This sermon, “Loved in the Gospel: Pushing for More instead of Cruising” (Ephesians 3:14-21) , was originally preached on Sunday, July 19, 2009 at English Worship Service of the North Toronto Chinese Baptist Church-Melville Mission in Richmond Hill, ON.

Audio:

 

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Video:

(Note: Due to technical difficulties, the video only shows half of the sermon & the audio within intermittently cuts out)

Loved in the Gospel: Pushing for More instead of Cruising (Eph 3:14-21) from Alex Leung on Vimeo.

Notes:

1) Notice first WHO Paul prays to.
Eph 3:14-15

For what reason does Paul pray? Well, “For this reason” brings us back to what I talked about in my last sermon on chapter 2 verses 11 to 22: that the Jews and Gentiles are united together as one new person; the wall that separated them (the Mosaic Law & all the commandments) has been torn down by Jesus and thus are now in the same family!
And in the beginning of chapter 3, Paul sidetracks a bit & reminds the Ephesians that the mystery—of Christ hidden for ages past but is now revealed in the gospel—is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body of Christ, and fellow partakers of the same gospel. What does that mean? It means that non-Jews can have all the same spiritual benefits as Jews ☺ This is why Paul “bow[s] his knees” in prayer, and why he Paul worships God for all this and reverently submits to God’s plan of salvation. –It’s because God the Father is creator: He names every family in heaven and on earth… you, you, you, YOU ARE MINE! YOU CAN BE A FAMILY THAT BEARS MY NAME, and BE A PART OF MY HEAVENLY FAMILY of the REDEEMED! Every family on earth who is part of God’s heavenly family, because God the Father redeemed us all!

2) Notice secondly, WHAT Paul Prays For.
Eph 3:16-19

a) What is main petition of Paul’s prayer, his primary request to God? Look at verse 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… Paul prays that the Ephesians would be strengthened in the inner person!

Remember those times when you planned a big trip or vacation or church event? You make all the plans: book all the tickets, make all the reservations, and plan out everything you are going to do, making sure everybody is happy and gets what they want… And when everything is planned out, just before you leave, somebody in your group steps up & says” How about we pray before we leave?” What that looks like and sounds like sometimes is that you are just trying to God’s stamp of approval; you’ve made all the plans without God, without him directing what you’re going to do, with little dependence on God… and just before you leave, you just want God to SIGN OFF on all the plans you’ve made… you just want His signature of approval and acceptance of all that YOU have planned out. God forbid, maybe you even forget to put in your plan “attend Sunday service”.
Paul’s prayer and my prayer for us is that we would be strengthened in our innermost being with power thru the Holy Spirit—and not with power from ourselves!

I can’t reiterate how important this is for us—we must be desperately dependent in every aspect of our lives on the Holy Spirit! There needs to be a helplessness in our attitude and behavior—we ought to be helpless without God’s strength working in us, guiding and enabling every step of all that we do in life. We must obey God’s command in 1 Corinthians 1:13-14: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. “ *Because what the Devil wants to do is distract us: he wants us to give up our faith in God and only depend on our own strength & ability to live & work & study. And when that happens, its’ a highway towards wordliness, where you are not dependent on anybody but yourself and your own strength.

b) So WHEN you desperately depend on the Spirit’s strength and power in you, what results is that Christ dwells in your heart more and more through faith. Verse 17. It’s a very logical result of being strengthened by the Spirit: Jesus becomes deeply rooted in our lives; he finds a permanent home in our souls! What we must do is by faith, trust him with our work / our schooling / our recreation… so that he would become the controlling factor in our attitudes and behavior.

We must make sure Christ is continually dwelling in our hearts. Colossians 1:19 “For in him (Jesus) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” Colossians 2:9 “For in him (Jesus) the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.” So just as God dwelled in Christ bodily, so also Paul prays that Christ may dwell in the hearts of the Ephesians through faith!

c) The purpose of Christ dwelling in us is that we would comprehend Christ’s love for us. Look at the last half of verse 17:
—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

Compare that to Colossians 2:6-7: “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” In order for us to mentally grasp how high and how wide, how deep and how long is Christ’s love, we must be rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ himself—who is God, and who is God’s greatest display and our ultimate example of love.

1 John 4:7-10: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

The word translated “Love” here is agape–the other focused, outward looking love that seeks the highest good in the one loved. Even the believers’ love for each other finds its source in God, who is love—and in God’s love for His Son, and the Son’s love for us…. The sacrificial love that extends to the undeserving and unloving (cf.1:4). –> How much do you really comprehend and understand about God’s love? What is there stopping you from knowing God and his love more and more?

Like a tree with long roots that goes deep into the ground, it is rooted in God who has chosen us, predestined us, redeemed us, bestowed us in the beloved and made us a heritage.  And like a house with a firm foundation that dug deep into the bedrock, it is grounded in God who has sealed us with the Holy Spirit, who has made us alive, and raised us, and seated us with Christ, and placed us equally into one new person in the church!

On the other hand, what I’ve seen in some Christians is simply shallowness. They know God “this” much and they understand the gospel “this” much and they comprehend the love of Christ “this much”—and all they do is coast. You know, you’ve seen them: the Cruise Control Christian. They’re cold, they’re not growing; they’re not excited about going to fellowship; they’re not looking forward to Bible Study; they don’t talk much about Jesus with other believers outside of Sunday Service / Prayer Meeting & Fellowship times.

So I wonder, what is stopping us from knowing God more, what is hindering us from loving Jesus more?? Because what I see in the Scriptures, is that we have been invited to come, and to know God.  “And there is nobody — nobody, not your husband, not your wife, not your kids, not your boss, not your pastor, not your neighbor, not the person in your past that did whatever, not the worries about the future. There is nobody, no one in your life that can stop you from going as far into God as you want to go. NOBODY!   There is no circumstance that can stop you. Not sickness nor health, not joy or sorrow, trial or tribulation. There is no job situation, no family situation, there’s no work situation. There is no circumstance that can stop you from receiving the invitation of God and going as far as you want to go into the knowledge of God. The invitation is on the table; God has said, “you can come, and know me!”

The only thing that can stop me, and the only thing that can stop you from going as far into God as He has invited us to come is ourselves — our own satisfaction with ourselves, our laziness of being satisfied with what we’ve seen of God, or what we’ve already known of God, or what we’ve experienced of God in the past, or some external experience of God, or the sin in our lives that we won’t let go. The only thing that can stop us is us, but the invitation is on the table!”

Just as Paul said in Romans chapter 8: there is no height or depth, or anything in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!! Because of God’s kindness towards us, and because of the fullness of God in us, God’s love should move us, compel us to love others more and more.

d) In Ephesians 3, Paul is saying that individually we each need to be strengthened with God’s power, that we each individually need to know Christ’s love for us more and more… but this personal spiritual growth does NOT happen in a vacuum! Paul prays that those individual Christians in Ephesus would have the ability to understand the immeasurable dimensions of God’s love “with all the saints” (verse 18). →Personal spiritual growth should happen in the context of other Christians; we must pursue fellowship and mutual discipleship, mentorship & accountability with others in our church.

This is what genuine Christian community looks like:
• Where a senior member of the congregation seeks out the fresh Christian perspectives of a young adult in the church…
• Where a new university graduate seeks out the advice and wisdom of an older and more experienced member of the church…
• Where the youth are open and willing to seek out the guidance & support of an uncle or auntie, and that uncle or auntie is yearning to share the life lessons they have learned over the years…
• Where the fatherless are welcomed into the home of an older couple who are willing to be a father-figure and mother-figure, and adopted parents to the fatherless!

So the question for us becomes, “Are you so full of God that you don’t just know about him, or know him merely as an idea or religious opinion, but do you know him experientially?—do you experience yourself and demonstrate to others this Christ-centered love?” Because if you know God personally and have experienced him powerfully in your life through the Scriptures, and have been filled up to God’s fullness in His Spirit… you would grow in giving your life for others, and grow in pouring your heart into the lives of brothers and sisters!

What’s the naturally result when we grow in our knowledge of God and Christ’s love for us? When we grow in experiencing Christ’s love for us and for one another?… well, we praise him! The logical end to Paul’s prayer and this first half of his letter to the Ephesians is praise!

3) So let us notice lastly, HOW Paul’s Prayer Ends.
Eph 3:20-21.

Paul’s prayer ends like how it began: he praises God! We praise God because HE is the one who works with us to love him & to love others! He is the only one able to give us strength to do all that we are asking of him—and EXCEEDINGLY more than our wildest imaginations! Let us praise him for all that he has done for us in the past (especially in Christ Jesus), but also for his powerful work in our hearts right here right now in our lives today.
• God is to be glorified in the church because it is in the body of believers that his power and greatness is displayed…
• And he is glorified in Christ, because Christ’s work on the cross is what made the church exist in the first place.—God purchased the church with the precious blood of Jesus our Savior.

Brothers and sisters, this is how the world would know that you and I are disciples—if we have love for one another. Just as John wrote: when we love each other, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us…and people can see the love of God through our lives.