that we can’t know it now, just not all of it.
Paul does pray though that we would begin to grasp it. And he says that it is big. Here these verses again
18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
Do you hear how big it is? Paul prays that we may have the strength to understand just a little bit of it. This is the pattern that Paul is praying then, that we would be filled with strength grow closer to Christ, and as we do know more about this love that is beyond us.
Recently I had one of these experiences. Last week was busy. I know for most of you, you got to go on some cool trip, but I work for the church, and last week was Easter week, which means I was able to do anything but go on a cool trip. Easter and Christmas are very busy times if you are employed for the church, as you may have guessed. So, like the model employee I am, I did my work and planned an awesome Good Friday service. Well, somewhere in the week, I kind of lost sight of Good Friday, and just wanted to plan the darn thing so I could finish my tasks.
And then Good Friday came. I was very stressed because things weren’t done when I wanted them to be done, I had more work than I should have because of some lousy time management the previous days, as well as a sick kid, and on top of all this, the computer decided to stop working. But the service started nonetheless, and things were going pretty well, I think, and then someone gave their testimony, and I stopped working for a bit, and listened. And then some songs were played, and I stopped working and I sang, and then some Scripture was read, and I stopped working, and I worshipped. And by the end of the service, it was all I could do to not cry on mic. And the reason for this?
I was able, at that moment, to understand a little bit of this love that surpasses all knowledge.
As I heard about what Christ did, how he was flogged. How the flesh was torn from his back, how he walked to a place called Golgotha, how he fell with a 100lb cross on his back, how he was wearing a crown of thorns. As I really listened to how he was stretched out upon a wooden beam and how his arms were then nailed down, how his feet were bound and nailed as well, how the crowd mocked him, about how the Father turned away and let his one and only Son slowly suffocate to death as his mangled, beaten, and bloody body did everything it could to survive, and how with his last breathes he asks that his God, the very one who let him up there to die, would forgive the very same people who hit him, spit on him, crucified him. As I heard afresh that the sinless Lamb became as sin so that I might go free, I understood this love that surpasses all knowledge, and I cried.
I cried at his pain, I cried at my guilt, I cried out of joy. This is what Paul is praying for all of us. That we may know with our whole being this love, the height and depth and width and length.
I am going to plat a short clip that helps illustrate this love. ( clip is from “Blood Diamaond”)
That Father took back his son, and loved him in spite of all the terrible atrocities that his kid had committed. And this is only the tip of the iceberg for God’s love. For one, we are adopted. God was under no obligation to love us, like a father is for his kids. We were not his kids to begin with. We were orphans, rebellious jerks, who forsook God and decided to go it alone. Like the Prodigal Sons we walked away, telling God he was dead to us, and gave up our family rights. And God took us back anyway.
As we stood before him, crying about the sins we had committed, about how unworthy we were, we cried along with us and told us he loved us anyway. This is more than the love of a father; it is the love of the Father.
But more than this, not only did we walk away from him, we then killed his one and only begotten Son. We didn’t just murder others, we murdered the one most precious to him, and still he held us in his arms and told us that he loved us.
And not only did he hold us, he is the one ho sent his son to die for us in the first place. He loves us so much that he was willing to sacrifice is son, the holy and blameless Lamb, that we might be able to fall at his feet, and he look upon us and tell that he loves us.
This is the love of God, that he would take on human flesh, suffer and die, become as sin, that we might become sinless. This is the love of God, that the wrath that was meant for us, was poured out on another, Jesus Christ, that we might go free.
This is the love of God, that regardless of who you are and what you have done, no matter for how long or ho far away you have run from Him, no matter how great the atrocities, or how dark your soul, He would pick you up and tell you, his adopted child, that he does not care, he forgives you, he loves you anyway.
This is the Love of God.
This is what Paul desperately prays that we would understand.
This is the height and depth and breadth and width. This is the Love of God!
If you are here today and you want to experience this love that I am talking about, it is not hard to get. All you need do is lay yourself before the Father and ask for the forgiveness he wants to give. There is nothing you can do that is too great a sin. There I no thought or act so grievous that he won’t take you into his arms and tell you that he loves you.
If you are not a Christian, this first starts with becoming one. Accept the ransom the Jesus paid for you. Accept his love. He died a horrific death that you may live, and all he asks is that you accept it. Come before his Cross, kneel before his thrown, and ask that you may be forgiven today. Ask that you may be welcomed into the family, ask that he would adopt you. Find your identity in Him and begin to know this love that surpasses all knowledge. Cast off this world and its chains, and run as a child into the arms of the Father, who has been waiting for you all this time. Throw off your despair and pain and brokenness, and accept instead the full measure of his love, its height, and depth and breadth and width. Come to God and regain the life he always meant for you to have.
If you are a follower of Christ, I say the same things. Know more fully the love he has for you. Even more so now that you are his son or daughter. Were before you were orphans, not you are His children. Nothing you can do will change that fact. You are sealed. The Spirit lives in you. You have access to the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Stop running from God, and instead move to him. His arms are still out for you. You are his child. He loves you. He loves you with a love that is beyond description, with a love that drove him to a cross, with a love that washes you clean as the morning snow.
I want all of us to hear, one last time this prayer of Paul’s:
14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16that 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, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and 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.
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