8/17/25 - Rooted in Love
Notes
Transcript
Recap
Recap
Paul is praying for the church in Ephesus
first that according to the riches of God’s glory
they would be strengthened in power
through the Holy Spirit (16)
second that Christ would dwell in their hearts (17)
not just temporarily take up space from time to time
but that Christ would dwell there.
take up residence.
Today we get to the third part of Paul’s petition
to be rooted and firmly established in love
Paul’s Third Petition: Rooted in Love
Paul’s Third Petition: Rooted in Love
17b I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love,
This is an interesting ask.
It begs the question why pray for a church to be loving?
Let’s take a quick look at the history of where Paul is right now
God makes a promise to Israel in the Old Testament
He promises a home,
He promises a nation of people
and He promised restoration.
By the time we reach the end of the Old Testament
Israel had received all three of these things
and also had blown up all three of these things
because of their disobedience to the law.
In between the Old and New Testament
there are 400 years of history that take place
Persia, who were the conquerors of Israel at the end of the Old Testament
were conquered by the Greeks
and then the Greek were conquered by the Romans.
All that time, Israel was being reshaped back to God’s original plan
However all that time
Israel began to reform their beliefs about
what a Messiah would look like.
There are several groups of people that come out of this reformation as we enter into the New Testament
The Pharisees -
they believed that Israel would reach the three promises of God
only by a return of the law
so they created a lot of what are called the oral tradition.
These are extra rules and regulations
to help people keep the law
because only by the law was God going to send His Messiah
and that Messiah was going to restore Israel
by conquering and defeating Rome
The Essenes
these folks had fallen away from the culture
and fallen away from the belief of the religious leaders.
They lived outside the city
and decided to remove themselves from culture and the world
to focus on the law, prayer, and being devout.
They felt that if they would remove themselves from the world
they could focus better on the law
The Zealots
these people believed that following the law was vital
but so was violence for anyone that didn’t.
It would be through violence ,law, and order
that people would reform
so the Lord would bring the Messiah.
A lot of times, the leaders of the zealots would claim to be the Messiah.
It would spark a revolt
that would ultimately be put down by the Romans
usually through crucifixion of the leader.
The Sadducees
these folks would blend the the world and the law together
they would be open to the teachings of the Romans
as well as open to the law
so there was a mix of politics and religion
The Romans
these were the conquerors of the land and the Gentiles.
They would enforce their pagan traditions by force if necessary.
They were the ones that allowed the Jews to worship as they were
as long as there was peace.
They would implement
The last group of people were the people
people like you and me
living out their lives everyday
just trying to get by
So why the history lesson?
two reasons
first this is to help understand why love is so important.
It shows us that none of the ways of these people
were going to bring the Messiah
and it also shows that love seems to be
a foreign concept among the Jewish people of that time.
That made it necessary for Paul to pray for love.
But think about it in our own culture today.
how many people need a legalistic way
to follow God?
They add rules and laws in their lives
like how long a person’s hair can be
or their skirt length
or the absence of tattoos on a persons body.
All these are legalistic means to get to God
What about the Essenes?
How many people would remove themselves from culture
and rather than be part of the body of Christ
would spend time outside of the body
because they feel like they can be closer to God on a golf course or ball field?
I remember someone, Jesus, saying
that we are supposed to be in the world but not of it.
Any zealots?
looking for the next leader to come along in their lives?
They are OK with violence to keep people in line?
The people that would hold signs outside of the abortion clinic
calling people baby killers perhaps?
Or the Sadducees?
those that would mix the world and poilitics together
and combine culture with religion
so that everyone gets along?
If the body of Christ can’t get along
and decide how we are supposed to act in the world
and can’t get the foundation right
there is no hope for the rest of the Romans
who are roaming around
trying to solve the world’s problems on their own terms.
What’s interesting about Paul bringing up love
if you remember last week at the end of the teaching
I read from Revelation 2:1-7
This is the end times prophecy of John
John is told to write letters to seven churches
each letter gives the good, the bad,
and the ugly consequences if they don’t repent.
The first church that is written to is the church at Ephesus
As John writes in Revelation 2:1-7
1 “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:
2 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.
3 I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary.
4 But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first.
5 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.
6 Yet you do have this: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
7 “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
The good: the church is doing a lot of work
they seem to be trying to get people back to the word of God
they are enduring hardships
The bad: they aren’t doing any of these things in love.
They have turned into the legalistic Jewish leadership
that Jesus had fought the entire time He was on the planet.
There is a balance of truth and love
The ugly: if you don’t fix this and return
he’s going to remove the lampstand
let the church die out
Jesus does something interesting while he was with His disciples
He shares something while with the disciples in the upper room
In John 13, Jesus has gathered the disciples together for the Passover
He shares with them that He is going to be crucified
He washes their feet
and teaches about how they must be servants and how to treat each other
He announces the betrayal that will take place
After that Judas leaves the group
Jesus then says this in John 13:34-35
34 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Jesus gives a new command
why would Jesus give a new command?
Because Jesus is now installing the new covenant
We as believers are not bound by the law of Moses anymore
So Jesus gives us a new command to follow
and that is to love one another
as Jesus loved us.
Sounds general enough
but it needs a little explanation
How exactly did Jesus love us?
How Did Jesus Love Us?
How Did Jesus Love Us?
Sacrificial Love
Sacrificial Love
Jesus' ultimate act of love was dying on the cross
to atone or pay for or make reparations for the sins of humanity.
This act demonstrated God's love for us,
even while we were still sinners.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die.
8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath.
10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.
11 And not only that, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.
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.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Jesus forgave those who wronged him,
including his betrayers and persecutors.
34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided his clothes and cast lots.
He taught his followers to forgive others as well.
He then gives them a formula for restoring someone
15 “If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother.
16 But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established.
17 If he doesn’t pay attention to them, tell the church. If he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you.
18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.
19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.
20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.”
Then Peter asks how many times should we forgive someone?
21 Then Peter approached him and asked, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times?”
22 “I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven.
Forgiveness is not a one and done scenario
Do we really want to put a limit on forgiveness?
How many times does Jesus have to forgive us in a day?
Compassionate Action
Compassionate Action
Jesus showed love by healing the sick,
comforting the grieving,
and feeding the hungry.
He showed empathy for those suffering
and demonstrated his love through acts of service.
Teaching through Example
Teaching through Example
Jesus' life was a model of love in action.
He taught his disciples to love one another,
to serve others,
and to forgive those who wronged them.
He showed humility by washing his disciples' feet,
a task usually performed by servants.
Unconditional love
Unconditional love
Jesus loves us not because of our merits,
but simply because he loves us.
This love is often described as "agape,"
a selfless and sacrificial love.
Love that Endures
Love that Endures
Jesus' love is patient, kind, and persevering.
It never fails.
1 If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant,
5 is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.
6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.
7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part,
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.
13 Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.
All of these are examples of love
not just of what Jesus did
but what God expects of us as well
Paul in his letters focuses a lot on love
because it’s easy to fall into legalism
or some other culture that is different than what Scripture comands.
It’s easy to want to follow a structured set of rules
to be black and white in our thinking
It’s easy to want to mix the world and the church.
It’s easy to want to walk away from all the religious stuff.
It’s easy to be brash and violent to get what we want.
Paul will remind the churches he writes to in the New Testament
all about love
because the Jewish followers
and quite frankly everyone else that follows
want to live by rules, even if they are their own
forgetting the God who wrote the original law
and forgetting that the law no longer applies to us as believers.
Romans 6-8 talk all about the law
how the law is holy
but because of the sin in our body
we are unable to keep the law.
So God sent Jesus to pay the penalty of the law that we keep breaking
so that now we are not accountable to the law of the Old Covenant
but have a a New Covenant in Jesus
New covenant means new rules
Which is why Jesus could say in John 13
a new commandment I am giving you
Paul later on in Ephesians will follow up on this concept of love
and teach us in a very practical way
how to apply this concept of being rooted in love
14 Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.
15 But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ.
We’ll talk about this more later this year
but the premise is that
even though we have the truth
it must be balanced in love
that’s where mercy and grace come in among each other
Just cause someone messes up
doesn’t mean we can exercise our right
to drop the hammer on someone
or ignore them.
We show the example of Jesus when we put others first.
We should also remember that God doesn’t drop the hammer on us
when we mess up.
It not enough just to have love or even to show love
but Paul’s prayer says that he is praying for the church
to be rooted and firmly established in love.
What Does it Mean to Be Rooted?
What Does it Mean to Be Rooted?
The problem with love in a sinful body is
we have a tendency to run in two directions
we either want to define love by an emotional state
or we want to define love in a legal manner
In the emotional state
it’s very subjective
meaning it’s all about how we are feeling at the moment
I love pizza
but only if it’s the right kind of pizza
I can tolerate Dominos or Little Caesars
I can better tolerate Papa Johns
but give me genuine New York Pizza?
that I love
That’s the emotional love
New York Pizza is very subjective
there are some that really love it
and there are those that are wrong
Legalistic love is different
this means there are rules that need to be followed
if the rules are not followed
the way you show love is by following the rules
following the law
I love coffee
but I have started to become a coffee snob
I used to be good with just regular Folgers off the shelf
until someone introduced me to French Press coffee.
Then, I learned that coffee actually has recipes
and that coffee tastes better when it is ground fresh
from the whole bean
from a company with a date on it
It should be ground with a hand grinder
or an electric grinder that has the right burr in it.
because certain grinders don’t grind evenly enough
or consistently enough
to create the best grind
The grinders have to be set to the right grind
for if you are doing a pour over, French press, or even espresso
and the coffee grinds should be the weighed.
After all this is a recipe.
so when you grind coffee
you actually weigh it out so it’s consistent.
Even the water has to be right
you can really be snobbish and
only use distilled water
and the water should be at the right temperature of 200 to 202 degrees.
The pour should be timed and even
so that it has the right extraction.
You cover the coffee and let it bloom for 30 seconds
then you pour the rest of the measured pour in halves
so that the coffee has the right extraction
Then the extraction should be timed
to make sure that the coffee
can fully extract all the flavor
so four minutes in a French press
then you stir the top to get the fines to sink
and then strain the top and let it sit for 3 minutes.
when everything is right
then I love my cup of coffee
otherwise, I’ll drink it
but I don’t love it.
All my military and first responders are like
whatever
but ask them what kind of gun they like and whoa!
They have a certain brand, a certain round
a certain amount of grains of powder in each round
a certain company of brass
a certain company of powder, etc.
We all have something like that we love
For ladies it’s a brand of purse
or a certain shoe, clothing, whatever
and if it’s not the right fit, the right color, the right manufacturer
you might wear it
but most times you return it to get what you want
because we are legalistic about what we love.
and anything outside of our rules
we don’t love it.
Paul wants us to be rooted in the right kind of love
a love that never fails
a love that that is balanced in truth
and he wants us to be rooted and firmly established in this love
He uses a plant imagery
because the roots of the plant
are what keep the plant alive
and if a plant is in bad soil, or a bad environment, or no soil
the plant will die
The roots of a plant are part of the vascular system of the plant
The Vascular System
The Vascular System
This is the vascular system of the plant
the heart and network of vessels
that accomplishes two main parts
anchoring and absorption
Our vascular system as a human is
our heart, all the arteries and vessels that keep the blood moving
it flows through the lymph system in our body
it brings nutrients to the body and
removes wasted through the body through the lymphatic system
in a plant, it does something similarly
a plant that is rooted correctly
will continue to grow as it should
and produce flowers and fruit as it should
So the roots have two main purpose in a plant
the first is to keep it anchored
Anchoring
Anchoring
A plant without roots will get knocked around by nature
if the plant doesn’t have a great root system
the first weather even can drown it out
knock it over, or dry it up.
The plants root system keep it anchored in the dirt
For us as believers
our roots should be anchored in the love of God
that means that we know that He loves us
that we have hope in the promises of God
and we are anchored in His Word
5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him.
6 But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind.
7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord,
8 being double-minded and unstable in all his ways.
Being anchored in love means
we don’t have an opinion
that God gives us the definition and example of love to follow
and we follow it.
We serve each other with love
Paul gives us the example as the church
how we are to serve each other in love
as he shares the practical example of marriage
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord,
23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her
26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word.
27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.
28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church,
30 since we are members of his body.
31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church.
We’ll talk more about this later this year
but notice how Paul continues around the theme of love
and shows us how to love each other practically in reality
Because our roots keep us grounded and anchored in that love
Bottom line:
We should be so anchored in God’s love and Christ
that the chaos around us
doesn’t produce chaos in us
But roots need to be anchored in the right ground
I can put a plant in cement
and it’ll be anchored
but it won’t grow
I can tie a plant down in battery acid
and it will die
It needs to be able to absorb the proper nutrients
Absorption
Absorption
Plants need water and nutrients
that come from the ground they are in
the wrong nutrients will cause disease
and bad fruit
The plant will not be able to fight off pests
As followers of Jesus we should be absorbing God’s Word
David puts it this way in Psalms 42:1
1 As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God.
Or from Psalms 1:1-3
1 How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers!
2 Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Jesus says it this way
7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.
8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.
Because the goal of the follower of Christ
is not to just suck up the nutrients of God’s Word
and not just to do the work of the Lord
but to produce God’s fruit
How do we know a healthy coffee plant?
because it produced coffee beans
How do we know a healthy follower of Jesus?
The follower produces fruit
John the Baptist chastises the Pharisees in Matthew’s gospel
8 Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance.
9 And don’t presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.
10 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
