I'd like to invite you, brethren, to take out your copy of the Scriptures and turn with me to Ephesians 3. And as you're turning there, I'd like to ask you to try to do something for me as I read the text. This is one of those particular passages that I'm sure any Christian a number of years reading through the New Testament, reading through Paul's epistles, Coming to this particular passage is probably ministered to you many times in your devotions. But we often make a mistake, I think, when we read our Bibles as if it's just a personal letter. It is in many ways and often a personal note to us as God's children. It certainly begins there, doesn't it, in our own hearts? But I want you to read along with me as I read the text to you tonight and remind you that this was written not simply to an individual or to an individual Christian as you are, but it was written to the Christians who were at Ephesus. And it is to be read that way and is to be received that way. And I think it will help us in the long way in understanding what Paul is saying. So notice with me as I begin reading, again in verse 14 to 21, we will ask the Lord's help after the reading of the word. Paul writes, For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, the church at Ephesus, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. The word of the Lord, brethren. Let's go to our God in prayer. Thank you so much, Father, for leading your servant Paul, leading him through many sufferings, trials, and tribulations, and yet opening his eyes to see things that many of us, few of us ever get to see. Lord, he saw the love of Christ, he understood it, and he's now praying, Lord, that the church at Ephesus would receive it, and we would pray that, Lord, you would allow us to receive it tonight, that we would get a glimpse of what it truly means to have the love of Christ in our hearts, and that it would have such a mighty effect upon this congregation. For the glory of the Lord Jesus, we ask in his name. Amen. titled the message, as you see there in the bulletin, Paul's Magnificent Prayer. It was the best I could come up with as I considered the totality of what the Apostle Paul was seeking to convey to the church at Ephesus. And God willing, I hope the Spirit of God will convey to all of us here this evening. If you remember back in chapter one, Paul had another very lofty prayer. It seems to me that he enjoyed using these words that pushes us to our limits as we consider what he's trying to say. Both of them are prayers to ask God for very powerful, glorious, and magnificent things. Prayers not for healing of the body, nor prayers for physical matters like jobs and finances and relationships. But these are prayers that God would grant to us to see magnificent spiritual realities as His people. That they are true spiritual realities about us because we are in Christ Jesus. We are in the Lord. And that we would see all that Christ has accomplished for us by his death and his burial and his resurrection. But the prayers are not just that we would see these spiritual realities, but that in seeing them, they become experiential realities in our inner being. He says this in verse 16. But it doesn't stop there. Because when God answers this prayer and we see and we experience continually the glorious realities of what Christ has accomplished for us, it will lead to love and joy and peace in our inmost being. A joy and a love and a peace that comes from God. Not something that the world can work up within themselves. They know of some kind of love and some kind of peace and some kind of joy. But what I'm talking about is foreign to the world, but not to God's people. And in being filled with this love of God and joy and peace of God, then this becomes, brethren, as we'll see in the text, the antidote for us to combat sufferings and trials for which the church at Ephesus had many. And no doubt, some of you have some here tonight. If not, just give it some time. Now, to get to this place of being filled with love and peace in the midst of trials takes nothing less than the very miracle of God Himself. It takes the power of a sovereign God to give you this. To rise above, as we read in a moment, I left a hymn out because I wanted to read the last line again, and it says, and His love lifts me up to glory. for it lifts me up to thee." This is what Paul is talking about. This is why Paul prays. He knows God's people at Ephesus are really struggling. Persecution, temptation, struggles from within, struggles from without. And more money and better jobs, healthy bodies are not going to get them through. It'll help them temporarily, but it's not what's going to get them as our pastor taught us this morning through our pilgrimage to glory. What is going to get them through is for God to open their eyes that they might understand and see and experientially know what are the riches of His glory, of the inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe. That was the first prayer. What is going to get them through and what is going to get us through, brethren, is that we would see and experientially comprehend with all the saints, what is the width and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that we may be filled with the fullness of God. Still trying to figure out all that that might mean. Brethren, this is what we need. Whatever else you all might think you need in your walk with Christ, I can say on the authority of Scripture this evening, this is what we all really need at the end of the day. The hymn, again, was alluding to it in various places. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus tis a heaven of heavens to me. This is what it is. However, if by the grace of God, he chooses to answer these kinds of prayers, and we all get a glimpse of what Christ has truly accomplished for us, and this then produces within us strong affections of love for God and love for the brethren, and thus delivers us from the dwelling upon the miseries of our own sufferings and trials and temptations. Brethren, we must understand that God's greater purpose in answering such magnificent prayer as these prayers, It's not simply for our sakes, but ultimately that God will receive glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Now, brethren, that's my introduction. But it wasn't an introduction so much to get us started. In some ways, it is my whole sermon in miniature. For what I have just described is what I trust is the proper intent of the apostle in writing for us these holy and divinely inspired words." And so with that, let's see if this is true as we seek to open up the passage this evening under the following three headings. Verses 14 and 15, I want to talk about why Paul prays. Secondly, in verses 16 to 19, the bulk of the text, we will see what Paul prays. Lastly, I'm no longer able to alliterate after that. I tried. There are just no Ws to go. Verses 20 and 21, we'll simply see the ultimate result of this prayer. Now, God willing, I hope to deal with verses 20 and 21 in a separate message, perhaps. But I included it here so we could see the bigger picture. I want to communicate that big picture to you tonight. And I know, and I also know that the whole text tonight is so rich, so full, I realize I will be leaving some stuff on the table. It is just too wonderful of a text to not have it be that way. But again, what is primary to me is that we get the big picture. So first of all, let us begin with the first point. Why does Paul offer up this prayer? Well, in verse 14, Paul says, So whatever Paul's reason was, he's already communicated it to us in what he's already written, right? That's a given. But the dispute among pastors and scholars and commentators is what part of what he previously wrote was the reason that he bowed his knees to the Father. Whatever portion it was has to be something very important because Jews normally stood to pray. Unless there was something very dramatic going on, and sometimes that would be the case, they would fall to their knees. You remember our own Lord Jesus fell on His face in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed. Now, you know, there are no commands for you to get on your knees in Scripture and you pray, but the spiritual is connected to the physical. And sometimes, brethren, whether in times of great sorrow or times of great joy, our body posture will be affected. But getting back to our question, what was it that Paul previously wrote that moved him to dropping to his knees? Well, some have said it was what he said in the preceding verses, beginning back in verse 8. For you notice there, he says to me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. And he goes on to elaborate from there. So Paul's dropping to his knees because he's so moved that Christ would give him this ministry. Others have said that it is the totality of all that is written up to this point before, and I suppose that is a possibility. However, as I have tried to communicate now a couple of times, if you've been with me in our series in Ephesians, I believe it is primarily what he writes at the end of chapter 2. Remember, the chapter 3 opens up with the same words of verse 14, for this reason. Verse 1, for this reason. Verse 14, for this reason. And though I, again, remind you, I do not want to be dogmatic about this, I do believe that Paul intended to break into this lofty prayer at that time, at the beginning of chapter 2. I mean, at the beginning of chapter 3, based on what he had said at the end of chapter 2. But then he had this parenthetical thought, a thought that was important, a thought that was divinely inspired, but nevertheless, an interruption in his original flow of thought. So if I am correct, then what Paul wrote at the end of chapter 2 is what moves him to this magnificent prayer. So I want you to see it. Pick up with me in chapter 2, verse 19. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners." Remember, he's writing mostly Gentiles there at the church at Ephesus. He was in prison for them. And members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." Paul, I believe, is blown away that the Jews and the Gentiles are now reconciled to God as one people. He's so moved that the power of the gospel could destroy the enmity between these two groups who hated each other. who truly wanted nothing to do with one another, with an absolute passion. Now, to add to the validity of my point, That this is what Paul is moved to pray about and what is on his mind to want to bow his knees to the Father is in verse 15 of chapter 3, our next verse in our text. Chapter 3, verse 15, he says, Paul using language of inclusiveness, all of the redeemed of God, wherever they may be, heaven or earth, no matter who they may be, Jew or Gentile, all of the redeemed have God equally as their Father. not some distant, uncaring deity, but all are a part of one divine family who are in Christ. And to go further, this vision Paul has of the united people of God, Jews and Gentiles, is nothing less, brethren, than the very temple of the living God. Paul himself being a Jew, having seen the temple, As I mentioned before, the word for temple, and back in chapter 2 in verse 21, which I just read, is not the temple complex. It's not the temple building as a whole. It is a word that's most often used for the holy of holies. Why? Because that is where the manifest presence of God was. More specifically, God met with the high priest there who represented God's people at the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant. Now, our great high priest, Jesus Christ, represents us before God in the Ark of the Covenant of the New Covenant Church. Now, the promised presence of God is in the local church. This is truly melting Paul's mind. This can't be true. Do you mean to say that that awful and glorious and holy presence of God, which manifests itself in the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple, is now manifest in the local church? Yeah. And that now Gentiles from all four corners of the earth are able to come in? For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Brethren, this is why I believe Paul is led to pray, because what essentially he essentially prays for is that the church at Ephesus would see their local church as the oasis of the presence of God. not their closets of devotions. This is what's going to cure what ails them above everything else, as we'll see. Now, this takes us to the second point. What does Paul pray for? And this is in verses 16 to 19. Let's read them again. That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Now, that's a lot. I confess that I am not smart enough, brethren, to know how many distinct prayers that Paul is offering here. I tried. I just couldn't get it done. It would be nice to say that Paul's got three distinct things he's praying for, or there's four matters he's praying about. But these prayers are so interwoven, so intricately connected, that each request seems in some way or another to be dependent on the other. In fact, perhaps it could be seen as only one prayer request. Each minor request builds upon the other until the ultimate request is asked, which is that we all would be filled with the fullness of God. Well, with that, the best I can do is to try to simply walk us through the prayer tonight and see we cannot connect some dots and see where it leads us, which I trust is indeed a prayer to that end. Again, in verse 16, his prayer is that God would grant us, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man. Now, the saints at Ephesus were weak Christians in many ways, due to the trials, the persecutions, the temptations. These things had beaten them down. He probably had heard of this, had heard word of this. Caesar continued to seem to have his way and sway over their lives at any moment. Indeed, few civil magistrates in their day would have had any sympathy for Christians. What the saints there needed was to be strengthened in their inner being. In other words, an inward divine strength that only the Holy Spirit of God can give. And it would be a mediated strength through the Spirit. Not something worked up according to their own inward powers, but the power mediated to them in accordance with the riches of God's glory. In other words, through a sermon perhaps, or through scripture reading, or through some psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, the Spirit of God begins to fill your heart with some gospel truth. Perhaps it is a truth that makes you realize that God has all your trials and temptations under His sovereign control, and you're realizing that Romans 8.28 is really real to you. Everything is going to work together for your good, even your sin. Or perhaps God enlightens you to the joy of what it means to no longer live under the wrath of God. How could it be that I am freed from that? I know what a sinner I am. That Christ has nailed it all to the cross. Past, present, future. Or perhaps it could be something a sister or a brother has done to encourage you in the Lord. Remember, we are to stir one another up towards love and good deeds. Whatever the Holy Spirit uses that is in accordance with the riches of God's glory, He strengthens you with it. You've all been there if you're a Christian. And you're given this fresh resolve to press on in the faith. But notice, brethren, this inward strengthening of the Holy Spirit in our inner man is not the end goal. Too often we think it is, and then we don't continue on to the more important purpose of this strengthening. Paul, brethren, notice, has not concluded his prayer request. Verse 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. The purpose of reviving or receiving strength in the inner man by the work of the Holy Spirit is that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. It's interesting, Pastor Timothy, and a lot of what he...some of what he said today, if not a lot of things, coincide of what I'm saying to you tonight. But he brought up the fact about the word dwell, that the word dwell in the Hebrew, I guess he was saying that in Goshen wasn't supposed to be a permanent thing. It was a temporary dwelling, as it were. Well, I read in a commentary this week that the word we have here in our text, that there are two words in the Greek for dwell, and the one that talks about being just dwelling inhabitingly forever, I mean, it's rooted down, is this word here. It means to house permanently. And so the prayer is, is that Christ would constantly, experientially, daily, hourly, live in our hearts by faith. It's not just a Sunday thing, or even a weekend thing, or popping out here and there through the week. It's all, He dwells us. Because as John Calvin rightly states, he who has Christ dwelling in him can want nothing. This is where we're headed to. This is what we're trying to talk about tonight. This is what I want you to get to. This is where I want to get to." In other words, when Christ is abiding in us, the idea here is, in and by ever-increasing degrees, because we know that by justification, Christ dwells with all believers all the time, but as we seek the Lord and we draw nearer and nearer to Him, and His presence becomes stronger and stronger to us, then we become stronger in the Lord and He begins to dwell in us. And when Christ's presence is strong within us, then all of the things that we see by sight, the trials, the afflictions, whatever, the carnal fears, they all begin to fade. And so we will begin to see then is that which is eternal where Christ is. Paul said, and you hear me quote this frequently through the years since I've been here. In 2 Corinthians 4.16, he says, therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though the outward man is perishing, yet the inward man, same language, the inward man is being renewed day by day. He says, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, of all the people who could call it light affliction, I would have never said Paul would have called it that. He says, it's working for us a far more and exceeding eternal weight of glory. While we do not look at the things which are seen, for the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen, they're eternal. The love of Christ dwelling in your heart is eternal. There's a song we used to sing in my former churches. I don't think we've sung it here before. Many of you probably know the song. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." That's the text. But Paul doesn't stop praying here, picking up in verse 17 that not only that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith, but that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height. to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge." Now, here we have arrived at some very lofty words, haven't we? Probably should be a sermon of its own, on its own. So the title of the sermon would have been, had I preached it separately, would have been, To Know the Love of Christ. My introduction would be to tell you that this love is found in the gospel, which points us to his sacrificial atonement. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." And really, that is what we saw in chapters 1 and 2 when we studied those, wasn't it? The great electing love of the Father, the sacrificial love of the Savior, and the one who applies it all to our hearts, the blessed Holy Spirit of God. All of the love of the triune God towards poor sinners is only ours through the sacrifice of the Son of God. who loved us and gave himself for us. This is the only way we would come to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. That would have been my introduction. So here what would have been my three points. Number one, to know the love of Christ has a stabilizing effect on the Christian. For he says in verse 17 that we are to be having this in our hearts, being rooted and grounded in love. Now, the metaphors rooted and grounded teach us that to know something of the love of Christ, that we would be so powerfully moved by such a love, by one who is so perfect and pure and good and who would die for someone who is so wretched and defiled and wicked, that's a love past finding out. But it's a stabilizing effect on the Christian life when you believe it, when you know that's what the Bible teaches. So, you know, winds of temptation, trial, or affliction can move you off of Christ, as it were, and the love of Christ when you know these things and they dwell in your heart through faith. When God's love is rooted and grounded in our hearts by faith, then we, brethren, can proclaim with Apostle Paul in Romans 8.38, for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come." Same language as in our text here, he says, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Of course, the great question to be answered by you and me this evening is this, are we persuaded? Are you persuaded, brother, dear sister? Is the love of God rooted and grounded in your hearts this evening by faith? Is it doing anything for you? Does it do anything for you? Do we take His love for granted and just assume He must love me? Or worse, do we really think we are loved by God because we are something good or something special? Dear brethren, Christ did not lay His life down for good people. He came to call sinners to repentance, not the righteous. We will never know anything of the love of Christ unless we are given the eyes to see what great sinners we were and still are apart from his saving grace. Brethren, the sermon tonight, the purpose of it is that every one of us who are members in this church would be melted by his love tonight through his dying for you. Well, if I had preached this section as a whole sermon, my second point would have been the corporate context of knowing the love of God. For you see there in verse 18, he says, may be able to comprehend, notice it, with all the saints. Brethren, I must repeat myself the goal of Paul's prayer requests, it's not simply for personal betterment, which too often is the only way we read these texts. That is certainly a part of it, and it begins there, of course, in the inner being. But God wants the whole church at Ephesus to know the love of Christ. He wants every member at TRBC to pray and to know the surpassing greatness of His love. But we don't get there and we don't stay there only as private individuals. God doesn't fill our hearts with His love just to make us feel good. Christ wants us, His own love, manifested in His local churches. Because love isn't simply a warm feeling. It's a verb. It's known and manifested through action, brethren. Did Christ Jesus have warm feelings for us? Did He die because of warmth? No, He showed His love, doesn't He? He manifested that love by laying down His life for us. Now, I'm about to share something with you. I've shared this text many times, and I just can't, I don't know, maybe you all don't get moved by it as much as I do, and that's okay. But I tell you all the time that people will go off over and over about John 3.16, John 3.16, but you never hear Him going over 1 John 3.16. And here is what it says. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. And I thought about it going back over it this afternoon. I thought, you know what, there are times when we probably judge one another, pick at one another, we complain with one another, and I'm thinking to myself, if I love you enough to die for you, would I really act that way about you? If we had this kind of love for one another in the church, that we would be willing to die for one another, there wouldn't be any murmuring about one another. Complaining? Love covers a multitude of sin. And so in the church, as each member comprehends the love of Christ more and more, that will manifest itself with sacrificial love for one another in the church. 1 John 4, 11, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Paul prays that we would comprehend with all the saints this love of Christ, which passes knowledge. When we read those wonderful words that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, do we see his love truly manifest in the way that we interact in our church here? Do we see it manifest, brethren? I mean, I'm asking myself this question as I've worked over this sermon, and I put in a lot of hours. Because it's a tough text. It's a very deep text, the deep, deep love of Jesus. Or do we just have some warm heart feelings for one another here? Oh, I love my brethren down there at Trinity. Loving God is indeed first and foremost, but God's love is reflected through us as we love one another in the church. Now, again, if I had preached this section as a whole sermon, my third point would have been, knowing the extent of God's love. Verses 18 and 19, you saw that, didn't you? What is the width, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. It's quite fascinating, isn't it? Paul prays that we would know the width, the length, depth, and height that Christ loved, and then he, in the same breath, says, well, it passes knowledge. And I want to ask him, which is it? I can only surmise that his point is that we ought to strive for a very strong and experiential knowledge of his love, which is meditating and staying long at his feet in prayer and at the cross, never leaving the cross. That because of God's love is infinite. I think this is where Paul is going. that we ought to strive for this experiential knowledge of His love, that because His love is infinite, God's love is infinite, so above what we could ever imagine or think, we could never attain to the full knowledge of it if it's depth. But if we would see any depth at all, it will only be found in looking to Christ's death upon the cross. And as we are affected by His love, it will produce love in our hearts, which will then have a major effect in the church. And it will have a major effect with you dealing with all your trials and problems. Because see, when you know the deep, deep love of Jesus, you're lifted to glory. Heaven is brought down to the heart. And you can deal with anything when you experientially know the love of Christ. Now, Paul concludes this section praying that the saints would all be filled with the fullness of God. Here's a text for a theologian to work on for a while. What could this possibly mean? Well, I'm not a theologian, but I'll give it a whirl. Here's what I think it means. Paul is praying for us to comprehend Christ's love, and in John's epistle, he says that God is love. To be filled with the fullness of God must mean that, in some sense, we would be filled with God's love. And since God is love, being filled with the fullness of God is being filled with His presence. And where is God's presence promised in the New Covenant? You're just one living stone. The temple are where the stones are connected. It's in the local church. That's according to our own Lord's words in Matthew 18. And so if we would be filled with all the fullness of God, obviously meaning by degrees and ever-increasing knowledge of Christ's love, then we won't get there without the local church. Which leads me to the last point of my original sermon and the only sermon tonight. We've seen why Paul prays. We've seen what Paul prays, which may or should have been another sermon, but the last point I gave you at the beginning was the ultimate result of Paul's prayer in verses 20, 21. Now, to him who is able to do exceedingly abundant above all that we ask or think, According to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. As I said, I hope to treat this passage in another sermon, but for context sake, it teaches us the goal of all of this. It is a goal higher than getting strength from God in the inner man. It is a goal higher than ever knowing the love of Christ and having the fullness of God. in us. And that goal is that God will receive glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. In this church. But how? The goal of the Paul's prayer here is that as we are members, as members of TRBC comprehend the love of Christ, and that love and takes hold of everything, God's presence takes hold of everything, then all who visit this place will in some sense see God. Let me give you a verse. 1 John 4, 12, no one has seen God at any time if we love one another. That's the next words. God abides in us, and his love has been perfected in us. John 13, 34, from our own Lord's lips, he says, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you. That you also love one another. You know what comes next. By this, all will know angels, demons, the sinner, the saint, all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another, the kind of love that I showed you in the church. When the persecutions, the trials, and all the struggles came to the brethren at Ephesus, They were to pray this prayer. They were to pray what Paul prayed. And as they prayed, and as the Father would answer on behalf of the merits of Christ, love would envelop them, the presence of God would envelop them. And though their trials didn't go away, the heart misery of their trials would. That's what we're after. And as the world looked on, wondering, How can those Christians down there still be so content and so joyous with all those afflictions they're going through? We're making them pay more taxes. We're putting them in prison. And they're singing. Why are they not complaining and murmuring about all their problems? How can those Jews and Gentiles who hated each other so much, why are they showing so much sacrificial love to each other now? What's going on down there? It's like they've been taken over by some spirit. Yeah. The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. What is the answer to all these things? Christ. Christ's love. Christ's sacrifice, Christ's spirit. And so Christ indeed, the triune God, is glorified in this way, brethren, in the church. Now, I hope you've been able to make some personal applications along the way, but in case you haven't, here are a few you can take with you. First of all, I trust that you can now see why the local church is so important. Because it is the place where God's love and presence are made manifest. Where was the constant manifestation of God's glory in the Old Testament? The Jews would call it the Shekinah glory. It was at the tabernacle and later at the temple. Well, we know this, brethren, where is the temple in the New Covenant? It is the people of God gathering in the name of Jesus Christ. I have lived long enough to see it as a Christian. That those who are the least faithful to the church are often those with the greatest struggles and the most misery. It's not a bullet point thing for every time. I'm saying that generally, I'm sure there are exceptions, many exceptions maybe. But if not the most misery, often sometimes those who are the least committed to the church are often the most worldly, and worldliness will lead to misery in the end. When we're not faithful to Christ's church, we remove ourselves from being able to see that magnificent prayer ever being answered. We are to comprehend, listen, with all the saints, this love of Christ. We are to practice among ourselves this love of Christ. And that is how we overcome, brethren, the difficulties of life, because not only do we have God, we have each other. We have each other, brethren. There's a bunch of sinners who didn't deserve it, but God saved us, and we're willing to die for one another. The church is the bride of Jesus Christ. It's bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. It's his body. How any believer can easily forsake it? Not understanding to me, not just because I'm a pastor, Just don't understand it. But God has certain children that struggle with this. May God give them grace to be faithful. Secondly, where are we tonight concerning this prayer? Where are you tonight, brethren, concerning this prayer? How much of Christ's love do you really comprehend? Are we really moved by it on a constant basis? You see, when you have a flow of fit, you get angry and you get in sin, you raise your voice, you yell. I know none of you else have been there. Or maybe some other little sin that wouldn't be enough to excommunicate you and nobody else knows about it but you and God. What is it that brings you back? It's the cross. And what is the cross but the manifestation of Christ's love for you? that even while you were yet sinner, Christ died for you. R.C. Sproul says that's the glory of the gospel, that God would pronounce us just while we were yet sinners. It's very ironic, brethren, that later on, the Lord Jesus would rebuke the church at Ephesus for having left their first love in Revelation 2. The church was working hard. They really were. They were probably going to nursing homes and abortion clinics. They couldn't put up with a bunch of false teaching. They were excommunicating all these false teachers, no doubt. They couldn't put up with the evil. Go read chapter 2. Yet Christ was about to excommunicate all of them for lack of love. Ian Hamilton alluded to this in his commentary, and I thought it was the most profound thing I read all week outside the Bible. He said this. The New Testament insists that heart heresy is as serious as head heresy. Love for God and love for one another are among the indelible marks of an authentic Christian church. But when was a professing Christian last disciplined in a church for lovelessness? I don't know where we all are tonight, brethren. It does begin with each one of us seeking the Lord. I know this, if we don't pray this prayer, if we don't strive to comprehend and to live in that love of Christ, to live in humility, to know that we are nothing apart from that blood of Christ and his love toward us, then pride is going to trip us up again and again. So we must seek to live daily, continually, consistently. If we don't, we are apt to end up like Ephesus. Oh, brethren, pray the prayer with me in the coming days. Let us all strive to know the love of Christ. Pray also that the Holy Spirit will enable us to comprehend more fully that his love will be manifest in our own church, brethren, that we really would know what it means in our own congregation to love one another so that anybody else comes into this congregation, it will not take them long and say that God is in that place. And brethren, don't forget, the answer to this prayer is God's remedy. We're dealing with all those trials you go through. You want to rise above them. Some of them hurt. Some things in life are very painful. We're not going to escape them. Losing people we love is perhaps the biggest one. It's the love of Christ that grabs hold of you. It's what gets you through. The answer to this prayer is how we'll all rise above the things of this temporal world. so that then we can rejoice and be able to see the things which are eternal. You know, a text and a sermon like this must sound like real pie-in-the-sky stuff for some of you tonight, or perhaps for any of you who've never been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. Indeed, it all sounds so wonderful and perhaps even too good to be true, yet it isn't for the true Christian. He or she really can rise above all their trials no matter how great they are. Ask Job, ask Paul, ask Peter. Because true believers know if you have Christ, if you know his love and his mercy, at the end of the day, right there, you have really everything you need to make you content and joyful and at peace with God. He loves you. If He loves me, I'm going to be all right. Nothing can take me away from it. I'm persuaded. God really does love me. I do not know why. I don't understand it. I can give Him a hundred reasons a day to tell Him, stop loving me, Lord. Stop loving me. You've seen my life, you know. But He keeps on loving because it's not based on me, it's based on Him. And so if you're not here with Christ until you have him, you're always going to look at that other stuff to get you through. Career, good health, money, relationships, they're always going to be the things that you're going to use to answer your struggles, and they're going to keep coming up empty over and over again. The only one who can show you true love, perfect love, is the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we heard this morning, he invites you to come to him and he will give it to you freely. Come to the Lord Jesus. Come to know what true love really is. Let us close in prayer. Oh, Father, our God, who are we that we should be called the children of God? Yet such we are through Christ our Lord. We thank you for this great love. Father, you love us. Your Son loves us. The Holy Spirit loves us. Oh God, you love us. We thank you. We praise you that your love has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We would ask that in the coming days, indeed, the rest of the life of our church, love, Lord. Love will indeed be made manifest in this congregation. As we hold dear to the truth, buy it, sell it not. But we would also, Lord, with that truth, Show the world that truly Christ abides in us because we love one another. And may you be glorified because of it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.