Fathom His Love

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Good morning. Welcome to Thrive today. It's good to have you here today. We are continuing our series called Fathom. And we're walking through the letter to the Ephesians, taking a section of each chapter once a week. So we're in chapter 3 in our third week. And we're looking at the height and breadth and width and depth of the love of God and Jesus Christ. And today we are in the chapter where that verse is actually located. And we're in the chapter where the whole theme of Fathom comes up. Now, Paul doesn't use the word Fathom in the text, but it's a synonym for what he uses. He uses the word to comprehend, to actually understand. Some have used measure to be able to grasp, to apprehend. And I thought, you know, well, Fathom is one of those ways. And what we're trying to fathom is something that's unfathomable, really, the love of God. The infinity of that and how it has impacted us and made a difference. So we're reading now here in Ephesians chapter 3. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Wow. From this prayer, we're going to learn these three aspects today. Why in the world that we need to fathom God's love? What it means to fathom it? And then finally, what results when we do? Okay? So why do we need to fathom God's love? What I find interesting about this prayer, by the way, is that Paul is praying for the Ephesian Christians. Do you understand? He's praying this prayer for people who already believe in Jesus Christ, who know who he is as their Savior, and he prays this, Now, if you don't know, in Scripture, anyone who has a saving faith in Jesus Christ already has Jesus Christ in their heart and life. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit, Paul says in the letter to 1 Corinthians. What is he getting at here? Right? And later on in this text, he'll also say that you may be filled with the fullness of God, is what he's praying for in Ephesians 3, for the Ephesians. But Paul, in kind of a flip of this letter, the book of Colossians, it's a very similar place to Ephesus. Actually, it's in the same area of Asia Minor or Turkey. He says this in Colossians chapter 2, Do you see that? So you already have that fullness. So what is he getting at here? Every Christian has Jesus in their heart. And at the same time, Paul is saying, we need more. That we need to be strengthened in such a way that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith or in our inner being, he says in this text. A very fascinating passage. I studied that this week. That little phrase, the inner being or inner human or inner man. Henry Nouwen, I think, is getting a little at what is going on with what is this inner being that Paul wants us to really get at. Henry Nouwen is a Christian author. He wrote a number of great devotional books. And he stated that every Christian needs to come to terms with three big lies about your identity that we face here in Western civilization and American culture specifically. And these three lies are, I am what I have. I am what I do. And I am what people think of me. A lot of Christians I know believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And I believe they believe that. I have no problem in it. And yet what I see often is, though they believe consciously that he is their Lord and Savior, the implications of that haven't quite reached down into their inner being of where their identity is and who they think they are. And I'm glad, though, that whether I am conscious of Jesus being my Savior at the moment or not, whether I'm awake or asleep, whether I'm worrying or I'm praying, whether I'm anxious or joyful that Jesus Christ is still my Lord and Savior, it's not based on my feelings, it's not based on my apprehension of him, it's based on his grace and his apprehension and hold of me. And yet, we struggle so often with realizing the fullness of the implications of what it means that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and the love of God in Christ. And the victory that we have in our inner being, in the core of who we are, we have kind of allowed the lies to be there that I am what I have, I am what I do, and I am what people think of me. T...