Free, In Prison

Text: Ephesians 3:14-21
Focus: The Love of God
Function: To help people see that great faith grows out of what we do, not what we say.
Form: Bible study

Intro:

The first words of our text this morning is “for this reason…”

This passage is a prayer that the apostle who wrote this letter is going to pray for people in churches. It is a prayer for people like you and me.

And he says, “for this reason…” The reason leading up to this statement is that he is in prison and being persecuted on behalf of his unwillingness to deny Christ.

Paul introduces this passage by telling them that he is suffering.

And he tells them he is suffering as a result of spiritual warfare.

It is a result of two spiritual kingdoms colliding against each other.

But he is a spiritual warrior and winning the battle, the proof of it is that he is breaking down the barriers between people and God and between people with other people.

That is what God cares about!

The core of Spiritual warfare is not “the proof that we are right and others are wrong, or we are somehow better than others” it isn’t the domination by one group of people over others, it isn’t a human struggle.”

The core of Spiritual warfare deals with love and forgiveness between God and humanity and then people with other people.

For these reasons, he is suffering and yet, because he is being effective he states in verse 14:
“You see, it is God’s love that is energizing us. It is God’s love that is calling us to fight this battle.”

Even though he is suffering at the hands of people who are being used to try to imprison him, he still witnesses that God’s love is true and powerful.

God loves the world.
Think about the times in your life when you have experienced the greatest peace.
A lot of people confuse excitement or pleasure with peace. Those things feel good, but God’s peace feels right, not necessarily good.

Those times of peace for you:
Haven’t they been when you have been loved, received and accepted?
You weren’t perfect when that happened, and yet you were included.
We have joined God’s family and it is a family of unconditional love for God and others.

So he responds to his imprisonment with this prayer, recorded here in chapter 3.

Let us break down this prayer:

I bow my knees to God and pray:
• The prayer acknowledges that God is the God of all of humanity: “From whom every family in heaven and earth takes its name.”
o You see, it isn’t a battle between nations, races, sports teams, cities, or even individuals in families.
o God is the God of all.
o I love the bumper sticker, “God bless the whole world, no exceptions.”
o He loves the entire world.
• That we be strengthened according to the riches of HIS glory.
o So, God blesses the whole world and the strength of that is limited only by His power.
o His glory is amazing
o There is sufficient strength for us to do this battle
o There is sufficient strength for us to keep on loving and loving and loving
o The power source will never go out.
• That this source of power by the Holy Spirit will touch our hearts
• And he gives a mechanism for this in verse 17, READ VERSE 17. FAITH GROWS THROUGH BEING ROOTED AND GROUNDED IN LOVE. For this to work, the prayer is that we be rooted and grounded in love.
o Paul talks about love and knowledge in this prayer.
o I want to contrast this with knowledge.
o Knowledge, especially of the scriptures, is important.
o Every Wednesday, I pray with 3 other pastors about our churches and our own lives.
o One of them was talking about the importance of teaching the Word, because that is how we get to know Jesus.
o And he is right.
o But I have met many Christians who can quote a lot of scripture, and are still not rooted and grounded in love.
o We get distracted with being able to give the right answer, but Jesus is calling us to first do the right thing.
o The prayer is that we are rooted and grounded in God’s love.
o Doing the right thing is: loving as He commands us.
o That is the source of our faith.
o And there is a whole world of difference between being rooted and grounded in love, or knowledge.
o The Bible says, knowledge can make us proud, but love constrains us to obey.
o James says, don’t merely hear the word, but do the word.
o Hearing gives knowledge, doing builds faith.
o Remember the spiritual warfare between Jesus and the Devil in Matthew 4 when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness?
o The Devil knew the Word, but Jesus did the word. Jesus lived it and it was carried out by his actions.

So the first thing, is to be rooted and grounded in love, then our knowledge will be wisely applied.

I have met a lot of Christians who know a lot and are more interested in impressing you with what they know than getting into partnership with God in caring for a hurting, broken person in the time of need.

To use the spiritual warfare principle, these are Christians who are guilty of harming others with friendly fire. They are so zealous that they forget that this is about God redeeming the world.

Now, knowledge isn’t bad: Because the second part of the prayer is about knowledge: He prays:
• That they have the power to comprehend.
• That means: Not just knowing, but understanding.
• He prays that believers understand the mystery and unimaginable boundaries of God. He calls it:
o The width, the length, the height and the depth.
• Then we will know:
o The love of Christ that goes beyond our ability to understand.
o How can you know something that surpasses knowledge?
o I mean, if it surpasses knowledge, then it can’t truly be known.
o That is, by us.
o This is the thing about God, He exists in infinity.
o The Bible says, someday He will abolish time.
o We can’t comprehend infinity, but in one way or another God exists outside of it.
o That is impossible for us to do, but possible for us to conceive
o So, although we cannot know the limits of His love
o We can imagine that they are also without limit.
o Maybe that is why people want to share what they know, because through Christ, they begin to understand true mystery.
o But what incredible thing is the apostle praying that we understand?
o He is praying that we understand the scope of God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness.
o He wants us to understand that God is able to forgive what we cannot imagine.
o That he is able to work beyond what we know.

Now think about this:
• Brother Paul is writing the epistle from inside prison.
• He has this calling on his life to share the good news with the world.
• He can’t feel effective, unless he is out there doing it.
• And yet, and this time and this period lasted for many, many years, God allows him to be confined to a cell.
• And he isn’t whining or complaining.
• He is still trusting in God.
• He is still walking by faith
• Because his faith has grown through love, remember faith grows through love; he can rest in faith even though he is in prison.

To set the stage for the next point let me ask you a question: How much can you imagine?
• Rick Warren, in the series 40 Days of Purpose, a discipline that churches went through based on the book “Purpose Driven Life” asked us, in the church to set goals for growth and outreach.
• Then, after we set our goals, he asked us to add at least one more 0 after each number.
• So, if we thought it was a realistic goal to add 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 more people to the church, he said to make the goal 50, 100, 200, 300, 400 or 500 more people.
• He quoted this scripture. Jesus is able to do more than we ask or think.
• He does more than we can imagine.
• When I read, it builds my faith.
• It reminds me not to think little, or to think with the mentality that we are dying instead of growing.
• It leads me to think that we are alive instead of dead.
• It reminds me that the only real thing limiting us is the level or degree of our faith.
• I can imagine a lot, most of the time.
• But why is it that imagining little is the par for our course?

Well, remember what our faith is based on. Remember what he says our faith grows out of.
It isn’t in what we know, but in the way we know and Love Jesus and others.
Our faith grows out of our love. IF we are seeking knowledge, his prayer is that we know His love better. He wants us to know that it is without limit.

Now I want to keep this tied into spiritual warfare.

Paul was suffering in prison because he was actively involved in Spiritual warfare.

Satan thought he had a victory because as long as he was in prison, he wasn’t out there preaching Jesus and bringing people into a love-relationship with God through Christ.

I think Satan thought he was winning, but if that hadn’t happened, this epistle, and several others wouldn’t have been written for us to learn from.

When I think of spiritual warfare, and the last message of this series will deal with the “battle gear” for fighting God’s battles, I think first and foremost of what Paul is doing in this passage.

He is praying.

He is asking God. He is engaging in the struggle through the most powerful weapon available, prayer.
He reminds us that when we pray, we shouldn’t limit God in what we are asking, because God is much greater than our imagination.

Think about your own prayer life.

This part is for the believer who has made Jesus first place in their life.

Some people come because they don’t want to go to hell.

Some people come because they figure that God will make their circumstances better if they go to Church.

That is fine, Growth into the full measure of faith that Paul is talking about is the work of God, not me.

But for those who consider themselves dedicated enough Christians to maybe even be a martyr, ask yourselves this question:

What do you pray for?

Do you pray for more love?

I have to confess, that isn’t on the top of my prayer list. Unless it is a prayer that God would let me feel and sense His love more FOR ME. And that is okay, it begins there.

But what do you pray for?

Have you ever prayed, “God you need to show brother or sister so and so just how badly they are treating others?”

Have you ever prayed: “God, I know I am supposed to be happy when other people do well, but it doesn’t seem fair that `insert name here’ gets more and more and I have to struggle so much; when is it going to be my turn?”

Or the prayer: “God vindicate me because I am being treated unfairly?”

We are praying out of pettiness.

We are all called to pray out of our love for God and others.

If that is all we pray for, then we are already defeated.

Remember, our faith builds through love.

When we are praying that way, we are not praying according to the love of God that goes beyond our imagination.

We imagine a God who is just like us. We imagine a God who has a hard time forgiving others.

It is easy to imagine a petty God, because it is easy for us to fall into pettiness.

And remember, Satan himself wants to keep reminding us that it is now “our turn.” It is all about us. He wants to remind us that the church is designed to make us happy and feel better. That it is about us and not about God.

Remember, our faith is going to grow out of our love.

Think about this, we pray more for the people we know the most and love the most.

As pastor, I believe my biggest job is praying for you.

I pray for my kids, I know them well enough to pray specifically for them

When you are specific with me, I pray specifically for you.
You can trust me. If you give me a prayer request and then go and ask Kathy about it, she’ll tell you, “I don’t know what you are talking about” because I don’t tell her.

Because of love we pray.

But then, I think, about God’s love for all the world, a statement this prayer opens up with and I ask myself: “who is praying for those who have no Christian to pray for them?”

Remember, our faith builds through love.

Rick Warren encouraged us to think beyond what we can imagine by adding another 0 to our hopes.

He did that because his ministry is not based on making numbers, trying to prove that he is more right by the size of his church or the quality and style of his worship.

His Church is characterized more than anything by its love.

And he has drawn criticism from some Christian sources because he isn’t “pro-American” enough. He has taken the millions he has made in selling his books and used to ease the suffering in places like Darfur and the areas the most greatly affected by the aids epidemic.

Look, there are some mega-churches that are growing and growing and they keep on feeding this cycle of what is in it for me.

But that isn’t what Rick Warren was talking about in his purpose driven life book.

His first statement, “It’s about God, it isn’t about you.”

You read through the testimonies and the growth they experienced and one thing becomes very obvious, they understood the nature of this unimaginable love.

When I took my last Church through the 40 days of purpose, I had to cut out more than half of the illustrations given because they were all testimonies of divorced and remarried people who found forgiveness in the midst of brokenness and the congregation wouldn’t let me preach about that.

But he understands the unimaginable reaches of God’s love.

His faith is based on that, and God keeps on blessing.

SO, do you need to experience that love this morning?

Love and forgiveness are the biggest keys to overcoming faith.