This is the second time in the book of Ephesians that Paul just breaks in the middle of a passage and prays for people.
As a church, we are praying for opportunities to share the gospel as well as for wisdom and direction. We take cues from Paul in that we should be ready to drop everything and enter into prayer.
In that first prayer, in chapter 1, he prays that the Ephesians will experience the wisdom, knowledge, hope, presence and power of God. It often does not feel like we have access to any of these, but that’s part of why Paul is praying that they would grow in all of it.
In this part, Paul is after something similar. Paul opens with very universal language. He goes to his knees in prayer, rather than following Jewish tradition and standing. He speaks of the father, Pater, giving his name to the family, patria, and to every family in the world, not only the family of Abraham.
He asks that Christ would dwell in their hearts, much like the language from earlier in the letter when he wrote that believers are being built together as a dwelling place for God.
And that dwelling of Christ, his being deeply rooted in us, is what gives us the strength to comprehend the “breadth and length and height and depth” – something so vast that it surpasses our knowledge and understanding. The love of God is bigger than we or the world could possibly understand.
It also means that we can’t look to the world for its understanding of love. When we love in our marriages, family, friendships, we have to look to the example of Christ and be powered by the strength of Christ. It is for this, and for some dim understanding of Christ’s love, that Paul prays for here. Knowledge of that which is beyond knowledge.
And Paul prays to the one with power beyond power, able to do the impossible, and so worthy of being asked for the impossible.
– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, October 11, 2020