It is great to have you back for the last episode in Series One, as we study this wonderful book of Ephesians.

Recap and Background

In this first series, Paul explained the nature of the gospel and the Christian message and then the amazing destiny of the Church. He was in prison in Rome, in difficult circumstances. He was incredibly excited when he thought of the Church, and God’s plan for the Church. In the last couple of episodes, we have been looking at the amazing fact that God’s plan was for the Church to be made up of people from all the different nations of the world. Paul found this to be a wonderful idea. Today, in the 21st century, we see this being true more than ever before: the Church exists in almost every country, almost every ethnic group, and in almost every language in the world. I don’t know how many nations or ethnic groups are in your church, but in many places local churches have people coming together from different racial groups with different languages. In my church, there are more than twelve languages spoken. That is exciting. Paul was excited by the amazing sense of diverse people coming together under Christ to be this wonderful Church. That was the vision that captured his imagination.

The Spread of the Church

“For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Ephesians 3:14-19, NIV

“For this reason” is the first expression used here. What was that reason? It is Paul’s amazement at what God was doing in the Church, as the gospel spread to all nations. He was experiencing it in his own lifetime. Paul could see how the Church started amongst the Jewish people in Judea and in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, with Peter preaching on that day, and how in his lifetime, over a thirty-year period, from the Day of Pentecost until Paul was writing these words, the Church had kept spreading.

Paul had been one of the main people who helped the Church to spread but Paul knew when he was writing these words about the amazing way the Church was spreading. He knew that the Church was already in Africa, from Acts 8, he knew about the Ethiopian official who was converted to Jesus Christ on the road down to Gaza and went back to Ethiopia and eventually started a church. Paul knew that when he was working in the city of Antioch, one of the leaders in that church was an African. He knew that some of the apostles left Judea, and didn’t go west - like Paul, to Greece and to Italy and Turkey - they went east into other Middle Eastern countries; countries that we would now call Syria, Iraq, and perhaps even Iran. Paul knew that the Church had spread in those thirty years, from the city of Jerusalem to all these different places. He wrote this letter from the city of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire, which was very far west of the city of Jerusalem and he was already thinking that he would like to go even further west to preach the gospel into the nation of Spain.

Paul was absolutely amazed about how the gospel spread to different nations. He was thrilled that God was creating what he described here, in verse 15, as a ‘family’. God’s family of redeemed people is the Church. It is wonderful to think that our brothers in Christ, who we meet with, are part of the same family. I think about the last 24 hours in my life. Yesterday morning was a Sunday morning, and I spoke in my church to a friend from the country of Armenia. Last night, I visited some people in my church who come from the country of Romania. That is just in the last 24 hours. The family gathers from different nations and Paul was absolutely thrilled by this. God’s family is gathering.

Strengthened by the Spirit

Paul went on to pray one of the most wonderful prayers in the whole Bible. This is a famous prayer, and you may be familiar with it. Paul was speaking to the Ephesians. He wanted something to happen in their lives. They were already Christians; they had already been saved, but he spoke as though God was still wanting to work in their lives to reveal more of who God is, and more about his salvation than they realised when they first became believers.

Ephesians 3:16 to 17: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power, through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” How does this inner change happen? Sometimes we can be Christians, yet we are feeling emotionally flat, perhaps even depressed. We are struggling with life: maybe we are in physical pain, had some very sad circumstances happen in our life, been bereaved or the church isn’t doing very well. There can be many reasons why the Christian life is very hard. Yet Paul said that he was praying for the Ephesians, that their inner life would change, and they would get to know God better the longer they are Christians. Isn’t that wonderful?

How do we do that? How do we experience this inner change of the Spirit’s work, ‘strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being’? God has given us a number of ways through which we can draw close to him. The first is to pray, to spend time in his presence. This is incredibly important. Secondly, the thing that gives us power to understand the wonderful love of Christ is this book, the Bible that we are studying. That is the whole point of Word Online. We believe so passionately in the importance of the Bible that we are willing to go through book by book, passage by passage, every single verse, and study it in order that we might be strengthened. We are strengthened when we hear good preaching and when we gather together in fellowship, or to worship God. Something happens in our spirit if we repeat these actions; if we don’t repeat them and we separate ourselves from the church, our connection with God gets weaker and weaker. Paul wanted the Ephesians to keep drawing near to God. The Holy Spirit blesses us as we are close in fellowship, listen to the Bible, pray, and we obey. We get more and more understanding of God’s purposes.

God’s Love

Paul wanted more than anything else for the Ephesians to know God’s love. It is very easy to lose sight of how much God actually loves us. We see, in verses 18 and 19, an amazing statement: “That you may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

This is an priority in Paul’s thinking. How wide is the love of God? How far does it reach? How many types of people can be drawn into the Church? Are there any people, races, characters or any sins that make it impossible to come into the Kingdom of God? None. That is how wide the love of God is according to Paul’s thinking. You only need to look at Jesus’ own twelve disciples to find that Jesus put together people who really didn’t get on with one another and came from different backgrounds - humble fishermen; a corrupt tax collector who worked for the imperial authorities of Rome who oppressed the Jewish people; a man called Simon, who was a zealot before. A zealot was somebody who was trying to overthrow the Romans with acts of terror and violence. All these people, if they gave up their old ways, could be part of the Church. Nobody is beyond the width of God’s love.

How long is God’s love? Paul is probably thinking here of time. Does God love you just at the beginning of your Christian life? Is God still loving you now as much, or has he lost interest in you? No. His interest in you, his love for you, is the same now as when you became a Christian. I became a Christian 49 years ago, and he loves me just as much now as he did then, when he rescued me from my sins. The same applies for you - from before you were a believer. That is how long God’s love is. It goes on throughout our lifetime and when we die, he loves us just as much. He takes us to be with him in heaven, in eternity. Further on in time, we will receive our resurrection body and will enter into the new heaven and the new earth. God’s love is the same, whatever length of time you talk about.

How high is God’s love? God lifts us up to the heavenly places, Paul says. We can meet God. We can sense his presence through the Holy Spirit.

How deep is God’s love? The only way to find out how deep is the love of God, is to meditate on the life of Jesus.

He truly showed the depth of God’s love, the quality of his love, and the sacrifice of his love. Jesus was willing to go to the cross. He was willing to suffer the most unimaginable agony of rejection and humiliation - physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain, spiritual pain - as he took the punishment of our sins upon himself and was absolutely humiliated in Jerusalem on the day that he was crucified at 9:00 in the morning, naked on the cross in utter pain - terrible, terrible suffering; deep, deep love. God was willing to allow his only son to be crucified on the cross for us. Paul wanted the Ephesians to know the quality of God’s love. The thing that motivates Christians most to live the Christian life effectively, is to be motivated by his love: feeling his love for ourselves, and then giving his love away to other people by sharing our lives with them.

The Greater Reality – God’s Love and Power

We come to the last two verses of Ephesians 3. Paul spoke words that have become famous and well-known in the Church. These are very important words.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Ephesians 3:18-19, NIV

How could Paul pray these incredible words when his circumstances were that he was an old man in prison under a death sentence, awaiting trial in the city of Rome by the Emperor’s own judges and court? He was possibly never going to leave prison and had nothing much to look forward to and no family to support him. Yet, Paul is able to say these amazing words. How could he do this? He knew a greater reality than his personal circumstances - the love of God and the power of God. His power can respond to our prayers by changing circumstances and bringing about miracles. Paul could exercise influence around the world even when he was imprisoned, by writing letters. Here we are two thousand years later, and he is still influencing us from prison. God is able to use this man who was confined in prison to speak to us in the 21st century - to encourage us, to show us the way.

These are wonderful words. I know of a church which concludes every prayer meeting with them. Let me read them again. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. To him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

With those words, Paul ended the first half of his message to the Ephesians, which we have described as Series One. He was going to move on to some other very important topics, but he had laid a foundation here. He was reminding them, that when you believed in Christ, this is what you believed in. This is the great family that God is creating. This is the great salvation that Jesus has brought about, and this is your eternal destiny in glory that we can expect. This is the great love that God has for you. That love continues in your life whatever is going on, whatever the circumstances are.

Reflections

Firstly, many Christians, despite knowing the gospel, still feel unworthy of God’s love. It is a continual problem. Sometimes this is because all the way through our lives other people have said that we are not worthy, we are no good, we are a failure, we are ugly, or that we are poor. That leaves an imprint deep down in our souls which needs healing and changing. Some people find it very hard to believe that God loves them because of something they have done that they know was wrong, but they cannot undo. They feel like second class citizens. Sometimes it is true; we can’t go back and change the past, but we can come back to God and say, ‘Lord, forgive me. I really was wrong. I can’t go back and change that now. But show me your love again’. And he will. This passage is for you, if that is you.

Some people find it very hard to appreciate the love of God because they have experienced violence, sexual abuse, and other forms of intimidation, harassment, or persecution. Some people listening to this talk will have had those experiences, and I very much respect the fact that those experiences have caused immense damage to you. But gently, I encourage you to come back to the scriptures, to remember that as you have forgiven others for the things they have done to you, so you can draw near to God, and he has forgiven you your sins and he loves you. He doesn’t see you as those abusers may have seen you. There is a journey of healing and recovery for you as well. This passage can be part of that journey because of the depth, the height and the width of the love of God for you.

In verse 18, Paul said that we share God’s love ‘together with all the saints’, God’s holy people. My final point is to say, are you together with other Christians in a local church? That is very important. It is hard to receive all these wonderful truths and to experience them if you are on your own, if you are isolated and separated from the church. So, get back to church. Reconnect. Find a place to have fellowship so that your faith can be strengthened.

As we come to the end of this episode, we come to the end of a very important series. The centre of that series is the first ten verses of chapter 2, where Paul describes the gospel, and we have seen how he talked about the Church after he talked about the gospel. He stated that we were by nature deserving wrath and judgment, but because of God’s love for us, “God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive when we were dead in transgression. It’s by grace. You have been saved”. Later on, he said, “through faith”. That is the heart of Paul’s message wherever he went. We don’t earn our salvation. We receive it because of God’s initiative but we have to repent, believe and have faith, and then God’s grace comes to us. Paul was absolutely captivated by this message. He couldn’t stop talking about it. He had been preaching it by the time he wrote this for thirty years, in many different cities, in many different countries, and in different languages. He is absolutely thrilled here in Ephesians to outline the gospel again.

I have been very privileged to follow through everything that Paul has said in these first three chapters. As we move to Series Two, which we will do in the next episode, we are going to move into a much more practical discussion. Paul begins to explain in more detail how churches can be powerful and effective in their communities.

So please join us as we continue going through Ephesians in Series 2 with the next episode. I hope to see you then.