Christ Formed in Us (Ephesians 3:14–21)

Sermon for MHBC (5 June 2022). You can watch on our website or on Facebook or YouTube. Live at 11:00am on Sundays.

I’ve always loved this phrase by Eugene Peterson: “A long obedience in the same direction.” It’s just a beautiful understanding of the Christian life. But I have a lot of internal conflict on this. Some of you might share this feeling. It is a regular occurrence for me to feel totally inadequate as a Christian. I often look at my Christian journey in despair, in shame, in frustration. I suspect even some of my own heroes in the faith would excommunicate me.

I doubt I’m alone in feeling like that. I imagine there are others like me that feel this longing for spiritual growth, for Christian formation, and still have a sneaking despair that you’ll never measure up.

Let me read Ephesians 3:14–19 to you:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

That’s amazing. It’s truly incredible. All the good “long obedience in the same direction” feelings are there. But on the other side of that is the feeling of being overwhelmed. I think, “How is that ever possible? How could I grow into what Paul is talking about here?”

The answers are actually in the next two verses, the prayer’s concluding mark of praise:

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, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

The truth is that I am not able to sustain myself on a long obedience. I am not able to shape and form myself into Christ. I am not able to come to share in the life of God on my own..

What would it look like to have the life of God formed in us? What would it look like to be so mystically united to Christ, to be so enraptured by the wisdom and love of God, that our entire existence was fundamentally and noticeably different from anything we knew before?

This prayer offers us a glimpse of what the life of God being formed in God’s people looks like. In this prayer, Paul is asking God to form the life of God in God’s people. The necessary components of formation are in this prayer.

Before we jump into Paul’s prayer, the goal of Christianity is for Christ to be formed in us (Galatians 4:19). We see this idea in chapter four of Ephesians. Look at v. 13: until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Notice that the goal is maturity in Christ.

Here’s a simple way to think about it. When God creates humans, God creates them in the image of God. Sin disrupts the image. But God is intent on redeeming his creation. God takes on flesh, and we are told that Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15). So restoring the image of God in fallen humans means becoming more like Jesus.  Christ being formed in us. That is what Christian thinkers call formation.

Think for a second about what makes us human. We have minds that process information and perceptions. We have an inner part that we call the heart or the soul. It can’t be measured in a laboratory. It’s deeper than the mind. And we have bodies with five senses, and we use those bodies to interact with the physical world. We aren’t just brains or souls. We are embodied. Being human is wonderfully complex.

For us to grow and mature as humans, we need to pay attention to all of these aspects of what makes us human. Formation involves the whole person—the mind, heart, and body. And it involves the whole life.

Let me show you that in this prayer. Look how Paul starts in vv. 14–15 in Ephesians 3: For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

Paul starts with doctrine. He says he bows his knees to the Father. Who is the Father? By using that language, we know Paul isn’t talking about a generic God. In fact, Paul is talking about the Trinitarian God. Why else would he call him Father? Father implies that there is a Son. And we will see the Spirit in this prayer as well. Just by referring to the Father, Paul is talking about doctrine.

Then he goes on in v. 15 to say that this Father is the source for every family in heaven and on earth. The Apostles’ Creed begins with this line: “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” Both this verse and the statement in the Apostles’ Creed are making doctrinal declarations. The God we believe in is a Trinity and the God we believe in is the source from which everything in heaven and on earth receives its existence.

Here’s my point. We can’t rightly practice our Christian faith without some formation of what we believe. We can’t ignore it. Take for example a seemingly easy statement such as “follow Jesus.” Who is Jesus? What does it mean to follow him? Or try this one: “love God with your whole heart, soul, and strength.” Which God? What is love? And certainly other questions we could ask.

We need direction. Doctrine is necessary to set our target. As C. S. Lewis once noted, Jesus never asked us to be children in our minds. He told us to be wise as serpents. Paul starts his prayer with a theological statement about the God Christians believe in. And it’s this theological statement that sets the tone for the entire prayer because the Trinitarian God, the Father from whom every family is named, is able to do what Paul prays for.

You’ll also notice that in vv. 18 and 19, he prays explicitly that they would comprehend and know these weighty truths about what God has done in Christ. And this isn’t academic interest. In chapter 4, he says this is necessary so that we aren’t waylaid by the next fashionable idea that comes along.

But our knowledge mustn’t be a sterile and unfeeling knowledge. Doctrine is meant to stoke the fires of our heart, so that our affections, our desires, our feelings, are formed and shaped in Christ.

The first three chapters of Ephesians are weighty and packed with theological truth. But notice that in v. 14 all of that theological truth gives rise to worship. Paul says, “I bow my knees before the Father.” Bowing is not the typical prayer posture we find in Scripture. It can be. But typically this word for bowing goes a bit beyond prayer and carries the additional element of worship. For Paul, doctrine and worship are inseparable. That’s because worship is an act of the whole person—the mind, heart, and body.

Notice what he prays for in vv. 16–17: that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love

He prays for the Spirit to strengthen our inner person. I take this as primarily concerning the place of our affections. Affections are more than emotions. They include all our desires and loves and priorities. They are the activity of our heart and soul. Paul is praying for strength and power in that aspect of who we are.

And look what the goal is. The goal is this mystical union with Christ. “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love.” This is mystical language. That Christ may dwell in your hearts. Christ abiding in our hearts is the source of our transformation.

Think about it this way. God is somehow taking residence in the inner life of ordinary people like us and transforming us. As we are filled with the fullness of God, we increasingly become image bearers of God as we were created to be. Christ is increasingly formed in us.

In fact, that’s the culminating point of this prayer. Look at v. 19: and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Did you catch it? That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. That’s the goal.

This transformation changes the way we use our bodies too. Think about the rest of the letter to Ephesians. Paul talks about extremely practical, day-to-day realities, like relationships with other people and how we use our hands and our intimate relationships and how we speak and what we do with our time and how we treat our families. All that practical instruction is driven by who God is, and what it means for God to have acted in Christ. And it is driven by this experiential relationship of abiding with Christ, of God dwelling in us.

All this flows back to doxology or praise. The reason is because formation is the work of God. Look at vv. 20–21: 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, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

The Trinitarian God is able to do this work. Our task is to put ourselves in the middle of those places where God often chooses to do this work. That means here in gathered worship with singing and prayer and Scripture and communion. That means small groups where we can practice our formation in community. That means missions where we practice our formation in the public square. That means practicing principles, habits, and rhythms day-by-day, week-by-week, year-by-year—“a long obedience in the same direction.”

It is daunting. But God is inviting us to something so good. Jesus invites us to take his easy yoke and follow him (Matt 11:28–30). And God will supply our every need on this journey (2 Pet 1:3).

By the grace of God, could you allow yourself to envision this for your life? Can you allow yourself to dream about having Christ formed in you? Can you see a wonderful activity of the Trinitarian God here at MHBC, where people are invited to be fully human, to grow into the image of Christ, as whole people—mind, heart, and body? Can you imagine that?

If you can do that, let me take it one step further. Would you join me in praying that God would do just that, in us and in the life of this church?