TRIUMPHANT LOVE
(2) AN EMPOWERED COMMUNITY (EPHESIANS 3:14-21)

This morning, we come to one of the most striking prayers in the New Testament – indeed, in the whole of Scripture.

And it’s a prayer that helps us understand one of the apostle Paul’s central convictions about the Christian life.

And that conviction is this:

If we could only grasp something of the love Christ has for us, it would revolutionize our life as a church and our relationships with one another and the world around us.

So this morning, we’re going to attempt to explore something of Christ’s love for his people.

But straight-away, there’s a problem that faces us –
	Because for all of us, love is a slippery word.

How do we feel when someone says that they love us?

What do we mean when we say to someone that we love them?

Human love is something celebrated in music, poetry, fiction, film...
	On one level, our world is in love with love!

On another level, many of us can feel pretty ambivalent about human love –
	And that ambivalence about the love we feel and receive from the people around us can leave us confused when we hear about God’s love in the pages of the Bible.

When you step back for a moment, the world we live in has a complex relationship with love.

Love is deeply attractive to us –
	We all long to love and to be loved, whether that’s in our families, friendships or romantic relationships.

But at the same time, we fear that love, for all its desirability, is actually a weak and fragile thing in a hostile world –
	And all too often, the love we long for just cannot survive against the harsh realities of life.

A good example of this in Western culture was the so-called ‘summer of love’ in 1967 –
	The high-point of the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s.

Thousands of young people gathered in San Francisco and around the United States to express themselves artistically, politically, sexually –
	And when you look at the accounts of the people who were there, there was a huge sense of optimism that this movement of young people was going to change our world.

One of the most famous slogans of the era was ‘Make love, not war’ –
	And the belief held by many of that generation of ’67 was that human love – set free from any sexual inhibitions and in defiance of their parents’ generation – had the power to transform their world. 

That optimism quickly died in the face of the Cold War, the conflict in Vietnam, and the gradual loss of idealism in the 1970s.

For many of the people who were there in 1967, love was a wonderful thing – a beautiful thing –
	But it just wasn’t strong enough to overcome hate, political power and greed.

And what the generation of the ‘summer of love’ experienced has been shared by countless others across history.

Love is beautiful and we instinctively feel it should be celebrated –
	But what can it do in the face of selfishness, cruelty and death?

This perception of human love – as attractive, noble even, but essentially too weak to achieve much in our world –
	Is carried over by many Christians when we come to think of God’s love and the love of Jesus Christ for his people.

We like the idea of God loving us – 
	We love to sing great songs that express the love of Christ –

But often, in our darker moments, we suspect that Christ’s love for us doesn’t actually affect the reality of our lives very much.

Many Christians I’ve spoken to over the years like the idea of Jesus loving them –
	But scratch beneath the surface, and they fear that Jesus’ love for them just isn’t strong enough to deal with the harsh realities of their lives.

The fact that Jesus loves them – even when they accept that it’s true – cannot change the facts of their lives.

We still lose our jobs –
	We still fail miserably in our struggle against sin.

We still hold grudges against family members and friends –
	We still say and do things that hurt those closest to us.

The people close to us still get sick –
	The people close to us still die.

What difference does Jesus’ love make at those times?

If you have ever thought about the love of Jesus Christ in those ways –
	As something appealing, attractive, but ultimately ineffective and even irrelevant –

Then you need to know this morning just how deeply the apostle Paul disagrees with you!

In this prayer for the Ephesian Christians in chapter 3 of his letter, Paul’s central desire is for God to strengthen them with power ‘to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ’ (v.18).

According to Paul, it was vital to the health of this church that they pray for the power from God to know something of the love Christ had for them!

And it’s my belief that this prayer is recorded for us in the pages of Scripture because it is vital to our health as a church at Magdalen Road, that we grasp something of the vastness of Christ’s love for us!

Last week, in Philippians 3, Paul warned us of the dangers of trying to earn God’s love by our efforts.
	That will only lead us to pride or despair.

In this prayer, Paul is convinced that if Christians could only see the full dimensions of Christ’s love for them, it would revolutionize their lives!

As I mentioned last week, September is a busy time for many of us – in our work lives, in our family lives, in our life as a church.

What will keep us going in the face of this busyness?
	How can we retain a sense of joy as we serve others in the church – in our homes – in our workplaces?

Put bluntly –
	What reason do we have for getting out of bed tomorrow morning?

A central part of Paul’s answer to that question is in this prayer:
	If you are a Christian here today, you get out of bed in the morning – you serve the people around you – you make sacrifices for the people around you –

Because you are loved by Jesus Christ!
	Because Jesus Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for you – and because as you live for him, you can experience his loving presence with you and trust in his loving purposes for you!

If you are going to live for Jesus Christ in the coming months – in the different situations he has called you to –
	Then you need to know something of just how much Jesus loves you – and just how much Jesus loves every other Christian you know!

You cannot live for Jesus Christ without an understanding of how vast his love is for you!

That is what Paul prays for in Ephesians 3 –
	The power from God to comprehend and experience something of the vastness of the love Christ has for us –

Because if we begin to know that love in a fuller, richer way, then we will be empowered to live for Jesus and love the people around us in a way that brings him glory!

But hang on a minute –
	Doesn’t a prayer asking God to help us see just how much Jesus loves us – doesn’t that sound a bit self-indulgent?

Paul prays that we will know more of the love Christ has for his people –
	But isn’t that a dangerous prayer to pray?

I think it’s important to point out that there are dangers in us meditating on Christ’s love for us.

Dangers in dwelling on Christ’s love

•	We can become self-indulgent

It is possible for a church to meditate on the love Jesus has showed them in such a way that they turn in on themselves.

A church like ours could choose to bask in the love Jesus has for us –
	But show no concern for people who know nothing about Jesus.

Then we would just become the Christian equivalent of the hippies of the summer of love –
	Indulging in the experience of being loved by Jesus, but with little or no thought of the world around us. 

Another danger is that: 

•	We can sentimentalize Jesus Christ

It’s possible for us to so celebrate Christ’s love for us, that we overlook his power – 
	his holiness – 
	his call on his followers to sacrifice everything to follow him – and to be ruthless in their rejection of sin!

The church in the west has probably fallen into this trap more and more over the years –
	So we depict Jesus more as our heavenly boyfriend than our risen Lord!

It is possible for us to sentimentalize Jesus.

Or

•	We can puff ourselves up with pride

It’s also possible that we might respond to the love Christ has shown us by becoming proud.

We believe that if Jesus thought we were precious and important enough to die for, then surely we must be pretty special!

If pride is the consequence of a meditation of Jesus’ love, then surely we should be wary of dwelling on Christ’s love too much?

There are dangers in a group of sinful human beings like us meditating on the love Christ has shown us in dying and rising again.

But Paul’s response to all these objections would surely be that each one of them is a failure to truly comprehend Christ’s love for his people –
	That is why he prays so passionately here that we get Christ’s love right!

Elsewhere in this letter to the Ephesians, Paul makes it clear what a right response to Christ’s love for us will look like.

There is no place for self-indulgence in our response to Christ’s love –
	Because, back in chapter 2 v.10, Paul reminds us that if we have received Christ’s love, then we are ‘God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works’ 

God has work for us to do!
	That is part of his great love for us!

And as for sentimentalizing Jesus or puffing ourselves up with pride, we only need to look at the rest of Paul’s letter to see how wrong a response that is.

Jesus’ love is not sentimental –
	Chapter 1 verse 7 reminds us that, if we are Christians, we have been brought back to God ‘through [Jesus’] blood’:
	Jesus suffered and died so that we could be forgiven by God and made right with him.

His love was no easy sentiment –
	It cost him his life!  It led him to the ultimate sacrifice for us!

And we cannot respond with pride, because Paul is clear in chapter 2 – there is no place for pride when we come to the love of Christ.
	2:1-3 puts it starkly – we were ‘dead in our transgressions and sins’ before Christ reached out to us – we were all ‘by nature objects of wrath’

And just to remove any doubt, look at Paul’s summary in chapter 2 verse 8&9:
	For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no-one can boast.

Paul is clear throughout this letter – just as the whole of Scripture is clear:
	Christ’s love is vast – because it is a love lavished on undeserving people like us!

It is no easy thing to meditate on the love of Christ –
	Our only hope of truly understanding it and being changed by it is if God gives us his power to grasp it and respond to it as we should.

And that is precisely what Paul asks for here!

The heart of Paul’s prayer is in vv.16-19:
	Let me read that out for us.

I’m not going to spend much time this morning explaining the detail of these verses – because I believe they are pretty straight-forward in their meaning.

What I do want to do is explore why Paul is so convinced that experiencing the love Christ has for us will enable us to live faithful lives for him!
	And then I want to apply the love of Christ to some of the relationships we will be involved in in the coming term.

This prayer comes at the turning point of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

Up to now, Paul has been describing on a cosmic scale God’s purposes in calling together a church made up of all nations – Jews and Gentiles.

God has brought the church into existence by sending his Son Jesus into the world, to die on a cross and to rise again –
	And Paul sums up God’s purposes in forming his worldwide church – a church of which Magdalen Road is a part this morning – in chapter 3 verse 10-11:
	(read aloud).

God chooses to demonstrate his wisdom – his goodness – and his glory, through the church!

God’s intention is that, as the angels and other ‘spiritual powers’ see the church in action, they will be amazed at how God has called together such a disparate group of people –
	And they will be amazed at how God is at work in them, changing them into the likeness of his Son and using them to make his name known in the world!

As we sit here at Magdalen Road this morning, we are part of God’s eternally planned purpose to display his glory and wisdom throughout all creation!

By sending Jesus Christ into the world, God has called together the church family at Magdalen Road –
	With all our failings and foolishness and struggles –

And he has lavished his love on us and declared that now, we belong to him!

The church here at Magdalen Road exists because of the love of Jesus Christ –
	And Paul’s prayer here is that we might know more of Christ’s love for us – so that we will better understand God’s purposes for us and so that we will be empowered to live for Christ in our lives!

Read vv.17-19 again.
	And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love...

Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is that they might ‘be filled with the fullness of God’ –
	That they might know God deeply – and be enabled to trust in him wholeheartedly!

And Paul knows that that will only happen when God grants them power to grasp Christ’s love for them!

So let’s look for a few moments at the difference knowing Christ’s love for us makes in our lives.

There are at least three areas of our lives where knowing Christ’s love for us has the power to transform us.

The difference Christ’s love makes:
•	To how we view God
•	To how we view ourselves
•	To how we relate to one another

First of all, then –
	What difference does knowing Christ’s love for us make to how we view God?

•	To how we view God

In my experience of my own heart and of talking with other believers, Christians generally fluctuate between two unbiblical poles in the way we think about God.

At one pole, we see God as the all-powerful Creator of the universe –
	The eternal, sovereign, terrifying judge of the world.

Now Paul would agree with parts of that picture –
	As we’ve already seen, this letter to the Ephesians depicts something of God’s eternal purposes at work in human history –
	There is no doubt about it – the God of the Bible is a very big, powerful God!

But problems arise when we draw out from that that therefore God cannot be interested in our lives –
	When we conclude that because of God’s greatness, our problems and struggles are of no importance to him.

For some of us, when we think of God’s greatness, we end up concluding that he must therefore be unfeeling and unconcerned with us.

At the other extreme, sometimes Christians can see God as intimately involved with the details of their lives –
	But to the extent that he becomes domesticated.

All this domestic God is interested in is increasing our personal levels of comfort.

He waits around for us to pray for a good day at work – for his blessing on our children – for his blessing on our future –
	But ultimately, this God we call upon is far too small to measure up to the God of Scripture.

In this prayer, Paul prays that we might see God through the lens of the vast love of Jesus Christ for us –
	The width and length and height and depth of Christ’s love for us!

And when we recognise that God has revealed himself to us ultimately through Jesus and we are filled with the knowledge of him as we recognise Christ’s love for us,
	Then we are protected from either of the extremes of God as too big for us and too small for us.

Turn with me to chapter 1 of Ephesians and verse 4:
	Here, Paul demonstrates to us just how big our God truly is and how his purposes are eternal.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight –
	God’s purposes for us are vast!  Our God is an awesome God!

But then look at the following words:
	In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will. (v.4-5)

The love of Christ shows us that our God is both majestic and all-powerful –
	AND loving and concerned for the good of his people!

In Christ, God called every Christian here this morning to follow him ‘before the creation of the world’ –
	That is an amazing demonstration of just how great and eternal the God of the Bible is!

But his purpose in that was to lavish his love on us and call us his ‘sons’ – his children!

Paul prays his prayer for believers in chapter 3 because he knows that, for us to gain a true knowledge of the God of the Bible, we need to experience the love Christ has for us!

The God Christians trust in is both
•	powerful enough to keep all his promises to us – 
•	and loving enough to forgive us and bear with us in our weakness!

Knowing the vastness of the love of Christ transforms our knowledge of the living God! 

Knowing Christ’s love for us also transforms our view of ourselves.

•	How we view ourselves

As with our view of God, so with the way we view ourselves –
	We fluctuate massively between viewing ourselves too highly on the one hand –
	And despairing of ourselves on the other.

We are either foolish in our pride –
	Or we are foolish in despising ourselves.

Low self-esteem is a huge problem among Christians I speak to –
	And perversely, it often flows out of our pride!

We believe we are good people – and then we are confronted with our sin, our foolishness, our weakness –
	And we despair!

Paul knows the key to a right and healthy view of ourselves as Christians:
	Pray that you might grasp the love Christ has for you!

If your struggle is with pride – with thinking too highly of yourself –
	Then open your eyes to what Christ had to go through to call you to himself!

Jesus had to suffer and die on a cross to forgive you your pride and your sin –
	You were utterly helpless to save yourself!
	As Ephesians 2 puts it, you were dead in your sins!  You were a corpse in God’s eyes!  And without Jesus’ death for you, you would still be lost in your sin!

There is no place for pride in the way we view ourselves –
	If you are a Christian this morning, you are a wretched sinner who has been forgiven by Christ.

Meditating on the love of Christ rids us of our pride, as we see the lengths he had to go to to rescue sinners like us.

But the love of Christ should also rid us of despair!

Christ died for you!  Christ chose to go to the cross for you!
	Christ chose to lavish his great love on you and call you his own!

You are deeply precious to Jesus Christ – and his love will never let you go!

Each one of us needs to drink deeply from the well of Christ’s great love for us –
	For only a knowledge of Christ’s love can sustain us in the challenges of the coming year!

Pray with Paul this year that you may have ‘power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ’ –
	Pray that you will ‘know this love that surpasses knowledge’ as you seek to live for him and serve him!

Meditate on Christ’s love for you every day!

Remember Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.

Remember his struggle and his pain as he cried out to his Father that he might be spared the cross –
	As he cried out that he might be spared having to drink the cup of God’s wrath on us!

And as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, he saw clearly the choice that was before him.

He could choose to go to the cross – and in a very real sense, the cross meant hell for Jesus –
	Experiencing the wrath of God on the sins of humanity –
	Being cut off for the first time in eternity from the presence of his Father.

Or he could refuse the cross –
	And today none of us would be here.

There would be no worldwide church – no church at Magdalen Road –
	None of us would know the living God and the new life that comes from being forgiven by him.

The choice that faced Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane was stark:
•	Go to hell 
•	or lose us.

Jesus chose to go to hell.

Never doubt the love Jesus Christ has for you!

He has demonstrated it at the supreme cost to himself –
	If you’re a Christian here this morning, Jesus has rescued you and brought you into the family of God.

Make no mistake –
	You are loved!  You are loved by Jesus Christ!

You are loved by the Lord of all creation – by the one person whose opinion actually matters in all eternity!

Rejoice in that!

And pray with Paul that God might grant you power this coming term to grasp and experience more of Christ’s love for you,
	That you might live wholeheartedly for him!

The final area where knowing Christ’s love can transform us is in the area of our closest human relationships.

•	How we relate to one another

I want to look briefly at three of the closest relationships we can experience and how knowing the love of Christ can transform them.

First of all, Christ’s love makes a huge difference in our families.

Family relationships are often hard work.
	Parents fight with children 
	Children fight with one another
	And grudges and bad blood can develop that will last for decades.

How does knowing Christ’s love for us affect our family relationships?

Look at vv.14-15 of our passage 
	Read aloud.

Every family in heaven and on earth derives its name from God the Father.

God is the ultimate standard of fatherhood and parental love –
	And Jesus Christ has made God known to us!

As we pray to understand more and more of Christ’s love for us, we will in turn be moved to emulate God’s fatherly love for us with our children.

When I became a father in January, I was amazed at how beautiful my son was.

(I know I should say ‘handsome’, but beautiful was the word that sprang to mind...!)

There was an immediate connection there – I was left in no doubt that I loved Noah!

However, I remember a few weeks later, sitting in Noah’s bedroom at 4 o’clock in the morning as he kept on crying, and the feelings I had for him were far from loving...!

I found myself asking the question:
	How can I love my son, when it feels like my emotional resources have run dry?

And the answer that came to me was this:
	I need to learn from the compassion and kindness of God as my Father!

The more I learn of Christ’s love for me – its vastness and how undeserving I am of it –
	The less I will demand that Noah be lovable before I will love him.

As I learn from the fatherhood of God and his grace and compassion towards me,
	So I can be changed by God to be a more gracious and compassionate father.

That will be a long, hard process at times –
	But the key to loving our children is an understanding of Christ’s gracious love for us!

The key to loving our brothers and sisters is an understanding of how undeserving we are of Christ’s love – but how he lavished it on us anyway!

Knowing Christ’s love can transform our family relationships!

It can do the same for our marriages.

Our marriages

For those of us who are married, we have the greatest standard imaginable for how we should relate to one another –
	The love of Christ.

Turn to chapter 5 of Ephesians, where Paul spells this out.
	
Paul doesn’t tell the Ephesian husbands to love their wives because in doing so they are obeying God’s law.
	He could have said that – but he doesn’t!

Instead, he points husbands to the love of Christ – the love he has prayed they will receive the power to grasp!
	Read 5:25-27.

The love of Christ is the standard for married love –
	That should humble those of us who are married – that should frighten us!

But it should also lead us to pray for a deeper knowledge and experience of the love of Christ, so that we can demonstrate it to one another!

Knowing Christ’s love can transform our marriages!

And finally, Christ’s love can transform our friendships.

The gracious love Christ has for us is the love he calls us to in our friendships.

Back in John 15:14, Jesus told his disciples – You are my friends if you do what I command.

Christ calls himself our friend –
	And as our friend, he will never let us down – he will always be there for us when we need him – and he will give us joy and life as we spend time with him.

The love Christ has for us is the love we are to demonstrate to our friends.
	The more we understand Christ’s love for us, the more we will want to sacrifice our time and our energy for our friends.

The less demanding we will be that they live up to our expectations – and the more gracious and forgiving we will be with one another.

Jesus is glorified when the friendships between his friends are based on his grace and his love –
	And he is glorified when people who don’t yet know him receive the sort of sacrificial love and care he has shown to us.

Our friendships can glorify Christ – and our friendships can bring people to Christ!

We need to pray that we will know the vastness of Christ’s love and be changed by it, so that we can become more Christ-like friends.

So – in Ephesians 3, Paul prays to the Father that we ‘may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ’.

He prays that we might know Christ’s love, because he knows that only when we understand something of his love for us –
	Will we gain a faithful vision of who God is –
	Who we really are –
	And what Christ-like, Christ-glorifying relationships really look like in our families – our marriages – and our friendships!

The power Paul prays for that we might know the love of Christ is the same power that can transform our hearts and our relationships and make them more Christ-like.

Let’s pray with Paul for the power to grasp the vastness of Christ’s love for us this coming term –
	Because only then will we recognise just how much our relationship with God cost him!

And only then will we desire truly Christ-like relationships that will bring us joy and bring Christ glory in our families and in our friendships!

Knowing Christ’s love has the power to change us – to transform us.

As we experience more of Christ’s love for us, so he calls us to demonstrate his love to one another –
	Both within the church and outside it.

But as we finish this morning, I want us to remember one crucial thing about the love of Christ –
	Christ’s love, demonstrated for us at the cross, shows us that:

•	Christ is not just our example – he is our Saviour!

If Jesus was just our example – if he just called us to learn from him and demonstrate his love to those around us –
	Then we would all be lost!

I hope we can see that!

Even as we pray to learn from Christ to better love our children – our husband or wife – our friends –
	We will fail!  Let’s not be in any doubt about that!

This term, you will let people down.

People in your family – people in the church – people who you love.

You will fail to love the people in your life in a Christ-like way.
	We will all fail in this.

That is why we need to recognise that Christ’s love for us is demonstrated most fully in his willingness to forgive and restore us when we fail.

Jesus went to the cross to take the punishment for the sins –
	And that includes the sins you will commit this coming term!

We will let each other down this term –
	People will let you down –
	You will let other people down.

But Christ’s love will never let you down!

Christ’s love is strong enough to overcome our sin – our failings – our pride – our foolishness –
	And we need to know this vast and powerful love of Christ if we are going to trust him for the coming term, and whatever it may hold for us!

Christ’s love is wider – longer – higher – deeper than we could ever imagine –
	Christ’s love is beyond our comprehension –

But Paul assures us in this prayer –
	We can know and experience something of Christ’s vast love for us as a church this term!

Let’s pray for that today –
	And let’s pray that the more we know of Christ’s love for us, the more our relationships will be transformed –
	And the better equipped we will be to serve Christ and make him known in this world!