Fullness

Scripture: Ephesians 3:14-21

Title: Fullness

Structure:

• Introduction
• Paul’s prayer for fullness
• Strength for your inner being
• Knowing Christ’s love
• Conclusion

Introduction:

I have here a dry sponge [hold up the sponge] all rigid and hard

• For this sponge to be useful it needs to be wet
• I could sprinkle a few drops of water on top so that its damp in places but that’s not really going to work for wiping down a table
• To carry out its purpose this sponge needs to be filled with water
• [soak the sponge in a bucket of water]
• When water has passed through every pore the sponge is no longer hard but becomes flexible and able to serve its purpose

This morning we continue our series in Ephesians by focusing on chapter 3, verses 14-21. This is Paul’s prayer for his readers

• From the New Revised Standard Version we read…

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this Scripture for us

Paul’s prayer for fullness:

Prayer isn’t just words we might say. The 19^th Century hymn writer James Montgomery wrote…

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Unuttered or expressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast. [1]

This tells us that prayer has to do with true intention or desire

• • Sometimes that desire is expressed in words and other times it burns in our heart like a hidden fire

• We might not always have the right words when we pray but that doesn’t matter so much to God because His Spirit understands the unseen intention of our heart

In verse 14, of Ephesians 3, Paul writes, “I bow my knees before the Father…”

• • Most Jews of Paul’s day stood up to pray, so the act of kneeling to pray is unusual; it demonstrates Paul’s earnest intention, his heartfelt desire

• The richness and beauty of Paul’s language in Ephesians 3 suggests he is trying to find words to do justice to his hidden fire

• Paul’s prayer is that his readers (people like us) would be filled with all the fullness of God

• In other words, Paul wants us to be filled with the Spirit of Christ – not just a few drops on top of the sponge of our soul but completely saturated so our inner being expands to become flexible and useful in God’s hand

• For that to happen though our inner being needs to be strengthened

 

Strength for your inner being:

In one hand here I have a plastic bag and in the other a hot water bottle

• If I was to fill both of these with boiling water, which one would you put in your bed to warm up the sheets? [Wait]

• I would put the hot water bottle in – I wouldn’t risk using the plastic bag because the plastic bag isn’t really strong enough

 

These are a couple of cardboard boxes and this is a wooden chair

• What do you think will happen if I sit on the card board boxes?

• Let’s find out [sit on the box]

• Now what happens when I sit on the chair? [sit on the chair]

• The card board boxes weren’t strong enough to support my weight but the wooden chair was – no surprises there

 

Okay, one more – If you are planning to stay in the same place for a while then chances are you will live in a house

• But if you are just passing through or visiting a place on holiday then you might camp in a tent
• A tent is okay for temporary accommodation but it’s not as strong or as warm as a house – houses are generally more permanent

In verses 16 & 17, of Ephesians 3, Paul writes: I pray… that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through God’s Spirit and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.

As I said earlier, Paul’s prayer (his deep desire) is that we (his readers) be filled with all the fullness of God, but for that to happen our inner being needs to be strengthened 

God fills our inner being (our soul) like hot water fills a hot water bottle, so that we radiate his warmth to others

• Without the strengthening of the Holy Spirit our inner being is like the plastic bag; it’s not suitable for holding the hot water of God’s fullness

 

Our inner being (our heart – the core of ourselves where desires are born and decisions are made) is a bit like a chair or, better still, a throne

• Without the strengthening of the Holy Spirit our heart is like a cardboard box; it’s not strong enough to hold the weight of Christ the King

Our inner being is like a dwelling place; through Christ, God fills us like a family fills a house

• For you Bible nerds out there, there are two words in Greek for dwelling
• paroikeo, which means to inhabit a place temporarily as a stranger
• And katoikeo, which means to settle down permanently – to make that place your home [2]

• The word that is used, in verse 17, for Christ dwelling in us is katoikeo

• Without the strengthening of the Holy Spirit our inner being is like a tent; it’s okay as a temporary measure but Jesus isn’t just passing through

• Christ intends to take up residence in us permanently
• God wants to make his home in us – pretty amazing aye

As you can see there, at the end of verse 17, Paul uses two other images of strengthening – being rooted and grounded in love.

• Being rooted in love makes us think of a tree
• Just as a tree gets its strength from being rooted in the soil, so too our inner being gets it stability and nourishment from being deeply rooted in God’s love
• Being grounded in love makes us think of a building
• Just as a house gets its strength from a firm foundation, so too our inner being gets its security and resilience from remaining in God’s love

You may be wondering, ‘what does it mean to be rooted and grounded in love?’

• Well, in John 15 Jesus says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love… This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you…”
• We remain in Christ’s love by loving one another

Some of you may have noticed Paul’s reference to the Trinity in Ephesians 3 – God the Father, Son & Holy Spirit

• In receiving the Holy Spirit, we are receiving Christ and in receiving Christ we are receiving the fullness of God

 

Okay, so Paul’s prayer is that we (his readers) be filled with all the fullness of God and for that to happen our inner being needs to be strengthened

• But there is something else we need in order to be filled with the fullness of God and that is the knowledge of Christ’s love
• It seems we come to know Christ’s love incrementally, in stages

Knowing Christ’s love:

In verses 18-19, of Ephesians 3, Paul writes…

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

In these verses Paul seems to be talking about the dimensions of Christ’s divine love, which are beyond measure

• Sometimes (perhaps most of the time) our thinking is too small where God is concerned
• We have a tendency to put God in a box because it’s too overwhelming or too scary otherwise
• As well as being strengthened, our inner being (our thinking) needs to be expanded or enlarged to receive the fullness of God
• Knowing Christ’s love enlarges our inner being to make room for God
• Sort of like water enlarges a sponge or like warm air inflates a balloon or baking powder expands cookie dough

How then do we know Christ’s love?

• Well, Paul touches on two ways in verse 18: by the Holy Spirit and through the church

The ‘power to comprehend’ is likely a reference to the Holy Spirit

• The Spirit of Jesus is a Spirit of love and truth
• Jesus said His Spirit would lead us into truth
• So we comprehend Christ’s love by the power of God’s Spirit, just like we understand the Scriptures by the illumination of God’s Spirit

The Holy Spirit gives us a lens through which to interpret the events of our lives

• Two people may have exactly the same experience and yet see that experience in a completely different way because one has the power to comprehend and the other doesn’t
• When the people of Israel were in the desert, Moses sent 12 spies into the Promised Land to check the place out
• Ten of the spies returned saying the people are giants and we can’t possibly take them on
• Those 10 spies had a pretty small idea of God – either they didn’t really believe that God loved them or they thought God was pretty weak
• But two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, returned excited, believing that God wanted to give them victory
• While all 12 spies had the same experience, only Joshua and Caleb had the power to comprehend that God loved them and was bigger than the people of the land

Let me give another example of how the Spirit helps us to comprehend Christ’s love. This is a personal example and I’m reluctant to share it because it makes me feel vulnerable so please don’t make me regret it

• Last week we were away from Tawa on holiday and for some reason or other I was feeling grumpy so I poured out my heart to God
• Things build up over time and the holidays are often the only opportunity I have to do any house-keeping on my soul
• Anyway I was honest with God about how I felt and my feelings were not pretty – I was quite sour with God
• Afterwards I felt a bit bad for being so honest with the Lord
• God is incredibly good to me, He is so kind and gracious
• I want to always give God my best but sometimes he gets my worst – my pain and my anger; and that’s not fair because he doesn’t deserve that
• But in that moment, of feeling bad for being sour, I sensed God’s Spirit saying to me that he likes both my sweetness and my sourness
• Just like I enjoy sugar and lemon on my pancakes
• You need the sourness of the lemon to cut the sweetness of the sugar

Normally I would hide the fact that I can be sour sometimes but I take the risk of sharing this with you because I think that most of us (perhaps all of us) unconsciously think that there are parts of ourselves which are unacceptable to God and which God cannot love

• We don’t like that part of ourselves so how can God like it?
• God’s love is far more spacious and generous than we imagine
• God’s love is great enough to swallow our sourness and kiss our ugliness
• It’s God’s Spirit who reveals this truth to our inner being
• I can tell you that God accepts you but you won’t be convinced until God’s Spirit touches that part of you
• I believe this is one of the things Paul is praying for when he says, ‘may you have the power to comprehend Christ’s love.’

 

The next thing we note, in verse 18, is that knowing Christ’s love happens ‘with all the saints’

• ‘Saints’ is just another word for other Christian believers – the church
• A saint isn’t an especially good Christian in this context
• In Paul’s thinking, all those who believe in Jesus are saints, no matter where they are in their journey of faith
• The point is, we need other Christians (or the church) to enlarge and deepen our knowledge of Christ’s love

For example, when you look at the church, through the lens of God’s Spirit, you see the wide range of different people who follow Jesus and you start to get an idea of the breadth of God’s love

• You realise that God doesn’t just love people like me – he loves all sorts of different kinds of people
• You only have to look around this room – Tawa Baptist is made up of people of every age group, from many different cultures and countries and with a whole variety of denominational and theological backgrounds
• God’s love is big enough to embrace humanity in all its diversity

Now anyone who has managed to remain in the church for more than a few years will realise how imperfect the church is. People get hurt in churches

• Usually it’s not intentional or malicious but either way it’s only a matter of time before someone ruffles your feathers or offends you or takes you for granted or even wounds you deeply and you are faced with a choice: either forgive them or leave in a huff
• It is in the act of forgiving the hurt that we begin to know Christ’s love in forgiving us
• The paradox is we wouldn’t have known that aspect of Christ’s love unless we had been hurt ourselves

Of course, we learn about Christ’s love in more positive ways too

• Not long after I became a Christian my parents divorced – I was in my early teens at that stage
• In the years that followed I experienced the love of Christ through one or two men in the church who took the time to come alongside me and be there for me, to listen and give me support
• The time they spent with me showed me I was cared for and valued
• Looking back, I may not have experienced that aspect of Christ’s love unless my parents had split up

We come to know Christ’s love, therefore, through the Holy Spirit, through other Christian believers and through our own suffering

• You see, there are two sides to love – there’s joy and there’s pain, there’s comfort and there’s grief
• The truth is we can’t know Christ’s love without some degree of suffering
• And so we come back to our need for Christ who redeems our suffering
• By His Spirit, God takes the imperfect circumstances of our lives and uses them to renovate our soul – to strengthen and enlarge our inner being so that the fullness of God fills us

Conclusion:

We do well to remember that it is God who renovates our inner being

• We can’t enlarge or strengthen ourselves any more than a plastic bag could change itself into a hot water bottle or a cardboard box could change itself into a chair or a tent could change itself into a house

• As Paul says in verses 20-21, of Ephesians 3, the glory goes to God, who is able to accomplish abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine…

 

• Paul’s confidence was in God

Having said that, we still need to cooperate with God’s Spirit at work in us

• We still need to pay attention to our inner being

• We need to spend time in prayer and study of the Scriptures

• We need to guard our thoughts and weigh our desires

• We need to be intentional about listening for God and discerning His will

• There is a healthy balance to find here of course – we don’t want to become so focused on our inner life that we forget to love our neighbour
• By the same token, we don’t want to become so caught up in serving others that we neglect our own soul

How is the sponge of your inner being?

• Is it filled with the fullness of God, wet through and flexible in His hand?
• Or is it dry and hard and in need of refreshment?

 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

1.) What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

• Why do you think this stood out to you?

2.) Discuss / reflect on James Montgomery’s thought that, Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, unuttered or expressed.

• Are you aware of your soul’s sincere desire?
• To what extent do the words you pray reflect your soul’s sincere desire?

3.) What was Paul’s sincere desire for his readers?

• What does it mean to be filled with all the fullness of God?

4.) What do you think Paul means by our ‘inner being’?

• How is our inner being strengthened and enlarged?

5.) How do we come to know Christ’s love?

• Can you think of a time when the Holy Spirit has given you power to comprehend Christ’s love for you?
• Can you think of a time when you have experienced some aspect of Christ’s love from other Christian believers?
• What role does suffering have to play in the process of knowing Christ’s love?

6.) How is the sponge of your inner being?

• Is it filled with the fullness of God, wet through and flexible in His hand?
• Or is it dry and hard and in need of refreshment?

 

[1] John Stott’s commentary on Ephesians provided the inspiration for this illustration on prayer

[2] John Stott, The Message of Ephesians, page 135-136.