On Friday night Linda and I ate a local restaurant that
is under new management. We had not been there in over ten years. I dropped her
off at the door and parked the car. I walked up the steps towards the
restaurant doors… and missed. I walked full face and full force into a pane of
glass to the right of the doors. The glass was, to me, perfectly clear. I didn’t
see it was there. This was a stunning experience for me! I thought I’d broken
my nose. I was also hoping people didn’t see me do this. The clear glass wall was there all the time. I just didn’t
see it.
In the book of Ephesians Paul is alerting the young Ephesian church to something that is there all the time, but they haven’t really seen it yet. The unseen reality is this: as people who have believed in Jesus they are now “in Christ,” and thus “new creations.” This is the central Christian fact, from which everything follows. To not recognize this will cause one to put confidence in mere human abilities, in what Paul calls “the flesh.”
In the book of Ephesians Paul is alerting the young Ephesian church to something that is there all the time, but they haven’t really seen it yet. The unseen reality is this: as people who have believed in Jesus they are now “in Christ,” and thus “new creations.” This is the central Christian fact, from which everything follows. To not recognize this will cause one to put confidence in mere human abilities, in what Paul calls “the flesh.”
It is impossible to overstate the importance of this.
In
our Ministry School class on healing, I’m teaching out of John Wimber’s excellent
book Power Healing. Last week we were entering the part of the book that moves
us into praying for others. Just as we’re about to launch into a ministry of healing
Wimber pauses. He quotes 2 Corinthians 5:17 - “If
anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” Then
Wimber writes… IN ITALICS… these
words:
“The key to our spiritual healing - and the one point that must be understood and
experienced for the rest of what I write in this book to make any sense – is
becoming new creations in Christ and living our lives as fully forgiven and
reconstructed people.”
At this great reality Paul says he
drops to his knees. (Ephesians 3:14) And he prays:
16 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.
If the Ephesian
Jesus-followers trust this, if they know this cognitively unknowable love of
Christ by faith and by experience, their lives will bear much fruit.
The fact
before us is that “church,” as Paul understands it, is essentially “a dwelling
in which God lives by his Spirit.” (Eph. 2:20-22) That is REAL CHURCH. Why complicate
this? By the Spirit’s work Christ takes up residence in the person. Paul prays
here that Christ will permeate one’s whole being. “It is the equivalent of the
command in 5:18 to be continually filled with the Spirit.” (Klyne Snodgrass,
Ephesians)
When the first
church in Acts 2 was in that upper room in Jerusalem they weren’t holding meetings to try and figure out, on their own without God, what they were to do now. They were, as Jesus instructed them in John
14-16, abiding in Him. And waiting. For what? For the coming, for the
filling, of the Spirit Who will lead and guide them. That early Church exploded throughout the Roman Empire
without having “programs” to entertain people. God had it figured out, and they were following Him. The thrilling, empowering
reality was Christ, the hope of glory, in
them. Paul is
counseling the Ephesian church to acknowledge and trust this.
Ben Witherington writes that “Paul
is praying for the continuing presence of Christ within the Christians through
faith. The verb katoikeo signifies
literally to make a home or to settle down and so has in view a more permanent
presence.” (Witherington, The Letters to Philemon, the Colossians, and the Ephesians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Captivity Epistles, 274) Our hearts have become a Temple that hosts the Spirit’s
earth-shattering presence. Knowing this, why would anyone trust their own meager,
finite all-too-human efforts rather than Christ?
Christ’s indwelling of us means that
we are not our own. Paul writes the Ephesians and prays that they would walk
into the reality that the Lord of heaven and earth, the One through whom all
things were made, the One who holds all things together, has made his home in
their hearts.
The main intent of Paul’s prayer is
clear: He wants his readers strengthened by God’s Spirit so that they may know
intimately Christ’s presence and love.
Rather than some cute little Personal
Homeboy Jesus hidden away in some closet to be pulled out when you need a
miracle, Paul has met the Lion of Judah who gives shape and strength at the
core of our being, who takes up residence in and redefines us. If this happens, everything else will fall
in place. Including what we are to do. (Because our "doing" must come from our "being.")
Personally, this is what I am
praying for the most. I write these prayers in my journal, often adding a
heart with an arrow drawn through it. I am constantly praying, “God, give me a heart of
Your love, the love that transcends all human understanding."
Knowing and understanding the love
of Christ requires being rooted in that love, experiencing it, being
grounded in it. Thus, Paul prays for this. There is an experiential knowledge here, a “knowing” that goes way beyond mental or intellectual
abilities. Witherington writes: “One can grasp it only through experience, and
even when one experiences it one is left groping for words to describe it. The
ultimate goal of being rooted in love and grasping its meaning is to “be filled
in all the fullness of God.”” (Witherington, 275)
Why is this important? Because “grasping
and experiencing God’s love is the key to receiving the full presence of God
into one’s life.” (Ib.)
If you are a believer in Jesus and a
follower of Him, then you are a new creation. You are “in Christ.” "In Christ" - this is the great Pauline theme. God wants
you to grow and mature in your faith, like a healthy fruit-bearing plant. The
growth will come, as Paul writes in Ephesians 3, as you are – by faith – rooted
and established in the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge.
Paul prays
that people would “grasp” this. The grasping will come by experience, since it
is beyond grasping by human knowledge. The result will be that people will then
be filled with the fullness of God. Last Friday I didn't see the clear pane of glass that was there, but I did encounter and experience it. Attention Jesus-followers: The Spirit is there, already working in power within you. (Eph. 3:20) I pray that today you would experience and encounter Him.
Love does things. Klyne Snodgrass writes that “To know
Christ’s love is to be transformed by love and expanded into the fullness of
God.” In other words there is an extraordinary power available to
believers, a power that can and will accomplish
far more than we ordinarily think or imagine. It comes by the Spirit. It
accords with the riches of God's glory. John Piper says that this "is the very fullness of God, as humanly
unimaginable as that sounds."
So Paul kneels. And prays these words…
16 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.
At
Redeemer this week many of us are praying these words for one another. As far
as I can tell, this is Real Church activity. This is why the early church
exploded. It’s not about a program or formula, and you don’t need money to do
it. It's all about cultivating the relationship. As N.T. Wright says, this “means knowing God as
the all-loving, all-powerful father; it means putting down roots into that love
- or, changing the picture, having that love as the rock-solid foundation for
every aspect of one's life." (NTW, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, 39-40)
Today, know who you are in Christ.
