Good morning everyone. It's good to see all those that
are here. Several are here as visitors
this morning. We're glad to have you.
It's good to see faces that we've known for many years and
and if we haven't met you, we welcome you and invite you back
at every opportunity. It's good to see Ricky with us
this morning and recovering and good to see Roman get up and,
and fly up here with his, with his Walker and lead that song.
And so people are are mending and people need our prayers
though, and, and we're glad you're here.
Hope that we can say something this morning that will benefit
us in some way. In our Christian living, God's
love is often described as a selfless, unconditional love
that is at the core of God's nature.
It's a love that is not based on any merit or worthiness on the
part of the recipient, but instead is freely given by God
to all. But the the word love is tossed
around so easily it seems these days that it may have lost some
of its impact with us. We may say, well, I love my
parents, I love my kids, I love my husband, I love my wife.
There's no doubt that you do. Absolutely.
Some may say, well, I love Mexican food.
I love a good steak. Some may say, also, well, I love
watching a good football game or I love watching the Dodgers beat
the Padres. Some may say, well, I'd love to
just relax and take it easy. Those are all different levels
and different kinds of love. So what does I love God mean?
Do we mean we love God in the same way that we like that steak
or love that steak or love that football game?
I hope not. I think we really do believe and
understand that God loves us because we've heard it in some
form or fashion from our parents, from preachers, and
from teachers most of our lives. We know that God loves us.
The problem is that we may have never fully understood God's
love and probably still don't. I don't know that we ever will
understand God's love for us. You know, when I lived at home,
I knew Dad loved me, but I never and, and all of our family, he
didn't say it all the time, but we knew it.
All of our family knew it. There was no doubt about it.
I don't know that I understood Dad's love for us at that time
with all the discipline that we got in his studies that he did,
we didn't have a lot of time or a lot of one-on-one time.
There was always something to do and you know, we didn't have
that one in one time, that closeness, that intimacy,
intimacy and that time together. But we didn't need to because we
know that we we knew that we were loved.
The problem is that I didn't understand how much Dad loved
us. It wasn't until I became a
father that I that I started to understand how much and that
individual can love their son or their daughter.
And then to have grandchildren, simply, that's the best.
I worried about our children when they were at school and
couldn't wait till they got home so we could give them a hug.
My own experiences with my children has taught me how much
God desires a relationship with us and how much he loves us.
But more importantly, what does God loves us?
Me Paul in his letter to the Ephesians praise he says that we
can understand God's love. He writes in Ephesians 3 and
verses 14 through 19. For this reason I bow my knees
to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole
family in heaven and in earth is named.
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.
Paul says his hope is that his prayer was that they may be able
to comprehend with all the Saints.
In other words, that you may have the power to understand, as
all God's people should, the love of God.
The apostle Paul apparently felt this prayer was needed because
God's people didn't and still don't today, understand or fully
comprehend. Comprehend how wide?
How long, how high, and how deep God's love is, We can say it, we
can repeat it, we can sing about it, and we do.
And we can tell others about it. We can share it with them.
But it seems sometimes we really don't get it.
To some, it's just not sinking in.
We don't comprehend God's love for us.
Paul is praying that God grants us or gives us the ability, the
power to grasp, to take hold of the concept of God's amazing
love for us. Paul said God love is wide,
God's love is wide, God's love is long, God's love is high, and
God's love is deep and it goes in every direction.
So this morning we want to try to answer the questions about
how wide and how how long and how high and how deep God's love
is for us. Well, how wide is God's love?
It's so wide that it causes us really to use the word every
God's love is so wide that God loves everybody, every race,
every nation from every continent, every country, every
culture, every class, every age, every shape, and every size,
male and female. God knows who you are and He
loves you. God doesn't only love those who
obey him, though. He loves the Sinner as well.
Every type of Sinner. He loves liars.
He loves adulterers. He loves thieves.
He loves thugs. He loves backstabbers, those
who've had abortions, gossipers, murderers, prideful, those who
practice homosexuality, rebellious, addicts, selfish.
There's not one group or individual that God does not
love. Now, Albert Barnes says this
does not mean that God approves of the conduct of man, but that
he had benevolent feelings toward them or was earnestly
desirous of their happiness. God hates wickedness.
He hates the sin, but loves the Sinner.
God's love is so wide that he loves through every situation in
life. If you're single, if you're
married, if you're divorced or widowed, healthy or sick,
employed or unemployed, rich or in debt, homeowner or homeless,
before you're in prison, doing well or have some kind of
despair going on in your life. God loves everyone, not just
certain people or individuals or group.
That's great news. You know why?
Because we are all sinners. And God loves the Sinner as well
as anyone else. Because we are sinners.
Notice Romans 2-3 and verse 23. For all have sinned and all fall
short of glory of God. Romans 5 and verse 8.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us in the While we
were still sinners, Christ died for us.
That's good news because life has a way of putting us in
different groups. Some of us have gotten ourselves
into situations that we never thought we would be in.
Trials and difficulties and tragedies of life that come up
came our way, and we became a part of a different group of
people, not God's people. We may think to ourselves, I
never thought this would happen to me.
I never thought I would have to face these temptations, these
circumstances and these problems.
I never thought I would end up in this condition.
Some of us, we've done some things that we thought we would
never have done, gave in to some temptations that we thought we
would never give in to, and we'd befriended sinners and done
things we've never planned on doing.
Never thought I would steal or lie or be rebellious against our
parents or boss or the law. Never thought I would be on
drugs or be addicted to some other kind of addiction in life.
We didn't necessarily plan that, but we got into those
situations, didn't plan on being in that group of people, if you
want to say or that type of, excuse me, individual.
We became who we used to talk about.
We joined the group of the people we used to look down on
and didn't want to be a part of. But this prayer by Paul is that
though you might have done wrong, though you might have
changed, your situation might have changed, your circumstances
might have changed, the hope is that you understand that God,
God never quits loving you. God's love is so wide that it
still includes you. The Bible says in John 316.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have
everlasting life. I'm thankful that God has that
whoever love because the whoever group includes every group and
everyone whoever believes in him should not perish but have
everlasting life. And that's good, because many of
us don't seem love to love every group.
Not the group that hurt us. Not the group that betrayed us.
Not the group that's different from us.
Not the group that we think is beneath us.
Not the group that has certain faults.
Not the ones we talked about. But God's love is wide.
Even though we have hurt him, we've strayed away.
We've betrayed him. He knows all of our faults and
instead of of not loving us, He still loves us even despite our
faults. God will still accept you when
you turn away from sin. He'll forgive you, work with
you, work on you, help you, use you because His love is wide and
He is not willing that you should perish, but instead
repent. Notice Luke 5 and verses 31 and
32. Jesus answered and said to them,
those who are well have no need of the physician, but those who
are sick I have not come to call the righteous but the sinners to
repentance. Who's Jesus calling?
He's calling. He's wanting to heal those who
are in sin, the sick and the Sinner and those who need to
repent. So God's love is so wide, He
will be able to wrap His loving arms around you regardless of
what stage you are at in life. He doesn't give up on you.
Well, how long is God's love? God's love is so long that it
reaches from the creation into eternity.
It's infinite. It's never ending, it's
everlasting. There is no end to it.
That's great news as well as well because many love with a
timer or have conditions upon the love that they show towards
others people. Many people quit loving for many
different reasons they may say, and many do today.
Well, I'll love you in the good times.
I'll love you until I get bored with you.
I'll love you until I don't need you anymore.
I'll love you until someone better comes along.
I'll love you until your looks change.
I'll love you until you let me down.
Sadly, many marriages are based on that kind of love.
I know, I don't know that you really even call it love, that
kind of relationship, but God loves us with an everlasting
love. Notice Jeremiah 31 and three.
The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying, yes, I have loved
you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness,
I have drawn you long ago, way back.
I have loved you with an everlasting love, a love that
lasts and will never end or fail.
God has loved you for a long time, consistently loved you for
a long time, an unfailing love. He loved you before you were
born, before He even knew you, before you even knew about him,
he already loved you. When you knew of him but didn't
love him back, he still loved you when you were baptized, He
loved you. When you turned your back on him
for a while. He loved you when you kicked him
to the curb for a long time, He still loved you.
If you still haven't come back to him, he still loves you.
If you have have repented and come back, He loves you.
Second Peter 3 and verse 9. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering
toward us, not willing that any should perish, but they all
should come to repentance when others give up on you.
God doesn't and will never stop loving you, even when you may
not love yourself or even love others as well.
God's love is that long. It's never ending.
He will love you forever, consistently, relentlessly,
unfailingly. God's love is long.
How high is God's love? God's love is higher than any
other's love. God's love is the purest next
level love. It's way up there if you want to
say the Greek word for this pure next level love is agape comes
from the Greek word agape, the highest form of love, it said.
It's more than romantic love. It's more than brotherly love.
It's more than our family love. Agape love is a sacrificial love
that voluntarily suffers inconvenience, discomfort, loss,
and even death for the benefit of another without expecting
anything in return. God's high love is is awesome
because many will only love with an expectation of something in
return. They may say, well what do I get
out of this? You ever had that kind of a
friend? They'd be your friend as long as
there was something that they could get out of it.
If there wasn't anything coming their way, then you would never
see them. They may say, well, what do I
get out of this? If if they're not getting what
they anticipate, that relationship is over.
Sometimes their conditions for love that others show us or we
show to others. They may say, will you scratch
my back and I'll scratch yours. I've got your back as long as
you've got my back, I'll support you as long as you support me.
Treat me right and I'll treat you right.
Or they have a matching love. In other words, we have, it's a
game. We we have to keep score.
I'll match whatever you do for me, I'll help you, but you got
to help me. And it's a give and take.
It's a give and take. And it's only if you're having
to give all the time, then we're done.
There has to be an equality in that type of relationship.
But God's not that way. His love is much higher than
that kind of petty relationship. Where would we be if God matched
our love for him? If God only supported us when we
supported him? If God only had our back when we
had his back? If God only blessed us when we
blessed Him? What is the height of our love
to God? We say, well, I will love the
Lord all the time, but sometimes I think that's more of a goal
than it is a reality for us. But we can be thankful that
God's love is a higher love. Also, God's love is high because
it's more than talk. Agape love always comes with
action. It's shown by what it does.
It's not just talk or empty promises.
Notice first John 3 and 16. By this we know love because He
laid down his life for us. It was proven there was action,
it was shown to us. It was proved to us.
It wasn't something that God just said.
He showed it to us. We know love because He laid
down His life for us. Jesus proved it by giving His
life. When it comes to the love we
show others, if we're honest, sometimes it's more talk than it
is action. I love my family, but but
there's certain members of the family I don't know about.
I love the church, but what's the least I can do?
I love my parents but I won't respect them.
And reverence them. I love my wife but there's only
so much I can take. I love my husband but but but I
love this individual but and we have limitations that we put on
it our love maybe to others, but God's love is high.
It's the greatest love that has ever been proven to mankind.
When you lay down your life. John 15 and verse 13.
Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life
for his friends. Another way God's love is high
is and pure is because He wants us to have what He has.
Someone who truly loves you with a high love always died, desires
to share all His privileges and all of the blessings and all of
the enjoyments that they have in life.
You know how it is when you have something great happened to you
and you wish your loved ones or your friends were there with you
to enjoy as well. I wish they were here to taste
this meal, how great this meal is.
I wish they were with us on this trip that they could see and
experience these views and these beautiful places throughout this
country or this world and experience the things that we
experienced and share at them with them.
We love to do that, don't we? Well, God wants to share the
blessings of his love toward us. Won't notice Romans 8 and verse
17. And if heir, and if children,
then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if
indeed we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified
together. We are heirs with Christ.
We get to inherit the same things that Christ inherited.
We get to share in His glory glorified together.
He says God wants to share with us.
Jesus wants to share heaven with us.
Notice John 14 and verses 2 and three.
And my Father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you, I'd go to prepare a
place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that
where I am, there you may be also.
He's going to prepare a place for us because He wants the best
for us. Jesus wants to share heaven
because it's such a glorious place.
Notice 1st Corinthians 2 and verses verse 9.
But but as it is written, I has not seen, nor ear heard, nor
have entered into the heart of man the things which God has
prepared for those who love Him. God loves us so much, He wants
us to share in the glory of heaven.
God's love is high, it's pure, it's a love by action.
He has proven His love for us. It's a love that truly wants us
to share in His blessings and wants us to do better and be
better and wants the best for us.
So now, how deep is God's love? God's love is rich, it's
complex, it's full, it's strong. You can't get to the bottom of
it. It's just really almost
incomprehensible. Deep, like an ocean.
You know, we talked about something being deep.
We think of the deep oceans, but on the surface what we see is
just the waves. We see the top of the water.
We see the reflection of the sky off the top of the water.
We may see the waves. We may see some fish jumping
here or there, or we see the dolphins or this or that.
We see what's just on the surface, but below the surface
is something that is just almost unbelievable.
There's life and there's power and there's just this
magnificence and it's deep on the surface.
We can say Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells
me so. But it's deeper than just that
simple statement from God's deep love.
There's mercy and grace and compassion, kindness and
goodness, forgiveness and patience, long-suffering,
undeserving blessings, undeserved blessings, eternal
rewards, and on and on. There's so many things that are
beneath the surface of God's love.
Since Jesus loves me, He's our shepherd, our rock in this mixed
up world, our fortress, our help, our refuge, our joy and
times of sorrow, our strength to deal with whatever comes our way
today or tomorrow, whenever it may be.
He's our doctor, He's our lawyer, He's our friend, He's
our Savior, He's our Redeemer. He's everything to us.
His love is deep. It's not that shallow love that
others may show to us when they want something.
God's love is much, much deeper than that.
On the surface, we see so many that have a superficial love for
God in Christ. Not a deep love, not a solid
love. It almost seems as as if they're
convenient, inconvenienced with living the Christian life.
It becomes an inconvenience to them, living the Christian life
and serving God. The God's love is so deep that
we can't see the bottom of it. We can experience, but it
doesn't end there. We can know about it, but it's
much deeper than what we know. We can see the the change that
happens in other people because of God's love and the blessings
we receive. And it goes so much deeper than
that that we don't even understand it.
But when we have problems in our life, we want all of God's love.
We want it all. We want the deep love.
But then when we serve Him, I don't want to go that deep.
What's the least I can do? It's hard for us to comprehend
the depth of God's love under the surface.
The cross means so much. Notice what Isaiah says in
Isaiah 53 and verses 3 through 6.
He is despised and rejected by men.
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
He was hid, as it were, our faces from Him.
He was despised and we did not esteem Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we
esteem him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes
we are healed, and we, like sheep, have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to His own way, and the Lord has laid
on him the iniquity of us all. He took the blame.
He took the punishment for my sins and yours.
So we should be thankful for that depth of love.
God's love is wide. It's long, it's high and deep,
it's unconditional. Well, why is it important to
understand God's love? The answer is in our verse of
our text and and there in Ephesians 3 and verse 19, the
new King James reads it this way to know the love of Christ which
passes knowledge. And here's the reason that you
may be filled with all the fullness of God.
There's the reason why, so that we can be filled with all the
fullness of God. Notice what the new Living
Translation says. May you experience the love of
Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.
Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life
and power that comes from God. And I think that's just really
grasping a small portion of the love of God.
Even though it's hard to fully know, we at least need to try to
get some understanding of the significance of God's love so we
can be everything God wants us to be filled up and complete in
him. When you really start to
understand God's love, our hearts will change, our lives
will change, our priorities will change, our reverence will
change, our praise to God will change, Our language will
change, Our devotion will change, the way we treat others
will change, everything about us will change, and we won't be the
same person we used to be when we start to understand God's
love for us. I would think it would be hard
to be the Christian you should be without understanding the
love of God. You can't be the servant, the
worshipper, the disciple, the sympathizer, the giver that you
should be. Without understanding God's
love. We would never feel alone
either, because we know that nothing can separate us from the
love of God. It's too wide, it's too long,
it's too deep, it's too high. Listen to Romans 8 and verses 37
through 39. Yet in all these things we are
more than conquerors. Through whom?
Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor heights, nor depths,
nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You can't get God to quit loving you.
We may wonder about it sometimes in the state of where we're at
with with our relationship with God.
We may think well, we'll true we're too far into sin, we're
too deep into that or we may be feeling sorry for ourselves.
I don't know what it is, but God never quits loving you.
He doesn't stop loving you, never has and never will.
They says there will be nothing, nothing that will be able to
separate us from that love. Nothing.
God will bring a change into your life when you start to
comprehend the love He has for you.
It took a long time for me to understand how much my parents
love me. You know, we were on the House.
It just seemed like we're just in that rebellious mode.
We just do everything that we can get away with, and even if
we don't get away with it, we take the punishment and we go
right on to the next thing. It took a while for me to
understand that love. My mother was the first one to
let who loved me. She carried me, she took care of
me, fed me, has done everything for me and still trying to do so
today. Since she's been living with us,
she still wants to take the small portion off the plate
because she wants to leave the big portion for me, doesn't want
me to go without. And I can't stay lukewarm about
somebody who loves me that much. It's a wide and long and deep
and high love. I can't stay lukewarm about God
that loves me with an everlasting love.
When I think about His goodness and all He's done for me and all
the sacrifices He's made for me and all He's gave up for me.
His love is so wide that he his his arms were stretched out and
allowed nails in his hands. A love so high that he was
lifted up on the cross. A love that is so deep that he
hung on the cross until, excuse me, so long that he hung on the
cross until all my sins were paid for.
A love so deep that He went down to the grave for me and my sins.
But the good news is that God loves.
God's love was so powerful that Christ rose from the dead on the
third day in victory over hell. Sin in the grave.
And I can't stay lukewarm when I understand God's love.
God's love is wide enough to wrap His arms around us and
accept us long enough to stay with us in times of trouble,
high enough to sacrifice for all, and deep enough to do
everything you need and more. God loves us.
If you haven't experienced God's love, if you're not a child of
God, we want that for you today. We want you to know God's love.
We want and God wants you to know His love for you as well.
If you haven't obeyed the gospel, if you haven't done
that, we ask that you come and, and, and hearing His word,
believe it. Repent of your life.
That means making a change of mind, which results in a change
of life, then confessing his name, that you believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and then be baptized into Christ
for the remission of your sins. If you've taken those steps for
someone reason, you've turned away and you've left God, He
still loves you. He wants the best for you.
He wants you to return. He wants you to repent of your
sins, and we'll pray with you and for you.
If there's someone that is subject to the gospel called
come while we stand and while we sing.