For This Reason I bow my knee Part 1

all right if you have your bible with you and i hope you do i want you to join me in ephesians 3
this morning as we continue our study in the book of ephesians we are this morning beginning what
is the second prayer that paul prays in this letter to the ephesians this prayer serves as a
transition point from the first half of the book to the second half of the book You may remember me
telling you when we started this study that the first three chapters in Ephesians are about all
that God has done for us in Christ. It's called the indicatives. What does it indicate for us?
The second half of the book of Ephesians is all about how we should respond. to what God has done
for us in Christ. And so for several months now, we've been diving deep, taking a good, long,
hard look at what God has done for us in Christ. And I just want to summarize what we've seen in
chapter one. Paul says that God has given those who are in Christ every spiritual blessing.
Nothing has been left out. And in outlining these blessings, he stops at the end of chapter 1,
and he says, I'm praying for you. This is the first prayer. I'm praying that the eyes of your heart
would be opened, that you would understand all that I'm telling you, all that I'm about to tell
you. He wants them to understand what he's already outlined as well as what he's about to tell them
in chapters 2 and 3 about the gospel because their understanding of these things is going to be
essential for their spiritual well-being. And let me just stop and say it's essential for your
spiritual well-being as well that you understand the gospel, that you understand what God has done
for us in Christ. Maybe as we've been going through these first three chapters, some of you have
been going, when do we get to the practical stuff? When do we get to the how-tos? When do we get
there? And of course... the answer is yes, we are going to get there. The good stuff is coming,
the practical stuff, but if we get to the practical stuff, I say the good stuff is coming like we
haven't been in the good stuff. No, it's all good stuff. If you get to the practical stuff in
Ephesians without first soaking in the truth of the gospel, that Christ is the foundation for all
of the practical stuff, how you live your life is founded on him. If you get there without
understanding that, you are going to get to the wrong conclusion. I hope you understand how the
practical teaching that we're going to get to in chapters 4, 5, and 6, how we live our lives in a
way that honors God, all of that will wind up as nothing more than a new rule book if you don't
first understand the gospel, if you don't first understand all that God has done for us in Christ.
We have to be, as we'll see in the text this morning, we have to be rooted and grounded in the
gospel. before we launch into how we respond to it, how we live our lives. Let me put it this way.
Ephesians 4 through 6 will wind up being a moral code that is admirable,
but you are going to be powerless to live by it unless you understand Ephesians 1 through 3.
As we saw in chapter 2, Paul wants to make sure that his readers... including us,
know that by God's grace, he's done two things for us. First of all, he has brought us from
spiritual death to spiritual life in Christ. And then secondly, he has united us into the family of
God. The Gentiles are now having equal access with the Jews as participants in the family of God,
members of the family of God, equal parts of this new society. this new people of God known as the
church. So back in chapter 1, Paul prays this prayer. He says, I'm asking God to give you
understanding of these things. I'm praying that the eyes of your hearts will be enlightened,
that you will know the hope to which he has called you, that you will understand the glorious
inheritance of the saints, the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us. And the word there is
enlightenment in those verses. It's a prayer for enlightenment. And I'm not a Greek scholar,
but I looked this up. The Greek word for enlightenment is the work potizo.
We get our word photo. It's when the light comes on. It's when that flash of light in a photo.
It means to give light to or to enlighten, to shine light upon, to illuminate,
to make one see or understand. So that's what fotizo means. Paul says,
I want to make sure that the light gets shined on this and that you can see it and that you
understand it. Now, when we get to the prayer we're going to look at this morning, instead of
praying for enlightenment, he prays for something else. He prays for comprehension.
Comprehension is different. And in fact, the passage, it says, I'm praying that you will be rooted
and grounded in love and will have the strength to comprehend with all the saints.
What is the breadth and length and height and depth that you may know the love of Christ that
surpasses knowledge? Isn't that interesting? You will know the love of Christ that surpasses
knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. And the Greek word for comprehend
is a different word. It's the word katalambano, and it means to lay hold of or to seize with
eagerness or suddenness. So he's prayed that the light will shine on and you'll understand it.
Now he's praying that you'll lay hold of this. That you will seize it. You'll take possession of
it. It's the same word in Mark chapter 9 when it tells the story of Jesus encountering a man who
was controlled by an evil spirit. It uses this word, katalambano.
Man had been seized by or taken hold of by an evil spirit. Paul is praying that this message of the
gospel will seize you and take hold of you. So the prayer we're going to look at here in chapter 3
this morning, both this week and next week, is a prayer that God will move the readers of Ephesians
from understanding to being seized by this message. You move from getting it to being gripped by
it. He wants this to go from something you grasp to something that grasps you.
Something that you grabbed hold of, but now he wants it to grab hold of you. In fact,
for these Ephesians and for all of us listening, for that matter, in order for us to be able to
walk in a manner worthy of the calling, which is where chapter 4 starts, walk worthy with Christ,
in order for you to do that, you have got to be gripped by the gospel. You've got to lay hold of
the gospel. Paul's prayer is that his readers will move from enlightenment to comprehension,
from fotizo to catalambano. And Paul knows that if that's going to happen,
it's going to take the Spirit of God to make that happen. That's why he turns in this prayer and
prays that his readers would be strengthened by the power. through the Holy Spirit in their inner
being. So let's look at this prayer together. Before we do that, let me pray for our time in God's
word. Lord, we need you to come now. Holy Spirit, would you be our teacher today?
Would you open our hearts? Give us both understanding and comprehension. Help us to be gripped by
the gospel.
We pray it in your name. Amen. Would you stand with me as we read this passage together?
This is the word of God for the people of God. Ephesians 3 beginning in verse 14.
This is what the Bible says.
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you,
being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 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. You can be seated. May God bless this reading of his word.
The grass withers and the flower fades. The word of our God will stand forever. So this morning,
we're just going to look at the first half of this prayer, verses 14 through the middle of verse
17. And I want to make four observations about this passage we'll look at this morning.
I want us to see, first of all, the necessity of prayer in Paul's mind. Secondly, I want us to see
the paternity of God and why that matters. Third, I want us to see the source of any and all
spiritual power in our lives. And then finally, the ultimate outcome for which Paul is praying.
So let's go back to the necessity of prayer as we start off. As I said,
Paul has masterfully laid out in the first half of Ephesians both the personal and corporate
benefits that are ours in Christ, what's been granted to us in Christ. Here's what Paul
understands. He understands that these gospel truths, these gospel realities that he has been
spelling out, They will go nowhere in our lives unless God enlightens us and brings comprehension
of these things. Paul can be compelling. He can be logical.
He can be sound in his presentation. His rhetoric can be passionate as he presents these truths.
But he knows that logic and passion and rhetoric alone will not penetrate a hard heart.
Only God can do that. Which is why Paul here pauses and says,
everything I've just told you, I'm praying that God will do the supernatural work necessary in
order for this to become a reality in your life. Back in chapter 1, as I showed you,
he prayed. that they would be illuminated. As he's presenting the gospel, he says, I want to make
sure you understand this. Lord, help them understand this. And now as he's presented the gospel
realities, he stops and says, Lord, help them to be grasped by this. Help them to lay hold of this
in a deep way.
When Paul was writing to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians, he said this. He said, the word of the
cross is folly to those who are perishing. And went on to say, the natural person does not accept
the things of the Spirit of God. They are folly to him. He is not able to understand them because
they are spiritually discerned. Paul understands that these gospel truths will go nowhere in a
person's life unless the Holy Spirit opens their eyes to see. what he is presenting here.
He is praying for illumination and comprehension so that this will go beyond something that people
just hear and understand at a superficial level to becoming something they are grasped by.
And that's why he begins verse 14 in our text this morning with, for this reason.
For what reason? Actually, it's the same phrase he used back at the beginning of chapter 3. He
started chapter 3 by saying, for this reason. And it's a phrase that means, on account of
particular grace. It's interesting when you get into the original language. Because of a particular
kind of grace, it is because of this grace. Because of how God's grace is being manifest among men
and women, bringing them from death to life and uniting them together in the church, for this
reason, on account of this, I've been made a steward of this grace. It's for this reason,
Paul says, that I bow my knees. Because of the grace of God on display.
I recognize the need to come before God in prayer. It says, I bow my knees.
Bowing the knee is a sign of reverence and subjection. It's what you do in the presence of a king.
When a king comes in, you bow before the king. You know, today we don't typically bow our knees.
If the king came in, we might do this, right? That's the kind of bow we do. If somebody drops down
on one knee, that's pretty dramatic. They drop down on both knees. You would say,
no, no, that's too much. Well, it's not too much in Paul's mind in the presence of God, coming into
the presence of God to bow his knees. It's a symbol of total subjection and a posture of humility.
And it's interesting, back in verse 12, just a few verses ago, he said, you come now before God
with boldness and confidence. You usually don't put boldness and confidence and bowing the knees in
the same way of thinking. It doesn't seem bold or confident to come in and bow both knees.
And yet in Paul's mind, boldness and confidence don't exclude humility and reverence.
When you come boldly or confidently into God's presence, it doesn't mean that you take for granted
who he is. Boldness is different than arrogance. Confidence is different than presumption.
So Paul says, yes, I have boldness and I have confidence, but I still bow my knees.
These two go together.
He's saying, when I contemplate God's grace being poured out on me and being poured out on all
people, I bow my knees. When I come to make any request of him,
I have no right to ask for anything. I come recognizing that and acknowledging that. Now,
we presume when Paul says, I bow my knees, he's describing a specific physical posture.
He's not talking figuratively. He says, I get down on my knees when I pray these things.
And getting down on our knees to pray. is one of the postures mentioned in Scripture when it comes
to prayer. It's not the most prevalent one. Do you know what the most prevalent posture for prayer
is in the Bible? It's standing, standing in prayer, lifting hands, face up to God.
That's the most common way prayer is mentioned in the Bible. Falling to your knees or being
prostrate before God, face on the ground, those are other postures. And to stand with hands lifted
up, that's a sign of praise, adoration, joy. To be prostrate before God is a sign of humility and
subjection. So in the Bible, you see all different patterns.
Solomon in 1 Kings knelt before the Lord with his hands stretched out to heaven. And Daniel,
in Daniel chapter 6, before he went to the lion's den, he got on his knees three times a day.
In the Psalms, we read, come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord,
our God, our maker. And I think these different positions can carry different theological
significance. Kneeling, prostration. communicates penitence or humility,
desperation, standing, joy, thanksgiving. Ultimately,
it's not the posture of your body, it's the posture of your heart that matters, right? Ultimately,
how you come before God in your heart matters more than how you come before Him physically.
But sometimes the posture of our body can help us, can help our heart have a particular focus a
particular direction you may have seen churches you may have been in churches where they have
kneeling rails in fact we thought when we were first putting the church together back in our old
rental space and we were buying our first chairs we thought should we buy chairs that have a
kneeling bench that you can pull out in front of you and obviously we didn't do that we thought
about kneeling pads Kathy Kathy remembers that we had conversation should we have a kneeling pad
that we would use because There are times in our corporate worship where to be on our knees is a
good posture. Now, obviously, that's not what we chose to do. But there's part of me that thinks
there is something to kneeling in prayer. And honestly, I don't do it very often. Most of the times
when I'm praying, I'm sitting. Which, interestingly enough, is not a posture that's mentioned in
the Bible. It's how most of us pray. And yet, in the Bible, you're either standing or kneeling or
on your face before God. as you come before him in prayer. But again, the bigger point here is not
your physical posture, it's your spiritual posture. Paul is convinced that unless God works in the
hearts of his readers, as he has laid out the gospel, it's going to fall on deaf ears.
And so he comes before God with a posture of humility to say, oh Lord, all of this will make no
difference unless your spirit is at work. That's why he bows his knee before the Father.
He's reflecting humility. and gratitude and dependence. There's an old hymn that we sing sometimes
written about 200 years ago by an Irish immigrant who came to America in the early 1700s and became
a circuit-riding Methodist preacher. And the hymn that he wrote that they would sing at his
meetings was a hymn that starts with, Brethren, we have met to worship and adore the Lord our God.
And there's a line in that hymn that says, All is vain. unless the spirit of the Holy One comes
down.
Exactly. That's what Paul's saying. I have to tell you, I'm grateful that we have people who meet
here at church every week before we gather together, and they pray for me, and they pray for us as
we gather in worship. I'm grateful that our worship team, as they're rehearsing on Sunday,
they take time in their rehearsal to pray for our service. I'm grateful for the text messages and
emojis I get from some of you on a Sunday morning that say this, right? That you're praying for me
and for our service. All is vain unless the spirit of the Holy One comes down.
Paul knew that. He knew that simply presenting the gospel is not enough, praying for the gospel to
take root and bring about transformation in our lives. That's a work only the Spirit can do,
and that's what his prayer is evidencing. Let me just make sure we all understand this. The Bible
says that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, but the gospel does not have that power on
its own. It requires the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit for it to make sense.
The Bible says it is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. But that two-edged
sword has to be in the hands of the Holy Spirit for it to do any good. All is vain unless the
Spirit of the Holy One comes down. And it's for this reason that Paul goes on here to move from
explaining the gospel to praying to God that his listeners would be enlightened, that they would
have comprehension. He wants to activate... God's Word in the lives of these people.
Now, I'm sure most of you here are hearing this and you're going, yes, I know that's true.
It's right that it requires the Holy Spirit, that we're dependent on the Holy Spirit. It's right
for us to be in prayer about these things. But here's the question. Look at what Paul's modeling
for us here. Are we people who really believe this or just who give lift service to this?
Does our own prayer life reflect? What we say we believe. And I'm preaching to myself here,
okay? The whole point of this prayer, Paul wants his readers and us to move from nodding our heads
to living like the gospel is real and true. So he's asking God to do what is necessary for that to
happen. He says, I bow my knees. because I'm dependent,
we're dependent on the Spirit to make all of this clear. And he says, I bow my knees before the
Father. That's the second thing I want us to look at. He's following here Jesus' instruction when
he talks about the paternity of God and understanding God as our Father. In the Old Testament,
the Jews did not call God Father in prayer. They called him by names,
Yahweh, or the the El Elyon, El Shaddai,
they would use different names of God. They would call him by his name. Only a handful of times in
the Old Testament is God referred to as father, and there it's the father of a nation.
But when we get to Jesus and the new covenant, all of that changes. Jesus tells us when we pray,
we are to say our father in heaven. We are to call out to him as father.
And here, where Paul talks about coming to God as Father, here's what he's getting at. In Paul's
day, the most significant thing about you was your heritage. Your identity was wrapped up in
paternity. So the Jews, the other name for the Jews, they were called the Israelites.
Why were they called the Israelites? Because they were descendants of Israel, Jacob.
That's why they were the Israelites. The Moabites were descendants of Moab. Your identity was
connected to paternity. And you remember the Pharisees, when they were interacting with Jesus,
they were very proud of the fact, we are of our father Abraham, they said.
This is our identity. This is who we are. Our worth, our value, our dignity is wrapped up in the
fact that we're descendants of Abraham. So here in Ephesians,
Paul says, I bow my knee before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.
He's talking about this new identity that now both Jew and Gentile share.
It's shared by those who are alive and those who have gone to heaven already, those in heaven and
those who are on earth. What connects us and gives us our new identity is having God as our Father.
There are a lot of people in the Bible who got new names. The person who's writing this was known
as Saul until after his conversion when he was known as Paul.
Peter was Simon until Jesus gave him a new name. This new name reflects something of a new
identity. And the name Paul is talking about here when he says that the name that we've all been
given with God as our father is the name Christian. If Israelite means Israel is your father,
Christian means Christ is your brother. God is your father.
It's a new paternity. have a new spiritual heritage and a new spiritual family.
Paul in his prayer is reminding these people, I know where my identity is found. I know where our
identity is found. I bow my knee before the father from whom all the families in heaven and on
earth are named. He's not using all in the sense of every person on earth because,
let me just make it clear, not every human being has God as a father. God is the creator of all,
but he is the father of those who he has brought into his family. So God is the creator of all
people, but he's the father of those families who are united together under Christ in him.
Remember when the disciples came to Jesus and they said, your mother and your brothers are waiting
to see you outside. And what did Jesus say? He said, who's my mother? Who are my brothers? And then
he said, it's those who do the will of my father. He's saying, we have a new identity. We have a
new family. There's something new here. You may have heard the phrase, blood is thicker than water,
saying that family relationships transcend. Well, we would say that the blood of Christ is thicker
than even the family relationships, the bonds that we have. That ties us together in a deeper way.
In the first century, AD, the world is changing, and Paul is telling his first century readers,
you used to be identified by your tribal identities. Now you have a new name, you have a new
father, you have new brothers and sisters.
And then he moves in verse 16 to the part of the petition of the prayer where he's asking on behalf
of his readers that God would strengthen them with power. So this is the third point I want us to
look at, the strengthening of power that he's praying for here. And I want us to read verse 16
backwards. As you read it, the first thing I want us to see is he's praying for something to happen
in their inner being, in their inner man. So what's the difference between your inner man and your
outer man? He's not talking about your guts, okay? He's talking about the you that is the
immaterial part of you. So you have the material part of you, your body,
and you have the immaterial part of you, which is your soul. Your soul is your inner being.
That's what he's talking about. And the Bible will sometimes call this the heart.
And we tend to think of the heart meaning the emotions. But when the Bible talks about the heart,
it's talking about the control center of the human being. So think of NASA.
We just saw the rockets go up, right? Houston is where the control center is and where everything's
functioning so that that will work. Well, you have a control center inside of you, the immaterial
part of you, your soul. And your control center is governing your thoughts,
your emotions, and your choices. Your mind, your will, and your emotions are in the soul.
That's what makes up the soul.
So here's how it works. When you're facing a choice, as we face throughout the day,
you rely on input from your brain and input from your emotions to help influence the choice you're
about to make. So you're deciding to go to lunch today.
Your brain will give you some data about the places you know who are around here. And your emotions
will tell you, this is what I'm craving. And you will make a choice based on that. And your
emotions may say, I'm craving this. And your mind may say, we can't afford that. And then you fight
it. Or you can't afford those calories, right? I mean, it can work. But this is how you make a
choice. The immaterial part of you. And none of this is connected to your spleen or your liver.
This is a part of that immaterial, the inner being. So this is what Paul's praying for.
It's the inner man. Again, I said, it's often called the heart. And we think of the heart as the
seed of emotions. But the Bible says, as a man. thinketh in his heart,
so is he. So when the Bible talks about the heart, it's talking about the inner being. It's talking
about this control center, this command center. And he says, I'm praying that you,
your inner being, will be strengthened spiritually. And here's why.
Your inner being, your thoughts, your emotions, your will, are under constant attack as you live
your life.
Your thoughts, you're under constant attack from two places to think wrong things.
Where are those two places? You're under attack from your flesh, and you're under attack from the
world. So the world's saying, don't think that way, think this way. And your flesh is saying,
I don't want to think that way, I want to think the way I want to think.
Paul is saying, I'm praying that you'll be strengthened spiritually so that you can walk rightly
before God as you're being attacked and you're not going to give in to those attacks from the world
or from the flesh. Your emotions are saying, I'm feeling this way. And the culture is saying,
this is how you ought to be feeling. And Paul is saying, I'm praying you'll be strengthened in your
emotions so that you don't give in to the impulses of the flesh. or the lies of the culture.
So the world is trying to reshape you, and this has been the case since Genesis 3.
This is the original temptation. Back when the serpent came to the first man and the first woman,
he said, you'd do better off if you were thinking and feeling independently from God, and coming up
with your own decisions, making your own choices, relying on your own wisdom, relying on your own
feelings to guide you. And that at the core is worldly thinking,
fleshly thinking, and by the way, both worldly thinking and fleshly thinking are being manipulated
by the evil one. So it's the world, the flesh, and the devil working together to try to pollute
your inner man.
And I should add here that... Bible says the world is under the power of the evil one.
The enemy is very good at putting temptations in your path to try to get you off course
spiritually. Paul knows this. He's going to lay it out when we get to chapter 6 of Ephesians. He's
going to talk about spiritual warfare going on. And that spiritual warfare is the enemy's attempts
to try to divert you from God's purposes or God's plan. And you're living your life.
We're living our lives in a spiritual battle zone, a spiritual war zone. Every day, the only way to
survive in a spiritual battle zone is to be strengthened in your inner man. Stay in God's word.
Spend time in prayer. Spend time with other believers. Worship corporately and privately.
You do these disciplines as a way to stay strong in the inner man so that you can resist.
what the world and the flesh are trying to persuade you to do. And if you think it's okay,
you can just coast spiritually. I don't need to be in the Word. I know that. I don't need to spend
time in prayer. I don't need to go to church this Sunday. I can just coast. I'll be okay. No, you
won't. You're a sitting duck.
The good news is you have access at all times to the power you need to be strengthened in your
inner being. That's what this verse says. I'm praying that you will be strengthened by the Spirit.
in your inner man. And you have the Holy Spirit resident with you, present with you.
at all times as a believer to strengthen you in the inner man. And this is the same spirit that
raised Jesus from the dead. You think he can address whatever issue you're dealing with?
You think he can strengthen you?
You keep doing the things that help make you stronger, time in the word, time in prayer, setting
your mind on things above. spending time with other believers, and the Holy Spirit will use that to
strengthen you in the process. And all of this is according to the riches of God's glory.
All the attributes of God, all the things that make him glorious, his wisdom,
his power, his love, all of that is available to strengthen you in the inner man. That's what this
verse is saying. I don't know if you've ever had to apply for a line of credit from a bank,
but if you do, they will decide how much they will give you based on what your assets are.
They're not going to give you more than they can come get from you with your home equity or your
bank account or whatever. They're not going to lend you more than that. God comes and says, you
have access as my child to the riches that are mine.
with no line of credit required because of my son you can access anything you want anytime you want
you just have to come to me it's available to you the resources you need to be strengthened
spiritually are yours in abundance listen for you to walk in a manner worthy of your calling which
is what we're about to get to For you to live the life God has created you to live, you're going to
have to understand the gospel, be transformed by the gospel, and continue to be strengthened in
your inner man by the gospel regularly. And you have access to the power and riches and glory you
need to strengthen you. Which brings us to verse 17, and Paul lays out the ultimate outcome of
being strengthened in your inner man. He says, I'm praying that Christ will dwell in your hearts
through faith. And you're thinking, well, I'm a believer. Doesn't Christ come into my life and
dwell in the control center of my being when I become a believer? Yes. But there are two different
Greek words when it comes to dwelling. One is a word that means to inhabit.
The other is the word Paul uses here, which means to settle down. It's the difference between
dwelling in a hotel room and dwelling in your home. A hotel room is temporary.
You're just, it's just a place to stay for the night. But your home is where you live.
Paul's saying, I'm praying that Christ will dwell,
take up permanent residence in the control center of your life, your heart, by faith.
The heart, again, where Jesus has moved in, he's moved into a fixer-upper, by the way. Okay?
All of us. We're a fixer-upper. Jesus moved in and there's a lot of work to do. And he's at the
control center. in order to guide and direct the decision-making of our life.
Paul is praying that as you're strengthened in your inner being, this will mean that Jesus is now
in the driver's seat of your life. He's at the control board. He's calling the shots. A couple of
observations here. Note that for your life to be transformed by the gospel, you have to be
strengthened in the inner man by all three persons of the Trinity. We saw that. Verse 14,
the Father is the one in control of the process. The Holy Spirit is the source of our strength.
Verse 17, Jesus is the one who will guide and direct our lives. Also,
this is the only place in Scripture that puts Jesus and your heart in the same place.
And we hear a lot today, we'll often talk about people inviting Jesus into your heart or giving
your heart to Jesus. And this is the only place in the Bible that would support that idea.
And the idea of inviting Jesus into your life or giving him your heart, it's not a bad idea if you
understand what it is you're talking about. So it's not you being in control,
it's you being surrendered, and it is Jesus coming in to take control of your actions.
Back in 1954, two years before I was born, there was a pastor in...
Berkeley, California, at a Presbyterian church there. His name was Robert Boyd Munger.
And one Sunday in 1954, he preached a sermon titled, My Heart,
Christ's Home. And that sermon so resonated with his congregation that somebody said,
that needs to be a booklet. Your sermon needs to be a booklet. And so InterVarsity Press got the
text of it, and they printed these. I've got pictures of them. These are our copies. Marianne got
these in high school through Young Life and still has her copies of My Heart's Christ Home.
This was a sermon about Jesus coming and dwelling in your home,
in your life, in you. Moving in as your new roommate, your companion.
And over time in his sermon, as Munger laid this out, he came to reshape.
He walks into the rooms of your life and goes, oh, this could use a little work. So in the booklet,
Munger takes you through. He says, first we go to the study in our blueprint. And Jesus in the
study helps you see how some of these books in your study need to be tossed out. and need to be
replaced by other books. Your mind needs to be renewed. What's in your study needs to be reshaped
with what the Bible says is true. And then you move to the dining room. The dining room is where we
satisfy our appetites. And he says, your diet, what you've been feasting on, has not been good for
you. That's why you look the way you do. You need to feast instead on doing God's will.
And then there's the living room. This is where you gather with your friends. You need to be
spending time with Jesus in your living room and inviting in new friends, your brothers and sisters
in Christ. And then there's the workroom. And in the workroom, this is where our service...
In life should be service done for him. It's the center of the choices we make. Then there's the
rec room where you spend your leisure time. Jesus points out that he wants to be included in the
choices you make about what you watch, what you listen to, how you spend your time, how you spend
your money. Then there's the bedroom. The bedroom is the sanctuary. It's where you go for privacy.
It's where you go to be alone. Jesus says, I want to be in here too, and I want to make sure that
your private life is under my control and is addressed as well.
And then finally, there's the hall closet. The hall closet's where you keep everything locked away,
where you store stuff that you don't want to get rid of. And in Munger's analogy, the hall closet
is that place of hidden sin, the stuff we try to manage and we don't tell anybody about. And Jesus
comes in there and says, no, we've got to get rid of some things here because this stuff's going to
kill you slowly. Now, you look at that floor plan. If that home was a...
picture of the control center of your life, your heart, would you say that there are areas in your
life that are off limits to Jesus?
Would you say there are rooms of your heart that you keep sealed up and say,
Jesus, you're fine in the study, but leave my hall closet alone.
Paul's prayer that we're looking at here in Ephesians 3 is a prayer that all of us as followers of
Christ We will have Christ dwelling in and controlling and remodeling every area of our lives.
to lay out the foundation in the last three chapters of this book that's predicated on this
foundation. He's going to say here's what your life needs to look like but your life can never look
this way until you first comprehend everything I've been telling you about God and what he's done
for you. You're going to need Jesus dwelling in and controlling every aspect of your life in order
to live in a life worthy of your calling. You're going to need to be strengthened by the Holy
Spirit. We're going to pick up the prayer here next week and finish this. But I want to go back as
we wrap this up to the two Greek words I started with. Photizo and katalambano.
Enlightenment and comprehension or laying hold of. As I was thinking about these words this week,
I was thinking about a friend of mine who told me his story many years ago. My friend was in
college when he first heard the gospel. And he said, when I heard it, it made sense to me.
I got a hold of it. In fact, he was persuaded by his friends to study the Bible.
They shared the gospel with him. He became so interested in what they were sharing with him that he
decided to go to seminary at their urging. He changed the course of his life and enrolled in
seminary. There was just one problem. He was not yet a Christian. He had been enlightened, but he
had not... comprehended. The gospel had not gotten a hold of him. He told me that while in
seminary, he was pretty regularly getting high before he would go to his seminary classes. He was
living an immoral life. And the turning point for him came when a young woman came to him and she
was coming to him for counsel. She was telling him What was going on in her life?
And he said, I started sharing the gospel with her. What you need is Christ. And you need Christ to
transform your life and to be under the lordship of Christ. He was sharing with her what he knew.
And all of a sudden he realized afterward, oh, I need that too.
Yeah, I should be doing that. He could articulate it beautifully,
but his heart was sealed off. Those rooms, Jesus had not taken residence there.
He had kept him out and said, you can drop by from time to time, but I don't want you living here.
I have to wonder if there might be anybody here this morning who's in that same situation.
Maybe for many years you've been enlightened by the gospel, you've understood it, you can
articulate it, you get it, but it's never gotten you.
Your heart is not Christ's home.
You don't mind having him drop by from time to time, but you don't want him living there.
Maybe this morning, As we look at this prayer Paul is praying, maybe the Holy Spirit is saying to
you, no, it's time. It's time for me to move in and strengthen you, for Christ to dwell in your
heart, and for the Holy Spirit to redirect your life. If that's what God is pressing on your heart
this morning, here's what you do. You pray. You wave the white flag.
You say to God, I know these things are true. I know that Jesus Is God come in human flesh?
I know that he lived a perfect sinless life. I know that he went to the cross and died in my place
so that my sins can be forgiven. I know that he rose again on the third day so that I can have new
life in Christ. I know that I'm a sinner. I know I need to turn and repent. And you say,
God, I'm ready not just to understand but to comprehend,
to be seized by the gospel. I'm ready for this to change my life. Lord,
will you come in and change in me? Will you strengthen me in the inner man today? I want you to
dwell in my heart by faith. You pray that prayer this morning. Tell somebody that that's what you
want. Let them visit with you and explain to you what the Bible teaches. And we'll give you help on
knowing what to do next. Let's pray together. Father,
we come to you acknowledging again that all is vain unless the spirit of the Holy One comes down.
And so I pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would be at work and active in this place, that you
would be applying your word as it needs to be applied in each of our lives, that we would be men
and women surrendered to your Lordship, living our lives with you at the center,
in control, that the renovation of our lives that you want to do would be taking place,
that the good work that you've begun is something that you would complete. And Lord,
I pray for any here who have been living enlightened by the gospel, but not seized by the gospel,
that today would be the day when they would surrender to you.
They would go from nodding their head to bowing their knee.
We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.