Ephesians 3:14-21
Sermon preached at Barclay Church, Edinburgh by Rev D. Graham Leitch
15 June 2003

I know the first time I ever said the words I repeated earlier in the service today. “The reading is taken from the third chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, reading from verse 14-21.....” It was October 1980. After 4 years working on the staff of Scripture Union and a five year ministry in Ferryden - a place which had become as precious to me in my years of ministry there as it had been to one of my predecessors here - the first Minister of the Barclay Church. James Hood Wilson, the first minister of the Barclay, (whose bust stand in the entrance to the church) had been used greatly by God in what came to be known as the Ferryden Revival and thereafter talked of “my beloved Ferryden” - after a five year ministry in Ferryden (just outside Montrose), I had returned to the city of my birth to become just the sixth Minister of Barclay Church in its 120 year history.

IT WAS OCTOBER 1980...
It was October 1980; it was after my induction. and I was conducting my first service as its minister. Twenty three years have passed. When Mary and I came to Edinburgh our children were children - and now they have and are having their own!! Twenty three years have passed. When I was inducted the congregations of Barclay-Bruntsfield and Chalmers-Lauriston has just been united. Most of you weren’t here then and some of you weren’t even born!! Twenty three years have passed but I can still remember that first service!! I was younger then! No - I was young, and the world of Edinburgh city churches was foreign to me. I knew how foreign when I was asked, in all seriousness, whether I would be wearing my “frock coat” to the induction social!!

“What frock coat!”I asked Mary! I didn’t have one and coming from a minimum stipend charge I couldn't afford one and certainly didn’t intend to get one.

I was young - and I was nervous! So nervous I got everyone mixed up when I got mixed up repeating the word’s of the Lord’s Prayer!!

TWO EARLY MEMORIES
Two early memories remain with me. It was the practice in those days for distinguished Ministers, Professors and ex-Professors of the Faculty of Divinity to visit certain of the city churches when a new Minister came...

Within a month or so I stood up - it was at an Evening Service - and on seeing a certain minister in the pews felt sick at the sight! Professor James S Stewart, formerly Professor of New Testament at New College, an evangelical preacher of world renown and (many would say) the greatest Scottish preacher of the 20th Century was sitting there! His insignificant frame gave no intimation of the heart of fire, intellectual capacity, passion for the Gospel and pulpit eloquence it concealed!!

I treasured the generous appreciation of my pulpit ministry he so warmly expressed after the service and the wonderfully encouraging letter he sent a few days later!

A few weeks later the Very Rev George McLeod - the founder of the Iona Community - Lord McLeod of Fuinary, who was as imposing as James S Stewart was insignificant, came along to Morning Service.

As it happened I wasn’t preaching that morning and after the service he gruffly expressed his displeasure - “I came to hear YOU...!!” he bellowed. I thought afterwards that I should have replied:
“It’s always a mistake to go to church hear a man preach, It is best to go to worship God and listen to what HE is saying....” But it was too late. He was gone!!

Yes! It was twenty three years ago. It was October 1980. I was young and I was nervous. And I chose to preach my FIRST SERMON in Barclay on Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians embedded at the heart of his letter to them - the prayer read earlier.

Today is my last Sunday - my last day with you - and I have chosen to return to where I began and after 23 years of preaching from the Bible and preaching the Bible to you, allow Ephesians 3:14-21 to be my guide in what I say to you in this final sermon:

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21

From a passage that is brimful of relevant teaching - and one of the things I have wanted to do in my ministry is unpack the Bible’s teaching and reveal its attractiveness and power - expose you to its truth and demonstrate to those who listen its contemporary spiritual and practical RELEVANCE - from a passage brimful if relevant teaching, I want to select a number of key words - all verbs - and invite you to ponder with me what they may have to say today.

It’s best, as Dylan Thomas says in “Under Milk Wood” to “begin at the beginning” and at the beginning of this passage we have a KNEELING.

A KNEELING......
“For this reason” Paul says “I kneel before the Father from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name...”

...OF SUBMISSION
In the ancient world kneeling was the sign of SUBMISSION - when Jesus fell to the ground in the garden of Gethsemane and prayed with great fervour that the cup of his suffering (what lay ahead) might pass Him by, he he knelt and said “Yet not my will but thine be done....”

To many of you - as to Mary and I - the call to us to leave the home, the numerable friends and the church that has come to mean so much to us, and has in a real sense been our life for the past 23 years, has come unlooked for, unexpectedly and as a shock!!

Yet we feel - and I hope that you can all feel - that to kneel at the feet of God the Father and, submitting to His Sovereignty, say “thy will be done” is not only the right and proper and good thing to do but the only path to the truest happiness in life and divine blessing.

...OF THANKSGIVING!
But in the ancient world - and you find this again and again in the Old T estament - KNEELING is the characteristic position of worship and thanksgiving.

To cite just one example, when the temple built by Solomon is consecrated in 2 Chronicles 7 and God manifests His presence, the people all kneel down with their faces to the ground,, and they worship and give thanks to the LORD saying:

“He is good, his love endures for ever....”

Let today be a day to recall the Lord’s blessing - his goodness to us in past days and to praise and honour Him.....I feel such a sense of indebtedess today - to you, of course, but most of all to Him!!

There is so much to praise Him for. As one modern writer remarks: “The Christian is always suspended between blessing received and blessing yet to come - so He should always be grateful!!”

Long ago Paul said “I bow my knees before the Father....” Today, as I follow Paul and kneel in my heart before the Father, I thank God for this congregation of His people: for its patience, for its encouragement and, perhaps above all, for its POTENTIAL, for as I’ve said more than once - I believe this congregation has an exciting future!!

I feel today rather like Moses - neither so old, of course, nor about to die, of course, but Moses -as He climbed Mount Nebo from the plain of Moab and looked out and down upon the land that God was about to give to those with whom he had journeyed so closely, through all the ups and downs of their travels, for so long..... the land that the people were about to enter and possess!!

And I suppose I want to say to YOU just what God said to Joshua just at that critical time in Israel’s history:
. First - do NOT be afraid, for God IS with you.
. Second - I have climbed Mount Nebo on your behalf and seen what is to be - don’t be afraid -
get ready and go on. Enter and possess the land that God is calling you to claim for Him!!

“For this reason” Paul says “I kneel before the Father from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name...”

....OF SUPPLICATION OR PRAYER
Kneeeling in the Bible is not only thje posture of submission and thanksgiving but also the posture of earnest supplication - how I pray that God will guard you and guide you, strengthen and keep you, envision, equip and USE you in future days, making you all that He wants you to be for Him in this parish and part of Scotland’s capital city!!

Will you covenant to PRAY for this church in its vacancy - for its Elders and Leaders, for its work and witness, for its children and young people - and not least for its future!!

Lay on his altar your fears, your weakness, your anxiety, you uncertainties, your sense of inadequacy. When you do that (praying honestly) you will find a very wonderful thing happens - He will accept your fears, honestly offered, and exhcnage for them his courage; your weakness and exchange for it His strength; your anxiety and exchange for it His assurance; your uncertainties and exchange for them his sure will; your inabilities and exchange for them the ability of Him who “is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or even imagine...”

I’ve spent rather longer than I had intended on the KNEELING:
“For this reason” Paul says “I kneel before the Father from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name...”

A STRENGTHENING....
The next thing we find in this passage is a STRENGTHENING. Recalling the names and faces of the children of God who were dear to him in Ephesus Paul declares:

“I pray that out of his glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being...”

Remembering them, Paul prays for their strengthening. It’s always important to remember that the strength on which the Christian draws - the strength to meet every challenge; strength to confront every difficulty and the strrength to do God’s work is not his own but comes from God!!

In the challenges of the vacancy that lie ahead you need to be spiritually fortified!! You need, and will have as you turn to Him daily and remain open to Him, the strength that comes from God. Notice two things about this STRENGTHENING:

i) ...OUT OF HIS GLORIOUS RICHES
First, it is (3:16)“out of his (God’s) glorious riches”:

Rely on yourself in Christian service and you will quickly become exhausted and disillusionment will soon follow. This is because Christians are not meant to serve in their own strength. Your own energies will soon fail you. But RELY ON GOD and it will be different - the rich storehouse of his help is inexhaustible!!

ii) ...THROUGH THE SPIRIT
The second thing about the STRENGTHENING that Paul speak about and seeks for the Christians in Ephesus is that it is “through the Spirit”:

“I pray that out of his glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being...”

When I announced that I was leaving more than one person said “What are we going to do...” I can’t tell you what you’re going to do - but I can tell you what you should do and it’s this:

Turn to God and be open to His Spirit’s enlivening, resourcing, equipping, leading and strengthening!
Meet each challenge and face each new day IN HIS STRENGTH and He will not fail you

If all the angels and archangels were helping us we might still fail...but with God on our side and God’s spirit as our strength we must succeed!!

A KNOWING...
Next (17m) comes a KNOWING:

“I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love beyond knowing...”

Notice how Paul distinguishes between “grasping” the dimensions of God’s love shown to us in Jesus Christ and “knowing” it!!

...OF INTELLECTUAL COMPREHENSION
The “grasping” is to do with the mind - with INTELLECTUAL COMPREHENSION - and that’s one thing: realising how wide and long and high and deep - the extent and the distance God went to to redeem us. The towering heights of his passion; the depths to which He condescended to save us!! The “grasping” is to do with the truth dawning and the mind seeing and appreciating the LOVE God has shown us.

Do you see it? Look at the Cross of Calvary and the sufferings of the Son of Man. Do you see it?! Do you get it? Do you grasp it?!! Do you UNDERSTAND!! It was for you, for YOU He gave His lifes blood. For you He beamce sin who knew no sin! For you He suffered! For YOU He died!!

...OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
The “grasping” is to do with the mind - with INTELLECTUAL COMPREHENSION. But the KNOWING’s different - it isn’t to do with “up here” (the mind) - it’s do with “in here” - the heart!! It’s to do with your PERSONAL EXPERIENCE of the love of God!!

I don’t care a threepenny piece - in one sense - whether you grasp (understand) it from one point of view - it is utterly beyond comprehension that God should love us - I don’t care a threepenny piece whether you “grasp” it but I want you to “know”it! To receive it, to rejoice in it, to bathe in it!!

As Spurgeon says:
“There is not a drop of love in his heart which is not yours! you may dive into the immense ocean of his love and say of it all ‘It is mine!’”

If, through my ministry, any of you have come to know Christ and His love - or to know more of it than you knew before - then I am well satisfied!!


A FILLING
The next thing we find in this passage (19m) is a FILLING:

“I pray..” Paul says, “....that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Knowing that you would be disappointed if in my last sermon there was no allusion to fishing, let me explain what Paul means here in this way! Loch fishermen have a choice - they can fish from the banks of the loch using waders....or they can use a boat - usually a rowing boat - arowing boat’s fine. But if there’s a wind gets up it can be a struggle to make muich headway pulling at the oars.

You may wonder what this has to do with being “filled to the measure of the fullness of God.”!! It’s simply this, that the picture Paul’s using is drawn from the world of boats and sailing!!

It’s the picture of those on board running up the sail to catch the wind. There are two ways to “do” church just as there are two ways to live out your Christian life. One, the heavy way, is the way of human reliance - in your own strength - pulling ceaselessly at the oars. But the other is to “hoist the sail” to catch the wind of the Spirit.

Its the choice between struggling at the oars and making little headway or none, and hoisting the sail to the Spirit of God.....”But how do I do that?” you say. Watch for the breeze - and hoist the sail like the expectant sailor - and God will surely fill it!!

“I pray..” Paul says, “that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

And the final thing we find in this passage is a doxology or blessing - and with that blessing we shall end the service afrer our final hymn:

“O FOR A THOUSAND TONGUES TO SING”
Tune: Lyngham


Benediction
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.