What is love? Famously, a set of cartoons back in the 1980s offered the answer “love is…” with lots of examples. Perhaps, given he was not too sure himself at the time and what was to follow, they were unwise in one suggestion “Love is Charlie and Di”
We might suggest that love is our heart’s deepest desire. In kids last week, we heard two stories Jesus told. One about a man who found buried treasure in a field and another about the man who found the pearl of greatest price. In both cases, they sold everything they had in order to buy the thing of greatest worth.
I wonder what a five year old might think that the greatest treasure is? It’s like a “Family Fortunes” question isn’t it? Well good news, I have the results in and overwhelmingly it was “chocolate coins.” Though I’m sure if you were to probe a bit more deeply, you’d get deeper answers even from young children -to be held secure, to be safe, to be valued, to be known. It’s true for all of us. We seek security, comfort, identity. And we may see those things given in material gifts, sex, respect and popularity.
Well, Paul in Ephesians 3 prays for the church. If someone asks you what to pray and you don’t know what to pray for them, then here is a good place to start because he prays that they would really know, grasp, understand, experience true love. In fact, it’s a good model because we can simply pray this prayer ourselves but also notice that he is praying into their lives what he has already said, especially in chapter 1. So a good way to pray for others is to pray for them Scripture and specifically the Scripture we have been looking at each Sunday.
Because of this I take the knee before the Father, to whom all families in Heaven and Earth owe their name, in order that he might give you inner strength through the Holy Spirit, so that Christ may live in your heart through faith and you may be rooted and grounded in love. I pray this, in order that you together with all God’s people may be able to know the height, width and breath of Christ’s love which surpasses all understanding, so that you may be filled with the fullness of God.
Now unto the one who is able to do exceedingly far and above what we might ask or desire in accordance with that power at work in us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, down through the generations and forever and ever. Amen
The context for this is of course all that he has already said about how God has chosen them, loved them, united them in Christ, broken down dividing barriers whether race, gender, age or class in order that he might show them, show us off like a football captain raising the Champion’s Leage trophy.
So, because of all of that, Paul prays for those who get and read his letter, meaning it includes you and me today. His prayer is that they will be loved, that they will know and experience God’s love poured out into their lives. For this to happen is for them to know a living relationship with God himself.
There is a trinitarian element to this. Christians believe in one God in three persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One way in which God is one is that the Father, Son and Spirit are all involved together in the same work.
Paul prays to “The Father.” Notice how he is described as the one from which every family gets its name, or the source of all life and specifically all family life. Naming is an act of dominion and authority, so this shows that the creator God has dominion and power over all but also points us to the type of God he is. He is the original dad. If we want to know what a good, loving Father is like, we look to Him. Note that it is not the other way round, God is not a bit like a human father, human fathers are meant to be a bit like him. This is so important to know if you have had a bad or difficult relationship with your father (v14-15).
He prays that the Father will give you inner strength through the Holy Spirit. By the way, today is Pentecost Sunday when we celebrate the day when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church. When we think about that day, we think about the Holy Spirit coming to being power, we think about the gift of tongues and we may even connect the term “Holy” with God’s work to make us clean and pure. But notice what Paul specifically prays that God will send the Holy Spirit for and how he will strengthen us (v16 .
His prayer is that through the Holy Spirit, Christ will come and live, permanently in their hearts. Notice again, the way in which the Trinity works together, when one person shows up, all show up. If you get the Holy Spirit, Christ comes too and vice versa. The aim is that as you are sealed with or filled with the Spirit, then Christ himself will be king of your heart and will shape your whole life so that you become like him. This means that because God is love and because God’s love is most seen In Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection that when Christ comes in, our lives are shaped by love. We are rooted and grounded in it because we are rooted in Jesus (v17).
And so, that’s how we come to grasp how long, high, deep and wide, Christ’s love is for us. This is not just head knowledge to know about but heart knowledge to experience. It means first of all that you need that encounter with God. What better day than Pentecost for you to experience an outpouring of God’s love in your heart, whether that’s because you have been running on empty for some time and need his refreshing, for your heart to be warmed again, or whether its because you need to know his love and forgiveness for the first time (v18).
Its only when we know his love for us, for real life that we are able to love God back, with our whole hearts. It’s also as we experience his love in our own lives that we can love others. Let’s pause there a moment. When I was talking to the kids last week, I talked about how Jesus is “the pearl of great price”, the true treasure. Then I said “But he chooses to look at us as the greatest treasure, the pearl of great price.” Jesus gave up everything, even heaven itself and pursue us out of love for us.
God, in Christ, chose to love you, even though you were dead in sin, even though you were his enemy, even though you had much to be shamed of. Jesus came “to make a wretch his treasure.” That’s you and me. Do you feel unworthy of his love? Well, we are. Buj he chooses to love us, he chooses to love me, he chooses to love you. Perhaps you’ve struggled to grasp that for all kinds of reasons. You don’t feel lovable, you’ve been told that you are not loveable. Today, my prayer is that you will hear what God says about you. He says that through the Cross, you are loved.
We are to discover and enjoy this love together. So, this is the practical bit. This is how “loving God” connects to “loving neighbour.” When God’s love is poured out in our lives, then our love for each other should grow. Later in Ephesians, Paul describes the church as Christ’s bride. We cannot love Jesus and reject his bride, the Church. Do we love our local church here. Do we love our brothers and sisters. It’s also as we grow in love for each other that through each other we experience God’s love, practically in our lives (v18).
How can we show practical love for one another. Here are some thoughts
- We love each other by being honest and repenting/saying sorry when we get it wrong and hurt each other.
- We love each other by patiently forgiving when others let us down.
- We love each other by being alert to where others struggle and not making church/life harder than it has to be for them. Bu not leading them into temptation.
- We love each other by taking time to ask after others and pray for them without waiting until Sunday or Life Group.
- We love each other by desiring their physical and spiritual well=being. This will include praying for healing, it will include being ready to share the words, pictures, dreams, prophecies that God places on our hearts. It will include being there to listen, sometimes without saying anything back.
- We love each other by helping others in need. This might include giving to a gift day so others can enjoy a church weekend away, helping with food parcels, giving to hardship funds, offering to babysit, cooking a meal etc.
I’m sure you can add to all of this.
This is all for his glory. The end goal of Paul’s prayer isn’t actually that the church and its members will flourish and be happy. Rather, his concern is that God himself, the one who can do even more than Paul has just asked for will be glorified. It’s as we discover, share and enjoy God’s love together that he is most glorified. This is because it strengthens our joy in worship and acts as a witness so others will come to him (v20-31).
Faithroots 