Apostles Church

Ephesians 3:14-21. Paul has been giving us some heavy theology in the first 3 chapters of this letter. Chosen and adopted, all because God freely chose to make you recipients of his grace and mercy. Forgiven, reconciled, given a the Holy Spirit. We were dead, enslaved, and condemned but He made us alive. He freed us from sin’s condemnation, promised us an eternity experiencing his grace and kindness washing over us and satisfying us forever. He made us a new creation with specific works he carved out for us to do in this world. He made us part of his family united in Jesus and being built up like a temple where he dwells among us in power and life transforming grace. Now we come to chapter 3:14 and we discover that it is possible to believe all of that, to truly believe in Jesus and his Gospel and the blessings of his salvation and yet…not be moved at all by it; to bank everything on it being true and feel nothing; not to have your heart pulsate with wonder and joy and sincere affection; to have a heart that feels cold toward God and bored with God. To believe and yet not to sense his presence in your life. It is possible to sing songs that are merely lyrics but cause no affections for God to erupt in your heart. Now, our hearts are moved by other things like music, movies, books, art, theater, dance, lovers, sex, money, food, sports, and Oprah, while yawning in the face of these saving and eternal realities. Maybe Jesus and his Gospel once moved us, but we just got over it. Paul knows we are fickle; love like the morning dew; we can believe in Christ, yet feel so far from Christ, so little affection and desire and feel like he has withdrawn his affection from us. We get dry, feel empty and begin to realize that our faith is little more than adherence to some creeds and regular religious rituals but we are not genuinely encountering God’s presence and power.

I’m a pastor. There are seasons where the Gospel moves my heart little; God seems a colossal duty, and immense obligation. Other times he is my greatest delight and obsession. Some seasons where I wake up and He is the furthest thing from my mind and it is a battle to pray, and other times where thoughts of him wake me up and prayer is as natural as breathing. There are times when I pray and lose all sense of time and read the Scripture and hear God’s voice so clearly and sense his presence vividly. Other times I don’t hear his voice, sense his presence, or feel his closeness. I pray and feel like I am talking to the air. I read the bible and only see words on a page. Sermon writing feels like I’m back in High School doing a book report on a book I didn’t really like instead of a relaying a message God has spoken to me. You ever feel that way? Paul knows that we will experience those seasons in our lives and he prays for this Church in light of that. Paul prays that this church would be revived, refreshed. He prays that:

Christ’s love to be revealed by the Spirit. The Spirit works upon our hearts to bring us into a greater experience of Jesus (dwell) and press a deep sense of the love of Jesus upon our hearts. Greatness of Christ’s love: surpasses knowledge. 1:19 surpassing greatness of his power; 2:7 immeasurable riches of his grace; and now the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge – it is impossible to fully grasp. 2:7 we will spend all eternity coming to grips with it. Many of us grew up singing it, but we will never fully get it. Greatest expression. When Paul spoke about Christ love, he said, “who loved me and gave himself up for me.” God reveals his love for us in this, while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Limitless dimensions of Christ’s love. Breadth, length, height, depth – it is boundless, limitless, greater than our sins and shortcomings, everlasting. There is no shelf life on the love of Christ and it is not subject to the law of diminishing returns; All things have a limited capacity to fill us with sustained satisfaction. Christ’s love is limitless and has an infinite capacity to fill us with sustained satisfaction. We just need the Spirit to reveal it to us so we can see it and be satisfied by it. Then we can be free from the idols that we are enslaved to and are trusting in to define us and satisfy us. Idols crumble under the weight of the limitless love of Christ.. Summary: The Spirit works in us to give us a growing capacity to comprehend and experience the immeasurable dimensions of Christ’s great love demonstrated for us in his dying for our sins. He wants to press this on our hearts until we feel the weight of it and are not able to get over it.

When this happens, we will be filled up to the Fullness of God. What does this mean? Whatever it means it has to be the greatest experience available to us. And whatever the experience, we know that it will result in us being like Jesus. Col 2.9 ESV “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,” To see him was to see the Father. Full of grace and truth. In him we see God’s holiness and perfection; God’s patience and kindness; care and compassion; wisdom and power and resolve and suffering love… To be filled with the fullness of God is for God to so fill and dominate our thoughts, affections, desires and decisions that our lives take the shape of Jesus

Practical. We can’t manufacture this. It is a work of God. INWARD man – not that we conform to some rules outside of us and bring about this experience. We set the sails, but God must give the wind.
Desire it. Do you desire the fullness of God? That implies a diminishing of self. For us to be filled with the fullness of God, we must be emptied of self and experience Christ’s presence in our lives in increasing measure. When we are full of self, we cannot be filled with fullness of God. When self-focus, self-love, self-preservation, self-protection, and selfish demands dominate our hearts, there is no room for God. So, he must increase we must decrease. I have to diminish and Christ becomes greater in my life so that I begin to take on his character his conduct and share his overall pattern for living. But do I really want that? Some of us set limits to our spirituality. I want to be just religious enough to be considered a good person with good values. But, Christ becoming greater and greater in my life? The fullness of God would mean the full reign of God over my life. It would mean Christ dwelling in my heart. To dwell - Christ is settling in our hearts, making himself more and more at home there. So the fullness of God will mean a diminishing of self and there is a natural resistance to that. Only the love of Christ can melt that resistance. A vision of the immeasurable dimensions of Christ’s love enables me to fully trust Him and gladly relinquish myself to Him.  Pray. Verse 14 If you are not moved by the Gospel and have become stagnant, pray for yourself. Verse 21. God can do more in our lives, our church, our city that we have even dared to ask or imagine. He is willing and He is able. He loves to answer these prayers because they are for his glory. Reflect on the Gospel. Having your heart filled with the love of Christ is a subjective experience that is rooted in objective events. Feel it, but those feelings are awakened by truth. So, Paul gives us theology rooted in actual events in chapters 1-3, but ends Chapter 3 with a prayer that Spirit would make that theology meaningful and moving to us. You can’t ditch the objective truths. These are the ground for the subjective experience of the Spirit. You need theology, doctrine, truth. Read the Word. Carve out time every day to read and meditate on the Word. Pray for inclination. When you read the Bible – state the goal – to know and love Christ. Pray for eyes to see Christ. Respond with repentance and obedience. Don’t give up.