Not only does God want us to be empowered but He wants us to be established. If you want our branches to be higher and fruit to be wider, then our roots need to be deeper. Eph. 3:17 says, “17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love.” We are prone to failure in our walk in Christ when we don’t build upon the foundation of our wealth in Christ. If you see Christian living as more about what you do as opposed to who you belong to, you will not be established but unsettled in your faith. You’ll end up looking at your own self to establish your own faithfulness instead of resting in the power of Christ in and through us. If our empowerment is by appropriation of God’s power by faith, then the establishing of our walk in Christ is about accommodating Christ in our life. If you are in Christ, then Christ is in you. The question now remains, does He feel accommodated in your heart? In other words, is your walk making Christ feel welcome or unwelcome in your life. The Lord should never be an unwelcome guest in our heart. Our union in and with Christ has given Him a home in our heart. It is communion with Him that makes Him at home in our heart. Each believer’s union with Christ is the same. It is unending and unchanging. However, each of us have differences is our communion with Christ. Some of us are walking closer with Him than others. We all have the same resources and responsibility but not all of us have the same depth in our relationship with God.
To be established in the faith, we must first see Christ’s presence in our life. There is no believer that goes without the presence of God. Psalm 139 shows us that God is all present in all times and places. There is no escaping God’s presence. The Christian life is meant to be lived before His face and in His presence. Many Christians today seem to be content without understanding what it means for Christ to be present in our lives. So many have settled with the wrong belief that God is only present if they do something good or perhaps only in a powerful or emotionally moving church service. We know the presence of God in theory but to know it experientially and practically is a different story. Eph. 1:13-14 and Col. 1:27 reveal to us the mystery of Christ being present in the heart of every believer. Because we are in Christ (union) He is in us. Now, based on this union we are to enjoy moment-by-moment communion with Him in our walk. Our heart is our inner man. To enjoy the communion available to us with Christ in our heart, we must yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s presence in our life. The heart of a surrendered Christian not only embraces Christ’s presence but enjoys it. A surrendered believer wants Christ to be most welcome in every room of our heart. There is nothing secret or hidden. There is only open fellowship and communion. Man was designed to enjoy God’s presence, but the presence of sin drives a wedge between us.
Secondly, we must see Christ’s prominence in our life. While every believer has Christ’s presence through our union with and in Him, not every believer has Christ as prominent in their life. They want His assistance but not His authority. They want His resources but not His rule over their life. Sadly, the presence and power of Christ is available to all believers but very few have Christ’s power and presence as something prominent in their lives. Let’s look briefly at an example that the Bible gives to us. Abraham was God’s man, and his nephew Lot is described at being “just” before God (2 Pet. 2:7). By faith, Abraham had received the covenant promises of land, seed, and blessing. At one point, Lot was dwelling with Abraham but due to a dispute they decided to separate. Abraham gave Lot the first choice and he chose to pitch his tent toward Sodom, a place with wicked citizens. In the end, Abraham dwelt in his tent and even enjoyed God’s divine presence on numerous occasions. Sadly, Lot would end up needing to be rescued on multiple occasions due to the place where he made his home. You can read about all of this in Genesis 12-19. Both men were righteous and just before God by faith. However, only Abraham enjoyed the fullness of faith through communing with God. God felt at home in Abraham’s tent but couldn’t feel at home in Lot’s tent while he communed with the sinners of Sodom. The litmus test to see if Christ is prominent in your life is your faithfulness to His Word, Work of the Spirit, and witness within the local Church. Christ wants to feel at home in your heart. Are you giving him the place of prominence? Who is sitting at the head of the table in your heart?
Thirdly, we need to see Christ’s preeminence. Christ not only is present and should be prominent in every part of our life, but Christ should be preeminent in all things as Col. 1:18 instructs us. The Lord is not only desiring and deserving to have residence in all recesses of our heart, but He desires and deserves to reign over every square inch of the home of our heart. We are trained from an early age to compartmentalize things in our minds. Sadly, this has become the spiritual norm for most Christians. We believe that God, Church, and other spiritual things have their own little compartment. We are different people at different places and around different people. We are always adjusting and readjusting to the world around us by either opening or closing the compartments of our mind and heart. Unfortunately, we have failed realize that all of life is in Christ therefore all parts of our life are tied directly to Him. For us to be established in the faith, we must grow from Christ being present and prominent to being absolutely preeminent in our life.
Lastly, we need to see Christ’s progression of establishing our faith in Him. We are told that we are to be “rooted and grounded in love.” Here, the believer’s walk and establishment in faith is likened to agriculture and architecture. In the New Testament, believers are the branches and Jesus is the vine (John 15). In Paul’s writings, believers are the Body and Bride of Christ. Paul expressed in Eph. 2:19-22 that we are fellow citizens of the same family and are a building fit together to be inhabited by the presence of God. Like agriculture or in architecture, there must be a root or foundation. The root and foundation of an established Christian is the love of Christ. The love of God is our wealth and our walk. In Eph. 5:2, Paul will command that we walk in love. Because we have the wealth of the love of God in Christ we should walk therein, continuously growing in a love for God and His people. When Christ’s presence becomes prominent and preeminent, this means that His love will become prominent and preeminent in us and through us. We will grow to know His love more and will grow in a desire to live in His love. This will be the theme of our last point that we see in Paul’s prayer for believers.
In this prayer, we see that God wants us to be empowered, established but lastly, God wants us to be enlightened to our wealth and walk in Christ. The Lord wants you and me to grow in a deeper awareness, awe, and application of what it means to be in Christ. Eph. 3:18-19 build on the love of Christ which was given to establish (root and ground us) our walk in Christ. Eph. 3:18-19 says, “18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” God wants you to grow in knowing Him. The Lord desires that we grow to know Him and know Him to grow in Him. Christian growth in our walk is dependent upon a continual growing personal and experimental knowledge of God through fellowship with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
In Eph. 3:18, God wants us to be enlightened to grasp His love for us in Christ. The word “comprehend” means to seize, lay hold of, or grasp in understanding for usefulness. To truly comprehend spiritual truth, it must not only be mentally understood but become spiritually usable by faith. We need more than acknowledgment of truth, we need the truth applied in faith. Knowledge without application is not applied. We must apprehend our wealth in Christ to apply it in our walk in Christ. Notice as well that God wants us to “comprehend with all saints.” God doesn’t want you to grow only for your sake but for the sake of the Church. Everything in your individual walk is designed for the edification, growth, and betterment of the entire Body of Christ. As each of us grows in an understanding of the vast love of God then we grow in His love making us more useful for the work of the ministry that Paul will deal more with in Eph. 4. There are four spiritual geographical locations that are mentioned for us to comprehend the love of God in Christ.
First, there is the “breadth” of His love. The breadth of God’s love reaches farther than we could have every imagined. The Jew never believed that God’s love could reach widely enough to include Gentiles and the Gentiles believed the same about the Jews. Eph. 2:11-22 show us the breadth of God’s love that has reached widely to gather in one body all in Christ whether Jew or Gentile.
Secondly, there is the “length” of His love. How much love does God have? God is love and His love is infinite in its availability. The length of God’s love is eternal and everlasting both in quality and quantity. There is no love like His love. It is unmatched. Eph. 1:4; 2:4 show us a glimpse of the immense length of God’s love to reach down to us from eternity past to bring us unto Himself throughout eternity future.
Thirdly, there is the “depth” of His love. His love reaches into the lowest dungeon, ditch, or dirt filled grave. Eph. 2:1-3 shows us the depth of His love that He would give life to the lifeless, sight to the blind, and redemption to the rebel. There is no deeper thought to have than God’s love. We’ll never reach the bottom.
Lastly, there is the “height” of His love. His love reaches to the heavens. His love is infinite and goes to infinity and beyond. Eph. 2:6-7 tells us of the heights of His love for us that He would stoop low to lift us up to seat us together with Christ in heavenly places.
The love of God can’t be exhausted, but it can be explored, embraced, enjoyed, and experienced in our life by faith in Christ. Only as we are empowered by His Spirit, established in love by faith can we become more enlightened of His love by His Spirit through His Word. Now, in Christ, we can know the unknowable and search the unsearchable riches of His love in Christ. You can travel north, south, east, and west and you’ll never reach the beginning or ending of His love. You can dig the deepest hole and never reach its bottom. You can soar into the vastness of space and never reach its end. The love of God may not be able to be fully explained but it can be fully enjoyed and experienced. God’s love is deep enough of an ocean that we could dive down forever and never reach its bottom; yet the love of God in Christ is shallow enough that all can swim and drink of it by faith without fear of drowning. By faith, may we comprehend (grasp and seize) the love of God for us in Christ. This will allow you to walk in the wealth of Christ.
The hymn, “The Love of God” puts it this way:
Refrain:
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
the saints’ and angels’ song.
2 When ancient time shall pass away,
and human thrones and kingdoms fall;
when those who here refuse to pray
on rocks and hills and mountains call;
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
all measureless and strong;
grace will resound the whole earth round—
the saints’ and angels’ song. [Refrain]
3 Could we with ink the ocean fill,
and were the skies of parchment made;
were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill,
and ev’ryone a scribe by trade;
to write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry;
nor could the scroll contain the whole,
though stretched from sky to sky. [Refrain]
God wants you to not only grasp His love by faith but to grow in His love. As we learn of the “breadth, length depth, and height” of His love we can then live in its infinite “breath, length, depth, and height.” His love to fill us with His fullness. Many Christians do not understand the fullness that God would give to them if they would but receive it. God wants to see that you are growing into the fullness of maturity. The way that this happens is through His empowerment as He establishes us by faith and enlightens us through the vastness of His love. The average Christian is walking with a tank that isn’t half-full. I know many and have even been the Christian who seems to be going on just fumes. We are always running on empty because we don’t stop at the gas station of His love. His love is free and full. It is rich beyond measure and only through it can we continue in persevering faith in our walk in Christ. To be filled with the fullness of God is to grow in Christlikeness. This is God’s will for your life and all who are in Christ. To be Christlike, we will grow in a love of God by the Spirit and a love for the Church. God enlightens us to doctrinal truths so it would turn into doxological and devotional living. Our learning of what it means to be in Christ is for our living in Christ. The most practical thing in life is for the believer to be filled with His fullness. He gives the power and provision for the practical needs in our walk. Perhaps the most practical of all is His infinite love.
As Paul prays, not only can we see his heart but God’s heart for His Church. God wants us all to be empowered, established, and enlightened. Each week I see believers (myself included) struggling in their walk with little hope of getting back on track. The average Christian is dependent upon their own ability so much that they can’t seem to be truly used of God. The average Christian sees themselves stronger than they truly are which causes them to look more to themselves and less to Christ. We must come to an absolute end of ourselves. I am not able to live the Christian life on my own. I don’t have the strength, skill, or stamina. I can’t grow, build, or establish myself. I only make messes and break things in my life (often in others). I can’t say with confidence that I have God’s love figured out. I don’t know why He loves me, you, or anybody. But He does. He always does. My prayer, like Paul, is that the ordinary believer would experience for themselves by faith the extraordinary inside out work of God in their life. My prayer is that we would spend more time seeing that the inner man is empowered, established, and enlightened than we would care that our outer man looks presentable to other people. My prayer is that we would live before the face of God with eternity stamped on our minds. I wonder, as you read this, are you focused more on outward behavior or inward belonging? Do you know whom you belong to? As we reflect on this passage, can we say that Christ is at home in our heart? Is his presence there? If so, good. But is it prominent and preeminent? Can we say that we are growing in faith and love for Christ and His Church? I believe we need to ask God to take us into the breadth, length, depth, and height of His love so that we may walk according to our wealth in Christ.
Grow with me as we study the believer’s wealth and walk in Christ.
Grow deeper.
Grow higher.
Grow wider.
Grow With Pastor Joe 
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