What do we do in light of God’s declaration that he has predestined each of us as his children to be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29)? We can look at each other and say to one another, “God has determined before the foundation of the world that you will be conformed to the image of his Son.” We can assure one another that the work that God has started in the lives of our brothers and sisters he will complete. We know that God has intricately ordered our lives and designed us so that we are his masterpieces, who will walk in the works prepared for us and will become and live out what God has for us, according to his grace. So what do we do in light of that? What do I do for (toward, with) you in light of the realization of God’s goal for your life? Or to ask this question in language that should hit home with this audience: “What are we supposed to be doing to present men complete in Christ, realizing that that is God’s purpose for each of us?”
This morning I want to give a part of the answer to this question. That is to say, there are a number of factors that go into aiding someone toward being all who God has called them to be and doing all God has called them to do, but my intent this morning is not to identify all of them. Rather, this morning I want to focus on just one in trying to answer this question. But though it is only one, it is both crucial to this task and something all of us can do.
Thus, my goal this morning is to answer these questions:
1) What do we need to be doing to present one another complete in Christ, in accordance with God’s purpose for our lives?
2) How do we then do it?
3) Why do we do this, or what is our motivation/end goal?
So let’s start with this first question. What are we to do toward/for our brothers and sisters in Christ with the realization that God is making them into all he wants them to be (i.e. mature/perfect/complete in him)?
Now we all know prayer is a good and right thing, but you may be saying, “Where is the link? How is he seeing Paul’s prayer and linking it to the notion that he is praying for his brothers and sisters out of a realization that God is making them who he wants them to be?” And the answer is both in verse 1 and 14 of this third chapter.
Paul writes, “For this reason …” That is there is a reason why Paul is being driven to prayer. But you cannot just look back to verse 13 to find the answer, because remember from the last time we looked at this text that Paul actually starts this prayer in verse 1 and then diverges a bit until v. 14. Therefore, we must look at what comes before verse 1. And when we look at the end of chapter 2, we see Paul’s declaration of what God is doing with these Gentile believers. He writes, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are being built together a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”
Therefore, Paul recognizes what God is doing with these people, what his aim for them is (much like what Mark preached last week), and he says, “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name” (3:14-15). He is driven to pray for them. He recognizes God’s purpose to build them and use them, and so he prays for them.
But he doesn’t just pray flippantly, “God do what you’re going to do” or anything half-hearted like that. Rather, he says, “I bow my knees.” Now this may sound natural to us, but the normal way that Jews prayed was standing. Thus, when you read the parable of the Pharisee and the publican praying, you read, “The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself …” (Luke 18:11) and “The tax-gatherer, standing some distance away …” (Luke 18:13). Therefore, as Paul tells them that he bows his knees in prayer, he is expressing the earnestness with which he prays for his brethren.
What do we do for one another in realization that God is building up each of us to be all that he has intended us to be? We pray for one another.
But how should we pray for one another?
Let’s face it, there has not been much education in the church on how to pray – at least that I have witnessed. We often hear that we should pray, and even that we should petition God in interceding for our brothers and sisters; however, it is a rare thing that someone might be able to answer the question confidently, “What is it that we should be praying for when we intercede on behalf of one another? How should I be praying?”
Dwight L. Moody tells of being in Scotland and speaking to a crowd of children in a time when the Scottish took quite seriously teaching their children and catechizing them in the home to make sure they understood the foundational doctrines and practices of the faith. He says that he wanted to start the meeting with the children asking a question that would puzzle them and that he could then answer for them to start his talk. Therefore he asked, “What is prayer?” But instead of silence or little children diverting their eyes, hands shot up all over the room. Finally, after being called on by Moody, one little boy answered, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies.” Moody responded, “Thank God, my boy, that you were born in Scotland.”1
It is my dream that our children would one day merit the response, “Thank God that he planted you in your family and among the believers at Cornerstone Community Church.” Therefore, let’s try to answer this question – “What should we pray for one another?”
Paul prays two main things which I will turn into instructions for us, one at a time.
First, Paul prays that God “would grant 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” (3:16-17a).
But these verses still leave us with questions, don’t they? I will mention two: First, what is the inner man which Paul prays to be strengthened? And second, why would he pray that Christ would dwell in their hearts if he is writing to people who are already Christians?
To answer the first question, – what is the inner man? – let’s take a look at Paul’s use of this term in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. After talking about the suffering of believers, Paul writes, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory, far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Therefore, it looks like the “outer man” is Paul’s body, but the “inner man” is what is inside his body that remains when his body has decayed. It is that part of us that need not be affected no matter how much our body is decaying or falling apart. And it is this part of the person that we are to pray for, that it would be strengthened.
To answer the second question, we need to realize that the verb for “dwell” in this verse is a strong verb. It means a little more than just to inhabit, but to settle down somewhere. It is this that Paul is praying for his brethren, who already have Christ inhabiting their hearts. I think I can paint a picture of this using my house.
Lili and I moved into our house last February. If you had come over the first week of March, you could have accurately made the statement: “Lee and Lili live in this house.” And we did, but the rooms were empty with the exception of a couch, a few chairs, a bed, and a couple of pictures on the wall. You couldn’t have walked into our house and determined who we were based on its contents because their just wasn’t much there. Now, however, if you walked into our house, you would find something much different. If you walked into the office you would find a couple of bookshelves filled with books and some stuck in places wherever they will fit because I love books. If you walked into our dining room, you would find it to be the room of a music lover – Lili – as it is filled with a piano, a violin, and a guitar. You would see paintings and pictures that have been given to us. You would see a couch where the cushions are folding down because we sit in the same place on it so often. You would find some dog toys and a dog kennel sitting on the floor. You would find all kinds of things in the house that say, “Lee and Lili live here.” You would say it much stronger than you would have said it last March, even though you are using the same words. Because last March the house “housed” us though it didn’t reflect our habits and personalities. Now, however, the house is decorated and characterized by the kinds of people we are and the kinds of things that we do. We really live there; we have shaped the surroundings of the house by who we are.
I think this is what Paul is getting at when he prays for Christ to dwell in the hearts of these believers. He knows that Christ already inhabits their hearts, but he is praying for them to be strengthened in their inner man so that their lives soon begin to be shaped by him and Christ’s surroundings (the believers) soon begin to look a lot like him. He is praying that Christ dwell in their hearts to the point that it is obvious from the way they think, act, and live. He is praying that their inner man be so strengthened in Christ that they are conformed to the mind and heart of Jesus Christ. He longs for their hearts and lives to be consumed by who Jesus Christ is.
This is the first thing that we need to pray for one another. We must pray that each other is strengthened in our inner being (in what cannot be seen) so that Christ dwells richly and shines in each other’s lives as his mind and heart are reflect in our lives.
Paul doesn’t just pray that their inner man would be strengthened so that Christ might dwell there but adds, “And that you, being 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 us with all the fullness of God.”
Paul wanted them to know God’s love for them. But I don’t think he wanted them to know it merely intellectually. That is, though he wanted them to be able to identify objective things like: Christ died for me and God hears me when I pray, he also wanted them to experience the overwhelming reality of it in their lives.
I think this is the case because Paul says that he wanted them “to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.” What I think he’s saying is that though I could display God’s love for you by telling you all kinds of things he has done, it really beyond my ability to communicate. That’s why he doesn’t describe it as a list of statements to be memorized, but rather, he says that he wants them to know the breadth, length, height, and dept of Christ’s love. It is something that God must reveal to you so that you find yourself overwhelmed by it.
And I think this gives us a clue into why Paul had departed from his prayer in verse 1. I think he was about to write the words, “I [pray] … that you might comprehend … the love of Christ,” and he began to contemplate that what he wanted to communicate was experience as well as truth. Therefore, he wrote on his realization of God’s overwhelming love toward him as his heart was overwhelmed at the thought of God making him – lesser than the least of all the saints – the apostle to the Gentiles.
It is the same struggle that I have right now. Because I think I know what Paul’s talking about. It’s when I’m sitting and praying and crying out because of all the struggles in life and God says, “I know you; I have chosen you and appointed you to teach the Word to my people.” And my heart is filled beyond words and nothing will come out of my mouth but groaning and my eyes flood with tears. It’s God’s revelation of his love to me. And I cannot simply tell you to experience this. So, when I pray for you to know it I can only think back to these realizations in my life in an attempt to express my longing for you.
I think that is what had happened to Paul in verses 2-13. He went to his own realization of God’s revelation of love to him so as to express his longing for these believers to know what is beyond knowledge.
We need to pray that we realize and know the weight of God’s love. It is crucial. For just as prayer is a part of what I need to be about to aid you in being all God has created you to be, so realizing God’s love is a part of what must occur in your heart if you’re to realize who God has made you to be and become mature in him. This is why Paul writes, “To know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” “Be filled with all the fullness of God” is simply another way of saying, “to be all that God wants you to be.”2 Therefore, we must pray that each of our brothers and sisters have the strength to comprehend the fullness of Christ’s love.
But why is it so crucial that prayer is what we must do to see this accomplished and why is it crucial that we pray this for our brothers and sisters?
When I look at all of you and imagine all of you knowing who you are created to be and becoming that – being spiritually mature – which is the mission of our church, I am overwhelmed. It seems to be an impossible task. And so it is with men. Thankfully, however, when I dream about it and when I ask God for it in prayer, I am praying “to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the desire within us.”
We must pray because God is the only one who can accomplish his will and fulfill the dreams for his church that he has placed in our hearts.
God is very passionate about his glory being seen. He is not an idolater, so he puts nothing in front of his desire to glorify himself. And he has ordained that his glory be demonstrated in his church – his people. In the same way, the ultimate outcome of our praying this way for one another is that each of us may be all God wants us to be so that his glory might shine through his church. Our labor in prayer is that men might marvel at the work of God in his people and say, “To [God] be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
Therefore, may we labor in prayer that we might reflect Christ’s character and know his love so that we might become all God wants us to be so that God is glorified above all things in his church. Amen.