Ephesians 3.14-21
A sermon preached at St Margaret’s Nedlands 6th September 2020
My first attempt to explain this passage left a lot to be desired. I was trying to cover two subjects in one sermon, which is always difficult. At the end of the eight o’clock service my wife told me our son had phoned to wish me a happy Father’s Day. Father’s Day! I had just been trying to explain the fatherhood of God and didn’t have any idea it was Father’s Day. At the nine thirty service I was able to tackle the subject differently and things went much better. My rule in preaching is to take one subject and work it as well as I can. The second part of Ephesians 3 forces us to look at two. The main subject is what Paul prays for every Christian. But first he tells us to whom he prays, and something about God that demands we stop and explore: “For this reason, I bow my knee before the Father, from whom all “fatherhood” in heaven and earth is named …”
Paul addresses his prayer very specifically to God, the Father. Sometimes we become confused whether we should pray to the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or just to God. Christians believe that the one God, who created all things is three distinct and real persons. That is as the Bible teaches. So, it is in order to address prayer to Jesus, because he is the eternally begotten (not created) Son of the Father. Jesus is God. He and the Father are one. When the apostle Thomas realized Jesus had come alive he addressed him as “My Lord and my God!” Jesus accepted this. He is also the King-Lord of all creation. The early Christians prayed, “Our Lord come!”
It is also not wrong to address the Holy Spirit directly; he too is God. But there is a normal and ordinary way to pray, and that is to address our prayers to the Father. We don’t fully know why this is so, but Paul directs his prayers to the Father, and Jesus invites us to say, “Abba, Father”. So we should, even though we don’t fully understand why. We can be sure that what we are doing is the most appropriate thing. It is God, after all, to whom we pray; he knows best how he wishes to be approached.
One of the standards of Anglican belief is the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). Anglicans accept the ultimate authority of the Bible, and then the Creeds, the Ordinal, the Thirty Nine Articles, and the Book of Common Prayer. Anglicanism is unusual in having its prayer book as one of its standards. The Prayer Book models Christian prayer and worship. It teaches us how to approach God: we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Prayer Book is profoundly trinitarian and teaches us to approach God according to the teaching of the Scriptures. As I said, we don’t always understand fully what we are doing, but we can be sure that in following the pattern of Scripture we are acting appropriately towards God. Our children hear and repeat many things they don’t understand, as parents model a good approach to life. This is how we learn. As I have grown older, I have come to appreciate the Prayer Book. I wish that every Christian home and person, Anglican or not, would have one, and from time to time employ its treasures in family and private devotions.[1] Prayer is personal, of course. It is a sad Christian who cannot talk to God without a prayer book. But we deprive ourselves when we refuse the help of thousands of years of Jewish and Christian devotion.
Paul bows his knee to the Father, and to the Father he addresses his prayer. We are sometimes told that our talk about God is “anthropomorphic”, meaning we think of him in terms of human experience. But God is not human, and therefore, we are told, we know nothing about God. Sometimes it is said that to think of God as a father is unhelpful, because many have had negative experiences of their father. Furthermore, to make God a father is sexist; it privileges men. Why should we not think of God as mother? What Paul says here in Ephesians 2 should clarify our thinking: all fatherhood in heaven and earth comes from the Father. God the Father comes first. Christian god-talk is not anthropomorphic; rather, our thinking about fathers and families is theomorphic. God is the original father; human fathers are images, and often poor images, of God. We model our fathering on God, not God on us. Get this straight and it will save us from a world of modern confusion.
As a young Christian I was deeply influenced by a book by Harry Blamires called, The Christian Mind. The author criticized the Christians of his day (my day) for having a Christian spirituality and a Christian morality, but lacking a Christian mind. What he meant was that we did not think about things in the way God taught us to think in his Word. We lacked a Christian “worldview”. What he said was true, and many were inspired by this book to strive for a more Christian understanding of God, ourselves and the world; of everything, in other words! Our thinking about gender and sexuality must start here. The fatherhood of God is the very first stone in the structure of a Christian worldview. Paul says that all fatherhood in heaven and earth derive from him. The word patria is difficult to translate. It means that every family derives its structure and meaning from him, but more: every fatherhood structure, “all fatherhood gets its name from him.” We might say that the whole concept of fatherhood begins with the fatherhood of God. It is part of what it means to be made in God’s image. In recent days many men have become confused about their role. Confusion can lead to frustration. Sometimes frustration leads to violent behaviour. When men model themselves on the Father-God, the way ahead becomes clearer.
God the Father is the fountainhead of Deity. Bound up in the notion human fatherhood is origination, leadership, protection and care. It raises the hot question whether the Bible teaches patriarchy. It does not! Family groups and clans were and still are often led by a grandfather or great-grandfather, but the Bible doesn’t teach that this should be so. What it says is “therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh.” (Genesis 2.24)) This means that when a man marries he becomes head of a new family; he is a closer relation now to his wife than to his father and mother. This is fundamental if we are thinking our way towards a Christian worldview.
We might also draw the conclusion – though we need to test this with the rest of the Bible’s teaching – that God has organized his creation in fatherhood groups. Paul speaks of all fatherhood in heaven and earth. Heaven is beyond our knowledge, but we could surmise that here on earth God has structured things in family groups, which derive from a man’s decision to invite a woman to be his partner for life, and to bear their children, for whom he will care and protect and provide. I know I am putting this in a provocative way, but I hope you will ponder whether this is not true. Of course, in our fallen world there are many exceptions and deviations, but if we base our understanding on the exceptions, as our modern sociocrats wish to do, we will find ourselves in a quicksand of endless confusion and unhappiness. Anyway, our reading only glances off the subject of human fatherhood. What Paul wants us to know is what he asks his Father for us.
What then is it that Paul prays to the Father for us? The short answer is power. Power is one of the four principal desires of human beings. We long for love, for fame, for wealth and for power. So, it should interest us that Paul prays that God will give us power. Often, power is seen as evil. “Power corrupts.” We are troubled by “power politics”. So and so is “power drunk”, “power crazy”. The nations are locked in a “power struggle”. But it need not be evil.
In physics force is what you need to apply to get the car moving if you are trying to push-start it. Energy is what you need inside of you to be able to exert that pressure, and energy is what you expend by pushing. Power is what is needed to do it in a reasonable amount of time. Engines have a power rating. It measures how much energy is required every second, say, to accelerate from zero to 60 kilometres per hour in so many seconds. In day to day use we think of power as what it takes to get something done. The power of the press is their ability to turn the people against someone they don’t like. We see them hard at it with Donald Trump. He is exerting power in the other direction. Money is power because with money you can get others to do the pushing for you. The power of prayer means you can actually get what you want to happen by asking God to do the pushing.
Everyone wants and needs power. We feel the frustration of wanting to do things and not being able because we lack the power. If only we had more money, or more influence, we would have more power and be able to do what we want. It boils down to being able to impose our will on the world. Of course, what I want is good; therefore, it is good for me to have the power to do it. I may not think what you want is good, so I hope you don’t get the power to have your way.
Good or bad it amounts to the same thing: I want to do my thing, and having power means I can. Most people see some good in what they want to achieve or what they want to see happen, and that’s why deep down we see power as a good thing – for us or those we approve.
Paul prays that Christians may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in our inner man (person). That’s verse 16, and in verse 18 he prays that we may be strong. He doesn’t see power as a bad thing. But what sort of power is he praying for, and what does he want us to do with it?
Many Christians are frustrated. They would like to be different from what they are. They wish they weren’t so often depressed. They wish they didn’t fall so easily into sin. They wish they were happier, more buoyant. They would like to have a better image of themselves. They wish they didn’t get afraid of things or anxious. They wish when matters of truth arise, they didn’t get clammy hands, or a squeaky voice. We long for power to be the kind of person who impresses. And, of course, we want all the things we want and to do the things we want to do, and that requires power. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that Paul wants to increase our strength in these areas.
It comes as a surprise then to find that this is not exactly the power that he is requesting. He prays that we may be strengthened with power by his Spirit within for two things, or three, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, and that we be rooted and established in love, and that we should have power to understand the full extent of the love of Christ. The source of the power he is requesting is the Holy Spirit sent to us by the Father. The effect is to have Christ indwelling us, and to be filled with love, leading to an understanding of the full extent of Christ’s love. He is thinking first not so much of the truth that every Christian is indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, but is asking that our consciousness might be so filled with Christ that he is always present in our thoughts. Further, he wants us to be “rooted and grounded in love”, meaning that our thoughts and actions grow from a conviction of Christ’s love, and flower into loving behaviour. He asks power for us to “comprehend with all the saints what is the length and breadth and height and depth of the love of Christ, and so be filled “with all the fulness of God.”
Initially we may be disappointed at this. We were hoping for power to become an impressive person, or to get what we desire, but instead Paul is concerned with the building up of our faith in Christ’s love. Does this even require power?
We all know God loves us – or so we say. The way we live actually says the opposite. When we are faced with God’s will or our own, we instinctively feel God does not want us to be happy; what we are wanting is the best for us. This is our problem; we don’t actaully trust God. So, Paul prays for us power to really know Christ’s love, to feel it, to understand it deeply, to be rooted and grounded in it. This is something for which he must invoke the power of God!
Paul seems almost to have turned the whole idea of power on its head. In Colossians 1 he prays that we be empowered with power “for all patience and longsuffering (endurance) with joy.” He seems to be praying that we should have power to endure powerlessness – with joy! How can this be? Joy comes from the realization that for all our weakness God’s mighty power is working to bring the universe under the headship of Christ. He prays that we may have power, not so that we may get out there and fight, but that we can see that Christ is fighting for us. In all the troubles that befall us, when we are tempted to pull out the stops and apply an unrighteous power, be it money or influence or lies or violence, or else to feel hopelessness and despair, we are to know that God is in control and that his Son is guiding things relating to us according to a love which is wide and long and high and deep.
It is as though Paul considers all our efforts: our struggles, victories, defeats, spiritual achievements, and the power needed for them, as mere nothings in comparison with what is really going on. God is bringing the whole universe under the headship of Christ. And to this end he is working in you: saving you by grace, and working in you to accomplish the good works he has prepared beforehand for you to walk in. You on the other hand will be striving for one thing or the other, which may or may not, be in the plan of God. Then it is a question of your will or his, and we can easily find ourselves fighting God. He will win, of course, but we may be left feeling miserable and defeated. But when you grasp the length and breadth and height and depth of the love of Christ – for you – and that he has only defeated you out of love for you, then you begin to accept his will and plan with joy. That is the power Paul want for each one of us.
Life is happening all around us. We are all engaged in something, maybe several things – straining ourselves to get the job done – perhaps there is opposition and we must summon what power we have to win – and there are always things we need or wish for – how can we get them – and there are the interruptions – we must try hard to get ourselves free of them – and the unexpected: the accident, someone’s betrayal, the pandemic, sickness, the natural disaster. We cannot ignore all this; it is our life, the life God has given us. We must have targets, goals, tasks, deadlines. But in the midst of it all, especially when things are not working out, when our power is just not up to our plans, God wants us to know that his plan is going ahead just fine, and it is a plan for our wellbeing and happiness. Part of that plan is that we learn to trust him, learn to know the length and breadth of the love of Christ – for us – which is the love of the Father for you his child.
[1] There are now many modern prayer books, modelled on the BCP. Some can be complicated to use, though they will be found to contain many valuable resources for prayer and devotion. The BCP remains the standard and is a treasure of the English language.