Rooted in Love
2021 Summer Series / Ephesians 3:14–21
• Road trip, packing. So “dad proud” of the initial packing job in the Tahoe.
• Less proud after 1st night’s stop. Not nearly so compact and efficient.
• Trip home - tired, more junk we picked up while away. Nothing fit like it was supposed to, and I just didn’t care as much.
• Really glad nothing fell out on the way home!
• I was thinking that an “organizing principle” would have been helpful to keep me on track as we traveled.
• Same thought occurred about all of my life - and yours, too.
• Whether it's our finances, our relationships, our jobs, just life in general, at different times we just get tired of trying to keep track of it all and we just “throw everything together.”
• That’s how we lose track of people, values, ourselves.
• 1st 3 chapters of Ephesians are a description of God’s organizing principle for bringing creation back to himself.
• It is the church. (us)
• The end of ch. 3 is a prayer for God powerfully work in our lives according to that principle. It will not surprise us that it is based on a strong foundation of love and we experience more and more every day.
• Paul prays for us to grasp that organizing principle.
Ephesians 3:14–15 NLT
14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.
A Foundation of Love
• Inner Being (heart) that is strong.
• The Greek/Roman world thought that the heart was the center of thought. The “mind.”
• Feelings were centered lower in the gut.
Ephesians 3:16–17 NLT
16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.
Ephesians 2:20 NLT
20 Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.
• Paul wants us to have strong and growing sense of Christ’s presence in our lives every moment.
• Power = dunamis, dynamic. Our lives are dynamic, active, powerful when our foundation is built on Christ and powered by the Spirit.
• Paul wants us to “invite him (Jesus) in” (dwell, make his home, settle in) to live with us.
• What happens when someone is around you long-term? They start to influence you and change your life.
• Changing the metaphor, Paul encourages us to get rooted (established) in Christ’s love.
• This is the foundation of a loving life - having Christ’s Spirit permanently indwelling.
A Powerful Experience of Love
• Minds that are mature.
• Some knowledge only comes through experience.
• Zack is learning to drive. Theoretical knowledge of all the controls is not the same thing as using them on a busy street.
Ephesians 3:18–19 NLT
18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
• Notice that there are no limits to the expression or the power of this love.
• We should understand this love experientially but at the same time, recognize that God’s love is infinitely greater than our capacity to understand it.
• I can take a bucket to the edge of the Atlantic ocean and scoop up a portion of the sea. But I cannot contain all of the water in the ocean.
• But in a fantastic way, we have all of Christ’s love than can be inside of us.
2 Corinthians 4:16 NLT
16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.
• Paul is praying that Christ’s love becomes more and more apparent to us in our everyday experiences. That we mature and grow into that experience of love.
An Abundant Blessing
• Lives that are powerful in Christ.
Ephesians 3:20–21 NLT
20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 21 Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.
• Paul concludes this part of his letter with a doxology. The focus always comes back to God and what He has done for us.
• We are reunited with Him through our faith in the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins.
• We are united with one another in our faith without regard to any of the walls of hostility we may have had.
• But too often we fail to recognize that God is able to do so much more in our lives than we expect or can even comprehend.
• As we move into the final chapters of Ephesians we’ll see why it is so important to grasp the infinite love of God and the power He gives us in the Spirit. Paul is going to challenge the church (us) with a charge to “walk worthily of our calling.” We’re going to need all the power we can get!
