Introduction
A group of four-through eight-year-olds were asked: “What does love mean?” Their answers vary from the amusing to the profound.
Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.
Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.
Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.
When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.
Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.
When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.
When you tell someone something bad about yourself and you’re scared they won’t love you anymore. But then you get surprised because not only do they still love you, they love you even more.
Love is when mommy sees daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Denzel Washington.
Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.
Love cards, like Valentine’s cards, say stuff on them that we’d like to say ourselves, but we wouldn’t be caught dead saying.
There are two kinds of love: Our love. God’s love. But God makes both kinds of them.
Some great answers. I think some of them might understand love better than some of us!
Paul’s prayer that we read this morning reveals to us the wellspring from which the power and the glory of God –which we read about last week -- rise up in our midst. He prays that the Ephesians would grasp hold of something that would pave the way for God’s work among them. What is this amazing something Paul prays they would get hold of?
Here it is, “God loves you.” Are you disappointed? Were you hoping it was something new and different? After all, how many times have you heard “God loves you”? How many bumper stickers with smiley faces on them say, “Jesus loves you”? Simply hearing those words may touch you about as deeply as having someone say “God bless you” when you sneeze.
Why is it that when Paul talks about knowing God loves him, he is so excited he can hardly contain himself, but when we hear about it, we’re more tempted to yawn than to dance? Because we don’t really get it. We know it, but we don’t get it.
Paul is not praying that God’s people would know that God loves them, but that they would know God’s love. Did you hear the difference?
Do you know God’s love, or do you only know that God loves you?
I know that the molecular structure of water is a combination of 2 molecules of Hydrogen & 1 molecule of Oxygen. But that doesn’t do much for me on a blazing hot afternoon in August when I’ve worked hard outside and my throat is so parched that when I try to swallow I just feel like a dry ache. I could care less about H2O as a chemical formula. My understanding of water doesn’t quench my thirst. My need is not for deeper insights into the meaning of water. I don’t need knowledge about water, I need water. A long, tall glass of ice cold water. If you know that God loves you, but you don’t know His Love, it’s like someone who studies water without drinking it.
In verse 19, our version has Paul praying that we would “understand” how broad, long, high and deep Christ’s love is. But the word “understand” as it’s used here doesn’t mean “to gain a mental concept.” It means to grasp hold of. To “get it.”
Paul wants us “to know [God’s] love.” Even though he acknowledges that we aren’t capable of fully knowing it. Paul’s prayer is much like the quote I put in the bulletin this week. Paul wants God’s people to know that: God is crazy about them.
And while intellectual understanding of God’s love is not the same as experiencing of God’s love, it is a place to start. Taking the time to think about and meditate on God’s love is a way to begin to drive it downward into our hearts.
There are four dimensions of God’s love that Paul prays we might understand. As we consider them in our minds, may they also penetrate our hearts.
The first is the width of God’s love.
The width of God’s love may be the most obvious thing that distinguishes His love from human love. We love certain people but not others. We love certain types of people, but not others. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King day -- a day we remember a man who was murdered because he thought black people ought to be treated like human beings. What convinces people that the color of a person’s skin makes them more or less human?
And Christians can be the worst! There are people who claim to prove from the Bible that white people are better than black people. Trust me, there’s nothing in this book that teaches that. God loves everybody.
Think about the person you most dislike in the world. Now think about this: God is crazy about that person!
Well, what about “bad people”? Does God love them (always them!)? Doesn’t the bible say God hates homosexuals? No. He hates the sin of homosexuality. Just as he hates all sin. But Jesus died because God loves sinners. Like me, like you, like homosexuals and abortion doctors, and child abusers. He hates those behaviors – as he often hates my behavior and your behavior. But God’s love is so wide, that it still encompasses them.
And he longs to set them free from those behaviors, set them free from sin, and make them like Christ. He longs that they might experience that love.
Then there’s the length of God’s love.
This is most likely a time reference: that God’s love is forever and always. It isn’t just available on Sundays. There are no “regular business hours” for God’s love. The love of God doesn’t take holidays.
It also means that God’s love doesn’t give up. Mine sure does! When I offer people love they have a certain amount of time to respond and if they don’t, forget it!
God isn’t like that – His love is more enduring than the Energizer bunny – it just keeps on going and going and going! God doesn’t give up on us
One Sunday after church a pastor noticed that one of the men was wearing a lapel pin that had a bulldog on it. He was wearing it because he worked for Mack Truck and the bulldog is their logo, but the pastor didn’t know that.
So when he asked, "Frank, why are you wearing a pin of a bulldog?"
Frank got a twinkle in his eye and said, "Well, that bulldog symbolizes the tenacity with which I hold onto Jesus Christ."
His pastor answered, "Well, Frank, it’s a great symbol, but it’s lousy theology."
Frank said, "What do you mean?"
The pastor said, "It should never stand for the tenacity with which you hold onto Jesus Christ. It should stand for the tenacity with which Jesus Christ holds onto you."
Jesus said, “I will never, ever, ever leave you or forsake you.”
We talk about “clinging to the Lord,” in times of trial, but it really is the other way around. It is the Lord Jesus who hangs on to us with the tenacity of a bulldog. God’s love is so wide, it embraces everyone; it is so long that it will never let us go.
The height of God’s love
The Bible uses this word in a lot of different ways: It is used as a simple term of measurement: like, the height of this pulpit is, -- so many inches. It is also used to refer to the utmost of something: it’s used to describe a VERY loud noise: sort of the highest possible noise level. When Paul uses it to describe God’s love, I think he means that the quality of God’s love surpasses anything we’ve ever known.
The way that we get to know something new is to compare it to something we’re already familiar with. We compare and contrast what we don’t know with what we do know.
If you are trying to learn a new computer program, you tend to try the same commands that you used for the old one. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. Because some things will be similar and other things will be different.
So with God’s love, when we try to figure out what it’s like, we compare it to the love we’ve known from other people. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
If you have been blessed with the love of others, especially in your family and especially as a child, it will be easy for you to say “God’s love is like that, only even better!”
Why is it that people come to faith in Christ? Is it because someone’s brilliant arguments have convinced them of the truth? I suppose that happens. But most often, it’s because they experience the fact that God is crazy about them. And the way they experience it is when God’s people, who have been “marinated” in God’s love, spread that love to others. And a world that is starved for love can get the smell of it and come running.
People in our country tend to try to get “the best” of everything. Take coffee: It used to be if you wanted coffee, you just got coffee. Then there came decaf, then flavored coffee. Then came the coffee wars. People gladly pay 2 or 3 (or more) times as much for a pound of “gourmet” coffee as they would for a pound of plain old coffee. Why? Because they want the best there is, no matter what it costs.
Human beings crave love – even more than coffee! Even more than that first cup of coffee on a Monday morning! In God, we can experience the richest, the highest, the purest, the finest love imaginable. And not only that, but it’s free. Anybody who wants it can have all they want.
God’s love is so wide, it embraces everyone; it is so long-lasting, it will never let us go; it is of such a high-quality that it will never let us down.
Finally, there is the depth of God’s love
This word is used to describe the depths of the sea, or the depths of a miry pit. It’s also used in the parable of the seeds, for the seed that lands on rocky soil and springs up quickly, then dies, because there is no depth to the soil. It looks good, but there’s nothing to it. It’s like the scenery for a play – no matter how real it may look, it’s not even an inch deep. There’s nothing to it.
God’s love is just the opposite. It is absolutely solid and real. It is something you can bank your life on.
The depth of God’s love not only refers to the fact that it’s solid and real, but also that it reaches to the deepest parts of our being.
Some of us are more open than others. Some of us reveal ourselves more freely than others. But all of us have locked closets and dark corners where we don’t even like to peek ourselves, let alone have anybody else take a look. They are the places we have shut off from the light of day, the light of the love of even those who are closest to us.
Mostly we do it because we’re afraid that if someone sees those deep down ugly parts of us, they won’t love us anymore, and we just can’t risk that. But God’s love is deeper than our deepest secrets. It can penetrate the darkness of our worst fears. It can clean out the closets of sin, of despair, of self-hatred.
God’s love is so wide, it embraces everyone; it is so long-lasting, it will never let us go; it is of such a high-quality that it will never let us down; it is solid enough to bank your life on and deep enough to meet at your deepest needs.
Did you know that God is crazy about you? And he wants you to know how wide and how long and how high and how deep His love is for you.
Conclusion
I had a really tough time cutting this sermon down to size today – because there is so much that could be said, that needs to be said, about God’s love. But for now, I’m going to leave you with this story.
Jeannette George tells a story about an experience she had on a short flight from Tucson to Phoenix. Across the aisle from her sat a young woman and her baby, both dressed in white pinafores. The baby had a little pink bow where there would eventually be hair. The mother was smiling, as the baby kept saying "Dada, Dada," every time someone walked down the aisle.
The mother said Daddy was waiting for them after they had been gone for a few days. She was so adorable – quiet – that all passengers enjoyed watching her.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of turbulence, making the flight extremely rough, which of course was hard on the baby. But the mother had some fruit and a little Thermos with orange juice in it. Every time the baby cried the mother fed her a little bit more orange juice and a little more fruit.
While this seemed like a good idea at the time, the turbulence seemed to spread from the air around the plane right down to that baby’s gastro-intestinal system, and pretty much all of the fruit that had gone down came up.
However, the process of coming up was considerably messier than the process of going down had been. It also seemed to have increased in volume tremendously between the going down and the coming up, so that not only were the baby and the mother pretty much covered in it, but so were most of the passengers within a significant radius of the baby, including Jeanette George, who was telling the story.
Fortunately for the mortified mother, all of the passengers were gracious and tried to help her and tell her it was OK. After all what could she do about it?? The baby was crying, and she looked awful. Even though they didn’t cry, her fellow passengers looked – and smelled – pretty awful, too. The mother was so sorry about it.
As soon as they landed, the baby was fine and returned to calling: "Dada, Dada." The rest of the passengers didn’t recover quite so quickly, being covered as they were in pre-digested fruit. Ms. George said, “I had on a suit, and I was trying to decide whether to burn it or just cut off the sleeve. It was really bad.”
Waiting for the plane was a young man who had to be “Dada.” He was wearing white slacks, a white shirt, and he carried white flowers. Now what do you think that clean Daddy all dressed in white did when he saw his baby who had that sticky, smelly stuff all over her clothes and her face and her hair?
He ran to the young mother, who handed the baby over pretty quickly so she could go get cleaned up. That Daddy picked up that baby, and he hugged her and he kissed her and he stroked her hair. As he held her close, he said, "Daddy’s baby’s come home. Daddy’s baby’s come home."
All the way to the luggage claim area, he never stopped kissing that baby and welcoming her back home.
Ms. George thought, Where did I ever get the idea that my Father God is less loving than a young daddy in white slacks and white shirt with white flowers in his hand? [Jeannette Clift George, "Belonging and Becoming," Preaching Today, Tape No. 93.]
Do you have any idea how much God loves you?
That’s not a platitude. And you may sometimes feel like you’re as unlovable and unhuggable as that stinky, sticky little girl. But God wants to pick you up, like that Daddy picked up his baby and hold you close and love you. He’s not worried about getting dirty or messy – in fact He was willing to take on all of our mess, cover it with blood and carry it to Calvary.
You know God loves you – but do you know? Do you really know?
Turn to somebody and say: God is crazy about you!
Now all you have to do is believe it!
