- Sermon Notes
- Scripture
Strengthening the Inner Man
Ephesians 3:8-21
November 9-10, 2024
We visited Ephesus on our Footsteps of Paul cruise/tour. We also visited Athens, Corinth, Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, and Rome. We had almost a hundred people on two buses on the tour. I thought it would be edifying to share part of the message I taught there in the city of Ephesus.
Ephesus was one of the largest and most influential cities in the Roman empire. It was located very near the Mediterranean Sea, in the western region of modern-day Turkey. It was situated on a major road such that travelers from Rome and Greece passing through toward Persia, Israel, or Egypt all came to Ephesus.
The Temple of Artemis, also known as Diana, was there in Ephesus. So magnificent was the Temple of Artemis of the Ephesians, it was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
The Roman name of the goddess was Artemis, Diana was the Greek name. She was the goddess of exuberant fertility and prolific motherhood. It was famously claimed that her statue fell from the heavens. In actuality, a meteorite probably fell someplace nearby so they made a shrine and carved an image of wood. Artisans and silversmiths made statuettes of the goddess Diana which became a thriving and profitable business.
He spent probably two or three years in Ephesus. A major revival broke out while Paul was there and many, many people turned away from idolatry and received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Many who practiced magic brought their books of incantations and burned them in a massive bonfire.
So many people believed in Christ in the Ephesian revival that a great disturbance arose. The artisans and silversmiths were concerned that they would lose their lucrative business, so they stirred up a great crowd who gathered in the massive amphitheater. A riot then followed with the whole city in an uproar.
Several years later, when Paul was in Jerusalem, he was arrested and eventually taken as a prisoner to Rome. No longer able to visit them in person, he wrote this letter we have before us today. Paul was wrongly accused and should never have been arrested, but God brings beauty out of ashes. Being a prisoner in Rome gave Paul the opportunity to write letters to the early churches that have become such an important part of the New Testament and a great blessing for us today.
He wasn’t writing to correct them as he did other churches; the church in Ephesus was thriving and healthy. Paul wrote because he wanted them to go deeper in their faith. In the same way, I think we have a healthy church here. Is our church perfect? No, our church is not perfect; no church is perfect and, as the old saying goes, if you ever do find a church that is perfect be sure not to join it — because you’ll surely ruin it.
Our church is healthy because the word of God is taught, and people are growing in their faith and people are falling more in love with Jesus. But God is not finished, there is a much deeper faith that’s possible.
There is a much deeper love that transforms, and God wants that for us as well. We need the victory that comes from deeper faith and a closer walk with Christ.
I. Have Boldness in Confident Access
- God made a way for sinners to come to the Father through Christ, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” Jesus said, “no man comes to the Father but by Me.”
- Verse 12 – But the idea that we can have bold and confident access to the Father is a remarkable idea and is counter intuitive to the way many people think. They think that God pushes sinners away.
- But God pursues sinners and transforms them into sons.
Illus – At lunch after visiting Ephesus, one of the guides came up to me and said, “I hope you don’t mind but I recorded your message. I want to study it carefully. I’ve never heard anything like this…”
- This is part of the “unfathomable riches of Christ” that Paul spoke of; these are the great truths that Paul is bringing to light.
- Most people see themselves as sinners who have no right to be bold or confident in their access to God. But if you would see yourself as an adopted son or daughter, then you would realize that your relationship to God has been completely defined by the fact that you are now adopted as a son or daughter.
Illus – I remember several years ago I was standing with several people at the end of the hallway and our daughter came up the stairs. When she saw me, she immediately came running and jumped into my arms. It had nothing to do whether she was good or bad, but simply because she was my daughter and she was confident in that love.
- For this reason, Paul wrote, I bow my knees before the Father… This is Paul’s second powerful prayer for them, and also for us.
A. Strengthen the inner man
- Verse 16 – Paul prays that God would grant, according to the riches of His glory, that we be strengthened with power in the inner man.
- If people could only understand the riches of His glory, it would completely transform them. The riches of God’s glory dwells in the inner man, transforming the soul by the riches of that glory.
- If you want to grow deeper in faith and nearer to God, you need to be strengthened in the inner man.
- The inner man is strengthened by the presence of God, the Holy Spirit. What difference would it make in your life if you were truly strengthened in the inner man by the Holy Spirit? Strong spiritual bearing comes from having a spiritual formation and foundation and then building upon it.
2 Corinthians 4:16, Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
- What happens when the inner man is weak? Faith is weakened and then, when storms and troubles come, their faith is shipwrecked, they react in the flesh, they’re easily offended, emotions become their master, and they are defeated.
- Strengthen the inner man day by day. How? The Holy Spirit strengthens the soul by “the riches of His glory” for those who dwell in the nearness of God in “confident access in Him”; therefore, build your life spiritually and give attention to your soul.
Proverbs 4:23, Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it the springs of life.
B. May Christ be ‘at home’ in your heart
- Verse 17 – be strengthened in the inner man so that Christ may be at home in your hearts through faith.
- ‘That Christ may dwell’ means that He is at home there. He’s speaking to believers who have already asked Christ into their hearts; he’s speaking of a deeper relationship to Christ.
- In other words, is Christ just a guest in your house or is He ‘at home’ there? There’s a big difference.
John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”
- There were two Greek words which conveyed the idea ‘to dwell;’ one was used for someone living in a place as a guest or a stranger and the other gave the idea of being at home, to dwell permanently.
Illus – Have you ever been somewhere and immediately felt disturbed in your spirit, uncomfortable or ill at ease, like you don’t belong there?
- When Christ ‘dwells’ in your heart in that sense, there’s a sense of welcome and agreement; there is peace.
- When you invite Christ to be ‘at home,’ He doesn’t come in as a guest, He is the Master of the house.
Illus – Are you ‘at home’ with the idea of Christ making Himself ‘at home’ with everything in your life? If you know that He loves you and is for you and desires to bless you, then you’ll be ‘at home’ if he looks through the refrigerator, or if He went through your financial records and the hidden things no one sees. He loves you.
C. Be rooted and grounded in love
- Paul also prays that you would be rooted and grounded in love. The idea of being firmly rooted is that roots that grow deep make the tree firmly planted so that it is always full of life; bearing much fruit.
Illus – In the Northwest we have many fir trees and while they are beautiful, their roots are shallow, and they often topple in a windstorm.
- Being deeply rooted means that there is a depth in our relationship to the Lord that’s based on a deep and trusting love.
Psalm 1:3, He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers.
- To be grounded in love means that there is a foundation built on the Rock of Christ. You know there is a strong foundation when that house is not destroyed by the storms and troubles that come against it.
Luke 6:47-49, Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like; he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well-built.
II. Know the Depths of Christ’s Love
- Paul prays that you would be rooted and grounded in love so you might comprehend the breadth, the length, the height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.
- When revival broke out in Ephesus, it was more than a revival of theology, it was a revival of passion, of love.
- Paul did have a revival of theology. Before he met Jesus, he was a zealous Pharisee, trained in the Law under Gamaliel. He persecuted Christians and was the number one enemy of the church. One day, on his way to Damascus to arrest and persecute Christians, he was literally knocked off his high horse and blinded by a bright light.
- “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” came the voice through his blindness. “Who are you, Lord?” Paul responded. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Arise and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness… To open the eyes of both Jews and Gentiles so that they may turn from darkness to light…”
- God blinded his eyes so he could spiritually see. Later, God sent a man named Ananias to pray for Paul to receive his sight and to go forth, proclaiming the light of the glory of the gospel for the forgiveness of sin and the revival of the soul.
- That’s why he prays in Ephesians 1, “I pray that that the eyes of your heart may be opened…”
- Paul’s eyes were opened. He now read the Old Testament with new understanding. You can imagine him saying, “I get it now,” as he read Isaiah 53 and so many other passages.
- But not only did Paul have a revival of theology, he had a revival of passion.
- To ‘know the love of Christ’ is to experience the love of Christ that surpasses all ‘knowledge.’
- There is a great difference between the mental apprehension of theological knowledge of Christ and experiencing His love.
Illus – You can study the caloric and nutritional content of food, you can read labels with lists of ingredients, but you haven’t experienced it unless you’ve tasted it and therefore you haven’t known it.
- When you experience the love of Christ that takes hold of a broken life and brings radical transformation, it goes far beyond knowledge.
A. Be filled to the fullness of God
- Verse 19 – Paul prays that we would experience the love of Christ so that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
- This captures a great truth. One of the keys to victory in life is what it is that fills you.
Illus – In Eastern religions they meditate by emptying their mind to become one with the universe. The Christian fills his mind with God’s word to fall in love with the creator of the universe.
Psalm 19:14, Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
- To be filled up to all the fullness of God means that God fills with His Spirit; He builds up, edifies and strengthens. In other words, we are filled up by what we take into our lives.
Illus – One day when our granddaughter Aviah was young, we were in her room listening to fun Christian music, singing, and laughing, and dancing. At one point she said, “You want me to ‘get into’ this music so I don’t get into worldly music, isn’t that right, grandpa?” I responded, “You’re absolutely right, Aviah, I love you and I want your soul to be filled up with that which brings joy and peace to your heart.”
Now she’s in her senior year and at a Christian school in South Korea and her soul is thriving because of the goldy input she has in her life.
- What fills you is what comes into your soul through what you see and what you hear.
Romans 10:17, Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
B. Now unto Him who is able
- Verse 20-21 – Paul finishes this prayer with a powerful grand finale.
- Paul is preaching about the unfathomable riches of Christ and when he gets to this great point it’s like he must stop and declare the glory of God in it all.
- If a Christian can come to the point where he truly believes that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, he has reached a great point of maturity of faith.
- It’s not that God is able to do all that we ask or even think, He is able beyond that, in fact abundantly beyond that, well, actually — exceedingly abundantly beyond — all that we ask or think… According to the power that works within us.
- Faith that believes that God is able, is faith that believes, “Nothing is impossible with God.”
- With God it’s all about faith. That’s why Paul prays for them, open the eyes of your heart and know that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond…
1 Corinthians 2:9, As it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.”
C. Don’t leave your first love
- The story of Ephesus wouldn’t be complete unless we included what Jesus said to the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2.
- Over and over, he commends them. “Well done,” you can hear Jesus say. But then he adds, “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”
Illus – Things can change over time; marriage can become routine; the job that was at first exciting can become mundane.
The first child is so special; flash cards are brought to the hospital, and everything is written in a book. By the time the third or fourth one comes along, everything changes. Why? Partly because you’re so busy; your hands are full with so many kids.
- The same is true today, people’s lives become so busy that they have left their first love.
- The first thing Jesus wants them to do is to remember.
- If we have forgotten how wonderful things were at the first, one thing is for certain, God hasn’t forgotten.
Jeremiah 2:2, Thus says the Lord, “I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness, through a land not sown.”
- We need to remember the love we had at first. That’s why communion is so important, because it reminds us again of the great price that Jesus paid for our salvation.
Revelation 2:5, “Remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first…”
- Many people don’t like the word ‘repent,’ but it’s a word with a simple meaning, to change direction,’ ‘to have a new mind.’
- Jesus told them to do the deeds they did at first.
- What were you doing when you were on fire for the Lord? Do those things again.
- Were you worshipping the Lord and singing with all your might? Do that again.
- Were you hungry after God’s Word and reading it with an eager heart? Do that again.
- God wants you to fall in love with Him all over again.
Illus – There is a beautiful trend of renewing marriage vows. It’s a way of saying, “I love you and I would do it all over again.” In a similar way, there is something beautiful about falling in love with the Lord all over again. Return to your first love.
Ephesians 3:8-21 NASB
8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; 10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. 13 Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory.
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
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