DIMENSIONS OF GOD'S LOVE
Text: Ephesians 3:14 -21
Can we really comprehend God’s love? Can we really understand the dimensions of God’s love? How many times have you been to the movies where the movie was in 3 D? Can you imagine what it would look like to us if there were glasses that would enable us to see the breadth, length, depth and height of God’s love? Do we understand what it means to have God’s love rooted and grounded in our hearts?
Everything we know about God and His workings in our inner persons, we are able to know because of our faith. Even though Paul was a prisoner when he wrote this letter, he remained positive and persevered because he was “rooted and grounded in God’s love”. It is the Holy Spirit that gives us the strength to persevere because of our faith.
What about those who have no faith, weakened faith of those who have strayed from the faith?
This morning I want to share with you the story of a lost young man who found his way back.
When Bill Sands was twelve years old he was awakened at 2:00 a.m. on morning by his parents to let him know that they would be getting a divorce. As if that were not bad enough, then he was told by both of his parents to decide which parent he would live with. Bill then went to his bedroom and began to cry. Neither parent told Bill that they loved him. It was not long before his mother came in to his bedroom, and took him back to the living room and told him that he was going to live with her because a “boy’s place was with his mother” she told him. The next day his father moved out and went to live some place else.
When he was thirteen, he came in late and his mother asked him why. Before he could begin to answer the question, she said that she would teach him never to be late again as she beat him with a makeshift whip made of rose bushes with thorns a quarter of an inch long. Following the thrashing session, his mother put alcohol on his wounds and he fell to the floor as he fainted.
He was never late again. He became a member of the school basketball team, editor of the school newspaper, and a straight "a" student. His mother remained critical. Every letter that his father sent to him was intercepted by his mother.
Not only did he receive little commendation for his progress and achievements as a thirteen year old, he apparently never heard the words, "I love you."
Now seven years later, he was a prison inmate. He had attacked a fellow inmate who swore to kill his father who was a judge. It was then that Bill Sands, attacked his fellow inmate. Bill nearly killed his fellow inmate.
After serving several months in solitary confinement with a diet of bread and water, in a cell four and a half feet by ten, the warden came to speak with him. Warden Duffy asked him why he was in prison, referring to his IQ and misspent potential. After his profanity, Bill Sands answered, "Because no one cares for me." In his book, My Shadow Ran Fast, Bill Sands explained the three words that changed his life. Warden Duffy told Bill Sands the three words that changed his life -----“Bill, I care”. (Ralph M. Smith. Basic Bible Sermons On The Church. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1990, pp. 90-92). The very thing that was missing from his life was to know that he was loved and that he meant something to somebody.
GOD'S LOVE HAS THE POWER TO CHANGE US
How does God's love have the power to change us? God's love is unconditional and it is also beyond our comprehension. The chances are that we all know someone who feels alone or feels like nobody loves them. They may not be prisoners in a jail cell, but they might be prisoners of feeling lonely and worthless. That is where we come in as Christian disciples. We can help those who are like sheep without a shepherd to get to know the Good Shepherd----our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We can help them to experience the liberating power and unlimited dimensions of unconditional God’s love.
How we grow and experience growth and God’s grace has to do with how we feel in our hearts. As someone (Max Lucado) has said, “God's seed grows better if the soil of the heart is cleared”. (Max Lucado. In The Grip Of Grace. Nashville: Word, 1996, p. 122). There are far too many people who do not know the dimensions of God’s love because of their guilt ridden hearts. They try to earn their righteousness. Satan tells anyone who will listen that God cannot love them because they are not good enough. So to get good enough, some people try to earn their righteousness. There are other people who seem to have given up on trying to earn their righteousness and have become hard-hearted or cold-hearted or apathetic.
Being without God's love can be overwhelming. Just think of the story of Bill Sands. He was a man who had no "roots" or "grounding" in human love, let alone the love of God. I John 4:16 says that "... God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God" (NIV). There is nothing like godly love that can make us complete. His love reaches down to us in order to save those who will believe in Christ did for us on the cross. His love is unconditional. The Greek word for unconditional love is "agape."
THE LOVE OF GOD IS BEYOND OUR COMPREHENSION
How wide is God’s love?. It is timeless and it reaches to all generations. When Christ died on the cross, He paid the price for sin from its beginning until this present moment. He paid the price of sin for every generation. The sad thing is that not everyone accepts that sacrifice. The world’s version of love is a cheap counterfeit! Only God's love reaches to all generations and to all nations and walks of life. The bread that He gave us, who was the bread of life that came down from heaven was given "for the life of the world" (John 6:51b NIV).
How long is God’s love? It is from everlasting to everlasting with those who fear Him (Psalm 103:17 NIV). The length of God's love is infinite. Consider the forgiving love of God wherein God takes our sins and "casts them as far away as the east is from the west" (Psalm 103:12).
How deep is God’s love? God reaches in stooping to the lowest of conditions in order to save those who are sinking or have sunk into the depths of misery. (Matthew Henry. Commentary On he Whole Bible. Iowa Falls: World Bible Publishers, no date listed. p. 700). Consider Romans 8:38-39: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord" (NIV).
The is the story of Mike Warnke who was at one time a high priest Satanist for seven years. There were fellow Satanists who drugged him up, stripped him naked and left him for dead in a ditch. He survived and was determined to take his own life. Before he could succeed, he kept running into Christians everywhere which eventually led to his conversion. Even when he was estranged from God, God in His love reached out to him. (Mike Warnke. The Satan Seller).
God is everywhere and there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love! Psalm 139:7-10 puts it this way: "7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me” (NKJV). Therefore, nothing can separate us from the love of God.
God’s love can penetrate hard-hearted! If grass can grow through a crack in asphalt or concrete, and we know from observation that it can, then likewise we know that the love of God can penetrate the hearts of those like Bill Sands or Mike Warnke whose hearts were once hardened. Someone observes … “A Noted doctor has listed several emotions that produce disease in human beings---fear, frustration, rage, resentment, hatred, envy, and jealousy. He says the only antidote that can save these people from being destroyed by these powerful forces is love.” (Roy B. Zuck. The Speaker’s Quotebook. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1997, p. 236). That has to be why God’s word tells us that His love conquers all. Do not ever underestimate the love of God can do!
God's love is high. God's love is as high as the heavens are above the earth. That is how great God's love is for those who fear Him (Psalm 103:11 NIV paraphrased). Yes, God’s love is immeasurable and we have a charge to keep and a calling to fulfill in witnessing to others about God’s love and how it has the power to change us. This is our duty. John Wesley once said, “… Christianity is essentially a social religion; and that to turn it into a solitary one is to destroy it. Secondly, that to conceal this religion is impossible, as well as utterly contrary to the design of its Author.” (THE WORKS OF JOHN WESLEY: FIRST SERIES OF SERMONS (1-39) : SERMONS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.. Complete and unabridged. VOLUME 5. SERMON 24. UPON OUR LORD’S SERMON ON THE MOUNT.: Matthew 5:13-16), p. 366). Consider Jesus’ new command in John 13:34-35: "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (NIV). That is why Jesus command to love one another is important----it reminds us of our purpose and God’s design. Someone else (B. Nottage [as quoted by Lowell D. Streiker]) put it this way: “God's love elevates us without inflating us, and humbles us without degrading us.” Are we allowing God’s love to work according to His purpose and design in our lives? If not, then what is it that we are allowing to hold us back from being filled with His love?
Though we cannot fully comprehend the infinite and unconditional love of God, we cannot help but to be transformed when we allow God to fill us with His love. It changes our inner man and reflects in our outward behavior. When We allow God to fill us with His love and change us we cannot help but to become contagious in our Christian witness.
