Ephesians 3:17b-19: Rooted and Established

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. - Ephesians 3:17b-19

Summer is the testing time for our garden. The heat in our town beats down and we can see which plants and trees are established. That is, they have developed a reliable connection to the water and nutrients that are available in the soil. Or not. That connection allows it to stand the test of the 20+ days over 100 degrees in July.

When a seed is first introduced into the ground, it has a certain amount of life within it. Enough life to sprout up towards the sun. Enough life to dig down into the soil. But that life is limited and if that first growth does not become rooted and established, it will fail. It must make a connection with the sustenance in the environment. If not, it will die. No long term prospects.

Jesus uses a similar idea in his parable of the farmer who scattered his seed. He explains that "The farmer sows the word." (Mark 4:14) God's word has life in it. It has the necessary elements to initiate life. It has the necessary DNA to form godliness within us. But it must be rooted and established in order to grow. Otherwise it has no long term prospects.

Paul expands on this: he prays that all the folks in the church, who are "rooted and established in love" get an idea of the full richness of soil into which God has planted this new life. God hasn't left us in the flinty, rock-filled, nutrient-deficient soil. No, he has planted this life of ours in the wide-open, unimaginably rich and fulfilling soil of his love.

If we are feeling nutrient-deprived and water-stressed, perhaps our roots are stretching for sustenance in the wrong directions.

Psalm 1: Conduits vs. Trees

The tree is no mere channel, piping water unchanged from one place to another, but a living organism which absorbs it, to produce in due course something new and delightful, proper to its kind and to its time. - Derek Kidner[1]

I have often thought of God's life-giving grace as something which God gives to us with the intent that we would, in turn, give it to others. We act as a sort of conduit or channel of grace. This word picture was helpful in my conversations to describe God's intent that we were not the intended end-point of his grace. We should not be a point of blockage or diversion.

But in reading this quote this morning, I realized that my working picture was inadequate. The electrical conduit or water channel does not change the form of what it receives, it merely passes it along. Also, the conduit doesn't grow and the channel doesn't alter. But the tree takes what comes in-soil, sun and water-and expresses it in a new, fresh and yet entirely dependent way: trunk, branches, leaves, fruit, shade, and protection.

We receive God's grace, it transforms us and we produce the fruit of the Spirit and (my wife mentioned) shelter for others to grow and flourish (shalom). God's grace does not retain the same form. It is expressed in as many unique ways as there are children of God.

His grace takes many forms, but one of the most available is his Word. The Bible says that God's replenishes those "...whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers."(Ps. 1:2-3)

So this week I am considering myself a tree.



[1]Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 15 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), p. 48 as cited by Tim Keller, Prayer (New York, NY: Dutton, 2014), p. 148