Captivated by God

Captivated by God—Ephesians 3:14-21

If you go into any bookstore today or look at any bestseller’s list, you’re gonna find a genre, usually featured very prominently, commonly known as “self-help” books. Self-help books are outrageously popular right now, and they have been for decades. And it makes sense. A good portion of people are dissatisfied with their lives in some way, and they want to get better—they want to improve themselves, they want to be freed from destructive tendencies in their lives, they want to experience personal transformation. And so you have all these books with titles like these: The Motivation Switch: 77 Ways to Get Motivated, Avoid Procrastination, and Achieve Success; Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior; Self Help: How to Change your Life in the next 15 minutes; On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life. And on and on we could go. 

And then you have the Christianized self help books, where it’s the same basic philosophy of positive thinking with a little bit of Jesus thrown in. Books like Deliver Me From Negative Self Talk: A Guide To Speaking Faith-filled Words; Bigger than Impossible: Keys to Experiencing the Impossible through God; Fresh Start: The New You Begins Today; Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day; and of course, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential. And on the one hand, I can see the appeal of these books. It’s like people have this sense that there’s something more to life than what they’re currently experiencing—a higher level of living, if you will.

But the biblical passage we’re going to look at this evening shows us that the way we get to this higher level of living isn’t by filling our minds with inspirational clichés developed from self-help gurus. It’s by entering into a relationship with God through Jesus and then filling our minds with thoughts of God. Obtaining a clearer vision of God, a deeper awareness of God, a greater delight in God. That’s what life is all about. That’s the highest level of living, the fullness of Christian experience. It’s all about being captivated by God. That’s what our text teaches us. True spirituality is all about being captivated by God. 

Please turn with me to Ephesians 3. If you’re using the Story Bibles we provide, that’s on page 812. In Ephesians 3, Paul tells the Ephesians the kinds of things he prays for them. And by reading Paul’s prayer requests, we get a good idea of what the fullness of Christian experience is all about. Ephesians 3:14-21: “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.”

True spirituality is no more and no less than being captivated by God—seeing him for who he is, grasping something if his infinite perfections, and delighting in him more than anything else in this world. And we see this in the form of the prayer requests Paul states. He shares three prayers related to being captivated by God. And these prayers build on each other. Notice how in between each prayer, Paul uses the phrase “so that” or simply “that.” There’s a progression there. The first prayer is foundational to the second prayer, and the second prayer is foundational to the third prayer. One leads to two, and two leads to three. 

Being Strengthened by the Spirit

The first prayer is about being strengthened by the Spirit. Being strengthened by the Spirit. Beginning at verse 14: “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.” This prayer shows us that the prayers Paul mentions later about comprehending the immensity of God’s love and being filled with the fullness of God can’t happen apart from God’s enablement. As Paul says, “through his Spirit in your inner being.” This isn’t something we do on our own. We don’t have the ability to do it. Our inclinations toward God have to come from God. That’s the only way any of this is possible. 

That’s why the first step to experiencing this kind of fullness, this higher way of living, is coming into a relationship with God through Jesus. It involves turning away from our sin and putting our trust in Jesus to save us, recognizing that his death on the cross was all that was needed to pay for our sins. And when we direct our confidence toward Jesus in that way and embrace him, the Bible says we become a new person. The Bible calls it being “born again” because there’s a change that’s so radical, it’s as if we’ve been born a second time. And the Bible also says that from that point forward, God’s Holy Spirit comes and takes up residence in our hearts. He dwells within us and empowers us to live the way Jesus teaches us to live. The Christian life is a supernatural phenomenon. Contrary to what many in the self-help movement teach, it’s not about what we can do in our own strength or by our own willpower. It’s about what God can do in us and through us. And if we don’t have the Holy Spirit living within us, we can’t be, as Paul says, strengthened by the Spirit, and the only resources we have available to us are the shallow clichés of the self-help gurus. In fact, all this talk about being captivated by God will seem completely foreign to someone without the Spirit. It’s like we’re speaking a foreign language to them. They don’t even understand what we’re talking about when we say “delighting in God” or “being captivated by God.”

And even as Christians, if we try to pursue God and come to a deeper apprehension of God apart from the Spirit’s power, we’re just gonna frustrate ourselves. Our hearts will be cold and distracted and weighed down—almost like we’re trying to walk through quicksand or something. So that’s why Paul prays first that the Ephesian Christians would be strengthened by the Spirit.

Comprehending Christ’s Love

And then the second prayer he prays is that they would comprehend the immensity of Christ’s love. Beginning in the second part of verse 17: “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.” God’s love is immense. It’s immeasurable. It’s utterly beyond our ability to comprehend. And yet, Paul still prays that we’d be able to at least comprehend something of this incomprehensible love. As he phrases it in sort of a paradoxical way, that we would “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.”

I think of how vast the universe is: billions and billions of stars in our galaxy and billions and billions of galaxies in our universe. And that’s just what we can see with our telescopes. We probably haven’t even come up with a number that can measure how big or how many galaxies are in the universe that are beyond what we can see. Even just looking up at the starts at night with the unaided eye reminds us of how vast everything is and how great it’s Creator must be. He’s so infinitely beyond us—beyond what our tiny little minds can comprehend. And as we see in our text, one of the ways God’s infinitely beyond us is in his love. Who can measure the length and the width and the height and the depth of God’s love? 

And the ultimate demonstration of this love is at the cross. That’s why verse 19 calls it “the love of Christ.” The cross is the clearest picture we have of God’s love. 1 John 3:16 says, “By this we know what love is, that he laid down his life for us.” That’s what God’s love looks like. It’s not the shallow sentimentalism of Hollywood. It’s the self-giving, self-sacrificing love that Jesus displayed on the cross as he regarded our well-being ahead of his own. And that love is so amazing, so incomprehensible, for three reasons. Number one, because of who Jesus is. The blood that was spilled on the cross wasn’t ordinary blood. It was the blood of one who had never sinned, the blood of one who was spotless and perfect and pure. And it was also royal blood, the infinitely valuable blood of the Son of God. Also, the second thing that makes Jesus’ love amazing is the radical nature of his sacrifice. Jesus endured the agony, the humiliation, the shame, the utter aloneness of the cross to pay for our sins. And not only that, but the full wrath of God the Father was poured out on him so it wouldn’t have to be poured out on us. It’s one thing to pay a speeding ticket someone; it’s another thing to endure such extreme torture and death in their place. 

And finally, the third thing that makes Jesus’ love so amazing is who it was directed towards. It wasn’t directed towards lovable people. It was directed toward sinners, rebels, people in opposition to God. Romans 5:8 states that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” You know, I was trying to think of earthly illustrations of God’s love to share tonight, and I really couldn’t find any parallels for this kind of love. I mean, we have a mother’s love for her children that’s often sacrificial, and we have a soldier’s love for his comrades that’s sacrificial at times, but I’m not sure we ever see people sacrificially loving their enemies. That’s just not something we see apart from Christ; it’s unheard of. Just look at American politics. You don’t love your enemies. You take them down, you mock them, you demonize them, you drag their name through the mud, you do whatever you have to do to make sure that you come out on top and they look like fools. That’s the world. But on the cross, we see a very different picture—a picture of Jesus loving his enemies, even to the point of sacrificing himself to pay for their sins. Wow: what length, what width, what height, what depth is the love of Christ! It’s like looking out over the ocean, stretching on and on and on far beyond what our eyes can see. 

Now, let’s take a step back and ask ourselves, “Why is Paul praying this prayer for the Ephesians? Why does he pray that they would grasp the immensity of Christ’s love?” Yeah, I’m sure it’ll make them feel good, but is there any reason beyond that? I believe there is. You see, grasping God’s love does more than make us feel good. It transforms everything about our lives. In fact, all of God’s attributes function that way. They define the way we live. As we come to grasp more of who God is—more of his love like we see here in this text, as well as more of his holiness and majesty and sovereignty and justice and wisdom—the more we grasp these things, the more our lives are transformed by them. You see, we naturally live out our vision of God. We naturally live out who we believe God to be. It’s kind of like my physical vision, my eyesight. It pretty much guides my life. I’m standing here right now because I can physically see this room and understand that in order to teach the Bible, this is where I need to be. Not too long ago, I ate those refreshments because I could see them and know that I wasn’t eating a rock or something. I looked at those bottles of water and saw that they weren’t labeled antifreeze, and so I drank one of them. A good portion of my life involves functioning according to my physical vision. Just about everything I do is in some way responding to what my physical eyes perceive. 

And it works the same way with God. Everything I do, every conversation I have, every thought I think, every priority I set, every dollar I spend, every attitude I possess all come from who I believe God to be. I’m responding to my vision of God. Sometimes I’m functioning according to an accurate vision of God. I forgive people, because I believe God’s forgiven me. I have peace in my heart when finances get tight because I believe God’s faithful to provide for me. But sometimes, I function according to a distorted vision of God. I get anxious because I’m not really believing that God’s in control. I’m proud because I’m not really believing God’s holy and majestic. I’m impatient with my son because I’m not really believing God’s loves me ever so patiently. Everything in my life, good and bad, can ultimately be traced back to my view of God in that moment. That’s why it’s so important we have an accurate picture of who God is, and that’s why Paul prays that the Ephesians would grasp the immensity of Christ’s love—because their view of God defines the way they live.

Being Filled with the Fullness of God

And when they grasp the immensity of Christ’s love, the result of that, as we see in verse 19, is that they will “be filled with all the fullness of God.” That’s the third and final prayer Paul shares. First, he prayed about being strengthened by the Spirit. Then he prayed about comprehending Christ’s love. And third, he prays about being filled with the fullness of God. Now, that’s an interesting phrase, being “filled with all the fullness of God.” That’s what happens when we truly grasp the immensity of Christ’s love. That’s the resulting state we live in—a state in which we’re “filled with all the fullness of God.” Kind of like a sponge that’s totally saturated with water. Every pore of that sponge is totally filled to the point that it simply can’t hold any more than it’s currently holding. It’s saturated. And that’s how we’re supposed to be with God. 

You see, as we grasp the immensity of Christ’s love, as well as everything else that’s true about who he is, it captivates us. It grabs ahold of our heart and our affections and appetites. John MacArthur describes how being filled with the fullness of God refers to total domination. Every aspect of our being is caught up in God. And listen to me: if there’s one thing I can do through these teaching sessions, if there’s one thing I can do in my personal relationships with many of you, it would be to lead you in this direction—to do whatever I can help you become captivated by God. And that, I believe, is the main thing God would have us pull out of this text. 

So often, our minds are filled with earthly thoughts. We’re so caught up in the things of this world—our busy schedules, the things that cause us anxiety, the tasks at hand—we’re so caught up in these things that we rarely think thoughts about God. If I had one goal, it would be to elevate your thinking. It would be to lead you to think higher and more frequent thoughts of God, to have a biblical vision of who God is and an all-consuming desire to see his face. That’s the fullness of Christian experience. That’s what true spirituality is all about. Jonathan Edwards, an eighteenth century theologian acknowledged by many to be the most brilliant mind America has ever produced, said it this way: He used the terminology of having affections for God, and he said that his goal in preaching was to raise people’s affections for God as high as he possibly could. He said that’s mainly what true Christianity is all about: raising our affections for God. 

You know, it’s ironic how, even when our attention is turned toward spiritual matters—I’m not even talking about earthly concerns anymore—even when we’re paying attention to spiritual things, we can get so caught up in the details that we miss the whole point of everything. Kind of like a wedding. It’s possible especially for the bride to get so caught up in the details of planning the wedding—the location, the flowers, the cake, the dress, the food, the photographer, the exact number of inches the groomsmen should stand apart—that it’s easy to forget the ultimate purpose of it all, being united in marriage before God. And, similarly, it’s so easy for us to get so caught up in the details of Christianity—the church service, the activities, and even core things like making disciples and building relationships—that we forget the over-arching purpose of it all. And that purpose is that we ourselves and those around us would become captivated by God. That’s the end goal. That’s how God is glorified. That’s how we are satisfied—when we become captivated by God. That should be our goal in all of our relationships with other believers: to lift their thoughts toward God and cause them to be more captivated by him. That should be our goal in all of our personal prayer and Bible study times each day: to life our thoughts toward God and become more captivated by him. 

You know, as any true Christian understands, it can be a struggle to overcome sin in our lives. It’s like an inward battle is taking place, and we frequently feel pulled away from God and in the direction of things that dishonor God. Do you know what the solution to that is? Desiring God more. Coming to the place where Jesus is more attractive to you than anything else. A Puritan pastor named Thomas Chalmers wrote an incredibly insightful sermon that’s as relevant today as it was two hundred years ago. It’s entitled The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. And he basically says that they way to overcome sin isn’t by gritting your teeth and trying harder as if you could just force yourself to give it up. No, he says, the way we overcome sin is by replacing those misguided affections with affections for God. That’s the only way we’ll ever experience true transformation. You’re always gonna choose what your heart desires the most, and so the only way overcome a particular sin is by acquiring greater affections for Jesus than you have for that sin. Let’s pray that God would raise our affections for him—that we become captivated by him and “filled with all the fullness of God.”