I love my wife. I love her a lot. We would have massive issues if I didn’t. But think about this. If you came over to our home and you experienced our relationship in a more up-close and personal way and what you experienced was not, me actively loving my wife but instead you could see that there were some major issues in our marriage, what would you think?
If my behavior in my relationship with my wife didn’t match the words I used to describe our relationship you’d know there was something off. You’d know there was something unsettled. If you could clearly see that our relationship was cold and distant or full of unresolved conflict or saturated with angry, harsh words or that we didn’t even enjoy being in the same room together or that we were afraid of each other, you’d begin to question the authenticity or the depth of our relationship.
Every friendship, every marriage, every relationship, has seasons of relational dysfunction that need to be dealt with. Key phrase, dealt with, not ignored. And the same is true of my relationship with God. There are seasons where the fruit (behavior, affections and thoughts) of my life prove my love for the Lord. And then there are other seasons where the fruit (behavior, affections and thoughts) of my life prove that my love for the Lord is lacking. But here’s and important thing to remember: When my behavior doesn’t match my words there’s something unsettled inside of me.
Relationships ebb and flow. We know that’s true. But when a relationship is just plain stuck in an unhealthy dysfunctional cycle we can rest assured that there’s something unsettled deep down inside of someone. When our lives are in a rut. When we are stunted in our growth. Stuck in a cycle. Where growth seems to be minimal at best and maybe even headed in an unhealthy direction. In these moments, you can clearly see that your behavior doesn’t match your words and there’s something unsettled inside of you. What do you do in these moments? You need to pray for power. Power to change. Power to grow up. Power to endure the pain and the hardship of growth. Power to persevere. Power to climb the mountain of relationship with Jesus. That’s exactly what I think the Apostle Paul is praying for as he prays for the Ephesian believers.
Look at Ephesians 3:14 – 21…
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in Heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – that you being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
As we’ve studied these verses over the last few weeks we’ve learned that our posture in prayer is rooted in the reasons we pray and the person we pray to. (14 – 15) We’ve also learned that our power comes from the riches of God’s glory, it is granted to us by God, it comes to us through God’s Spirit and it comes out of us from the Spirit within us in a manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit. (16)
In these verses Paul is praying passionately for the Ephesian believers. He is on his knees in a surrendered posture before the Lord. He’s praying in light of who he knows the Ephesian believers are in Christ. He’s praying to the Father of every family in Heaven and on Earth. He’s asking the Father to reach into his vast riches of never-ending wealth. He’s asking the Father to freely grant power to the Ephesian believers through the Holy Spirit. He’s begging the Father for the Spirit’s power to be manifested in the lives of the Ephesian believers from deep within their inner beings.
But, why is Paul praying this way? Why is Paul’s pastoral heart for the Ephesian believers so passionately exposed in this prayer? Many commentators have noted that this prayer from the Apostle Paul is much like climbing a mountain. The journey up a mountain is very hard. Sometimes you want to quit because it feels like the end of the journey is never going to come. Truthfully, there are mountains in our lives that we have never climbed because the journey becomes too much for us to bear. Too painful. Too hard. Too costly.
My wife tells a story from her childhood about the time she got lost in the mountains with her cousin. They were out hiking and lost track of their bearings and got lost for an entire day in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. At some point she began to realize that they were walking in circles because she began to notice the same mile-markers. She not only had the self-awareness to know that she was lost but she also had an awareness of her surroundings that informed her understanding that they were stuck in a cycle of walking in circles around the base of a mountain.
She instinctively knew that they needed to climb up the mountain to get an elevated and clear view of their surroundings. Her cousin was unwilling at first and probably didn’t want to admit that he had been leading her in circles because of his pride and arrogance. But at some point he had to surrender and take her advice and they made the long, hard climb up that mountain where they found a clear vision for where they were as well as where they needed to go.
All to often, our journey of character growth becomes stunted or stuck because we are weak and unwilling and we lack the passion and power we need to complete the journey. So we wind up walking in circles around the base of the mountain stuck in our daily patterns of sin and weakness and brokenness. We never gain the clarity or strength of Christian character exhibited in the fruit of the Spirit because we fail to attain the power we need to climb to the top of the mountain of our relationship with Jesus.
Even though you may have experienced a moment where you became a Christian at the foot of the mountain of relationship with Jesus, there are many of you who still haven’t experienced the day-to-day communion of relationship with Christ in a deeply life giving way. You struggle with feeling insignificant or unimportant or unlovable or unwanted. You live in this place. You operate out of these places. You are shackled in these prison cells.
Deep down inside the hallways of your heart you’ve subtly believed the lies of Satan that tell you that God doesn’t think you’re significant. He doesn’t think much of you. You are not important to him. He has better things to do than to be with you. He doesn’t love you, he can’t even look at you and he doesn’t want you anywhere close to him. He’s hiding out in his throne room. He’s the angry dad. He’s the absentee father who left you to face this horrific world alone. He’s the cheating spouse who has someone better to spend his time with. These are just a sprinkling of the lies we believe.
These lies will ravage your soul and leave a wake of disaster in their path as long as you walk in circles around the base of that mountain of relationship with Jesus. This is why Paul prays that God would give us power in verse 16. He wants us to have the strength to take the journey up the mountain of relationship with Christ in a profound way.
We need power to transform our relationship with Jesus when we are stunted in our growth or stuck in our sin or cold and distant towards God. The only thing that can destroy the lies you’ve believed is a growing relationship with Christ. But what does that look like? What should we pray for so we can overcome the lies we’ve believed? What do we need to pray for while we’re on this journey up the mountain of relationship with Jesus?
#1: Pray That Jesus Would Dwell Inside You…
At first glance this truth might look like a no brainer. If you’ve been a believer for a while it might be easy to dismiss this as child’s play. It might feel like old news. But let me push back on that. I believe that good news is never old news. Especially when it comes to the truths of the gospel. In our relationship with Jesus, we need enduring truth that will continually transform us in our places of stuckness. We don’t need truths that are useful now and then discarded for higher truths. In fact, I think that this truth is one of the highest truths that we can meditate on.
There is something about what Paul is saying here that is meant to be deeply transformative for us on a continual basis. When Paul says that he is praying that God would give us power “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” he is expounding a doctrinal truth of unexplainable depth. He’s not communicating something that is merely the first step at the bottom of the mountain of relationship with Jesus. He’s explaining a mountain of truth in regards to our relationship with Jesus. He’s explaining that the Son of God is ready to settle down into the depths of our hearts. Our Creator is ready to settle down inside the crowning jewel of his creation. He’s not ready to settle down into a tree or a flower. He’s ready to settle down into you. This is a massive truth of epic proportion.
If you are a believer. If you’ve heard the message of the gospel. If you’ve trusted in Christ to save you from the penalty of your sin through his work at the cross. If you believe that Jesus rose from the dead and left the tomb empty. If you believe that Jesus will return someday to take you to Heaven to live with him forever. If you believe that Christ’s work at the cross has transformed you from being God’s enemy into God’s child. If you believe that Jesus has sent his Spirit to live inside you until he returns. If you believe all of this then Christ himself actually lives inside you.
It’s not that Jesus comes to visit you when you’re good. He doesn’t come for a visit when he has extra time. He doesn’t show up when he’s done with his other kids. He doesn’t come when he’s done playing around somewhere else. He lives inside you. And Paul actually prays for the believers in Ephesus so that Christ would dwell within them through the power of the Spirit. Don’t miss that. Paul is praying for believers who already have the Spirit of Christ in them. He’s praying that the Spirit would empower them so that Christ may dwell within them.
If the Spirit lives within them, then why would Paul pray for them to be indwelled by Christ? Aren’t they already indwelled by Christ? Doesn’t Jesus already live inside of them? If so, then why pray that Jesus would dwell inside of them if Christ is already living there?
This is where Martyn Lloyd Jones was super helpful to me this week. His work on the original meaning of the word “dwell” is super fascinating. The Greek word translated into “dwell” means “to settle down”. To settle down. In other words, your heart may be unsettled because Christ hasn’t settled down in you. If you are a believer, then Christ lives within you through his Spirit. But the condition of your heart may be unsettled. The condition of heart proves whether or not Christ dwells within you. Whether or not Christ has settled down within you.
This is a hard truth to illustrate. But try thinking about it this way. When you’re in a crowded home it’s hard to settle down and rest. The same is true of our hearts. When our hearts are crowded it’s hard to have Christ settle down into the depths of our being. When your heart is crowded with sin it becomes unsettled. When your heart is crowded with ungodly desires, unbelief, despair, despondency, loneliness, boredom, laziness, anger, unforgiveness, selfishness, pride, bitterness, resentment, lust, worry, fear, frustration and every other imaginable thing known to man, then the presence of Christ will be crowded and unsettled in you. Christ will still be in you but he won’t be settled.
If you feel like I’ve just read your mail (remember that I know many of you super well and I want to be faithful to preach to your hearts like a good shepherd). But if you feel this way. If you feel unsettled then you might be wondering what to do now. What do you do when you realize that Christ may live in you but he’s not dwelling or settled down in you? What do you do when you realize that you have a crowded heart? What do you do when you are confronted with the truth that Christ isn’t settled down and dwelling in you? The simplest answer is to pray that Christ would settle down and dwell in your heart.
That’s what Paul is praying for so maybe we should follow his example. Think about it. Jesus is standing at the door of your heart and he’s knocking. He’s knocking on the doors of the hearts of believers and unbelievers. For a believer he wants to step into the deeper spaces of your heart and for unbelievers he wants to step into the front room of your heart. God is ready to step into new places in your heart. Will you let him in? Will you ask him to settle down and dwell in you? Will you seek the presence of Christ with all you’ve got? Will you pray for the power to climb the mountain of relationship with Jesus?
#2: Pray That Jesus Would Dwell Inside Your Heart…
Again, this might seem redundant or it might seem like the beginner’s guide to becoming a Christian. But let me assure you that this message is a message for every person no matter where you’re at in this journey up the mountain. The simple application of this message is to pray that the Spirit of God would give you strength “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” But what does the Bible mean when it talks about the heart? What does it look like to pray that Jesus would dwell inside your heart?
Most scholars describe the heart as the epicenter of our beings. The heart is like the intersection of at least three major highways. Your heart is made up of the highway of your thinking, the highway of your affections and the highway of your actions. Your mind, your desires and your will. The Scriptures are very clear that when you trust in Christ he takes away your old, dead hardened heart of stone that was in chains and he gives you a knew, soft heart of flesh that is alive and free. When you begin a relationship with Jesus then your heart is regenerated or made new.
Your thinking is transformed because you have a new mind. Your affections are changed because you have new desires. Your behaviors change because your will has been transformed. This is what it means when the Bible talks about the heart. But, what does it mean to ask Jesus to come and dwell inside your heart? What does it mean to ask Christ to settle down inside your crowded heart?
If the heart is made up of our thoughts, our affections and our actions then I think we need to invite Jesus into those crowded spaces of our hearts and ask him to settle down and dwell there. This is a hard road to travel. This will take supernatural strength.
If your thinking is crowded with thoughts of anger, selfishness, pride, worry, loneliness or lust, then you need to invite Jesus into those thoughts and ask him to change them as he settles down and dwells there.
If your affections or your desires are busting at the seams with self-promotion, self-preservation or self-protection, then you need to invite Jesus into those desires and ask him to change them as he settles down and dwells there.
If your behavior is full of sexual, financial, relational or vocational sin then you need to invite Jesus into those behaviors and ask him to change them as he settles down and dwells there.
Can you imagine what it’s like to invite Jesus to settle down and dwell in your thoughts, your desires and your behavior? Can you imagine that he already lives in your thoughts, your affections and your actions? Every time you have a sinful thought or entertain a sinful desire or act out in a sinful way he already lives there if you are a believer.
The problem is that for many of us Christ isn’t dwelling or settled down in our thoughts, our desires and our behaviors. It’s like we let him just inside the door of our hearts and then we crowd out his presence with our continued sin. Will you pray this way? Will you pray that Jesus would invade the thoughts of your heart? Will you pray that Jesus would dwell in the desires of your heart? Will you pray that Jesus would settle down in the behaviors of your heart? Will you pray for the power to climb the mountain of relationship with Jesus?
#3: Pray That Jesus Would Dwell Inside Your Heart Through Faith…
The topic of faith can be a touchy subject. On one side we have teachers and preachers that have relegated the subject of faith down to some kind of powerful force that we can tap into to get whatever our hearts desire. God wants you to be healthy, wealthy and wise and all you have to do is give enough money, say the right prayers and name and claim what’s rightfully yours and you’ll be blessed. On the other side we have these pie in the sky cultural relativists who relegate faith down to some deeply held personal belief system that is shaped and unique to every individual.
The problem is that every one of us has been affected by both of these major influences. We love to pray for what we want and we love to make the rules. And furthermore, both of these influential systems of thought place you and I and what we think and what we want and what we believe we are entitled to at the center of our faith.
This is why sound biblical teaching is so very important. The biblical teaching regarding faith never places us or our personal desires or our personal abilities at the center of the message. The center of the message of biblical faith in the Scriptures is Christ. Christ is the one who writes the pages of our faith. Christ gives us the gift of our faith. Christ is the object of our faith. This is why Paul prays that the Spirit would give us power “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” But what is faith? And how do you get the kind of faith that invites Christ to settle down or dwell in your heart?
When the word faith is used in the Scriptures it means to believe and trust. If you take away belief then you have no real faith. If you take away trust then you have no real faith. Belief and trust are the twin tracks that the engine of your faith rides on. Take away or damage one of those tracks and the engine of your faith will crash and burn. Take away biblical belief and your faith will be weak. Take away biblical trust and your faith will be stunted in its growth. You need to seek biblical belief and biblical trust so your faith will grow into a robust, mature faith that stands the test of time without shipwrecking on the rocks of sin and suffering.
You may remember the story of the man walking on a tightrope high above Niagara Falls. You’re in the crowd watching him in person as he walks across the tightrope not once, not twice but multiple times. And each time he walks across he does something that you never believed someone could do. He walks across on foot. Then he walks across on stilts. Then he walks across blindfolded. Then he walks across with a camp stove and makes a three-course meal on the way over. Then he grabs a wheelbarrow and puts another person in it and pushes them across safely. And then he gets to your side of Niagara Falls with the wheelbarrow and he walks up to you and asks “do you believe I just did all those things?” And you say, “Yes, I believe you just did those things”. And then he asks “will you trust me by getting into my wheelbarrow?” And you hesitate at best or run away at worse because you can’t trust him to keep you safe. So many of you struggle with believing and trusting that Jesus will keep you safe in the wheelbarrow of faith.
The Bible says that, “faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Rom. 10:17) The Bible also says that it is, “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph. 2:8) The Bible also says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1) The Bible also says that we are to “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” (Heb. 12:1-2) The Bible also says that the Spirit will give us power “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” (Eph. 3:17)
Where have you personally witnessed the work of Christ on your behalf? What reason do you have to stop believing that he will continue to act in this way towards you? Where have you trusted Christ in your life? Why would you stop trusting him now? Pray that Jesus would dwell inside your heart through faith. Pray that Christ would settle down into your ability to believe in him. Pray that Jesus would dwell in your ability to trust in him. Will you pray for the power to climb the mountain of relationship with Jesus?
Conclusion…
I was reminded this week about how fun it was to have a German ministry intern stay with our family for a year. One of things that we most enjoyed was teaching our new friend how to speak English. It took a lot of work for both of us. We worked hard to teach and he worked hard to learn. It was quite the mountain top experience every time he learned something new. It was like unlocking new levels of relationship with each other.
Can you imagine what our relationship would have been like if he was unwilling to settle down and learn the new language? If he was uninterested in doing the hard work? If he was too preoccupied with watching YouTube videos or working out at the gym? If he had done all of this while saying that he wanted to be a ministry intern it would be clear that something was unsettled in his heart because his words didn’t match his behavior.
It’s the same way in your relationship with Jesus. At first you barely understand this new language of relationship with him. And it takes a lot of hard work on your part to learn the language. And Jesus is always ready and willing to do the work of teaching you through the power of his Spirit. The sad reality though is that some of you who profess to be Christians haven’t gotten past learning those first words of faith and you’ve gotten stuck walking around in circles at the base of the mountain because you don’t want to or you don’t know how to do the hard work of learning the new language of relationship with Jesus. You’ve been stuck struggling with feeling insignificant or unimportant or unlovable or unwanted. Deep inside the hallways of your heart you’ve subtly believed the lies that Satan has told you about God.
Can I just proclaim something into those lies real quick? The cross of Christ destroys the lies of the evil one. The cross of Christ proves your significance. The cross of Christ proves that God was thinking about you since before the creation of the world. The cross of Christ proves that you are important to him. The cross of Christ proves that being with you is the thing God wants to do. The cross of Christ proves that he loves you. The cross of Christ proves that God loves looking at you. The cross of Christ proves that God wants to be with you all the time. The cross of Christ proves that God isn’t hiding in his throne room from you. The cross of Christ proves that he isn’t an angry dad. The cross of Christ proves that God isn’t an absentee father who left you to face this horrific world alone. The cross of Christ proves that he isn’t the cheating spouse who has someone better to spend his time with.
I pray that you take that hard journey up the mountain of relationship with Jesus. I pray that the Spirit would give you power from the vast riches of God’s glory. I pray that God would grant or freely give you the power you need. I pray that the Spirit within you would strengthen you for the journey. I pray that the Spirit would produce the fruit of Christ through you. I pray that Christ would dwell or settle down inside you. I pray that Jesus would dwell or settle down in the heart of your thoughts, your desires and your behaviors. I pray that the Spirit would help you to believe and to trust in Christ’s work at the cross on your behalf.
I pray that the Spirit would give you power “so that Christ would dwell in your hearts through faith.” I pray that you would climb up that mountain of relationship with Jesus.