United in Power

July 21, 2024|United in Power|Ephesians 3

JD Cutler

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This morning, in week 3 of our study we come to chapter 3 in the book of Ephesians. 

In chapter 1 we saw that God has graciously united those who are his in Christ. 

In chapter 2 we saw that God saves us because of his grace, alone. All those who are in Christ are in Christ because of grace.

In chapter 3 of Ephesians we come to a prayer from Paul. The whole chapter is devoted to this prayer with an aside concerning his ministry to the gentiles.

What he starts in verse 1, (ESV) 1 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— He picks up in verse 14. Ephesians 3:14 (ESV) 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

Between these two sentences Paul further explains his ministry to the gentiles as divinely given, reiterates that in God’s redemptive plan he has united Jews and Gentiles into the same body, and explains God has called him to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to the gentiles, and bring light to everyone God’s plan for salvation. After this aside, from 14 to 21 Paul shares his prayer for believers. 

Before we get there, we must ask, for what reason? Right? Paul says in verse 1, for this reason and again in verse 14, for this reason.

Pretty much everything he has said in chapters 1 and 2 culminating in verse 22 of chapter 2.

Ephesians 2:22 (ESV) 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Because the gentiles have been made fellow citizens and members of the household of God, 

Because they have been brought near by the blood of Christ, 

Because even though they were dead, God made them alive together with Christ, 

Because God is rich in mercy, full of great love, and immeasurably rich in grace. 

Because they were chosen before the foundation of the world, predestined to adoption as sons, 

Because they are now saints. 

For this reason, I want you to know I am praying for you. 

As MacArthur points out this prayer serves as the connection between all that Paul has said up to this point and what he begins in chapter 4. 

As we said in the first week of our study, Ephesians can be broken down into two parts, chapters 1-3 Paul describes what these gentiles have in Christ, primarily the unity they have with Christ, with Jews, and with one another, and in chapters 4-6 Paul describes what they gentiles should do in light of that unity.  Between what they have and who they are and what they should do, we have this prayer from Paul, that helps us understand how he understands where their ability comes from to carry out his exhortations in chapters 4-6. 

Having been united in Christ because of grace, Paul now, through his prayer for believers, shows us our unity in the power to live out our new identity in Christ. 

We have been saved by grace through faith, now what?

How do we live out our identity? By what or whose power do we grow in Christ-likeness?

Where does our power to grow come from? To use a church word, by what power are we sanctified? 

This is important, because as we will see, it is not based on individual merits or strengths. 

The reason you may not be experiencing the power of God in your life, the reason you are not growing as you should is not because of limitations inherent to you. There are no JV Christians. Paul has spent two chapters describing how every Christian is united in Christ and in grace, that all believers have the same position before God and the same access through Christ. 

Then why do we see some Christians who seem to grow in Christ and some who do not, if not based on some inner condition or ability? The first thing I will say is that, in all my years of ministry, I’ve never met anyone who wanted to grow in Christ that did not. 

On the other hand, I have met plenty of people who did not seem to care if they grew and interestingly enough, those seldom do. 

Outside of the desire, there doesn’t seem to be any great differences between the two groups, and yet one is experiencing the power of God in their life and one is not? 

This is the question that Paul answers in this prayer recorded for us in Ephesians 3:14-21. According to Paul we all have access to the same power and indeed there is no other power by which we can be transformed, so how do we experience this power in our lives? As we read his prayer, I want you to listen for the word that. 

Ephesians 3:14-21 (ESV) 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that 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, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and 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.

I am praying that God does this, so that this will result, that this will happen, that you will experience this thing. 

The sequence of Paul’s prayer builds line upon line, with each successive prayer request dependent on the previous one, culminating in a praise for the God who can do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. 

In verse 20 Paul describes God’s ability to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. 

Paul describes a limitless power at work in our lives and yet if we are honest, we struggle with this idea because our experience is often more powerless than powerful, more failure than fantastic. What gives? 

We can only understand verse 20 if we pay careful attention to verses 14-19. 

This morning I want to walk you through the process that Paul prays for, understanding that there is no secret formula or mechanical steps we can take to experience the power of God, but rather it is about positioning ourselves to experience the power of God because of the grace of God. Amen? I want to give you four statements this morning about experiencing the power of God in your life. 

Experiencing the power of God in our lives begins on the inside.

Looking at verses 14-17 more closely we find, in the Greek, the first purpose clause. 

When we distill it down to its core request, Paul prays that God would strengthen the believer in their inner being. 

How are we to understand what Paul means when he says inner being?

Paul uses this phrase a few times in his letters to differentiate between the outer man and the inner man. 

The outer man being what you can see, what others see, what you do, how you act externally. 

The inner man being what you cannot directly see, what others cannot easily see, what you think, how you behave internally. 

This inner man is who you are when all the external trappings are stripped away. You cannot fake this, you cannot dress it up, put makeup on it, it is what it is. And that is scary to think about, isn’t it? 

We have become so good at thinking about the outer man, about how we present ourselves, how we adorn ourselves that little thought is spared to the inner man. Most of us have become experts at portraying our outer-selves in ways we think others will respond favorably to. Some of us even have multiple outer-selves that we change based on the occasion. There’s the outerself I wear to church. 

There’s the outerself I wear to work. There’s the outerself I wear with friends. There’s the outerself I wear at home. Right? But no matter what we do on the outside, there is this inner self that remains. 

It has been said like this, your inner man is who you are when no one is watching. 

Listen to a few of the ways Paul articulates the difference between the two. In Romans chapter 7 Paul describes his own experience. 

Romans 7:22-25 (ESV) 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.’

What is Paul describing here? The war that rages between our inner and outer being. Paul sees God at work in his inner being, bringing delight in his law, contentment in his heart, and peace in his mind, but there remains this outer man, this flesh that wages war against Paul. And Paul knows that it is hopeless, apart from Christ, who has the power to transform the inner man and will one day completely transform the outer man. 

Writing to the Corinthians, Paul says. 

2 Corinthians 4:16 (ESV) 16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 

Listen to how he gets to this point in his letter. 

2 Corinthians 4:7-10 (ESV) 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

Paul says here it is not just his own outer man that wages war but his outer man is being attacked by the world, by the enemy, and yet he sees that in his inner man, Christ is renewing him day by day. 

Resisting sin, bearing persecution, enduring suffering; these external evidences of transformation do not happen apart from the internal working of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification begins on the inside of man. 

I think sometimes we get this backwards in the church. When a man or woman comes to Christ we immediately expect their life to be different.

If he or she did things a Christian should not do, we expect that they will no longer do those things. If there were things they did not do that a Christian should do, we expect that they will begin doing those immediately. 

And even if we have never been as bold as to say it, we think it, don’t we?

And yes, there are times that God supernaturally delivers someone from actions or attitudes inconsistent with their new lives, but more often than not, it is a slow transforming work that begins on the inside, one that Paul prayed we would all experience. How?

According to the riches of his glory he may grant you. Stop. 

That God would give you the experience of being strengthened. Sanctification is a gift, just like justification and just like glorification. All of salvation is the gracious gift of God. 

That he would give you, what? Literally, the gift of being strengthened with strength. 

Whose strength? Through his Spirit. Where? In your inner being. 

Sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit in our inner being graciously given to us by God. What then is our responsibility then?

Surrender. It is surrendering our thoughts, our desires, our intentions to God. 

It is an ongoing surrendering of our life to Christ. Of our wills to his. 

How do we know his will? We read his word. We immerse ourselves in the word of God, we read it, we study it, we listen to it, we sing it, we see it displayed in the ordinances. We fill ourselves with his word and we surrender ourselves to his will and the Spirit begins strengthening us in our inner man according to the will of God. 

Without this we will never move beyond where we are right now, proving that we are either severely stunted in our growth or that we don’t have the Spirit within us in the first place. 

What is the purpose of this strengthening? This inward strengthening of the Spirit that Paul prays for?This brings us to our next purpose statement. 

Verse 17 ‘So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith’

The second statement I want to share with you this morning is... 

Experiencing the power of God in our lives is not independent of Christ.

I want you to understand that when Paul says we were saved by grace through faith that he is not just talking about our justification. We are not saved by grace and then on our own to whiteknuckle the Christian life. It is not ‘Jesus saves’ and I sanctify myself. It is not ‘Jesus got me started, now it is up to me’. 

If any part of your Christian life is not rooted and grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ, you have missed it. 

Paul prays that having been strengthened in their inner man Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. 

But you say, wait a minute pastor, I am a Christian, so Christ already dwells within me. Is Paul saying that I will be saved only after I am being sanctified? Of course not, we know better. 

Is Paul saying that we need a second experience of Christ in our hearts? Again, no.

Then what is he saying? The key is the word he used in his prayer. 

That Christ may dwell in your hearts. 

The word dwell is a combination of two words, to dwell and down, literally to settle down in. 

It is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to describe God’s presence with his covenant people. 

You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the LORD dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

The idea is to make a home. 

Paul’s literal prayer is that God would strengthen their inner man so that Christ would be able to settle down there, make his home there. 

Pastor are you saying that Christ can be in me but not be at home in me?

Yes. Otherwise why would Paul give this instruction in Ephesians 4:30 (ESV) 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 

The word grieve means to cause sorrow in one, to cause grief, one literal translation can be to make one uneasy.

Paul says you can be sealed with the Spirit, be indwelt with it and yet, by your life, cause him sorrow. 

Years ago at another church I pastored, one of our ladies would sing a special song often during our Sunday night song service called the secret place. 

It talks about our heart, our inner man being like a house and Christ visiting different rooms but there being a room that was locked to him. The song goes on to talk about surrendering that secret room, that off limit place to Christ so that he can make us clean. It’s a powerful reminder that, if we are not careful we will create areas of our hearts and areas of our lives where we try to keep Christ out of.

How can Christ ever fully settle down in our hearts until we have surrendered it fully to him?

How will we ever fully surrender it to him, if God doesn’t strengthen us in our inner man?

Do you see the progression?

Friends, you will never experience the abundant power of God in your life as long as you are trying to have it both ways. To be in Christ and be in the world. To the extent we surrender our lives to Christ is to the extent we will experience the power of God in it. 

We get in the word and the Spirit works in our inner man according to it, showing us areas we have yet to surrender to Christ, areas that apart from his strength, we could never surrender, and as we do, Christ settles down into our hearts, making his home there causing our inner man to be conformed to the image of our savior Jesus Christ. 

As Christ increasingly makes his home in us, what is the result? Paul answers that next, which leads us to our next statement.

Experiencing the power of God in our lives is experiencing the love of God in our lives. 

Let’s pick up in verse 17 and read through the first part of 19.

Ephesians 3:17-19 (ESV) that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,

Follow the purpose statements with me. 

That God would give you the experience of being strengthened in your inner man.

That Christ would dwell in your hearts through faith.

That you may have the strength to comprehend and to know the love of Christ.

Paul says that to experience Christ more fully is to be rooted and grounded in love. 

These two words are similar. To be rooted is to have a tree strengthened with roots, to thoroughly ground a thing. 

To be grounded has the idea of laying a good foundation that will establish or stabilize something. 

The more fully Christ controls our life, the more firmly we find ourselves grounded and stable in his love. 

When this happens, Paul says we will have the strength to lay hold of, that is to understand, perceive, with all the saints.

This is not something that can be understood or comprehended apart from the inner working of the Holy Spirit in those that are his. To understand what? The breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ. 

Furthermore, to know it, or to experience it. 

Isn’t it true that when it comes to love, your knowledge of it is limited by your experience of it. You can only love to the extent that you have been loved. Paul says that even though Christ’s love surpasses knowledge, that is even though we may not be able to articulate it, even if we couldn’t put it into words, we can know it experientially. 

Why does Paul include these fourfold measurements here? 

Between his language of foundation and his measurements, our minds are drawn to the temple, where God’s people once experienced his presence. Why is this significant?

Because of what Paul previously said in Ephesians 2:19-22 (ESV) 9 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Paul says as you experience the love of Christ you will more fully understand the awesome grace that has taken the many and made them one holy living temple of God. 

As you are sanctified in your inner man, as Christ makes his home more fully in you, you will experience the overwhelming love that has saved you, is working in you, and will one day complete his work in you, making for himself, composed of men and women like you, a dwelling place for eternity. 

It is the security in the love of God that we have that drives us to greater experience of it. 

God does not love us because we are loveable and he does not reserve some of his love for certain saints, but makes it fully available to all his saints. The reason we do not experience more of God’s love is not that it is not there, but that we are not in the position to better experience it. 

This has huge significance in your life. You cannot do anything to make God love you more. 

God’s love is bigger than you can ever comprehend and he invites us to drink deeply from it, never being satisfied and never reaching the bottom of it. How big is it?

To paraphrase MacArthur. Paul has already given us the details we need to understand it. 

What is its breadth? Wide enough for Jews and Gentiles, it covers all nations. What is its length? It stretches back into eternity where he predestined and chose you and extends into the future to cover the fullness of his people. How high is it? High enough to take you to the very presence of God, to be face to face with your savior. How deep is it? Deep enough to rescue you from the pit of hell where you deserve to be. 

You can spend all your life leaning into the love of God and never experience all there is to experience. 

But how sad, that many of us never experience, even a small portion of it because we have not immersed ourselves in God’s revelation, because we have not surrendered our lives fully to Christ, because we are comfortable in the shallow end of God’s love, while there is an ocean of it for us to experience. 

Paul prays that this would not be our reality, that we would not stay where we are, but that we would be drawn deeper into the experience of the love of God. Why? So that we might better know the power of God.  

The power of God follows the love of God. The more we experience the overwhelming love of God the more power of God we will see in our lives. They are inseparable realities. 

In the latter part of verse 19 Paul says, (ESV) that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Which brings us to our last statement and the last purpose statement of Paul. 

Experiencing the power of God in our lives is not about us. 

Paul says what we may be filled with all the fullness of God. 

The more we experience the love of God the more we are transformed into Christlikeness because the more of the love of God we experience the more we are changed and the more we desire the things of God. 

So much so that Paul says we will be filled to the brim with God. 

The things that characterize God will characterize us albeit less than and we are not talking about his immutable qualities like omni-presence, or omniscience. But love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, things like mercy and grace will be evident in our life.  

Having our inner man strengthened results in our outer man being changed. 

Too often we get this backwards. We try to be more loving, or to be more patient, or to be kinder, or more gentle trying to wrestle our flesh into submission, to deal with the outer man, when the key Paul says is when our inner man is strengthened the result is more power in our life that results in godliness being expressed in and through our lives. 

The more we experience and understand the love of God the more that same love will flow through us towards those around us. 

What will be the result?

God can do far more than we can ask according to the power at work within us. 

Not just more than we can ask, more than what we can think.

Not just more, but abundantly more than all that we ask or think. 

Not just abundantly more, but far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. 

What does this look like?

It looks like a Jewish man who wanted to purify Judaism by stamping out a few radicals proclaiming a risen savior, going on to become a follower of Christ, one of his chosen apostles, a cross continent church planter, a scripture writer, a man whose impact has extended over 2000 years because of how God worked in and through him. 

It looks like a German priest who just wanted to debate some of the beliefs of the Catholic church, who went on to spark a reformation of the church that is still impacting us now some 500 years later. 

It looks like a 30 year old Pastor taking a pastorate in Sun Valley California with the singular and simple desire to preach faithfully God’s word, who went on to faithfully lead that church for 55 years and going, impacting Christians across the world with his teaching, publishing a study bible which many of our members regularly use. 

We could go on, men like John Calvin, R.C. Sproul, Mark Dever just to name a few. 

Men who are not perfect, men who made mistakes, men who were fallible, and yet God used them in ways beyond their wildest imaginations to advance the kingdom of God and make his name known to the nations. 

Which is what it is all about. Listen to how Paul finishes his prayer. 

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.

To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. 

It’s not about you. God does not work his power in you so that you can say look at me, but rather you can say look at what God did with this worthless piece of material. Isn’t this what Paul says in 2 Corinthians. 

2 Corinthians 4:7-18 (ESV) 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Maybe you aren’t experiencing the power of God because you are not concerned with the glory of God. 

Don’t miss this. If you don’t get anything else from today, get this.

God’s work in and through you is for his glory, not yours. 

I think this is why Paul prays the way that he does building upon each request. 

Conclusion:

Apart from God’s gracious strengthening of your inner man, there is no greater experience with Christ. 

Apart from Christ making his home in you, there is no greater experience of his love. 

Apart from experiencing the greatness of God’s love, there is no power. 

Apart from the power of God, there is no impact for the kingdom. Apart from the impact for the kingdom, your life does not glorify God the way that it could. 

Paul is pouring his heart out to God that he would do something radical in the inner beings of these believers for the ultimate purpose of glorifying God in and through their lives. 

I don’t know any Christian who doesn’t want their life to glorify God, but I do know plenty that seem to be confused on how that happens. 

To which I pray today for you, the same way Paul prayed for these believers. 

That God would give you the gift of strengthening you in your inner man through the power of his Spirit, that Christ may dwell in you in faith, that you may experience the love of God, so that you may experience the power of God in your life, so that your life may glorify God to the fullest. 

Let us pray.