Haven Today - The Source of True Love

Wilt, Kobe, Bam, all basketball players, the first two NBA legends, Wilt Chamberlain's

record of 100 points in a single game seems untouchable.

Kobe Bryant was second until Bam out of bio recently blew past his record.

Who is Bam at a bio?

The 28-year-old player from Miami is known more as a defensive player, but that's not

to take away from his talent.

He's a three-time all-star and five-time all-defensive team honoree, Bam normally averages

16 points a game, and he hasn't gotten close to 50 points before.

So his 83 points this past Tuesday against Washington was stunning.

Even he sounded shocked when he said, willed, me, and then Kobe, which sounds crazy.

Every record they say is made to be broken, but not Christ's perfect record, which is

a record that can be yours by grace through faith in Christ alone.

Welcome to Haven Today.

I'm David Wolland sharing the great story that's all about Jesus.

We're in a series called Raising Faithful Voices, and in a moment we'll open up Ephesians

Chapter 3 together to talk about Paul's prayer that we would comprehend the incomprehensible

love of Christ, which of course is what we long for ourselves and also for the lives

of the children that God has placed in our lives.

And along those lines we've been talking with musician and author Randall Goodgame.

His heart to help families memorize God's word is infectious.

I asked him why he created his Sing the Bible music and now family devotional.

The goal of slugs and bugs has always been to make things that are beautiful and true

and fun.

As I started writing scripture songs for my kids to help them memorize scripture, they

became songs that became albums.

There are now five word for word scripture song albums that are all sing the Bible with

slugs and bugs.

As a parent, I'm just more convinced at just how important it is to know God's word and

to take as many opportunities as you can to soak your family in it so that they're armed

with what they need.

So we want to take these scriptures and you want to arm our children's with them so

that they can take every thought captive to obey Christ.

That was Randall Goodgame who's been writing word for word scripture songs for kids for

decades and he's paired 52 of those songs with a family devotional called Sing the Bible.

52 Bible verses for kids to learn and sing.

It includes a digital link to hear each song and the book comes with creative ideas and

questions to help kids interact with the verses they're learning and I'd love for the

children in your life to grow as my own have in their faith through this music from scripture.

Plus with spring break and Easter coming up soon, this would be an amazing gift.

It will be in my house or it could be in yours.

That's why Sing the Bible is our way of saying thank you for your gift of support to Haven

today.

Call us now at 865 Haven, 865 Haven or you can give online at Haventoday.org Haventoday.org.

And now let's get started as the music is revving up here for Randall Goodgame to sing about

the love of Christ.

Taken from Ephesians chapter 3, The Love of Christ by Randall Goodgame.

This is Haventoday.

I'm David Wolland and today we're talking about the power of love.

And if you grew up in the 80s, you might already be humming that classic rock tune from Huey

Lewis in the news popularized by the back to the future movies.

But that's just one among countless expressions in modern culture, attempts to describe the

mysterious power uniquely associated with love.

We long for this, don't we, for true love.

We sense there's great power in love like this.

Most people spend their entire lives searching for it in one way or another, seeking a sense

of its fulfillment, but it's always just out of their grasp.

Like the country star Johnny Lee wrote in those iconic lyrics from 1980, I was looking

for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces.

And in that song, predictably it concludes with a hopeful declaration that the woman now

standing before him is the one who can fulfill his longings.

And yet the song ends, repeating this signature line as the music fades, looking for love

in all the wrong places, even when it's experienced in marriage.

As God designed, as good as that kind of love is, even that isn't going to cut it ultimately

every form of love between human beings is at best a derivative love that points us

back to the source.

And the Apostle Paul was very much taken with the power of love at its source.

He wrote about the love of God and kept pointing to the ultimate expression of God's love

in the person of Jesus Christ.

And so today we'll open up God's word together to Ephesians chapter 3.

This is the end of the first half of Paul's letter.

And in some ways it feels like a conclusion.

But here the letter will pivot into how, therefore, believers in Jesus will live and walk

with their Savior in light of all he has done for us.

But here at the end of chapter 3, Paul gives us a kind of summary statement, a capstone

conclusion about the riches of God's grace in the gospel which flows from the love of

Christ through whom we have been brought into the family of God by our union with him.

Verse 14 starts with the words, for this reason.

And I think the reason he's pointing to is what he said at the end of chapter 2 verses

19 through 21.

Speaking about the inclusion of the Gentiles, which the Ephesian believers were, the inclusion

of the Gentiles in the family of God, Paul writes, so then you are no longer strangers

and aliens.

But you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built

on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

Christ, Jesus himself, being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure, being joined

together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

And so now jumping to verse 14 again, 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 all the fullness of God.

Now if this were a piece of music, that would have been the crescendo, the apex moment

toward which every melodic line, every movement, every tension was building in the music.

It's like the giant wave that begins way out as a distant roller, slowly drawing closer,

forming out there over the deep water and then finally drawing near and it crests, thundering

at all its glory and beauty and explosion of worship.

Now we know the Holy Spirit inspired every word of Scripture.

We believe that.

It's what the Bible testifies about itself and yet the Holy Spirit used human authors

whose personalities and vocabularies are also fully present and nobody writes a sentence

like the Apostle Paul.

It's like he has so much to say that he simply cannot bear to end the sentence, which is

why Paul's letters often take some unpacking and we'll do that now phrase by phrase layer

by layer.

First, Paul says, in light of everything he's already presented about being united with

Christ, adopted into the family of God, in light of all that, now he's getting on his

knees before the Father.

Now in one sense, that's a minor detail, except it's not.

What Paul desires for the believers in Ephesus, that they may comprehend the love of Christ

that surpasses knowledge, that's not something he can simply present.

One human to another, confident that because of his great communication, they've really

understood it.

Now it's true that we do reason.

We do contend for the faith.

We do seek to convince those who doubt or disbelieve and we do that by presenting the truth

and the reasonableness of the truth of the gospel.

Paul did that a lot, but it's more than simply information transfer.

You can teach math.

You can use proofs and theorems to convince students of all kinds of things, but to comprehend

the love of Christ and to be moved to awe and worship.

Such things belong to another realm and require a work of God in our hearts.

That's why Paul has no choice but to fall on his knees and ask God in prayer to increase

this in the minds and hearts of the Ephesian church.

So Paul bows his knees before the Father and then he inserts this little line.

It also is so easy to gloss over, but it also matters.

Paul says, the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

One Bible commentator has a great insight on this writing, fatherhood is not a human

concept imputed to God, but rather fatherhood comes from God.

All human fatherhood is derived from him, the original father of all, moreover, from

the father every family is named.

And of course, naming implies authority and custody or ownership, if you will.

Parents name their children because they are theirs.

God the Father names every human family, not just the Jewish people, but Gentiles as well.

It was always God's intention that all the families on earth, all nations, tribes and

tongues would be represented among his family.

That's the vision presented in Revelation 7 and its in view here as well.

The Gentiles are no less God's children in Christ than the Jews who also accept Christ

as Messiah.

And so here is the appeal.

Paul tells the Ephesian church that he's making before God the Father on their behalf.

He prays that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened

with power through his spirit in your inner being.

The Christian life is a paradox.

And the longer you serve Christ, the more it becomes so in your life.

We are the weak, strong people of God.

A friend of mine was sharing a conversation that he was party to with an Iranian pastor.

This was before the war began.

And they'd heard that another pastor had been recently killed, that believers had been

imprisoned for their faith.

And in the face of that, this pastor said not only was he not worried or anxious, he knew

he might also face death because of his faith.

And he said it would be the greatest honor to die for my Savior.

We are the weak, strong ones in Christ.

That kind of inner person strengthening does not come naturally.

It must come supernaturally or not at all.

It's not something we're born with.

Some of us are born with DNA that could put us onto an NFL offensive line, but there is

no such thing spiritually.

That kind of strength flows into us by the Holy Spirit supernaturally.

So Paul getting on his knees to ask for this makes all the sense in the world.

It is something only God can do.

But strengthened for what?

Strengthened to face persecution, possibly to resist the power of sin or temptation.

These do linger with us always this side of heaven.

But how about to witness boldly for Christ and to share the gospel?

Is that why Paul is praying to the Father that the Spirit might strengthen them?

Here's what we need to see.

Paul is pointing them to Jesus.

They need this kind of empowerment by the Spirit of God to have fellowship with their Savior.

Paul expresses this in a couple of layers that build one on top of another.

First, he says, strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being so that Christ

may dwell in your hearts through faith.

That's not to say they don't already believe in Christ or that they are somehow saved but

not united with Christ.

Paul is not pleading for their salvation.

No these Ephesian believers are already saved, but just in the same way that we need to hear

and apply the gospel daily.

In the same way, the powerful indwelling of Christ mediated by the indwelling Spirit,

this is something we remain in daily.

It's active, continuous, ongoing.

It's the same idea that Jesus says in John 14-20, he says, in that day, you will know that

I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.

It's immutual indwelling and it's one in which we actively remain or abide.

Jesus says in John 15-5, whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit

for apart from me you can do nothing.

And then a couple chapters later, the high priestly prayer of John 17, Jesus says, may they

all be one just as you, Father, are in me and I in you that they also may be in us.

So that the world may believe that you have sent me.

This kind of mutual indwelling is what Jesus longed for and prayed for and it's what

he desires still for us today.

And when the Son of God prays to the Father and asks for what he knows is the Father's

will, what do you think the outcome must be?

This is what God's will is for you and for me.

And when we seek him and when we ask him for this, we can be assured of the outcome.

And because Christ is dwelling in the hearts of the Ephesians' church and in us today,

Jesus Christ is dwelling in their hearts, Paul, brings in two complementary metaphors.

He says that you being rooted, that's a tree metaphor, and being grounded, that's a

building metaphor, grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints,

what is the breadth and length and height and depth.

And again, this isn't just true for them.

This is for all the saints in Christ, in all generations.

So it's that we may comprehend the love of Christ.

Maybe you've had one of those moments with a child or a grandchild recently.

Maybe it's seared in your memory from long ago that sweet bedtime conversation, which

happens in that precious little season of life with a child who still wants you to come

and tuck them into bed and give them a hug and kiss good night.

And maybe you had a conversation like this, do you know how much I love you?

How much?

This is something we all do, isn't it?

The answer is the same.

We say this much and we stretch out our arms as far as they'll go.

We're trying to say, I love you to the very limits of my being with everything I can

possibly express.

And oh, if only we could do that perfectly as much as we want to.

And the children we love, though, we will love imperfectly and we are limited.

But the love of Christ, of the eternal Son of God, does not have those imperfections in

the way that He loves us.

And the love we have in Christ who expressed it ultimately by spreading out his own arms

on the cross, dying in our place.

This is the divine love of the Father, Son, and Spirit for us.

And it is boundless.

It is limitless.

And that all by itself would be incomprehensible because the finite cannot grasp the infinite.

But it's going to take an act of God, which is what Paul prays for, an act of God that

we may comprehend, the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of

Christ, which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Will we ever grasp it fully?

No.

But we'll spend eternity grasping more and more of it to our endless delight and increasing

expressions of worship.

It's like a cup being filled to the brim, to the point of overflowing.

This is the full-filling love for which the human heart was made and can only be satisfied

in the matchless love of Christ.

If I speak with the tongues of men or of angels, but have not loved, I am only a noisy

gong or a clanging symbol.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if

I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not loved, I am nothing.

Right out of 1 Corinthians 13, that's Randall Good Game from Sing the Bible, and Love

Never Fails.

This is Haven Today, I'm David Wollin.

As we close, I just want to remind you about the special family devotional we have for

your gift.

It's called Sing the Bible, 52 Bible Verses for Kids to Learn and Sing.

It comes with digital access to all 52 songs we heard two of them today, and this book

is filled with weekly questions and activities around each verse, which makes Sing the Bible

a great way to bring a family into God's Word and growing in love for Christ together.

I can't think of a better Easter gift for this year, and that's why we have Sing the

Bible as our thank you for your gift to Haven today.

Not only will this book bless families in your life, but your gift will bless so many

who listen to this all about Jesus' ministry of Haven.

Your gift keeps us on the air, and we're here today thanks to loyal supporters like you

and their generous support.

So please do respond today by calling 865 Haven, 865 Haven, or you can give online HavenToday.org

HavenToday.org, I'm David Wollin.

Once you come back again next time, we'll be keeping it all about Jesus.

It's the great story here on Haven Today.