As we've been looking at the
epistle to the Ephesians, we've been thinking a lot about blessings,
because it is a lot about blessings. It's about spiritual blessings.
In chapter one, it's all spiritual blessings in heavenly places,
in Christ, all spiritual blessings. So it's about spiritual blessings.
When you think about the Old Testament and the blessings in
the Old Testament, they're largely material blessings. You look
at the way that Jacob blesses his sons, and he blesses that
they'll be prosperous, that they'll have many children, that they'll
have safe kingdom and all of those, they're material things.
Because the Old Testament was very physical. The gospel was
physical in the Old Testament. There was a temple that you could
touch. There were animal sacrifices, picturing the Lord Jesus Christ.
There was blood that was real blood that ran around the altar.
It was very physical. In the same way, the blessings
of the Old Testament, when you read them, They come across as
being very materially based, though that's always picturing
spiritual. But in the New Testament, there's
no question about it. The blessings are exclusively
spiritual. They really are. Paul says, whatever
state I am in, whether in poverty or in riches, therewith to scream
and shout and jump up and down and tell God that he needs to
do more to make me rich. No, no. therewith to be content. Isn't that right? That's what
he says. I've learned in whatever state. You see, you know there's
a thing, there's been a phenomenon the last 50 years or more, the
health, wealth, and happiness gospel. It's the health, wealth,
and happiness heresy. There is no promise in the New
Testament of health, wealth, and happiness. Yes, He provides
all our needs. Yes, God gives His children their
daily bread, the things they providentially need. But He says,
seek first, what? The Kingdom of God, and His righteousness. And all these other things that
you need, they'll be added to you as you need them, not as
you want them, as you need them. Now, when you experience what
we regard as material blessing, it's tangible, isn't it? You
know, somebody gives you a gift. It's tangible. You can touch
it. You can feel it. You can look at it. Even if it's
money in the bank, you can look at what it's done to your bank
balance. It's tangible, but spiritual. How do we get hold of spiritual
blessings? Ephesians one and two, is full
of spiritual blessings, as I've already said. What are they?
They're salvation blessings. The way God has blessed us and
made us rich with salvation. They're blessings of heavenly
status, aren't they? Citizenship in heaven. You're
citizens of heaven. You're building blocks in the
house where God lives, in the temple of the living God, which
is his church. You're members of that church,
which we only know of a number of people near us and around
us in the time in which we live, but you're actually a member
of all that have ever been in Christ. All that were chosen
in Christ before the foundation of the world. He's put you, he's
taken you out of this world and put you in a church. in a church,
his church, his church, in a family. He says you're members of the
household of God. He's put you in a family. What
a blessing. How many, you know, we hear in
the news of homelessness and what a scourge it is. Child of
God, believer, he's put you in the household of God. Oh, you're
without nation. There are so many who are seeking
to change their nation. But you are in a new nation,
the nation of God. Israel, spiritual Israel, the
people of the living God. Not only that, as I've said,
you're stones in a temple. The temple is the place where
God lives and meets with his people. And you and I, if we're
believers, are stones in that temple, built together. building
fitly framed together, growing into an holy temple in the Lord,
a habitation of God through the Spirit, is what it says at the
end of chapter two. The place where God lives, through
his Spirit. But here's my question. Are you
full of the blessings of God? Are you, as it says in verse
19 of chapter 3, and this is the title of the message, are
you filled with the fullness of God? Filled with all the fullness
of God? And your answer, probably, if
you're honest, is sometimes, but not filled. To some extent,
for some of the time, But I can't honestly say that I'm filled.
I'm not overflowing. There are times when the things
of this world and my job and my responsibilities are going
on and I really have to remind myself that I belong to Christ. Because a lot of the time it
doesn't feel like that. Are you full of the blessings
of God? Where do we find the blessings
of God? Well the root of it all, at the
root of it all, is love. Love for God, and his love for
us. That's it. The love of God. That's
what we're talking about this morning. And I'm talking about the difference
between head love and heart love. Let me try to illustrate. I'll
probably make a mess of this, but let me try to illustrate
what I mean. The love that a man has for his
wife. I'm a man, so therefore I'll do it from a man's perspective.
You might hear somebody say, a man might say to his wife,
yes I love her, yes, yes, we tolerate each other, we stay
together because it's convenient, we support each other, we get
on, we don't annoy one another. Do you love your wife? That's
what some people would say if they're being honest. Compare
it with this, that's head love, this is heart love. And I couldn't
find words to describe this, but you know, I hope I'll get
close. She's the warm focus of my deepest affection. She's the
warm, you know, in there, warm focus of my deep, I love her
company. Her welfare is my top concern. I'm so concerned about her. If
I don't know where she is for a while, I get concerned. I don't
know what she, her welfare is my top concern. I feel in me,
Inside me, powerful emotion binding me to her. You see, that's heart
love. That's what I'm talking about. Not just a kind of, oh,
we stay together for convict. I love her. Peter, said the Lord
Jesus Christ. Peter, Peter, do you love me? Do you love me? The one who had
disowned Christ. on the night before his crucifixion.
Having boldly said he would never deny him, then promptly, he's
asked three times, and he denies, and the cock crows, and he's
heartbroken. Jesus said to him, I tell you,
Peter, before the cock crows, you shall deny me three times.
He says then, but let not your heart be troubled. You believe
in God, believe also in me. In my father's house, there are
many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. and you're gonna come
after me. Peter, do you love me? He's restored. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord.
Believer, you and me here this morning, do you love God? Do
you love Christ with heart love? Not just mental ascent, but with
heart love. Are your affections touched?
Are your feelings, your emotions touched with love for God and
an awareness of his love for you? Now in the first 11 verses
of Ephesians 3, Paul has written about the revelation of gospel
mystery. How do we know about the gospel?
It's not because somebody teaches us simply, although you do need
to hear to believe, but it's by Holy Spirit revelation. He reveals the gospel mystery. It's that mystery which has been
hidden. It's been hidden from generations.
But it's revealed to his saints, the secret truths. You know,
Jesus said, I call you no longer servants, but I call you my friends. And what's one of the things
he says that friends do? You know what friends do? You
share secrets with your friends, don't you? Those who are closest
to you are the ones you can tell your secrets. God. If you're his friend, he's revealed
the secret truths of his gospel to you. But have you grasped
the good of it? This is what I'm asking. Have
you grasped the good of it? Are you living in the good of
it? Are you apprehending the blessings filled with the fullness
of God? Are you filled with that fullness? Paul prays that his readers will
be so filled. Look at verse 14. This is him
praying. For this cause, I bow my knees
unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So what does he pray?
What does he pray? You see, he says the whole family
in heaven and earth is named in Christ. The whole of the people
of God is named in him. But then verse 16, this is what
he prays. He prays about your inner man. the inner you. He's praying for
God's grace for you. He's praying that God will be
great. How is God gracious to you? He reveals his truth to
you. We daily pray. We daily pray for unbelieving
members of our family. those that are distant from us,
those that are closer. We pray for them daily. What
do we pray? We pray that God will be gracious,
that God will reveal himself, that God will show himself inside
them, in them, in their inner being. And we pray that he would
grant them, be gracious to them, according to the riches of his
glory. That means in proportion to the
riches of his glory, to the richness that is in God. In proportion.
God is infinitely rich. Oh, that he would grant you,
be gracious to you, in proportion to that unmeasurable depth of
the riches that are in him. And what am I praying for, says
Paul, that you might be strengthened with might by his spirit in the
inner man. He's praying for spiritual strength. That's what he's praying for
inside you, spiritual strength. You know, we often say the flesh
is willing, but the spirit is weak. It's the Holy Spirit that
we need to give spiritual life and inner strength. That's what
we need. Holy Spirit, come and give spiritual
life and inner strength. To use another metaphor, you
remember when we were studying the book of Revelation, The woman,
which pictured the church, was taken by God into the wilderness,
and that wilderness was a separation from the world. And how did she
get there? I wonder if any of you can remember
how she got there. God gave her two great wings
of an eagle. Two great wings of an eagle to
fly there. What are those eagle's wings?
What are those eagle's wings? We saw at that time, those eagle's
wings are wings of faith. They're metaphorical. They picture
faith that God gives by his spirit. What gets you out of intertwining
with this world into the wilderness of world separation that God
has for his people? It's faith. It's by faith that
you fly there to that wilderness. Strength, he gives you, that
you might be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner
man. Strength to flap. those eagle's
wings of faith, into the wilderness of separation from the world,
and fellowship with the people of God. This is not just wise
words in a book, and willing flesh trying to do it, rather
this is God's truth, and this is divine strength. And it's
divine strength that is felt and experienced in the heart,
in the inner man. This is what he's talking about.
Strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man. It's
divine strength. And it's apprehended by faith,
which is that sight of the soul that God gives, those eagles'
wings of faith. By faith, grasping and imbibing,
taking in, absorbing the fullness of God. the love of God, for
God is love. John tells his readers in his
epistles, he says, for God is love. This is what it is, grasping
and imbibing the fullness of God. And where do you meet and
confront the fullness of God most? As these verses will show
us, it's in the love of God. So what is he specifically asking
for? That you be strengthened with
might by his spirit in the inner man, then verse 17, that Christ
may dwell in your hearts by faith. Christ dwelling in their hearts,
in your heart, in my heart, by faith. Where does God dwell?
In the Old Testament, God symbolically dwelt with his people in the
tabernacle, the tent, and then when Solomon built the temple
in Jerusalem, in the temple, in the Holy of Holies. It was
the sanctuary that God may dwell among his people. That's what
he said to them. A sanctuary that I may dwell among my people. The Holy of Holies. And what
was in the Holy of Holies? That picture, that model, that
symbol of heaven. What was in the Holy of Holies
was the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat. And around that
mercy seat was the Shekinah, the glory, the cloud of glory,
the cloud of the glory of God. That was where God said in symbol
he would meet with his people. What did it represent? Because
everything in the Old Testament, physical, represents something
that's of spiritual good to us. To them then, but to us especially
now. You see it was all done in type
and picture, but you must see by the Holy Spirit revealing
it to you, this mystery, you must see the truth of what it
means. The tabernacle represents God dwelling with his people.
How does God dwell with his people? In the Lord Jesus Christ. Show
us the Father and that will suffice. Philip, have I been so long with
you, dwelling with you, and you have not known me? He that has
seen me has seen the Father. The tabernacle represented the
human nature of Christ. Because we read in Colossians
that in him, this man, You know, he would have occupied the same
sort of space that you or I occupy when he walked this earth. God
contracted to a span. This is who it is. And yet in
that man dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In him was
the express image of God. The express image, the outshining
of God. Christ is what Hebrews calls
the greater and more perfect tabernacle. He says in the writer,
Paul, I believe it is, Hebrews 9, 11, Christ being come and
high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.
It was his body as he walked this earth. The Lord Jesus Christ
is God dwelling with his people. But what we're thinking about
is Paul's prayer that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. That he might dwell in your hearts
by faith. Solomon, when he built the temple
in Jerusalem, was staggered that God should dwell with men. This is what he said, 1 Kings
8, 27, in his prayer. But will God indeed dwell on
the earth? Will God, infinite God, dwell
on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven
of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this house, this
temple that I have builded. And of course he was right. God
is everywhere. God is omnipresent. He says,
will God indeed dwell on the earth? But in the Lord Jesus
Christ, look what Paul says to Timothy in first Timothy chapter
three and verse 16. Paul says this, and without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness. There's that word again, mystery,
the mystery of godliness. Now what is it, Paul? God, the
unknowable, the unseeable, the one who dwells in unapproachable
light, the one whom no man can see and live. God was manifest
in the flesh. Was there ever more profound
words written You know, the things that Professor Stephen Hawking
and his colleagues think about are quite profound, they're really
quite deep. But can anybody come close to
anything more profound than this? That God was manifest in the
flesh? That the unknowable God, who
made all things, who is the cause of all things, who speaks the
laws that uphold all things by the word of the power of the
Lord Jesus Christ, that he was manifest, that he was obvious,
that he was displayed in a human body, that he was justified in
the spirit, that he was seen of angels, that he was preached
on unto the Gentiles, that he was believed on in the world
and received up to glory. That's our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is how God dwells with man. Second Corinthians, chapter 6,
verse 16. are the temple of the living
God. We've already seen that in Ephesians
2 at the end of it. You're built into a temple, fitly
framed together, a habitation for God through the Spirit. Ye
are the temple of the living God as God has said, I will dwell
in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they
shall be my people. This is how God dwells with his
people in the inner man, by his spirit. How does he dwell? In the heart? Does he come as
a physical manifestation? No. Catholics say that in the
mass the wafer becomes the literal body. No. Absolutely not. Heresy. Not at all. He doesn't. He doesn't physically dwell.
But by faith he does. Paul writes to the Galatians,
I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ
lives in me. Do you hear that? Christ lives
in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. How does he live in our hearts
by faith? What does he do when Christ lives
in our hearts by faith? It changes certain things. You
know, if any man is in Christ, He's a new creature, a new creation. Old things are passed away. All
things are become new. What has become new? The understanding
has become new. In Christ, you have a new understanding
of the way things are. The natural veil that lies over
the eyes and the heart concerning the things of the Spirit of God,
we read it in 2 Corinthians a week or two ago, that veil that naturally
blinds or shrouds the truth from the natural man is taken away
by faith in Christ. Christ dwelling in your heart
by faith removes that natural veil that you might see the glory
of God. For, you know this verse well,
the God who said, let there be light, cause light to shine out
of darkness at creation, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. We read in Hebrews 1, verses
1 to 3 about God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake
unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken
unto us by his Son, by whom he made the worlds. He's made in
the air of all things. He's the outshining of the person
of God. If you would know God, you must
know his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for it is in him that
the fullness of the Godhead dwells, and understanding this, as He
dwells in your heart by faith, you experience something of the
fullness of God. Look at Ephesians 1 verse 18. Again, in a prayer
of Paul, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. Have your
Eyes of your understanding being enlightened, if Christ is dwelling
in your heart by faith, they have. You've got enlightened
eyes. You've got eyes that can see
things that others cannot see. Colossians 1 verse 9, Colossians
1 verse 9 talks about being filled with the knowledge of his will
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. In the understanding, This is
where Christ dwelling in the heart by faith comes and actually
makes a difference in the understanding. He comes and gives you spiritual
understanding. Chapter 2 of Colossians and verse
2, that their hearts might be comforted being knit together
in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding. When your understanding is worked
upon by Christ dwelling in the heart by faith, you have full
assurance of understanding. Do you have full assurance of
heaven? Yes, I do. Why? Because my understanding
has been changed by Christ dwelling in my heart by faith. 2 Corinthians
3, verse 18. talks about this, it's that chapter
that talks about the veil resting on the heart of the natural man.
But then he says, with open face, or with unveiled face, beholding
as in a glass, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord. The veil
is taken away. The veil that shrouds the view
is taken away. Christ, dwelling in the hearts
by faith, affecting the understanding. Does Christ dwell in your heart
by faith, giving you spiritual understanding? If he does, all
things are new. Where else does Christ dwelling
in the heart by faith have an effect? It has an effect on the
conscience. We all have a conscience and
some without Christ and without any knowledge of the truth, have
a conscience which is seared, as Paul puts it. It's not working
properly. It's damaged. If Christ is dwelling
in your heart by faith, he makes your conscience tender. He makes
it sensitive. What to? to the fear of God. Oh, I thought we weren't supposed
to fear. Ah, reverence I'm talking about. Reverence for God. The
fear of God. The fear of offending the precepts
of Christ's gospel. Do we not have that in our conscience?
Affected by Christ, dwelling in your heart by faith. There's
a fear in the conscience of offending the precepts of Christ's gospel. There's a fear of resisting the
Holy Spirit as he leads us and speaks to us. In the conscience
Christ dwelling in the heart by faith affects the conscience.
What about the things you want to do? Your will. Your will. What you want to do. Material
pursuits or the things of God? Yes, let's not be hypocritical.
We all like to do things in this world. We live in this world
and we're given things in this world freely to enjoy. But does
God work? By Christ living in your heart
by faith Does he come and work on your will, the things you
pursue materially, or the things of God that you pursue? For we
read in Psalm 110 verse 3 that he makes his people willing in
the day of his power. Your affections, the things that
you love, the things that you lean towards, because faith works
by love, Paul tells the Galatians. Your hope Christ dwelling in
your heart by faith causes there to be a solid hope. We've already
heard about the assurance of understanding. The assurance. Assurance of what? Of eternal
salvation. Of that eternal state secured
for your soul by Christ's saving work. It's there in you. It's
an abiding state of mind in you, in your spirit, in your inner
man. That knowledge, Christ dwelling
there by faith, gives you that hope. You have that hope of eternal
glory. And you know, that's the best
way to witness. Rather than standing on a soapbox
berating people, no. Let them ask you for a reason
for the hope that is in you. Have you received by faith the
Christ of whom the word speaks? Don't get confused, I'm not making
an Arminian thing, receive the Lord, make a decision, no. But
you do. When you believe, child of God,
under the grace of God, you receive Christ by faith in the inner
man. The one of whom the word speaks,
the one who is the word. And he affects your understanding,
and your conscience, and your will, and your affections, and
your hope. Has it been given to you? because
it's the gift of God. Faith is the gift of God. Repentance
is the gift of God. Has it been given to you? Matthew
13 verse 11, Jesus said to his disciples, they asked him, why
do you speak in parables? He said, because it is given
unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But
to them, it is not given. Oh, that's not fair. It's the
Word of God. Do we bow to the Word of God,
who surely the judge of all the earth shall do right? Do we bow
to the Word of God, or do we bow to human reason and the pressure
that comes from all round? No. It's given to you, His people,
to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. But to them,
it is not given. And how is it manifested? It's
manifested by Christ dwelling in the heart by faith. Without
this, you cannot be filled with the fullness of God. Verse 19,
you cannot be filled with it. You can't know the love of God,
because the next thing is, verse 17, that ye being rooted and
grounded in love. Ye being rooted and grounded
in love. The marks of a Christian, you
can see them in other passages, in the epistles, in the greetings,
there are three. Faith, hope, and love. Those are the three marks. Read
Colossians, the first few verses. The marks of the believers. How
does Paul know they're believers? They've got faith, they've got
hope, and they've got love for one another. And he says in 1
Corinthians 13, these three abide, never mind other spiritual gifts
which were passing for their time. accreditation gifts for
the time of the New Testament early days but he says now abide
faith hope and love but the greatest of these is love why is love
the greatest because you don't need faith in heaven because
you're there you don't need hope in heaven because you've arrived
there's nothing more to hope for you're there but love that
continues love is the greatest and he says he prays that you
might be rooted and grounded in love. And the idea of being
rooted, we're looking out at a garden this morning and there
are plants and they're all rooted there in the garden. Their roots
have gone down. They're intermingled with the
soil. They're entwined like tree roots. And the main tap root
of each plant, what might we say it is? in terms of this analogy,
it's love for Christ. That's the main taproot, that
you might be rooted with the main taproot being Christ and
his love. To you who believe, says Peter,
he is precious. Why do we love him? We love him
because he first loved us. How long did he love us? Everlastingly. When we were yet sinners. When
we were polluted in our own blood, as Ezekiel 6.16 says. That's
when he loved us. When we were most unlovely to
look upon. When there was nothing about
us to recommend us to him. He loved us because of grace,
because of eternal love. He says you're rooted, like the
roots of a plant intermingled with soil, rooted in the love
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says grounded in
love. Grounded means built on a solid
foundation. Built on a solid, what is the
solid foundation that you're built upon? Isaiah 28, 16, we
saw it last week. Behold, I lay in Zion a cornerstone,
a chief cornerstone. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the cornerstone on which everything is built. Everything
is built. Your faith is built on him, on
what he has done, on what he has accomplished, on the death
that he died, to purchase your justification from the curse
of the law. Anchored elsewhere, an anchor
for the soul, it talks about him being that solid rock which
is Christ. And like the miry clay, he is
the solid rock, he is the foundation. And Colossians 1.23, says this
Colossians 1 and verse 23 says if you continue in the faith
grounded and settled you know when you build a new house or
a new house is built and it looks all prim and proper and you move
into the new house we've done this a couple of times and After
a few months, you start to see cracks appearing. What's happening? It's settling. The building is
settling on its foundations. Bits that are not quite strong
enough are giving way until it's on a firm foundation again, and
that leads to cracks. Grounded and settled, settled
on him, firm on the foundation. You can then fill in the cracks,
and generally speaking, all being well, it will sit firm, not moving,
on that foundation. This is what he's talking about
here, rooted and grounded, intertwined with the love of Christ, and
built solidly upon him. That big cherry tree down the
garden there, that those of you that are here can see, its roots
fill the garden soil. I tell you, within about, what
would you say, 10 metres of that tree, the base of that tree,
you cannot dig without it being nothing other than roots of that
cherry tree. They're intermingled. It's rooted. They've gone everywhere, just
like this is the picture, rooted and grounded in love, in the
love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Going everywhere, experiencing
the love of Christ in saving grace, penetrating every corner
of your inner man. That's what it is. And then,
verse 18, that you may be able to comprehend with all the 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. Verse 18, to comprehend. The word that's translated comprehend
there would better be translated apprehend, for it can be translated. The difference is this. To apprehend
is to grasp by faith, to grasp hold of. You know like the police
might apprehend a criminal, they grasp hold of him, they feel
his collar, they get him, grasp him. You see, you may not comprehend,
but by faith you're able to apprehend. Can you comprehend? Can you plumb
the depths of what is in the love of God, in the Lord Jesus
Christ? No. You can't get to the bottom
of it. You can't get your head round
it. You can't understand every nook and cranny of it. Not at
all. You can't comprehend it. But you can, by faith, apprehend
it. You can take hold of it. You
can hold it. This is mine. I've apprehended
this, that I might apprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length and depth and height of the love of Christ.
You can take hold of it. Even when you can't comprehend
the love of Christ, you can apprehend it by faith. And it's the love
of Christ, the love of Christ, that we're to apprehend by faith.
And it isn't something that is just for super saints. Look,
it's with all saints. Everybody, every child of God,
irrespective of status or rank or age or colour or creed or
language, It's for all saints. How far do you love someone? In the flesh, even your best
efforts, as I was saying before, you know, they might sound poetic
and good, but quite honestly, they're always limited by the
flesh. How far do you love somebody? How far do you love your wife,
your husband, your child, your parent, as long as they keep
loving you? Well, some of us would say we
go beyond that. As long as they're faithful and caring and considerate
to you, we can say yes, that we can go beyond that in some
cases. But the best, the very best of human love is limited
in extent. But the love of Christ, the love
of Christ, is there any limit to the love of Christ? Look at
verse 18, that you may be able to apprehend what is the breadth
of the love of Christ. How wide is the love of Christ?
How far does it reach? It reaches to all nations. There's
no distinction of race. In these days when racism is
such a crime, in these days when the open borders of this world
are meant to be the perfect antidote to racism, in the gospel of God's
grace, the love of Christ reaches people in all nations, irrespective
of borders. As I was saying last week, the
gospel of Christ does that which political correctness tries and
patently fails to do. God so loved the world, a world
of sinners, a world of sinners without distinction of race.
Because when you look in Revelation at the church in glory, and I
beheld, every tribe and tongue and kindred was there. The breadth
of the love of Christ reaches to all without distinction of
nation or race or language. And the length, the length of
his love the length. When did I start loving my wife? When will I finish loving? On
all these things you can put starts and stops on them, can't
you? But when did Christ's love start in time? It didn't. It's from eternity. I have loved
you with an everlasting love. When will he stop loving us?
Never. Because in glory, in heaven, there will be The ultimate sinless
manifestation of the love of Christ for his people and his
people's love for him. The length of it. The depth of
it. How deep does the love of Christ
go? It covers all sins. It reaches down below. Do you
know there's only one unforgivable sin in the scripture? Do you
know what that is? It's the sin of rejecting the
gospel. That's it. God will not forgive the sin
of rejecting the gospel. He won't. If you go to your grave,
having rejected his gospel, you get what you deserve, which is
an eternity of hell. He covers all sins, however deep. Think of David, the man after
God's own heart. Think of the heinous crime that
he committed. Oh, I've sinned, said David,
Psalm 51. But God spoke to him. God forgave
him. Think of Manasseh, the very worst
of the kings of the Old Testament. Dreadful things that he did.
Absolute abominations, but God brought him low. God brought
him low. God did. However deep. Think
of even Nebuchadnezzar. You know, in his pride and his
heathen arrogance. And yet God brought him. The
love of God stretched to him, I believe. The love of God went
down to Jeremiah when he was in the mire, in the swamp, in
the dungeon. He went down to Jonah when he
was in the whale in the depth of the ocean. Even there, even
there, Deuteronomy 33 verse 27, the eternal God is thy refuge
and underneath are the everlasting arms. Comprehend the incomprehensible. Look at verse 19. And to know
the love of Christ. This is it. It's breadth and
length and depth and height. To know that love of Christ which
passeth knowledge. You see, you can't understand
it. Comprehend the incomprehensible because it passes knowledge.
You can apprehend it even if you can never fully comprehend
it. But Christ dwelling in the heart, by faith, rooted and grounded
in love, immersed in God's everlasting love, walking with Him. In that
way, believer, you can experience what it is to be filled with
the fullness of God. Amen.