Well, let us turn to God's Word. We continue to consider the portion
that we find at the end of Ephesians chapter 3. Remember the second prayer of
the apostle in this epistle to the Ephesians. We looked recently
at the closing part of chapter 1 and the manner in which he
there turns from addressing them and begins to address God on
their accounts. And so we find the same here
at the end of chapter 3. Here is a man much given to prayer
in a sense he cannot help himself as he is concerned for the well-being
of the believers at Ephesus. So he doesn't only address them
and instruct them and exhort them but he must time and again
pray for them. So we've been looking now last
week and again this morning at the content of this prayer that
we find here at the end of chapter 3 from verse 15 following. Turning again then to part of
the prayer We were looking this morning at verse 17, so I'll
start reading there, but read through verses 18 and 19, part
of his petitions for them. His request that Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith, that she being rooted and grounded
in love may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ,
which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with all the
fullness of God. As I said this morning we were
really centering on the words that we have there at the 17th
verse where he speaks of both faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
but also that love of God which is in Christ Jesus. He speaks
at the end of the verse of that great love that she being rooted
and grounded in love and we remark somewhat on the antiquity really
of that love of God we have it in that word foreknown remember
the remarkable golden chain of Romans 8 whom he did foreknow,
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his
son. There is that that is previous
to the decree of predestination and it is the love of God. God
has set his love, he has foreknown a people and it is that people
that he has foreknown set his love upon that he is predestinated
to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the
firstborn among many brethren and we're told whom he predestinated
then we also called and whom he called then we also justified
and whom he justified then we also glorified but it all begins
with that remarkable love of God and that love that he desires
that these people might be rooted and grounded in that love of
God that's commended in the Scriptures. God commendeth his love toward
us says the Apostle in that while we were yet sinners Christ died
for us. So we said somewhat with regards
to that that love but also that faith that's spoken of at the
beginning of verse 17, and it really relates back to what we
were considering last Lord's Day evening, the end of verse
16, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man,
that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. And we said
those clauses are very much related one to the other. It's only by
the Spirit in the inner man that we can know what it is for Christ
to dwell in our hearts. We can know nothing of the Lord
Jesus Christ but for that blessed ministry, the gracious work of
the Spirit, revealing Christ, revealing Christ to us, revealing
Christ in us. No man can say that Jesus Christ
is Lord but by the Holy Ghost. How remarkable! We need then
to know that ministry of the Spirit. If any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, He is none of His. All believers are sealed
by that gracious work. He completes the grand design,
the eternal purpose of the Father, that salvation that was purchased
and procured in time by God the Son. And now it's made a reality
in the soul of that sinner to whom the Spirit of God comes.
and works so mightily in the heart that Christ himself becomes
as that spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that was somewhat
what we sought to say this morning, but turning now to the 18th verse,
as he continues his prayer, his desire that they may be able
to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length
and depth and height The immeasurable love of God
is what we have here. It's beyond measure. And he speaks of the vast dimensions
of that divine love of God in this particular verse. He goes on to say, doesn't he,
in verse 19, that it passes knowledge. it's beyond all our comprehension
why it is the love of God's we have those words in the book
of Job concerning God lo these are part of his ways but how
little a portion is heard of him how little a portion is heard
of him we have the word of God and yet God is so much beyond
our poor minds really, these finite minds. Dying the language
there in Job 11, canst thou by searching find out God? Canst
thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is high as heaven,
what canst thou do deeper than how? What canst thou know? And
the measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than
the seas. All that God is. We just sang it, didn't we, in
that lovely hymn of Charles Wesley, God only knows the love of God.
Oh, but what aspiration we find, I like that in Charles Wesley's
hymns, how he aspires, it's a longing, a desire. Oh, that it now was shed abroad
in this poor stony heart. That love that is only known
by God himself and yet Charles Wesley wanted to know something
of that. God only knows it. but all that it was shed abroad
in my poor stony heart says the hymn writer. Well let us consider
what he says here with regards to the vastness of this love
of God and he speaks of it in terms of breadth and length and
depth and height so to look at it in terms of those four words
first of all the length of the love of God. I know we've considered
this on previous occasions, but surely it's, as we're considering
the context here, seeing the verse particularly in terms of
this prayer, it's good to remind ourselves. What of the length
of God's love? How long is it? Well, it's from
eternity to eternity. That's how long it is. it's outside
of time really because God is love we said this morning that's
what the Apostle John says twice he said in the passage we were
reading just now in the fourth chapter of that first general
epistle in verse 8 and in verse 16 God is love God is love we
often speak of God's attributes And there are those attributes
in God, aren't there? He's holy, He's righteous, He's
just, He's gracious, He's merciful. And you can say, well, love is
an attribute of God, but in a sense love is more than an attribute.
Love is what God is. What He is, is love is. It's the very essence of God,
because he's three persons in one Godhead and he is love without
reference to anything outside of himself the relationship between
the three persons the father begetting the son,
the son begotten of the father and that relationship of love
between the persons and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the father
and the son Oh, there's that relationship between them all.
God. God is love. And when He comes
to that love, so far as we're concerned, it's a sovereign love,
because God is a sovereign. We speak of the sovereignty of
God. Well, if God is not sovereign in all things, He's not God.
Isn't the truth of God's sovereignty a great comfort to His people?
We rest in that. But how challenging his love
is. It is written, Jacob have I loved,
and Esau have I hated. He sets his love upon one, he
passes over another. That's a great offense to people,
but God has every right. He is God, he's sovereign. And his love is a sovereign love. But when we think, as we are,
of the length of that love, oh, it's like himself. Moses says
in Psalm 90, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. God himself is from everlasting
to everlasting. again in another psalm we read
the mercy of the Lord the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting
to everlasting and so when we think of the love of God are
we not also to think in terms of that that is from and true
God's love is from everlasting And now the Lord comes and assures
his faithful prophet Jeremiah. His ministry of course was so
much despised how the people preferred the ministry of the
false prophets with their message of peace where there was no peace.
And yet there is Jeremiah, his ministry so rejected but the
Lord was with him and the Lord assures him. He says, the Lord
hath appeared of old unto me, saying, I have loved thee with
an everlasting love. Therefore, with lovingkindness
have I drawn thee. Oh, the Lord, you see, His love
towards His servant Jeremiah was an everlasting love. It was
from everlasting, before ever there was any time created. And
now, that's true of all, of course. And we have it in the opening
part of the epistle, don't we? There at verse 3 in chapter 1,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world. Before the world was created
from everlasting God loved the people and made choice of them
in the Lord Jesus in the covenant they were that people that the
father committed into the hands of his son it's all according
to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord we read here at verse 11 in this third chapter And it
has been said that God loves because He loves. There is the
reason. The reason is altogether in God. It's nothing in the object of
that love, it's God Himself. It's because He is a God of love.
He loves because He loves according to the eternal purpose. which
is purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord and that was from before
the foundation of the world how remarkable it is always from
everlasting and when we think of the promise of the coming
of the Lord Jesus remember how it's spoken of in Micah chapter
5 and there in the second verse where Bethlehem is specifically
mentioned but thou Bethlehem though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come whose goings
forth have been from of old, from everlasting. His goings
forth have been from everlasting. He is the eternally begotten
Son of God, eternally begotten in the Godhead, that's his relationship
as he says in that second Psalm, I will declare the decree the
Lord has said unto me thou art my son this day have I begotten
thee that's the eternal days, we've said many a time, it's
not yesterday nor tomorrow, it's this day, it's the eternal day
he's eternally begotten of the Father the Word that was made
flesh and dwelt amongst us, the only begotten of the Father full
of grace and truth and now as Christ is that one eternally
begotten so when we think of Christ's engagements in that
eternal covenant there was a council of peace between the Father and
the Son a council of peace, a covenant of grace between the Father and
the Son together with the Holy Spirit the great purpose of salvation
and we see the out workings of it in what we have recorded here
of course in the New Testament Scriptures when the fullness
of the time comes and God sends forth his Son made of a woman
made under the law and the work before him to redeem or to redeem
sinners and thou the Lord loves them thou hast loved them he
says to the father as thou hast loved me in his great high priestly
prayer that's a remarkable statement that Christ makes to his father
concerning those that were given to him in that covenant thou
hast loved them as thou hast loved me the eternally begotten
Son, eternally loved of the Father, and all those in Him were made
choice of from all eternity. All this love of God, the length
of it then, it stretches back before time. It's from eternity,
but it reaches forth also, beyond time. It reaches forth into eternity. It's from everlasting, it's to
everlasting. When we see something of it intimated
really with regards to Christ as he comes to the great climax
of the work that the Father has given to him. He must be obedient
and he must be obedient unto death. Even the death of the
cross. All this was the commandment
he had received from the Father. No man was able to take his life
from him. He had power, literally authority
to lay it down. He had authority to take it again.
He says, this was the commandment the Father had given to him in
the covenant. And when he comes to make that
sacrifice, what do we read? Well, what do we read concerning
the love of the Lord Jesus Christ? There at the beginning of John
15, having loved his own which were in the world. He loves them
unto the end. He loves them unto the end. Now,
what is the end? In a sense, we have to recognize
the end, of course, is the sufferings. It all terminates in the cross.
That's where we see the love of Christ to sinners, but in
a sense, there's no end. He loves them forever. There's
never an end. It stretches forth that love
of the Lord Jesus Christ beyond time. I give unto them eternal
life, He says, and they shall never perish. The Father that
gave them to me is greater than all. No man can pluck them out
of my Father's house. For they are those who are secure
for eternity. Their security was there at the
beginning in the covenant, once in Him, in Him forever. Thus the eternal covenant stands,
says good John Kent. Oh, it's an everlasting salvation.
And don't we see this word everlasting time and again in reference to
the salvation in Christ. What is that righteousness that's
imputed to his people, that righteousness which is really their justification
before God, the imputed righteousness of Christ. Well remember what
we're told concerning him there in Daniel chapter 9, he comes
to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make
reconciliation for iniquity. We can understand all those terms
really in terms of his death upon the cross. There he finishes
the transgression. There he makes an end of sin.
There he makes reconciliation. And then the next one, to bring
in everlasting righteousness. It's an everlasting righteousness
that is the justification of the sinner. But then Isaiah also
uses this expression with regards to the strength of God. Isaiah 26.4 in the Lord Jehovah,
is everlasting strength. And then also Isaiah speaks of
everlasting joy, Isaiah 61 and verse 7, everlasting joy shall
be unto them. All the the salvation of the
sinner is secure because God has everlasting strength, none
can pluck them out of God's hand and so their joy is an everlasting
joy or they're secure, they're safe for time and for eternity
and so what does the Apostle say in the New Testament in 2
Thessalonians 2.16 that God has given us everlasting consolation
everlasting consolation and good hope through grace everlasting
comfort that's what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ the comforts
of the gospel then it's this love of God that is from everlasting and it's too everlasting And
then, it's also as broad as it is long really. That's what it
says. You can't comprehend, really. It's beyond comprehension. And it's the breadth, and the
length, and the depth, and the height. You know, the breadth
of it. The breadth of it. Can we not think of it in terms
of those that it embraces? It's all sorts of sinners. It's every kindred, every tongue,
every people, every nation. It's sinners from everywhere,
throughout the earth and throughout time. I know that when we go
back to the Old Testament, of course, we see that God's grace,
God's favour is confined. It's confined to Israel. He showeth
His words unto Jacob, His statutes and His judgments unto Israel.
He hath not dealt so with any nation. As for His judgments,
they have not known them. You only, He says, concerning
Israel, you only have I known of all the nations of the earth. God had set his love upon them.
They were his peculiar possession. But they were his peculiar possession
with a purpose, of course, because from these people will come the
seed of the woman, which we next see is to be the
seed of Abraham. And then we see it to be the
seed of David. And this is the purpose that
God has, because this remarkable seed of the woman, the seed of
Abraham, the seed of David, is none other than the promised
Messiah. And of course, it's in this very epistle to the Ephesians
that Paul unfolds that great mystery. In the beginning of
this third chapter he says how that by revelation God made known
unto me the mystery as I wrote in few words whereby when you
read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. And
what is the mystery? Verse 6 that the Gentiles should
be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise
in Christ by the gospel. or the Word of God, the Gospel
of the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, is to go out to the ends
of the earth. There's a wondrous breadth in
it. It reaches to Gentile sinners. The old division is gone. As he says in the previous chapter,
that middle wall of partition has been abolished. that he might reconcile both
unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. And the Lord Jesus, we're told,
is that one who came and preached peace to you which were afar
off and to them which were nigh. Those afar off, that's Gentiles.
Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Strangers. to the covenant of promise without
God and without Christ and without hope in the world that's why
they were but all the great breadth you see of the gospel the calling
of Gentile sinners but also is it not a truth friends that the
gospel comes to those who are spiritually far off, look unto
me and be ye saved he says all the ends of the earth for I am
God and there's none else and sometimes God's people are brought
to that they feel themselves to be so far off they're at the
ends of the earth the ends of the earth we see it in the language
of the psalmist there in in Psalm 61 from the end of the earth
will I cry unto thee says the psalmist He feels himself to
be so far off. Isn't that where we are by nature?
When God begins with us, He makes us feel it. When He shuts us
up to what we are, as those who are the sons and daughters of
Adam and Eve, dead in trespasses and sins, alienated, enemies in our minds. And yet, the Gospel reaches all
manner of sinners. Or the language of David there
in verse 96 of Psalm 119, Thy commandment is exceeding broad. Or the breadth of the Word of
God. You know, it finds us, doesn't it, wherever we are. The grace
of God can find the sinner. The ministered comfort to the
sinner. There's a wondrous breadth as well as a great length with
regards to the love of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. And as
there's length and breadth, so there's also remarkable depth. And sometimes God's people, it's
not so much that they feel themselves to be afar off, at the ends of
the earth, but they feel themselves to be in such strange places,
deep places. The Psalms we see time and again
in the language of the Psalms. Deep, call us unto deep, at the sound of thy water spouts. We read in Psalm 42 and then The language of Heman in that
88th psalm sometimes referred to that particular psalm where
he cries out, doesn't he, that he's shut up and he cannot come
forth, he seems to be enclosed, he's in some deep place, some
desperate place What does he say there in verse
6 of Psalm 88? Thou hast laid me in the lowest
pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath layeth hard upon me,
and thou hast afflicted me with all thy ways. Oh, he says, I
am shut up. In verse 8, I am shut up and
I cannot come forth. God brings his people into those
sort of places, deep dark places. Again, the language of the 130th
Psalm, Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, says the Psalmist. Out of deep places. Jonah knew
it. Jonah knew it when he was cast overboard And he sunk to
the very depths of the seas. And he cries out, doesn't he,
the depth closed me round about. I went down to the bottom of
the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever. He was in deep places. He was
a disobedient prophet. He'd gone contrary to God and
yet how the Lord pursued him. Takes a great storm, as it were,
out of his storehouse and and throws his house. And what do
the mariners do? They have to cast Joseph overboard. He knows he's the cause of all
their distress and now he sinks into the deeps. He brought me
up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set
my feet upon a rock. There are deeps. God's people
sometimes find themselves in such places. Why are these things
written? Why are these things recorded in the Word of God in
the Book of Psalms? Why do we read of experiences
like that of Jonah? Well, these things are written
for our learning. They're written for us, upon
whom the ends of the world are come, for our instruction, for
our encouragement. And so there will be difficult
places where God's people have to go. And the remarkable thing,
of course, is that God's Word reaches them there. Why didn't
the Lord Jesus Christ himself descend into the deeps? Think of the experiences of the
Lord. Again, we have it in the Psalm, don't we? Psalm 69, clearly
a Messianic Psalm. A Psalm of David, yes, but a
greater than David's in Psalm 69. Isn't this the language of
Christ? Save me, O God! For the waters
are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there
is no standing. I am come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying. My throat
is dry, my eyes fail while I wait for my God. How he cries out
in the language of another psalm. Psalm 22, My God, my God, why? Yes, thou forsaken. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, you
see. He goes into those deep places. Why? In order that He
might minister to His people, and they're in deep places. Oh,
there's a wondrous depth to the love of God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We can never be beyond it. When
we're in our our lowest of places when we
feel overwhelmed the Lord can meet with us and minister to
us because there is a depth to that love of God and as there
is a depth so also there is a wondrous height that you might be able
to comprehend with all saints it says this is the the experience of the saints
of God that ye may be able to comprehend with all science what
is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height. Think of Hannah. And that lovely
prayer of Hannah's, poor Hannah there in 1 Samuel chapter 2. He raises up the poor out of
the dust, and lifteth the beggar out of the dongle, and setteth
them among princes. Oh, how he lifts his people.
out of those deep places, and where does he put them? He sets
them among the princes of the earth. Or more than that. Look at the language that we
have in this epistle there in the second chapter. Verse 4,
the following verse is, God, who is rich in mercy for his
great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in
sins, hath quickened us together with Christ By grace ye are saved
and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. That's where the Lord sets his
people. That's what the Lord does for his people in his rich
mercy. when they're quickened by the
Spirit of God, when they're born again by the Spirit of God, when
they have realized in their soul the reality of union with Christ.
Where is Christ? Well, Christ is now in heavenly
places, highly exalted. He has a name which is above
every name. And God has raised up that people who are united
to Christ and made them sit together in the heavenly places. in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, friends, here is something
we have to comprehend. This is Paul's prayer, is it
not? There's something to be comprehended.
And he prays that it might be so. Although this is the wonder
of the Word of God, isn't it? It's beyond comprehension. the love of Christ, he passes
knowledge. It's beyond our knowledge and
yet his prayer is that we might be able to comprehend it. Now
it's an interesting word this because it's the same word that's
used in Philippians chapter 3 where it's translated differently.
There it's rendered by the expression lay hold of you know the passage
you know the passage where Paul in Philippians 3 is speaking
somewhat of himself and his own experience how that the Lord
laid hold of him, comprehended him this is what he says he wants to attain to the resurrection
of the dead verse 11 Well, let's go back to verse 10, that I may
know Him, that is, Christ, the power of His resurrection, the
fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His
death, it's all union with Christ, if by any means I might attain
unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already
attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after,
if that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended
of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things
which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. it's not the word that we have
here isn't the word lay hold of but that's the meaning really
of the word apprehend to lay hold of Paul was laid hold of
by the Lord Jesus there at the very gate of Damascus he was
arrested and he wants himself now to to
apprehend to comprehend to lay hold of all that he as in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Oh friends, do we have such a
desire as that? Such a longing and such a yearning
as that that we see in the Apostle. As I said, I like it. It was Sidney Norton who pointed
this out to me. Dear old Sidney Norton. He said,
you know I do like the hymns of Charles Wesley. because there
is so much aspiration in them he is yearning and longing after
such a knowledge of the Lord Jesus again I go back to that
hymn that we sang just previous to the sermon 249 in the book and that last verse
God only knows the love of God or that it now was shed abroad
in this poor stony heart, for this I sigh, for this I pine,
this only portion, Lord, be mine, be mine, this better part. But it's in all the verses, it's
in all the verses, the opening verse, O love divine, how sweet
thou art, when shall I find my willing heart all taken up by
thee? I thirst and faint and die to
prove the greatness of redeeming love. the love of Christ to me. Oh God grant that we might know
something of that then that is so immeasurable. The vast dimensions
of God's love to sinners in the person, the work of our Lord
Jesus Christ. That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love may
be able to comprehend with all sense what is the breadth and
length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ,
which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the
fullness of God. May the Lord bless to us His
truth. Amen.