There's a prayer that you can pray for your family every single day and Pastor John explained it in a sermon titled "God Demonstrates His Love Toward Us" which John Piper preached exactly 15 years ago this December. There he explained an important connection between Romans 5-5 and Ephesians chapter 3 verses 14-19 and a podcast listener named Kevin from Ontario, Canada who is currently going through the Roman sermons wanted to share this little gem of a sermon clip with us.

Here's what Pastor John said in that message. Ephesians 3, 14-19. This is the most wonderful prayer in the Apostle Paul's writings. It may be the third most wonderful prayer in all the Bible. If you give to John 17, the greatest, and then give to the Lord's Prayer, the second greatest, I think this one comes next.

Someday I'm going to preach 15 or 30 messages on this prayer because it is so multi-layered, the meaning is so profound. So let me read it with you. Ephesians 3, 14-19. Here's a prayer that you should pray for yourself and others. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, Paul says, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, and here comes the content of the prayer.

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and you being rooted and grounded in love, mark that word, in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love, mark it again, the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge and be filled with all the fullness of God.

Let's read it backwards and show you how it relates to Romans 5. What's the goal of the prayer? To be filled with all the fullness of God. Are you there? Anybody got that one in your back pocket? We done with this? We know that, on to something else? Anybody?

I want that because the Apostle Paul prayed that I should have it. And I think being filled with all the fullness of God is the same as having the love of God poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. Why do I think that?

Because if you read backwards now and ask, "Okay, how does this come about?" The answer is, it comes about through knowing the incomprehensible love of Christ whose height and depth and length and breadth is beyond knowledge so that you might be filled. You see the connection there between knowing the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge and being filled with all the fullness of God?

One is a means to the other. So in knowing the love of Christ which is beyond knowledge and incomprehensible and yet the heart knows it with its own kind of knowing, we become filled up with all the fullness of God. So then the question becomes, "And how do we experience the love of Christ like that?

How do we know the unknowable love of Christ?" And you go backwards and it says, "Well, in order to do that, you have to be rooted and grounded in love so that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the height and depth and have the love of Christ and then be filled with all the fullness of God." So it's love to love.

You see that? We must be rooted in love, founded on love so that we have the power to recognize unknowable love and thus be filled with all the fullness of God. This is worth 15 sermons. I have spent more time in this prayer than any prayer in all the Bible because no prayer in all the Bible kindles longings in me like this prayer kindles longings in me.

Doesn't it do that for you? Don't you want to know what this is talking about? I hardly know what it's talking about. It's all about experience. It's all about the fullness of the love of God. It's all about knowing the unknowable love of Christ. It's all about roots going down into love before you know the love of Christ so that you can know the love of Christ.

This is mystery all. And yet Paul puts it in a book, in words, so that we read it, so that we'll pray it, so that we'll experience and maybe in the miraculous experience of it, know what it means. "Oh, long for this. Pray this for your children. Pray this for your spouses." Do you wonder, "How do I pray for my family?" Pray this prayer every day.

Pray it for your soul. Pray it for this church. Pray it for me. If you want to know what it's like to have the love of God poured out into your hearts by the Holy Spirit who's given to you, meditate on these verses. You want to know objective reality mediated by the Holy Spirit exploding in your heart with self-authenticating experience of the love of God.

If you want that, there are two obvious things you do. One is you meditate upon the objective reality laid out in the Bible called the gospel of Christ crucified. And the other is you pray, pray, pray, pray, pray. Do it to me. Do it to me. Do it to me.

Direct my heart. Direct my heart. Let the love of God be upon me. Fill my heart with all the fullness of God, which is the love of Christ beyond knowledge, rooted in love, wrought by the Holy Spirit, Christ dwelling in my heart. Do those things to me, even if I can't understand what I'm saying, so that I might recognize it in the doing.

I wonder if you have any problems with Jesus loves me, this I know. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. That's true. It's not enough. Needs another verse. I made it up. Jesus loves me, there's no doubt, for the Spirit pours it out. Little ones to Him belong.

We are weak, but He is strong. Amen. Kevin from Ontario, Canada. Thank you for sending us this clip. If you have a clip from a John Piper sermon that you like to play over and over, and it's one you want to share with us on this podcast, please email us at askpastorjohn@zaringod.org and put the word clip in the subject line.

Give us the sermon title and roughly when and where the clip appears in the audio recording. Thank you to everyone who's sending in clips. We've got some really great ones coming in. Well, we have an email from a father who just had a son, and he wants some counsel and advice on how he can parent well, and we'll hear Pastor John address that tomorrow.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. Ask Pastor John podcast. Join the conversation. Ask Pastor John podcast. Join the conversation. Ask Pastor John podcast. Join the conversation. Ask Pastor John podcast. Join the conversation.