The Wonder of God’s Love

Before Scripture Reading:

During October our focus was set by Isaiah 43: 18-19: "Do not remember the past events; pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new, even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.”

We believe that God is at work in our loves and in our church, and He has begun doing something new in and through us. Something new is coming, so we committed ourselves to God asking Him to create in us a new heart, a new mindset, and a new purpose. Now, in November, we are looking upward, gazing on God, experiencing His wonder. We want to be careful to understand that whatever new thing God does, it's not about us; it's about Him and His glory. For that reason, we are gazing upward in preparation for a new year of ministry. It's right around the corner.

Last Sunday, we focused generally on the wonder of God: His greatness. His power, His glory, His splendor, and His majesty. Everything in the heavens and on earth belongs to Him; and He is the exalted head over all (Chronicles 29: 1). Today, we turn our attention to the Wonder of God's love. There are many passages we could draw from: John 3: 16; Romans 5: 8; several psalms. Yet, God has led me to a prayer in Paul's Letter to the Ephesians Church. His prayer for this struggling church in Ephesus contains one of the most magnificent expressions of God's love for us. So let's open our Bibles to Ephesians 3: 14-21, and stand together, both in honor of God's Word and in surrender to it, having every intention to live according to it.

Read Ephesians 3:14-21.

As you are seated begin to meditate and reflect on what we just read from God's Word, especially the Wonder of God's amazing love, while the choir sings.

God's wonderful love is incomprehensible, so we need His power to grasp it. (14-16)

"For this reason refers back to 3: 1, where he started the prayer but got side tracked. His reason for praying was the unity all believers have in Christ (C: 11-22). Every believer is of the same "household"(C: 19)and citizens of the same Kingdom (2: 19). We are adopted into God's family. The church in Ephesus was diverse -Jew and Gentile -they needed this reminder. So Paul was praying with unity in Christ in mind. That's where the church finds its power and purpose.

Notice Paul's prayerful reminder (14) that every family on earth -every nation, every tribe, every clan, and every household-derives its name from God the Father. He is the Father of all humanity. We are all one race -the human race. It is on the basis of believers' unity in Christ that Paul prays for the church.

"I kneel.” Those words are more significant than they appear. The usual posture for prayer among Jews was standing. That Paul knelt before the Father reveals a sense of urgency and deep reverence. What Paul is about to pray, he marks with serious surrender to God-only God could grant such a power. What he is about to pray depends on the power and the Sovereign will of the Father. This gets our attention, moves us to the edge of our seats; we lean in to hear every word of Paul's urgent plea to the Father.

Paul prays for spiritual power. Throughout his letter, Paul has been describing the wonderful things God has done and wants to continue doing for His people. For the past two weeks, we've been looking upward to God, desiring to see and be filled with a sense of God's wonder. The immensity of God's wonder makes us see our frailty and weakness. We are more and more aware of our need for strength to live a life that is worthy of His grace. Paul was aware of this, and prayed that God would strengthen the Ephesian believers. This strengthening, this empowerment from the God of wonder involves two elements:

God's wealth.

"I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of his glory... " When you need a mortgage to purchase a home, where do you go? You go to a good, reliable bank or mortgage company that has the funds. Paul's prayer reminds us that when we pray to the Father about anything, we're not making a request to a pauper; God is rich beyond measure of the things we need. We need power, strength to walk in newness of life.

The Holy Spirit’s agency.

The other element Paul calls on for our strengthening is the Holy Spirit's agency in our inner being. "I pray that he may grant you, recording to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit." The Holy Spirit is God's agent, renewing us day by day with God's power, given out of His riches and by His grace. (It's a grant)

God's wonderful love is a grace given, so we need the indwelling presence of Christ to receive it and live in it by faith (17a).

In this way we become full of Christ. He “dwells in [our] hearts through faith.” This is a beautiful upward spiral: our capacity is strengthened according to his riches so we can appropriate more of his life; his life thus fills us and thus enlarges our capacity so can we hold more of him within. And so it goes onward and upward with Christ.

This prayer for inner strengthening was not a mere wish, but the petition of the Apostle Paul for the Church. It is my prayer for myself and our church too.

God's wonderful love in us is a lifestyle of love. (17b)

The opening expression, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love …” (v. 17b), is a prayer for a lifestyle of love. Paul mixes his metaphors. “rooted” is agricultural, and “established” (literally, founded) is architectural, but their significance is perfectly parallel. Like trees, our lives are to send down roots deep and wide into the soil of love. Like buildings, the edifices of our lives here on earth are to have deep, solid foundations of love. If we are properly rooted and properly constructed on a foundation of love, God will construct in us a lifestyle of love, loving God and loving others.

Years ago Dr. Barnhouse pointed out that love is intrinsic to all the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22. He said, “Love is the key. Joy is love singing. Peace is love resting. Long-suffering is love enduring. Kindness is love’s touch. Goodness is love’s character. Faithfulness is love’s habit. Gentleness is love’s self-forgetfulness. Self-control is love holding the reins.”

There are no fruits of the Spirit without love! We must be rooted and founded in love with all the depth and meaning of these metaphors.

God's Wonderful love is a relational love. (17b)

This is absolutely crucial, not only to our own discipleship, but also to our disciple-making -the effectiveness of our ministry. God's love calls us to go beyond superficial expressions. Love is spoken here, not merely with our lips, but with our lives. We must build relationships before we can build this church.

We must send our roots down, down, down and far out into love. There is nothing static here. Love must grow on until the grave when, of course, it will fully bloom.

God's wonderful love is infinite in measure. (18b)

Paul described the dimensions of God's love with Four Majestic Magnitudes: width, length, height, and depth. These are poetic expressions of the infinite magnitude of the wonder of God's love.

God's love is wide enough to embrace the world. -John 3:16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

God's love is long enough to last forever. -1 Corinthians 13:8 “Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.”

God's love is high enough to take sinners to heaven. -1 John 3:1–2 “See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him. Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.”

God's love is deep enough to send Christ to earth, to the very depths, to reach the lowest sinner. -Philippians 2:5–8 “Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.”

God's wonderful love is to be shared in community (18). “with all the saints”

This is key — God’s wonderful love is not to be our solitary, individualistic, isolated occupation, for we are to love “with all the saints.” We can only come to a better, fuller understanding of his love in community! This happens when we sit under the preaching of his Word. It happens when we study it together and discuss it. It happens when we share our knowledge of God’s love with each other. It happens when we observe it in our brothers and sisters. It happens as our hearts go upward in the worship of him. We need each other in order to comprehend his Word.

God's wonderful love is experiential -to know Christ's love"(19)

It is not just something we ponder in our minds, not something we merely put under a microscope and examine, much deeper than what can be written in an essay. We experience God's love. Know is a very intimate word, a word used in Scripture for the intimate love between a husband and wife. And that kind of love requires interaction between both parties. That is truly the wonder of God's love. We have an intimate love relationship, in which we experience God's love every day of our lives, forever. Let that sink in for a moment. God is loving us personally and experientially and intimately. We are in a love relationship with the God of the universe.

Conclusion

The question is, How are we experiencing God's wonderful love? Are we loving Him? Again, this love of God -this relational, infinite, experiential love -is crucial to the viability of our ministry. If we are to perceive, receive, and experience the new that God wants to do in and through us, there must be the wonder of God's love abiding in us and flowing out of us.

Revelation 2:1–5 “Write to the angel of the church in Ephesus: Thus says the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks among the seven golden lampstands: I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”

> Call to repentance (5)