From the MLJ Archive

In this sermon on Ephesians 3:16 titled “The Inner Man”, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones expounds on the profound importance of the transformed inner man. He begins by pointing out Paul’s manner of prayer for the Ephesians. Paul begins by praying for the spiritual needs of the Ephesians and then goes on to pray for specific things that the Ephesians need. He does not pray that his own circumstances would be changed, nor that the circumstances of the Ephesians would be changed. Instead he focuses on spiritual need and specific needs. Dr. Lloyd-Jones then expresses the importance of the inner man and the heart, the center of the believer. For if the center (the thinking) and the heart of a person is set right, then everything else will fall into place. Dr. Lloyd-Jones points out that it is not that when one becomes a Christian that suddenly everything in the world is set right. The world is fallen and sinful, consequently full of disease and tribulation of many kinds, so that cannot be. Rather, when one becomes a Christian, they are being renewed daily in the inner man though the outer man is wasting away (2 Corinthians 4:16). The joy of the Lord is now their strength no matter the circumstance or the state of his outer self.