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Tag Archives: Ephesians 3

Understanding the Depth of God’s Love

24 Nov

If you want to think about incredibly deep love, it’s hard to do better than parental love. Most parents who are not caught up in addiction or extreme self-centeredness will ascribe deep, deep love for their sons and daughters. It’s only natural and right. And with this in mind, we probably don’t make enough of the fact that God calls us…His children. The Apostle John states that it is this kind of love which is gloriously high and wonderful:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; 1 John 3:1 (ESV)

John says, “Do you want to know what kind of love the Father has for you? It’s like the love your parents have for you, or the love you have for your children…it’s that kind of love.” J.I. Packer writes well about this in his classic Knowing God…

In adoption, God takes us into his family and fellowship—he establishes us as his children and heirs. Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the Judge [justification] is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father [adoption] is greater.

J.I. Packer, Knowing God

The Lord wants us to understand His love, for it is this love that compels us to live for Christ and His Kingdom (2 Corinthians 5:14). So, how do we come to understand this love? Well, first, we need to put our imaginations to work and with God’s help, try to understand His overwhelming love for us. To do this, we can spend time meditating on the ones we love, recognizing that God’s love for us is far greater than our love for those nearest and dearest to us.

But there is another thing we need to do: You see, we are mistaken if we assume that Christians automatically have an understanding of God’s love, because the Apostle Paul didn’t subscribe to this idea. We know this because the Apostle made the comprehension of God’s love a focus of his prayers for the Christians at Ephesus, giving us a model prayer that I often pray for myself, my family, and our church. As you read, notice Who He prays to…The Father:

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 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. Ephesians 3:14-19 (ESV)

For Wednesday, November 24th: 1 John 4

 
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Posted by on November 24, 2015 in Uncategorized

 

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A Pastor and a Rabbi Preach a Sermon…

25 Jun

Imagine you were traveling across the country, and found yourself scanning radio stations. Now suppose you heard an engaging preacher and stopped to listen – here’s my question: how would you be able to tell if it was a Christian preacher or a Jewish Rabbi? (To make this more interesting, let’s just say that in this scenario, Jewish folks are a bigger presence in our country than they actually are, and that as many Rabbis are on the radio as Pastors. So you’ve got a 50-50 shot here.)

The message from this mystery expositor, of course, is from the Old Testament. The New Testament would be a dead giveaway. So…would you be able to tell?

And by the way, no fair listening till the end when the Christian closes in prayer, and says, “In Jesus’ name, Amen.” I’m talking about actual content here.

The truth is that in such a situation, whether listening to a sermon from Exodus or Ezekiel, a lot of times, most of us (myself included) wouldn’t be able to tell, and that’s a bad thing – not for us, mind you – but for the engaging Christian Pastor who’s preaching and who sounds just like the engaging Rabbi. So a message on murder or adultery from the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 would sound the same from either communicator: “It’s bad. Very bad. Be sure you don’t do it.” Only from a good communicator, much more clever.

As a pastor, I’ve made the “sounds just like a Rabbi” mistake too many times. It’s moralism, and it’s pretty easy to do.  But consider this – whenever the Apostle Paul preached, he always had the same message, and that message…was Christ:

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Ephesians 3:8 (ESV)

Here was a man with only the Old Testament to work with and yet, when he preached, he always proclaimed Christ. Always.

  • Did they hand him the scroll of Exodus in the Synagogue? Jesus was the Passover lamb.
  • The scroll of Isaiah? That’s an easy one – Christ was the Suffering Servant.
  • 1 Samuel and David and Goliath? The message from Paul would not have been “Try to trust God more like David did, and you’ll slay your giants too,” but, “Isn’t it great that we too have a Champion who slayed the giants of sin and death for us, so we can rush forward in victory?”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard those messages on David and Goliath, and I’ve tried that “Trust God and try harder plan” against the giants in my life, and yet I’ve still got one or two (or more) giants greeting me every day. So you see, the first message on “being a better trust-er” only puts me under the condemnation pile, but the second one…fills me with hope. The real giants have fallen because HE was perfect in HIS trust.

So, whether Paul’s text was from the Prophets or Proverbs – the Apostle talked about Jesus. Because ultimately, if the message is not about Christ, it is only a warmed up version of “try harder.” And to be sure, the “try harder” message is often preached very cleverly and sometimes with great insight and humor, but it’s still the law, and such messages usually produce about as much change as a New Year’s resolution.

Paul, however, had a better plan, the only plan for the Christian preacher:

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2 (ESV)

 

For tomorrow, Friday, June 26th: Ephesians 4

 
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Posted by on June 25, 2015 in Uncategorized

 

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