Bending the Knee of Your Heart - Brandon Scalf

The great Puritan John Owen once said, what a man is before God on his knees, that he is and no more.

And the reason that he said that is because prayer is the great revealer of who you are and what you believe.

It is on your knees in prayer to God where your theology as it were is laid bare.

What you think about God, what you think about your sin and what you think about your needs become very apparent.

You cannot hide from God. In fact, the scriptures say we are laid bare before him and no one is hidden from his sight.

So the question becomes, if that's true, then what is prayer?

What is prayer? Well, prayer is something that is talked about all over the place.

Christians and non -Christians alike talk about praying. Other religions have prayer.

People pray. That is just true.

Now, whether or not they pray biblically and to a God who exists, that's another question. But maybe you've heard this saying, there is no atheist in a foxhole.

That saying has been said throughout history because when bullets are flying and blood is flowing, we begin to cry out, understanding that we are desperate for help when it seems as though we can't affect change on our own.

We understand, at least on some level, that we are weak, that we are not sovereign over every situation.

And in those moments, we at least express hope, hope that something somewhere is going to change.

This is why your non -Christian friends and family might say, well, I'm praying for you.

But that is not biblical prayer. And so as we look at our passage today, we're going to see

Paul's second prayer that he has shown us in the book of Ephesians. And he's going to help us understand what prayer is and what it looks like and how we ought to think about it.

Because prayer is as essential to the Christian life as anything else.

As a matter of fact, if prayer is not a part of your Christian life, there might be reason to believe that you aren't a

Christian in the first place. Prayer is a big deal.

It is a very big deal. And so if you would, please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy, infallible and all -sufficient word.

And I will go ahead and read to the end of verse 21, starting in verse 14.

This is the word of God. For this reason,

Paul says, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would give you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man.

So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being firmly rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge.

That you may be filled up to all the fullness of God and unto him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, amen.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever, amen. Amen, have a seat.

As we look at our text, it is very apparent that Paul has begun a prayer.

And so the first thing that I want you to note as we look at our passage is Paul's posture. Paul's posture.

He begins by saying, for this reason, in verse 14.

So he begins his second prayer by telling us the reason that he is, in fact, praying.

And the question becomes, what is that reason? Well, in order to answer that question, we have to look at the flow of the entire letter itself.

And the first prayer that we see in the book of Ephesians, we see that he is praying, what, in verse one, in verse 17, rather, that the

God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to the Ephesians the spirit of wisdom and the revelation and the full knowledge of him.

And he has just told them what God has done for them in Trinitarian salvation, that they had been chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him, that they had been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and had their sins forgiven, and that they were being made trophies of God's grace and inheritance, in other words, of Christ Jesus, and that they were sealed in the

Holy Spirit and promised a further inheritance to come. And so in the first prayer, if you didn't pick up on it,

Paul is praying that the Ephesians, and us by extension, would know of the resources that we have, the spiritual blessings that have been extended to us according to those verses.

In other words, Paul was essentially thinking to himself, what do I pray for, for a group of people that have absolutely everything, right?

Because in verse three of chapter one, they have been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Here in the second prayer, it comes on the tail end of another argument, not what salvation looks like from a

Trinitarian perspective, but that two groups of people have now became one, that where the

Jews and the Gentiles were once alienated, God has done away with that alienation and has produced the church filled with people who have been regenerated by the power of the

Holy Spirit, who have been awakened from spiritual darkness and who have been given a new life in Him.

And so in this prayer, what we will see is that he is praying that the

Ephesians and us by extension would know the love of Christ and that that love would overflow into the relationships that they and we have with one another in the body of Christ.

And so what we have here in verses 14 all the way through 21 is a transition of sorts.

Much like many of Paul's letter, it is split down the middle. Chapters one through three are doctrine.

That is the things that we ought to believe about who God is and what He has done in and through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

It is the resources that we have in order to worship God. It's the fuel in the tank that we would put into our spiritual cars, so to speak, for the road ahead.

And in chapters four through six of Ephesians, we turn from doctrine to duty.

That is the Christian life. How do we live it? Or we can frame it this way. Chapters one through three, at least up until verse 13, are indicatives.

And chapters four through six are imperatives. And why is it set up that way?

It's set up that way because we don't know how to live for God if we don't understand

God. And we don't know what the Christian life looks like unless we know what Christ looks like.

Doing for the sake of doing is meaningless. If doing better and trying harder on our own merits was enough to be pleasing in the sight of God.

One, we would never be pleasing in the sight of God because the Bible tells us that we are all sinners and we cannot attain perfection.

But two, there would be no need for Christ. And so here in Ephesians, much like in Romans, there is this shift.

And before we get to the shift of how to do or how to live or how to be the church, Paul prays again that we would get it, that we would understand some things.

So the indicatives empower the imperatives. The imperatives, the doctrines influence how we are to do our duty.

And if we get this backwards, we destroy the Christian life.

And so Paul prays. He prays for this reason.

Specifically, if you remember, many commentators believe that he's picking up where he left off in verse one of chapter three.

He says, for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles, interruption.

And then in verse 14, for this reason, I bow my knees. So it is a continuation of the argument that he tried making prior to saying what he is saying now.

So the reason that he's about to pray is because of what he talked about in verses one through 22 of chapter two, namely that these two groups of people have become one in Christ Jesus by what verse 16 tells us, and verse 15, that we have been made one new man according to what, the cross of Christ.

It is possible, however, that Paul is still continuing on in a different train of thought, namely that he has not went back to chapter two, but he's actually speaking of verses seven through 13 of chapter three.

And if that's the case, which actually I think it is, I think Paul doesn't actually begin talking about what he wants to talk about till we get into chapter four, is that Paul has this overwhelming sense of privilege, if you remember the last couple sermons, of being the minister to the

Gentiles, that he would preach the unfathomable riches of Christ, and that he considers it a privilege to suffer for them, because they have now come to know the

Lord Jesus Christ. He ends right before we get to our passage by saying, therefore,

I ask you not to lose heart at my afflictions on your behalf, which is your glory.

And so the question becomes, why is he about to pray? Well, he's about to pray for them, because he knows that Christ has been working in them, and he is confident that his sufferings are for their glory, because they know him.

And this helps us to understand and how to frame better what prayer actually is, right?

Because we come to prayer with a lot of theological presuppositions, right?

If we're of the Arminian persuasion, or if we're on the other side of the aisle, as it were, from Calvinism, we think that prayer is us just kind of talking to God.

On the Calvinism side of the aisle, sometimes we can also get a little confused about what prayer is, right?

Because on the one hand, if God is not completely and utterly sovereign, and he doesn't choose whom he saves, and he's not doing this, that, and the other, then why are we praying in the first place?

But then if we're Calvinists, why are we praying because God is sovereign, and he's going to save whom he saves? And so he's gonna do what he does, and so how do we think about prayer?

It's a good question. Well, Paul's helping us understand. There's reasons that he can pray.

There's reasons that he can pray on behalf of the people. Namely, that he knows them to be

Christian. He knows them to be saved, and so he begins, firstly, by way of posture, by understanding that God is going to delight in answering his prayers, because he knows that God is for them.

He's just spent three chapters telling them about how God has done everything in history for them and for you.

So Paul, even through his prayer, is preaching. He can't be there in the flesh preaching to them, which is what he desires most to do, because he has been sent to be a proclaimer of the word of Christ to the people of Christ, but he's in prison, and while in prison, he could not open his mouth, as it were, in front of them, but he could open his mouth to God for them, and so he continues on.

It's for this reason, because I know you to be Christians, because I know you to be trophies of God's grace, because I know that he has body slammed, as it were, darkness in and around you, it's because of this that I suffer, and it's because of my suffering that I know that these prayers are gonna be efficacious, and I bow my knees before the

Father, and so here we have another posture, being that he bows his knees before the

Father. Now, whether or not he's actually bowing his knees or not in his cell, we don't know, but what we do know is that he's at least bowing the knees of his heart.

He's at least prostrating himself before the Lord in his prayer, and when

Paul says something, if you haven't caught on by now, he means to say it, and there's usually a lot of meaning packed behind it.

You see, this would have been somewhat odd to a Jewish audience, but to a Gentile audience, it probably just didn't make a lot of sense.

You see, Jewish people did not tend to pray on their knees. In fact, Jewish people would stand holding their hands in the air, which is why if you go to Israel, for example, and you stand near the wailing wall where they're all standing, they will lift their hands and they will pray like this, and so Paul here is doing something, and he's doing something that I believe is theologically important.

Paul here seems to be referencing, I believe, Isaiah 45 .23. Paul, when he is praying, he knows already up to this point he has shown that Scripture has been fulfilled, and he's gonna keep fulfilling it.

In Isaiah 45 .23, God says, I have sworn by myself, and the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness, and will not turn back, that to me every knee will bow, and every tongue will swear allegiance.

Paul is bowing his knee because he has an allegiance to this God. He is bowing his knees to honor the one whom honor is due to, and this is a theme that runs throughout the

Scriptures that ultimately is pointing to the eschaton, pointing to what

Jesus will have done on the last day. In Philippians 2 .9 and 10, it says of Jesus, therefore

God also has highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow every knee will bow of those who are in heaven, and earth, and under the earth.

This refrain is repeated in Romans 14 .11 when Paul says, for it is written, as I live, says the Lord, to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God.

Friends, the truth of Scripture is that every single person will eventually bow their knee to King Jesus.

They will eventually stand and be pressed to the ground if they do not do it here on this earth.

Why? Because God is God Almighty, and Jesus is God, and there is not, there is coming a day where everyone will recognize his

Lordship, though they may forsake it now, and what

Paul is trying to help us understand is it's a delight to do it now, because in the future everyone will do it, but some of the people will be pushed to the dirt.

They will be made to bow, and Paul here is expressing a beautiful truth, is that as we recognize

God's Lordship, we get to bow now.

We get to bow now, and so it's teaching us that the posture of prayer, whether we are on our knees or not, should be one of complete and utter reverence for the sovereign

King who is God. Children, would you look at me for just a second?

Have you ever seen a movie or a show, or maybe have you seen in a book where people would come up to a king, and they would get down, and they would get on one knee, and they would bow to him to show him respect or honor?

What this passage is teaching us is that's how we ought to come to God in prayer.

We must come reverently. We must come honoring him as the sovereign

King who controls all things. However, it does not end there.

He continues on, and he essentially mixes imagery. He says, for this reason,

I bow my knees before not the king, but the

Father, the Father.

Now, that changes our posture a little bit as well, right?

Because we need to understand that we bow. We need to understand that we must lay prostrate, that we must honor and revere this

God, but we also come to him as a loving Father.

And friends, this is colossally important. It is so important that we understand that God is

Father. Lamenting of how few saints experimentally acquaint themselves with the privileges of holding immediate communion with the

Father in love John Owen says this, with what anxious doubtful thoughts do they, speaking of Christians, look upon him?

With what fears and what questionings are there of his goodwill and kindness?

At best, many think there is no sweetness at all in him toward us, but what is purchased at the high price of the blood of Jesus.

Here's what John Owen is getting at. Most of us, if we're honest, when we think about praying to God, we think about it as if maybe he won't actually answer my prayer.

Maybe he won't actually calm these anxieties. Maybe he won't actually do what he has promised to do in his scriptures.

Maybe we start questioning his goodness in prayer. Maybe when we look and we see all of these things that are happening to us in our lives, causing us affliction, maybe we doubt his goodness and his loving kindness.

And if we are good, reformed people, and we theologize our way around some of these feelings, we still say, well, really all he's concerned about is doing his own will and just covering us with the blood of Jesus.

But John Owen says, no, he's your father.

And he delights, right, as Jesus teaches in the Gospels, to give his children good gifts.

Do you remember this teaching? Jesus is speaking, of course, about God as father.

And he says, you who are evil know how to give your children good gifts. For which one of you will give your child a stone when he asks for a piece of bread?

How much more, he says, does the father delight in giving you good gifts?

And so Paul here is saying, yes, I'm bowing my knees as if to a reverent king, but I'm also doing it before my father, who delights to give me and his children that bear his name, which is the next verse, but we'll get there in a second, good gifts.

So how do I know that the prayer that I'm about to pray on behalf of these Ephesians and all who would read this book someday, that he would answer this prayer?

Because he's a sovereign king and because he's a father. He's a father.

For this reason, it says in verse 14, I bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

Now, in the Greek, this is very interesting. You can't really do this that well in English without sounding really silly, so it's not often captured, but there's a play on words here.

And a way that you could render this to make sense of that play on words is the father through whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.

The fatherhood theme is pressed in the Greek up to the top. He's wanting you to take away that the father is fathering those who are fathered.

He is a father. Yes, he's the sovereign king who demands worship and who we must bow before, but he's a father of all of those, it says, of whom every family in heaven on earth is named.

Now, we have to pause here because we have to ask what in the world is being said? And the reason we have to ask that is because people take this verse and they twist it.

They try to make it say things it's not saying. As a matter of fact, this is a verse that universalists tend to use to talk about the universal fatherhood of God, the universality of his fatherhoodness, as it were.

That is that everybody born is a child of God. Well, we've already talked about this at length going through chapter two.

Who is a child of God? A child of God is anybody who has been resurrected from spiritual death, according to chapter two, verse one, who no longer walks according to the course of this world, verse two, is no longer walking according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is working in the sons of disobedience, that is the devil, and is no longer governed by the flesh.

It is those who have been, as verse four of chapter two says, but Godded, those who have had grace extended to them when they did not merit it.

Children of God are adopted, according to verse three of chapter one, who have been reconciled to the father.

And is that everyone? No. And so when we come to this verse, we have to recognize that it's not speaking about the universality of God's fatherhood.

It's speaking of the saints in every age. So it is those who are of the namesake of God through Christ.

Those who are in heaven and those who are on earth. In other words, those who are of the past and those who are of the present.

And you could even extrapolate those who will exist in the future. God is the father of everyone who has ever believed.

And that's good news because when we come to God in prayer, we come to him, as our beginning illustration taught us, desperate.

Desperate for him to give us good gifts. Desperate for him to meet our needs.

Much like earthly children are desperate for their earthly fathers and mothers to care for them.

And we can lean upon this God because he is sovereign creator king and he is father who delights to give good gifts.

This is why Robert Murray McShane once said that we must learn that urgency in prayer does not so much consist in vehement pleading.

That is, it's not just please, please, please, please, please as in vehement believing.

He that believes most the love and power of Jesus will obtain the most in prayer.

So how do we get the most out of prayer? We believe that God is father.

He has provided for his children through the cross of Jesus Christ and he will continue doing so.

How will he, the Bible says, not graciously give us all things, he who has given his son.

So Paul's posture is reverent, it's familial, and it is expectant that God will do according to all he has promised to do in his word.

The second thing that I want you to see is Paul's plea. We've seen Paul's posture, now let's look specifically at what it is he is praying for.

What is Paul's plea? In verse 16, he says that he, that is speaking of God the father, would give you the

Ephesians and us by extension according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his

Holy Spirit. The thing that Paul asks and pleads for on behalf of the

Ephesians is strength. Strength and power, or power that is strengthened by the

Holy Spirit to do what? Well, teach you to obey, to believe, to love

Christ. And to love others. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

The thing that we need to understand at this juncture is that we are in fact in need of help.

And we need strengthened, and we need strengthened with a power that is alien to us because we do not have that power in ourselves.

We need it, in other words, as this verse is saying, in the inner man, that is in the inner you, deep in the recesses of your heart.

And we need strength, not just to believe things, but to rid ourselves of things.

If you have not seen up to this point, let me remind you, there is a resistance that is working against us.

Sure, we have been saved from the precipice of hell. We have been reached to by Jesus Christ and are now in union with him.

The old man has been crucified with Christ, but the world didn't go away.

The devil didn't go away. And as we will see, as we venture on through our letter here in the book of Ephesians, is that the devil is a very present enemy and he is seeking to devour the

Christians like a lion prowling for a gazelle.

And so we need power to resist the world and the devil, and even the old man that still tries to cling on, though he has been dealt a mighty blow.

And that strength is not strength out here, it's strength in here that we need, right?

It's in the inner man, not the outer man. We don't need real armor, we need spiritual armor as chapter six is going to tell us.

We don't need bigger muscles, we need a bigger heart. We don't need an army, we need

Christ. We need strength in the inner man.

Because the old man still clings and the physical man is dying, 2

Corinthians 4 .16. Paul says this, therefore we do not lose heart, speaking about afflictions, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

So as our body ages and we all are getting closer to the grave, which we will all find ourselves in, there is something beautiful happening.

Though we are wasting away on the outside, the inside is being made more pure.

It's being made more strong by the power in the Holy Spirit. So this father who has saved children for himself has not done so just to get us out of hell, but to grow us in Christ's likeness day by day, day by day, and hour by hour, and second by second.

We will all, most certainly as the scriptures teach and as life has taught us, we will all taste death.

But as we are dying, Paul's prayer will be answered for his people.

That they would be strengthened with power in the inner man.

Now, what does that mean? Well, firstly, it means that it will be done through the divine agent, the

Holy Spirit. And what that Holy Spirit will do is not only resurrect the inner man, as chapter two has taught us, but here that he would strengthen and strengthen with power that inner man.

And so the Spirit will do his work in such a way that we will finally be able to, through faith, overcome frailties and our sinful disposition.

That we would finally become righteous, virtuous, and holy. That we would delight in the law and that it would be manifest in itself in our speech and our behavior.

That our conduct would cease being influenced by the world and the devil, and that we wouldn't be swayed by the lusts of our flesh.

In other words, it is strength and power to resist sin, to slice in, to put sin to death, that thing that separates us from our father.

Why? Well, firstly, because it's dangerous. It's a dangerous thing to tolerate sin.

Why? Because when we tolerate sin, it becomes enjoyed sin.

It never just stops, right? When you tolerate a sin, it becomes enjoyed sin.

It becomes something that you don't just have around, but it becomes something that you desire or want or approve of.

I mean, look at America. We've just been thrust into June.

And if you know anything about June, it's the month where all of the pride flags start waving in the air.

And everybody starts shoving sexual delinquencies down your throat. But there are people in this room who are old enough to remember when that was stuff you didn't talk about.

That it was vile. Not only in the sight of God, but in the culture. But then what began to happen was, well, that's none of my business.

I'm not gonna worry about that. Which then became, here it is everywhere.

We went from tolerating to it being everywhere in the culture. Why? Because nothing just stays as it is.

Sin is a devouring thing. And it will do that, not just on the national level, but actually the only reason it can happen on a national level is because it happens on the personal level.

The more sin we tolerate, the more sin we allow, the more sinful we will become, and the less strength and power we have to resist it.

The Bible says that our conscience has become seared. And so we need this

Holy Spirit to do what he does, which is to strengthen the inner man. And as we have seen,

Paul believes that the Father is going to delight in doing just that.

As a matter of fact, Jesus says as much in John chapter 16 and verse seven.

In John chapter 16, Jesus is teaching his disciples, or really just kind of telling his disciples, that he's about to leave.

In other words, he's about to be killed, and he's gonna go to heaven, and he's gonna sit on a throne in heaven where he will rule over the nations.

And of course, they loved Jesus, and they didn't want Jesus to go anywhere. They didn't want him to leave.

And he reminded them, no, this is a good thing. It's a good thing that I'm about to be crucified.

It's a good thing that I'm about to leave you. It's a very good thing, and here's why. Not only will sin be dealt with, but I tell you the truth, he says, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the advocate or the paraclete will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you. Well, you might be asking, how does that say what you just said it says?

Well, it's because Jesus is basically saying that the spirit that is going to come and be inside of you will be more valuable to you than Jesus being right next to you.

Jesus can only be in one place at one time. The spirit lives in us.

It is the spirit that chases down the unbeliever and causes him to bow his knee before the father.

It is the spirit that grows us and sanctifies us. It is the spirit that strengthens us with power to resist

Satan and sin. So you see, friends,

Paul is praying that God would do what he has promised to do through the work of the

Holy Spirit. But not only that, he's praying that he would do it according to the riches of his grace.

Look with me again at our verse, verse 16. That he, that is the father, would give you the

Ephesians and us by extension, according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man.

So he's praying that we would be strengthened by the Holy Spirit or through the Holy Spirit in our inner selves, in our hearts, according to the riches of his glory, which as we have learned thus far is his grace.

Now, I want to pause here because this is very important. It's very important that we understand what according to the riches of his glory means.

Well, first of all, it means a lot. John 1 16 says, for his fullness, we have all received and grace upon grace.

And so riches mean a lot. A lot of glory and a lot of grace.

But I want you to notice it doesn't say out of the riches of his glory. It says according to the riches of his glory, not out of the riches of his glory.

Why am I drawing this distinction? Because it changes the way that you ask for things in prayer.

It's changed the way that Paul is asking for things here in prayer. Think about it this way.

Who knows who Elon Musk is? Okay, I got one guy, all right, two guys.

Elon Musk owns some car companies. He owns Twitter. Anyway, that's not really important.

Here's why I asked that question. He's very wealthy. He might be, I think, one of like the top three richest people in the world.

Now, hypothetically speaking, I don't know Elon Musk, but let's say he's a guy you feel like you could ask him for money if you needed it.

And you happen to know that he's one of the richest people in the world.

And you said, I have this very serious problem and if I don't get some help financially, everything's blowing up.

And he says, oh, of course I got you. You know I have money for days. Here's 10 bucks. You would instantly think, what in the literal world?

This dude's a billionaire and he's given me $10.

Well, that would be him giving out of his riches.

He's taking money out of it and giving it to you. But, hypothetically speaking,

Elon Musk pulled out $2 million, $3 million, $10 million, and he gave it to you.

He would be giving it to you, not out of his riches, but according to it.

Here's what I'm trying to get at. God is not just giving you something that he has.

He's flooding it, flooding you with it. It's in accordance with how rich his glory is.

That's a lot. It's more than Paul can fathom. That's more than you can fathom.

That's more than the Ephesians could fathom. Now, think about that.

If you believe that God is going to supply you with the help you need from the

Holy Spirit, not in small measure, but according to the infinite, infinite and limitless riches that he has, that changes the way that you trust him.

It changes the way that you pray. It makes it to where you make audacious pleas.

I don't know, maybe like this one, that we would be strengthened with power through his

Holy Spirit in the inner man. Now, that may not seem that wild to you, but that's because you're not paying attention.

You're not paying attention if that doesn't blow your mind. If that doesn't sound like that's an audacious thing to plead for, right?

Because in chapter two, we are dead and dead people don't get strength, they get a casket.

Dead people are not picking up weights at the gym, right? The earth is trying to hold them up.

People who are walking according to the world, influenced by the flesh and the devil, these people are not trying to be strengthened, but God, according to the riches of his glory, which is his grace, has stepped in the way and not only saved sinners from death and hell, but he is working in them after having been wooed and won to Christ to look like Christ, to resist the devil in his temptations and to be made more pure and more holy as the days go by.

And so the next question becomes, why? Why in the world does

Paul plead that we would be strengthened with power through his spirit according to his riches?

Well, the answer to that, friends, is that our hearts are too weak and too narrow to contain the treasure that God places in them.

The reason that Paul pleads that Christians would be strengthened with this power is because our hearts are too weak and too narrow to contain the treasure that God has placed in them.

So we get to verse 17. In verse 17, it says, so that, purpose clause.

And by the way, we're about to get into purpose clause city. There is a progression of purpose clauses that is gonna continue to happen for the next several weeks.

And it's great, it's glorious, it's syntactically wonderful, all right? If this, then that, so that, all of these sorts of things, so that, the reason that he is praying is that Christ, that he might dwell in our hearts.

It says here, for this reason, verse 14, I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that he, that is the

Father, would give you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man, so that, here's the reason, the purpose,

Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

So what does it mean that Christ would dwell? Well, this word dwell in the

Greek is a compound word. It's two words put together. One Greek word meaning downward and one

Greek word meaning inhabit a house. In other words, what he's saying is, so that Christ might be at home and settle in to your heart.

Well, all of a sudden, we have to start making some theological assertions, because certainly now we have some theological questions.

Is Paul speaking here of being saved for the first time? No, no, we know that because he believes them to be

Christian. He believes them to be members of the new church, the new humanity, or as verse 21 calls it, a holy sanctuary unto the

Lord, a dwelling place of God. He's just gone on for three chapters about what

God has done for them in Christ and has showered them with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 13, five, there seems to be some sort of litmus test as to whether or not someone might be in the faith.

He says, test yourselves to see if you are in the faith, examine yourselves, or do you not recognize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail the test?

The test, the test is, are you living according to the new life that has been purchased for you?

But we don't have time to get into that. That's another sermon in and of itself. But what we need to understand here is that the, as Charles Hodges said, the indwelling of Christ is a thing of degrees.

In other words, Christ can dwell in us and yet dwell more fully in us. So it's not as though that when you are saved, that Christ invades you by the presence and power of his spirit and just throws up his hands and says, ah,

I did it. No, remember? He adds strength, he adds power, he sanctifies you progressively over time.

And what this reveals to us, friends, is that, hear me on this, you can be a Christian right now in those seats and be in poor spiritual condition.

You can be in these seats right now and be saved and be in poor spiritual condition.

Because what this is saying is, he is praying there would be strength and power through his spirit so that Christ could be, in other words, at home in your heart.

There's a quote, actually, that I read the other evening by a man named

John Trapp. He's a Puritan of sorts, although he existed a little bit later, so some might not consider him a

Puritan. But he says, as the sun dwells in the house by its beams, faith fetcheth

Christ into the heart, which is by faith, right? Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, into this habitation.

And if he dwells there, he is bound to all reparations. So the question becomes, what?

What is Christ doing in there? Is he at home or is he always doing reparations?

Well, he's always doing reparations and he's bound to them. What does that mean? Well, when we think reparations now, we think, right, of the woke movement and we think how white people are to pay reparations to make up for slavery that we didn't do.

And that is reparation. But that's not what John Trapp is talking about. He's talking about the always fixing of the house, as it were.

And so Paul is praying that Christ might not just always be fixing things, but that he would actually be at home there and that we would, through faith, have that reality be certain and that we would be firmly rooted and grounded in love and that as the prayer continues out, that we would love one another, having experienced the love of Christ.

And so the question that you must ask yourself is, is it Christ at home in your heart or is he just simply there?

Is he always needing to rip up and tear up the carpet and redo the walls? Or is he continuing to strengthen you with power as you resist temptation?

What does this mean? Practically, it means when you hear the voice of the

Savior in your heart, you do not ignore it.

Hebrews 3, 15 through 17, quoting an Old Testament passage, says today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

You listen to this Jesus, you follow this Jesus, because you love this Jesus and you are controlled, as it were, by Christ.

So what does it mean that he is at home? Because I understand that can sound very TGCE, if I'm not careful, okay?

That can sound very radio -friendly, very turn -on

TBN, but what does it really mean that Christ is, because you could leave it there and go on about our day, but that doesn't tell us what it actually means.

It's just some kind of weird flower euphemism. It means that Christ is ruling and reigning your heart and directing your will and your affections.

So Paul is praying that the Christians in Ephesus would be strengthened with power through the

Holy Spirit in the inner man so that Christ may rule and reign in their hearts and be at home there, directing their wills and their affections.

And how is this done? Through faith, faith, that instrument that binds us to God's promises through Christ, faith.

Faith is important, it's crucial. It's a necessity of the Christian life.

Without faith, we cannot please God, as Hebrews 11, six says, nor experience the rich blessings in Christ that can be given to us only by digging up through faith.

I want you to hear that John Trapp quote again. As the sun dwells in the house by its beams, faith fetcheth

Christ into the heart, into his habitation, and if he dwells there, he is bound to all reparations.

Friends, Paul is praying that they would be strengthened with power through the

Spirit in the inner man so that Christ may direct their will and affections, and he is competent that he will do it because he is bound, not unwillingly, of course, but willingly to those whom he has purchased.

Why in the world would God send his son to die for a people that he would turn his gaze away from?

He wouldn't do that, he can't do that. Here, see

Christ, we see Christ in such a beautiful array.

It's these same truths that fall underneath the umbrella that he spoke about in verse eight.

Riches that are unfathomable, riches that are too glorious for us to grasp.

Does this change the way that you think about prayer? Does it think about the way that you should pray?

Does it change the nature of the things that you plead for?

Paul here believed that God was sovereign enough and kingly enough to revere, and yet loving and giving enough to call him father.

And he pleads, he pleads that Christians would be strengthened that he knew, that they would have a power that would cause them to resist

Satan and sin, and that Christ would rule and govern their affections and their wills, that they would walk according to what he has for them.

And he knows it to be true. And that is his purpose.

His purpose for his prayer is that Christ might be made much of in your life, in their life, and in the lives of every

Christian who bears the name of Christ, that falls underneath the family of God.

Here's what this means, though, for those of you who are not in Christ, because everything that I have said thus far has been very pleasing to the

Christian. I promise you that there isn't anyone who's a Christian who's listening to this sermon who isn't at least thankful and grateful for the truths that are being presented here.

They are enthralled with the idea that God is so for them and loves them so much that he would cause them to walk in his statutes and cause

Christ to dwell in their hearts. They live in chapter three, but for you who have not bowed your knee to this

Christ, you're stuck in chapter two, verse one. You are dead in your transgressions and sins.

You are still walking according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

And you are still conducting yourselves in the lusts of your flesh and doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind.

And you are by nature, not children of God, but as verse three says, children of wrath.

Your end is not one where Christ dwells in your hearts. It is one where you will stand and be made to bow to this king, but not in a way that honors you and your union with Christ, but damns you for all eternity.

But the beautiful truth of chapter four is that, or in verse four rather of chapter two is that God is rich in mercy.

And even now, as we are speaking about the Christ that dwells in the heart of believers, he is opening his fatherly and kingly hand to you.

And he is saying, come, come to this Jesus who will make his home with you.

Come to this Jesus who through his spirit will strengthen you with power to resist all that stands in your way, in your way, in your pursuit of me, in the way of your pursuit.

Revelation 3 .20 says, behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door,

I will come in to him and will dine with him and he with me.

Now, of course, this verse of scripture has a context and we don't wanna necessarily rip it screaming from that context.

But one of the things that the Puritans loved about this verse is it shows the reality that Christ does speak.

He does speak. And he speaks to those who are far from him and calls him to himself.

Will you who have rebelled against Christ, who are still living in chapter two, throw down your rebellion, throw down your self -made crown, and would you trust in this

Christ? And will you finally experience the life that God has for you?

And Christians, would you pray like Paul? That A, that would happen, and B, that strength and power would come by the

Holy Spirit to make a home ready for Christ and in increasing measure for the rest of us.

That was Paul. That was his prayer. And that should be your prayer as well. Would you pray with me?