Knowing God's Incomprehensible Love - Ephesians 3:14-21

3:01So I go to my spreadsheet because I'll forget. And I look at my to-do list, and I think to myself, when I'm done with something, you know what I like to do? In Excel, you can hide a row. I hide my rows because I want that sheet to get smaller, and I want to feel a sense of accomplishment. But sometimes, sometimes I do an unhide because I want to see all the things I've done on my to-do list. I call it a to-done list. You probably do too. And I look at that and I glory and I go, look at what I've done. And then I look at the to-do list and there's more and it just gets bigger and bigger. Well, I think everybody can identify with that. The book of Ephesians is a to-do list in the first three chapters. It's not a to-do list. It's a to-done list. Paul reveals everything that's been done already in the first three chapters. He doesn't tell you what to do in the first three chapters. He tells you what to know about who you are in Christ. The last three chapters, chapters four through six, that's your to-do list. Why would he give you a to-done list first? That doesn't make any sense. You look at it and you go, wow, the first three chapters, I've already done all this. When in reality, it's what God has already done. It's what God has already done. So chapters one through three are your to-done list. Chapters four through six are your to-done. To-do list. Here's chapter one. It details who we are in Christ. Right out the gate, he says, You are blessed with every spiritual blessing. And he's talking to saints, he's talking to believers. He's not talking to unbelievers here, he's talking to those who are Christians. Chapter two tells us that we were dead in our transgressions and sins. The same word is used for corpse. You were dead in your transgressions and sins, but the rest of chapter two tells us how we are made alive in Christ. It's something that has been done to us.

5:04Chapter two also tells us how salvation takes place. Salvation takes place, we're told, according to Paul, it's by grace through faith, not by works. And so, in that, we see that grace and faith are not works because he tells us that you're not saved by works. So, grace and faith are a gift of God. It's what he's already done. Again, chapter two informs us Gentiles, if you're not Jewish, you're a Gentile. It informs us, Gentiles, that we've been reconciled with the Jewish people. We have been reconciled with God because he made us one new race, collectively known as the church. That's what chapter two teaches us. Maybe you were here a few weeks ago when I spoke out of Ephesians before, and we noticed that Jesus, He killed something, He killed racism with the tool. And that tool that we noticed. This is the same tool that killed him, the cross. It's very specific in the text. It says he killed the enmity between men with the cross. Therefore, we should never, ever allow racial animosity to ever enter the doors of this church because we're one race. That's what the scripture tells us. I want you to glance over at chapter 3, 14 through 21, and then I want to go over to chapter 3, verse 1 here in a moment. But let me just read the text just to put it in perspective. He says, Therefore, I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they're for your glory. Verse 14, for this reason, he's about to pray. I bow my knees before the Father. Then he changes his mind. Watch this in verse 15, from whom every family and on earth derives its name, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit and the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, the height, the depth, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge. That's the incomprehensible love. It says that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now, to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever. And ever. Amen. So, this is a prayer that he starts in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 1. Follow me over to just the beginning of chapter 3 there. He uses the exact same words that he used in verse 14. He says, This, for this reason, I, Paul, identifies himself, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles, he's about to pray for them.

7:59And then he abruptly changes his mind. What was it that was more important than prayer at this point in time? I'll tell you what it was. He wanted them to know something. And so he takes chapter 3, verses 2 through 14, excuse me, verse 13, and he identifies something that's very important. He wants them to know that he is in prison for their tribulations. He wants them to know that he is praying for them as believers. But he changes his mind and he educates them about the mystery of Gentile salvation. Again, if you're Jewish, you're not Gentile. If you're not Jewish, you are Gentile. You are of the nations. And so he wants to describe in chapter 3 about how these other nations, other than Jewish people, get saved. How do they become part of God's family? Well, Paul reveals the mystery. Glance down at verse 6. You're going to see it there in verse 6. He informs. The Gentiles, that they are, number one, their fellow heirs or co-heirs with believing Jews. Those believing Gentiles are fellow members of the same body as the believing Jews. In verse 6, again, they're fellow partakers of the promise with the believing Jews through the gospel. That was a mystery. That was something that was not understood until the New Testament apostles and prophets about this whole idea of Gentile salvation. It should have been somewhat understood because the Old Testament speaks about it repeatedly. But look at verse 12. In whom, he's talking about Christ Jesus in verse 11, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in him. He says, we have boldness, we have confidence, that's the ability to speak publicly about who Christ is. We have confident access to the Father in verse 12, so they shouldn't be depressed about Paul's imprisonment. He says, don't be concerned about my tribulations. They are for your glory. He's in prison because of the Gentiles. And he says, don't be concerned about me. We see that in verse 13. Why would this come up in this section of scripture? If you take a look at Acts chapter 9, and we refer to this frequently in our Sunday school class, Paul was on his way to Damascus. He was on his way to Damascus for a very specific reason. He had letters and documents from the religious leaders, the leaders of that area, that. That he was to extradite Christians, men and women, 135 miles south to Jerusalem so they could stand trial and then they could ultimately be killed. And yet Jesus stops him dead in his tracks and he makes him an apostle. He makes him a number one missionary for his glory. And he says in Acts chapter 9, God tells, Jesus tells, informs Paul that his mission is to reach the Gentiles. It's to reach the kings. It's to reach the sons of Israel with the gospel. And then he tells them how much it's necessary for him to suffer. And so here he is in the book of Ephesians. He writes them, he's sitting in a jail because he's doing his job. He's doing what Jesus told him to do, and he's reaching the nations with the gospel of Christ. And the people are upset. And they're upset that he's in jail. And he prays for them. He tells them, don't be upset that I'm here. The reason I'm here is for your glory. So that you can understand God's truth and salvation. In Ephesians 3:14, if you just look at it, Paul resumes his prayer that he started in verse 1. Uses the same words, for this reason.

11:36Since the Gentiles and the Jews are one new body, chapter 2, and one new created race, they are fellow citizens of the household of God. He prays for them. And he shows us, now that we know who we are in Christ, that is, that we are God's to-done list in chapters 1 through 3. We see in chapters 4 through 6 that he gives us our to-do list. List, our to-do list. He tells us how to be a church, how to do church. He tells us how to do marriage. It's a great thing to understand. He tells us how to rear children. He tells children how to honor their parents. And he tells us how to do employment, whether you're an employer or an employee, how to do the Christian life. And so, if we don't understand this prayer, we're not going to understand how to be an awesome husband or an awesome wife. We just can't do it unless we understand what Paul's saying here. You can't do the idea here, you can't do the rigorous demands of chapters 4 through 6 unless you understand this prayer in verses 14 to 21.

12:45We can't function as a church unless we understand this prayer. You can't love your wife as Christ loved the church, Ephesians 5:25, unless you understand this prayer. You can't respect your husband, ladies, unless you understand this prayer. You can't honor your parents unless you understand this prayer. You can't be a godly mother or father unless you understand it. And you certainly can't be a godly employee or employer unless you understand this prayer. That's the reason Paul is bowing his knees before the Father. He's praying for them that when they get to chapters 4 through 6, they'll be able to do it.

13:26You realize that in the first three chapters, there's only one command. In the first three chapters, just one, and it's to remember who they were. They were corpses before God made them alive. And then in chapters 4 through 6, there's at least another 39 commands. And he's on his knees and he's praying to the Father, God, prepare them for this walk with you. So, what are the keys to knowing God's incomprehensible love? Keys to knowing God's incomprehensible love. The first one is in order to know God's love, first of all, you must understand God, who God is. He's the Father in verse 14. Do you see there that he's bowing his knees before the Father? I want to point something else out in this chapter that may not be immediately apparent. Do you see that Paul mentions the Trinity here, not by name? And he mentions human responsibility here in this prayer. First of all, the Father is mentioned in verse 14. The Spirit is mentioned in verse 16. The Son is mentioned in verse 17. And then Paul prays that, he prays for believers to be strengthened by the Spirit. Why?

14:36So that the Son is firmly rooted in their lives as a result of their faith in verse 17. Glance back over to the beginning of chapter 3 here in verse 3. Paul recognizes that God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Again, Ephesians 1:3. Just like Jesus addresses the The Father in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9, saying, Our Father who art in heaven, Paul rightfully addresses his prayer to the Father, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. What else does Paul tell us about the Father so that we can know his love? What else does he say? He says, Every family in heaven and on earth derives his name from the Father. In other words, he created them. We have to keep in mind that the scriptures indicate that God is the Father of those who have placed their trust in him. Even these Ephesian believers were once not God's children, but he says they were children of wrath, like everybody else in Ephesians 2:3. So it's just saying that our names are derived from the Father. The Father created us all, but he's only the Father of those who have embraced Christ. Notice verses 20 and 21. Verses 20 and 21 in chapter 3 tells us more about God so that we can understand this love that we're reading about here. I want you to glance at verse 20. Verse 20. Notice that God is capable of delivering everything.

16:18How so? He says, way beyond all that we can ask or think. That's why he's praying, because he knows that God can deliver these things way beyond what he can ask or think. And in verse 21, you can see. That God is glorified in the church, in the church, and in Jesus forever. And these two verses, verses 20 and 21, we would call these the doxology of Paul's prayer. But in keeping with knowing God, I want to deal first with them as we drill down into the depths of the actual prayer that Paul prays in verses 16 through 29. We'll get to the prayers here in a moment, but I want to deal with actually who God is. Paul wants you to know something about God in verse 20. He wants you to know about his power, which makes him able to do something. Do something way beyond all that you can ask or think when you pray. So you would say, how so? How does this take place? And Paul would answer your question. He would say, according to the power working in us. Do you see it there in verse 20? Paul is repetitious about God's power. The English doesn't bring it out as well as the original language that Paul wrote this text in. He uses four words in verse 20 to describe what God does in us. Let me just put them on the screen. Number one, the first word is able. It's right there in verse 20. The word able means capable. That's simply it. And in this case, God is capable to do something. That's what he's saying here. God is capable to do something. There's a second word. There's a second word. It's three words in the English. Language, and he's able to do far more abundantly. Far more abundantly. It means power is what he's talking about here. Underline those words, far more abundantly. It's only used three times in the New Testament, and it's a word that describes the absolute highest form of comparison imaginable of God's capability to do something way beyond all that we can ask or think. The idea is that God far surpasses our expectations. You ever had your expectations exceeded so much that you want to thank the person for what they've done because they went way out of their way to do something? That happened in our household just recently. We bought this really expensive refrigerator. We thought that would last for at least 20 years, but when the computer goes out, the entire refrigerator goes out. So I'm thinking, oh, good. The computer goes out and the food can't be cold.

18:54So we read all the instructions about what we're supposed to do and, you know, this whole thing about a lemon law. And I'm like, okay, I see where this is heading. We're going to be stuck with this albatross. And so we kind of agonized through it. Debbie just said, call Lowe's. They'll take care of us. I'm reading the document here. They're not going to take care of us. No, they're not going to do it. She says, just call them, just call them. I said, well, let's just go down there. We explained our situation. The guy says, look, let's just exchange it.

19:18Really? What's the hitch? And they far exceeded our expectation. They were willing to give us a refrigerator even more expensive than the one we bought, but I didn't think that was important. We settled down and they took. Care of us. He far exceeded our expectations. And this pales in comparison to what God does, but the idea is that he exceeds our expectations. The third word, power. It's the Greek word dunamis, from which we get dynamite. It's the power that works within us. God's power is explosive. He's able to do far above and beyond what we can ask for. I think there's another word, and it's this word working. It means to energize. It means to energize. So, with all that, what do we need to know? God far exceeds our expectations, and his power is explosive, dunamis, and it is energizing us on the inside if we've embraced him as our savior. Well, with all this power and delivering way beyond our expectations, glance back down at verse 21. He wraps his prayer up with this verse. In order for you to know God's love, this is he of whom you must know, so that when you pray, you have confidence in the power of God's delivery system. When you pray, you know that God can deliver. There's a whole lot more to accomplish here in Ephesians chapters 4 through 6, and you're going to need God's strength to make it through. Back in 3:14, Paul says he bows his knees before the Father.

20:55Look, Paul isn't bowing his knees with the to-do list with the big man upstairs. Here. This bowing his knees is a form of submission to God. It's a recognition of who God is, of respect and humility. Does that mean whenever we pray, we've got to get on our knees? No. Scripture is filled with areas or passages that talk to us about prayer on knees, prayer on our faces, prayer while we're standing. Paul is simply bowing his knees because he recognizes that God has the power to lead the Ephesians through the requirements of chapters 4 through 6.

21:33Back in chapter 3, verse 14, he's on his knees and he's praying. That's the idea. We see this same idea in Isaiah 45, verse 23. In Isaiah 45, 23, God declares this: I have sworn by myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness, and I will not turn back. That to me, every knee will bow, and every tongue swear allegiance. God says everybody's going to bow their knee. You will bow your knee, even if you reject Christ in this lifetime. We know that Paul quotes this passage in Philippians 2:10 through 11. He says this: Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Paul is bowing his knees to him, and he's asking God, Lord, prepare them. Paul knows that every family in heaven and on earth exists because God made them in verse 15. He bows his knee in prayer to the Father because he alone is capable to do way beyond everything they could ever ask or think, everything they could ever dream of, in keeping with his power that is right now working in the church and in us.

22:53Well, with all that as a backdrop, we come to our second point, the second way to know God's incomprehensible love. There, you see it. In order to know God's love, you must know the reason Paul prays for you. Why does he pray? In verses 16 through 19. Actually, did you know he prays two prayers in here in these brief verses? He prays two prayers so that God may grant you out of the storehouse of his glory. In verse 16, here's the first prayer: that God would grant you strength in your inner person, right there in verse 16. Do you see it? That God would grant you strength in your inner person, in your inner man. The word is anthropone in the Greek, and it doesn't necessarily simply point to a male gender of the race, it points to people.

23:41He wants to strengthen you inside your inner person. In light of the fact that believers are already blessed with every spiritual blessing in chapter 1, it seems odd that Paul prays that God would give him more wealth out of his storehouse. This is. The first time that Paul writes about what God does in his wealth. In chapter 1, verse 7, our forgiveness comes out of the wealth of his grace. Did you get that? He forgives us out of the wealth of his grace. And in 118, they already have the wealth of God's inheritance. They already have all of God's riches, all of his wealth in their possession, and yet he still prays to God to strengthen them in accordance with the riches that are now already in their possession. He wants them to carry out their lives in accordance with spiritual wealth. His wealth is contained in his glory in chapter 3, verse 16, for a reason, and he spells it out so that he strengthens them in their inner person. Incidentally, the same word for strengthen in verse 16 is also used in 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13. Only there it's a command to be strengthened, surrounded by some other verbs. He says, be on the alert, put an exclamation point on it, stand firm in the faith, put an exclamation point on it, act like men, exclamation point, be strengthened, only in this case, it's a passive, it's something that they are, that has, that is done to them. Be strengthened. It's something what God does as they exercise their faith. Notice how God strengthens you in verse 16. Take a look at that. God uses. His spirit as a tool to ratchet up your strength. Now, I wear a lot of hats around here at Emmanuel Baptist Church, and I have a ratchet here.

25:40He uses his spirit to ratchet up your strength so that you can be a man and a woman of God to follow him. As you trust him, he strengthens you from your inner person, your inner man. He strengthens you. He uses the spirit of God to strengthen you in a particular location. Do you see where it is? Verse 16, right in the inner man. Here's the reason God strengthens. Here's the reason he strengthens you in verse 17. Take a closer look at it. So that Christ dwells in your hearts. If you forgot it, I even put it on the screen. Here's the reason he strengthens you. So that he dwells in your hearts.

26:26Since Paul repeatedly says that they're already in Christ, he's not praying for Christ to enter their hearts. They're already Christians. This dwelling, it's a process that theologians refer to as progressive sanctification. It's a growth that we experience in Christ as we trust in him, as he strengthens our faith, as he ratchets it down, as we are faithful to him. So that you can know the deep-rootedness of God's love in your life right there in verse 17.

27:00Just how deep is God's love rooted in your life, we would ask. His love is anchored to the very depths of your heart, Paul is telling us here. And I would say, is Jesus dwelling in the depths of your heart? Is he dwelling there? Is he at home there? Is he warm there in your life? There's another tool I want to bring out that God uses to strengthen your faith so that he dwells in you. Do you see it in verse 17? There's a strength that he uses to dwell in you, and it's through your faith. It's through your faith. You have some responsibility here. Listen, God wants to make you strong. As you exercise your faith, he's ratcheting it down. And he's at home in your heart, and he's strengthening you to walk, to be that man who loves his wife as Christ loved the church, to be a woman of God who respects her husband when the times are most difficult.

27:58As I said, you've got a responsibility. It's there in verse 17, lest you doubt what I'm saying here. You must exercise your faith in the one to whom Paul bows his knees to pray to the Father. Why? So that he may dwell in you. He may dwell in you. As a businessman, 20-year career in the corporate world, I traveled over 80,000 miles a year. Leaving my home meant flying away from Debbie and our kids. As I look back to those trips, I looked forward to them. To most of them, most of those trips. But what I really looked forward to is coming back home because I wanted to experience my son jumping in my arms. He doesn't do that now. He's much bigger than me.

28:43But the idea is, I really look forward to going home about that word dwell. What does it mean? In the Greek word, the Greek word for dwell in verse 17 is a fascinating word. It's actually two words. It's katoi keto. Katoi keto. And it means kata means down and home. It means to be down together. Together, it means to be down home. God wants to be down home in your life, to be comfortable there. Down home is where I find the greatest comfort in the presence of my family. For the Weathers family, down home is a place of love, a place of encouragement, a place of warmth and forgiveness. Even when there's friction, we know that our love for one another supersedes any silly temporal disagreements because there's a striving for unity. There's a striving for love for each family member to comfort one another in their difficult times.

29:38But even when love in our home, well, love in our home, it pales in comparison to the love of Christ that we experience when he's down home in our hearts. Would you agree with that? Do you agree that life seems to run a little more smoothly when you sense that Jesus is down home? He's made his home in your heart. And the troubles of life seem to be minimized. You get a sense that you're walking with him. Paul's praying that Christ would be down home in your hearts. He's praying it for a reason. And it's there in verse 18. Look at verse 18.

30:19Where you see the word so that, there's a reason coming. He says, so that you may be able to not just experience his love, but to comprehend with all the saints, with all the other believers, what is what? The breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of God's love. It runs deep and strong. The only way you can really come to love someone or something is to spend time getting to know the person or the thing. When I was a kid, I loved, loved to water ski. Would spend eight hours a day for months on an end without a break doing nothing but skiing.

30:58When I saw my first water ski tournament, I was hooked. I was in love with a thing. I saw guys jumping off water ski ramps, five and a half foot ramps at 65 miles an hour. I go, I love that. I want to do that. I spent time with it. I got a job as a 15-year-old washing boats and washing trailers and earned enough money to buy my first set of water skis, jump skis, at $310 for a 15-year-old kid. Back then was a lot of money, but I loved the sport. My love for the sport drove me to. Practice and practice hard, spend a lot of money on coaching. Within a couple of years, I too was hitting a five-and-a-half-foot ramp at breakneck speed, such that it dislocated my knee, and I never did it again after that when I was 19. But I still love the sport. Look, if you want to know the love of Christ, ladies and gentlemen, you got to spend time with him.

31:57You got to turn the pages. We're not in a race here. Yes, okay, we're going to try to read through the Bible in a year, but you know what? Settle down with it. Know what it says. Know what it means by what it says. Don't be in a race to cross off a to-do list item. If you need to take another day to say, I don't get it, I'm going to call Pastor Eric. I'm going to call Pastor Tom, one of the elders, somebody I respect. What does it mean? You are exercising a love because that's where you want to be.

32:26How much time do you spend pouring through this word that God so faithfully over 1,500 years and 40 different authors put together? The inerrant word of Christ, why wouldn't we want to be here more often? It's because I want to look at Facebook and I want to spend time there, and I'm not demeaning Facebook. I like Facebook. But if I'm doing that instead of this, where do I leave my love? Are you just reading it to cross off another to-do list, to unhide it and go, look what I did. I read the 66 books of the Bible. Do you remember anything in it? No, but I love God.

33:07I'm not demeaning the work that we do to understand it, but settle down in it. Let Christ be at home in our heart as we read the text. And he'll surpass our wildest expectations of who he really is in our lives. Is Christ comfortable in your heart? Is there a place for your heart, a warm and welcoming place for him? Have you been holding him at a distance saying, Not now, God, I'm working on my degree.

33:35Not now, God, I got children to raise. Not now, God, I'm flying off to the next business appointment. Does Jesus feel down home in your heart? Paul prays for God to strengthen your inner man through faith. And he's praying for the Ephesians not to be downhearted about his tribulations. He prays for them not to be distraught about him being in prison for their glory. At the end of Ephesians chapter 3, verse 17, you see there's a second reason that God strengthens you. I'll put it on the screen here: so that you will be rooted and established in love.

34:20So that Christ will not only be down home in your heart, but you will be rooted and established in love. He gives us an illustration, something of a Agricultural illustration and something of a building illustration. Roots run deep. Buildings are built properly so they don't fall. Is he rooted deep? Is he established in love in your life? I talked about the importance of chapter 5 of Ephesians. Turn to Ephesians chapter 5 with me, just probably a page over in your New Testament.

34:52As you're turning there, when you're firmly rooted in love and the storms of marriage are giving you a beat down, chapter 5 is where you can be rooted. You have the strength and the power to live out the demands of chapter 5: of respecting your husband, ladies, and husbands, loving your wife the way Jesus loves the church. Did you get that? Chapter 5 is so important. Spend time there, but I'm going to read through verses 1 through 8.

35:26Verses 1 through 8, he says, Therefore, be imitators of God, his beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you. He gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. But immorality or impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among the saints. Those are believers. Verse 4. There must be no filthiness or silly talk or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know with certainty that no immoral Or impure person or covetous man who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you. That's a command. Don't let anybody deceive you with empty words. Why? For because of these things, the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not be partakers with them. For you were formerly darkness, but now you're light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light.

36:34In essence, we see here that we must be living our lives with an action of love. Must be living our lives with an action of love. I said that Paul offers up two prayers in this passage. Here's the second prayer in verse 19. The second prayer. The first thing you see is his prayer. And the second thing you'll notice in verse 19 is the reason for his prayers. First, the prayer. He says that you would know something beyond breadth or length or height or depth of his love. What does Paul pray for the Father to inform you about, to know? Look at the text. He prays for you to know the love of God, which surpasses knowledge. What?

37:25How is it possible to know something that's unknowable? Hmm. First of all, you have to ask two questions. Here they are: What do we know about the love of Christ? And number two, what don't we know about the love of Christ? If we just stick with the book of Ephesians, we can look at the things we do know. The word love appears ten times in the book of Ephesians, and every time the word appears, it appears, we notice that it seeks for the betterment of somebody else. It seeks the betterment of the one who's loved.

37:59I don't have time to go through all of them, but if you just want to jot them down in your notes, if you're taking notes, Ephesians 1:5 tells us about this kind of love. It ends in verse 4, and the rest of it goes in verse 5. Ephesians 1, 5, Ephesians 1, 15 through 17, we see that kind of love. Ephesians 2, 4, and 5, it talks about salvation by grace through faith, the kind of love that God extends. Ephesians 5, verses 1 and 2.

38:29The last time that the Ephesians heard the word love, it's an interesting place, not a place you might be thinking of. And when they heard it, it wasn't a pretty situation. It was in the book of Revelation, chapter 2. This was a church who had love down. They did everything right. And Jesus tells them about the things that they did right in chapter 2 of Revelation. But then he says, I got something against you, church of Ephesus.

38:58And he warns them. He. He says, you've left your first love. This was a church that was told about love. They were prayed for in the book of Ephesians. He says, you've left your first love. He says, I got this against you. You've left your first love. And that word left is the same word as divorce. You've divorced your first love. What is that? God and its people. You've left God. You've left people. You don't love people. You don't love God. Literally, he's saying here, you have released yourself from your first love. You've released yourself from their presence. He warns them. He says, Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, repent and do the deeds you did at first. Also, I'm coming to you and remove your lampstand. That's their church out of its place unless you repent. If they don't resume loving God and they don't resume loving his people, their church is history. That's why love is so important.

39:54Turn to John chapter 13. I just want to paint this in a different light. John chapter 13, keep your finger in Ephesians, of course. In John chapter 13, we see in verses 33 and 34 something significant about love in the church. It says this, Little children, I'm with you a little while longer, and you will seek me. As I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, Where I am going, you cannot come. A new commandment I give. To you, that you love who?

40:34One another. Even as I have what? Loved you, that you may love one another. But get this, he says, by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. How do you know if you're a Christian? You love other people. Emmanuel Baptist Church. Do we love other people? There was an email going amongst the elders and the pastors of the church this week. Somebody asked a question, how can I help some families that are really hurting in this church? There's been some families amongst us that have been held or given a blow that most of us wouldn't know what to do with. They're suffering and they need help. We have a benevolence fund. That's what the email came up with. We have a benevolence fund. We can help. Would you like to help? Would you like to show your love for God by showing your love for others? Maybe it's the benevolence fund that you can help with. And we have families that we can help them through this time in their life where they're hurting.

41:43It's simple. You just drop the funds in the box in the back and designate it for the benevolence fund. That's what love is about. It becomes rapidly apparent and obvious that this kind of love doesn't surpass our knowledge. We know how to help people, which brings us back really to. Ephesians 3.19. Ephesians 3.19. So how can we possibly know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge? When he says to know the love of Christ, which surpasses that which is knowable, what's he talking about? I like the way a commentator put it.

42:17Harold Honer puts it this way, quote, to comprehend the love of Christ is beyond the capability of any human being. The very fact that Christ's love expresses itself and its willingness to die on behalf of sinners itself is beyond comprehension. The reality of Christ's love is overwhelming to all believers, from the point of conversion continuing as growth and the knowledge of Christ's promise progresses. No matter how much knowledge we have of Christ and his work, his love surpasses that knowledge. So why do we need to know a kind of love that surpasses knowledge, comprehension? The answer is found right there in the second half of verse 19. Do you see it?

43:06So that you may be filled to the fullness of God, so that God may be the one who completely fills you. He's not only down home in your heart, he's not only ratcheting down your faith, he's down home in your heart, and he's filled you up. In verse 16, Paul prays that you'd be made strong with power through his spirit in the inner man. In verse 19, he wants you to know the Love of Christ for a reason, so that you're filled with the fullness of God. Here's the point: when you're filled with the Spirit and the inner man, and the deep down depths of your soul, filled to all the fullness of God, your inner man has no rooms for selfish desires that are at odds with God's love for him and for others. John 3, excuse me, John 13.

43:58Why must we know this kind of full and complete love? Why do we have to know that? Here it is. Because the remainder of this book, the remainder of this letter from chapters 4 through 6, as I mentioned, contains 39 additional commands, imperatives. Here's what you need to do. We've already talked about several of them. Look back at verse 14, chapter 3. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father to see if we understand this kind of love that God has for us. We're better equipped to do, chapters 4 through 6. We're better equipped to be that biblical church. We're better equipped to love you. Are better equipped to love your wife like Jesus loves his church and to respect your husband, to honor your parents, to be godly parents, and to be a godly employee and employer.

45:00Look back at verse 14. That's the reason Paul is bowing his knees to the Father. He's praying for the saints. That includes us. We can endure the rigors, the rest of this book. I would challenge you to spend your time in the first three chapters to look at your to-done list and then look at your to-do list and ask that God strengthen you, ratchet down your faith, make you stronger in your walk with Christ. Let's pray. Father, your love indeed is, in some sense, it's understandable. We understand that you loved the people enough to come and to die and to be risen, resurrected from the dead three days later.

45:54You give us the truth of your word because in it we have an anchor. In it, we are given faith and we have strength to live out the rigorous demands of life, whatever blows are delivered our way. As some of the families here have experienced, Father, you are faithful and you show your love for your people many times through the actions of others. And so now, Father, we trust in you. We trust in you that we would have the faith that you would. Ratchet it down in our own hearts, in our own lives, and that you'd be at home there, you would dwell there, you would be warm there.

46:40Strengthen our walk with you, Lord. I pray, just as Paul prayed for those who need prayer this morning, that you would do a work in their lives that is above and beyond all that they could ever ask or think, according to the power that is working within them to energize them to walk with you in a way that cannot humanly be understood. Lord, we thank you in Christ's name.