Now good morning once again to all of you. Before we consider the text which we are going to consider this morning which is Ephesians 3:14-21, let us come to God in prayer. Let’s pray.

“Father in heaven, we know that to consider Your Word is something heavy, something that we cannot do just by our own efforts and our own abilities. We need Your help O Lord. We need the help of the Holy Spirit to work in us to it to work in our hearts that we may understand what You are trying to say to us. So I pray O Lord that You’ll be with us during this time that we may understand Your truth and Your Word. Indeed You’ll enlighten us and enable us to do Your will. All these we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Our text this morning is Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians 3:14-21. So please turn with me to Ephesians chapter 3. This is the second prayer of Paul in this letter. He did his first prayer back in chapter 1. We have done two sermons on chapter 1 (if you remember). We did two sermons on chapter 2, and this would be the second of two sermons on chapter 3, which is also the last sermon on this first portion of Ephesians which is the doctrinal portion. This is the last one. And after that, we would jump into the application in the coming sermons.

Now what we are going to do this morning? Firstly, we will zoom out for a while to see the big picture, to consider what Paul is thinking about as he prayed this prayer to the Ephesians. And then after that, we will zoom in into that prayer which is where we will spend the rest of our time looking at this prayer in detail. Firstly, please look with me at verse 14: “for this reason”. Paul says here in chapter 3 verse 14: “for this reason”, which means that he was thinking about something. There was a reason why he prayed this prayer. And so what is Paul thinking about when he was praying for the Ephesian church? What did he have in mind? You see Paul every time when he prays, he doesn’t simply jump into a prayer. There is always a reason behind it.

He always has a purpose in mind, a target. He knows what he wants to bring as petitions to God. For example, we saw before in chapter 1 after declaring all the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ, Paul then proceeds to pray his prayer for spiritual enlightenment. He says in Ephesians 1:16-18- “do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, what are the exceeding greatness of His power” and so on and so forth.

Now Paul has just declared these things to the Ephesians. And therefore, he now prays that they may be given wisdom to understand it. And so you see Paul does not come thoughtlessly into prayer. He comes into prayer full of thoughts with a target, with a purpose, and with a reason. And now here we come to Paul’s second prayer for the church. And what does Paul have in mind when he prays this second prayer? What are his reasonings for this particular prayer? Look with me at chapter 2 verses 19 to 22.

From verse 19: “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”. What Paul has in mind here is a holy temple and a dwelling place. Our God is not some monarch where He, you know, sits high above the heavens and wants nothing to do with His people. Our God is a personal God who wants to dwell with His people, who wants to be with His people.

In the Old Testament, we saw that God dwelt with His people in the tabernacle. He gave Moses instructions on how to build it. And as they wandered through the wilderness, God was with them in that tabernacle. When Israel after that had their own land, King Solomon was given instructions to build that amazing temple for God to dwell, and that’s where He dwelt with His people. But in the New Testament, we do not see those kinds of temples and tabernacles anymore. We don’t have to go to Jerusalem to worship God or to draw near to Him. That’s not how God dwells with His people right now. Our text in Ephesians says that we are built together for a dwelling place of God.

The church is where God now dwells. The church made up of believers is the new temple, and God now dwells in. And this is what Paul was thinking about when He wrote this prayer in verses 14 to 21. Now one final note before we go into the text. You might ask: Why did I read Ephesians 2:19-22? How come I skipped Ephesians 3:1-13? Why is verse 22 there connected to verse 14? Why did I skip so many verses? Well because there is a digression. Paul digresses. Now digression is a temporary departure of the main subjects when you are speaking or when you are writing something.

Now for example, you are talking about a football competition- EURO 2020. And then suddenly you think about food, and then you digress for a while from the main subject to talk about food. And after that, the thought comes back about football, and then you return to that main subject. Now, where did Paul digress? You see in chapter 3 verse 1 Paul says: “For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles”. And then you might notice in your Bible there is a dash over there. There’s a little dash line after that first verse. This is because Paul digresses from his original intention of what he wanted to say. And then he goes on and talks about something else instead, namely the mystery of Christ which we have heard in the last sermon.

And so Paul digresses from his initial thoughts in chapter 2 at the end of chapter 2 from verses 19 to 22, and he goes on to talk about the mystery of Christ. And then he comes back into verse 14. He comes back into his original intention at verse 14. And therefore you see the same words. The same words again and at the beginning of that verse: “for this reason”. It comes back to his original intention. And so how it ought to be read is like this from verse 22: “in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit”, and then connecting to verse 14: “For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father”. For this reason. For what reason?

For the reason that you are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit because you are a church- because you are a church which God now dwells. For this reason I, Paul now pray this prayer. And that’s why you see in this prayer which we will look closely in detail you see words like “Christ dwelling in your hearts”. You see words like “that you may be filled with the fullness of God”, “the power that works in us”. You see all these so-called temple language, language that Paul seems to be thinking about the church that God is dwelling in the church. And so I hope with that little introduction in mind, we may be able to understand this prayer better in chapter 3 verses 14 to 21.

Just now we zoomed out to see Paul’s reasoning behind this prayer. And now we would now spend some time to zoom in to the text and have a closer look at it. Now there are a lot of big words in this prayer, a lot of sentences altogether. And I’m not sure at first glance you have been able to catch a string of petitions that goes in sequence. There is a list of prayer requests here that flows in sequence. And I’m going to read this passage now carefully and slowly. And I hope you’ll read along with me in your minds and try to detect that list, that string of petitions that flows in sequence. And I’ll try to give you a few hints along the way.

Now Ephesians 3:14- “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”. Again you see though he mentions the word ‘family’, which ties in again to chapter 2 verse 19: “members of the household of God”. “From whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”. Were you able to catch that sequence, that list of petitions? The word ‘that’ was repeated four times here- “that He”, “that Christ”, “that you”, “that you”. Spurgeon said that this prayer is like climbing up Jacob’s ladder. You start from the bottom and you go one rung at a time. And then finally, you reach the top, the best part of that ladder where you can see the beautiful picture of this prayer.

Let me again try to summarise the four rungs of this ladder which we will climb this morning. The first rung, “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man”. The second rung, verse 17: “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”. The third rung, “that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge”. The fourth rung, “that you may be filled with the fullness of God”.

This is the ladder which we will climb this morning, so please look with me again at verse 16: “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man”. Paul prays here that we would be strengthened with might in the inner man. Now, who is this inner man that Paul is talking about? What is this inner man or who is this inner man that needs to be strengthened? But it’s not the only time that Paul mentions this inner man or this inward man. He mentioned it before also in 2 Corinthians 4:16. 2 Corinthians 4:16 says: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.”.

So most obvious thing you can say here that the inner man is obviously not the outward man. The outward man is the opposite of the inward man. The outward man refers to our outward body- our flesh, our physical body that is temporal and is as Second Corinthians put it is perishing. Our outward man is perishing, and this is not what Paul is praying for for the Ephesian church. He’s not praying for their physical needs. He’s not praying for their physical well-being that we may be strong and healthy, that we may be protected from Covid-19, and that we may be able to have our daily needs, our food, and a house to stay. Of course, those things are important, but this is not Paul’s intention in this text. His intention is not the physical aspects but the spiritual aspects of our lives.

He is concerned about the inner man- your spiritual life, your soul, your spiritual faculties, the part of you which does not perish, unlike the outward man. Paul knows that our inner man is weak. And therefore he prays for us. You take for example why are we so tempted by the love of money. Why does money cause us so much distress? We know from Scripture we are not to put our trust in money. We know from Scripture that we should not love money. But yet money has such a grip, such a control over our lives that we lose sleep over it. We hold onto our money so tight that even the church work is affected. We spend so much time trying to grow our own earthly empire as if it will last forever. We do that because our inner man is weak.

Our spiritual life is weak. We find it so hard to let go of the treasures of this world. Paul knows that if we are to go against the cause of this world; if we are to resist the devil; if we are to flee from the lust of our flesh, we need to be strengthened in the inner man. I use one more example borrowed from Pastor Stuart Olyott’s sermon. He gives the example of a young lady, a young woman. She has been to church ever since she was young. Her Christian parents taught her Scripture and she was converted. She joined the church, and there comes a time where she now has to go to work. Now obviously she has to go to work. She is separated from the church for a while at work. And her colleagues, they are all non-Christians.

And lo and behold there is this handsome young guy- polite, neat, tidy, charming. And then they became friends and fall in love. This young Christian lady knows that she’s not supposed to marry a non-Christian. She knows she is not supposed to be unequally yoked with her partner. But no matter how hard she tried, she just can’t say no to her feelings. Why is that? Because her inner man is weak. She is spiritually weak. Paul knows that this is often our weakness- our inner man. He prays for the church, for the Christians that we may be strengthened in the inner man, that we may walk well in the sight of the Lord, that we may be obedient people. And how are we strengthened? We are strengthened through His Spirit, His Holy Spirit who dwells in us and works in us.

As Christians, as believers, we have the Holy Spirit in us, working in our hearts, strengthening us, strengthening our wills, our inner man, and enabling us to walk right in the sight of God. The world is only concerned about the outer man, and we are not to follow their example. We are to be Christians who are concerned about our spiritual life, concerned about our inner man. And we should pray like Paul that we might be strengthened with might through the Holy Spirit in the inner man. And so that was the first rung of the ladder. Now Paul does not stop here. He prays that we will be strengthened in the inner man so that we might climb higher to that second rung of the ladder.

We read in verses 16 and 17: “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that (or so that) Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”. Why are we to be strengthened in the inner man? So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. It seems like we have a little problem here. Isn’t Paul writing to the Ephesian church? And isn’t the church filled with Christians? And if the church is filled with Christians, doesn’t a Christian already have Christ dwelling in their hearts? So what is Paul doing here? Why is Paul praying?

You know from Romans 8:9-10: “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness”. So as Christians, Christ already dwells in you. Similarly Galatians 2:20 echoes the same thing: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”. Why is Paul praying that Christ may dwell in a Christian when Christ is already there? Now to solve this problem, we need to look closely at the word ‘dwell’. The word ‘dwell’.

The Greek word for ‘dwell’ here is ‘katoikeó’. Katoikeó is a combination of ‘kata’ and ‘oikeó’. Oikeó here means to live in a house, and ‘kata’ is a word that intensifies that word. And so ‘kata’ here is intensifying oikeó. Now when you combine these two words, katoikeó, it means that to really live in a house- to really live in a house. What it really means is this, Paul is praying that Christ will settle down, to settle down in our hearts. He’s already there in a Christian, but Paul prays that He will settle down and be at home in our hearts. It’s not a matter of whether Christ is in our hearts or not. It is a matter of whether Christ has settled down to really dwell and make it His home.

You can’t stay at a place, at a certain place and feel at home if that place is not familiar to you. And you know for example you go to a foreign country. I remember brother Aaron went with me to the Philippines many years ago. And yes although we enjoyed the fellowship of the brethren there, I remember he once said to me that he does not feel at home, that he misses his Malaysian food, his Malaysian bed, and he longs to go home. He was dwelling at that place for a moment, but he did not settle down there. He did not feel at home. For a person to settle down in a home, the home must be proper. It must be stable, in order, and familiar.

Now I want to ask you this morning: Are your hearts proper, in order, and familiar with Christ? The heart is the home which Christ dwells, and that is why Paul prayed that we might be strengthened in the inner man so that as our spiritual lives are in order and proper, our hearts may also be in order and proper for Christ to dwell. There’s a small book written by a pastor called Robert Munger. He died ten years ago. He’s a Presbyterian pastor, and he wrote this small book entitled “My Heart, Christ’s Home”. My heart, Christ’s home. And that little book is based off this verse alone: “that Christ may dwell in our hearts”. And in his book, he put it this way. The heart is like a home which Christ dwells.

And you know being a home of course there is the study room, the living room, and the dining room. And if Christ were to enter your study room, what will He see? Will He be able to find Christian books, Christian literature, books written for the edification of our soul? Will He be able to find a prayer book perhaps? Or will Christ find a dusty Bible, literature, books, magazines, and all kinds of trash that a Christian should not read? What will Christ find when He goes into your study room?

If Christ were to enter into your dining room, it is a place of appetite. What kind of appetite would Christ find in your dining room? Will there be an appetite for godliness? Will there be an appetite for holiness, for prayer, for fellowship? Or will He find an appetite for the world, for money, for success; an appetite for power, fame, and fortune which will never last? If Christ were to enter into the living room, a place where people have fellowship, will He be able to have fellowship with you? Will you spend time with Christ in the living room, having a time of communion and fellowship and prayer? Or will Christ always be alone in your living room?

Every morning you wake up and you are rushing to work, and you know there’s a traffic jam and you are late. And you rush past the living room out of the house. And at the corner of your eye, you see Christ sitting alone there in the living room. And all you do is to greet Him good morning, and then you rush out of the house. At night when you return to your home, you’re so tired. You’ve been working overtime and all you want to do is to take a shower and get some rest. And you come into the house, and there again you see Christ sitting alone in the living room. But you just rush past Him and go straight into your bedroom.

If we do not get our spiritual life right; if we are not strengthened in the inner man, how will Christ settle down in our hearts? How is He going to dwell in our hearts? It’s so important that we learn to pray like Paul to pray not only for our physical aspect but to pray also for the spiritual aspect of our lives. Not just the physical. We have climbed two rungs up the ladder and the standards already seemed so high. But Paul is not satisfied yet. The next two rungs are superlatives that bring us to dizzying heights. And I wonder if we ever dared prayed such petitions before.

Again Paul prays that we may be strengthened in the inner man so that or in order that Christ may dwell in our hearts so that or in order “that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge”. Something will happen when Christ begins to dwell and settle down in our hearts. As we begin to know Him better, as He begins to really be at home in this house of ours, you begin to imitate Him. The people you know the most and love the most and imitate the most, whether knowingly or unknowingly, are the ones that stay with you or dwell with you in that same house.

That’s why people of the same household often have similar characteristics. They speak the same language, they share the same affection. As Christ dwells in our hearts, He becomes the person that we know loves and imitates the most. And we begin to imitate Him and we become more and more like Him- more joyful, more patient, more kind, more loving. And in our text here it says as Christ dwells with us, we become rooted and grounded in love like a tree who is rooted and grounded in the soil. And so we are rooted and grounded in love. Like a tree, the roots go deep into the soil, and it twists and turns until it grabs hold of the soil. And then it’s grounded on that foundation, and nothing can disturb that tree or move it.

And so we as Christ dwells in our hearts become rooted and grounded in His love. As a person who is rooted and grounded in love, he is able to love Christ. Christ becomes the center of his life. Christ becomes his priority. And whatever he does, the work that he does in his life is all for Christ. A person who is rooted and grounded in love is also able to love others. He’s able to show compassion to those who are suffering. He’s patient with people who are troublesome. He’s kind to a brother in need. He’s able to love his neighbours. This is a person who is rooted and grounded in love.

And being rooted and grounded in love, our text says this person may be able to comprehend. Not just understand it but to comprehend it, to have a firm grip of that subject, to lay hold of it in your mind, “to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge”, not bypass knowledge. I saw somewhere some heresy where they say you can know the life which bypasses knowledge as if you don’t need knowledge. You don’t need a mind to know the love of Christ. It means that it surpasses knowledge. It goes beyond what we can understand. That’s why I say this is a some sort of a superlative here to comprehend something that surpasses knowledge. The love of Christ surpasses knowledge. It goes beyond what our minds are able to comprehend.

And just when you think you know something about the love of Christ, the more you know what you do not know. Consider the width of Christ’s love. The width of Christ’s love. His love is not limited to a certain race or a certain skin colour or a certain type of people. His love is so broad that extends to all nations. Not just the Jews but the Gentiles also. He loves not only kings on the thrones but also the thief on the cross. That is the width of Christ’s love to all kinds of people, to those who put their faith in Him. That is the immensity of Christ’s love. Consider the length of His love. He did not love you temporarily. Often that’s how human love is.

How often have we seen couples break up after years and years of courtship? How often have we seen married people divorce after years of marriages? Jeremiah 31:3 says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love”. Christ’s love had no beginning, just as the Father chose us before the foundation of the world. And His love has no end as it is an everlasting love. The length of Christ’s love is eternal. Consider the depth of His love. He loved even creatures as insignificant as us. He came all the way down from heaven to reach us. He plunged deeper when He took on human form. He plunged deeper when He bore our sorrows and griefs. He plunged deeper still when He bore our sins. He plunged deeper still when He bore our punishment.

Such is the depth of Christ’s love. It is immeasurable. Consider heights of Christ’s love. Through Christ, we have forgiveness of sins. Through Christ, we are accepted by God. Through Christ, we are redeemed. Through Christ, we are adopted. Through Christ, we have an inheritance waiting for us. The width of His love is immense, the length of His love is eternal, the depth of His love is immeasurable, and the height of His love is infinity.

This is the width, the length, the depth, and the height of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. And Paul prays that we may know it not just intellectually but also experientially. There’s no point knowing these things just for information. We are to know it in our experience as well. Do you know the love of Christ to experience His love personally, to love Him as your God and Saviour? Being rooted and grounded in love, may we be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width, the length, the depth, and height to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.

Finally, we come to the final rung of this ladder. And this is the experience of God at its highest. I don’t think there’s any higher experience than this, and I wonder if any of us had such lofty ambitions so as to pray this petition. Every petition that came before this had the intention of reaching this final rung. It is the climax or the peak of the ladder. Paul prays that we may be strengthened by His Spirit with might in the inner man so that or in order that Christ may dwell in our hearts in order that being rooted and grounded in love we may comprehend and know the love of Christ which passes knowledge in order that we may be filled with the fullness of God. What does it mean to be filled with the fullness of God?

Well, some people use the word ‘filled’ in this way. My water bottle is empty, and so I asked perhaps a sibling, my sister to help me fill this water bottle up with water. But this is not Paul’s intention as when he uses the word ‘filled’ here. Paul uses the word ‘filled’ several times in the New Testament, and he never really used that word in that literal sense. For example in Romans 1:29, he says: “being filled with all unrighteousness”.

2 Corinthians 7:4- “Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort.”. If I could borrow the words of Christ in John 16:6- “But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled my heart.” (Mistakenly mentioned “my”, supposedly “your”). Or the words of the council to the Apostles in Acts 5: “You have filled Jerusalem with your teachings”. So you see, we can also be filled with unrighteousness and comfort and sorrow and teaching. The word ‘filled’ here can be used to describe a person which is dominated by emotion or pervaded by an influence.

And that’s what I think Paul is trying to explain here to be filled with the fullness of God that God has spread throughout that person His influence. His character pervaded that person. It means that God has moved into your will, your hearts, and your thoughts. It means that the Holy Spirit is working in the inner man. It means that Christ is now dwelling in your hearts and you are conforming more and more to be like Him. It means that you comprehend the love of Christ and you know His love intellectually and also personally, experientially. It means that God is in his temple which is you, which is the church. He is at work in you. He is dwelling in you. And this truly is the highest Christian experience.

John Calvin said each person when viewed separately is a temple, and when joined to others becomes a stone of a temple. Viewed separately, you are a temple; and together, you are also a temple but a part of it. The church is the temple of which God dwells. He’s not a king or a monarch that sits above high above His throne in His palace far away from His people. He wants to dwell among us. He wants to dwell among His people, the church which is made up of believers. And if God dwells in us, how terrible it is for us to be careless with our lives, to be careless about spiritual things. If God dwells in us, then we ought to take it seriously. We ought to take our spiritual life seriously. We ought not to defile this temple which God dwells.

Some of you after reading this prayer might ask this is too difficult a task for me to achieve. How can we know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge? How can we ever be filled with the fullness of God? How can we ever reach to such great heights? Well, I end with verse 20: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask and think, according to the power that works in us”.

This is a prayer not about our own ability. This is a prayer about God’s work in His people, a prayer for God to come and transform us, to work in us, to work in His temple, His church. And we shall not limit God as to what He can do. He is able to carry out more than what we ask or think. And may our desire be like verse 21, same as Paul’s desire: “to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.”. May our desire be for God’s glory forever and ever and ever, Amen. Let’s close in prayer.

“Our Father in heaven, we thank You for reminding us that we are the temple of which You dwell in. The church is where You are pleased to dwell with Your people. Help us O Lord to take our spiritual life seriously, to ensure that this temple is not defiled. Teach us O Lord to pray like You, to pray as how Paul has prayed, to pray how You have taught us to pray. We pray that You will strengthen us in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in us and so that we may comprehend and know His love and that You may fill us with all Your fullness. We pray that You’ll continue to build this church up, all these we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.