You have your Bibles with you this evening. I invite you and encourage you to open with me to the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter three. We'll read tonight verses 14 through 21. Ephesians chapter three, verses 14 through 21. Please hear the word of our God this evening. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, According to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. As far as the reading of the Lord's Word, please join me in prayer. Gracious Lord, how we thank you for your word, how we thank you that your word is truth, how we thank you that you have inspired these words, that they are inerrant, that they are infallible, that they are given to us to reveal unto us the glory of the person, the work of Christ. And what a great joy we have tonight as we come to look at this text to meditate, if only briefly, upon the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, We pray, Lord, that as we look intently upon this prayer of Paul again tonight, that you would grant us the grace that we need, that you would fill us with your spirit, that indeed we would perceive what it is that he has to say to the churches, that you would allow the preaching of your word to be heard with ears that are eager and ready to receive the implanted word that is able to save our souls. So be with us tonight, we pray, and grant us the grace that we need, and we ask this in the name of Jesus, amen. Well, I think I threw out five weeks ago as I was going on vacation that I was committing one of the capital crimes of pastoral ministry, and that is that it is never good to break off in the middle of a thought or a particular text and take a break of four weeks. But rather than skipping my vacation, I decided that that was probably in the best interest to just break off where we did. And yet, as we come back to this many weeks later, what I want to do is give you a relatively lengthy introduction so that we can set our bearings, so that we remember where Paul has come from and where he is going in this prayer. You remember that as we come to these verses, 14 through 21, that we're really coming to the conclusion of the theological section of the book of Ephesians. Lord willing, in several weeks, we're gonna begin looking at chapters four through six that are often known more as the command section of Ephesians, because Paul draws out all of these commands of what it is to walk worthy of the call and of the gospel that we have received. So this book easily divides into the first three chapters being largely theological, and the last three chapters being largely practical. Not to say that there isn't overlap, but it's a helpful division for us to make. And as we come to the conclusion of this theological section of all these glorious and sublime truths and theology that Paul has walked us through in these three chapters, Remember that here in verses 14 through 21, the Paul ends his theological note with one of the most sublimest prayers that have ever been uttered by the lips of men. As a matter of fact, I think we can say that apart from John 17, this is perhaps the most glorious prayer that we have recorded in all of scripture. And so we want to slow down and take this bit by bit to look at Paul's prayer to see what it reveals to us not only of God but also to give us a model of how it is that we ought to pray. As a pastor and having talked with other pastors as well, one of the most basic questions and yet frequent questions we hear from people or as people perhaps bemoan their lack of sanctification, is that it always seems to deal with prayer. Rarely have I run into somebody who is satisfied with their prayer life, who knows how they ought to pray. This is an area where we all want to grow and all want to learn. And so Paul closes here with this prayer, and we've spent several weeks looking intently at it. Remember that as we first came into verse 14, that we simply looked at the man of prayer, that Paul tells the church in Ephesus here that he bows his knees before the Father. And we considered Paul as he has introduced himself or familiarized himself with us throughout Ephesians, that Paul was an apostle, that he was a preacher, that he was a servant. and that in all of these different ministries that he had that he was always completely given to prayer. Paul saw prayer to be very central to his life as a Christian and to his ministry to the church. The second thing that we looked at is we looked at the heart of prayer that Paul gives us here. Paul notes here in verse 16 that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. Right, as Paul comes and he leaves us with this prayer as an example, but also as revelation, Paul notes here that the very heart of prayer is spiritual in nature. And as we looked at this some weeks ago, we saw or we remind ourselves that so often our prayers are about physical needs, they're about physical circumstances. And Paul shows us here that there's a greater prayer, that there is a deeper prayer, not that those prayers are inappropriate, but that this greatest prayer is that we would be strengthened in our inner being, in our hearts and in our souls and our new man. And then thirdly, what we have turned our attention to is that Paul, beginning in verse 17 and going to the end of verse 19, that Paul has three particular petitions that he makes in this prayer for these Christians in Ephesus and indeed for us as well. Paul makes three petitions. And what we looked at two weeks before I went on vacation is that first petition that Paul gives us. And that first petition comes there in verse 16, that according to the riches of his glory, that he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner Now those words, as we unpack them, they're loaded terms, they're pregnant terms, as so often Paul's words are. And if we needed to reduce this petition to a simple phrase to understand it, what Paul is praying for here is not that we would be crisis Christians but that we would be proactive Christians. Remember, as Paul prays here, that we would be strengthened in our inner being, that this word strengthened isn't, Paul isn't praying that we would react rightly to the circumstances and situations that we find ourselves in in life, but Paul is praying that we would be proactive. active. This is a prayer, as we noted, for Christian maturity. Paul is praying that the Christians in Ephesus would be built up, that they would be given over, if you will, to supplying their faith, not with the antibiotics that are necessary, but with the probiotics. He is praying that the church, in the time of prosperity, That they would focus intently upon their maturity, that they would grow in faith and in their love for Christ. Now as we looked at that petition, we reminded ourselves and we do well tonight to remind ourselves that this is a very important aspect of the Christian's prayer life. And that this is very important in our day and age. Because there are many Christians who have bought into this idea that to approach the Lord as a child means that an immature faith is all that we really need. that there are those who are very unconcerned with maturing in the faith, with continuing to grow, with continuing to learn, that we have bought into the subtle lie within Christianity that all that matters is that when I stand before the Lord in judgment, that I have Christ in order to get out of hell and to spend eternity with Christ. Now as great and as glorious as that is, Paul would always remind us that conversion is but the beginning of the Christian life, and that we ought to mature, that we ought to grow, that we ought to be concerned about these things. And so Paul prays here for the maturity of the Ephesian Christians. Now the second petition that we have is in verses 17 through 19a. And where we left off five weeks ago is that we simply looked at the first half of this second petition. If you can follow that, just the first half of the second petition, we just paid attention to these opening words in verse 17, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts forever. through faith. So in verse 16, Paul prays that we would be strengthened, that we would mature as Christians, that we would take this up and be concerned with it. And in verse 17, the first half of the second petition, is that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And we showed five weeks ago that Paul isn't praying a prayer of conversion here, that the idea of dwelling here isn't that Christ would inhabit these people for the first time, he's praying for Christians. And so we took up what does Paul mean when he says here that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And as we unpacked that five weeks ago, we noted that what Paul intends to pray here, what he means as he prays this, is that we would experience more and more of Christ. That part and parcel of Christian maturity is coming to experience more and more of Christ. What we might say in our jargon today is that in the second petition here that Paul opens it and he's praying that we would grow closer to Jesus. That we would grow closer to Jesus in our walks of faith. But as we noted five weeks ago, there is a grave caution that needs to be inserted here. Again, particularly in our day and age. Because all too often this idea of growing closer to Jesus is treated like a wax nose. It's treated like I can determine the terms and the grounds on which I grow closer to Jesus. And people bring in all of their own opinions, they bring in all of their own traditions, they bring in all of their own thoughts. And this Christian experience that Paul is praying for can be so subjective that it's difficult to really understand what does Paul mean. And perhaps you know people, perhaps you've experienced this in your own life, that you've often thought that you're getting closer to Jesus, when in reality you're actually drifting away from him. We can so deceive ourselves into thinking that we're growing closer to Jesus that we don't apprehend what is a true Christian experience. And so we ended five weeks ago by simply noting what does it mean to grow closer to Jesus. And at least from a biblical perspective, there are two things that it means to grow closer to Jesus. And the first is that as Paul prays that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith, Paul is praying that we would grow in our knowledge of who Jesus is. Christian maturity, Christian growth, growing closer to Jesus, is always united to a growing knowledge of who Jesus is. That Paul isn't satisfied, that Paul isn't simply praying that we would understand the elementary principles of the gospel, but that all our lives we would continue to learn Even the deeper things of Christ. Again, if we needed to whittle this down, what Paul is praying here is that we would continue to become better theologians. Whether or not you want to admit it, theology is important to all of us. Theology is simply the study of God, it is the knowledge of God, it is thinking the thoughts of God after God. And we can't have Christ dwelling in our hearts. We can't come to experience more of Christ. We can't grow closer to Jesus if we're not learning more about him, if we don't know more about him. And so we ought to have a regard for him. for theology. We ought to immerse ourselves in the Word of God. We ought to never be satisfied with simply what we learned as children in our Sunday school classes. We ought to be learning, we ought to be growing, we ought to be challenged in our thoughts and our perspectives on a continual basis. So as Paul prays that Christ would dwell in our hearts, it's that we would grow closer to Jesus. The first aspect that comes with knowledge. But secondly, what does it mean to grow closer to Jesus? Well, from a biblical perspective, it also means that we are to grow in our affections for Jesus. That our affections are to grow for Jesus. We threw out five weeks ago that all knowledge of Jesus must be accompanied by a corresponding affection. Right? That all knowledge of Jesus must be accompanied by a corresponding affection. As we learn more about Jesus, we ought to desire more of him. We ought to relish in his glory. The more that we learn of the perfections of Christ, the more we ought to feel our own imperfections. The more that we learn of Christ's strength, the more we ought to feel our dependence on Christ. The more that we learn of the way in which he has had grace towards sinners like us, we ought to feel the depth of our sin and to repent of these sins. And so here in this first half of the second petition, Paul's prayer is that Christ would dwell in our hearts, that we would grow closer to Jesus. That's the first half. We come now to the second half of this petition, which is taken up in those words that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. So Paul comes in the second petition And you note here that Paul is again praying that we would know something, that he uses two verbs here that relate to knowing. The first is that we would comprehend. And the secondly, more specifically, that he notes here is that we indeed would know the unknowable love of Christ. So Paul carries this theme on of Christ dwelling in our hearts. He longs for us, he prays for us, that we would come to this place where we would comprehend and where we would know the unknowable love of Christ. As we come to the second half of the second petition tonight, I want to work Paul's logic backwards with you. I want to work backwards in these verses tonight and simply deal with two points. And that is first, to deal with the boundless love of Christ. This is a wonderful and a glorious statement that Paul shows us that Christian maturity, that growing closer to Jesus, that being rooted and being grounded in love, that it has this glorious end, this glorious aim, that we would comprehend and that we would know the boundless love of Christ. So that's the end that Paul gives there in verse 19. But if we work this backwards, the second point we want to look at is not simply the boundless love of Christ, but to note the way in which we come to comprehend and know this love. And that's what Paul lays down in the last half of verse 17 and 18. So I want to just look at these two points briefly tonight. First, the boundless love of Christ. And then secondly, deal with how do we come to know and to comprehend this boundless love of Christ. Now, as we look at the second half of the second petition here in verse 17, And in verse 18, we note that Paul's specific request is that we would know the love of Christ. That Paul here, as we've already noted, uses two verbs relating to knowledge. He says, at the end of all this is that we might have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses Now, as Paul uses these two words of comprehend and know, I think it's Charles Hodge tells us that the best way to understand these, and it fits within the context of what we've been looking at, is that Paul isn't simply repeating himself, but comprehend and know would be on par with what we say today that we would know and that we would feel. that we wouldn't simply have a cognitive grasp of something, but that we would also have our affections, we would feel that this would be kindled in our hearts as well. And so the ultimate aim of the second petition is that Paul is praying that the grandeur and that the greatness and that the glory of the love of Christ might fill our minds, that we might know this, that we might feel this, in the deepest parts of our hearts and of our souls, Paul prays that we would begin to even slightly comprehend and apprehend the magnitude of the love of Jesus Christ. And you note the almost paradoxical, if not contradictory terms that Paul uses here, that we would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. that Paul is praying that we would know that which in and of itself is completely and wholly unknowable. And yet as Paul prays for this, we would remind ourselves that even in this life, that we can comprehend if only in part, if only but the fringes of the love that Christ has towards us. And so Paul prays that we would know this love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. What is it that makes the love of Christ so glorious? What is it that makes this love to be comprehended by the saints? What makes it to be of such great breadth and length and height and depth? What makes his love so glorious? Words fail to adequately describe this love of Christ. We can but confess what the scriptures speak to be true, whether or not we fully feel the effect of it. But as you think of the love of Christ, we ought to always remind ourselves that it is an infinite love. That Christ does not only love his people as he is man, as he has taken our nature upon himself, but that he loves us even in the capacity as he is truly God. That the love of Christ comes to us not simply as a love of a man, but as the love of God himself with the fullness of his deity, with the fullness of his perfections, with the fullness of his being. There is nothing in all this universe that is as infinite and incomprehensible as the very nature and the being of God himself and Christ, who is both God and man in one person, united forever, loves us in the capacity that only God himself can love us. It's a love that is infinite. It is a love that doesn't have a beginning. It is a love that doesn't have an ending. This is what makes His love so unknowable even to us. It's His love that makes it so that we stand in awe of it as an infinite love. But you think as well that not only is this an infinite love that Christ has for us as the God-man, But that his love directed towards us is so undeserved. That as Christ loves his people, that he's not loving cute and adorable little orphans that just make his heart melt as perhaps our hearts do as we look at our own children. but that Christ loved us even while we were still sinners, that even after we have been saved and as we so often spurn and spoil his love, that there is nothing in us that deserves this love, that everything in us only deserves his wrath and only deserves his hatred and only deserves condemnation, and yet for reasons completely unknown to us, locked up and veiled in that eternal decree of God Himself, He has chosen in His wisdom and in His kindness and grace to lavish such undeserved love upon such hell-deserving sinners as ourself. Here's Paul writing of this. Paul who labeled himself as the chief of sinners, Paul who sought to persecute the church, Paul who persecuted Christ himself. And yet to think that here is one who is the object of the love, of him who is unstained and of him who is perfect, of him who is so undeserving of every sin and everything that we have ever leveled against him. It's an undeserved love. Think as well that this love is of such a great magnitude because it is a love that was so costly. It's a love that called of Christ not only to love us from glory and not only to love us as He dwelt at the right hand of God the Father, but a love that called Him to come in our likeness, to take to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul, to walk amongst us, to become obedient. And as Paul reminds us in Philippians, to even become obedient to the point of death, the death on the cross. And yet Christ saw that the cross was to be favored, that it was to be desired over not loving us. And willingly and for the joy that was set before him, Christ loved us to the end by even laying down his life for us. And you think of this love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. Think of all the innumerable benefits that flow from the love of Christ. That as our elder brother, he has loved us, and in loving us, he has given us all things. That he has fulfilled all the types and the shadows of the Old Testament on our behalf. That he has opened the gates of splendor. That he has made a way for us to be reconciled to the Father and to one another. That he has poured out lavishly his Spirit into our hearts, that He has freely justified us even while we were still sinners, that He sanctifies us by His Spirit, that He preserves us by His grace each and every day, that He has promised to glorify us with Himself and to share the eternal inheritance that belongs to Him as the obedient and the faithful Son who did all the will of His Father and He hands the kingdom over to us with all of its glory so that we are seated with him in the heavenly places. There are innumerable benefits that flow from being loved by Christ and indeed I think we could spend an eternity meditating on each and every one of them. And so Paul prays that we would know this love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. But think as well that the magnitude of this love of Christ is seen, and that his love is unending. That his love never had a beginning, and that his love will never have an end. That unlike our love that so often waxes and wanes with our emotions and circumstances and situations, that his love has been an infinite unending, unwaxing and unwaning love, even from before the foundations of the world. That he should have chosen, that he should have willingly submitted himself in that eternal covenant with his father to come in our likeness, to be the one who loved us to the point of death. and that he shall love us with the same intensity, that he shall love us to the same degree, that he should love us with the same constancy, even when a hundred trillion years have passed in eternity. You see what Paul prays for here is that we would begin to comprehend, that we would begin to know the love of Christ, that surpasses knowledge. This is the height of all knowledge that we could ever attain to. This is the greatest affectionate knowledge that we could ever conceive of. There is nothing greater. There is nothing more valuable in this life. There is nothing more enlightening to the mind or sanctifying to our souls than that we would do well to know this love and to see this love. and to comprehend this love in greater and greater degrees until at long last we shall be with him where he is in glory forever and ever. You see, the aim of Paul's second petition here is that we would continually grow in the knowledge of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. But as we work this backwards, This is where Paul ends. And what we have in verses 17 and 18 is the way that we come to know this love. I hope that even as my stuttering and stammering words attempted to open up for you this infinite love in few brief moments, And all of us are thinking, this is great. Why would I not want to spend all of my energies, all of my efforts, all of my thoughts, all of my days thinking and meditating and relishing in this love of Christ? Paul aims for this, Paul prays for this, but what we have in verses 17 through 18 is that Paul shows us the way in which we come to know this love. And what we do well, just as we begin to scratch the surface here that we hope to go a little deeper, is to note that man never naturally comes to comprehend or to know this love of Christ. You know what Paul says here. He says, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, that you may have strength to comprehend the height and the depth and et cetera, et cetera. That Paul prays here that we would have the strength And we've seen this word strength several times in the book of Ephesians, and almost every time that Paul uses it, Paul is referring to that strength that comes from God alone. And so Paul notes here that we don't simply come to comprehend and to know this unknowable love of Christ in and of ourselves. This isn't something that is wrought in us naturally. This is something that we are dependent upon the strength of God for. That we are indebted, that we are dependent upon God to comprehend and to know this love, to have the strength to even begin to ascertain this love. But you know what Paul says here, is that he goes on to show that not only is this an unnatural knowledge, that we are dependent on the Lord, but he gives us the means. He shows us here if we want to comprehend and know the love of Christ, well then how do we do it? And Paul notes there at the end of verse 17 that you being rooted and grounded in love. So that's the means by which we come to comprehend and to know the love of God. Whatever it means, we'll come to this, Paul uses these two metaphors that we would be rooted and that we would be grounded in love. So the way that we come to comprehend, the way that we come to know the unknowable love of Jesus, is we have to be rooted and we have to be grounded in love. Now before we deal with these two metaphors of rooted and grounded, we have to ask the question, What love are we supposed to be rooted and grounded in? What does Paul mean here at the end of verse 17 that we'd be rooted and grounded in love? In what love are we to be rooted and grounded in? I think it's perhaps fair to say that almost instinctively, when we read these two words in love, that we instinctively think that what Paul means here is that we need to be rooted and grounded in the love that God has towards us in Christ. As though what Paul is saying here is that the way that we comprehend, the way that we know the love of Christ is that we need to be firmly established in the love that God has had for us in Christ. It's tempting to see in love here as a love that God has for us. And while there is an element where that is true, that is not what Paul means here. This in love does not refer to the love that God has for us in Christ, but the entire context of Ephesians here, this in love is meant to be our love for one another. Remember that Paul has tirelessly worked here throughout this letter to destroy the separation or this barrier that existed between Gentiles and Jews. And Paul in chapter 2 has labored at this point to show that in Christ that this wall of partition and kept Jew and Gentile from one another, that Christ has abolished that, that Christ has taken the Jew, that he has taken the Gentile, and out of the two old men he has created one new man. Everything here in Ephesians has largely spoken of the love that we ought to have for one another. And as almost every commentator agrees here, when Paul says that we need to be rooted and grounded in love, that Paul means we need to be rooted and we need to be grounded in our love for one another. To put it very simply, it is when we love one another, it is when we love one another, that God by his spirit strengthens us. to comprehend and to know the unknowable love of Christ. If you would know the love of Christ, then you must love your brothers and your sisters. That logic perhaps seems a little backwards to us. Why is that true? Why is this the means that God has ordained for us to come to know the unknowable love of Christ? Just think very briefly. And as Paul tells us, we need to be rooted and grounded in love. And as he speaks of our love for one another, that the great joy that we have is that we are loving those whom Christ loves. And as we love our brothers and our sisters, well, we see the love of Christ in them and the love that Christ has for them. And that encourages us, that instructs us, that indeed teaches us of the love that Christ himself has for us. When we love our brothers and our sisters, we are simply doing what Christ has already done. But secondly, as we read in our response of reading this evening, remember that John tells us that we need to love one another in order to love God and to know the love of God, because we see our brothers, but we don't see God. And if we can't love those whom we see, How could we ever love God or know the love of a God whom we don't see? And so Paul tells us here that if we are to know and comprehend the unknowable love of Christ, we must be rooted, we must be grounded in our love for our brothers and sisters whom we see and we interact with. But thirdly, consider this point. that the only way that we can actually love like Christ is to love our brothers and our sisters. Remember that Jesus in John 13 leaves us with a new commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. And the only way that we can love like Christ is to love those people who by their nature are not loving but unlovable. You know, as we love Christ, we are not loving one who is unlovable. But when we love Christ, we are loving one who is altogether lovable. When we love Christ, we are simply loving the one who deserves love. When we are loving Christ, we are loving the one who has only done us good all of our lives. But when we love our brothers and our sisters, we have the great joy of emulating the love of Christ by loving those who are unlovable, by loving our brothers and our sisters who by nature don't deserve it. And so Paul tells us here that we must be rooted, that we must be grounded and love towards our brothers and sisters if we are to know and to comprehend the love of Christ. But further tonight, you note these two metaphors that Paul uses. That Paul characterizes the love that we are to have for each other, that we might know the love of Christ. He characterizes it with these two metaphors, we are to be rooted and that we are to be grounded. Now this word rooted, Paul is borrowing this from horticultural language. It speaks of the depth of love that we are to have for one another. As any farmer, as any green thumb goes to plant a plant or a flower, the great hope is That as you plant this, that this plant is going to grow these roots, that these roots are going to sink deep down into the soil. The larger the plant, the larger the roots, at least from my understanding, you want. You want this plant to nourish, you want it to flourish, you want it to bear fruit, you want it to be strong enough. So that when the natural elements come against it, that it's going to withstand in the day of trouble and in the days of difficulty. This is the hope of everyone who goes and plants a plant, that it will be firmly rooted deep down in a soil. And Paul tells us here that if we are to comprehend and to know the love of Christ, then we need to have a love for one another that is firmly rooted. We need to have a love for one another that is deep. And perhaps you remember that we worked our way through 1 Corinthians 13 several months ago, and we looked at all those attributes that Paul gives of Christian love, and one attribute that Paul didn't speak of there that he speaks of here, is the depth and the intensity by which we are to love one another. If it's helpful, go home tonight and reread 1 Corinthians 13 and before each of those attributes that Paul either commends or condemns, add the word deeply there. That as we are to be kind to one another, that we are to be deeply kind to one another. That as we are to be humble before one another in love, that we are to be deeply humble. That as we are to rejoice in the truth, that we are to deeply rejoice in the truth in loving our brothers and our sisters. Paul doesn't want us here. He doesn't say that the way that you come to comprehend and know the love of Christ is by having this very shallow and this very surface level love for your brothers and for your sisters. Matthew Henry commenting on this verse says that many have some love to God and to his servants. but it is a flash, like the crackling of thorns under a pot. It makes a great noise, but it is gone quickly. And Paul tells us here that we are to be rooted, that we are to be deeply planted, that we are to have an intensity in our love for one another, that we are to have a love that is so firmly fixed that when the elements of sin or temptation or when our brothers and our sisters wrong us, that this love remains firm. The second metaphor that Paul uses here, not only that we would be rooted in our love for our brothers and sisters, but he says grounded. Rooted was a word that was used from horticultural language. Grounded here is architectural language. Paul is kind of mixing his metaphors here. Some translations don't have grounded, but they have founded. Perhaps a more accurate translation here that Paul is borrowing from architectural language. I'm not going to make a joke. All right. We all understand what it is to be grounded or to be founded in love. That every sturdy building needs a sturdy and a solid foundation. And that the larger that that building is, the more sturdy, the more thick, the more support that that structure is going to need. And so Paul tells us here that not only are we to be rooted in love, but that we are to be grounded in love as well. That our love for one another needs a solid foundation. It needs a particular grounding. It needs a sturdy basis on which to be built. And as we think of this, on what foundation is our love towards our brothers and our sisters supposed to be built? Well, it's the foundation of truth itself. That we are to love one another, not only deeply and intensely, but we are to love in truth, that we are to love as Christ has loved us, that we are to love in honesty, that we are to love in integrity, that we are to love in servant-heartedness, that we are to love realistically, that we are not to love one another hypocritically. We pay lip service, oh yeah, I love them because they're my brother or sister, but our thoughts are filled with sinful thoughts against them. That we are not to simply love in speech and in word, but that we are to love in deed. That we are not to flatter our brothers and sisters unduly, that we are not to criticize them beyond what is truthful. That as we love our brothers and sisters, to put it simply, we are to call spade a spade. We are not to tolerate sin in their lives for the sake of peace or unity. We are not to pretend that they are better than they actually are. We are not to fear calling them out when we see sin in their lives. We are to love them in truth. We are to be grounded in love for one another. And so Paul shows us here the way in which we are to come to comprehend and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. And that the way in which we come to this is by having a very deep-seated, a very stable, a very strong love for one another. And by the grace of God, may it be so amongst us. Amen. Please join me in prayer. O gracious Lord Jesus, how we relish, how we delight in the truth that you have loved us with an everlasting love. Lord, we so often want to sing with the psalmist that my heart overflows with a pleasing theme as I write my verses to the King and to relish in the beauty, to relish in the glory, to relish in the goodness and the grace and the mercy that you, O Christ, have towards us. Could there be anything greater in this life that we could know than to know your love for sinners like us. And yet how often, O Lord, our apprehension of that love is so fragile and weak, how often we neglect it, how often we forget it, how often we think that we deserve to know this love. And yet you have laid out the means by which we come to comprehend and know by loving our brothers and our sisters, by loving them deeply, by loving them in truth. We pray, O Lord, that you would help us to be of these people, that you would help us to come to know the love of Christ as we have opportunity to love each other each and every day of our lives, as we have the opportunity to love as Christ, you have loved us. I pray that you would grant us the grace in order to fulfill these things and so relish all our lives and even into eternity in the unknowable love of you, O Christ. And it's in your name we pray these things. Amen.