Our God is Greater Than Any Other
Matt Timmons
01/22/2023
01/22/2023
Ephesians 3:14-19
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
It is no doubt true that prayer is verbalized theology. We voice our beliefs about God when we bow and pray to him. This is why some prayers often seem more meaningful and deep than others.
That’s not to say that small prayers or prayers that are not drawn from deep wells of theology are meaningless. It’s just that our prayers will express what we know about God and how well we know him.
That is no doubt true for the prayer that we are beginning to examine today.
Ephesians 1-3 has had a heavy emphasis on doctrinal matters. And as Paul comes to this prayer, we find that this is no less true. There is, as it were, no letting off of the gas pedal as he comes to the exit of his doctrinal matters.
You might say that, even though he begins to pray, he does not check his theology at the door.
Prayer is, you might say, verbalized theology. And the best prayers are those that are formulated out of sound doctrine.
There is a book by Samuel Miller, an old Presbyterian minister. The book is entitled, “Thoughts on Public Prayer.” And it is designed to help other ministers, especially those starting out, think a little about how they go about leading the corporate prayer in worship. Oftentimes the pastor will concentrate so much on his job of preaching that he ends up not giving much attention to the other parts of the service, particularly that of the congregational prayer.
And Miller points out that these prayers should be a rich time of instruction as well as petitioning God. The prayers could have a tendency to simply ramble on or just quickly hit the list of needs which are presented. But Rev. Miller says that the corporate prayer should be something that is edifying to the congregation. The minister has the opportunity to instruct and build up his people in the prayer time if he would only take time to ground those petitions in some depth of biblical truth.
To put it another way, as you talk to God you can talk about God.
And really, that is what Paul does in this prayer that we have read this morning. As Paul offers this prayer, he is providing more than a simple request. What he has written is written for the edification of the Ephesians. Paul knows that the Ephesians will be reading this and so he takes the opportunity to reinforce his doctrine. He has one last chance to point out the great character of our God and encourage his readers. So he uses this prayer to educate us on the nature of God’s being.
In sum, Paul’s goal is that you would know God. That you would be enamored with him. That you would trust him and not waffle in regards to who should be the object of your worship. He knows that there are competitors vying for our affection. There are a myriad of gods from which we can choose or chase after. But Paul wants us to know that this God should be our God because there really is none like him. He is the greatest of all the gods.
How can we tell that this God is the highest and greatest God? We understand that by the fact that our God, first and foremost, is trinitarian
I. Our God is Triune
The passage before us is a great passage because it highlights the fact that we believe in one God who exists eternally in three distinct persons.
On the one hand, you see quite clearly the plurality of the Godhead. We can start with verse 14, where Paul says bows his knees before the first person of the trinity, the Father.
Then in verse 16 he asks that “we may be strengthened through his Spirit.” Here you have the third person of the trinity. Paul is, of course, recognizing that the supply of God’s empowerment comes to us by means of the Spirit. His role within the Godhead is to bring God’s power to us and apply it. He makes the divine strengthening possible.
But you notice the language Paul uses in regard to the Spirit. We are strengthened through “his Spirit.” Paul uses the possessive pronoun. This is, in other words, the Father’s Spirit.
Of course, we know that the Spirit of God belongs to the Father not because he is the Father’s pet or henchman. No, he can be called “his Spirit” because the Father and the Spirit are ultimately one. And because they share the same divine substance (that is, they both are uniquely God) and can be said to belong to one another.
You also see a couple references to the second person of the Trinity in this passage. Paul refers to Christ in verses 17 and 19. It can be said that this prayer is very much Christocentric as the Son of God has a distinct emphasis in this prayer. And we will have more opportunity to look at that as we go through this passage in more detail later on.
But I don’t want you to miss what Paul then says at the end of this prayer. While we might be able to distinguish the persons and see the plurality of the Godhead, Paul ends his prayer with an emphasis on the singularity of God. He says at the end of verse 19 that he wants us to be “filled with the fullness of God.”
What you find in 19 is that Paul is speaking in strict monotheistic terms here. He does not say fullness of these gods, nor does he say that one of these persons is more god than the others or that one is more important than the other. There’s nothing that would suggest that these three persons exist in different modes at different times. He recognizes that there is one God with whom we should be filled.
So again, you see in this prayer a very clear expression of the Triune nature of our God.
Now again, we have had opportunity to note various occasions through our study of the book of Ephesians the doctrine of the trinity. I will even go so far as to say that there have been various times that I did not mention it but could have. It is simply enough to say at this point that this letter has a rather prominent emphasis on the Triune nature of God.
And as Paul wraps up his doctrinal portion of the book, he comes back to it once again. And for good reason. There is no other doctrine that even begins to compare with the Trinity. When you want to think about how superlative our God is, this is it.
I like what James White says. He makes the comment in his book on the Trinity that people often alter the Biblical concept of God because God is just too big. They cannot accept the truth of the Trinity because they can’t conceive of a God who is that vast. They want someone who can fit into their human understanding. They need something more finite; more manageable.
And this is where we say, “Never!” We worship God because he is beyond us. We as Christians take heart in the fact that our God transcends our human understanding. That’s why we pray to him and worship him and put our trust in him.
Sure, the Trinity may be thought of as absurd by many, but again, that’s because they simply cannot comprehend of something so high and lofty.
From time to time I like to point out the words of Thomas Boston. In his commentary on the Shorter Catechism he says of the Trinity, it is not against reason, it is above it. Some people will look at the Trinity and say, “one is three and three is one” and they will say it’s absurd. They will say it is contradictory. But it is because their reason is limited. They think that God has to fit into their little box.
We as Christians know that God is well beyond our box. And chief among the doctrines that shows us this is what we find here.
The second thing we can say about God is found in verse 15. Paul says he bows his knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth is named.” This is a reference to God being Lord.
II. Our God is Lord
Now, to understand this you have to ask is, “What does it mean when Paul says that it is ‘from him that every family in heaven and earth is named?’”
You have to think of in terms of headship. One’s name comes from one who is in authority over them.
Some of you newlyweds have recently been going through this process of changing your name. That’s because you no longer go by your father’s name. You are no longer under his authority. When you got married, you came under the authority of your husband. So you march down to the county office and start filling out paperwork so that you can get a new social security card with your new name on it. And it all has to do with the fact that there has been a transfer of authority. You are now taking the name of your husband because your submission has been transferred over to him. Since he is your head, you derive your name from him.
And it is the same with kids. When you have children, those kids will have the same name.
That’s the kind of thing that Paul is talking about here. He’s recognizing that all the different groupings of the universe (like the angel family or the bird family, or the human family) are under the authority of God. Everything that exists comes under his headship. That’s because he created them and stands as Lord over them.
One commentator puts it this way: Paul is praying to “a big God, the scope of whose influence as Father extends over every grouping in the cosmos.”
Now, you might understand the significance of this in the Ancient world. Remember that Ephesus was where one of the 7 wonders of the world was housed. Ephesus was the hub of the worship of Artemis because her temple was there. And Artemis was a unique goddess because she was supposedly unable to be influenced by other deities. For instance, she was a virgin all her life. She she could not succumb to the tricks of Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
There is a sense in which Artemis stood out as a superior god because of this. But you might say that she had one weakness, she was born. She was the offspring of Zeus. Zeus too, was thought to be one of the highest of the gods. He was regarded as the father of men and gods.
But along comes Paul, and he says this. He is the head of all. All creation derives their name from him. All creation is born of this God.
Paul may very likely be poking a little at the Ephesian cult. I am thinking that as he wraps up his doctrine, he takes one last shot at the Ephesian religious system and says to this Christian body, “Hey, you people, you need to know that those gods out there in your city are nothing. If they do even exist, they are mere creatures who are subservient to our God.”
This is just as powerful for us. For what does secularism say? The world around us tells us that everything was born. It was born of a big bang. Matter gave birth to matter and there is nothing else. If there is a lord is it you or it is those so called scholars who tell us that there is no such thing as a spiritual creature--there is no God.
Paul’s reminding us of the doctrine of creation. He’s reminding us that there is a being that is greater than the natural world. And therefore we can put our trust in him. We don’t have to think that those who preach a naturalistic worldview are right. There is a God in the heavens. As a matter of fact, he owns the heavens. And we must worship and acknowledge him.
There’s one more item that needs to be considered. As Paul develops his theology of God, he not only points out that our God is trinity and Lord, he accentuates the omnipotence of God. God is unmatched in that he is, as our text says in verse 16, “rich in glory.”
III. Our God is Omnipotent
Now, in theology, we often talk about God’s glory as the sum total of God’s attributes. Or we use the word glory as a way of referring to the supreme majesty of God.
But Scripture can talk about God’s glory in a number of ways. Oftentimes it has this idea of a high intensity or a supreme caliber.
For instance, sometimes it means an intense radiance. We just came through the Christmas season and we heard the story of the angels appearing to the shepherds out in their fields. And Luke talks about how “the glory of the Lord shown around them.” There’s this idea of a brilliant light that was completely unnatural. There was a divine radiance that lit up the dark fields of Bethlehem.
And there are other places in the Scripture where the word glory can signify an expression of power that is of a supreme caliber. I think about Romans 6 where we are told that Christ is raised up from the dead. He’s raised by means of the glory of the Father. In other words, his resurrection came by an exertion of power that was greater than death itself. The power of the Father, which, in this case, is referred to as glory, was qualitatively higher than anything we have ever experienced on earth.
So there’s a sense in which the word glory represents something of intense magnitude or an advanced level. Add in the word riches of his glory (or bounty of his glory) and you have an expression that indicates the superlative form. It is an abundance that might be thought of as inexhaustible.
Not long ago Americans were complaining about the price of gasoline. We’ve found new things to complain about lately besides gasoline, so we don’t hear quite as much murmuring about it in recent days. But because of the outcry President Biden announced that he would release another 15 million barrels of oil from the US oil reserves. This 15 million capped off a draw down of 180 million barrels which he ordered back in March of 2022.
Now, to us, that sounds staggering. Many people heard that report and they were incredibly thankful that something was being done for the US economy. But what wasn’t reported is that Americans use 20 million barrels of oil a day. The grand total of oil that came into the market was really only enough to cover 9 days of American consumption. And really, the US reserves, at its highest amounts, only had enough oil to sustain the normal levels of American consumption for just over a month.
Now we hear those numbers and we think, “Wow. That’s a lot.” But really, in theory, it could easily dry up and leave us stranded.
This is where we understand that the power that God offers is radically different. It far surpasses the powers of this earth. God supplies according to the riches of his glory. His power is of the highest caliber. It is power which is of the highest intensity. When we talk of God’s power we use phrases that express its inexhaustible nature. It is a well that is can never run dry; it cannot even begin to be measured.
And so we not only have hope for our own strengthening, we have a God who is incomparable. He is one upon which we can rely for everything.
Conclusion
Paul knows that you will soon be out walking the streets of Ephesus. He knows that you will be faced with the pressures of society. He knows that once you walk outside those doors other deities will be vying for your attention.
That is why, as he talks to our God, he talks about about our God. And he leaves you with a God who shows himself to be greater. Whatever you are presented with, whom ever would try to steal your affection, you may know that not one of them an compare.
The Lord our God: Father, Son, and Spirit stand above all others. He alone is omnipotent. All creation comes from him. And therefore he alone is the one we should worship; he alone is the one we should trust.
That’s not to say that small prayers or prayers that are not drawn from deep wells of theology are meaningless. It’s just that our prayers will express what we know about God and how well we know him.
That is no doubt true for the prayer that we are beginning to examine today.
Ephesians 1-3 has had a heavy emphasis on doctrinal matters. And as Paul comes to this prayer, we find that this is no less true. There is, as it were, no letting off of the gas pedal as he comes to the exit of his doctrinal matters.
You might say that, even though he begins to pray, he does not check his theology at the door.
Prayer is, you might say, verbalized theology. And the best prayers are those that are formulated out of sound doctrine.
There is a book by Samuel Miller, an old Presbyterian minister. The book is entitled, “Thoughts on Public Prayer.” And it is designed to help other ministers, especially those starting out, think a little about how they go about leading the corporate prayer in worship. Oftentimes the pastor will concentrate so much on his job of preaching that he ends up not giving much attention to the other parts of the service, particularly that of the congregational prayer.
And Miller points out that these prayers should be a rich time of instruction as well as petitioning God. The prayers could have a tendency to simply ramble on or just quickly hit the list of needs which are presented. But Rev. Miller says that the corporate prayer should be something that is edifying to the congregation. The minister has the opportunity to instruct and build up his people in the prayer time if he would only take time to ground those petitions in some depth of biblical truth.
To put it another way, as you talk to God you can talk about God.
And really, that is what Paul does in this prayer that we have read this morning. As Paul offers this prayer, he is providing more than a simple request. What he has written is written for the edification of the Ephesians. Paul knows that the Ephesians will be reading this and so he takes the opportunity to reinforce his doctrine. He has one last chance to point out the great character of our God and encourage his readers. So he uses this prayer to educate us on the nature of God’s being.
In sum, Paul’s goal is that you would know God. That you would be enamored with him. That you would trust him and not waffle in regards to who should be the object of your worship. He knows that there are competitors vying for our affection. There are a myriad of gods from which we can choose or chase after. But Paul wants us to know that this God should be our God because there really is none like him. He is the greatest of all the gods.
How can we tell that this God is the highest and greatest God? We understand that by the fact that our God, first and foremost, is trinitarian
I. Our God is Triune
The passage before us is a great passage because it highlights the fact that we believe in one God who exists eternally in three distinct persons.
On the one hand, you see quite clearly the plurality of the Godhead. We can start with verse 14, where Paul says bows his knees before the first person of the trinity, the Father.
Then in verse 16 he asks that “we may be strengthened through his Spirit.” Here you have the third person of the trinity. Paul is, of course, recognizing that the supply of God’s empowerment comes to us by means of the Spirit. His role within the Godhead is to bring God’s power to us and apply it. He makes the divine strengthening possible.
But you notice the language Paul uses in regard to the Spirit. We are strengthened through “his Spirit.” Paul uses the possessive pronoun. This is, in other words, the Father’s Spirit.
Of course, we know that the Spirit of God belongs to the Father not because he is the Father’s pet or henchman. No, he can be called “his Spirit” because the Father and the Spirit are ultimately one. And because they share the same divine substance (that is, they both are uniquely God) and can be said to belong to one another.
You also see a couple references to the second person of the Trinity in this passage. Paul refers to Christ in verses 17 and 19. It can be said that this prayer is very much Christocentric as the Son of God has a distinct emphasis in this prayer. And we will have more opportunity to look at that as we go through this passage in more detail later on.
But I don’t want you to miss what Paul then says at the end of this prayer. While we might be able to distinguish the persons and see the plurality of the Godhead, Paul ends his prayer with an emphasis on the singularity of God. He says at the end of verse 19 that he wants us to be “filled with the fullness of God.”
What you find in 19 is that Paul is speaking in strict monotheistic terms here. He does not say fullness of these gods, nor does he say that one of these persons is more god than the others or that one is more important than the other. There’s nothing that would suggest that these three persons exist in different modes at different times. He recognizes that there is one God with whom we should be filled.
So again, you see in this prayer a very clear expression of the Triune nature of our God.
Now again, we have had opportunity to note various occasions through our study of the book of Ephesians the doctrine of the trinity. I will even go so far as to say that there have been various times that I did not mention it but could have. It is simply enough to say at this point that this letter has a rather prominent emphasis on the Triune nature of God.
And as Paul wraps up his doctrinal portion of the book, he comes back to it once again. And for good reason. There is no other doctrine that even begins to compare with the Trinity. When you want to think about how superlative our God is, this is it.
I like what James White says. He makes the comment in his book on the Trinity that people often alter the Biblical concept of God because God is just too big. They cannot accept the truth of the Trinity because they can’t conceive of a God who is that vast. They want someone who can fit into their human understanding. They need something more finite; more manageable.
And this is where we say, “Never!” We worship God because he is beyond us. We as Christians take heart in the fact that our God transcends our human understanding. That’s why we pray to him and worship him and put our trust in him.
Sure, the Trinity may be thought of as absurd by many, but again, that’s because they simply cannot comprehend of something so high and lofty.
From time to time I like to point out the words of Thomas Boston. In his commentary on the Shorter Catechism he says of the Trinity, it is not against reason, it is above it. Some people will look at the Trinity and say, “one is three and three is one” and they will say it’s absurd. They will say it is contradictory. But it is because their reason is limited. They think that God has to fit into their little box.
We as Christians know that God is well beyond our box. And chief among the doctrines that shows us this is what we find here.
The second thing we can say about God is found in verse 15. Paul says he bows his knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth is named.” This is a reference to God being Lord.
II. Our God is Lord
Now, to understand this you have to ask is, “What does it mean when Paul says that it is ‘from him that every family in heaven and earth is named?’”
You have to think of in terms of headship. One’s name comes from one who is in authority over them.
Some of you newlyweds have recently been going through this process of changing your name. That’s because you no longer go by your father’s name. You are no longer under his authority. When you got married, you came under the authority of your husband. So you march down to the county office and start filling out paperwork so that you can get a new social security card with your new name on it. And it all has to do with the fact that there has been a transfer of authority. You are now taking the name of your husband because your submission has been transferred over to him. Since he is your head, you derive your name from him.
And it is the same with kids. When you have children, those kids will have the same name.
That’s the kind of thing that Paul is talking about here. He’s recognizing that all the different groupings of the universe (like the angel family or the bird family, or the human family) are under the authority of God. Everything that exists comes under his headship. That’s because he created them and stands as Lord over them.
One commentator puts it this way: Paul is praying to “a big God, the scope of whose influence as Father extends over every grouping in the cosmos.”
Now, you might understand the significance of this in the Ancient world. Remember that Ephesus was where one of the 7 wonders of the world was housed. Ephesus was the hub of the worship of Artemis because her temple was there. And Artemis was a unique goddess because she was supposedly unable to be influenced by other deities. For instance, she was a virgin all her life. She she could not succumb to the tricks of Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
There is a sense in which Artemis stood out as a superior god because of this. But you might say that she had one weakness, she was born. She was the offspring of Zeus. Zeus too, was thought to be one of the highest of the gods. He was regarded as the father of men and gods.
But along comes Paul, and he says this. He is the head of all. All creation derives their name from him. All creation is born of this God.
Paul may very likely be poking a little at the Ephesian cult. I am thinking that as he wraps up his doctrine, he takes one last shot at the Ephesian religious system and says to this Christian body, “Hey, you people, you need to know that those gods out there in your city are nothing. If they do even exist, they are mere creatures who are subservient to our God.”
This is just as powerful for us. For what does secularism say? The world around us tells us that everything was born. It was born of a big bang. Matter gave birth to matter and there is nothing else. If there is a lord is it you or it is those so called scholars who tell us that there is no such thing as a spiritual creature--there is no God.
Paul’s reminding us of the doctrine of creation. He’s reminding us that there is a being that is greater than the natural world. And therefore we can put our trust in him. We don’t have to think that those who preach a naturalistic worldview are right. There is a God in the heavens. As a matter of fact, he owns the heavens. And we must worship and acknowledge him.
There’s one more item that needs to be considered. As Paul develops his theology of God, he not only points out that our God is trinity and Lord, he accentuates the omnipotence of God. God is unmatched in that he is, as our text says in verse 16, “rich in glory.”
III. Our God is Omnipotent
Now, in theology, we often talk about God’s glory as the sum total of God’s attributes. Or we use the word glory as a way of referring to the supreme majesty of God.
But Scripture can talk about God’s glory in a number of ways. Oftentimes it has this idea of a high intensity or a supreme caliber.
For instance, sometimes it means an intense radiance. We just came through the Christmas season and we heard the story of the angels appearing to the shepherds out in their fields. And Luke talks about how “the glory of the Lord shown around them.” There’s this idea of a brilliant light that was completely unnatural. There was a divine radiance that lit up the dark fields of Bethlehem.
And there are other places in the Scripture where the word glory can signify an expression of power that is of a supreme caliber. I think about Romans 6 where we are told that Christ is raised up from the dead. He’s raised by means of the glory of the Father. In other words, his resurrection came by an exertion of power that was greater than death itself. The power of the Father, which, in this case, is referred to as glory, was qualitatively higher than anything we have ever experienced on earth.
So there’s a sense in which the word glory represents something of intense magnitude or an advanced level. Add in the word riches of his glory (or bounty of his glory) and you have an expression that indicates the superlative form. It is an abundance that might be thought of as inexhaustible.
Not long ago Americans were complaining about the price of gasoline. We’ve found new things to complain about lately besides gasoline, so we don’t hear quite as much murmuring about it in recent days. But because of the outcry President Biden announced that he would release another 15 million barrels of oil from the US oil reserves. This 15 million capped off a draw down of 180 million barrels which he ordered back in March of 2022.
Now, to us, that sounds staggering. Many people heard that report and they were incredibly thankful that something was being done for the US economy. But what wasn’t reported is that Americans use 20 million barrels of oil a day. The grand total of oil that came into the market was really only enough to cover 9 days of American consumption. And really, the US reserves, at its highest amounts, only had enough oil to sustain the normal levels of American consumption for just over a month.
Now we hear those numbers and we think, “Wow. That’s a lot.” But really, in theory, it could easily dry up and leave us stranded.
This is where we understand that the power that God offers is radically different. It far surpasses the powers of this earth. God supplies according to the riches of his glory. His power is of the highest caliber. It is power which is of the highest intensity. When we talk of God’s power we use phrases that express its inexhaustible nature. It is a well that is can never run dry; it cannot even begin to be measured.
And so we not only have hope for our own strengthening, we have a God who is incomparable. He is one upon which we can rely for everything.
Conclusion
Paul knows that you will soon be out walking the streets of Ephesus. He knows that you will be faced with the pressures of society. He knows that once you walk outside those doors other deities will be vying for your attention.
That is why, as he talks to our God, he talks about about our God. And he leaves you with a God who shows himself to be greater. Whatever you are presented with, whom ever would try to steal your affection, you may know that not one of them an compare.
The Lord our God: Father, Son, and Spirit stand above all others. He alone is omnipotent. All creation comes from him. And therefore he alone is the one we should worship; he alone is the one we should trust.