Empowered by His Word: A Prayer for Strength, Knowledge, and Fullness

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“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.

“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” (Ephesians 3:14–21).

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!  

Almost two weeks ago, LCMS Pastor Jim Roemke received national attention for the benediction he offered at the close of the first night of the Republican National Convention. Many have commented on his impression of President Trump—some positively, some negatively. Quite a few were disappointed that the prayer of a Sikh woman followed it. Unlike many hollow, generic prayers often offered at such events, Pastor Roemke’s prayer was Trinitarian and prayed in Jesus’ name.

The same can be said of St. Paul’s prayer in our Epistle. It expresses a rich Trinitarian theology that gives each divine person a distinctive role and warns against a systematic flattening of the Godhead. And like most New Testament prayers, the petitions are directed “to the Father” (Ephesians 3:14), as Jesus Himself taught us to pray.

How do you pray? When you pray, what do you ask? As a husband, father, grandfather, and son, I pray for my family’s health, education, friendships, and future relationships. I ask God to protect them and provide for them. I would venture to guess many of our prayers sound like this. These are perfectly delightful prayers to our Father’s ears. Nonetheless, I was struck today by the fact that Paul’s prayers for the Ephesians do not focus so much on their physical or social well-being but on the most important thing: that they know and love Christ Jesus!

Paul prays for the Ephesians and asks the Lord to give them three things:

First, Paul prays that the Lord would grant them the strength that comes by the work of the Holy Spirit. This is a universal need, not limited to any specific problem. The Spirit is the Giver of life and the Christian’s constant source of strength. Paul does not encourage the Ephesians to find strength in themselves but points to strength from above.

Paul prays “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:17). Christ dwells in us by His Spirit (Romans 8:9-10); the two cannot be separated because the Spirit speaks only of Christ (John 16:13-15). Paul does not suggest that his Christian hearers could achieve unity with Christ by their own doing. It is a gift of God through faith and His Word.

Second, Paul prays that they might have knowledge of the breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love for them in Christ. The Ephesians are believers because they have been rooted and grounded in God’s love for the sake of Jesus: in other words, God loves them because Jesus died for them.

Now, Paul asks the Ephesians to stop and think of Christ’s amazing love. When they were dead in transgressions and sins (2:1), God sent His Son to suffer and die for them. In this way, He made them alive and, by faith, brought them into His Church. The Ephesians experienced that marvelous love in their own lives, but they had only begun to learn about it. For each believer of all time, in every place, Christ has done precisely the same as He did for the Ephesians; so great is His love for so many people who were so worthless and unworthy of being saved!  

This love surpasses knowledge—it’s beyond our human abilities to comprehend. Yet that is the love of God, and Paul prays that the Ephesians might grow to know it more and more. It might seem presumptuous or illogical for Paul to pray that the Ephesians would comprehend such incomprehensibly big love. But Paul prays that they might have that knowledge anyway.

Third, Paul prays that the Ephesian Christians might be filled with the fullness of God. God, of course, has total “fullness.” He created everything; He owns everything; He controls everything. And yet, He allows us, His dear children, to come boldly to Him. He invites us to pray confidently, assuring us that He will hear. Paul’s prayer is a model of bold prayer. There’s nothing bashful about his request. He doesn’t ask for just a few crumbs but the whole loaf.

These three petitions are not isolated but interconnected. Paul prays that they would come to “know” the greatness of Christ’s love and gain a more profound realization of their " fullness " as members of God’s family. We pastors pray the same for you, generally as a congregation and individually for you, because of the trouble and afflictions you suffer. We pray that you might be strengthened in faith according to the riches of God’s glory, know His incomprehensible love, and be filled with the fullness of God.

Where are these blessings found? They are as near to you as God’s Word. The Lord gives and strengthens faith by His holy, powerful Word. The Word of God is not just informative but powerful. The Lord—who spoke to create all things and to heal the sick—still speaks His Word to you to forgive your sins and strengthen your faith. He does not measure out just enough faith to keep you barely breathing: He gives you faith in abundance, according to the riches of His glory. And by that Word you hear, the Holy Spirit is at work so that Jesus Christ—the Word made flesh—might dwell in your hearts. He is the Son of God, and He possesses the omnipotent power of God. Where you are weak, He is strong—so strong that He has conquered death and grave for you. Because He dwells in you, you are blessed with strength according to the riches of God’s glory.

God’s love for you is demonstrated in Christ Jesus. Romans 5:8 declares, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This incomprehensible love of God is known by faith in Christ Jesus, who dwells in your heart, delivered by the Holy Spirit by means of the Word.

These outlandish blessings are always available in His Word on the Divine Service, in the hymns, liturgy, sermon, and your Bible at home. The Word is so readily available to us that you’ll be tempted to take it for granted.

You’ll have your list of reasons why you didn’t get around to reading it. There’s always more to do—either the list at work or stuff that needs to be fixed around the house. There are always entertainments—TV shows, music, phone calls with friends, YouTube videos. There are the good intentions that you were going to get around to it, but your schedule just got out of whack. In reality, please understand that this isn’t just a problem of the world and your sinful flesh: the devil doesn’t want you to hear the Word. He wants you to keep the Bible next to your insurance policies—there if you really need it, hoping you’ll never have to use it.

We do well to remember the story of Naaman’s healing from leprosy in 2 Kings 5. Elisha sent a servant to tell him to wash in the Jordan River seven times. Naaman was angry because the cure was so ordinary, but the servant reminded him that if the prophet had told him to do something great, he would have done it. Likewise, you might be tempted to take it for granted.

That’s why we urge you to live in the Word daily. We encourage you to prioritize weekly worship because the Lord is at work here to feed your faith and forgive your sins. To deprive yourself of the Divine Service is to deprive yourself of grace. And because we are the body of Christ, it deprives others as well: for as you sing and speak here, you put God’s Word into the ears of those around you. When you are not here, your fellow Christians are deprived of your voice added to the faith we confess.

We also encourage you to daily reading and meditation. Resources like the Treasury of Daily Prayer offer a daily, high-octane dose of God’s life-giving Word. It may be as simple as reading a psalm and a couple of chapters of the Bible or reading next week’s lesson. If you find it hard to concentrate, read it aloud so that the words come out of your mouth and back into your ears. Pick out a verse or two to memorize, to meditate upon. Close the day with a passage, as your thoughts while asleep often dwell on your last thoughts while awake. And if you have children, include them, too. Read Bible stories. Memorize the Small Catechism bit by bit around the dinner table. The Lord works through His Word to strengthen their faith, too.

God answers this threefold prayer—He strengthens your faith, imparts knowledge of His love, and dwells in you—by means of His Word. If you are not hearing His Word, your faith is weakening. It’s just that simple. Be in the Word at home and church. The Word feeds your faith like food feeds your body, and it’s a gift of God to keep you alive.

You know your pains far more than I do, and I need not enumerate them here. But let us walk through what happens when it is given to you to suffer.

When trouble strikes, you think about it, worry about it, and dwell on it. It occupies your thoughts. This means you’re already meditating because you’re constantly meditating on something. You meditate on the trouble. The problem with this meditation is that we often just fret about how troubling the trouble is. We sinners don’t always think to pray or to hear the Word for help.

But the Lord has much to say to you in times of trouble in His Word. Remember: by that Word, He forgives your sins, strengthens your faith, and makes known His will. As you read God’s Word—before trouble comes or even as you endure the suffering, the Spirit is at work to give you all of God’s blessings. The Word becomes part of your meditation. Along with the whispered fears in your mind, you also hear, “God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1) You hear, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability” (1 Corinthians 10:13). You hear that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39). You hear Christ Jesus your Lord promise, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). These are not pep-rally words to get you back in the fight; these are the promises of God to grant you strength in trial, for you are one of His beloved children for Jesus’ sake.

Strengthened and informed by His Word during trouble, you pray. You know better what to pray because you’ve heard the help that God promises. Having heard Him speak to you, you now speak back to Him. But wait: you have help here, too. The Spirit intercedes for you with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26), crafting your prayer into one worthy for God’s ears. By the work of the Spirit, you do not know all that you ask for—only that your prayer is even better than when it began. And you know that God hears your prayers because Jesus intercedes for you at the Father’s right hand. He declares that you are one for whom He has shed His blood, and the Father delights to hear your prayer.

He also delights to answer, bringing us back to one more bit of good news in our text: verse 20 declares that God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.” When God answers your prayers, for Jesus’ sake, He does far more than all you ask or think. He does far more than you can comprehend, so though you may not see Him at work with your eyes, you have His Word that He is doing far more.

It is quite a lot to keep in mind when you have cause to worry. When trouble strikes, you really have no idea how much trouble you’re in—for you fight against principalities and powers of darkness. When you pray, you don’t know how good your prayer is—for the Holy Spirit makes it far better than you can imagine. And when God answers, you can’t comprehend how great His answer is— because He does far more abundantly than all you ask or think.

That is why His Word is such a blessing in a time of trouble, and, dear friends, as long as this world lasts, you are in trouble every day of your lives. By means of His Word, you have all these blessings. Apart from it, you have none.

Be in the Word. For there, the Lord strengthens your faith through His Spirit in your inner being. By means of that Word, Christ dwells in you. By that Word, God grants that you might know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.

By means of that Word, you are filled with the fullness of God. For by means of His Holy Word, you are forgiven for all your sins.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.