Highlighted Text: Ephesians 3:14-21

Questions for consideration: 

What does a prayer reveal about a person?  

What do you most often pray for/about and what might that reveal about you?

A Beautiful and Compelling Gospel Prayer: The apostle Paul had many prayers in the New Testament, but possibly none as beautiful and on point as this one. The heart of Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is that they would allow the gospel to transform their lives and relationships. Although the word “gospel” isn’t explicitly used, the thematic elements are implicitly woven throughout. Paul could not be more emphatic about the centrality of the good news of Christ in his prayer for the church in Ephesus to grasp how, “wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (v. 18). Paul’s prayer is divided into two sections: 1) intercession for the church (vv. 14-19) and 2) doxology to God (vv. 20-21). 

Paul’s Intercession for the Church in Ephesus:

A Few Observations:

Fullness: Paul prays that the church in Ephesus will not simply experience a part of God, but rather the fullness of God. πλήρωμα (pleroma) is the word in the Greek. It means abundance. John 1:16 says of the incarnate Lord, “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” We are told in Colossians 1:16 that in this same incarnate word, “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” What a remarkable prayer from Paul, that the church, too, would experience the fullness/abundance of God’s indwelling presence and power with them in the same way as Christ himself.

Father: Paul’s prayer is directed to the Father, πατὴρ (pater). Continuing Jesus’ example of addressing God as, “Abba” in prayer (vide, Luke 11:2), Paul references those connected to him as a family derived from a single ancestor, God the Father, himself. It is particularly poignant that in this prayer, Paul, who has formerly spoken about the division between Jew and Gentile and the alienation of the nations from citizenship with Israel, would speak so clearly and comfortingly about a Father from whom, “every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,” (v. 15).

Posture: Paul kneels before the Father in prayer. The most common position for a devout Jew such as Paul would have been to pray standing, swaying backward and forward in rhythmic recitation before God. Some commentators suggest that in kneeling, though, Paul brings an important element of worship into prayer. He is not out of character with scripture. Psalm 95:6 says, “O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!”

Spirit’s Strengthening: The experience of God’s fullness is not fabricated by our titillating worship services or mesmerizing sermons, but by the strengthening of God’s Spirit in our “inner” person. Jesus himself said that it is not what is outside of a human being that makes them unclean, but that which is within. Paul’s desire is for the Spirit of God to penetrate into the inner person. No surface religious expression, rote devotion, but radical inner transformation, which as he says in Galatians 5 produces an abundance of fruit.

Through Faith of the heart, the seat of one’s physical and spiritual life, the center of the inner person, Paul desires that the church in Ephesus may experience Christ’s dwelling. Robert Boyd Munger, the Presbyterian pastor, who wrote “My Heart, Christ’s Home,” paints a picture for us of what Paul means. In his metaphorical use of heart for home, Munger describes a home that has no closets, cupboards, or cellars closed to the indwelling presence of Christ. He is given permanent residence in the center of our personality, our character, our pain and failure. He is given access to our secret sins and freedom to reshape our values and the entirety of our lives.

Four Dimensional Love (wide, long, high, deep) experienced with all of God’s Holy Community. In our western ideology of the independent study project, sabbatical, or retreat, one is thought to experience God’s cosmic love in relative monastic solitude. It is quite the contrary for Paul. While he would certainly not denigrate the importance of personal piety and privacy before God in prayer and meditation, God’s vast love is experienced alongside and through community. In Ephesians 2, Paul describes the people of God as a “Holy Temple,” built upon Christ, it’s cornerstone. This living temple experiences the presence, power, and love of Christ, upon which the whole structure is designed, mediated through its members. His love flows freely through the wholeness of his holy temple, through his people, who both rejoice when another rejoices and grieve when another grieves. 

Paul’s Doxology: Paul sees the Church with its empowering by Christ as the locus of witness to God. As Andrew T. Lincoln says in his Word Biblical Commentary on Ephesians, “In line with [Paul’s] earlier emphasis on the Church as the sphere of God’s presence and rule, his doxology sees the Church as the sphere in which God’s glory is acknowledged.” This acknowledgement, while certainly manifest through the corporate worship of the church, is not limited to the walls of a sanctuary. The glory of God is revealed in the Church scattered throughout the highrises, lowrises, Webex and Zoom meetings, soccer fields, hockey arenas, lecture halls, and public squares. It is an embodiment of God’s glory not hidden behind four walls of secrecy, but on the display for the world to see. It is a glory that is magnified by God’s power at work within us to do, “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” 

Scott Bullock is a Board Member and Contributor with The Pastors Workshop. He is an ordained Presbyterian minister who has served churches in Illinois, New Jersey, and California. He holds an MA in New Testament Studies from Wheaton College, an MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a ThM in New Testament from Princeton Theological Seminary. Scott is married with three teen-aged children.

Call to Worship

Adapted from Psalm 145:13b-18

Leader: The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works. 

People: The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. 

Leader: The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. 

People: You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing. 

Leader: The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. 

People: The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. 

Leader: Let us worship the Lord with all of our being!

Scott Bullock

Prayer of Confession

Inspired by Psalm 14

Almighty God, the Psalmist most accurately describes the state of our distance from you, “[We] have all turned aside; together [we] have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” While many of us would say, “Lord, who?” “Certainly not us.” Our actions and denials betray us. We have turned aside from your goodness, O God. We have rejected your love and leading. We have lived for that which benefits us at your expense and to the detriment of humanity. For this, we confess that the Psalmist’s words are true, not for someone else, but for us. Lord, have mercy upon us, we pray. Amen. 

Scott Bullock

Assurance of Pardon

Inspired by Psalm 116:5 & Colossians 1:13 & 14

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. In Christ we are forgiven!

The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. May the God of mercy, who forgives us all our sins, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life.

People: Amen.

Benediction 

Ephesians 3:20-21

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.