Praying for the Spirit to Work (Eph. 3:13-18)

The obvious deduction that we can make from this prayer is that we cannot judge the profundity of a prayer by its length. We see from Paul’s words that a short prayer can be very profound. Moreover, we can see that a real prayer need not have many petitions – this prayer has two, one beginning in verse 16 and the other towards the end of verse 17. Further, each petition has a desired answer. The first petition is ‘that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being’, and the answer he wants is ‘that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith’. The second petition is ‘that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge’, and the desired answer is ‘that you may be filled with all the fullness of God’.

Paul tells us that he had a reason for making this prayer. The reason is in the preceding set of verses and I would suggest that his reason contains at least three details:  first, there are the benefits that have come to Gentile believers: ‘This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel’ (v. 6); second, there is the information that is given to the heavenly authorities (angels good or bad), that they would discover aspects of the wisdom of God through what happens in and through his people on earth; and, third, there are the experiences connected to the boldness and the access that believers have been given even in this life. I would say that if we remember those three realities we will make profound prayers, whether they are shorter or longer.

Then we should remind ourselves about whom Paul is praying here. He is praying for those who already love Jesus because of their conversions. It is impossible to be a Christian and not love Jesus to some extent. Yet it is also the case that no Christian, even the most dedicated, loves Jesus as he or she should or even yet will in this life. Paul knows these facts as he prays here for his readers. So he is praying for progression in the lives of believers whom he knows well because he was involved in the founding of the church there.

Adoration of the Father

Although the prayer is short and contains two petitions, it also expresses adoration of the Father. It is the case that, in the main, prayer should be addressed to the Father – Jesus in the Gospels and the other writers of the New Testament make that very clear. As Jesus did when giving what we call the Lord’s Prayer, Paul here adds something about the Father in order to express adoration. After all, it is possible to use the word ‘Father’ in such a way that avoids expressing adoration or admiration and may just be flippant. Adoration requires some mental preparation, and it does not have to be lengthy. Perhaps Paul wondered to himself, ‘What can I say about the Father when I express my adoration of him?’

On this occasion, Paul decided to mention that the heavenly Father is the origin of all other families, whether in heaven or on earth. I suppose he is referring to the family composed of angels and to the families composed of humans, whether the family of nations or people groups or the basic family unit. Of course, it is a basic outlook that family life is the central feature of society. Where did the idea of family come from? It came from God the Father, the one who planned to have his own family composed of adopted sons. It is a simple, straightforward truth about the Father, and Paul uses it to express his adoration verbally.

The apostle also expresses adoration by his bodily posture – he kneels. He probably did this in order to show that he was the servant of a great sovereign. There are two things about his posture that we can notice: the first is that he used it in secret prayer and the second is that he tells us that he used it. Paul is not expressing pride when he describes his posture for us. Instead he is reminding us that a person is what he is when he is alone with God. It is possible to be one thing in public and another in private. Paul was God’s servant wherever he was, even when engaging in one of the greatest privileges of being a son of God, which is to pray to the Father in secret.

Petition One

Paul wants his readers to have a very rich experience, one that comes from the heavenly storehouse, and which involves the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification. He knows that there is a problem preventing the fulfilment of his petition in the lives of his readers and we can work out the problem by analysing the petition. The problem is not that they are sinful, although sin may have caused aspects of the problem. Instead the problem is that they are not strong enough to experience what he wants them to receive from God.

The blessing that he wants them (and us) to have is for Jesus to live in their and our hearts. We might say, ‘I thought that Jesus came to live with us when we are converted.’ He did, in a sense, although he can come in greater glory afterwards. Paul is saying that we need to become more capable of encountering the presence of God than we have been before. I don’t think there is much difference between what he says here and what other biblical writers say when they mention that Christians need to move on from drinking milk and proceed to eat strong meat. The apostle is praying that the Christians would become strong in the Lord in order to have the Lord come to them in a deeper manner than before.

This means that we cannot assume that Jesus will arrive suddenly at the door of our hearts. We can see that he comes after the Spirit has made us capable of receiving him. It is important to note that Paul expects this to be a possible experience for all the saints in Ephesus and his words do not indicate that it can only be experienced by select believers, by those who have somehow left other Christians far behind. Instead he is saying that this kind of living encounter with Jesus in our hearts is possible for all and should be desired by all.

It is also the case that we can assume that Jesus wants to meet with his people in this way. After all, the Father is not going to send the Spirit to prepare our hearts for a visit from Jesus that he does not want to make. Such a suggestion is absurd and if made seriously would be blasphemy. So here we have Paul the apostle praying that the Trinity would work together to give all believers this amazing experience of having Jesus present in them in a deeper way.

How do we know that we have been strengthened by the Spirit? The answer is that our faith grows in its expectations and then in its experiences of Jesus. Paul is not describing a physical encounter, nor is he suggesting a form of goose bumps that people experience when they meet someone who bowls them over. Instead, he is praying for increased experience of Jesus in what he can give to us spiritually and cause to happen in us and through us. And the apostle enlarges on this possibility in his second petition.

Before we move on to consider it, we can ask, how do we know that Jesus has come to dwell in a deeper way in our hearts? Imagine a man called Joe came to stay with you last week. I meet you and ask you what it was like to have Joe in your house. You shrug your shoulders and say it made no difference. Or you might say that Joe was no bother, which is probably the same as one would say of a person living next door rather than in your house. But what if you said that Joe brought such a sense of peace everywhere, whatever the time of day. And there was the joy that he created by what he said and did. And the sense of love that he gave. In fact, you now want Joe to stay for ever. What is it like to have Jesus dwelling with us? His presence will be known and we can’t pretend we have it if we don’t.

Petition Two 

Paul says that the effect of having Jesus in the heart brings an atmosphere of love that makes believers like a well-rooted tree or like a building with a proper foundation. Of course, such a tree would withstand powerful storms and such a building would remain standing in an earthquake, although it is not the ability to withstand a storm or an earthquake that Paul has in mind. Instead he says that an awareness of divine love makes it possible to know something greater than a storm or an earthquake – he knows we can know more about the love of Christ and therefore he prays for it in confidence.

When he speaks about being rooted and grounded in love, he may have in mind their previous love for God the Father or for Jesus or he may intend their love for one another within the family of God. Both emphases could be there, and both are the product of the Spirit. In both possibilities, what better way to be strengthened for experiencing love than by being in love? It is the case that a failure to love other Christians will prevent us experiencing more of Christ’s love.

Paul also distinguishes between an intellectual appreciation of the love of Christ and an experiential appreciation of it, although he is not suggesting we can have one without the other. Yet he wants his readers to recognise the difference. The intellectual is described in his use of the dimensions of length, breadth, depth and height, and he states that this intellectual appreciation should mark all the saints. In other words, Paul is describing what a Spirit-renewed mind should normally think about.

The length of Christ’s love is a reminder that it is eternal, without beginning or end; the breadth of Christ’s love extends to all of his people, whoever they are and wherever they are; the depth of Christ’s love includes the descent to earth, the humiliation of the cross as well as where he had to descend in order to rescue his people at their conversions; and the height of Christ’s love is the level to which he will raise his people through his amazing salvation, aspects of which they receive from him in this life.

Obviously Paul wanted believers to know more about the love of Christ, otherwise he would not have prayed that they would do so. Paul wanted his readers to think about those dimensions of the love of Jesus because it was the evidence that they wanted to experience more of his love in their souls. To enable us to think of the love of Christ in this way is the work of the Spirit and he does not lead us to it through complicated arguments. Instead he shows us its reality, its clarity, and its suitability for us always. After all, is it hard to ask God to enable us to think about the length, breadth, depth and height of the love of Jesus? Is it difficult to set aside fifteen minutes each day and spend them thinking of those four dimensions of his love, especially since the Holy Spirit is delighted to reveal them to us?

Yet Paul reveals that there is more to this experience than increasing in our mental knowledge of it. In addition, there is an experiential aspect, and the fact that we need strength for having it indicates that the sense of the love of Jesus will become so strong that we can be overwhelmed by it as we experience the indescribable. In trying to understand this, we need to remember that we have the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit – in heaven, we will know the love of Jesus in great measure, so we should anticipate knowing something of that love in this life.

What will it be like to have this spiritual benefit? It will be connected to where we are spiritually at the time we are engaged in it. For example, if we have fallen to a temptation, the love of Jesus will be expressed in a sense of his forgiveness. If we are in a state of uncertainty, his love will often be expressed in giving a sense of his security. If we are engaged in doing something for him, his love will usually be expressed by the sense of his strengthening presence. The possibility of knowing the love of Jesus is a reminder of the passion that Jesus has for his people, because Paul’s petition indicates that the love of Jesus comes copiously.

Although Paul does not give a technique here that can be used to manipulate God, he does explain the normal process for believers enjoying the love of Christ. And when we look at what he says we see that it is straightforward to grasp. First, we pray for the power of the Spirit; second, we become marked by deep, strong love for God and for one another; third, we think about the love of Jesus in its length, breadth, depth and height; and fourth, we keep on experiencing the love of Jesus in relevant ways.

This is what it means to know God, to be filled with all the fullness of God. We don’t have contact with the other persons of the Trinity apart from Jesus. We don’t have contact with Jesus separate from his love, which is also connected to the love of the Father and the love of the Spirit. We don’t have spiritual contact with one another apart from Jesus and his love.

Its effects

Paul is here praying primarily for real communion between believers in the things of Christ. What would the church in Ephesus have become like should the Lord answer the prayers of the apostle in this regard? Obviously, it would be Jesus-centred. But what would that look like? Here are some suggestions. First, it would a heavenly-minded congregation, because that is the mind of Jesus for his people. Second, it would be a humble congregation, because that is the effect of Jesus on his people. Third, it would be a holy congregation, because that is the desire of Jesus for them. Fourth, it would be a healing congregation – it would not wound one another or imagine that wounding would be useful. Fifth, it would be a happy congregation, because the joy of the Lord would be known by them.

What does a church look like without ongoing love? Sadly, a biblical example is the church in Ephesus as it is described in Revelation 2. Thirty years later, those who belonged to the church in Ephesus are described as those who have left their first love. I suspect that we would not have noticed that it had lost its love. And Jesus, the lover of our souls, threatens to cease its activities unless they repent of their lovelessness. It is likely that the original copy of the letter to the Ephesians would have been somewhere in the church that lost its first love. Receiving this letter did not guarantee that they would live in love, experiencing the love of Jesus.

Yet in God’s mercy, the same possibility of knowing Jesus is given to us. May we follow the process mapped out by the apostle, no doubt from his own experience, and discover the dimensions of Christ’s love and so grow in our knowledge of God.