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Again, all right. So when we say how much, how much of God's love
Paul says how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.
This is like, it's a figurative language. Obviously, you can't like measure love like that, right?
But what what what Paul is saying, as wide as you can imagine, and as high as you can imagine, and as deep as you can go, and as long as you can go, every physical dimension you can possibly imagine, you still can't contain
God's love. Right? It's, it's, uh, we often use this language to describe abstract things like love, right?
How much do you love blank, right? And then, you know, kids know that I love it this much, right?
It's, it's, it's a way of expressing a lot. And of course, this is not just fuzzy love, right?
It's, it's, it, the constraints are the gospel, right? He says this in page 170, that love was a wonderfully rich, redemptive plan
God himself had graciously disclosed across the centuries, and then brought to fulfillment in the death and resurrection and exaltation of his son.
Paul is not fostering some experience of love outside the constraints of the gospel.
He is certainly not hinting that any spiritual experience whatsoever is valid and important.
What he presupposes, rather, is that apart from the power of God, Christians will have too little appreciation for the love of Christ.
They need the power of God to appreciate the limitless dimensions of that love, right?
In the end, we're not able to experience God's love without God allowing us, giving us the power to do so.
We're not able to understand it. That's, that's the thing. We need to, we need
God's help to, as Christians, to experience and know
Christ's love. Now, can we, sometimes,
I like this story with R. A. Torrey. Sometimes God lets us experience more of his presence when dwelling in his scripture and praying.
R. A. Torrey, page 171, second, the first paragraph after the poem, it is said that R.
A. Torrey earnestly sought God's face and one day while he was reading the scriptures and praying, he was so overwhelmed with a profound and profound consciousness of God's love for him that he began to weep and weep.
Eventually, he asked God to show him no more. He I've never had that kind of experience.
But apparently God does allow some people who do pray that to experience that kind of love.
And of course, note that it is with scripture, right? It's not just some fuzzy feeling outside.
You're trapped in the wilderness. And right, it's, he's, he's, he's understanding more of what scripture says, right?
And experiencing it. Now, why is it important to understand
God's love? God is love.
Yeah, without him, we won't mature, right? Now, again,
I don't want us to think like we just passively do nothing, right? I think it's both and human responsibility and God working, but it cannot be just on our own effort that we mature in Christ, right?
It's not just like, oh, I'm going to just try really, really hard. And that's the point of what he's saying in verse 19, to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God, to mature in faith, right?
To be all that God wants you to be, or to be spiritually mature. That's page 172.
In Christian maturity, Christ is the standard, right? The more closely you are transformed into Christ likeness, the more mature you have become.
Your maturity does not depend on, oh, I'm following exactly what my pastor told me.
No, it has to be Christ, because your pastor can err. Your pastor can set up his own standards, right?
It has to be Christ. The more closely you're transformed into Christ likeness, the more mature you become.
And there's no seminary degree that makes you more like Christ, right?
There are no theological conferences or heartwarming worship songs that make you more mature in Christ.
Only the power of God who allows you to understand his limitless dimensions of Christ's love.
That's how we're filled with the measure of the fullness of God, right? Now, I've been bashing seminary and all the conferences, but I'm not saying they're bad.
But in the end, if God is not working through them, there's no point, right?
You don't mature. I've met a lot of immature PhDs, you know, with great theological degrees.
On page 175, he goes over what that looks like. How does the knowledge of the love of Christ transform us?
Middle of the second paragraph, forgiving others becomes almost natural because we ourselves, thanks to God's immeasurably rich love, have been forgiven so much.
Others may despise us, but that makes little difference if God loves us. How shall trouble or sorrow or bereavement drive us into macabre despair when we can say with Paul, who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Romans 835. Our speech, our thoughts, our actions, our reactions, our relationships, our goals, our values, all are transformed if only we live in the self -conscious enjoyment of the love of Christ.
Our testimony is then no longer dry and merely correct. It is living and vital as well.
We are, in short, growing up spiritually. That's what spiritual maturation looks like when we understand
God's love for us. Your whole life changes, your desires change, right?
And how you talk, what you hope for, what you imagine the future to be, what you do, what you say, they all change when
God works in your heart to mature you, to fill you.
Now, there are two grounds for Paul's petitions. The first ground is that Paul's petitions are in line with God's purposes.
When you see for this reason, it means we need to look back to what Paul was talking about in Don Carson goes to chapter three, beginning of chapter three, but he also includes chapters one and two, right?
Paul praises God for bringing the lost Jews and lost Gentiles together by grace into one new community, right?
The new covenant people. Only the Jews were mainly saved under the old covenant. There are some
Gentiles, but majority were Jews. But with Christ, he brings the
Gentiles to faith and they're not like a second citizen, right? It's not like the
Gentiles are saved with an asterisk, right?
But rather Christ brings them together. Yeah, they're saved.
They're both saved, right? They're the new covenant people. Now he does so through Jesus dying for our sin on the cross and Gentiles are no longer just strangers and foreigners, but they are considered
God's people, right? That's chapter two. And on page 177, we find out what within what does
God, what's God's purpose for us? Second paragraph, beginning of it, we quickly learn that God is more interested in our holiness than in our comfort.
He more greatly delights in the integrity and purity of his church than his material wellbeing of its members.
He shows himself more clearly to men and women who enjoy him and obey him than to men and women whose horizons result revolve around good jobs, nice houses, and reasonable health.
Yeah, that is prosperity, right? He is far more committed to building a corporate temple in which his spirit dwells than he is in preserving our reputations.
He is more vitally disposed to display his grace than to flatter our intelligence. He is more concerned for justice than for our ease.
He is more deeply committed to stretching our faith than our popularity. He prefers that his people live in disciplined gratitude and holy joy rather than in pushy self -reliance and glitzy happiness.
He wants us to pursue daily death, not self -fulfillment, for the latter leads to death while the former leads to life.
Well said, right? God's purpose is rarely about our immediate comfort at the cost of our eternal state, right?
It's never that way. The key is to make us more like him, right?
And I think that's really important. It's convicting even because I like comfort. I like ease, right?
But in the end, that's not God's goal for Christians.
It's to make his people more like Christ. The second petition is that Paul's petitions are addressed to the
Heavenly Father. I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name.
What he argues is that God is the ultimate Father, his superior model of every valid Father.
Or, all his people, whether they're still on earth or in heaven, get to call him their
Father. Either way, God is the ultimate Father. He says it in page 178.
What's important is that although God is omnipotent, omniscient, and he can do anything that he pleases, and he is so sovereign and he's so fully in control, yet he chooses to relate to us personally as our
Father. Unfortunately, some of us, many of us, might have had fathers who weren't great, who were abandoning or who were just harsh, critical.
But that's the negative, right? That's the opposite of what the Heavenly Father's like.
He does talk about a really good story about these two twins who are fostered, and then they were so behind in their development because they've been so abandoned so much and abused.
But after two years of loving foster care, they were all caught up developmentally and emotionally.
Oh, they were beaten just for crying. Yeah, beaten just for crying, right?
What that shows is humans were meant to be cared for and tenderly loved.
And for those who haven't gotten that from your earthly Father, you can still get that from your
Heavenly Father. There's a final word of praise.
First is that the God whom he petitions is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
179, middle of the… Oh, that's that verse, that three point.
Yeah. So, one, two, three, four, fifth paragraph.
To an omnipotent God, there cannot be degrees of difficulty, but surely Paul is saying something more than that about God.
God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, not only because he is powerful, but also because he is generous.
He loves to give good gifts to his children. To think of God in any other way is to demean him.
To think of God in this way is itself tantamount to a call to pray. And then the second one is the ultimate purpose of Paul's prayer is that there be glory to God in the church and in Christ Jesus.
And this is an important thing because one can pray with bad motives, right?
There can be good prayer requests and they can be self -centered motivations.
One can pray that the church ministry goes well, but if it is for the self -centered glory of the pastor, then that's a bad motivation.
In the end, the ultimate purpose must be that God's glory is reflected in us.
And here's the test case on page 180, fourth paragraph.
For that surely is the deepest test. Has God become so central to all our thoughts and pursuits and thus to our praying that we cannot easily imagine asking for anything without consciously longing that the answer bring glory to God?
In the end, do the prayers that come out of our mouth, is it solely like, is it driven because I want
God to be better known? I want God's glory to be reflected. I want other people to be in awe of who
God is when that prayer is answered. That's the test.
And I think that's what, when Jesus says, like, when you pray in my name, you will receive.
It's not like, okay, I need a new car, right? But rather pray according to his will.
And ultimately, does that honor the father? Does that glorify the father? Any last thoughts or comments before we close?
It's a good chapter. I like this book. Even though he only goes over Paul's prayers, he goes over a lot.
I mean, so many things I haven't really realized. All right, let's pray.
Father, we thank you for this church. We thank you that we can pray to you for power, not for ourselves, but so that we may mature and so that we may live according to your will.
And so that we may grasp how much Christ loves us and help us to do that, knowing that it is from you.
Father, we pray that you would continue to bless this church and protect this church from all sorts of harm.
Thank you for all your provisions, spiritual and material. Thank you that all good gifts come from you.
We pray that we would personally speak to you every day and we would really be excited about it and that we may experience your presence that R .A.
Torrey did, that we may more fully experience your love in Jesus name.