Untitled Sermon

Introduction

Good morning, Sovereign Grace church. Please turn with me in your Bible to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians chapter 3 verses 14 through 19.

Ephesians 3:14-19 “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Prayer

I want you to imagine that after church you decide to go out to lunch. And since Chic-fil-a is closed and you can’t get what you really want, you go and get the next best thing. And as you walk into the restaurant you see a friend who goes to another church here in Louisville. You go and say hi and you eventually ask them how their church service was that morning. And their reply catches you off guard as they say, “It was wonderful. The Spirit empowered us. Christ dwelt in our hearts. And we were all filled with all the fulness of God.” What do you assume happened at church that morning? What pictures come to mind?

If you’re like me, I think you might picture charismatic chaos — everyone speaking in tongues, lengthy prophecies one after another, emotional music, someone might even have even been healed, and after all those long and unexpected charismatic experiences, by the time the pastor got up to preach he might have said something like, “well, I guess there isn’t time for my sermon this week. You can all go home” You might be concerned about the church your friend goes to and might even wonder if you should help him find another place to gather next Sunday.

When he gave that description of his service that morning, you might think that he means any number of things, but if you’re anything like me, probably the very last thing you’d think that he meant is what Paul has in mind when he uses those same words in our text.

By the time we get to the prayer in our text this morning, Paul has spent three chapters diving deeply into the glories of the gospel. He’s talked about election, adoption, redemption, the sealing with the Spirit, Christ’s enthronement above all spiritual forces, God’s end-times plan to destroy all the divisions in heaven and on earth, how Gentiles inherit the promises God made to Abraham all the way back in Genesis 12, and even our resurrection from spiritual dead into heaven itself. Paul has explored God’s deep love that he has shown in the gospel, and by the end of Ephesians 3, Paul has a pastoral concern, and that concern drives him to his knees. And while he’s there, Paul prays a prayer with perhaps the loftiest language in the entire Bible. He prays that the Ephesian church would be filled with all the fulness of God.

And what does he mean when he says that? Look at verse 19, he prays that we would “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” You see, Paul knew that it’s all too easy to know the truths of the gospel without experiencing the truths of the gospel, that it’s easy for the realities of Ephesians 1-3 to go into our heads without going into our hearts. And so Paul indeed prays for a charismatic experience, but not one where he prays for prophecy and tongues, but meaningful and moving experiences of knowing (and feeling) the deep love which Christ has for us. Because it wasn’t enough for Paul that his audience would know the content of gospel without feeling the glories of the gospel. It’s not enough for us to know in our heads that the gospel is true, God desires that we would feel in our hearts that the gospel is true — that Jesus deeply loves us.

Because it’s possible to know that we’ve been adopted by God without feeling that God perfectly loves and accepts us as our father.

It’s possible to know that God has given to us the righteousness of his Son and still feel like we have something to prove to him, to still feel like God is disappointed in us, to still feel like we need to earn his favor.

And in this text, it’s possible to know that Jesus Christ loves us without feeling that Jesus Christ loves us. We can say with our mouths that Jesus loves us fully, completely, and unchangingly while still harboring doubts in our hearts. While still wondering if that’s really true. What about when we sin? Does he grow tired of us? What about when we suffer? Is he judging us? What about when we feel alone and like everyone has abandoned us? Has our Lord left us too? And what about those dark moments when we’ve questioned Jesus or even thought unkind things of Jesus in our hearts — does he think unkind things back?

This is Paul’s pastoral concern — that the Ephesian believers, and us by extension, would feel perfectly and wholly secure in the love of Jesus. Because God’s great desire is that we not only would know that Jesus loves us, but that we would feel that Jesus loves us. He desires that our awareness of Jesus’ deep and unshakable love for us would grow. That’s his heart for us, not just that we would know it in our heads, but that we would feel it in our hearts.

So let’s consider this prayer together together this morning, and may God, by his Spirit, come and visit us that we may know, deep down, that Jesus truly does love us.

NEED A TRANSITION HERE:

MP1: Jesus Loves us Fully and Completely

Look back with me at the middle of verse 17,

that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge

How does Paul address us here? What does he call us? The saints who are rooted and grounded in the love of Jesus.

When Paul describes Jesus love for us, he uses two pictures which together describe us as secure and safe.

First, he says that we’re rooted in Jesus’ love. The picture is of a plant whose roots sink down deeply into the soil. And when those roots sink down, the tree is secure, it’s strong, it’s steady. When the storms come and the winds blow, that tree isn’t shaken.

And Second, Paul says that we are grounded in Jesus’ love. The picture changes from a plant to a building, a building whose foundation is the love of Jesus. Like the roots of a tree, the foundation of a building is what keeps the building standing. When floods come and the dirt beneath the building becomes unstable, it’s the foundation that keeps the building together.

The point is this: we are secure in Jesus’ love. We’re firmly held. We won’t be uprooted. The building won’t collapse. There’s nothing that can pull us away from Jesus’ love for us. We’re not going anywhere.

No trail can pull you from his love. When the storms and difficulties of life come and seek to shake us, what keeps us standing? Not our resolution to stand strong. Not an uncertain hope that things might get better. Not just manning up pushing through. What keeps us standing? What keeps us secure? It’s the steady and unshakable love of Jesus for us. His love is the more sure, most stable reality in all the universe. And we can put all of our confidence in it.

And these comforting truths of being rooted and grounded in love, while it’s clear in the English, they are even more pronounced in the original — we could translate it like this, you have been rooted in love, and you have been grounded in love. Now this might be obvious, but tress don’t plant themselves, and buildings don’t lay their own foundation. No, trees are planted by another — and the same is true of us — you have been rooted in love.

My friends, we didn’t plant ourselves in the love of Christ, no, we were planted there by another. We were taken, and we were planted by sovereign grace and sovereign love. Because before we ever knew Jesus, he knew us. And before we ever loved Jesus, he loved us.

And this brings us much comfort, because if Jesus loved us first, then we could not be more secure in his love — because none of it depends on us, it all rests on him. He loves us not because of anything in us, but because "God is love.”

This means that he’s not disappointed in us. There aren’t unmet expectations.

Jesus Christ - who is the same yesterday, today, and forever - loves us yesterday, today, and forever. Because he rooted us, and he grounded us — he made us secure in his unfailing love.

And as we contemplate this great, unfailing love of Christ — this love which predated out love for him — we know that the greatest demonstration of that love is found in the gospel. When he came for unworthy and unloving sinners like us, and laid down his life for us. In the gospel, Jesus rooted us and grounded us in his love, to never let us go. Do you remember Paul’s words in Ephesians 5?

Ephesians 5:25–27: Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

My dear brothers and sisters, if you are ever tempted to doubt the love of Jesus, look no further than the cross. How do you know that Jesus loves you? Because he died so that you would live. And that kind of love, it’s never going away. He loves you fully. He loves you completely. And his love will never let you go.