Ron Dunn Podcast - Strengthened By The Spirit

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

Ron Dunn brings the fourth message in his series from Ephesians

Ephesians chapter 3, and I'm going to read verses 14 through the end of the chapter, verse 21. Ephesians 3, 14 through 21. This is a prayer of Paul for believers. And as we mentioned last week, Paul's prayers are simply God's promises. And as we read this, what is being revealed to us is what God wants to do in the lives of each one of us, and also in this particular prayer, the process through which God wants to bring us to that purpose, beginning out with the 14th verse. Paul says, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives

its name, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above, beyond all that we ask or think,

according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Now, this is a prayer that culminates in an expression in verse 19, that you and I may be filled up to all the fullness of God. And there is no doubt that that is the ultimate goal that God has in view for every believer. And we're going to examine next week exactly what that phrase means, that you and I be filled up to all the fullness of God.

And that is the climax, the culmination of what God desires for each one of us. And that's the goal of this prayer of the Apostle Paul. That's what it's all leading up to. And there are three, as we saw last week, different petitions in this prayer. The first one is that we might be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man. And these are progressive petitions, one leading up to the other. Now, when the Holy Spirit strengthens us in the inner man,

which allows Jesus Christ to become fully indwelling us, to become Master and Lord completely in our hearts, then, he says, this will enable us to become master and Lord completely in our hearts, then he says this will enable us to be able to comprehend and to know the love of Christ. That's the second petition. Number one is to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit in the inner man. The second petition is that you and I might have a capacity for understanding the love of Jesus Christ. And the third petition is that we might be filled up with all the fullness of God.

But a person can't be filled up with all the fullness of God until, first of all, he has a spiritual capacity to understand the love of Christ. And he cannot have a spiritual capacity to understand the love of Christ until, first of all, he is strengthened by the Holy Spirit in the inner man. And so, first of all, when the Spirit by the Holy Spirit in the inner man. And so, first of all, when the Spirit of God strengthens us in the inner man, this enables us to understand, to comprehend the love of Jesus Christ, which in turn will enable us to be filled with all the fullness of God. So we're climbing the mountain, and the top of the mountain is the fullness of God, that fullness in our life.

And the second stage, the halfway house up the mountain, is this, that you and I might have a spiritual capacity to understand the love of Christ. Now, I want to read again verses 17 and 18 and 19. Paul says, So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you, being rooted and grounded in love. Now that expression indicates the nature of a Christian life. A Christian life is one that is rooted and grounded in love. Now, since we are rooted and grounded in love, Paul says,

I'm praying that you may be able to comprehend this love in which you are rooted and grounded, and that you may be able to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. The Christian life is rooted and grounded in love. Now notice, we're rooted and grounded in love. That's what the element is in the Christian life. That's the environment of the Christian. And this love in which you and I have been founded and which you and I have been grounded, this same love is the

love that we are to experience in our daily lives. Rooted and grounded. The rooted is the figure of a soil, and the soil in which the plant is planted is the love of Christ. In other words, Paul is saying that the love of Jesus Christ is the food that nourishes the Christian life. Then in the next expression he changes the figure of speech and uses the figure of a building foundation. Rooted, picture of a plant in a soil. Grounded, the picture of a foundation laid and a superstructure resting upon it.

So the first figure simply means this, that the love of Christ is that which nourishes my life. And my life as a Christian grows because it is planted in the love of Christ. And this gives me the food with which I am able to grow. Christian life as a Christian grows because it is planted in the love of Christ, and this gives me the food with which I am able to grow. The love of Christ is also the foundation upon which my Christian life is built, and this gives me stability and steadfastness in the Christian life. Now, these two expressions really embrace all that you ever need in your daily Christian

living. For instance, the love of Christ as the soil is that which gives us life and gives us nourishment. In other words, this means that the love that Jesus has for me is to be the motivating factor in everything I do. Why am I supposed to pray? Because the love of Christ, Paul says, constrains me. Why should I witness? Because the love of Christ constrains me. The great motivation in everything that I do as a believer is to be the fact that Jesus Christ has loved me. And Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, The love of Christ constraineth me.

And what he's trying to explain in that fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians is the motivation of his life, why he's able to suffer as he is, and why he is able to expend his life as he is. And he says there's just one simple reason. The love of Christ has taken hold of me and grips me, and it motivates me, and I am propelled to do all of these things because of the love that Jesus Christ has for me. And so, when the love of Jesus Christ is properly understood in my life, then this will be the motivating factor

for everything I do. And really, it'll be the only motivating factor you need. And maturity, it seems to me, is when love replaces fear, when love replaces begging, when love replaces hounding and hassling. A person ought not to pray because he's hounded by the pastor to pray. A person ought not to witness because he's shamed by the preacher to witness. He ought to be impelled and compelled to witness because of his recognition and vision

of the love that Jesus Christ has for him. And of course, you see this when Simon Peter was having this breakfast with Jesus after the resurrection, and Jesus asked him a simple question, do you love me? And Peter said, yes, I love you. And Jesus said, all right, if you love me, then feed my sheep. And three times he repeated this question, and three times the answer was the same, you know I love you. And three times the response of Jesus was the same, all right, feed my sheep, feed my lambs.

What was Jesus saying? He's saying, Peter, if you really love me, then this love will motivate you to service, to labor, to work. And so love is the soil that gives life to our Christian service. But it's not only the soil that gives nourishment and life, it's also the soil that gives life to our Christian service. But it's not only the soil that gives nourishment and life, it's also the foundation that gives assurance and stability. There are times when you need assurance, and there are times when you need reassurance. And there are times when in your Christian life there are storms of doubt and storms of difficulty, when it

seems as though everything that you've ever believed in is just shattered and you can't see any way out and there's tragedy and there's suffering and there's sorrow. And at that time, the only thing that will keep you stable and steadfast and give you assurance is the fact that Jesus Christ loves you, and knowing that he loves you to the extent he gave himself to die for you, then you can never doubt, you can never doubt that what he's allowing to come to pass in your life is simply the expression of his love for you. And there are times in your life and my life when we must have the foundation of love to assure us and to reassure us. Now, Paul says, since this love is the heart and the essence of what it means to be saved,

he says, I want you to fully comprehend this love. The difference between Christians is not in what they possess spiritually. Do you ever have a tendency, when you read the biographies of men like J. Hudson Taylor and Goforth, William Carey, Do you ever have the tendency or the temptation to think that these men, these great Christians had more than you had? You know, it's one of the amazing things to me

is that as I read the exploits of the Apostle Paul and see what kind of Christian he was and see what God did through him, to know that Paul had absolutely nothing that you and I do not have. That Paul had no more of God than I have. That Paul had no more of Jesus than I have.

That Paul had no more of the Holy Spirit than I have. That God did not favor Paul above anybody else. That God has no favorites. And Paul wasn't the teacher's pet that got extraordinary care and extra attention and extra tutoring that God gave to the apostle Paul absolutely not a whit more than he's given to any of us. And the difference in Christians is not that some possess something that others do not possess. It is in their apprehension and appropriation of what they do possess. And really that is the only difference. And every believer in this place tonight has been rooted and grounded in the love of Jesus.

And it's possible that you could be constrained and compelled and propelled by the love of Christ tonight to make all of your service a blessing instead of a burden and to liberate you from the sin that does so easily beset you if you ever came to apprehend and appropriate the love of Jesus Christ, which is the essence and the heart of your salvation. And so this is what Paul is praying for.

Before we can ever come to be filled with all the fullness of God, there are two things that have to happen in your relationship to the love of Christ. Paul says, first of all, I'm praying that you might comprehend the love of Christ. Now, the word that is used and translated comprehend is better translated apprehend, because the word means to lay hold of something and to grip it so tightly that it becomes your very own. And it speaks of an intellectual grasp, a mental understanding. Paul is saying, here's the first thing. I want you to come to the place where you have a complete

and total understanding, intellectual grasp of the love of Christ. He says, I want you to know it in its fullness. I want you to know it in all of its dimensions. I want you to know it in its breadth. I want you to know it in its length. I want you to know it in its height. I want you to know it in its depth. I want you to be able with your mind to embrace all that the love of Christ is and involves. And that's the first thing, to be unignorant of the dimensions of the love of Christ. And this is so important because he says, I want you to know the breadth of the love of Christ. And if you and I don't understand mentally,

just accept the fact that the love of Christ is so broad that it embraces all men, regardless of race, creed, or color, we're never going to be propelled by that love to witness. And of course, this was one of the things that God had to do to the Apostle Peter before he could ever go and witness to Cornelius, that Gentile. And when Simon Peter fell asleep on the housetop in Joppa, and God gave to him that vision, and was showing to him that nothing that God has made is unclean,

what God was simply doing was giving to the apostle Peter an apprehension of the breadth of the love of Christ. Because at that time, Peter thought that the love of Christ was narrow, just narrow enough to squeeze in a few Jews. And the Gentiles just couldn't make it because the love of Christ was too narrow for the Gentiles to get in. And first of all, he had to mentally apprehend, understand the breadth of that love. And you have to do the same thing.

He says, I want you to understand, to apprehend the length of that love. The length of that love. And this is important because if you don't understand that the love of Christ is an everlasting love, an everlasting love, it's going to be easy for you to grow impatient with people. Through the prophet Jeremiah, he says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. And if you would like a demonstration of the infinite patience of the love of God, you read God's dealings with the people of Israel. Over and over again, over and over again, as they disobeyed him and rebelled against him.

And yet God refused to let them go. And even now, Paul says in Romans that he hasn't abandoned his people whom he did foreknow. Paul says, don't you get the idea that because the Gentiles are flooding into the kingdom of God and that God has, because God has grafted on that Gentile branch, don't you think for a moment that God's love is no longer everlasting and eternal? It is. It is. Praying in the prayer chapel today, came across some people for salvation that have been on there since the day we opened it up.

One of the first requests, a year, year and a half, been on there, still not saved. You get tired of praying for them? Man, there's that name again. Why don't they get with it? I think I'll just skip that one and go to the next one. Try to find a fresh one. Try to find a new one. Paul says, I want you to understand the length, the length of God's love.

I want you to understand the height of God's love. I want you to understand the height of God's love, the height to which it lifts you. I'll tell you, the heavenly status that the love of Christ has brought each one of us. Just to know that we're his children and that God is not ashamed to be called our God, and we sit with him tonight in heavenly places, and that all the treasures of God are at our disposal, and that he loves us, and has elevated us to the status of sons, and that we shall reign with him, and are joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

He says, I want you to understand the height, and I want you to understand the depth of it. The depth of it. How deep is it? It's as deep as hell. How deep is it? It's as deep as the cross. How deep is it? It's as deep as the vilest sinner. How deep is it? The depth of love. It reaches all the way down to the pit. He says, I want you to have an apprehension, a complete and total understanding of the love of Christ. And you know, there's a little phrase that he throws in.

Excuse me, he doesn't throw it in, but we read it as though it is thrown in, is what I meant to say. He says, I want you to comprehend with all the saints, with all the saints, the dimensions of the love of Christ. Did you know that you will never be able, you will never be able to apprehend, to understand, to get a hold of the love of Christ by yourself.

It is only as you come together and fellowship with all the saints that you're able really to understand the dimensions of his love. And you can say, well, I don't need the fellowship of the saints and it's not important whether or not I assemble myself together. I can know just as much of God

and I can worship God just as much all by myself. You can't do it. You cannot do it. You cannot comprehend the dimensions of the love of Christ by yourself. You can only do it with all the saints. There's just too much there for one person. It takes all the saints. And you know what?

Every Sunday morning and Sunday night as I stand up here and look at some of you, I get a bigger understanding of the love of Christ. And you know what? As you sit out there and listen to me and look at me, you get a bigger understanding of the dimensions of the love of Christ. And it is only as you and I fellowship together, and as a body, and as a fellowship, that we are able to take in, to mentally comprehend and grasp the love of Christ. That's first, an apprehension of the love of Christ. Second, he says, I pray that you will come to know the love of Christ. He's not simply saying the same thing in a different word.

The word translated to know means to know by experience. Not only does he pray that we may apprehend the love of Christ, he prays that we may appropriate the love of Christ. To know it by experience. You see, it is possible for you to know intellectually the exact dimensions

of the love of Christ and not have an ounce of it in your heart. And that's a tragic sight and an abomination. It is possible for us to intellectually, to intellectually understand, grasp the vastness of God's love and yet there not be a bit of it expressed in our lives. So Paul says, I pray not only that you are mentally apprehended,

I pray that you'll experientially know it and appropriate it. That you may know by experience the love of Christ. Now notice that next expression, which surpasses knowledge. Use it the same Greek word. Here's what Paul is saying. I'm praying that you'll know that which is beyond knowledge. Isn't that amazing?

That you'll know that which is unknowable. Now there is that of the love of Christ which you and I can mentally apprehend. And we can stand tonight and talk about it and relate it to one another and discuss it and write about it and preach about it. There is that in the love of Christ which we can intellectually apprehend. But I want you to know there is also that in the love of Christ which we can intellectually apprehend. But I want you to know there is also that in the love of Christ which we can never explain, we can never formulate, we can never write down. We can only know it and experience it. And to try to express it is an impossibility.

To try to share what we know and what we feel and what we've experienced of the love of Jesus is an impossibility. There is that of the love of Christ. And it is when a person comes to know the love of Christ like that, that he no longer just simply has a grasp of the love of Christ intellectually, but now that love has a grasp on him. He not only has laid hold of the love of Christ intellectually, but now that love has a grasp on him. He not only has laid hold of the love of Christ intellectually, but now that love has laid hold on him, and he becomes its prisoner. And he has felt the impact of the love of Jesus. He can't explain it. He can't describe

it. He can't write it down, one, two, three formula. It's beyond understanding. It's beyond knowledge, but he has experienced it. How do you relate? How do you describe that which is unknowable? But Paul says you can know that which is beyond knowing. And that's what a Christian comes to know. He knows that which is beyond knowledge. This is why the Spirit-filled believer, that believer upon whose throne Jesus Christ sets his Lord, is a mystery, an enigma to the world and to the carnal Christian.

And there are those people that if you try to find a logical, human, visible explanation for their life, for their drive, for their energy, for their compassion. It's beyond knowing. It's beyond knowing. But they have passed from simply having an apprehension of that love to the place where they have appropriated that love. They have experienced it in their own heart. And it's beyond understanding, beyond knowing. This is where Paul was when

he said, The love of Christ constrains me. He said, Pastor, can you prove that? Can you prove that there is a difference and that that is what makes the difference? I believe I can. Because probably every one of us tonight that's saved has a pretty fair apprehension of the love of Christ. Don't you? I mean, you have a mental grasp of the love of Christ. You know how broad it is. It takes in every man. You know how long it is. It's everlasting, never wears out, never gives up. You know how high it is. You know it wants to lift man up to the throne of God. You know how deep it is. It plunges even to the depths of hell to save those that are lost. You know that. You have a mental apprehension of that. But it is not compelling you and propelling you to devotion and sacrifice

and your heart is not burdened and you pray with dry eyes. But Paul could stand and say, I have ceased not by the space of three years to teach you day and night with tears. The Holy Spirit has told me that if I go to Jerusalem, only bonds and afflictions await me. But none of these things move me, for I am ready not only to be bound, but to die also. He had more than a mental apprehension of the love of Christ.

The love of Christ constraineth me, constraineth me, so he could save part of me to live as Christ and to die as gain. Because he had come to that place where knowledge had passed into experience and he knew that which was beyond knowing. You say, well, how do you come to know that? Well, you come to know it when through the strengthening power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ becomes no longer guest in your heart, but he becomes host, indwelling Indwelling fully and totally, becoming master. So when a person is strengthened by the Holy Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ indwells his heart as Lord and Master, then he is enabled to apprehend and appropriate the love of Christ.

And when Jesus comes in as Lord and Master, he simply fills that vacancy with himself. And so the Bible says in Romans chapter 5 that the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the love of God which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The love of God which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The love of God which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The word shed abroad means to pour out profusely, just flooding it. But there's a little construction in the New Testament language that literally reads like this,

it's poured out of into. Poured out of into. Poured out of what? out of the heart of God into where? into my heart and you know what the Holy Spirit does? when Jesus Christ becomes Lord and Master in the heart he is continually dipping into the vast ocean of God's love and pouring it out of God's heart and pouring it into our hearts and so we come to know the love of Christ

which passes knowledge and there's an ever increasing knowing of the love of Christ and no matter how much of his love you have experienced tonight there are vast oceans that you don't even know about and the more fully and the more completely Jesus

becomes Lord in your life the deeper and deeper he'll lead you into that love And the more fully and the more completely Jesus becomes Lord in your life, the deeper and deeper he'll lead you into that love. And as he leads you deeper into that love, you will be impelled and compelled and propelled out to share and to serve and to witness. And then you're able to be filled with all the fullness of God. And that's what God's leading up to in the lives of each one of us. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated,

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