“...so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love...”
I feel it is very important to remind you first of all today, that this is a prayer, and it is a prayer for you.
But that does not say it all. Keep in mind who it is who is praying for you. It is the great Apostle Paul. He is in prison now. Most of his life in the flesh is now in the past. And what a past it is.
He has been on missionary journeys. In the service of His Lord he has suffered beatings, scourging, imprisonment, stoning, deprivation, near drowning, rejection from his own beloved nation; but he has also seen great things. New churches filled with dedicated Christians who gladly suffer persecution for their Lord, the generous giving of the saints for the suffering believers in Jerusalem during a time of famine.
He has seen many healings and miracles, and most wondrous of all ~ he has seen the risen Christ with his own eyes.
He is a man of prayer. Jesus has given him a tender heart, longing for the salvation of the lost and for the restoration of Israel; and for these things he prays constantly, with tears.
And this man prayed for you, Christian. Yes, he specifically addresses the recipients of this letter, and mentions in some places their specific situations. But it is a prayer for us also in several respects.
One is, that he talks about this age and the age to come. He talks about those who were near, the Jews, and those who were far off, the gentiles. He talks about every family on earth and in heaven deriving its name from the Father of glory. So we can see that Paul puts no space or time restrictions on the plan and purpose of God, and we can derive from this, that his prayers extend to all who believe ~ in his time and the time to come.
The other thing that assures us we are on solid ground in claiming these prayers of Paul for ourselves, is our understanding that the scriptures are inspired by the Holy Spirit, to whom time means nothing. The scriptures are, we believe, “...inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
And if we can rightfully apply that claim to our benefit, then we must also believe that in His inspiration of both, Paul’s prayers, and the inclusion of them in scripture, the Holy Spirit meant them for all of us; not just for the Ephesian church, and not just for the Christians of Paul’s day.
I have to say to you that when someone tells me they are praying for me, that knowledge alone gives me encouragement to go on. Someone I have a great deal of respect for as a faithful servant of the Lord, said very recently that they pray for me and for this church daily. And I thought to myself, ‘Wow, with this person in my corner, I can look forward to big things from the Lord through this congregation‘.
But something else happens too. Hearing this person and others like this person saying they’re praying for me gives me a sense of responsibility to live up to that great privilege of being prayed for, and stay faithful to the work and not grow tired.
Paul prayed for you and me, fellow believers. This should give us a sense of great encouragement, but also responsibility; to learn and grow and seek by the Holy Spirit of God to better understand these things Paul wanted us to see.
So let’s go on to look at this phrase from verse 17 today, remembering that this is a prayer God most certainly wants to answer in the affirmative, in your heart and mine.
“...that you, being rooted and grounded in love,...”
ROOTS & FOUNDATIONS
Paul has been ‘building’, (no pun intended) on an analogy of structures. Christ has broken down the dividing wall. We are of God’s household. We have been built upon the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets. Christ is the cornerstone of this holy temple in the Lord. And now, we are a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
We’ve discussed our foundation at length, so it is only necessary for me, at this point, to tell you that this word, ‘grounded’ in our text refers to a foundation.
Literally, it means to lay the foundation of, or, ‘to establish’.
But Paul, like any good teacher, uses different analogies to make his point. Since no one analogy can fully explain a spiritual truth, he approaches his theme from various directions for clarity’s sake.
Jesus did this quite often. “To what shall I compare the Kingdom of God?” (Lk 13:20)
It is a treasure. It is a mustard seed. It is leaven. It is a merchant seeking for a pearl. It is a coin. It is a man working in his field and sowing seed.
So Paul says we are built upon a firm foundation; but wait; we’re also rooted. Yes. That’s another way to express this thought...we are rooted.
Now, neither of these, ‘rooted’ or ‘grounded’, is really the key word here. So let’s talk a little about the nature of roots and rooting, and move on.
Roots are the first part of a plant to grow. The first thing the seed produces.
The root goes down into the nurturing soil, and it begins to take up the minerals and the moisture needed to produce foliage and fruit.
We can’t see the roots, if they are where they’re supposed to be. But a trained eye can tell much about the condition of the roots by what he sees above ground.
Can you catch the analogy here, to the spiritual life? If you see no fruit on a fruit tree, you may suspect that the tree is not adequately rooted. For some reason or another, it is not absorbing the nutrition it needs.
When a person professes to be a Christian, but there is no fruit evident, and in fact there appears to be no desire to bear fruit, the only way to help them is to go back to the issue of the roots. Of course, since we’re referring here to spiritual things, we can only pray for them and encourage them. It is the Master Botanist who plants and transplants, and grafts and prunes; Who dresses and tends. But if we will be concerned enough with one another to observe, and with the Holy Spirit’s aid make these distinctions and pray for one another accordingly, there is great power and mutual help in this.
Christians, I am very concerned, that over the past several decades a spirit and philosophy of the fallen world has crept also into the church, and it has been very damaging to the body of Christ.
It has been expressed in many ways. Live and let live. I’m ok, you’re ok. If it hurts no one but me, it’s no one else’s business. Don’t be judgmental of those different from yourself; just be tolerant and accepting and celebrate diversity. Don’t be critical, don’t project your values onto someone else, don’t be pushy with your personal beliefs... be politically correct and don’t upset the apple cart.
MacKintosh, who wrote over one hundred years ago, was already seeing this spirit at work when he observed that the attitude in the market place was that you were free to have your beliefs and hold to your convictions, as long as they didn’t interfere with the turning of the wheels of commerce... as long as you kept quiet about them and went about your business.
The spirit of this world finds increasingly innovative ways to scream at us to ’shut up’, and I’m sorry and embarrassed to admit that we’ve far too often, and to far too much of a degree, let it intimidate us!
Why are Christians so shy about just opening up and telling their neighbor the gospel, when it is the one and only thing that will save them from a devil’s Hell?
It’s not a problem of ignorance. No one can convince me of that. If someone has the Holy Spirit in him, he has the same potential for powerful ministry as any Christian of notoriety throughout the centuries. We don’t save; the Holy Spirit does. And He uses the simplest message of all time to do it. We’re sinners, Jesus died to pay for that sin, Jesus rose bodily from the dead, Jesus is coming back to claim His own.
There’s not a believer alive who cannot express that message in some form or another. The most powerful evangelistic message that can be preached begins with, “This is what Jesus has done for me...” and anyone can tell their own story. So ignorance is not the problem.
The problem is that we’ve believed the devil’s lies, and have allowed ourselves to be convinced that it’s impolite to be assertive with the gospel message.
When it comes to the inside of the church, we have people all around us who come and go, never show any signs of growing or changing. Never have a testimony to give. Never make an open confession of Christ. Bear no fruit except worldly fruit, and this same spirit of intimidation keeps us from confronting them for their own good.
Oh, don’t be judgmental! Don’t point the finger! Who are you, to decide how close to Jesus someone is...who are you to imply in any way that you are the more spiritually mature, and have something to give them?
Well I’m here to tell you today, brothers and sisters in Christ, that we have a responsibility toward one another. We have a responsibility to “...strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble” (Heb 12:12). We are instructed very clearly, to “...with gentleness correct (ing) those who are in opposition...”, to pray for one another, to build up one another, to confront one another, to serve one another... to love as Christ loved us, with a sacrificial, unconditional love that brings the wandering sheep back into the fold, and binds us together with ties that cannot be broken; that magnifies the unity of the Spirit and demonstrates Christ to the world around us.
And these things cannot be done while we’re kowtowing to the demonic demands to mind our own and crawl through this life in some sort of pseudo-Christian meek-as-a-mouse humility.
True love confronts, out of genuine concern, and in confronting, offers help. No church should have fringe people. They should either be roped and led into significant fellowship and kingdom work, or they should be seeking another place to call their church, because they refuse to surrender themselves fully to Christ, and continue to cling to the darkness; but they should never be allowed to flounder while the rest of us enjoy our comfort and closeness and go home feeling good about ourselves because we were more faithful than they.
We are each, responsible for getting them rooted.
And this brings us to the doorstep of the real key word of this passage:
LOVE
“...that you, being rooted and grounded in love...”
Returning to this picture of the root; love then, becomes the soil we’re rooted in.
The tree takes up the chemicals and nutrients and moisture that basically, make it what it is. That is, what courses through it and produces it’s branches and its leaves and its fruit, is what is taken up from the soil.
Christian, we must never allow ourselves to think that any Christ-likeness in us is a
result of our efforts. We do not, and we cannot make ourselves better. We certainly cannot make ourselves more like Christ through resolutions and determinations and moral exercises.
Like Ravi Zacharias said, “Jesus didn’t come into this world to make bad men good. He came to make dead men live”.
Dead men don’t improve themselves. They need life, and that life must come from a source outside of themselves. The root needs the soil, and the soil determines the quality of the fruit.
The Christian must never forget that the Bible says that God is conforming us to the image of His Son; we do not and cannot do the conforming.
We are not rooted in knowledge. We are not rooted in wisdom. We are not rooted in talent. We are rooted and grounded in love.
Knowledge and wisdom and talent are all wonderful things. But if they do not proceed out of love, they can be absolutely evil. Knowledge by itself puffs up. The wisdom of this world is foolishness. Talent misdirected can lead many astray.
But love is the soil in which all goodness and Godliness flourishes. It gives eternal value to knowledge, compassion to wisdom, and Godly humility to talent.
If you read on in the final verses of this third chapter of Ephesians, you’ll see where Paul is going. We won’t go into it now; but notice that his prayer ~ what he’s asking for us, is based first upon Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith, and us being rooted and grounded in love.
It is on that basis that he asks the Lord to give us understanding and knowledge, the ultimate result being, that we will be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Are you beginning to see why Paul calls love the root and foundation of our faith?
I want to read you a quote from D. Martin Lloyd-Jones on this subject.
“...love is the only true motive for work and activity in the Christian life. Why do we call ourselves Christian? Why do we partake of bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper? Why do we believe that Christ died for our sins on the cross? The reason for it all is that we know that ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son’. Love is God’s own motive.” “The Unsearchable Riches of Christ” pg 189
I want you to be very clear on this one point today, a Christian can go about many Christian duties and functions devoid of love, and for a long, long time not realize that he is accomplishing only bad, if anything at all.
There was a time I preached with no love. And when I think back on the few things I remember saying, I can see it clearly now; but I couldn’t then. One can spew out the truth of God’s word, and with a great degree of accuracy insofar as translation of the languages and interpretation of Biblical theology is concerned. But if love is absent, the Holy Spirit is not in the preparation or the delivery, and much damage can be done.
Neither comfort or guidance can be brought to anyone’s life by smacking them over the head, even if the weapon is the Bible.
It is a sad truth that there are many Christian pulpits from which come exhortations to higher living and more Godly behavior, and condemnations of the weaknesses and addictions and failings of men, but they are not rooted and grounded in love.
This same truth holds for committees and missions leaders and Sunday School teachers... so we mustn’t let ourselves be fooled by titles and outward appearances.
Paul laid it out plainly to the Corinthians, when he said, “If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” (I Cor. 13:2)
THE FRUIT IS THE SPIRIT’S
The final point I want to make to you today, is that we are not being exhorted by Paul to root and ground ourselves in love.
You may remember that I recently talked about the unity that the Holy Spirit brings to the church. He assembles believers into one before the Throne of God, and it is not a unity we are exhorted to attain to; it is the unity He creates, and we are admonished to diligently preserve that unity in the bond of peace.
The same principle applies here. Paul says that we are rooted and grounded in love.
All the things that God has done, which we have discussed in previous verses from the beginning of this epistle, have culminated in Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith, and our being rooted and grounded in love.
We did not do this ourselves. However, as we are encouraged to preserve the Spirit-brought unity in the church, so the responsibility falls to us to demonstrate this particular brand of love, as a tree demonstrates the qualities of the fertile soil in its lush, nutritious fruit.
Remember, we’re being conformed to the image of God’s Son. Remember that God is love. Remember that Lloyd-Jones said, “Love is God’s own motivation”.
So the fruit we bear, being fed by the soil we’ve been rooted in, should resemble Christ.
Him, whose very motivation was love. In creation, in revelation, in His incarnation, His teaching, His sufferings, His resurrection and His promise to return; all was a direct expression of the Love of God.
John, the Apostle of love, summed it up beautifully, when he said, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1)
I’m going to deviate a little from the rules of expository preaching here, and in closing take you to Galatians chapter 5.
(vss 19-23)
I want you to notice that Paul does not say “the fruit of the flesh is evident” and then give his list.
The one who has Christ dwelling in his heart can not be rooted in two entirely different places. Paul says we are rooted and grounded in love. Therefore, evidence of anything not consistent with that soil, is of the flesh.
“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are...” Do you see it? The deeds of the flesh. These things we are to put away from ourselves, Christian, as those dead to sin. Immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these...”
We are called, by our own will and determination, to not display or practice those things. How can that be fair? Because we no longer live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Sin is no longer master over us. Christ has destroyed the power of sin, having paid the penalty for us; therefore He is justified in commanding us now to reject that which no longer has power over us.
On the other hand, continuing in Galatians 5, that which He calls, not ‘deeds’, but ‘fruit’, we are not commanded to produce ~ we are told that as we are rooted in love, this is the fruit that will be in evidence: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
And note that he calls it, not our fruit, but the fruit of the Spirit. That which He brings forth in our life.
Christians, let’s understand this, and ask God to make it crystal clear in our hearts and minds so we don’t forget.
Let’s seek to get a truly accurate view of who we are in Christ, and what God has made us, and how He is working through us, so that we can shake off the intimidation of the spirit of this world, and with absolute confidence in the love in which we are rooted, simply bear like fruit...fruit that is a product of the soil...fruit that points to Jesus.
