Delight Uncovered

The Surpassingly Immeasurable Love of Christ

1.16.22 [Ephesians 3:14-21] River of Life (2nd Sunday after Epiphany)

Mi casa es tu casa. It’s our way of letting people know that they are welcomed and treasured guests who should make themselves comfortable in our homes. If they need something they should help themselves. If they can’t find something they should be bold and ask for it. Mi casa es tu casa. Make yourself comfortable.

Of course, that’s not a very literal translation. Mi casa es tu casa really says: My home is your home. But that’s not really what we mean, is it? We mean help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge not start hanging your family pictures on the wall. We mean here’s the WiFi password, not go ahead and mess with the network settings. Mi casa es tu casa is something we say to people who are going to stay with us for a little while, maybe even a long while, but not to someone whom we are planning on dwelling with.

There is a world of difference between being a houseguest and dwelling together. God willing, newly married couples experience these growing pains. I know it has become almost a rarity for couples not to move in together before they get married, but for a second let’s remember and honor God’s design. When a couple is dating, or even engaged, they may be comfortable in each other’s places. You know where the charging cords are. You’ve got the WiFi password. You’ve got full access to the fridge and the pantry. You maybe even left a few of your things there. You’re comfortable together, but you’re not yet dwelling together. Once the vows have been exchanged and the two brought together as one and you begin dwelling together—things change. That awesome neon beer sign that you scored because you had a buddy, who had a buddy, who knew somebody who wanted to get rid of it for some unimaginable reason, goes from living room centerpiece to afterthought in the garage. Before you got married, the whole ensuite bathroom was yours. Now you have to share it. Before you got married, a walk-in closet seemed like a bonus room. Now, not so much. Before you got married, the problems and the bills were his, or were hers. Now they’re ours. And that is a good thing. It’s actually a sign of a very healthy marriage to have “we’re in this together” approach.

That’s what the Apostle Paul was praying would take place among the Ephesians. Each of the letters that the Apostle Paul wrote are a little bit different. This group of believers in Ephesus was one Paul knew well. He spent three years among them preaching

As he thought about them, he wanted them to be closer to God. So Paul prays for three big things. First, Paul asks God the Father to (Eph. 3:16) strengthen the Ephesians in their inner being through the Holy Spirit. Then Paul asks (Eph. 3:17-18) Christ to dwell in their hearts through faith so that they might be rooted and established in the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge. And he asks that the Triune God (Eph. 3:19) fills them with all God’s fullness. Those are three pretty great petitions. Who doesn’t want to be strengthened by God? Who doesn’t want to be filled with God? Who doesn’t want Christ to dwell in their hearts?

Well, we might say we want all those things. But when we examine our hearts and lives, we will see that, far too often we are not really so interested in that. Can we really claim to want to strengthened by God, when Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12, that that only happens when our weaknesses are first revealed? Can we really claim to want to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God, when he places that fullness right in our hands—in his Word—but we can’t seem to find—or rather make the time—to study it regularly or follow it diligently? Can we really claim to want Christ to dwell in our hearts, when we’re really more interested in a houseguest? When Christ dwells in our hearts, he does deep renovating and remodeling and refashioning and renewing. Is that really what we want? Or do we want Jesus to be like DoorDash—dropping off the blessings that we’ve already picked out for ourselves? Do we just want Jesus to be like a concierge physician—hurry up and heal my soul? Do we just want Jesus to be like that friend that stays at our place during the holidays? Great to catch up with and connect with and you’re so glad they’re a part of your life.

Christ Jesus came to impart blessings. He came to heal our sin-sick souls. He came so that our joy might be complete. But Paul highlights that Christ’s goal is much more than that. He longs to (Eph. 3:17) dwell in our hearts through faith. Remember all those struggles that a young married couple goes through as they begin to dwell together? They’re a necessary part of dwelling together.

You need Christ to dwell in your heart. Do you really think your house was clean enough when Christ came along and died to cleanse you? Do you really think your life was just fine the way it was when you Redeemer purchased you with his holy, precious, and innocent blood? If it was, why did Christ come at all?

Yet, when Christ comes to make our hearts his own dwelling—rebuking the sinful filth he finds within us and reclaiming and refashioning us into his image—we tend to act like an immature newlywed.

Jesus says, that sinful habit that your unbelieving friends think is kinda cool, kinda funny, kinda not such a big deal is as out of place as a neon-beer sign is in the living room of a well-decorated home. Your beloved says: (Js. 1:21) Get rid of that moral filth. (1 Cor. 6:18) Flee sexual immorality. (Js. 1:26) Keep a tight rein on your tongue. (Js. 1:20) Human anger never produces righteousness. (1 Tim. 5:13) Don’t gossip. Yet you point to those who don’t have the blessing of Christ as their bridegroom as witnesses that your sin isn’t such a big deal.

Christ longs to make his dwelling (Eph. 3:17) in your heart through faith. But are you listening to what he says about you and to you? You say you love him. But why is it you can’t imagine a morning without caffeine, but live each day without Christ’s Word? How can you build your day around a tee time—or any other appointment for that matter—but never seem to find time or the energy to grow in grace and knowledge or to serve your Lord? How can you sing “What a Friend We Have In Jesus” but your friends don’t know the first thing about your Savior, your faith, or your church? Christ, the one you claim to love, looks at the cluttered bathroom counter of your life and asks How do I fit in?

Day after day, Christ assures you that he will meet your needs. At the same time he warns: (Ps 62:10) Don’t set your heart on material things. (Ps. 146:3) Don’t put your trust in princes, in human beings who cannot save. (Mt. 6:31,34) Do not worry. Yet, how do we respond? We open the closets of blessings and complain I’ve got nothing to wear. We spend so much time fretting and complaining and worrying. Yet, despite all our fretting and fighting, all our selfishness and faithlessness, our God has a love that surpasses anything we could earn or deserve or even imagine.

The love of Christ is wide enough to include all sinners—regardless of who you’ve been or what you’ve done. The love of Christ has long been promised—going back all the way to the Garden of Eden. The love of Christ moved him to set aside the heights of heaven to make his dwelling among us. The love of Christ caused him to plunge himself in the depths of hell so that we might be his very own. The love of Christ prompted the fullness of God to take on bodily form and then to take on our sins, so that we might be brought to fullness, so that we might begin to grasp the powerful love of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

The love of Christ prompted him to become one with us. The living God has lived among sinners. Jesus, the omnipotent Son of God, refused to use his miraculous power to make his life easier. The all-knowing Christ humbled himself to have to learn the Word of God. The omnipresent Lord God limited himself to having to walk everywhere.

No matter where you look in the Gospels, the records of the life of Jesus, you see him living humbly. You see him making sacrifices. You see him loving sinners. He made our problems, his problem. That is the Christ that has made his dwelling in your heart. The Jesus that laid down his life for you, so that you may have life to the full, is now filling you with his righteousness, his mercy, his grace, his love for sinners, his patience, his perseverance, his strength, and his wisdom. This love has taken root in your through Word and Sacrament. This love has claimed you in the waters of Baptism. This love has washed you and made you Christ’s beloved—(Eph. 5:27) without stain or wrinkle or any kind of blemish, but holy and blameless in his sight. This love has strengthened you to do battle against the sinful inclinations of your flesh. This love has empowered you to pursue paths of righteousness—not just when it makes you feel or look good, but each and every time because you know it brings glory to your gracious God.

Love like this changes you for the better. If you are married, maybe you can remember back to when you weren’t. With the blessing of hindsight, you can see all the blessings that being married has brought into your life. The love of a god-fearing spouse can shape and mold you in so many wonderful ways. When you have someone who loves you like that, you don’t want them to just make themselves comfortable. You want to make a life with them.

If the love of a godly, but sinful, spouse can do that—imagine what the love of God can do. Look at what it has already done. The love of Christ has opened your eyes to the wisdom found only in his Word. The love of Christ moves you to dig deeper into God’s Word, laying down roots for the days and years ahead. The love of Christ is your foundation. He is your Rock. (Mt. 7:24-25) Even when the rain comes down, and the streams rise, and the winds blow and beat against you, you will stand firm, because the love of Christ is your foundation for everything. (Rm. 8:37-39) Nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of Christ. Eph 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.