Ephesians 3:14-21. Stepping stones to the wide, deep love of God

¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. 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.

This passage in Ephesians reminds me of a stepping stone journey into God’s love.  Like this picture (show graphic). We are going to venture, metaphorically, across that stream.

The first step is kneeling before God the Father. “For this reason, I kneel before the Father”  To kneel means we acknowledge God’s sovereignty over us.  We submit to God’s authority and are obedient to His precepts and values. This is the crux of the passage.....

It’s about surrender. Surrender also engenders confession;  we tell God the things we’ve done or thought, which are not pleasing to him, and in that surrender and confession, there begins in us a direct connection to God (rather like when our mobile phones show full bars of signal strength. This surrender opens our souls to God and we are now stepping onto the next step:

When we are surrendered to God, He is able to share His strength and power with us. This is an inner strength;  almost a paradox isn’t it? That something which seems weak (the eyes of the world see surrender as being weak), great strength comes. 

It’s about what goes on on the inside of us – anyone can feel close to God when everything’s going well. In fact, we might be beguiled into thinking that this is God’s favour to us and we don’t need to be surrendered to Him.  Sometimes too much sun makes a desert.  But when things are not going well, surrendering all to God is still a wise course because God’s power can overcome anything; the love of God can flow, like healing balm on our bowed heads when we kneel before God, acknowledge his sovereignty, and give thanks in all things.  If we can do this, the power of God to us, is refined and enlivened.

We’re ready to step to our next stone now;  the power of Christ to dwell in us. We can have the very personality of God living in us through the Spirit who will always point us to God. We are really becoming immovable now because with the indwelling Christ, comes the power for our souls to be rooted and established in love (this is a lovely big wide stone we have stepped on to). We are established (grounded, secure).  There are lovely verses in Psalms and Proverbs which talk about our feet being put on higher ground – on a wide and secure place.  I love that term embedded and grounded;  Being grounded means that we are solid, immovable, unable to be washed from the rock of our faith, by any wave of circumstance.  Does anyone remember Pam Ayres.  She writes humourous poems;  one of her most well-known was perhaps “I wish I’d looked after me teeth”.  They are all delivered with the lovely burr of her native Berkshire accent. But when I read these verses in Ephesians, I thought of another of her poems….I am Clamp the Mighty Limpet.  Let me read it to you… just the first few lines:

I am Clamp, the mighty limpet;  I am solid, I am stuck

I am welded to the rock-face with my superhuman suck

I live along the water line and in the dreary caves

I am Clamp the Mighty Limpet;  I am Ruler of the Waves! 

What care I for (stupid) shingle;   for the dragging of the tide,

with my unrelenting sucker and my granite underside?

This is what being rooted and grounded is like.  We become like Clamp the Mighty Limpet because we are stuck by love to the rock of God, no matter what waves of adversity wash over us.

Notice the surrendering comes before the faith and the indwelling Christ.  I think that’s where the Atheists get it so wrong.  They try and prove the existence of God;  they don’t get it that God dwells in us;  it’s about experiencing God, not proving Him first. True faith is an experience.  Yes, we have to know the Bible and the gospel but if we want to know the love of God for ourselves we have to know Jesus, as a living Spirit in our hearts.  We can know the Bible from cover to cover – that’s knowledge, but these verses tell us that God’s love surpasses knowledge. 

From that big stone of Christ indwelling us, we are finally able to step onto the next one and can grasp with others how wide and deep is the love of Christ.

Deep enough to forgive whatever we may have done;

Vast enough to enable us to forgive those who have wronged us

High enough for us to be able to love the unlovely and to be accepting of those who are very different to us, or whose views differ vastly from ours;

Long enough to overcome any temptation;

Wide enough to have victory, joy and inspiration under the most trying of circumstances.  And we are filled with the full measure of God’s riches. 

What are the riches of God?  We could spend a month of Sundays thinking about this, and I’ll leave that for another day. Suffice to say that God’s riches have nothing to do with worldly possessions, so we can’t expect to ask God to win Lotto. They are spiritual assets; the full measure of divine attributes, passed on to us, changing us from glory to glory, from a God who delights in making us holy. 

And finally, we have these lovely concluding verses:

 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever”

You see, it’s all about God power – his power in us can do much more than we think or imagine.  It’s all about power…..

And it’s all about surrender….

It starts with the first step onto that stone of submission to our heavenly Father God, who then waits for us to invite the Christ to dwell in us, which is really the beginning of the journey to us knowing the wide, deep, grace and mercy of the love of God

Let me close in prayer:

Lord of all, at whose behest the quiet stars and steadfast moon hang in their appointed spaces and who has bequeathed to us the beauty and bounty of the earth;  God of the unfathomed universe and King of the Angel host, we acknowledge that you are Lord of all things;  Sovereign Being. 

But you are also the God who loves us with the full measure of your Being.  We turn to you and ask you to come afresh to our hearts and there begin the fire of healing love to burn;  there begin to be Lord of our hearts, Shepherd of our lives, Guardian of our souls and keeper of our heavenly treasure..  Amen.