Synod Sermon by Rev S Khumalo
Ephesians 3:17-19. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.
Paul calls himself “an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph 1:1). We know that this church in Ephesus was founded by Paul, that they were the worshippers of the idol Diana, and were brought out of that idolatry. It was not by their own power; it was all by the grace of God. In their natural state, “they were dead in trespasses and sins”, which is true of us all. The people of God themselves know they were born blind, and they know they were once dead.
We find that the grace of God, working in them by His Spirit, made them alive in Christ Jesus. When they were far away, when they were enemies, when they were without God, without hope, they were brought nigh by the precious blood of Christ Jesus. What a wonder that the Apostle could say to such a people: “In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph 2:22). He was ever mindful of them, as we find in the prayer we have today.
So he brings this great mystery of Christ to their attention as if he was saying to them, Be unmovable, be unmovable. You have been called from darkness to this marvellous light; stand firm and unmovable. He was a minister of Christ, so he had a message from Christ, the great message that comes to those who preach the everlasting gospel. They must know that they are made ministers according to the gift of the grace of God. As the Apostle says, “We are ambassadors”.
He prays for the church in Ephesus, and his prayer is centred on the love of Christ: “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man” (v16). That is the first petition we shall consider today. The Apostle goes on to pray for the Ephesians “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith”. Christ dwells in the believer’s heart by faith. What a great wonder, when we think about how sin alienated men from God, that by the grace of God, Christ dwells in them. Christ is God, who dwells in the highest; He is the One that inhabits eternity.
Paul lays his desire before God that Christ, who dwells in the highest
1Preached at the opening of the meetings of Synod in May 2024.
heaven – who dwells in the Father, and the Father in Him, the One who is Himself God – that He would dwell in His people. How can this be? It is by His grace. How much we need that grace – that Christ would dwell in us by His Spirit, as we gather today in connection with His own cause! The desire of the Apostle for the Ephesian church was that He who inhabits eternity would find a habitation in their hearts. If Christ would dwell in them, they could not lack anything.
This is what should come to our mind. Let all of us here have this prayer, that the great Saviour of sinners would dwell in us by His Spirit, as the One who is in control of everything. And what shall we fear if He dwells in us? The Apostle, wishing the church in Ephesus to be strengthened, prays this great prayer, that Christ would dwell in them. He prays to Him who drew them out of darkness into marvellous light, who drew them when they were far away and He brought them nigh.
How does He dwell in His people? It is by faith, which is the grace of God, because of the work done by Christ at Calvary’s cross. He dwells in them as a king; He rules in them; He protects them; He provides for them; and as for their life, He quickens them. He works in them as a consequence of their union with Him. He has communion with them and they with Him. What great joy it would be if Christ would dwell in us, and that we would have communion with Him. What then shall we fear? If Christ dwells in us, that dwelling is not temporary, it is perpetual; and so He shall never leave us. He dwells in their hearts, where no good things spring up by themselves, but only Himself and His grace.
That is what the Apostle prays for and it is what we should desire. It should be the prayer of the Church of God in this world, in this great journey as His people pass on to eternity. This is the One whom they should walk with, asking that He would dwell in them. He dwells in their hearts, by His own grace, which means He dwells in them by faith, which is the instrument of receiving Him.
Faith means embracing Him, and they will retain Him; it is by the hand of faith that they receive Him. Faith, which is the grace of God, is given on the basis of the death of Christ. They are given grace to embrace Christ, so that Christ would dwell in their hearts. We need that faith; we need Him to dwell in us. We embrace Him by faith, but faith is not in the work of man, but the grace of God – that grace which flows from Christ to His people.
We notice that Paul prays in the second petition that the Ephesians will be “rooted and grounded in love”, in love to God and in love to one another. The Lord spoke of the disciples having “love one to another”. They are to be rooted in the love of Christ.
We read of the unsearchable love of Christ, and the people of God cannot know of His love if they are not rooted and grounded so that they are strong in Christ. They are strong in the love of Christ, so they are unmovable. Yes, this world is full of great storms and many are moved; many are swept away. But here the Apostle Paul prays that they will be rooted and grounded, so they will be unmovable, and will have discoveries of that love. They are to consider this a blessing that is received, flowing from the communion they have with God and Christ.
They will have a better understanding, a better view, of the love of Christ that is revealed in the gospel. The love of God in the gospel is revealed: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”. They will view that love, which is the foundation of salvation. Nothing can move them from this love, because they are rooted and grounded. The foundation of their salvation is itself immovable; it is itself unchangeable. So are the people of God, when they are rooted in that love; they are assured that this is unmovable.
The Apostle Paul was praying that they would be rooted in this love, and have these discoveries of God’s love. We have the gospel, which Paul preached in Ephesus, the gospel of the love of God, proclaiming His sending of His only begotten Son. He who died was moved by love for His people. As they view the love of God, they behold Him that died at Calvary’s cross. There is no place where the love of God was made so clear as at the cross of Calvary.
The attention of those that are rooted in this love is fixed on Christ. What do they see in Him? They see love. What manner of love is this, when they see the eternal Son of God, who without sin of His own bears the sins of His people; who ascends the mount of Calvary, not looking back, not looking aside, but looking onwards to finish the great work which the Father had given Him? What moved Him? It was His love to His people; nothing could stop Him; He would love them even unto death. So they have a view of this love, as they are grounded upon the love of Christ. This view attracts their attention; it prevents them diverting to any side; instead they would look to Christ.
When we say we know Him; when we say we love Him, will anything divert us from Him? Let this prayer be ours today, so that whatever we do, we are drawn by the love of Christ – not the love of self, not the love of anything else – because we are grounded on it and have a better view of it. Let it be proved that here are the people of God, those in whom the love of Christ reigns, those that are grounded on this love; then nothing shall separate them from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Others shall see that
here is their Beloved. It shall be said of them, They were chosen in the Beloved, and so they shall see their Beloved. They shall see the One who loved them first, before they loved Him. They shall see the streams of love flowing to them, coming from Christ.
What a great wonder if this grace will be at the centre of all we do because of the view we have of the love of Christ! So we will have a larger and more comprehensive view of the great mysteries of salvation. Remember the people in Ephesus were strangers and aliens; they were not of the commonwealth of Israel. But God had a people there, a people whom He loved. Christ had a people whom He drew because He had shed His own blood. Is it not a mystery that He has a people whom He has drawn to Himself by His Word and Spirit? As the Apostle Paul says, “The love of Christ constraineth us”. So here we have the great mystery of salvation; we see the building of His Church; it is all centred in the love of Christ.
Then we notice that Paul speaks about the dimensions that are set before us here. They are viewed by those who are grounded and rooted in love, and they also view the love of Christ. The love of God, in its length, reaches from one eternity to another; in its breadth it reaches to all His elect in this world – all His people – who were given to Christ before the foundation of the world, wherever they are, including the UK and Africa. They are drawn by the love of Christ. It reaches them, and it is viewed with wonder. What manner of love is this? So broad that it reaches all generations, it reaches all peoples, it reaches every country where Christ has a people, those whom He purchased by His own blood, those whom God gave Him before the foundation of the world.
They shall be gathered unto Him, as was true of the Ephesians. They were far away spiritually, but they were gathered; they were drawn nigh by the blood of Christ. You see also the love of Christ gathering sinners without any boundary; it stretches to where the elect of God are. It stretches to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, whom Christ died for, whom He paid the ransom price for – the source of it being the love of God in Christ Jesus. So none of those that Christ loved shall be lost. They shall all be saved; they shall all be gathered in; they shall behold their Beloved; they shall see Him. Because Christ loved them, none of them shall fail to see Him.
Therefore He must draw them wherever they are, whatever nation they are in. This is what those that are rooted see, this is what attracts their attention, this is what fixes their eyes on Christ Jesus, on His love, and they look with great amazement on the breadth and depth of this love. With what great wonder we should look on Christ Jesus, and this is the prayer of the Apostle. And can it not be a desire of our time? Can it not be our prayer that we will
be grounded upon the love of Christ? And if grounded upon the love of Christ, nothing will divert our attention from Him. Christ will appear to us as eminent as He is. He should appear to us a great Saviour; the love of Christ will shine forth, and whatever might come to divert our attention, nothing can do so if we are rooted and grounded in love. That was Paul’s prayer and it should be ours also.
We see then what a special love is here shown to Christ’s people, to His Church. We should pray to experience that love. It is a wonder when you notice instances of that love: when He engaged Himself to be a surety of His people, taking their nature and dying instead of them. His payment of their debt, His atoning for their sins, that is a great reason for amazement. The people of God shall wonder for all eternity at this great love of God that has been revealed in Christ: that He who was the Son of God became man, in order to die the accursed death of the cross. He knew no sin, but He paid the price for the redemption of the sins of His people at Calvary’s cross. What a great wonder! This is the love of Christ, the love that is unspeakable. Who can search this out? No one. Even the people of God, to all eternity, shall look with amazement.
Let us here today look at this great wonder of the love of God: that Christ in His love would grasp a poor sinner who was almost stepping into a lost eternity, and bring him to a higher place. Then he will enter in through the gates of heaven, not because of what he has done, but because of what Christ has done.
It is because of His own love, His own rich grace, and what He did at Calvary’s cross, this great sacrifice which was accepted, that sinners are accepted in the sight of God. So the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him”. He is the beloved of the Father. Those that hear Him are the beloved of the Son. The people of God must understand the great wonder of this love, this central matter to which Paul drew their attention. Let us go to the cross of Calvary and behold the One who was crucified. What is in His heart? What made Him not rest on the way but go forward? It was because He loved His people, and that becomes a great wonder.
Love drives everything; it brings them to hold on to Christ Jesus; it becomes a joy to them – to behold this love. They see the eternal Son of God suffering at Calvary’s cross, but why did He suffer? They have a right to say, He suffered for me. But why me? Because He loved me before I loved Him. He died in the manifestation of that love. He never rested on the way until He had finished the great work, and gathered His people to Himself, until He had set His people before the Father and said to Him, Here are Thy
people whom I loved; here they are whom Thou didst give to Me; here they are whom I loved before the foundation of the world; here they are for whom I died. God sent His beloved Son to show His love to His people; Christ died for them. His people see the love of Him who died and rose again.
Here we are gathered today, and we try to stress that the love of Christ should be the centre of everything that will be done. The love of Christ should be the centre of our gathering, as those that are grounded in love, and whose desire is to look at the love of Christ. Thus it was the desire of the angels to look into that great mystery when they saw Christ passing by the lost angels, coming down to the children of men, full of love in His heart, so that He would die for them.
We see the instances of it in the incarnation of Christ. He became poor, who was Lord of all; He met sin and curse and suffered, the just for the unjust, to bring them to God. So the Apostle prayed that these saints might know more of the love of Christ, that their knowledge, which was imperfect, might make progress, that they might grow. And he prayed that they would speak of the unsearchable love of Christ with great wonder and with a great knowledge of this love of Christ, the unsearchable love of Christ Jesus, the love which cannot be fully discovered. Even the saints could not fully discover it, but they get a taste of it, through the revelation that they are given. It will be a great, great wonder to them.
Where are we directing our attention today, as we gather today as the Synod? What should be central? What should be in our view? It must be the love of Christ. We must look to Him in that work of love, taking bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, to die the accursed death of the cross and become a sacrifice for sin. So we can see the great love which He had; you cannot see it without knowing the love of Christ, you cannot see it without being rooted and grounded upon Him.
So here it is: God’s people must be rooted and grounded in Christ, so that they would have a view of the breadth and the width and the height of this love, which cannot be fully understood. This great love cannot be comprehended by the carnal mind but by those of the spiritual mind, whom Christ dwells in by faith. Being grounded there, they have a view of this love of Christ.
Let us show, at this court of Christ, what must direct all things. We must show that Christ is in us; that the love of Christ, the love of His work, the love of the gospel, the love of others is in us – that they also would come and taste the love of Christ. That must guide each part of the deliberations of these days, as we continue. We must look to Christ as He sits on the highest throne; we must look to Him as One to whom all power is given; we must look to Him as the great Saviour, as the One who governs His Church. So
let it be for the prosperity of His kingdom. There cannot be any desire for that prosperity if we are not rooted in Him, if we have no understanding of the love of Christ.
We must be filled with all fullness of Him. That is another of Paul’s petitions: to “be filled with all the fullness of God”, as a God in covenant, as a God to His people. What we need is the grace of God, as Christ came in this way, full of grace, that He would fill His people. He enriches His people by His grace, in whom He dwells by faith. We need the grace of God, even in all our deliberations here at the meetings of the Synod, as we begin and continue. We need the grace of God to fill His people.
As it is said of Christ, the One that is full of grace, we need Him to fill us with grace, with the highest degree of the knowledge of Him, the enjoyment of Him, and conformity to Him and His will. The fullness of God is what we should wish to fill us. We should wish to view the instances of this love, His dying, His sufferings, His sacrifice, His precious redemption for His people, His atonement. We should look at all these things and say, What manner of love is this? And we should desire to be filled with it.
As we begin the work of the courts of Christ, may Christ direct everything by His love and grace, as it is said here: “That ye might be filled with all the fullness of God”. The grace is received through Christ, who is rich in grace, so that those in whom He dwells shall not lack anything. He hears their cry; He answers them, and so His grace is sufficient for them. Therefore, as we begin these meetings today, may the Word of God direct all things, may Christ by His Spirit direct all things, may the love of Christ have all our attention; so that whatever we say, it may be directed by the love of Christ, which should be at the centre of all.
Let us not forget that if Paul prayed for the Ephesians, for the saints, for the Church, this is a prayer for the Church and for the people of God today; that they would grow progressively, that they would be rooted and grounded, that Christ would dwell in them by faith, that they would have a view of the love of God, its length, breadth, depth and height.
Then the Apostle Paul, in verse 21, prays that the end of it would be: “Unto Him be glory in the Church, by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” So we have a responsibility to stand on the side of Christ, to be witnesses of His love, to pray that Christ would dwell in the hearts of His people, and that they would grow in grace and in the knowledge of Him.
That is what the Word of God brings to us, brings to our attention, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and
length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God”. It passes knowledge to be filled with the fullness of God. What more would we want? If Christ be in us, He is our hope of glory.
If Christ is in us, by His Spirit, who can stand in our way? Let us go forward; let us not look back. Let us look to Calvary’s cross and so behold the love of Christ, behold Him who died, who had done nothing amiss but died because He loved His people – behold Him who rose again. You cannot understand this if Christ does not dwell in you by faith, if you are not grounded upon the love of Christ. The love of Christ cannot be understood by the natural mind, but only by the spiritual mind, by which Christ dwells in His people by faith, by which they are rooted in Him, by which they view the love of Christ, and by which they are filled with the fullness of God. But thanks be to God that He has revealed it in His Son, who came to this world and died, that through His death and sufferings, there was the outshining of the love of Christ to His people, which we should desire to be filled with. Then we will see Christ, the eternal Son of God, by faith.