Let us kneel before the Father. Ephesians 3:14-21
That is the 7th prayer I have prayed so far this morning and it might interest you to know, out of the 7 prayers I have prayed this morning 6 of them were about you. The only prayer that was not about you was when we took a moment of silence between the confession and absolution, that prayer was all about me and my sins and my need for a savior. But otherwise, 6 out of 7 prayers I have prayed so far this morning have been about you.
The 1st prayer was prayed after I showed up to church early this morning. I stood before this altar and prayed a version of Luther’s morning prayer, “I thank you my heavenly father that you have kept me this knight from harm and danger keep me this day from sin and evil so that (and here is where you come in) so that all my doings in life may please you specifically this day’s doings of leading your people in prayer and praises.” I prayed a 2nd prayer for you in my office after I vested. I prayed, “Lord, thank you for bringing your sons and daughters, guests and visitors to worship today. Overcome my human inabilities and use me to your glory and their good.” The 3rd prayer is prayed when I enter the sanctuary and took my seat. “Lord, bless the praying, playing, preaching and praising of your people.” The 4th prayer is my personal penitent prayer during the confession and absolution. I am not going to share the details of that prayer with you. It changes week to week, but it is basically me confessing what a sinful schmuck I am and how I am ashamed and irritated that, though there are always newcomers, I must repeatedly confess the same set of sins week after week. The 5th prayer is the prayer of the day. Today I prayed that you would be “illumined by Word and Sacraments and shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory”. The 6th prayer is prayed as you sing the last verse of the hymn of the day. I stand behind the pulpit and pray, “Lord, help me to remember what I wrote, preach it with power and passion and use this sermon to help them in their lives and bring them closer to you.” Which brings us to the 7th prayer you just heard me pray about the pleasing meditation of your hearts. (That prayer I stole from King David).
I don’t think a pastor praying a half a dozen prayers for his people on a Sunday morning is anything unusual. Pastors pray for their people. It’s what they do. It’s what pastor Paul is doing for his people in our epistle lesson for this morning. While he is imprisoned in Rome, Paul writes a letter to a group of believers of whom he seems especially fond. Paul spent over three years in Ephesus on his third missionary journey. That’s the most amount of time Paul spends in any one place. Based on Paul’s emotional farewell to the elders in Ephesus it almost seems as if he would stay in Ephesus forever if he were not compelled by the holy Spirit to take the gospel to Rome. Paul loves the believers who have gathered in Ephesus, as a pastor loves his people, so it comes as no surprise to us to read in the opening verses of his letter to the Ephesians, “ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”[1] Pastors pray for their people. It’s what they do.
In Ephesians 3:14-21 Paul shares the content of one of the many prayers he prays for the Ephesians. As you are about to see, Paul’s prayer for his people is arguably more poetic than the prayers I pray for you. Therefore, it is my intent to hijack this prayer from Paul and use it as my own prayer for you, but before I kneel before the Father and pray this pastor’s prayer, I thought I would first explain what is being prayed and why.
In verse 14-16 pastor Paul writes, “14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family 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.” The point of this pastor’s prayer is quite simple, he wants the love of Jesus to dwell in the hearts of his people.
Paul, like your pastor, wants his people to know about the eternal Son of God who willingly confined Himself to the limitations of space and time, about the omnipotent (all-powerful) Son of God who humbly wrapped Himself in the frailty of human flesh and experienced thirst, hunger, and fatigue, about the omniscient (all-knowing) Son of God who permitted his parents to teach Him how to use the potty, walk, and tie His sandals, about the sinless Son of God who allowed Himself to be tempted to lust the form of a pretty woman, mock the fickleness of his friends, and ridicule his enemies for their arrogance. Paul, like your pastor, wants his people to know that the eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, sinless Son of God did all of that because Jesus loves you, but that is not all that He did. Jesus also endured the betrayal of a disciple, the condemnation of a church, the torture of an empire, and, worst of all, the forsaking of a Father. Paul, like your pastor, wants his people to know that this too was done because Jesus loves you, but still this is not all that He has been done. Jesus continues to provide for all your needs and protect you from all your enemies, He guides you in the way you should go and directs you down the path of righteousness, He comforts you when you are hurting and support you when you are frightened, He defends you from Satan’s accusations and prepares a place for you in heaven. Paul, like your pastor, wants his people to know Jesus does these things because He loves you.
Paul repeatedly reminded his people of the things Jesus had done for them, was doing for them, would do for them because Paul wanted the love of Jesus to dwell in their hearts. Pastor Paul prayed that his people be “17… rooted and established in love.” When I hear the words “rooted and established” there are two places on our church campus to which my mind immediately goes and there are two young people of whom I immediately think.
When I hear the word “rooted” I think of the bushes around the sign at the entrance to our church and the young person that comes to mind is Lillian. Over the years the bushes out front have overgrown and have started to conceal the sign. Which is a problem because that is the sign we are using to advertise our new preschool. So, I asked Lillian to remove 5 or 6 of the bushes that were the closest to the sign. I gave her a handsaw, pruner, and a shovel, perhaps not the best tools for the job but knowing what a stubborn young woman Lillian can be I thought they were sufficient for the task. However, I was wrong. The poor thing was out there for hours, hacking, digging, pulling, and prying. Lillian stubbornly attacked the first bush with all her might, but as the sun set the roots remained.
When I hear the word “established” I think of a cinder block that is embedded in the base of a tree on our church playground and the young person that comes to mind is Will. As you know, we have refurbished and expanded the playground in anticipation of our new preschool. Everything out there looks amazing. If you haven’t gone back there in a while do it today, I think you will be impressed by everything you see, everything that is except the cinder block protruding from the earth on the back side of the playground. Not only is it an eyesore but it is also an unwanted obstacle along the trike path. So, I asked Will to smash it up and remove it. I gave him a pickaxe. Again, not exactly the right tool for the job but Will is a young man of considerable strength, so I wasn’t worried. But once again I was wrong. That boy beat that cinder block like it had insulted his momma; I could feel the earth tremble beneath my feet with each blow, but in the end, it was the pickaxe not the cinder block that was busted.
Paul, like your pastor, wants the love of Jesus to be rooted and established in your heart because there is a force that seeks to uproot and demolish that love. That force is far more stubborn than Lillian and possess a strength greater than that of Will. The force I am referring to is called life and on this side of heaven it threatens to uproot and demolish. Life comes at you with hardship and suffering, and it comes at you from every direction; financial, emotional, physical. It never seems to stop coming at you; from your earliest days to your last days life is full of hardship and suffering.
From sunup to sundown life, this side of heaven, stubbornly hacks away at you, with an irrational anger life, this side of heaven, pounds down on you. But with the love of Jesus rooted and established in your heart you have the power to endure all that life throws at you. Paul, like your pastor, prayed “17… that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, 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.” Somehow the love of Jesus that expands through the breadth of life’s experiences, that endures through the length of your earthly days, that descended from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell and back again, somehow that love gives you the power to bear up under the hardships and sufferings that fill a life this side of heaven. That is why the first comfort I offer to people who are dealing with the hardship and suffering of life is to simply remind them that Jesus loves them. It doesn’t explain why the “bad” things happen. I can’t explain why a dad dies young. I can’t explain why a nephew’s heart fails, I can’t explain why anyone let alone a toddler should be eaten alive by cancer, I can’t explain why a freak accident at a golf course killed a husband, I can’t explain why your coworkers resemble characters in a Greek tragedy, I can’t explain the “bad” things that happen while living life this side of heaven, but I can tell you Jesus is not mad at you, Jesus is not punishing you, Jesus is not toying with you. I can tell you everything Jesus has ever done, everything Jesus is doing, everything that Jesus will do is done because Jesus loves you. So even if I can’t explain it and you don’t understand it, you can be comforted in the knowledge that Jesus only allowed the “bad” thing to happen because He loves you.
Paul, like your pastor, prayed for the love of Jesus to dwell in the hearts of his people so that they would have the power to bear up under the hardships and sufferings of life this side of heaven. Now that you know the what and the why of Paul’s prayer, let us kneel before the Father and pray. “Heavenly Father, out of your glorious riches, strengthen your people with power through your Spirit. Cause the love of Christ to dwell in their hearts that being rooted and established in the love of Jesus they may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. I pray this knowing that you are able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine. To you be glory here and now among us, among the generations that follow us and forever and ever! Amen.”
[1] Ephesians 1:15-16