Depths Unmeasured
Ephesians 5:1-2, Ephesians 3:19
December 2, 2004
I. Several hundred feet below the ground of the Texas hill country is and underground lake. A cavern that holds the water that gives life to a dry country. It’s called the Edwards Aquifer.
A. The people in South Texas know a lot about this cavern. They know that it is 175 miles long and that it runs from east to West except where it goes under San Antonio and it runs North to South there.
B. They know it gives life to several thousand acres of land, by providing irrigation to farms, and watering lawns and providing drinking water. There is a lot that South Texans know about the Edwards Aquifer.
C. But, for all the things that they know they don’t know how deep it is! They have no way to know how much water it actually holds.
D. You would think they did though. When we went to San Antonio a few years ago, every time I would watch the weather report I would get the Edwards Aquifer report. Every meteorologist in San Antonio would tell you the aquifer level every day as if they knew the number of gallons of water to the ounce, but they don’t.
E. They use it, they count on it, and they could not live where they do without it, but they can’t measure it.
F. Does that remind you of anything? It should. It is not a pool of water it’s a pool of love. God’s love, we depend on it, we can’t live without it, but we can’t measure its depth with our human minds.
G. To dunk a life in God’s love means that it can be a life that really has life. Yea, we know the impact of God’s love, but we really can’t measure the depth of it.
H. We have a lot of moral meteorologist in our world. We have a lot of people who try to keep track of the level of as if they’re afraid that its gonna run out.
I. They seem to be afraid that if some people are gonna use it all up and there won’t be enough for the rest of us who deserve it more.
J. You know terrorist, and traitors and wife beaters, if you let them have some of God’s love they might use up too much, because we humans really don’t know exactly how deep it runs. So we try to measure it out in small enough portions to make sure we have enough.
II. But God does give us a hint of how deep his love runs. Through the many ways that God communicates to us, he says "You want to see the depth of my love" follow me up this path.
A. Its not hard to follow just look for the trail of blood spots on the ground as you walk up the hill that is shaped like a skull. And, before you look up when you get to the top listen really close so you can hear God whisper this is how much I love you.
B. Then look up and see the man with the muscles on his back ripped by a whip, and look at his eyes and lips that are swollen shut from beatings, and don’t forget to notice that pain on his face as the blood trickles down from the thorns that are crushed into his scalp.
C. Now watch as the muscles in his legs get to the point that they just will not hold him up anymore. Of all the things that Jesus endured on the Cross I think that is the one that I can relate to the most.
D. As much as I don’t look like it now, I was an athlete. I played all the sports I could from the time I was about 8 years old. I ran the sprints, and ran the sprints and ran the sprints.
E. I know what it feels like to have you legs get to the point of exhaustion where they will just not hold you up anymore. I know what it feels like to have the muscles in your legs turn to jelly and simply refuse to hold your weight.
F. I know what it feels like to have you lungs starve for oxygen but I don’t know what it is like to have my legs refuse to hold me up, and it cut off my oxygen.
G. When Jesus was on the Cross when his legs would refuse to hold him up, when the agony in His muscles finally made them give way, the weight of his body would collapse his diaphragm, and cut off the air to His lungs.
H. As you stand at the foot of the Cross to see the picture of how much God loves you, watch as God’s legs give up, and he sinks down, watch as the air shuts off to His lungs, and watch Him at the edge of suffocation shove himself back up on legs that scream and feet that have a nail grinding against the bone.
I. He did that for hours, until His strength and our doubts were gone.
III. Does God love you? Look at the Cross and look at you answer. God in the form of a man died for you. Its hard for us as humans to really get a grip on that.
A. But, at the time that Martin Luther the famous German reformer of the 1500s was having his translation of the bible printed the printer’s daughter got a glimpse fo it an a different way.
B. One day when she was cleaning up in her dad’s shop she picked up a piece of paper off the floor . I was part of the bible that her dad was printing for Martin Luther, and it said, For God so loved that He gave...The rest of the verse was not printed yet, but what she saw was enough to move her.
C. The thought that God would give her anything moved her. Her mother noticed a change in her and asked her why she seemed so happy. The girl pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket and showed it to her mother.
D. The mother read it and asked, "What did He give?" The girl said, I don’t know but if God loved us enough to give us anything we should not be afraid of Him.
E. That’s true, if God, the creator of the universe, loves us enough to give us anything we should not be afraid of Him. But God didn’t just give us anything. He didn’t give us a song or a message, He gave us Himself!
(Eph 5:1-2 NIV) Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
F. What kind of gift is that? What kind of love is that? What kind of devotion is that? It can be described in one word, UNFAILING!
G. God’s love for us can’t be measured. We can’t know its depth, but we can know that it never fails. It never falters. We don’t know how deep it is but we do know that it is always deep enough.
H. The holiness of God demanded a perfect sacrifice for sin, and the only perfect sacrifice there was, was God in the form of a man. And, since God’s love never fails to pay the price, HE DID!
I. God loves you with an unfailing love so He gave and what He gave was himself.
J. In 1878 England got to see a glimpse of that kind of love. Princess Alice the second daughter of Queen Victoria, had a young son that was infected with a horrible disease known as Black Diphtheria.
1. The doctors quarantined the boy and told his mother to stay away. One day as she stood looking into the room she heard her son ask the nurse, "Why doesn’t my mother kiss me anymore?"
2. The words melted her heart and she ran to her son and smothered him with kisses. Within a few days she was buried.
K. What would drive a mother to do such a thing? What would make God do something even greater? Unfailing LOVE!
L. Princess Alice saw her son helpless and dying, and poured out her love even if it meant death, and God saw His creation helpless and dying, and poured out His love even if it meant death.
M. The greatest act of all time, the greatest act of God, can be followed to the greatest characteristic of God, HIS LOVE!
IV. That is what Christmas is about! Christmas was the start of an act of unfailing love! Christmas was the stage being set for God to show us how unfailing his love was!
A. Christmas was the most powerful being in the universe making Himself subject to, man the most self centered being in the universe, for me.
B. Christmas is God saying to us, this is how much I love you, you don’t have to be afraid, you can have hope, there is something bigger than you that you can depend on, there is someone that loves you more than you can imagine.
C. We all have people that we feel should have loved us and didn’t, those who could have loved us and wouldn’t.
D. We all have pain from those who took our love and squashed it, left at the altar, left with an empty bed, left alone in the hospital, left with a broken heart, left with the question, does anybody love me?
E. Christmas says somebody does! And, not just somebody, but the somebody! Don’t let Christmas become such a rush and a burden that you forget that the manger was the start of a sequence of events that led to the Cross.
V. And realize something else. I have been talking about how this life is not about US! Some people might have a hard time figuring out how God loving us, and it not being about us can come together.
A. Being the self-centered creatures that we are we think, "if its not about me, does God really care about me?"
B. If God’s priority is His Glory, if God is the one at center stage, if God is the message and I am just a word in the message, how can that be about God loving me?
C. Let me ask you something, do you really want the world to revolve around you? Before you answer think about. If it is all about you then it is all up to you. If you are in charge then you are responsible.
D. Because he loves you God rescues you from that burden. You are valuable, but you are not essential. You’re very important but you are not necessary. If that makes you feel un-loved think about this way.
E. God knows your limitations, He’s well aware of your weaknesses. He knows that you can’t die for your own sins. If you were able to be in charge you would not have needed a savior, and since you needed a savior you need to realize that its not about you and you should be very thankful its not.
F. God loves you too much to make it all about you. God keeps the universe running on track, and we should thank Him for the privilege of being apart of it. We have no clue what it takes to run a world and we should realize that the fact that its not all about us is proof that God loves us more than we have the good sense to realize.
(Eph 3:19 NIV) and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
G. Yes like the Edwards Aquifer God’s love surpasses our knowledge. We don’t have the ability to realize how deep it is.
H. But even though we can’t measure it, let me urge you to trust it!
I. Listen to God’s answer to the question does anybody love me, look at the Cross and hear God say, I DO!
J. And when you look at the Cross remember that the stage for it was set in a stable in Bethlehem, and in the rush and hustle and bustle of it all don’t lose sight of the fact that, that is what this holiday is all about.
K. I’m sure that one day somebody will figure out a way to measure the depth of the Edwards Aquifer and it will be printed in all the newspapers.
L. But you will never read about someone that measured the depths of the love of God, so just trust that it is deeper than your need, and let that be enough.
M. FROM BETHLEHEM TO CALV’RY
You’ve heard about the Baby
That was born on Christmas Day;
How they laid Him in a manger,
In a stable, on the hay.
The animals adored Him;
They smiled; the angels sang.
But do you know the rest--
About Jesus and His pain?
You see, there was another night,
Not as gentle or so sweet;
When they hung Him on a cross,
And drove nails through His feet.
The angels were not singing.
This night, the animals cried;
The night they beat my Savior,
And pierced Him through His side.
All the pain He suffered;
Only He can understand.
The baby Boy grew up
To die for sinful man.
From Bethlehem to Calv’ry
That’s how it had to be.
From the manger to the cross,
He did it all for me.
Donna Owens Lenard
