Knowing and Experiencing The Love of Christ | Andrew Duncan

00:00

Thanks Dave. Dave's got small font Bible, but my font on my laptop or iPad is at 24 because I'm getting older and older. Hey, I've just got back from state youth camp. I was speaking there because I am so hip, cool and young. But I got a riddle back from Kenya as well too. So this is a Kenyan riddle to kick you off. What is black and white and red all over?

00:29

It could be the newspaper, but it's the Bible. We're in church, guys. You got that really quickly. It took me ages to get that, so well done. Hey, so anybody who doesn't know me, my name's Andrew. I just attend this church. And so it's a great privilege to bring God's word today. And we're going to look at this prayer in Ephesians chapter three. This is actually my favorite prayer in the Bible. I actually think that most of our fears

01:00

A lot of our insecurities and doubts, many of our relational challenges can actually be really helped if we actually understood what is offered in this prayer. This is a prayer for experience that we would experience the love of Christ in our innermost being. And so if you take notes, the outline for the talk today is going to be, why do we need to experience the love of Christ?

01:27

What does it actually mean to experience the love of Christ and how? So what, why what and how? So allow me to pray, let's pray.

01:44

Loving God and Heavenly Father, you are good and you are kind and you are holy and you are patient.

01:56

Father God, I just thank you for my friends in this room this afternoon. And I do just pray that by your Spirit and through your Word that you'll actually bring this passage alive to us so that we can actually understand Paul's prayer here, that we can actually apply it to our life, that we can have a deeper understanding of Jesus, but also to be able to experience his love right at the core of our being. I pray this in Jesus' name.

02:26

Amen. So firstly, why do we need to experience the love of Christ? So this is a prayer for Christians. Paul is writing the church at Ephesus and it's a circular letter to all the Christians throughout Asia Minor. And because it's God's word, it's a message to you and I today, which actually makes this passage quite puzzling. It's quite strange.

02:52

Because Paul asked for three things that they already have. say in verse 17, he prays that Christ might dwell in their hearts. But if you go back to chapter 2 verse 22, Paul has already said that the Holy Spirit has made Christ real in your innermost being. In verses 18 and 19, he prays that you would know the love of Christ, but surely to be a follower of Jesus actually is to know the love of Christ.

03:21

Then in verse 19, that they will experience the fullness of God, in chapter 1 verse 3, Paul says that you already have the fullness, you have every spiritual blessing in Christ. So why would Paul pray for these three things? That Christ might dwell within them, went through the Holy Spirit, Jesus already does, that they would know the love of Christ, but to be a follower of Jesus is to know the love of Christ, and to experience the

03:50

fullness of God when all Christians already do. I mean, it'll be a little bit like praying for me, praying for me for a wife. I've already got a wife. She's okay, she'll do. I don't actually need, haha, I don't actually need another wife. Why would he actually pray for something that I actually already have? The answer only can be that it's actually one thing to know about the love of Jesus.

04:18

but it's a completely different thing to know the love of Jesus in your innermost being. Keeping with this image of marriage, some of you who've been married will actually be able to identify this, that it's one thing to actually be married, but it's actually a completely different thing to actually feel married. It's one thing to actually claim that you're in this love relationship with this other person, but it's another thing to actually experience that love.

04:47

It's one thing to actually say you're connected to another person in marriage, but it's another thing completely different to actually really feel and experience that connection. You might get to a point in your marriage to say, I'm married, but actually I don't feel married. And perhaps some of you here this afternoon, in terms of your relationship with God, it's a little bit like that. Yes, you know God. Yes, you know Jesus. Yes, you know the gospel. Yes, you know this.

05:17

the scriptures, but you do not experience the love of God in your innermost being, not in the way that your heart desires. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your innermost being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So your inner being, your heart in the Bible, is the control center of you.

05:45

It's your values, it's your will, it's your decision making, it's your commitments, it's you. Your inner being affects everything. It affects your mind, it affects your thoughts, what things make sense to you, it affects your emotions, what things actually move you, and it affects your will, how you actually live your life.

06:07

And Paul says we need to know the love of Christ in our innermost being in a way that it actually captivates our minds, that it actually affects our emotions, and it shapes the way that we actually live our life. Again, why is this actually so important? Well, if you think about the structure of Ephesians, the first three chapters are all about belief and theology in the gospel and what God has done for us in Christ.

06:37

And the last three chapters are all about marriage and parenting and work and relationships and everyday life. But smack bang in the middle is this prayer of experience. Paul is saying it's not just enough to know about Jesus and his love for you. It's not just enough to try to be a Christian in your workplace or in your marriage. No, for Jesus to actually be real to you.

07:04

And for you actually to be able to live this Christian life, you need to know the love of Christ in your innermost being. Imagine this illustration. Imagine that you were poor and you were homeless and it's the middle of winter. It's cold and it's rainy and it's dark outside and you're under a bridge. And then somebody comes along with a bank card and they give you a bank card and on this bank card is a million dollars. And then they walk away.

07:32

And then after a little while, after a day or so, you actually lose this bank card. Somewhere in a bank, somewhere there's a million dollars and that million dollars can actually change your life. It can give you a home, can give you safety, it can give you warmth, can give you food, it can give you shelter, it can actually give you a new direction for a future. It is yours. But you don't know how to access it.

08:01

Paul seems to think that most Christians in most places are living this way.

08:12

that there's actually this great wealth available to us to know the love of Jesus in our innermost being. But we don't or we haven't accessed it, not in a way that our hearts desire. Verse 14.

08:30

Paul says, this reason I kneel before the Father. for a Jewish man, when a Jewish man prayed, he would normally actually stand up to pray. But here, Paul is actually on bended knee for the church in Ephesus and for the church throughout Asia Minor and for you and me. This is actually a desperate prayer. And think about the people that Paul is praying for. Remember that these are Christians living in the Roman Empire.

08:57

They experienced sickness and disease and war and invasion and poverty and injustice and persecution. And what does Paul pray for? Does Paul pray that God actually would make their circumstances better? Paul says, yes, you might face persecution. Yes, there might be real poverty and suffering in your life. Yes, your families actually might be torn apart.

09:22

But Paul says this is actually what he's on bended knee for. He says the thing that you and I need most.

09:31

is to know the love of Jesus in your innermost being.

09:36

We need to pause here for a little minute because the Bible actually calls us to hold truths or tension in conflict with one another. So in Psalm 88 is almost the opposite of Ephesians 3. In Psalm 88, the psalmist describes his experience of God. says, You have put me in the lowest pit and the darkest depths. He says, My eyes are dim with grief. says, Darkness is my closest friend.

10:06

Psalm 88 teaches us that you can be a believer, you can pray, that you can worship, that you can stretch out your hands to God, you can do all the right things and still be in this spiritual winter. But Ephesians chapter three says a real experience with God is possible.

10:27

And again, for some of you here this afternoon, that actually might be your experience as well. You might feel that God is kind of distant or that God is silent or that God is far off. And I think we actually need to make those experiences kind of normative, don't we? That if you've got to be a follower of Jesus for 10, 20, 30, 40 years of your life, that there are going to be spiritual winters and there are going to be spiritual summers.

10:57

But if you are in a spiritual winter, how do you take step by step ways of actually getting out of there? So what does it mean to know the love of Christ? verse 19, Paul says, and to know the love of Christ surpasses knowledge. So one way I'm trying to do the impossible. I'm trying to explain something that Paul himself says surpasses knowledge. But look at verse 16.

11:25

He says, pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your innermost being. Remember, your innermost being is your mind, your will and your emotions. And Paul here is praying that the Holy Spirit will come and do a supernatural act in your innermost being to do what? To enable you to understand who Christ is. To understand the height.

11:53

of Jesus' love for you, that Jesus actually left heaven to actually be with you, to understand the depth of Christ's love for you, that he actually went to the cross for you, to understand the breadth of God's love for you, that there's nothing in your life that is outside of God's love and his grace and his forgiveness and his care for you.

12:20

Paul here is praying that you will know the love of Jesus and that this love will actually become more real to you than any other love in the world.

12:35

You know, why is it?

12:39

Why is it that we're so trapped by the opinions of others?

12:45

Why is it that we are often so hurt by criticism?

12:51

Why is it that sometimes we're so insecure and afraid and fragile?

12:57

Why is it that we're often critical of others?

13:04

poor would say it's because you do not know this love.

13:11

Not in the way that your heart desires. Paul is on bended knee that you and I would actually get this. And if you read some of the saints throughout history, Dwight Moody, George Whitfield, Pascal, Teresa of Avila, people from different centuries, different theological traditions, different cultures and different genders, if you read their biography, they all testify the thing that actually changed them the most, the thing that they actually.

13:39

built their lives upon.

13:43

was simply the love of Jesus. is the work of the Holy Spirit making Christ real to them in their innermost being. Verse 19 again, that you may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God. What is the fullness of God? Well, Colossians chapter one, verse 19, for God was pleased to have all of his fullness well in him. That is Jesus. The fullness of God is Jesus. And Paul here is praying that the Holy Spirit will make.

14:12

Jesus, you make Jesus real to you. That is actually what he's praying for. Now I need to be careful here a little bit because we're talking about heart and innermost being and experiencing God's love and that's got to do with our emotions and our experiences. And some of us are just more emotional than others. And for a long time in my Christian life, I thought, well, emotions actually don't matter at all, but

14:41

I don't believe that anymore. We won't actually love God and experience God with our whole being. But I also let you into a little bit of a clue. You know what us preachers love? Us preachers love it when you cry. We do. Because when you cry, we think, well, our words are really powerful. I must be this great preacher to be able to move you in this way. But if you have an emotional experience in church,

15:09

But then you go out into your world and you're just as insecure and just as anxious and just as driven and just as greedy. You feel just as selfish and critical and needy. Then you haven't, you haven't experienced the love of Christ. Not in the way that Paul is describing here.

15:32

What is the fullness of Jesus?

15:36

It's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control.

15:45

This is what Paul is praying that you will experience in your innermost being. In your mind, the way you think, in your will, the way you live, in your emotions, the way you feel.

15:59

So how can we do this? How can we actually experience the love of Jesus in the way that our hearts desire? Well, four things. We are to pray, we are to grasp, we're to do it in community, and we're to focus on Jesus. Firstly, we're to pray. We have to remind ourselves that this is a prayer.

16:21

For three chapters, Paul has been preaching. He's been preaching about doctrine and about who Jesus is. And then he's got a talk about marriage and parenting and how you live out your faith in the workplace. But smack bang in the middle again, it's this prayer. Paul isn't giving you more information. He's saying, what you and I need to do, we actually need to find a quiet place.

16:50

We need to get on bended knee and we need to pray that the Holy Spirit will make the love of Jesus real to us in a way that transforms us from the inside out.

17:06

over the years of at different times and quite significant challenges with my mental health. There's been times when, you know, I've just thought, I kind of been thought about myself as being really worthless, really struggled with my sense of identity and purpose in life. And I've sought professional help for that. But do you know actually what has really helped me in this space? The professional help was really important.

17:37

But for a few years, every morning when I was brushing my teeth, I would say this to myself.

17:44

that I'm made in the image of God and therefore I'm incredibly valuable.

17:52

that the greatest love in the universe, which is the love of Jesus, is actually upon my love.

17:59

that I'm a son of the living God and that God has good things for me. I wasn't on bending knee, I was brushing my teeth, but I did it day after day after day after day until that truth actually became a reality in my heart and in my innermost being and it began to change my identity and the way that I lived my life.

18:27

You know what I also experienced? By lunchtime, I'd actually start to lose my way again. I'd start to actually feel really insecure and worthless and full of doubt and scared about my future and hurt by what somebody had actually said to me. And so at lunchtime, I'd often have to close the door again and say, well, I didn't brush my teeth. I didn't take my toothbrush to work. But good idea.

18:58

I would have to say, Andrew Duncan, you're made in the image of God, and therefore you're incredibly valuable. The greatest love in the universe, which is the love of Jesus, is actually upon your life. You're a son of the living God, and God has good things for you.

19:19

And that is what Paul is praying that we will do in our relationship with Jesus.

19:27

The second thing we need to do is grasp. You may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. This word grasp is actually a really interesting word. the corporate sense, it sounds really unchristian, but in the corporate sense it actually means an army who actually takes hold of a town and they plunder the town and they take all the riches from that town.

19:53

In an individual sense, means actually chasing after somebody, running after them, tackling them to the ground and taking, robbing all of their wealth. Now that doesn't sound very Christian. I'm not telling you to rob people. But actually what Paul is saying in this passage, this is what God wants us to do. God wants us to actually chase after him, to run after him, to tackle him to the ground.

20:18

and demand riches from him to take all of his love and all of his grace and all of his forgiveness because he wants to give it to you to grasp, to tackle, to chase down, to have great effort in your spirituality, in your relationship with Jesus. What do you have to do to be really bad at something? Like some of you are surfers, what do you have to do to be a really bad surfer? Just don't go, that's right.

20:48

Karen, what do you have to do to be a really bad musician? Don't practice. Anybody into running? What do have to do to be a really bad runner? Don't run. What do have to do to not grow as a follower of Jesus? You just don't do anything.

21:09

But that's actually the opposite of this prayer. Paul is praying that the Holy Spirit will actually make the love of Jesus real to you. But also he says, you are to run after, to chase down, to hold on to, to grasp, to rob God of his riches. Are we to do this in community together with all the Lord's holy people?

21:34

So imagine this, imagine being a part of a community where the central focus of this community was to encourage the person next to you in their relationship with Jesus. That you actually took the responsibility for looking out for one another and cheering one another on, spurring one another on in your relationship with him. And finally, it's to actually focus on Jesus.

22:03

This love is not a general love. It's not even the love of God. It is the love of Christ. In Christ, God's love becomes 3D. It becomes real and personal and tangible. All of the descriptions of God's love in the Bible actually become personal in the person of Jesus.

22:26

And so is this actually possible? Is it possible for you and I to experience the love of Jesus this way? Well, look at verse 20. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to his power that is a work within us,

22:51

Paul isn't actually changing subject. He's not praying that God can do immeasurably more in your career or immeasurably more in your finances. He's praying that God can do immeasurably more in your innermost being.

23:14

you will know the height, the depth, the breadth and the width of the love of Jesus for you.

23:32

Friends, I'm convinced, I'm convinced that we need what is on offer in this prayer more than anything else in this world.

23:47

Can I pray this prayer for you? Can you pray this prayer for yourself?

23:56

Can you journey after Jesus and grasp hold of him? Can we do this in community? Because this is what God wants for you and for me. Amen.

24:12

Let's be proud.

24:20

For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven on earth drives its name.

24:30

And I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your innermost being.

24:38

so that Christ might dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge. That you might be filled to the measure of the fullness of God and the people of God said.