Love is a powerful experience. It’s unlike any other experience because it affects more than just the mind. It affects the heart and the emotions at the deepest levels. The experience of love is like the difference between a great steak and a great marriage.
I love a great steak but that great steak cannot love me back no matter how much I try to make it love me. I love my wife and she loves me back. The experience of my love for steak is vastly different than my experience of the love that my wife and I share.
One kind of love will leave me empty a few hours later and the other kind of love will last into eternity. The kind of love that God has for us is an eternal love that must be experienced. It’s not the kind of love that can be simply outlined. It’s the kind of love that surpasses every outline. Listen to how Paul prays for us to experience the love of Christ.
Ephesians 3:14 – 21…
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in Heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – that you being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
The Human Experience of Love
Think about your human experience of being loved for a minute. Some of you immediately remember a warm feeling as you think about a parent or a friend or a spouse who has loved you well. You can recall a sense of safety and acceptance and care that you felt when you’ve been with that person who loved you well. These memories might fill you with joy or security or courage to face another day.
But I imagine that every one of us can also recall relationships where the other person didn’t love us so well. Relationships where someone took advantage of us or used us for their own pleasure. Where someone abandoned us or abused us or neglected us. These memories might fill you with fear or shame or guilt or anger.
Our capacity to thirst for and experience this thing called love is an interesting subject. We will go to great lengths to satisfy our hunger and thirst to be loved. And why not? It seems natural to thirst for love doesn’t it? I think it is natural to thirst for love. It is appropriate to desire to be loved.
But There’s A Problem With The Human Experience of Love
I don’t think we can overlook the fact that something has gone terribly wrong with our concept of love. Something has infected our understanding of love. Our experience of love has been tainted by poison. The deep wells of our hearts have been filled with unhealthy concepts about love. Our experience of this thing called love has been reduced to a feeling that demands immediate gratification.
We not only look for love in all the wrong places and fall victim to cheap substitutes of what love is, but we are also guilty of not expressing love in healthy or wholesome ways either.
For every time I can share a story of being used and abused by someone who should have loved me well, I can also tell you a story where I’ve used and abused others instead of loving them well. Something is broken inside of me.
We are a sick human race. The prevalence of pornography use, the horror of mass shootings, the pain of broken families, the outbreak of suicide rates, the uprising of substance abuse, the aftermath of marriages destroyed by extramarital affairs. All these things point to a systemic problem deep within the human race. I would argue that the issues of our society at the foundation are rooted in this thing called love. We have a dysfunctional concept of love.
This Problem Underscores The Importance Of What Paul Prays For
I think what Paul prays for in verse 19 is vitally important for us to hear today. We desperately need to hear this prayer. We desperately need to have this prayer applied to our hearts. In verse 19 Paul prays that we would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Paul is literally praying that we would experientially know the love of Christ that leads to us being filled with the presence of the person of God. Stop and think about that for a minute. Paul wants us to experience the love of Christ. He wants us to know the love of Christ intimately. Vitally. Passionately.
This word that Paul uses for “know” is the same word that is used for describing how a husband and wife are suppose to know each other. Paul is describing an intimate, deep, ongoing, vital, full of life, passionate, desperate kind of knowing of the love of Christ.
It reminds me of what it’s like when either my wife or I take a trip. The first day or two may feel kind of exciting as one of us gets to get out of town for a while. But then as the days go on there’s this deep sense of aloneness that begins to set in.
And it begins to gnaw at your guts a little. Sleep gets a little harder because there’s an empty space in the bed. Conversations at dinner with the family begin to fall a little flat. There’s something missing. Better yet the presence of someone is missing. I start to really look forward to the day I come home so that I can experience the presence of my wife’s love again.
Do You Know The Love of Christ Like this?
Do you miss the love of Christ when you go through valleys of loneliness or despair? Do you want to experience the joy of hearing Jesus say, “I love you”? Have you lived for so long without a taste of the unconditional love of Christ that you’ve grown bored or indifferent with Jesus?
When Paul prays that we would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge he wants us to experience and continue experiencing the unconditional love of Christ. He wants us to be people who have moved beyond head knowledge to heart knowledge.
Head Knowledge Is Easier Than Heart Knowledge
Its less scary, its easier to map out and the quick fix of figuring something out can be intoxicating. The heart on the other hand is scary, the road maps are blurry and there’s no quick fix to what sickens the human heart. It’s easier to chase cheap substitutes like porn or inappropriate relationships or accomplishments or possessions or cheap thrills through substance abuse or success in your job. It’s hard to fight for the real thing.
Bullet point outlines are great for the head. But the heart is a different story. The heart needs scalpels, bright lights, wisdom and patience. I’ve heard some people describe the difference between the heart and the head like the difference between country back roads and newly paved highways. I don’t think it’s always true that the head is like a newly paved highway but the mind is definitely easier to penetrate than the heart.
So how can we experience the love of Christ at the heart level rather than just the informational level? I don’t want to divorce the head from the heart. I want to shock the head in a way that jump-starts the heart. So what shall we say then?
What Will Jump-Start Our Hearts Today?
I believe that the only way to shock the head and jump-start the heart is to hear from God’s Word. Only the Word of God empowered by the Spirit of God can do this work. So I’ve chosen a few key passages for us to consider briefly.
Psalm 86:15, You, O Lord are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
Psalm 136:26, Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Zephaniah 3:17, The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
John 3:16, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 15:9 – 11, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
Romans 5:8 God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 8:37 – 39, In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death no life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, no powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
1 John 4:9 – 10, In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation (payment) for our sins.
Ephesians 2:4 – 5, But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.
Do you know the love of Christ? Do know the love of Christ that God’s Word teaches us about? Have you experienced this love personally? The love of Christ is slow to anger and overflowing with steady, patient and trustworthy love. Do you know this love? His love is powerful to save you and it causes the Lord to rejoice over you. Do you know this love? His love is powerful enough to quiet and silence the roaring waves of anxiety in your heart as he sings love songs over you. Do you know this love?
Christ’s love drove him to the cross so that you could receive the gift of everlasting life. He has loved you with the love of the heavenly Father. His love is evident in the fact that he didn’t demand your perfection before extending his love to you. He bought your perfection because of his great love for you. Do you know this love?
There is nothing that can separate you from the love of Christ. The penalty for your sin was paid in full at the cross of Christ. His purchase of you was completely finished on the cross of Calvary. Because of the Father’s vast wealth of mercy he has loved you even when you were dead in your sin. Do you know the love of Christ? Has your heart experienced the love of Christ?
Conclusion…
On this Easter Sunday I want you to know… I want you to experience… I want you to be full of the love of Christ. Jesus left the tomb empty so that he could fill your empty heart with himself.
Have you experienced the love of Christ? Has he filled your heart with his presence? Even though you’ve chased cheap substitutes. Christ became your substitute when he took the wrath of God against you and your sin on the cross.
Even though your sin seems huge, the work of Christ at the cross proves his love for you. He has beaten Satan, sin and the grave. Your sin is gone. The power of the empty tomb is available to you. And the promise of the hope of Heaven is yours to hold on to.
This is the love of Christ. His body was beaten and torn and his blood flowed freely. His body was laid in a grave but three days later he walked out of that grave in one piece so that you could be healed from your dysfunctional pursuit of cheap love. He did this because of his great love for you. Have you experienced the love of Christ personally? Do you long for it? Do you miss it? Do you want it?