The Greatness of God's Love in Christ

In the Princess Diaries, Mia doesn’t know her true identity, and so she dresses and acts like one with a different identity. Once she realizes her true identity she is given all the resources in order for her to be complete in this new identity. She doesn’t do it on her own. The more we know God the more we recognize the resources given to us by God for our “inner being” and to be shaped to our true identity as sons and daughters of the living God.

In order for us to “come to know” anything we trust in an authority and what they tell us. We have to have faith that what they tell us is true. To come to know God is the experience of us having a greater knowledge of God’s character and the power that we have in Christ and through the Spirit.

Paul has this prayer that he really tried to start in chapter 1, and then against at the end of chapter 1, and then again at the beginning of chapter 3. But theology just keeps flowing out of Paul. God’s purpose for believers, the mystery of the Gospel, our sin nature and salvation that comes in Christ.

But now, here, he begins this petition for those He is writing to. He expresses his longing for these believers to have a fullness in the knowledge of God as He has a fullness in His knowledge. Not that it is a complete knowledge, but one that overflows in joy because of what they have received as believers. His prayer is earnest desire for the truth of God to be so embedded in the heart of a believer that it impacts their daily lives, that the godliness overflows out of their lives. That they recognize the power they have in the spirit allows them to live in a distinct way which would be impossible on their own.

All of us are theologians. Theology just means “words about God”, it is just a matter of what words we have. And the words we have will shape our understanding of God.

What he wants them to come to know about God, specifically that...

We should seek to know the fullness of the Father’s power given to us in Christ and through the Spirit.

When we think about God’s power our first thought is of physical strength or might. But it is more than that, it is the ability to enforce one’s will. God’s power describes each of God’s attributes in one way or another. Paul describes God’s power as the “richness of God’s glory”.

Charles Hodge explains the riches of God’s glory by saying ”It is not his power to the exclusion of his mercy, nor his mercy to the exclusion of his power, but it is every thing in God that renders him glorious, the proper object of adoration”

Sometimes our anger overpowers our love for another, sometimes our compassion overpowers a necessary discipline another deserves.

Yet God’s power is so great that it overflows to us, while at the same way taking none away from Himself. That all of Creation is held together by His power, yet needs no renewal of strength. That if you took all the power in the universe and equalled it all up it would not even measure compared to God’s infinite power.

The strength in His power

Paul starts by praying that they might be strengthened by God’s power in their “inner being”.

-Why do they need God’s power in their inner being? Because we have been corrupted by sin, that we have been dead because of sin...but as Romans 8:10 says “the Spirit gives life through righteousness”.

But if we are too allow for Christ to dwell in us through His Spirit it must be through faith. We have to give Christ a place within our hearts, we must submit to His Word and trust in His authority as God.

2 Peter 1:4 “By these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.”

Being filled with Christ is like Popeye eating the spinach, it has a miraculous affect.

That as we come to know God and his power that we find it as the source of strength for our own inner lives. We learn to draw from the deep well of God’s strength and through any challenge that we face we don’t grow disheartened we because we know nothing is too hard or difficult for God. We learn lean more on His strength and for renewal for our lives. The more we know the strength of His power for our lives that more we learn to rest.

-Often our lives are comprised with a life that grows busier and busier, one that feels the need to be important by doing more things. That as we continue to know God more we find the need not to rely on our own power but on His and in relying on His power we find less of a need to prove our own worth, we know the resources given to us prove far more valuable.

-The resource Paul say we have access to is the “riches of His glory”, that is the completeness of His perfect character.

-Have you considered fully that as believers that you have the omnipresent, infinite God of the universe who permanently dwells in us through His Spirit? That God takes up permanent residence in us as believers.

We can consider the life of Jesus, one that was unhurried by all going on around Him. We should find this strange considering His earthly ministry was less than 4 years in total. Jesus knew the power of His ministry came from not doing His own will but the will of His Father in heaven. Jesus spends many times alone with His Father, with the 12 or with the 3. Jesus continually tries to get away from the crowds. He is looking for less of His power and more of the power of His Father.

But Paul goes further then just being strengthened with His power, He goes to the root of how we come to have faith.

The power of His love

Paul calls us to be “rooted and established in love”

-To be “rooted” is to be sustained by another source, here we see this source as Christ’s love.

-”Firmly established” is to have a foundation, a strong support.

So we are to have our source and our strong support in God’s love for us. It is our identity and it keeps us from falling.

Paul then says if we have been rooted and firmly established in this love that we might comprehend part of God’s character. Paul uses this statement, “length and width, height and depth”. What is interesting is that although in the English it says what we are comprehending is God’s love, it is actually an incomplete sentence in the Greek, the sentence ends on “depth”. Although God’s love is probably the most central aspect of this, it is discussing all of who God is to emphasize just how incomprehensible God’s character is. His compassion, His mercy, His holiness...That all of who God is is so vast that we can’t understand it all, and that God’s plan of salvation is so great that we can’t fully understand this “mystery”. Not that we can fully understand, but that we can’t start to comprehend.

The Grand Canyon, can’t comprehend until you have experienced it.

This knowledge, of something like the Grand Canyon, takes a lifetime to describe. For God, it is infinite, we will never comprehend all of who God is, yet what greater knowledge to spend our lives searching for? What more satisfying to search for? How much more wonderful to be filled with “the fullness of God”. To be filled with God is to make knowledge practical for everyday living, it makes it “real world”. To know God’s love is to know how we are to love others, to know God’s compassion is to know how we are to be compassionate, to know God’s power and might is to know the power of the Spirit that works in us...the more we know God the greater of our understanding of how to live in the world.The Grand Canyon, can’t comprehend until you have experienced it.

This knowledge, of something like the Grand Canyon, takes a lifetime to describe. For God, it is infinite, we will never comprehend all of who God is, yet what greater knowledge to spend our lives searching for? What more satisfying to search for? How much more wonderful to be filled with “the fullness of God”. To be filled with God is to make knowledge practical for everyday living, it makes it “real world”. To know God’s love is to know how we are to love others, to know God’s compassion is to know how we are to be compassionate, to know God’s power and might is to know the power of the Spirit that works in us...the more we know God the greater of our understanding of how to live in the world.

Paul describes God’s love as infinite, there is no end to it. And if God’s love is infinite then we have at our disposal the endless resources of our Father from which to draw upon.

But how can we trust in God’s love? How do we know that it’s as great as Paul says?

Romans 5:5 “This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Or we can also look at Paul’s words in Romans 8

Romans 8:37–39 “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If we dare to consider fully just how great God’s love for us should we not be left fully of wonder and amazement? If, like the Grand Canyon, we search at the vastness of God’s character and are left without words, should we not seek to be like Paul in wanting others to comprehend this as well? Should it not overwhelm our hearts?

This should change our attitude towards others. If we comprehend God’s love for us in Christ than that should be the standard we seek for ourselves. We should people of great love for others. As Jesus says in Matthew 5 that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Why? Because that is a love that goes beyond what we understand, it is a God-sized love. Because God loved us when we were enemies. God loved us when we were with sin and sent Jesus to be sin for us.

The abundance of His power through prayer

Paul then starts his “doxology” it is His praise to God that affirms the truths he has just stated so far in his prayer and in this letter. In it he encouraged the believers to be those who pray to the one whose power works in them.

We have this issue in our context to under-emphasize, or maybe different then that...maybe Downplay the power of prayer. Even though we know that Jesus commands us to prayer, in fact tells us that God will answer our prayers if offered in faith. Yet sometimes we fear what happens if we pray for something and it doesn’t happen, or that we don’t need to pray in order to receive what we want God to give us, He will just give it to us.

Yet notice Paul here, even after speaking clearly about God’s sovereign plan in the world and purposes for us, prayers with the utmost importance. That by praying Paul something occurs that would not have been accomplished without it, not that the prayer itself accomplishes it, but is by means of prayer which God accomplishes these things. Like a child who is hungry but doesn’t ask for a snack even though it is available to them.

The other thing to notice about this prayer is how Paul pours out his heart, His prayer comes with a heartfelt love towards these people.

Paul shows us three things in His prayer

The posture of our prayer

“I kneel before the Father from whom every family on heaven and on earth is named”

Every family tree has its origin in the Father, all have come from Him because He has made all of us.

-We also know that one day every knee will bow before God and Christ.

-It is to God the Father that Paul prays, the one who has created and named all things, whose how power over all things...that we pray to. He is the one who can provide what we need.

We should not have prayers fill with empty platitudes but filled with the richness of truth in God’s character.

-If we have prayers filled with vague ideas about God it reveals what we know about Him to be shallow

-When we come humbly before Him in prayer we consider carefully the truths about Him. This is not about how LONG we have been a Christian or about what title we have, it is about what we believe about His authority before us. Consider going before the president, you would consider carefully the words you said in conversation.

The purpose of His prayer

“So that you may be filled with all the fullness of God”

“To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus”

”We have no authority to pray for anything which God has not revealed to be his will. That is why Bible reading and prayer should always go together. For it is in Scripture that God has disclosed His will, and it is in prayer that we ask him to do it”-Stott

John 15:7 “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.”

The potency of His prayer

What we see in Paul’s prayer is the abundance of God’s power that allows for our prayers to be potent.

In fact, what Paul says is that our prayers are more potent than we realize.

What we see clearly as Paul concludes his prayer is that He believes fully that God can answer prayer because of His power and infinite riches in heaven. Paul states in 6 unique ways how God answers prayers:

-”He is able to do”

-”All that we ask”

-”All that we think” - God can answer prayers in what we didn’t plan or think about.

-”All that we ask or think”

-”More than and abundantly more than all that we ask or think”

-This word that says “above and beyond” is one word that means above, then a word that means “Abundantly” but than Paul adds to the word, “abundantly” to means “hyper abundantly”. The whole phrase says something like “above and above abundantly”

Romans 8 says the Spirit can “intercede for our groanings”. Our prayers in the Spirit as so powerful that even when we don’t even know what we are really asking it can make it known to the Father

-Almost as powerful as a babies cries

We are to fill God’s world with His fullness!

As Paul moves into chapters 4-6 he is going to speak more to how we as the church are called to fill the earth with God’s fulness.

So if we as the church are “rooted and established in God’s love” then we should be a church reveals to the world that we do not let the things the world divide over divide us.

The importance of this omnipotent power that God works in us is that we receive it for HIS glory. That God had established the church in Christ to bring Him glory. This statement sums up chapter 3 and shoots us into chapter 4.

What Paul has revealed to us about God’s power, his redemption through grace, His love for us...should lead us to believe there is no limit to what God can do through His church, those transformed by the Gospel. That God’s plan is greater than we understand and we should seek to give Him the glory and praise for His work in us.

Paul knows God can do this because of the “power that works in us”. This means both individually and corporately. The power of God that resurrected Jesus from the grave, that made the entire universe, that has limitless power.

-We as humans can seek this “unlimited power” as Emperor Palpatine is quoted as saying. He thought that if he had enough power that he could save himself, we know what happened to him...But our world believes the same, if we have enough of our own power that we can save ourselves. We can live longer, we can go farther, we can learn all there is to learn. We believe that we are going to soon expand past the need for God, many have already started to believe this.

But the church should act as ambassadors of God in the world, to reflect His character. We are to fill God’s world with His fullness! We are to give glory to God because we know His power and the salvation we have been given, and that we know give Him glory by making Him known in the world.

This praise that we give Him here on earth becomes an unending praise, for all generations, forever and ever.

Paul ends with the word “amen” which means “truly” or “let it be so”. An expression stating that what has been said should come to pass as true. It is a call to see our words come to life in the world, but not because our words have power but because the one who hears our prayers is powerful to hear and act on them. That we believe God’s power is able to live in us and through us in ways we can’t even imagine.

-If we have experienced this change of the Gospel and we know God’s incredible power, His desire to use us, and we know that God is inviting us into His kingdom...then we should seek to join this praise with Paul to give glory to the one who can do more for us than we can even imagine.

Let me end with what Peter says

1 Peter 4:11 “If anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, let it be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.”