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Free Will Baptist Church
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The Love of God

June 17, 2007

Bob Bradley

_________________________ 

Ephesians 3:14-21

 

14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

15 Of 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 by his Spirit in the inner man;

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

 

 

We have talked about what God has in store for you and me, not only in heaven, but here on planet earth.  Sometimes we do not grasp or lay hold of the blessings that God has for us in this life.  He loves us very much and God cares about us. 

 

Whether it is because of ignorance, laziness, or many different things, we miss many things that God has for us in life. 

 

Paul is telling the church at Ephesus (if you read the whole book of Ephesians) about what we have in Christ, and what we can have because of Christ.  Paul’s writing is actually a prayer and it is probably the greatest prayer in the Bible other than when Jesus was praying for you and me. 

 

He says:

 

14  ...I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

 

Paul is praying for people that are saved.  He calls them saints many different times.  We know that these people are saved and they have been born again.  He is saying that, "...I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."  He is bowing.  He is getting on his knees and he is praying.  He is praying to the God of heaven, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  There is a reason that Paul is praying.  Paul wanted people to understand how much that God loved them and how much God has to offer them if they would just simply do what God is asking them to do. 

 

If you read the Bible, it is not so much in our praying the position that we get in here physically.  Abraham stood when he prayed and when he prayed for Sodom.  Solomon stood when he prayed to dedicate the Temple.  David sat when he prayed.  Lord Jesus Christ fell upon His face in the garden of Gethsemane when He prayed. 

 

It is not so much the position that we get in physically, but the position that we get in spiritually when we bring our petitions to Almighty God.  He says, "...for this cause..."  He was getting very serious.  "Of whom the whole family in heaven and in earth is named..."  He is talking about how that we are named, every family, in heaven and in earth, we are named after God the Father.  That is what Paul is saying here.  He tells us that he is going to pray.  He is on his knees.  He is praying to Almighty God. 

 

16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

 

He says that He would grant unto you according to His riches in glory.  Do you think that our God is rich?  Absolutely!  He is rich because He owns it all. 

 

We talk about Fort Knox and all the money that is there.  We talk about people having a lot of money.  However, it all belongs to God.  Everything that has any value, it all belongs to God.  Therefore, God is rich in things.  Not only is God rich in things, but God is also rich in mercy.  God is rich in love.  God is rich in kindness.  God is rich in all kinds of things. 

 

16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory...

 

God can give us whatever God wants to give us.  If we look at what he is saying, if I had a million dollars and I give you five dollars that would not be giving a whole lot.  If I had a million dollars and I gave you a hundred thousand dollars, then I would be giving you a whole bunch. 

 

God gives and blesses us according to His riches in glory.  God owns it all and He wants to give us and bless us in proportion to what He has.  God owns it all.  Since that is the case, God wants to bless us.  God owns it all and he wants to bless us in just the same way that he has.  He loves us and cares about us and He wants to bless us.  He will bless us if you and I will do what he asks. 

 

Look at what He wants to bless us with. 

 

16  ...the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

 

If you read the scriptures, you will find out that, if we are saved, according to the book of Romans 8:9, that we have the spirit of God.  If we are saved then we are indwelled by the spirit of God.  In addition, He is talking about what you and I need in our everyday lives to be able to live a life that will be pleasing to Almighty God. 

 

Paul knew that we needed strength.  Paul knew that we needed the strength of the spirit of Almighty God.  We are saved and we are indwelled by the spirit of God.  However, if we are going to do anything that is going to pleasing to God, then we must have His presence, or we must have His power working in our lives.  It is the spirit of God that enables us to do things that brings glory to Him.  His spirit gives us the power and strength that we need to do what He asks us to do. We cannot do that alone. 

 

He says here:

 

16  ...according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

 

The book of Acts mentions many times about the spirit of God and the power that is within the spirit of God.  He even told the disciples to stay here in Jerusalem until you be indwelled with power from on high. 

 

Jesus Christ, when He was here, He was indwelled by the power of Almighty God/by the spirit of Almighty God.  We know that he was God.  We need His presence.  We need His power.  We need His might in our lives if we are going to do what is pleasing unto Him.  We need that on the inside. 

 

So many times, we pray about things; the physical side of things, the material side of things, but Paul was not looking at that.  Paul was not worried about where he was at when he was writing this.  We know that he was chained to a soldier.  We know that he was going to die, not very long after he penned this down.  He was not worrying about what kind of clothes he had on.  He was not worrying about what houses they may have been living in.  He was concerned about that which was on the inside.

 

We need to ask ourselves a question.  Are we living in the presence of Almighty God?  Is God indwelling us?  Is He empowering us?  I will guarantee you, that if He is doing that, we will know it. 

 

Paul was concerned about that.  Paul wanted God to grant unto them, to give them power.

 

16 ...to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

 

Troubles, trials and problems come.  We need the strength that comes from Almighty God to get through those things.  That strength that comes to us, from Almighty God, comes from the Holy Spirit of God.  If I am going to be able to get through life and all its problems, and if we are going to go through life, being able to do what God asks us to do, then we are going to have to have His power.  It is going to have to be on the inside of this spiritual man.  We are going to have to receive Holy Spirit and the only place that we can get that from is Him.  There is nowhere else to get it.  We cannot work it up.  We cannot go to the grocery store and buy it.  Either we have Him on the inside or we do not.  When we have Him, we have strength.  We have power.  We have might.  That will enable us to do what we need to do on earth to glorify Him.

 

Paul says, "I hope and it is my prayer that God will grant you strength." 

 

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith...

 

He wants us to have strength.  He knows that the Holy Spirit of God brings strength and gives us might.  He says:

 

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith...

 

Think about something.  There are homes that you have probably been to that you did not feel comfortable.  Have you ever been to a place that you did not feel comfortable?  Have you ever been to a house that you know that they could not wait until you left?  I have been to few of them.  It has been lately, actually.  It has not been very long ago. 

 

He says here “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith...”  The word dwell is a good word.  It means to be at home, or it means to feel at home.  God wants to feel at home in us. 

 

When the Lord went down to meet with Abraham, when He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, before he did that He had a conversation with Abraham.  He goes into Abraham's tent, Him and two angels.  They had to meet with Abraham because they felt at home in Abraham's house.  When they left there, the angels went to talk to Lot.  The Bible says that when they left Abraham's tent, the two angels were the ones that went down to talk to Lot.  The Lord did not go.  Do you know why?  There can be some reasons for that.  What I am saying is God wants to be at home in our lives.  He wants to be at home.  He wants to feel at home in our lives.  The only way that He can be there is that He is there by faith.  If we are living by faith, then the Lord feels at home in us.  If He feels at home in us, then He indwells us.  When He feels at home, then He stays there.  When He stays there, we have His presence. 

 

He says:

 

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith...

 

Does He feel at home in you?

 

Does the Holy Spirit of God feel at home in your life?

 

Do you make Him feel at home?  Or  Do you live in a way that you drive Him away?

 

Do you make Him feel at home?  I am not saying that you are not saved.  Do you make Him feel at home, or do you live a life that He is not comfortable being around where you are at?

 

I have heard people say, "Well, Christ goes everywhere and He is in everything."  That is not right.  God is not in sin.  Is He really at home in you?  If He is at home in you then you know that He is there.  He wants to have Christ in your hearts by faith."

 

The word "rooted" means it is like a tree that has to have its roots way down in the ground.  This whole tree grows from these roots.  Its nutrients and stability all comes through the roots of the tree. 

 

God wants us to be rooted in Him.  God wants us to have our strength coming from Him.  God wants to be able to feed us and take care of us.  He will, if we will allow Him to be at home in our lives.  We can be rooted.

 

What is it that you draw your strength from?  What is it that strengthens you?  What is it that does something for you?  Is it other things?

 

He uses the word "dwell" because He wants to be at home in our lives.  He wants us to be "rooted."  He wants us to be established.  He wants us to be drawing our strength from Him.  He also uses the word, "grounded" and he wants us to be grounded in love. 

 

If you are going to build a building that will stand, you have to have a great foundation.  That is what Paul is talking about here.  Our foundation that we have must be rooted and grounded in the love of Almighty God.

 

If we are rooted and grounded in love, if we are living by faith, if Christ is dealing in our hearts by faith, then we are building a building that is going to last.  The strength that we draw from is strength that is going to be able to help us throughout all eternity.

 

18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

 

The word "comprehend" means to apprehend.  It means something mentally; if I asked you if you could comprehend something, then you can say, "Yes, I know what you are talking about."  It means to apprehend, or lay hold of, in this verse.

 

Paul wants us to take hold of with all the saints, how much that Christ really loves us.  How deep His love is.  How wide His love is.  How tall His love is.  Paul wants  us to grab hold of that and not let that go.  If we do that then life will be different for us.

 

19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

 

Do you know what the love of Christ is?  Do you really know Him?  Are you really rooted and grounded in Him?  Is He really dwelling in you?  Is He at home in your life?  Do you know what it is to experience the love of God in your life?  That is what He wants us to have.  He wants us to lay hold of that.  He wants us to apprehend that.

 

19 ...to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge...

 

I cannot explain the love that God has for us.  I cannot explain the depth, height, width and all the things about the love of God.  I cannot explain how much God loves us.  That goes beyond my mind.  I do know that He loves me and He loves you so much that He demanded the death of His Son.  He loved us that much.  I cannot explain that love.  It goes beyond my understanding.

 

19  ...that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

 

How full are we?  How much do we have?  How full is your cup?  Is it half empty or is it half full?  Do we have a little bit in our cup or do we have a whole lot?  Is our lives filled up with the love of God?  Do we just have just a little bit? 

 

How much do we really love Christ?  Is our lives filled up with the love of God?  OR  Are we filled up with self and things? 

 

20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

 

That is a great verse. “…to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think...”

 

That is how much that Lord loves us.  We all pray.  We all have prayer requests.  We all have needs.  We should be taking these needs to Almighty God.  He is able to do so much more than that.  He is able to do so much more than we can ever think or ask Him to do.  God can do more than that.

 

He is not short on anything.  There is nothing lacking on the part of Almighty God.  

 

21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

 

Remember, God wants to dwell in our hearts by faith.  He wants to be at home.  He wants us to be rooted and grounded in His love.  He wants us to understand how much He loves us.  He wants us to experience the great love Almighty God has for us. 

 

We can do that if we lay hold of it.  We can just reach out and take it.  God is not going to make us take all of His love.  God is not going to make us go out and claim what is ours. 

 

Paul is praying, on his knees before Almighty God, praying that God would grant unto us these things.  God will grant them, if we will just lay hold of them and take them. 

 

God wants to bless us in many ways.  Sometimes we do not want what God has to offer.  God has a great plan for our lives and God has wonderful events for our lives, but many times, we do not want to accept what God is doing. 

 

I encourage you to make things right with the Lord.  Let us get to where we need to be with God.  Let us do what we need to do.  We have experienced the great love of God here this week.  We had a wonderful time here.  We saw people saved and we saw a great time of fellowship.  We cannot stop there.  Just because we saw people get saved, and just because we saw great times of fellowship, however, that was yesterday.

 

What are we going to do this week?  What are we going to do this month?  What are we going to do for the rest of this year?  We cannot stop at what we did yesterday, or last week. 

 

What are we going to do now?  What is next in your life?  When we have great revivals like those that we have had, and great times like those that we have had, a great lull comes along, and we think that we have to rest. 

 

We do not have time to rest.  Your family and my family are dying.

 

Let us experience the love of God as we have never experienced it before.  When we do that then we will be working for the salvation of the lost.

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