Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.

Please take your Bibles and turn with me to Ephesians 3, Ephesians 3.

For this reason - Paul returns his mind and his readers back to the prayer that he began in verse 1.

For this reason also calls us back to all that he had said in chapters 1 and 2 of this letter.

Paul is going to offer a prayer on behalf of his readers, a very important prayer which reveals his heart for them but also for the importance of their understanding what he had been teaching them.

First he offers a preamble, then he will show us the vertical nature of prayer, the horizontal nature of prayer and the victorious nature of prayer.

The Preamble

I kneel

Not the normal prayer posture for Jewish believers

Pharisee and the tax collector

Demonstrates reverence

Humility/Unworthiness

The least of all apostles comes to the sovereign God of the universe

Paul recognizes his own unworthiness to approach God’s holiness

We must also recognize the somberness, the gravity that Paul brings to this prayer - the reason behind this prayer is that the church would recognize the unity in which it now resides and the importance of grasping and living in that reality compels Paul to bow the knee and bring an earnest request to the most powerful King in the universe, the very creator.

From whom every family in heaven and on earth is named

The word rendered family (patria) is a play on the preceding word for Father (Pater) and it stands for any group derived from a single ancestor.

In ancient times the role a person’s name played in their life had greater significance than today.

The thought was that a name was more than simply a way to distinguish one person from another, it was actually a means of revealing what is the true nature of that person.

God as creator of all things has ownership over all things

He who created it, names it

And while this has the greater meaning of all creatures were created by God and therefore draw their name from Him and are owned by Him - there is a greater significance here in this use of the word family

Paul has just completed telling his readers that they are now a part of the family of God

You who were once far off have been brought near

You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s own household

Whatever else you may be called, you now bear the title of son or daughter of God

We draw our significance from the One who named us

We draw our roles from the One who named us

He is not only the creator of all things but the source of our significance and existence

We ought not be concerned by the powers, hostile though they might be, that surround us because God owns them all

Instead, referring back to verse 10, we are to be witness to the rulers and authorities of the vast wisdom of God

Having given us the posture of prayer and the Person to whom his prayers are directed, Paul now demonstrates for us not only how we should pray but what we should pray.

He starts by praying in the vertical

Prayer in the vertical

Paul has already acknowledged to whom it is that he is praying - the Father, the very sovereign creator of the universe

Now he makes his requests known to the Father, praying that He would act

I pray that He

Paul recognizes that

God acts

Prayers can influence Him to act on behalf of His people

God’s acquaintance is not made by pop calls.

God does not bestow his gifts on the casual or hasty comers and goers.

Much time with God alone is the secret of knowing him and of influence with him.

E. M. Bounds

The prayers of a faithful man availeth much.

Yes God is completely sovereign and can do as He pleases when He pleases

But one of the avenues that He has chosen to move is through the fervent, faithful prayers of His people

And He does so according to the riches of His glory - He has an unlimited account, an inexhaustible account.

You can rest assured that you can never exhaust the riches of God’s glory.

Paul assures us that the Father is wholly able to meet our needs - but we must also be aware of his desire for the Ephesian believers

Almost every prayer of Paul’s that is recorded in Scripture was for the spiritual welfare of others.

And this one is no different.

Paul prays that the Ephesians would be strengthened with power through His Holy Spirit

This word rendered strengthen here is used only four times in the New Testament

Twice in Luke it is used to refer to Christ growing strong in His spirit

Paul uses it as the end of 1 Corinthians when he charges the believers there

It is defined as being psychologically strong which fits nicely with the focus that Paul has here

He says for the believers to be strengthened in their inner beings

So much of our prayers are focused on strength in our outer beings but, like it or not, we are wasting away.

Our outer beings are decaying even now as we speak - I can no longer physically do what I once did

But it is in the inner person that we need the most renewal - the inner person refers to “our seat of personal consciousness, our moral being”

The role of the Spirit is to strengthen us, to give us fortitude, to operate through the Gospel and to empower the Gospel’s teaching and preaching

But this power working within us is also for our benefit - that we would be made more resilient, more cognizant of the Lord’s glorious work within us.

Invisalign - hard to notice the change in my teeth

Sometimes we have a hard time noticing the changes that are happening within our inner person - one of the functions of the Holy Spirit’s work within us is to help us recognize the changes that are happening within us

300 Quotations for Preachers from the Modern Church (A Deliberate, Intelligent Purpose)

This is the one purpose of God, the great worker in heaven, the source and master of all work, that the glory of His love and power and blessing may be shown.

This is the one purpose of Christ, the great worker on earth in human nature, the example and leader of all our work.

This is the great purpose of the Holy Spirit, the power that works in us.…

As this becomes our deliberate, intelligent purpose, our work will rise to its true level, and lift us into living fellowship with God.ANDREW MURRAY

Coinciding with the strengthening efforts of the Holy Spirit, Paul prays that Christ would dwell within our hearts.

It is important to note that these are not mutually exclusive or that one is reliant upon the other

It is not that we are strengthened by the Holy Spirit and then Christ comes to live in our hearts

Paul is not encouraging the Ephesian believers to have some sort of mystical experience which would then prepare or make them ready for Christ to come and dwell in their hearts

To be empowered by the Spirit in our inner person means that Christ Himself dwells in our hearts

The verb for dwell here is not a reference to the initial indwelling of Christ.

It signifies a more permanent dwelling - it means to live or dwell in a place in an established or settled manner - rather than some temporary abode.

Ephesians: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Christ’s Indwelling)

In his booklet My Heart Christ’s Home, Robert Munger pictures the Christian life as a house, through which Jesus goes from room to room.

In the library, which is the mind, Jesus finds trash and all sorts of worthless things, which He proceeds to throw out and replace with His Word.

In the dining room of appetite He finds many sinful desires listed on a worldly menu.

In the place of such things as prestige, materialism, and lust He puts humility, meekness, love, and all the other virtues for which believers are to hunger and thirst.

He goes through the living room of fellowship, where He finds many worldly companions and activities, through the workshop, where only toys are being made, into the closet, where hidden sins are kept, and so on through the entire house.

Only when He had cleaned every room, closet, and corner of sin and foolishness could He settle down and be at home.

Paul writes that Christ will dwell in our hearts permanently through faith - we are saved through faith, we are strengthened by faith and as our faith grows our hearts are purified and made more hospitable for Christ’s permanent dwelling as faith reveals and removes sin issues in our lives.

If Christ has taken up residence in our hearts, he is at the centre of our lives and exercises his rule over all that we are and do.

The implication of the apostle’s prayer, then, is that the more the Spirit empowers their lives the greater will be their transformation into the likeness of Christ.

Having requested that the Father would strengthen the believers through His Holy Spirit and that Christ would make a permanent dwelling in each of their hearts, Paul now turns his mind to the horizontal prayer plane as he focuses on his desires for the Ephesian believers.

Prayer in the horizontal

I pray that you - Paul tells the Ephesians readers exactly what he is praying for them

We should do this more often - not just that I’m praying for you or that I’ll pray for your outward strengthening but that I’m praying for your spiritual maturity, for your inner person

Notice what Paul says here - being rooted and established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge.

Now it is important to recognize here that the phrase “of God’s love” in verse 18 is supplied by the translators to simplify the reading.

The original Greek only says that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge.

Does this significantly change the meaning - no.

And in fact, in my mind, it drives home the point that Paul is trying to make here even more.

First that we would be rooted and established in love - this happens as a natural outworking of the strengthening of our inner person and the indwelling presence of Christ.

If we are truly committed to Christ our demeanor, our natural inclination is going to tend toward love.

Not is some sappy sense.

Or in the sense of the modern connotation that loves overlooks all manner of faults in the name of inclusivity or of “love”.