Transcript
Greetings in Jesus’ name,
It’s time to begin our service this afternoon. I am so glad you are here with us.
I want to send my love to all our friends all over the world, and especially to the different ones who have reached out again over the past week. I talked to several different ones from Faith Assembly here over the past week, and they asked for our continued prayers. There are a lot of bad things happening there behind the scenes, and I have a lot of concern for the people there. Pray that God will protect the people through the circumstances there. There are people right now that they are pressuring into divorces and trying to break up their homes and families. The ungodliness that has really taken over the hearts of some of their leaders is very wicked.
So, just pray God will open a door either for them to get control of the situation or to open a door for them to escape. We know that in these places, they will pretend like anyone is free to leave at any time – those are the sort of things that will deceptively save publicly. But then privately, behind the scene, they do everything within their power to destroy and crush anyone who even thinks about leaving. They are very wicked and deceptive in those things.
On another note, I also exchanged a message with the brothers and sisters in Israel this past week. Let’s also keep those brothers and sisters in our prayers. Things are still very tense in Israel, and we want to pray for their safety. They are good brothers and sisters there who are walking this same path we are, and we want to lift them up in prayer. And as a whole, let’s just pray for all our friends the world over.
If this is your first time listening in, and you wonder who we are and what we are about, my name is Charles Paisley. I and most of our listeners here are formerly part of the cult following of William Branham known as The Message. The Message is a doomsday cult, and some of the churches are very violent, dangerous, and extremist. They even kill people. I am right here in the Jeffersonville area and am formerly the associate pastor of the second oldest Message church in the world. And we are operating this little mission here to offer support and encouragement to the people who are exiting The Message and also to try and take a look at the plain reading of scripture.
And today, we are resuming our study in the book of Ephesians. We are still in the third chapter, and we are picking up where we left off last time, examining this prayer of the apostle Paul. And I will read the whole prayer to you.
13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. 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.
Ephesians 3 English Standard Version
Let us pray.
Lord God,
Thank you for the Holy Spirit who is our teacher, and thank you for the Holy Bible where we find your word. Help us to understand what we read, help us to see the simplicity of scripture. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Introduction
We are picking up here with this wonderful prayer of the Apostle Paul. Before we pick up in verse 17, let me remind you of some things we covered in the last lesson.
This prayer we are looking at is the point of transition in the book of Ephesians, where Paul switches from doctrine to practice. Chapter three is the end of his doctrinal explanation, and in chapter 4, he is going to start explaining how we should carry these things into action. Nestled in between those two sections is this wonderful prayer for the Ephesians.
As you recall, Paul is a prisoner, and things are not going to turn out well for him; he is going to die for his faith. Many of the Ephesians he is writing to are going to suffer the exact same fate not long after they read this letter. Many of the Ephesians are also going to be arrested, fed to lions, and face various other trials.
The early church was coming upon a period of terrible persecution that is about to pour out on them all. Many of them are going to die, and that very situation motivates Paul’s prayer here. He prays that the Ephesians be strengthened in their inner man because of the dark days that are just ahead for them all.
This is a prayer that is good for all of us. We should all desire this same sort of strengthening in our lives because, whether we are facing life in communist China, capitalist America, or pagan Rome, this sort of strengthening of our inner being is how we can get through it.
As examined in our last lesson, Paul is praying for this strengthening to come to the Ephesians through the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s not something they can attain on their own, not something through willpower, self-help, or turning over a new leaf. What Paul is praying for takes a divine act of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is somewhat out of our hands and in the hands of God. It is in our hands to seek and desire it, but it is in God’s hands to grant it to us, according to his good pleasure.
This strengthening of our inner man is so that Christ may live and dwell in our hearts, so that others can see Christ in our lives. This happens as the Holy Spirit bears the fruit of the Spirit in our life—love, joy, peace, patience, humbleness, longsuffering, faithfulness. When we develop a character defined by those things, we show others a Christ-like character.
Out of it all, love is truly the most foundational element of a Christ-like character. Our entire success as a Christian will be based on the love of Christ in our hearts, from heaven’s point of view.
Paul tells us that love is the bond that binds it all together. In 1st Corinthians, he said, above all else, seek and desire love because love is the key ingredient that makes all the rest work.
Now, as we turn to these verses today, that is what I want to draw your attention to. I want you to see just how important love is, and as Paul speaks of love in his prayer, we will see that love is important in ways that we may not have considered back when we were in the doomsday cult.
As we come down to verse 17, Paul starts to get to the heart of his prayer. It is a prayer that Christ will be in their hearts, not just in a passive sort of way but in an active, living kind of way. And that he has love in mind is borne out by the second half of verse 17. Let me read that verse again and paraphrase it just a bit.
Paul is praying for the Holy Spirit to strengthen them. “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you may be rooted and grounded in love.” I would say verse 17 is the heart of Paul’s prayer here, and we looked at the first half of verse 17 in our last lesson—Christ dwelling in our hearts. But the second part of verse 17 is what this is supposed to produce.
Christ dwelling in our hearts should root us and ground us in love. If Christ dwells in your heart, you will be a loving person, and love will define your life in the way Paul mentions in these verses. If Christ truly dwells or is actively living in your heart, if you are not grounded in love, if you are not rooted in love, then Christ is certainly not actively living in your heart in a way that manifests itself to others.
There are lots of people who profess to be Christians of great stature, part of an elite order of Christians, yet their lives are defined by abuse, mistreatment, harshness—the exact opposite of what Paul is speaking of here. They are certainly nothing special; they are certainly nothing elite or advanced. They are not showing Christ because when Christ is living in our hearts, it produces something. It produces a life that is rooted and grounded in love.
If Christ dwells in our hearts, if he lives in our hearts in an active way, that is when the fruit of the Spirit is being borne in our lives. That is when we are showing ourselves to be Christ-like. The very foundation of all of that is love, the love of Christ. The fact that this love is foundational is apparent in Paul’s words here.
This love will ground us and root us. When we think about roots, they dig deep into the ground. When you look at a tall oak tree, you see that it is huge, standing up high and tall, branches, leaves, and trunk. What you don’t see is its roots, hidden below the surface. The roots are the biggest part of the tree; there is more tree underground than above ground. Those hidden roots are what make it possible for that tree to grow so tall, grip the ground, and hold the tree up.
That is what Paul is comparing this love to. This love is like the roots of a great tree, except instead of a tree, it’s our Christian lives. As we grow as Christians, our roots run deeper, and we get a firmer grip on things. That enables us to grow taller and stronger. When the roots are deep, we can withstand the hurricane winds, survive the droughts, and thrive. Our love is like the roots of a tree; it is not the part you can see with your eyes; it is hidden, just below the surface.
Love sustains us, holds us up, and is the hidden secret of our ability to thrive. It can be easy for people to forget that the roots are even there or how important they are. That is what love is like in our lives; it binds us tighter to God, lets us more effectively tap into the life-sustaining nutrients, and helps us stand up against the storms and floods of persecutions and hardships we may face in life.
This is precisely what Paul has in mind as he prays this prayer. Paul and many of his readers are going to soon die for their faith, and it is going to take a deep love of Christ for them to get through that situation.
Grounded in Love
Now, being rooted in love is not the only thing Paul is praying for. He is also praying that the Ephesians will be grounded in love. When you are grounded in something, your foundations are fastened; it is what holds you down to the earth.
As people, we can get all kinds of ideas and go all kinds of ways, but love is the thing that grounds us, the thing that anchors us, holding us in place. It tempers our lives and keeps us in touch with reality. Without staying grounded on something, we will float and drift all over the place.
Consider a ship out at sea. When it comes into port, it needs to be grounded so that the boat can be moored to the dock, holding it in place. Without grounding the ship, it would float away. When you drop the anchor down, moor the ship, and ground it, it is held in position.
Paul is praying for the Ephesians to be grounded or held in position by love, specifically the love of Christ. Love is the defining factor that guides them and keeps them connected to their purpose, mission, and objectives.
As Christians, we have a mission, objectives, and a purpose given by Jesus Christ. He provided the church with the Great Commission before ascending into heaven, leaving instructions and a mission to pursue. Even when Paul was arrested and put in jail, love kept him grounded, rooted, and in touch with what the Lord desired. Love guided his actions and decisions.
Similarly, when faced with challenging circumstances or difficult decisions, being rooted and grounded in love allows us to go forward for the Lord in the right way. The same principle applies to every individual. When grounded in love, it keeps us connected to the Lord. Paul delves deeper into this in Chapter 4, where he talks about speaking the truth in love. Love must guide our words and actions to align with what God wants.
While we could say and do various things, if done for vain glory, personal gain, or to satisfy our own carnal desires, they hold little value. However, if rooted and grounded in love, letting it guide our actions and be our motive, it will produce what God is looking for, first and foremost in our own lives and in helping others.
Love is needed to comprehend
Now, there is something even more important about this love. When we get to verse 18, Paul begins to introduce the concept that it takes love to be able to truly comprehend the purpose and plan of God. Love is the angle from which you have to look at God’s plan to truly grasp it. And Paul is going to expand on this in chapter 4. So let’s make sure we catch how Paul introduces the concept here. And I am going to read verse 17 and 18 again.
Paul says,
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.
So, do you catch that? You are going to have to be rooted and grounded in love in order to comprehend these things—the breadth, and depth, and the length and the height. If you are not rooted and grounded in love, you will be unable to actually understand those things.
And what is that? What is the height and depth and length and breadth? What is Paul talking about? He is talking about the holy temple back from chapter 2. There Paul explained how we are all stones in the building which the Holy Spirit is constructing. And Paul is telling us in verse 17 and 18 that we can only comprehend the true dimensions of that building if we are rooted and grounded in love.
If you are not rooted and grounded in love, you are not going to comprehend it. Without being rooted and grounded in love, you will not be able to understand the dimensions of the church of God. You will not be able to grasp the true plan and purpose that God is working in the plan of redemption.
And, that was a big problem in the doomsday cult we come from. They are most certainly not rooted and grounded in love. That is not the angle from which they look at these things. All you have to do is listen to them yelling and screaming like crazed lunatics to realize love is not what is motivating them. All you have to do is look at the long trail of abused people that they pretend does not even exist. That is all you need to do to realize it is not the love of God that they are grounded and rooted in. They are rooted and grounded in something else. And that means they cannot comprehend the true plan of God. They are confused about the height, and the depth, and dimensions of this whole thing. To them, this is a little tiny building. It has a few hundred stones in it. They do not comprehend the breadth, or the depth of this thing.
In fact, love is sort of a side show to a lot of them. They will talk about love sometimes. But usually, the most they will ever say about love is that love is corrective. And to most of them, that is all love is—love is corrective. But they left out that love is kind, and gentle, and meek, and not seeking its own, and all those other things. What they have done is to convince their people that love is abuse. And the more they abuse you, the more they love you. And the people who are in the cult are so brainwashed, they are incapable of recognizing the difference between corrective love, and abuse. And while they abuse disguised as corrective love, and they have that in spades, what they do not have are the real attributes of love. Read 1st Corinthians 13; Paul defines what love is there. They have none of that.
And what they do when you talk about those parts of love is to actually mock and make fun of it. I can just hear their leaders now, “Oh these foolish people, they think if we all just love each other we will be okay. Oh these foolish people, talking about love all the time. Don’t they know, love is corrective.” And they would just laugh and mock the sort of thing I am talking about here. Just like they laugh and mock the idea that Jesus can save us. They are so full of themselves, they do not think we can be saved without obeying them and following their wicked ways.
Their wicked leaders laugh at and mock these sorts of things. But Jesus is enough to save us – no matter what they say. And we must be rooted and grounded in love to comprehend these sorts of things because that is what the Bible says.
And it is so important for us, as followers of Christ, to pray and desire the very same thing Paul is praying here for the Ephesians. This love of Christ is so important for our growth. It is so important for us to be able to thrive and accomplish the Lord’s will in our lives. If we don’t have the love Paul is speaking of here, we won’t be strongly rooted. And when hard times come, we are at risk of not making it through. If we don’t have the love Paul is speaking of here, we won’t be grounded. We will drift all over the place. We can get hair-brained ideas. We end up out in left field. If we don’t have the love Paul is speaking of here, we will not be able to comprehend some very important things. We will not be able to see the true extent of the plan of God.
It takes love to temper all of those things. It takes love to put us on the right track in those areas. And obtaining love – true Christian love – in our hearts is the most important objective we have in our Christian walk.
Above all else, desire love in your heart. That is the command of scripture. It is critical. And if you don’t have that, you are best to just sit down and be quiet. If you are not grounded in love, you are a loose cannon. It doesn’t mean you are not saved. We are saved by faith, not by love. But there are, I hate to say it, many, many people who are professed Christians, and many of them in positions of leadership or authority, who are not rooted and grounded in love. That is not what guides what they do. They are guided by selfish motives and selfish ambitions, and they have caused great harm and destruction and division to the body of Christ.
They do not comprehend the dimensions of things. They do not understand what they are doing. And they have little or no love to temper their actions or keep them grounded. It’s very sad that there are so many people like that. I will be honest with you, I have not the first clue what to even do about it other than pray for them and try to limit their ability to do harm. I really don’t know what else to do. They are immature Christians. And the problem with the doomsday cult we come from is that the cult thrived by stunting the growth of its members. They were never permitted to grow into mature Christians, and so you have some of them, and they are a loose cannon. They are a harm to the body of Christ because love is way down the list of things that guide their lives.
It’s dangerous when we live a life of pride. There are people who get power or authority or wealth or prestige, and they enjoy the benefits that come with that. And then they become grounded in those things rather than love. Their first priority is themselves—to seek their own. Caring for their neighbors, seeking the good of others—that is way down the list of their priorities. Those things don’t crack their top ten priorities.
There are some people, they were that way in the message. They are still that way outside of the message. There are good people who leave the message, and there are bad people who leave the message. There are people who were hurting others inside the message, and there are people who are still hurting others outside of the message.
Those are sad things.
But as for us, having left that cult behind, I hope that each of us has a desire in our hearts to also leave all those abusive practices behind too. I truly hope that each and every one of us desires to be rooted and grounded in love. Not the fake message version of love. No—that is just abuse cloaked as corrective love. Leave that behind. We need to get the biblical definition of love in our lives. That is what we really need.
Love that surpasses Knowledge
Let me read on, and I will start back at verse 17.
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.
Verse 19 is very powerful. Paul tells us there somewhat the same thing he does in 1st Corinthians. He says that the love of Christ surpasses all knowledge.
Now, that does not mean that knowledge is bad. It does not mean knowledge is useless. It’s not an excuse for us to glory in ignorance. But love is a higher priority. And we can understand why, in light of verse 18. Love is a higher priority because, without love, we cannot truly have the deep knowledge. Without love, we cannot really understand the mysteries. Love is the window we have to look through in order to see it all just right. Without love, we are going to miss the point of it all. And that is exactly what the doomsday cult has done.
They have gone so deep into the weeds; they have done lost the point. For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe on him might have eternal life. They got so deep into the weeds; they have totally missed the plan of redemption. They don’t grasp it. They truly don’t understand what it’s all about. The point is lost on them. Their preachers can preach a hundred sermons about the millennium or a hundred sermons about the eternal age or a hundred sermons about the rapture. I have honestly sat through hundred-part sermons on all those topics. But they totally missed the point. They spent so much time in the weeds; they lost sight of what it is all about. Jesus Christ died and rose and ascended into heaven so he could save whosoever would believe on him. They have lost that knowledge. They do not know the love of Christ. But they have mountains of knowledge.
And what good is it? It’s worthless, at the end of the day. And all knowledge will fade away. All the understanding of mysteries that we can obtain will eventually all fade away. But the love will remain. And if you do not love God, then you have nothing that is going to remain.
Unless you were transformed by the power of the gospel into a person who is loving, and kind, and gentle, and faithful, and humble, and those things, unless you have obtained those things, you have not obtained anything of lasting value. All the rest will fade away. And that is where, I hate to say, where I come from. That is certainly where the majority of the leaders are.
Their entire endeavor was a vain pursuit, and they harmed a whole lot of people along the way. Very sadly, that is the reality of the doomsday cult we have escaped.
But, just like other verses of the Bible tell us, love is the priority. Love surpasses knowledge. And it doesn’t matter how much the doomsday cult hates the Bible; love is greater than knowledge. And when the dust settles, the knowledge will be gone, but the love will still be here. So says the word of God.
And if you had no knowledge and if you had no understanding of mysteries but you had love, you are going to be just fine because you actually got the main point of the thing. And the doomsday cult will hate to hear that, but it’s the truth.
And in fact, if we look at verse nineteen, it tells us the only way we can actually be filled with the fullness of Christ.
It’s not through rapturing faith. It’s not through understanding mysteries. It’s not through knowledge.
None of those things will bring us to the fullness, and the mere idea that those things will bring us to a fullness is in direct opposition to the Bible. The idea that knowledge, or rapturing faith, or knowledge will bring you to the fullness of Christ is in direct opposition to what the Bible says because there is something that will bring us to the fullness. Paul is going to explain it more in chapter 4, but here in verse 19, he is telling us what it is for the first time. Let me read it again.
19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Do you hear that? Paul is telling us that we have to see, know, understand, and have the love of Christ because that is what will allow us to be filled with the fullness of God.
Not understanding mysteries. Not knowledge. Not keeping a long list of rules. Not all being clones of each other through cult brainwashing. The thing that allows us to obtain the full of God is having the love of Christ beating in our hearts.
Because that is actually what it is all about. That is the divine nature. That is the chief attribute of God in Christ. It’s love. For God so loved the world.
I have heard false preachers take these verses and do exactly the opposite of what I am telling. They will read these verses and tell you that these verses mean understanding hidden mysteries is what we need in order to be filled with the fullness of Christ. But that is a total misreading of this passage. To say that is an abuse of the Bible. These verses are not saying that understanding mysteries will allow you to be filled with the fullness. This verse is telling us that it’s through the love of God that this will happen. It’s through the love of Christ that we can understand and comprehend. And it’s through the love of Christ – which surpasses knowledge – that we can be filled with the fullness of God.
And that is what this prayer of Paul ultimately conveys to us. It shows us the central importance of love. To ground us. To root us. To strengthen us. To make it possible for us to even comprehend what God is doing. And through that love itself, the fullness of God is in us.
Not the fullness of the Godhead bodily. But the fullness of Christ which has been appointed to us as individuals.
And the fullness is not something we will experience in the here and now, but we will experience it in the world to come. And the Ephesians Paul is writing to – many of them will be joining Paul in heaven not very long after they get this letter because many of them around to be executed and killed.
Let me read this whole prayer to you one more time before I close.
13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. 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.
Brothers and sisters, the power of this prayer is incredible, and if you want to understand how to be filled with the fullness, the answer is right here. And if you want to understand just how important love is, the answer is right here. And if you want to understand what love is, go read 1st Corinthians 13.
And as we come down to the end of chapter 3, this is the end of Paul’s look at doctrines. From here, he is going to start looking at practice. And it is the verses in chapter 4 that very much of the doomsday cult’s thinking hung on. And so, I have taken my time to work up to that chapter because it’s important for us to actually see what these verses say because what Paul says in the next chapter is based entirely on what he has already said in the earlier chapters.
Unity, love, the fruit of the spirit, holiness – Paul has already laid out the right way to look at those things before you ever get to chapter 4. And to start reading at chapter 4 and ignore the chapters that came before is a fool thing to do. But that is exactly what they do where we come because professing themselves to be wise, they have become fools.
Encouragement
But let me end our lesson today with some encouragement.
If you look in your heart today, and you see the love of Christ there, you see a good thing. You have in that love the ingredients you need to grow into a mature Christian. And if your growth has been stunted by the doomsday cult, then tap into that love of Christ. Ground yourself and root yourself in that love. That is what is going to get you through. If that could get Paul and the Ephesians through being fed to lions and everything else, it will get us through anything we might have to face today.
It’s not in how many mysteries you understand, but the love of Christ you have in your heart that actually makes a difference.
And if you look in your heart today and there is not much love there, if Christ is not the center of your life, maybe you have faith in Christ as your savior but you have never even heard these sorts of things before. Maybe you live in pursuit of wealth, or position, or power, or to satisfy your carnal appetites. I want to encourage you just like Paul encouraged the Ephesians. I pray that the love of God be strengthened in your inner man, so that Christ might live in you in a very active way.
Prayer
As I end this lesson today, I would like to pray this prayer of Paul with you and over you. It was a good prayer for the Ephesians; it’s still a good prayer for us all today.
So come back next time; we will start looking into chapter 4. I have other engagements the next two weeks, and I may not be able to put up a lesson. Just pray for me as I attend to those things and try to help minister to some of the saints who have reached out for support. If I am unable to post a lesson in the next couple of weeks, it’s a good chance for you to listen to some of the other brothers. I hope you do that anyway. It’s not good to just listen to one voice, and I encourage you to check out some of the other brothers out there who are posting their services online. I think you might find their services to be helpful to you. I know they are helpful to me. So, let me close in prayer.
Holy Father, we bow before you, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant us to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith—that we, 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.
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.