The new church treasurer was struggling to open a combination lock on the offering safe. He had been told the combination, but couldn’t quite remember it. Finally he went to the pastor and asked for help. The pastor came into the room and began to turn the dial. After the first two numbers he paused and stared blankly for a moment. Finally he looked serenely heavenward and his lips moved silently. Then he looked back at the lock, and quickly turned to the final number and opened the safe. The treasurer was amazed. “I’m in awe of your faith, Pastor,” he said. “Oh, it’s really nothing,” the pastor answered. “The combination is printed on a piece of tape on the ceiling.”
I didn’t quite know how to start today’s sermon about prayer so I looked up prayer jokes online. As you can imagine, there are a lot of them. It seems that to many prayer itself is a joke. After all you can’t see the God to whom you are supposedly speaking, and how often has this God answered your prayers? Isn’t prayer nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of those who offer them? Since I assume that you are all Christians, you would never agree with observations like that. However, if we are so certain that God hears and answers our prayers, why aren’t we more fervent in our prayer life? Why is prayer often an afterthought? As we continue our sermon series on the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul will give us a God’s-eye view of prayer so that we better appreciate this unique gift and privilege.
When you pray, what kind of posture do you adopt? Do you fold your hands, close your eyes, and bow your head? That seems to be the most common practice in our circles. Listen to the posture Paul said he adopted when he prayed. “For this reason I kneel before the Father…” (Ephesians 3:14). Paul wasn’t the only one to kneel when he prayed. Jesus did that when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane shortly before his death. And an early church historian reports that the Apostle James spent so much time on his knees in prayer that his knees were as calloused as those of a camel! Although I’m not suggesting that kneeling is the only posture we may adopt when we pray, we should at least consider why Paul and others would take such a prayer posture. By kneeling what were they saying about the God to whom they spoke? Weren’t they confessing that he was their Lord and that they were his servants?
Is that our attitude when we approach God in prayer, or do we treat him like a restaurant waiter who we expect to do our bidding? And once God has done what we have asked him to, do we expect him to keep his nose out of our business, the way we expect a restaurant waiter to refrain from hovering over our table while we’re eating? But God is not our waiter whose sole purpose is to do our bidding. Paul said about God at the end of today’s text: “…to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 3:21).
God is the one that every person of every generation is to glorify and serve. Therefore Paul’s prayer posture is one that we might consider adopting. Even if we can’t physically get down on our knees, we certainly can mentally do that when we approach God in prayer. We will want to do this, for we are not God’s equal. He is our Creator. He is our Lord. He is the one we are to serve with all our lives.
So does that mean we should stop praying to God while dressed in our PJs, head on our pillows, and half asleep? Bedtime prayers are a staple in Christian homes. But are they really appropriate? I mean would you ever address the Prime Minister dressed in your PJs, head on your pillow, and half asleep? You would if the Prime Minister was also your father! And isn’t that what Paul called God, his “Father”? This is the interesting thing about prayer. While we want to be humble in the way that we approach God because he is our Lord, since he is also our Father we can approach him without fear, confident that it’s OK to fall asleep in his arms, as we often do when we fall asleep in the middle of our bedtimes prayers.
There is no better place to be than in the arms of our heavenly Father, for Paul wrote: “[He] is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20). Isn’t that a stunning verse? No matter how good your imagination, no matter how ridiculous your prayer requests may seem, God has the power to deliver and do even more than we ask! But if that’s true, why doesn’t God answer more of our prayers? Although Paul said that God can do more than we can ever imagine, he didn’t say that God would do whatever we ask. That’s because not everything we ask for is what’s best for us. And so just as your earthly father didn’t buy you a candy bar every time you asked for one, though he could have, so our heavenly father doesn’t say “yes” to every request we make of him because he knows the things that we ask for aren’t always for the best.
This truth should motivate us to ask, “So what kind of things does God want me to ask of him?” Paul answers that question in our text when he wrote: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 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, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16-19).
What did Paul pray for on behalf of the Ephesian Christians? He didn’t pray that they would be kept from physical harm, or that their kids would all get good grades, and that every Christian in Ephesus would earn enough money to buy the latest chariot—although those are often the kind of things that we pray for first. Instead Paul prayed for spiritual blessings. Let’s break down Paul’s requests so that we can fully appreciate the point he is making.
Paul first prayed that God would send the Holy Spirit so that the Ephesians would be strengthened in their “inner being.” Paul wanted God to strengthen the Ephesian Christians so that they would not just call themselves Christians, but also act like Christians. Paul will explain in detail what that means later on in his epistle, but as an example he says in 4:2 “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” We too ought to daily pray, “Lord, help me live as your child, not a child of this sinful world throwing tantrums when I don’t get my way or sighing in exasperation at other people’s stubbornness. But help me be completely humble, gentle, and patient—bearing with others in love.”
And how is it that the Holy Spirit strengthens our “inner being” to be completely gentle, humble, and patient? He does that when we sink ourselves into God’s love. We will want to do that, explains Paul, when we grasp just how “wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). Have you grasped these dimensions of Jesus’ love for you? Start with the last dimension. Just how deep does God’s love go? It goes deeper than any mess you can get yourself in. No matter how low you sink into sin, God never gives up on calling you back to repentance and into his loving embrace just like the father in the parable of the prodigal son. There is no sin which Jesus’ love does not cover with forgiveness, unlike insurance policies which won’t cover the damage to your car for a variety of reasons.
How high is Jesus’ love? It outranks any success you might achieve in this life. It’s better than acing a test or getting your dream job or falling into a million bucks. All those “blessings” are fleeting, but God’s love is eternal and it will one day bring us to heaven which will be way better than anything the rich and famous enjoy now.
How wide and long is Jesus’ love? It’s so far-reaching that it brings together people from different cultures. It also brings together those sinners who have every reason, humanly speaking, to hate each other and to hold a grudge. Jesus’ love dissolves the wall of hostility because those who know and appreciate how Jesus dissolved the wall of hostility that should have existed between God and them realize that they can no longer keep building walls between themselves and other sinners.
Some early Bible students have commented on how the dimensions Paul gives for God’s love seems to form the shape of the cross. That’s a good way to remember this section of Scripture. For through the cross Jesus has joined heaven and earth once again. And through the cross he reaches out to people on the other side of the “divide” to bring peace. It’s my prayer that our heavenly Father helps us understand better and better the dimensions of his love for us in Jesus. Because if we have Jesus, then we have everything we need.
Through the God’s-eye view of prayer we’ve received today in our text, it ought to be clear to us that prayer is no joke. It really is a wonderful privilege. We get to bring our requests before the God who can do anything, even more than we can ever imagine. Not only that, he’s willing to do anything for us because he’s our loving Father. He’s already demonstrated just how far he will go for us when he sent his Son to die and take away our sins. And now his Son loves us with a love that surpasses all understanding. So keep bringing your requests to him. But don’t just pray for health and wealth. Pray for spiritual strengthening—and not only for yourself, but for one another. Pray that God continues to fill us all with his presence because if we have him, we have all that we for this life and the next. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
Why do so many people make jokes about praying? How might we often treat prayer like a joke?
What are some reasons that kneeling while praying is a good posture to adopt?
Explain: Prayer is not a conversation between equals. (How is that comforting?)
Compare Paul’s prayer requests to the ones that you often offer. How are they similar? How are they different?
Paul prayed that the Ephesians would better grasp the dimensions of God’s love for us in Jesus. What are those dimensions? How will remembering those dimensions help you better live as a Christian THIS week?
