All right, let's go to the book
of Ephesians chapter three. My subject is the Savior's love. The Savior's love. We'll go to
Ephesians chapter three. Here's my text. Ephesians chapter
three, verses 18 through 19. Though I'll address a few other
verses, These are the ones that I want to focus on as we talk
about the Savior's love. This, all of chapter three, Paul
writes to the church of Ephesus. He speaks as one who is a prisoner
of the Lord Jesus. He has been put in prison for
no other reason than he preached the gospel. This is one of the prison epistles. He wasn't in the best of situations. The circumstances in which he
found himself, they weren't very pleasant. And yet you don't hear
him saying anything negative about where he is or what he's
experiencing. He doesn't do that. Rather, he
writes by the inspiration of the Spirit of God to encourage
and instruct the saints of God in Ephesus, and he is writing
to saints. In fact, I said look at chapter
three. Go back to chapter one. We just
want to make sure we understand who the letter is addressed to.
In chapter one, verse one, we read, Paul, an apostle of Jesus
Christ, by the will of God. It was God's will that he be
an apostle, and he writes to the? Not to the world, but to
the saints. Not to everybody, but to the
saints. Not to unbelievers, but to saints. The saints which are at Ephesus,
and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. In other words, to people
who believe the gospel. That's who he writes to. And
if you believe the gospel of grace, if you rejoice in the
Savior, if you've cast your soul all of your neediness upon the
Lord Jesus, you believe Him, you rest in Him, you receive
Him, then it's written for you. You see, really, the Word of
God is written to the Father's children. That's who it is, and
it's written to the Savior's bride. The Word of God is specifically
addressed to people people who've been brought to love Christ Jesus. So this is not written to all
the world. It's not written to unbelievers.
It's written to those who are saints, that is to those who
are sanctified by God the Father in old eternity. It's written
to those who are sanctified by the substitutionary offering
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's written to those who are
sanctified by the Spirit of God because He actually brings us
into a knowledge of the Lord Jesus and we're washed, we experience
the washing of all of our sins away, not through the work of
the Spirit, but he reveals to us that the work was done by
the Lord Jesus 2,000 years ago. So he writes to believers. He writes to the saints of God.
With that understanding then in chapter three, I want you
to notice that he has some prayer requests. As he writes to these
believers, he has some specific petitions that he offers to God
on their behalf. Look up in verse 16. He talks
about that he would grant you, he prays that God would grant
you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened
with might by his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith, that ye, 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." These are his prayer requests for the people
of God. I've been looking this over the
last couple of days, just reading it and re-reading it. And what
I try to do, first of all, when I feel led to go to a passage
of Scripture, I just try to saturate my mind with that passage at
hand. If you're going to teach a Bible
class lesson or get up here and preach or have a devotional somewhere,
Here's what you need to do is take the Word of God and just
read it and read it and read it again just to where as much
as you can do, it just fills you. Because there's an amazing
thing about the Word of God. The more we read it, the more
understanding we'll receive, the more light God gives. Don't you find that to be so?
The more you read it, and the more you'll understand. And then
the Lord, especially with preachers, as we read the word of God, then
he kind of triggers things in our minds and in our hearts and
then leads us to pursue perhaps other references of scripture.
But it's very vital that whenever we get to a passage of scripture
that we just saturate ourselves with the word of God. In fact,
we should always do that. David said, wherewithal shall
a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto to the
Word of God. Do you want to know how to live
in this world? You want to know how to exalt
the Lord Jesus? You want to know about avoiding
temptations? Just read the Word of God. I
cannot impress upon you strongly enough the necessity sticking
with the scriptures. Just read the Word of God. And
I'm not opposed at all to reading biographies of good men. You
gotta be careful of those, of course. And I'm not opposed to
reading good commentaries that are sovereign grace writers.
But there is no, there's nothing like reading the Bible. We've
got to just stay in the Word of God. And here's the apostle.
This is what, as I read this several times, this is what struck
me as I read these prayer requests for the saints of God. None of
these requests have anything to do with physical things. Did
you notice that? None of the, now that doesn't
mean we shouldn't ask We shouldn't make requests for, pray for somebody
who's sick or somebody who's having difficulties. I understand
that. But you know what the Lord Jesus
said? He said, the Father, He knows what things you have need
of. So He talks about set your heart,
set your affection, seek righteousness, seek the Lord. That's what He
says. Seek these things that have to
do with spiritual matters. And these other things, God knows
that you need something to eat. He knows you've got to live somewhere.
He knows when you're sick. And we come to the Lord and say,
Lord, if it be your will, give healing. grant healing to so-and-so
who is having problems. He knows about those things,
but we ought to be more spiritually minded, so we bring our requests
to the Lord, and we say, Lord, teach us spiritually. When I'm
in the midst of a trial, Lord, what is the lesson I need to
learn from this? And Lord, enable me not to murmur. Enable me to grow in grace. Enable me to rely on You more
fully. These are the things that we
really need. That's the reason as the book
begins in Ephesians chapter one, he says, we've been blessed with
all, what'd he say? Spiritual blessings, isn't that
right, Ron? All spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. Spiritual blessings are forever. They're forever. Physical blessings,
all these temporal mercies, now they gonna end. And we may say,
Lord, so-and-so's sick. Please heal them. And I know
churches, they got prayer chains. Let's get every church in the
whole community praying about somebody who's sick. Somebody
called me the other day. I rarely answer the phone here.
Somebody else answers the phone here. Well, lots of times I'm
by myself, and I just, I broke my own room. The ringer's off in my office.
But I, oh well, it's a local number, and somebody was sick,
said, I'm calling all the churches, because we want all the churches
praying for, I've got cancer. And I said, well, I'm sorry you've
got cancer. Perhaps the Lord will be pleased to heal you.
And I said, I'll pray for you. And I did. Lord, if it be your
will, heal me. But this, see, these are the
things that Very sadly, these are the things that weigh heavily
upon us. Physical matters. But as this
man writes, led of the Spirit of God, you understand, right?
He's inspired. This is not just his thoughts,
right Terry? This is what the Spirit of God
laid on his heart to write. And as he writes this, he doesn't
address physical matters. He addresses spiritual things. In fact, go back up, look at
verse 13. He says, wherefore I desire that
you don't faint at my tribulations for you. He didn't fuss about
his tribulations, but he said, I don't want you to faint at
my tribulations for you, which is for your glory. I'll tell
you, this is what Paul was concerned about. He was concerned, here
he is in prison. In a dungeon, he's been arrested
by Rome for no other reason than preaching the gospel. Preaching
the gospel to Gentiles. He's telling Gentiles about Jesus
Christ the Lord. He's preaching to the Gentiles
about grace. about the Lord Jesus, who gave
His life, a ransom for His people, who's been exalted to the highest
heaven, He's Lord over all. This is His message. And He goes
out preaching to the Gentiles and the Jews. That tore them
up. And then they stirred up the
Romans. Get that guy! Get that guy! And they did. And this is what
was of concern to Paul. Now, he doesn't write about,
well, you know, pray for me that I'll be released, and he doesn't
whine. I'd be whining. Oh, y'all pray
that the Lord release me. I don't like it down here. That's
what I'd be doing, I'm sure. Except for the grace of God.
And except for the grace of God, that's what he'd be doing too
now, because he's just a sinner saved by grace. But he says,
this is my request. I don't want y'all to be disheartened
by the fact that I'm in prison. Because you see, the enemies
of the gospel, the enemies of the gospel will use anything.
And I bet you they were saying to the Ephesian people, well,
I heard that preacher you like, I heard he's in jail. I heard
he's in prison. He's a criminal. Your preacher's
a criminal. And he doesn't want these people
to be brokenhearted. He doesn't want them to be upset. He said, I don't want you to
faint. I don't want you to faint in my tribulations, which are
for you. It's because I preached the gospel
to you. And he said, it's for your glory. Because I was able to preach
Christ Jesus to you, and you're going to wind up in glory. So
this is all working out for our good. This is what he's saying.
And in verse 14, he says, for this cause, I bow my knees unto
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Imagine that. Here's a man in a dungeon. And
he writes, and there are other prisoners there in whatever shackles
they were in. Just, just a meager amount of
food, just barely to keep them alive. He says, I bow my knees
right here unto the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ. I wonder what
the rest of the prisoners thought about that. Look at this guy. And you know what? That's exactly
what he did in Philippi, wasn't it? They did the same thing in
Philippi. They prayed and sang praises
at night, and the prisoners heard them, and the jailer heard them,
too. Well, Paul's in prison again.
Well, what's he doing? Praying again. But he's not praying,
I want to get out of this place. Oh, how horrible this is. He's
praying for others. He's praying for others. He's
concerned about the spiritual needs of others. He said, so
I bow my knees to the Father. I bow to the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is
named. And this is what I'm praying about, that He would grant you,
according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with
might by His Spirit in the inner man. I want the Lord to make
you strong spiritually. That's what I want for you and
for you, for all the rest of, and for me too, that the Lord
would strengthen us in the inner man. Strengthen my confidence
in Christ. Strengthen my assurance. Strengthen
my faith. Strengthen me in the inner man.
What else do you pray about? Look, verse 17, that Christ may
dwell in your hearts by faith. He said, this is what I pray
for, that Christ might dwell in your hearts by faith, by faith, that you'd believe him. Now, they had received the Savior,
but his desire is that they would be more aware of the fact that
the Lord Jesus dwells in their hearts, and this only comes by
faith. And I'll tell you what all of
us need here tonight. You remember reading in the book
of Hebrews how Paul talks about the sin that doth so easily beset
us. And I've heard preachers preach
on that, and I've preached on that, of course. But there are some preachers
say, well, everybody has their different sin. That's the besetting,
you know, you've got your besetting sin, you've got your besetting
sin, I've got my besetting, as if they're all different. I don't
think so. I think we all got the same besetting
sin, because that follows Hebrews chapter 11, which is the faith
chapter. That's what gets us. That's what
gets us in trouble, lack of faith. That's right, lack of faith.
We have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. God has given us
faith. He's given us confidence in the
Son of God, but we don't believe him as we should. So he says
that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. And here's another
request, and that ye being rooted and grounded in love. In whose love? Well, I wanna
be, I certainly wanna love the Lord, but it's to be rooted and
grounded in his love, in his love. And that, watch it, verse
18, that we may be able to comprehend with all saints, watch this,
he gives a four-dimensional look at the love of Christ Jesus. that we may be able to comprehend
with all saints. In other words, I'm not just
talking about the saints of God in Ephesus. I'm talking about
all saints everywhere who reads this. That we may be able to
comprehend with all saints what is the breadth. How wide is His love? I tell
you, it's this wide. He has a people, He loves a people
out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. That's the
breadth of His love. And length! When you think of
length, that's how long. How long is His love? It reaches
from everlasting to everlasting. That's the length of it. And then it says the depth. Oh, the deep, deep, love of Jesus. Vast unmeasured. That's what
we sing. How deep is his love? How deep
is the love of Jesus? It's so deep, it goes down and
finds a poor old undeserving sinner on the dunghill and raises
him up and washes him in his blood and robes him in his righteousness
and takes him to glory and sets him among the princes of his
people. That's the depth of his love.
And the height. How high does this love raise
us? All the way to God. All the way
to God. And he says in verse 19, and
to know the love of Christ. It passes knowledge. That you might be filled with
all the fullness of God. My, Paul, What wonderful prayer
requests. What wonderful prayer requests.
Let me tell you a few things about the love of Christ, just
real quick. Number one, his love is restricted love. Go over a
page or two to Ephesians 5. It's restricted love, verse 25.
Ephesians 5, 25, husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the
church, and gave himself for it that he might sanctify and
cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might
present it to himself a glorious church, an honorable church,
a church held in high esteem, the very highest esteem. not
having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. It's restricted love. Who does
he love? The bride. The bride. He's the bridegroom. Here's some man, woman, I got
two weddings planned in the next few months. Bridegroom and bride. Who's the bridegroom love? It
better be just the bride. Right. It better be just the
bride. It's a love that's restricted.
Oh, he has a general, general perhaps affection for other people,
but there's only one who's got the love of his heart. That's
his bride. Our Lord Jesus has one that has
the love of his heart. It's his bride, also called his
sheep. His sheep. Those that the father
gave him. It's a restricted love. That's
why Paul said, when he was speaking to the Ephesian elders in Acts
chapter 20, he said, feed the church of God, which he had purchased
with his own blood. Feed the church of God. It's
a restricted love. I'll tell you something else.
This love was self-sacrificing. Self-sacrificing. It says here
that in verse 25, Christ loved the church and gave himself for
it. This is a self-sacrificing love. Look back earlier in chapter
five. Look at verses one and two of
chapter five of Ephesians. Be you therefore followers of
God, imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love as
Christ also hath loved everybody? No, us. He loved us. Who are the us? Well, who's the
letter written to? Saints. Faithful believers. and hath given himself for us
an offering and a sacrifice unto God, which was a sweet-smelling
savor to God. This is a self-sacrificing love. We come to know his love. You
see, this is how we know the love of Christ for us by what
he's done for us. What he's done for us. He chose
us to be his bride. You know why? Because he loved
us. He espoused us unto Himself and He to us because He loved
us. His delights were with us before
the world was ever made. You know why? Because He loved
us. Let me show you a passage in Proverbs 8. Look at Proverbs
chapter 8. You know in Solomon's book of
Proverbs, is used in the feminine gender. But wisdom here is speaking of
our Lord Jesus. He is the wisdom of God. This
is all about him. And I don't have time to read
all of this, but here's our Savior. Here's wisdom speaking. He has
all wisdom, see. Let me just read a few verses.
Proverbs 8, 23. I was set up from everlasting. You know what that means? Inaugurated.
I was ordained. I was picked to be the Savior. From everlasting. From the beginning. Or wherever the earth was. It's
the Savior speaking. Our representative. Our surety.
When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were
no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled,
before the hills was I brought forth, while as yet He had not
made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust
of the world, when He prepared the heavens, I was there. When
He set a compass upon the face of the depth, when He established
the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, when
He gave to the sea His decree that the water should not pass
His commandment, when He appointed the foundations of the earth,
then I was by Him as one brought up with Him, and I was daily
His delight." And that word, delight, is a very powerful word.
It means God the Father took extra special joy and delight
in the Son of God. Watch it. Rejoicing always, always
before Him. The Father rejoicing in the Son
of God and the Son of God rejoicing in the Father. Now watch this.
Rejoicing in the habitable part of the earth. And my delights,
my extra special joy, were with the sons of men. Not with the
angels. Not with the angels. I was with
all the beautiful planets and stars that He was going to make. This is before anything was ever
made. My delights, my joy, my thrill,
my heart was fixed upon those, the sons of men. Us, in other
words. That's what He's talking about.
You see, His love, even then, was a love of the utmost delight
and satisfaction in people like us. It was a love that it just continued,
notwithstanding the fall of Adam. You see, we fell in Adam, but
we didn't fall out of the love of Christ. We didn't fall out
of the covenant of grace. We didn't fall out of that glorious
election. No, we didn't fall out of his
arms. We didn't fall out of union with
him. We fell into sin. Oh yeah, we
fell into sin. But even then, he took great
extra special delight in us. And if you notice the scriptures,
how often it talks about the Lord rejoices in his people.
Read sometime, our time's about gone, but in Zephaniah chapter
three, it talks about that. I'll give you another illustration.
This will come to your memories real quick. Luke chapter 15,
the parable of lost things. Lost sheep, lost coin, lost son. And when each of the ones were
found, it was rejoice with me. Rejoice. There's joy in heaven,
that's what it says then. There's joy in heaven over one
sinner that repents. Was that the joy of the angels?
No, the angels are looking in the face of somebody who's rejoicing. That's the Lord. That's the Lord. His delight, His delights, His
joy, His satisfaction, the utmost satisfaction of the heart of
the Lord Jesus Christ has always been with His people. That's
evidence of His love. Because He loved us, He took
our nature into union with Him. He laid down His life for us
because He loved us. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree because He loved us. He endured the wrath of God
for us because He loved us. He died, He gave up the ghost
because He loved us. He is buried because He loved
us. He conquered death because He loved us. He went back to
heaven and He represents us in heaven right now because He loves
us. And He sent a preacher to tell
us about Him because He loved us. He sought you out and He
sent you a preacher. And with good many of us is Henry
Mahan. But it don't matter who he sent
to us. He just sent us somebody to tell us the truth. That's
all that matters. He sent us somebody to tell us
the truth about the gospel of substitution and satisfaction.
And because he loved us, he sent the Holy Spirit to quicken us
when we were dead in trespasses and sins. Because he loved us,
he gave us the gift of repentance. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry
for my sins. He gave me the gift of faith
to look to Him, look in the sweet face of the Lord Jesus Christ
and find the very Savior I need. Because He loves us, He represents
us to the Father. Because He loves us one of these
days, He's coming for us. He might come for us like He
did for Brother Lawrence a week, just a little bit more than a
week, a week and a few hours ago. he came for by the Lord. So one
of these days he's going to come for whoever's alive and remain
on this earth who loves him. That's because he loved us. He
loves us. Because he loves us, we're going
to spend forever with him. That's right, because He finds
His delight in us. And you know what? We find our
delight in the Lord. We find our delight in Christ
Jesus. We find our joy in Him. And He
finds His delight and His joy in us. That's a real marriage
right there, isn't it? See, that's the bridegroom and
the bride. And His love is long-suffering.
It'll never wear out. You're not gonna wear His love
out. It's long-suffering. It's forgiving every time you
go to Him. Oh dear Lord, I have messed up
again. Please forgive me. It's gone. I forgive you freely. It's like the woman they brought
before Him. And finally He said to her, He
said, Woman, where are those thine accusers? No man, Lord. And I tell you, with us, where
are our accusers? They're gone! Because somebody
has answered for our guilt. Somebody paid our debt. And His
love, that's our security. Because of the love of Christ,
we can't be separated from Him. And I'll give you one more thing.
Turn to John 13. Go back to that passage I start
off with, John chapter 13. The love of the Lord Jesus sets the standard for our love. How am I supposed to love you? Now, of course, here's the standard.
Husband, listen up. Love your wife like Christ loved
the church. That's a tall order, isn't it?
That's a giving love, giving of yourself. That don't mean give her a hard
time. That means give yourself to her. I have found this to
be true through the years. Husbands and wives. If I find
a husband who treats his wife royally, usually you'll also
find a submissive wife. That's just the way it works.
You treat your wife the way she ought to be treated. She's the
queen. She's special. She's a helpmate
God sent you. Love her, esteem her highly. She's a gift from God to you.
Love her like Christ loved the church. Give yourself to her. Wasn't it sweet at the funeral,
Brian talking about Lloyd's love for Carolee? That's a sweet time. That's the way all husbands ought
to be. I hope that's the kind of husband I am. And when you
find a husband like that, Usually, you'll find a wife who's
submissive because she says, my goodness, he makes over me
all the time. He treats me special. He just
dotes on me. Well, that's what you're supposed
to do. That's what you're supposed to do. Dote on her. And she'll
be submissive to you. That's just the way it works.
You want a happy marriage? That's the way it works, right
there. You don't need to buy one of them how-to books, how
to have a good marriage. Wives, be submissive to your
own husband. Husband, love your wife like
Christ loved the church. There it is. That's not too complicated,
is it? Look here, here it is, John 13,
34 and 35. John 13, 34, I was gonna read
something I read a while ago, but I won't go to this one, I'll
quit. John 13, 34, 35. A new commandment I give unto
you. that you love one another. As
I have loved you, that ye also love one another. There's another tall order. I tell you what, you won't have
any trouble in a church. You're not gonna have any fusses
in a congregation. If we love each other, like Christ
Jesus loves us. He don't say bad things about
us. He don't run us down behind our
backs. He's always forgiving. Let's
just love one another like that. That's the example right there.
That's the love of the Lord Jesus for his people. Well, what do
you think the song we all sing right now should be? Well, I'll
tell you. Isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful? 450. 450. Isn't the love of Jesus
something wonderful? 450.