Let's hear God's word from Ephesians chapter three, beginning with verse 14. For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now, to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. We'll end our reading there at the end of Ephesians chapter three. Let's once again ask for God's help in prayer. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, in this portion, of your word. We feel our inadequacy. We feel our weakness. Lord, we see the mountain peaks of this truth rising one after the other into an inexpressible distance. And we are supposed to follow along as best we can. Oh, Lord, sinful, distracted, earthly as we are, how can we rise to these glorious heights? We cannot by ourselves, and so we pray for the help of the Holy Spirit to accompany your word and to give us, if not a full, if not a clear grasp, at least a less dim and vague grasp of this wonderful paragraph. In Jesus' name, amen. Paul resumes a thought that he had interrupted himself in back in verse one of chapter three here. Chapter three, verse one begins with, for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles, and then there's a parenthesis, and he's been dealing with his self-interruption or with his sidebar discussion in the following verses. Well, now he gets back to what he started to say in Ephesians 3 verse 1. So he repeats again, resuming, for this reason. For the reason of everything that he held out to be true in chapters one and two, and of course what he said in his digression is also relevant, for all of these reasons then, for this comprehensive reason, I bow my knees. Now that, we understand what he's talking about. He doesn't use the word, but we all know what he means. Let me throw this out there for the kids. When Paul says, I bow my knees, what is he doing? He's kneeling, yes, but what's the other thing he's doing? He's praying. Thank you very much. That's exactly right. Paul is praying. So in this verse, Paul tells us about an action that he undertook, not just once, but repeatedly he prayed. Now, why from I bow my knee, Do we get the idea that he prayed? Well, because in the Bible, kneeling is a posture of supplication. When you went to ask a favor from somebody, you would kneel. And this was practiced in the church. For instance, you might remember when the people from Ephesus were saying goodbye to Paul, they kneeled down. and prayed for him on the beach. The beach wasn't in Ephesus, they'd gone to meet him in Miletus, but they knelt down on the beach in public. Now, there are different gestures that are associated with different things. Obviously here in church, we don't typically kneel. If I were to kneel, I don't think people would be able to see me and I don't think you would be able to hear me. But what do we do when we're gonna pray? Well, our characteristic gesture for prayer is we fold our hands, we close our eyes, we bow our heads. If you see me like this, you know what's happening, right? And in the Bible, there are different postures for prayer. Sometimes people will pray lying flat on their face. That usually happens if they're feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes people will look, they'll be standing, but they'll look down when they pray. That usually happens when they're confessing their sins. That's more of a shamed approach, right? You're not proud, you don't presume you have a right to access God. Sometimes people will lift up their eyes and stretch out their hands. That's usually if they're worshiping God, they're praying in a way of adoration, or they're expecting to receive a blessing. Now, we don't mandate a particular posture for prayer. In fact, the Reformed Church has fought with people over, oh, you've got to kneel when you pray, or you've got to do this, you've got to do this. No, we don't have to. We always resist, well, hopefully we always resist when somebody tries to turn into a law or a commandment something which is not a law or a commandment. We don't have any right to add to God's law. And so if somebody says, well, you have to do X, Y, or Z, it's like, well, you gotta show us where that's written in the Bible, because otherwise we don't have to do that. It may not be a bad thing to do, but if somebody tries to make us, if somebody tries to say that it's God's law we have to do this, Well, the reformed have a reputation for resisting that. Hopefully it arises out of principle. Sometimes it might arise out of rebelliousness, but hopefully it's usually arising out of principle. And that is a principle we believe in. If somebody says you can't and you are allowed to, well, guess what? We're going to do it even harder. If somebody says you must and you don't have to, well, we're going to resist. We resist making it a law. That doesn't mean that we have to be dense. That doesn't mean that we have to be uselessly obstinate. Kneeling is associated with prayer for a reason. Different postures are associated with prayer for a reason. And the reason is very simple. What you're thinking, what you're feeling impacts how you stand, how you position yourself. It's a reflection of what's going on inside. So you could all tell me, you know what this would mean. Say somebody from the congregation raises a hand and wants to speak, and I go like this. You all know what that means. That is not a welcome interruption. I'm skeptical or hostile to whatever is being said. Now, obviously that may be a little bit idiosyncratic. Sometimes people cross their arms and that's not what it means. But in general, you know, that's not a sign of openness. Or if I go, you know, well, okay, I'm not listening. I don't want to hear it. Some things are very obvious that way. Well, even today, kneeling is a sign of supplication. The number one place this comes up is probably proposals. When a young man decides he's found the right girl and he's gonna ask, he's gonna take the plunge, you don't have to, but it's often helpful to get down on one knee to quote-unquote pop the question. So when we're praying, Is there a particular posture we have to adopt? No. If you were upside down being tortured, you could pray from that position and you should pray from that position in that situation. But if you're free to move around, Different postures can be helpful, and there's nothing wrong with going with that. Now, obviously, if you have had a knee replacement surgery or need a knee replacement surgery, kneeling might not be your first choice. That's very understandable. That's okay. But if there is a posture that helps you to stay focused, that helps your mind to wander less, go for it, use it. Postures are associated with prayer because they reflect the attitude of prayer to some extent. And by reflecting the attitude of prayer, they're sometimes helpful in keeping us focused on prayer. Now, we've said that about prayer. Obviously, you could generalize that out to other things, but it comes up in the context of prayer here. So that's Paul's action. He bows his knee, and by bowing the knee, we understand that he is engaging in prayer. And Paul directs that action in a particular direction. Of course, prayer is to be made to God. We're all familiar with that. We all know that that's true. But Paul thinks about God in a very specific way as he comes to pray for the Ephesians here. He says, for this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, And then he adds something else about God. He adds that from him, the whole family in heaven and earth is named. So there's the action, and then there's the object. In what direction is that action pointed? Well, it is pointed to God the Father. And Paul describes God the Father in two ways. He describes him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he describes him as the one from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Well, let's think about both of those descriptions of God for a moment here. The idea of God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not new to us. It came up already right in the beginning of the letter. Chapter one, verse two, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Or then again, verse three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. put into that are sort of two ideas that you can distinguish a little bit. One is you have that God the Father is the Father of Christ, and then you have that God the Father is our Father. Now those two things are not completely separate. They are related among themselves. Within the mystery of the Trinity, we understand there is only one God, and yet this one God eternally exists as three persons. And the most usual names for those three persons are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Obviously, with the Son, you also have the name of the Word, which you get in John chapter one. But more usual, more typical, is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the fatherhood of the first person is not dependent on us. We don't call the first person of the Trinity father, first of all, because he created us or even because he adopted us. The first reason, the fundamental reason, the eternal reason is that he is the father of the son. Now, this can be very helpful for a couple of reasons, but let me just give you one as we work through this this morning. We speak about God, and our ideas about God can be very, very vague, but when God shows us that in his being there are three distinct persons who are related. That gives us a much clearer view of God. That gives us a much better handle on God, so to speak, than anybody could possibly have who didn't know the doctrine of the Trinity. So this is very helpful in giving us something concrete to relate to in God. God is so far beyond us. This is a constant challenge, but God helps us by showing us something of, so to speak, his inside. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mutually relating for all eternity. They always have been, and they always will be. That's the first reason we call him Father. But as father of God the Son, God the Son who took to himself a true human nature, God the Son who lived as the perfect human being, as our covenant head and representative, well, when we're joined to Christ, God is also our father, not just by creation. There's a way in which that's true, of course. For instance, in Hebrews chapter 12, he's called the father of spirits. Well, in the sense that he created everybody, he's everybody's father. but in this more restricted, in this more glorious, in this more wonderful way, He is our Father in Christ because He's caused us to be born again and because He has adopted us. We are sons, daughters of God in, by union to God the Son. So Paul calls upon the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by grace, through adoption for the sake of Christ, has become our Father as well. Now that ties in very, very much with prayer, doesn't it? How does the Lord Jesus teach us to pray? Our Father, who art in heaven. When we don't see God as a father, that is a huge obstacle to prayer. Now, people can have a hard time with that because when you think about fathers, of course, you have a tendency to think of your own father. And of course, some fathers reflect the character of God better or more than others do. So if you had a father who was distant, who was cold, who was harsh, who was violent, The idea that, oh, I'm going to pray because God is my father. I want to come to him with all my cares and concerns. You may think, no, that's not what we do. We go to mom, we talk to her, and we try to keep everything from dad as much as we possibly can. I'm sorry if that was your experience, but we can't afford to take a distorted view that we got from our earthly fathers and project that onto God, our Father. Instead, we have to think that He's better than the best Father. Maybe you had one of those outstanding, all-time great fathers, and it was very natural to you. Something happened, you messed up, whatever, you went and told him because you wanted to fix it. You knew he would help you. You knew he would care and would be involved. And even if he told you what you'd done wrong, he wouldn't do it out of a lack of love. He wouldn't do it with any unnecessary harshness. If you had a great dad like that, our Heavenly Father is even better. And if you had a dad who was not like that, our Heavenly Father stands in tremendous contrast to that. So whatever the realities of your upbringing were, Paul views God as Father, and because he views God as Father, he is very motivated to pray. He knows he can come to God with everything. Now we come through Christ. We come with reverence. He's still bowing the knee, but he comes. He's confident in coming. Well, this is a place where we can stop and we can ask ourselves the question, how is our prayer life? Now, obviously everybody has room for improvement, but do you pray? Do you pray frequently? Do you pray quickly? Not that you rattle through your prayers as fast as you can, but does it take a lot to get you to pray? Or can you pray at the drop of a hat? Are you ready to pray? Do you pray routinely, consistently? If not, One of the reasons might be that your view of God has not fully taken on board that you are his adopted son or daughter. Maybe you haven't yet understood what kind of father God is. Sometimes people think, well, I just need to yell at myself more, and if I yell at myself more, I'll pray more. I don't think that works. Yeah, we need some rebuke. We need some admonition. I'm not saying there's no place for it, but you can't make yourself pray by yelling at yourself harder. A lot of times what really needs to change is our perspective. Now, we can have different hangups about prayer. We can say, well, God is sovereign, so I don't really need to pray. And then that's just making his sovereignty into an excuse for our laziness, which it's not supposed to be. But sometimes the real obstacle here is we don't trust God. We don't pray because we don't have a lot of confidence in God. And one of the reasons we don't have a lot of confidence in God is we haven't really learned to see him as our loving heavenly father. So let me just challenge you on that point. Does your prayer life exhibit that there's a weakness in your faith with regard to whether or not God is your father? Or with regard to what kind of a father God is? Well, he is the kind of father to whom you can turn with your cares and concerns. He said to Jeremiah, I have loved you with everlasting love. What have we read already about this father just in the book of Ephesians? Well, he chose us before the foundation of the world. He predestined us to the adoption of sons. In love, he predestined us. Is this a father that you need to very carefully keep things from so he won't fly off the handle, so he won't overreact? Clearly not. This is a father who knew the worst and chose you anyway. It doesn't do you any good to not come to him. He already knows all about it. But that childlike trust, that open coming, that effort in prayer is pleasing, is agreeable to God. Well, how do you feel about your kids? Do you want them to think, oh, I can't talk to dad about that? I could never bring that up. Or do you want them to be able to come? Do you want them to be able to say to you, this is what's going on with me, even if it's hard, even if it's not good. Why would you assume that you're more loving to your children than God is to you? That seems a little backwards, doesn't it? Isn't God better than all of us here put together? Well, sure he is. If we could mutually cancel out one another's faults and failings, we still would be falling far short of God's glorious perfection. So come to God in prayer. If you're having trouble with that, bring that to God in prayer. Say, the Bible says you're my father, but I don't really feel like that's true. If that's the case, tell God that. If you say, well, I don't really have a very positive view of fathers. I don't view them as problem solvers. I view them as problem causers. Well, tell God that. Ask Him to help you fix that. Ask Him to change that perspective or that outlook in your heart. Whatever it is that keeps you from praying, pray about that. It doesn't have to be long. Just say to God, I'm having trouble praying and I think it's because, please help. You can be done. That can be the whole prayer. but at least you've come to Him with your genuine problem. At least you've made a start. At least you've sought to God for His grace. Now, I'm illustrating all of this from this specific of having trouble in prayer because your view of God as Father is weak or a little off center. But you could apply that to anything, right? You could apply that to every single problem you have, whether it's a spiritual problem, whether it's a situational problem, whatever it is, You can apply that there. If you hesitate to pray because you feel too sinful to pray, tell God that. Whatever it may be, come before the Lord with that weight on your heart. Paul did, and Paul brought other people. Sometimes the weight on our heart is other people. Well, we bring them before the Lord, and we bring them before the Lord understanding who he is. We're not even going to get to verse 16 today, let alone verse 17. We're going to have to make the series on Ephesians a little longer than I had expected because we still haven't even started with the second way that Paul describes God. He describes God the Father as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. therefore, as our Father in Christ. And he kind of brings that out. He digs into that a little bit more when he says, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Now, there's a couple of different ways that we can understand that. Some people take it to mean that God's fatherhood is original. And every other fatherhood is derivative. Well, that's clearly true in the nature of the case. Why are there human families? And why do those human families have a father and children? Well, it's one of the ways that God uses to teach us about himself. Now, obviously, the analogy is not perfect, right? It would be wrong to talk about the Trinity as a family and just leave it there. That is a way that you can get to a sort of tritheism where the unity between the persons of the Trinity, that they are one substance, is not sufficiently emphasized. So let me be very careful on that one. We do not want to exaggerate the analogy. It's always dangerous to start from human realities and then project them onto God and change our doctrine of God so that it lines up with our human realities better. That's horrible theological method. If God is original, we start with God. We start with what God has told him about himself. And if we find partial analogies in God's creation, in the way he's constituted the world, we make sure we remember they're very partial and we can't just go to town with them. They're not an allegory that spell out everything about God. They're one little point of contact on a very precise issue. That being said, Obviously, the relationship between a human father and a human son helps us to understand, although we have to make all kinds of qualifications and we have to remove everything that is physical, everything that is temporary, everything that involves a question of priority or of one coming before the other. We've got to remove all of that. When we remove all of that, the relationship between Father and Son in the Trinity can be very, very partially illustrated by the relationship between Father and Son in human families. But it's very limited. So is that understanding true? Yes, it is. God is the foundation for everything. God is the foundation for the family. But I don't think that that's what Paul is particularly highlighting here for a couple of reasons. One is that he talks about the whole family in heaven and earth. And in talking about the whole family in heaven and earth, he's talking about one thing that is a spiritual unity. Well, if Every family is derivative from God. You have some spiritual disunity there as well. My second reason for not thinking that that's the main emphasis is that Paul brings us up specifically with reference to prayer, and he brings us up in the context of Ephesians. Well, one of the big things he's been talking about in Ephesians is unity, the unity that there is between Jew and Gentile. He's even talked about unity between spiritual beings and the church. He's going to bring that up. In verse 21, he talks about how there will be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, but relate that to verse 10, where he's making known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. And then my third reason is that older commentators tend to take this as speaking of the church, the church militant and the church triumphant. And a lot of times they will also relate that then to the participation of the angels in the purposes of God. So with all of that by way of background, you might say, okay, so what do I take away from this from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named? What do I get from that? Well, at least two things. Number one, you take away from that that we are a family. The church is one family, through all ages, around the world, with all the different variations that come up, different opinions, different backgrounds, different this, different that. If we belong to Christ, if we are joined to him, by true faith, then we form one family. Part of that family is here on earth. Here we are. Part of that family is in heaven, the church triumphant, people who have already been summoned by God to enter into their rest. But are we separated? Are we divided from the church triumphant? No, they're not part of a different family. And then, of course, that reinforces Paul's theme of unity in Christ between Jew and Gentile or between any other division that you can postulate. We are brought together into one family. Why are we one family? Because we have one Father. What constitutes a family? Well, that's one of the main ingredients, right? And that is a biblical question. Have we not all one father? And the implied answer to that rhetorical question is yes, we do. So all believers from all times, all ages have one father. From that one father, we get our name. That's how we're identified. That's who we are. To what family do you belong? Well, a lot of the times we'll answer that by saying what our last name is or we might reference our ancestors on our dad's side or on our mom's side. Spiritually though, the right answer, the ultimate answer is we belong to the family of God. Now that's encouraging. for many reasons. That's encouraging whenever we think, oh, we're such a little group. We can't make any difference. Are you kidding me? We are part of a multitude whom no man can number. We're not part of some tiny minority. We are part of this huge family. We're not all alone. We're not isolated. It can be encouraging because sometimes we do feel cut off from our loved ones, especially from our deceased loved ones. Well, it's true. We can't go see them. We can't talk to them. We can't hug them. But we're joined in one family to them. They're in the church triumphant and we're in the church militant, but it's all one family. The whole family in heaven and earth is brought together in this unity with God. With God as our Father, we have brothers and sisters beyond counting, and we're not ultimately separated from any of them. Ultimately, we will all be one happy family. Well, and then that's also a challenge to us, isn't it? As we've been challenged to pray because God is our Father, now we're challenged to pray for one another because we're all brothers and sisters. And we're also challenged to live as family members. Yes, we have disagreements. Yes, we have discussions. Yes, sometimes we get into it and fur flies a little bit. That happens. But we don't stop being related because of that. And we don't have the option of just saying, you know what? You're out of the family. It's God's family. We don't get to kick other people out. So we have to receive one another as brothers and sisters. We have to do our best to live in peace with one another because we all belong to one family. Spurgeon has a funeral sermon actually from this passage and he points out in that sermon that we're going to be together for all eternity. We might as well learn how to get along, how to love one another here below. you're stuck with fellow believers. You're not going to be able to get rid of them. Wouldn't it make more sense to just start loving them now? That would be easier. I mean, I'm not saying it's not challenging for the flesh, but it would be easier than trying to keep your distance from them. And then in eternity, you're going to be side by side. You're going to be together anyway. Well, may the Lord give us grace to see him as our father, to see one another as brothers and sisters, and to live as those whose identity is, this is our name, we belong to the family of God. Amen.