Alba 3-12-2023
KNOW THE LOVE OF CHRIST
Ephesians 3:14-19
A woman named Phyllis W. Zeno, a contributor to 10 Chicken Soup books, wrote the following story: “One day a beautiful, but very troubled little girl came through the door of my day nursery.
From the very beginning I was captivated by her – a child who had so little but needed so much. I was heartbroken that a four-year-old could suffer such heartache and pain.
She was born in prison after her mom had used marijuana, crack and cocaine her entire pregnancy. The little girl was nonverbal and had very little control. Whenever somebody approached her, she became violent for long periods and ended up in a fetal position on the floor crying out.
I found myself praying for her day in and day out. As months rolled on, I began to bond with this child that no one wanted. Every day, we’d sit in the big rocking chair in my office, swaying back and forth and back and forth. And during our rocking time I sang to her: "Jesus Loves Me." As I sang, she always settled down and became very still. Though she never spoke, peace seemed to fill her face as she listened to the song.
One day after a very long battle I held her to calm her fears and pain. In silence we rocked back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. Then she looked at me with tear-filled eyes and spoke for the first time, "Sing to me about that Man who loves me."
Doesn't everyone want to hear about someone who loves them? To know you are loved by someone is the best news anyone can hear. That message in found in the Bible, God's Holy Word. Again and again, the message of love is told through the pages of scripture. It is there that God makes clear the greatness of His love for us in Jesus Christ.
The apostle Paul is so amazed that God's love includes all people, Jew and Gentile alike, that he offers a prayer of praise and writes these words in Ephesians 3:14-19.
"14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
Paul's prayer is a prayer for all Christians. We all need the strength that comes from God's Spirit within us. We all need a faith that puts Jesus first in our hearts.
And we need to know the love of Christ which is so wide, and long and deep and high that it passes knowledge. But if it passes knowledge, it is fair to ask, how can we know it?
Well, first we must be rooted and grounded in love, meaning that we have a basic understanding that love is more than a feeling. It is a commitment that acts for the good of others.
That is the kind of love that God has for us.
And once we understand that, we can at least begin to comprehend the vastness of God's love for us through Jesus. Because there is no greater love.
When you encounter the love of Jesus, you can't get around it. His love for us is so wide, so long, so deep and so high! Paul's prayer for us is that we will begin to comprehend this great love. So let us try.
1. First, the love of Jesus is wide. How wide is His love? As wide as the world. “God so loved... “ (what?...) Yes, “the world.” There is no one left out. Because “whosoever” may call on the name of the Lord for salvation.
I John 2:2 says,“He Himself is the propitiation (meaning the atoning sacrifice) for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”
The wideness of our Lord's love is all-encompassing. He truly does have the whole world in His hands. His love reaches all around the world. And He has more than enough love for you and for me.
God has enough love for Jews and Gentiles. God has enough love for blacks and whites and browns and yellows and everything in between. God has enough love for rich and poor, and even for middle class.
God has enough love for Americans, and Europeans, and Africans, and Asians. God’s love is all-encompassing. No one is left out.
There is a hymn written by Frederick William Faber which begins, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.”
The fourth stanza builds on this, saying, “For the love of God is broader than the measures of the mind, and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.” God loves the people of this world.
That is why II Peter 3:9 says that God is, “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”
That’s why He is waiting before sending Jesus back in judgment. God wants everyone to come out of their sin to Him. God loves everyone. Jesus came to rescue all of us from hell itself.
When we in obedient faith come to Jesus, because of His love for us, “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). That is how wide is His love.
2. Also the love of Jesus is long. It may be difficult for us to begin to understand the length of His love. But it should help if we remember that God is eternal, and so is His love.
The love of God stretches from Genesis to Revelation. In Genesis chapter three, God promised that the seed of the woman would give a death blow to the head of the serpent, and that the serpent would only bruise His heel. That's an obvious reference to Jesus' death on the cross, but also to His victory over the devil.
God's love continues throughout scripture until reaching two of the last verses of the last chapter of Revelation. Revelation 22:14 says, “ Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life, and may enter the city by the gates.” (NASB)
And Revelation 22:17 says, “And the Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.”
The love of God in Christ extends from the beginning to the end of time. And it is also long enough for the length of our lives, no matter how long or short that may be.
While we are on this earth, God calls us to Himself. Often those who put their faith in Jesus and are baptized do so when they are young.
But as Second Peter chapter two tells us, God is not willing that any should perish. He is waiting for people to become Christians. He will wait until the end of our lives. Although I would not recommend that. Many who are in nursing homes cannot respond to the message of God's love.
However, Ed Bousman, a Christian Church minister, told the story of a man who listened to his preaching program and at the age of 100, believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and was baptized in the creek.
Here at Alba there have been baptisms of both young and old, from age 10 to 90. And we praise God for each decision, and for His love that draws all people to Himself.
We find eternity in the love of the Lord. Hebrews 13:8 tells us that, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever.” And so is His love for us.
No matter what happens in our lives, He will be with us. And if we falter or fail Him, His love still will be available to bring us back to Him. His love is long enough to reach us wherever we are.
3. The love of Jesus is wide and long, and also it is deep.
Another hymn describes our condition before coming to obedient faith in Jesus. “I was sinking deep in sin far from the peaceful shore, very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more.”
We may not be as honest as that hymn to admit we are “sinking deep in sin”, but the truth is we have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory.
As one man put it, “Underneath the polished surface, people need Christ: to meet Him, open their lives to Him, and commit their lives to be His disciples.”
I want you to know that the love of Jesus is deep enough for the worst of sinners. His love is deep enough for the most stubborn of rebels. His love is deep enough for the most unlovable. And His love is deep enough for the most phony of hypocrites and pretenders.
Though we may be sinking and need to be rescued, the rest of the hymn thankfully says, “but the Master of the Sea heard my despairing cry, from the waters lifted me. Now safe am I.”
The hymn explains how that happens. It says, “Love lifted me. Love lifted me. When nothing else could help, love lifted me.”
There are people who struggle with that. Deep down, they feel that if people really knew them, they could not love them. Strangely, some even feel that if God really knew them, He could not love them.
But as the songwriter Billy Crockett wrote: “The depth of God’s love reaches down, down, down to where we are, until we’re found, found, found.”
The good news of God’s love is that He loves unworthy people! And Jesus loves unworthy people enough to die for them!
The love of our Lord goes down beneath all human sorrow, suffering and sin so that He can lift us up out of the miry clay. There is no depth to which we can go where He is unable to reach us.
I am reminded of the chorus, “Deep and Wide.” God’s love is deep. “There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.” How deep is the deep, deep love of Jesus? He took our guilt and washed away our shame in His own blood.
When we think about the cross and the cruel nails and the crown of thorns, and Jesus crucified for us as the burden of sin was placed on Him, we begin to see the great love with which He loves us.
Jesus went deep into our need for forgiveness. He paid the penalty, and then declared us to be holy and blameless before Him.
4. Jesus' love is wide, long and deep. And it is also high. David Nolte, a Christian Church minister in Oregon told a story about himself and his grandson Travis and how they used to have a routine.
His grandson would say “I love you up to the roof!” He would respond, “Well, I love you clear to the top of the trees.” Then Travis would say, “I love you up to the clouds.” And he would say, “Well, I love you up to the stars.”
After a few rounds he said his grandson would win every time by saying, “I love you clear up to Jesus!” He admitted defeat acknowledging that you just can’t go higher than that.
How high is God’s love? As high as the heavens - clear up to Jesus!
And He gives us a place, eternal in the Heavens, there to dwell with the Most High forever.
If the wideness of Christ’s love covers all people everywhere –
And the length of it is anchored at both ends of eternity –
And the depth of His love reached down to bring us to Himself –
Then the height of Christ’s love can only mean that it can take us all the way to Heaven.
His very purpose is to raise us from the fall to a plane higher than we ever could have been had we not sinned at all. That is what the fullness of God's love for us in Jesus Christ is all about.
Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.
CLOSE:
A man, I’ll call him Sam, told this story: “When I was in college I was part of a fraternity initiation committee. We placed the new members in the middle of a long stretch of a country road. I was to drive my car at as great a speed as possible straight at them.
The challenge was for them to stand firm until a signal was given to jump out of the way. It was a dark night. I had reached one hundred miles an hour and saw their looks of terror in the headlights. The signal was given and everyone jumped clear—except one boy.
I left college after that. I later married and have two children. The look on that boy’s face as I passed over him at a hundred miles an hour stayed in my mind all the time. I became hopelessly inconsistent, moody, and finally became a problem drinker.
My wife had to work to bring in the only income we had. I was drinking at home one morning when someone rang the doorbell. I opened to find myself facing a woman who seemed strangely familiar. She sat down in our living room and told me she was the mother of the boy I had killed years before.
She said that she had hated me and spent agonizing nights rehearsing ways to get revenge. I then listened as she told me of the love and forgiveness that had come when she gave her heart to Christ. She said, ‘I have come to let you know that I forgive you and I want you to forgive me.’
I looked into her eyes that morning and I saw deep in her eyes the permission to be the kind of man I might have been had I never killed that boy. That forgiveness changed my whole life.”
Her love was wide, and long and deep and high enough to include her son’s killer. God's love is like that. He loves those who were the cause of His Son's death on the cross. He asks that we accept the forgiveness He offers us today.
In Acts chapter two, the people who heard the same message asked “'Men and brethren what shall we do?' Then Peter said to them, 'Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins..'” (Acts 2:37-38)
That is the same invitation we give to you today.
