The Architecture of True Strength Text: Ephesians 3:14-21
Introduction: The Anemia of the Modern Soul
We live in an age that is obsessed with strength, but it is a fraudulent strength. We have men who can lift enormous weights in the gym but who cannot lift their eyes from a screen to look their wife in the face. We have women who are told that strength is found in career advancement and personal autonomy, but who are wracked with anxiety and loneliness. The world offers us a thousand different programs for self-improvement, self-esteem, and self-actualization. But all of it, every last bit, is an attempt to build a skyscraper on a foundation of sand. It is an attempt to strengthen the outer man while the inner man, the command center of the soul, is collapsing from spiritual malnutrition.
The modern evangelical church, tragically, has often bought into this counterfeit gospel of therapeutic wellness. We have exchanged the power of the Holy Spirit for the principles of pop psychology. We want God to make us feel better, to soothe our anxieties, to make us successful in the world's eyes. But the Apostle Paul is not interested in making us feel better. He is interested in making us strong. Not strong in ourselves, but strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
This prayer in the third chapter of Ephesians is not a polite, sentimental wish. It is a piece of spiritual ordnance. It is a petition for divine, supernatural, world-altering power to be injected directly into the souls of believers. Paul is not praying for a little pick-me-up for the Ephesian saints. He is praying that they would be so fortified, so garrisoned by the might of God, that they could withstand the onslaught of hell itself and become the very vehicle through which God displays His glory to the cosmos. This is a prayer for spiritual backbone. It is a prayer for the kind of internal architecture that can bear the weight of glory. And it is a prayer we desperately need to learn to pray for ourselves and for our children.
The Text
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would give 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 firmly 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 far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand, 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.
(Ephesians 3:14-21 LSB)
The Posture and Premise of Prayer (vv. 14-15)
Paul begins by establishing the foundation of his request.
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named," (Ephesians 3:14-15)
The prayer is grounded in a "reason." That reason is the glorious mystery he has just unfolded: the inclusion of the Gentiles into the one body of Christ. The formation of the church, this new humanity, is such a staggering, cosmic event that it requires a new kind of power to live it out. The mission is grand, so the spiritual resources must be equally grand.
His posture is one of profound reverence and submission. "I bow my knees." This is not the casual, flippant approach to God that marks our age. This is the posture of a creature before his Creator, a subject before his King. It is an acknowledgment of utter dependence. We do not come to God with demands or suggestions; we come on our knees with petitions.
And to whom does he pray? "The Father." And not just any father, but the Father "from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named." The Greek word for family is patria, which is derived from the word for father, pater. This is a profoundly patriarchal statement. God the Father is the archetype of all fatherhood, all authority, all identity. Every family, whether it is a human family on earth or an angelic family in heaven, derives its legitimacy and its very name from Him. This is a direct assault on the modern rebellion against patriarchy. To attempt to have a society without fathers, or to redefine the family apart from the pattern established by the ultimate Father, is to declare war on the very structure of reality. Paul's confidence in prayer is rooted in the fact that he is approaching the source of all things.
The Petition for Internal Power (vv. 16-17)
Here is the heart of the request, a three-fold petition for supernatural strengthening.
"that He would give 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 firmly rooted and grounded in love," (Ephesians 3:16-17)
First, notice the standard of measurement: "according to the riches of His glory." God does not give out of His riches, as a billionaire might give a few dollars. He gives according to them. The resource for this prayer is the infinite, inexhaustible treasury of God's own glorious character. We are not asking for a thimbleful from the ocean; we are asking to be flooded by the ocean itself. Our prayers are too small because our conception of God's resources is pathetic.
The petition is "to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man." The power comes from an external source, the Holy Spirit. This is not about mustering up your own willpower. This is about a divine invasion. And where is this power directed? To the "inner man." This is the control center, the heart, the will. The world wants to work from the outside in, changing your circumstances to make you feel better. God works from the inside out, fortifying your soul so you can stand firm regardless of circumstances. A Christian with a weak inner man is a liability to the Kingdom; a Christian with a Spirit-strengthened inner man is a fortress.
The immediate result of this strengthening is "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." The word for "dwell" here means to settle down and make a home, not just to visit. The goal is for Christ to be utterly at home in your heart, not a guest you keep in the formal living room, but the Lord of the entire house, with access to every room, every closet, every thought. Faith is the welcome mat we lay out for Him.
And all of this rests on a specific foundation: "being firmly rooted and grounded in love." Paul mixes his metaphors here, one agricultural and one architectural. We are to be like a great oak, with roots driven deep into the soil of God's love. We are to be like a massive building, with its foundation sunk down to the bedrock of God's love. This is not a sentimental, flimsy emotion. This is structural, foundational, load-bearing love. It is the love of God for us in Christ, and our responsive love for Him and for the saints.
The Goal: Comprehending the Incomprehensible (vv. 18-19)
The prayer now moves from the foundation to the glorious superstructure.
"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." (Ephesians 3:18-19)
The purpose of this internal strength is to enable us "to comprehend." But notice, this is not a solo endeavor. It is something we do "with all the saints." The Christian life is a team sport. The vastness of Christ's love cannot be grasped by an individual mystic on a mountaintop. It is comprehended in the rough and tumble of life together in the body of Christ. The lone wolf Christian is intentionally stunting his own spiritual growth.
And what are we to comprehend? The four dimensions of the love of Christ. Its breadth covers the whole world, every tribe and tongue. Its length stretches from eternity past to eternity future. Its height reaches to the throne of God, raising us up with Him. Its depth descends to the lowest pit of our sin and death to rescue us. It is a cruciform love, as wide as the arms of Christ stretched out on the cross, and as long as the upright beam. It is a love that defines all of reality.
Paul then layers a paradox on top of this: "to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge." This is not a contradiction. He is distinguishing between intellectual knowledge (data) and relational, experiential knowledge (intimacy). You can read every book ever written about honey and still not know it. To know it, you must taste it. We are called to taste and see that the Lord is good. We are to know His love in a way that overwhelms our intellectual categories.
The ultimate goal, the summit of this entire prayer, is staggering: "that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God." This is the telos of our salvation. It is to be so saturated with the presence and character of God that we, as creatures, reflect His glory as fully as it is possible to do. We are to become little Christs, not in essence, but in character. This is sanctification on a cosmic scale.
The Doxology of Infinite Possibility (vv. 20-21)
Paul concludes his prayer with an explosion of praise, grounding everything in the limitless capability of God.
"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand, 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." (Ephesians 3:20-21)
After praying this impossibly huge prayer, Paul effectively says, "And even this prayer is too small." God is able to do "far more abundantly beyond" not only what we ask, but even what we can "understand" or imagine. Our grandest, most audacious requests do not tax His resources in the slightest. He is a God of glorious excess, of super-abundance.
And where is the evidence of this power? It is "according to the power that works within us." This is not some abstract, distant power. It is the very same resurrection power that brought Jesus forth from the tomb (Eph. 1:19-20), and it is currently, actively at work inside every believer. The generator is already running inside the house.
Therefore, what is the only logical conclusion? "To Him be the glory." The end of all things is not our comfort, our happiness, or our fulfillment. The end of all things is the glory of God. And where is this glory to be put on display? "In the church and in Christ Jesus." The church is God's chosen theater for displaying His multifaceted wisdom and power to the watching universe, including the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. And this display is not a limited-time engagement. It is "to all generations forever and ever. Amen." What God is building in His church is a permanent monument to His own glory. Our lives, our families, and our churches are meant to be part of that eternal project. Let it be so.