The Love of the Savior for Sinners Like Us

But we're happy to have in our service this morning, Pastor John Coe, who is the teaching pastor of Faith Bible Church in Ladera Ranch, California, a church that was planted in 2003. And I've had a, a, a really, one of the highlights of my year this year. was back in September, being down in San Diego at a family retreat that this church was having this year, and then last year in September, they had a family retreat, and I was there and able to speak to them and be blessed by them.

And one of the remarkable things that stands out to me about, John, Pastor John and his congregation is that there is a real gospel buzz that, that is palpable when you're with John and his congregation.

And I just drove away last year and this past September with a heart full of the blessing of fellowshipping with these brothers and sisters here at Faith Bible Church. just before he comes, though, a few other pieces of information about him. He's been married to Karna for 22 years. He has four children, Daniel, who's 18, Hannah, who's 15, Rachel, who is 14, and Caleb, who is 11.

And also he has a local connection. He attended UCR for a couple of years. this was back in the 80s, before he transferred to the Master's College. And his brother Joe attended UCR and started on UCR's baseball team from his sophomore year through his senior year.

His name was Joe Coe, an excellent baseball player. So there's a strong local connection that we have with this brother, but even more importantly, there's a strong gospel connection, and I am more than happy to commend him to you. this morning and know that you'll be blessed as he opens God's word to us today. So let's give our brother a warm cornerstone welcome.

Well, good morning to all of you. It's a pleasure to be here and as Milton was introducing me, I just recalled the time that he just had at our family retreat back in September. He came a year ago in September and we had a little emergency with one of our speakers. He had to fly and do a funeral in the midst of him being committed to our retreat and Milton graciously came and Just blessed our hearts in such a, a unique way and our people were like, why don't we have him come back next year?

And so he, we asked him and he did come back this past year and was our main speaker and the same thing has happened. They're all saying, why don't we have him come back next year? And so, a part of being here is, I guess I'm commissioned by my people to ask you to keep coming to speak at our retreats. He graciously signed, 10 copies of his book.

And these were like the coveted items. I've never seen Christians like, we're, we're about the gospel, but at some point, it's like selfishness too, and covetousness, and they're like, hey, I want one and And people were coming up to me saying, could I just have one, I have one at home and it's not signed and, and I was like, well, no, you can't. But actually, I brought my copy for him to sign, so I asked him to sign it and It's, yeah, thank you. If you would, if you would please make sure to do that.

Milton is a, a blessed brother, and he's been a blessing to us in many ways, and, you are blessed to have such a gospel-soaked, gospel saturated man, who teaches here consistently and leads the ministries of the church, and so, when he asked, I, what could I say other than you have been such a blessing to us. May the Lord, bless you through whatever service, I can offer you. So on behalf of our church, we send you our greetings. And it is a privilege to be here with you, and to open up God's word together.

And before we do that, let me just pray again to ask for the Lord's help. Father, we thank you so much that You are with us, God, right now, you love us, you care for us. And Lord, we know that it's your heart, Lord, to bless us in a way that we would walk away here, so enamored, so much more in love with your Son Jesus Christ. For that is our joy.

And that is our heart's hope. And so, Father, I pray for the Holy Spirit's enablement, for his divine illuminating work in each of our hearts. Help us, Lord, to see the richness of your love. We pray in your name.

Amen. One of my seminary classmates wrote a book a few years ago, and I had the opportunity to listen to it in the car. And it's called Crazy Love. And in this book, Francis Chen recalls the struggles he had in his relationship with his earthly father.

There was one section that really caught my attention that I want to communicate to you. He said this, the concept of being wanted by a father was foreign to me. Growing up, I felt unwanted by my dad. My mother died giving birth to me.

So maybe he saw me as the cause of her death, I'm not sure. I never carried on a meaningful conversation with my dad. In fact, the only affection I remember came when I was 9 years old. He put his arm around me for about 30 seconds while we were on our way to my stepmother's funeral.

Besides that, the only other physical touch I experienced were the beatings I received when I disobeyed or bothered him. My goal in our relationship was not to annoy my father. I would walk around the house trying not to upset him. He died when I was 12.

I cried. But also felt relief. Maybe some of you can identify with the pain of that earthly relationship with an earthly father. But as I've talked to many Christians, and even as I know my own heart and my own struggles, we as God's children, adopted children of God, can have a very similar perspective about our Heavenly Father as well.

That there is a God who is disinterested, whose love for us is more of a duty than a delight, that when we fail him, there is this separation and anger, and with a withdrawal of his favor towards us. And it's broken people who battle unbelief every day, we can easily forget just how much we are loved by God. And when we do forget, it leads to all sorts of issues and struggles in our daily life and even in our relationship with God. All because this unbelief in his love.

When we struggle with the Father's love, it, it naturally leads to struggles in our earthly life, insecurities. Needless, self-imposed anxiety, we struggle with guilt, we struggle with anger, we struggle with presumptuous thoughts, we struggle with selfishness and sinfulness. We have a hard time maintaining healthy relationships with other people, our spouse, our children, and we struggle with our future. Why?

Because insecurity in our love. With God leads to an insecurity in life. And what is worse, and what is most damaging about this unbelief in God's love is it leaves our relationship with God very vulnerable to attack. We have a hard time believing that he really cares for us, that he truly loves me.

We fight our limited sense of justice, and we spurn his grace and we spurn his forgiveness, and we run to things like legalism and self righteousness, and we try to earn his love through our good duties and merits. And when all of that fails, which will, it will fail. It leaves our relationship with God, totally discouraged and without hope. And yet God is not like us.

He is so radically different from us. Listen to his words through Isaiah the prophet, and calling the nation of Israel back to himself. He says this in Isaiah 55:7, let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord. And he, God will have compassion on him and to our God, for God will abundantly pardon.

That is so foreign to us. If we had someone in our circle of relationships that continually offended us, hurted us, sinned against us for 100 times, at some point along the way in that relationship, we would say, what, enough of this. I don't want to, I don't want to be near you. I don't want you near me.

And yet God is not like us. And Isaiah gives us the reason as the Lord speaks in verse 8, and he says, this is why I will abundantly pardon. This is why you can come back. Verse 8, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. God is not like us. He is so infinitely radically different. From our sense of justice, and our sense of love.

And it is unbelief in his love that keeps us from approaching Him. Because God is not like us, because we continually sin, we need daily, moment by moment reminders of this incredible truth. Let me just ask you right now, brothers and sisters, right now, in your heart of hearts, what is your perspective of God? Are you sensing His favor towards you, or right now are you sensing a burden?

From God as he looks down upon you with eyes that are filled with anger and displeasure. Are you looking at him? And seeing this infinite love, despite who you are, despite the failures, despite the sinfulness, that he's taking delight in you as a son or a daughter. The text before us this morning is the text, the, the great, a great gospel text that I need to chain my heart to every day because as soon as I start to wander from the truth of this text, I find my heart in this insecure struggle.

Because I've left this truth. If you have your Bibles open with me to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. And we'll be looking at the 1st 4 verses.

And Paul has a purpose in this text. And the purpose is to convince each of us who know and love the savior. to convince us of the love of the great savior for great sinners like us. And so we want to look at this to uncover the greatness of God's love.

And there's an outline in your bulletin you can follow along. Paul begins. Not with love, but interestingly with wrath. Point number 1, God's wrath against sinners.

Now you might be sitting there saying, wait a minute. I like the message, but why are we having to talk about wrath in order to talk about love? And I think that's a good question. In order for us to feel the full weight of God's love, we must see, we must feel the full weight of his justice.

of his wrath. John MacArthur writes this, it is only against the backdrop of divine wrath that the full significance of God's love can be truly understood. That is precisely the message of the cross of Jesus Christ. After all, it was on the cross that God's love and wrath converged.

merged in all their majestic fullness. This is so true. If there is not a need for God's grace, if there's not a need for God's mercy, what that does is it lessens the very essence of His grace. It cheapens the very nature of His love.

And this is a common flow of thought for Paul and his writings. We see it in Romans, we see it in Ephesians, that this crescendo, this rising crescendo of God's justice, ultimately leads to the climax of his love. That's the pinnacle of the gospel. And here in this passage, Paul gives a description of our former life prior to being saved.

Letter A, the description of the sinner. Let's look at it together. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature, children of wrath, even as the rest.

Paul here tells us what our former lives were like apart from Jesus Christ. And he says that all of us were spiritually dead, and our deadness was in this realm of trespasses and sins. And let's feel the weight of what he's saying here, men and women. These are willful, deliberate acts of rebellion against God, first and foremost.

These are not diseases. These are not mistakes. These are not accidents. These are voluntary choices that every single human makes.

And this is the spiritual condition of everyone born into the human race. Romans 3:23 says for all his sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and because we are sinners by nature in birth, sinning is the natural course of our lives. And Paul begins by stating plainly that we were spiritually dead to God, we were absolutely lifeless. There was no shred of spiritual life, no evidence of any spiritual life.

Everything we did was done out of this bent out of this nature of our sinfulness. Even the good deeds we tried to do and thought would be pleasing to God we're all rooted in selfish motivations, man-centered motivations. They did not please God. And being spiritually dead is a helpless and hopeless condition to be in.

Romans 8:7 says, the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God. This wasn't some moral neutrality where we just try to keep our noses clean and we try to lead a good moral life. No, our sinful past was hostile to God. We loved sin.

That was the desire of our core being. We love to rebel against God. We love to be selfish and grab everything for ourselves. All in acts of rebellion against a holy God.

And because this is our former life, this was our former life. Note, the direction and destiny of our former lives. Let it be the destiny of the sinner. And if you follow along, look at the end of verse 3, we were by nature, children of wrath, even as the rest.

What does that mean? Does it mean that we were just angry people? Well, that's, that's a part of our nature, but I don't think that's what Paul is saying here. What Paul is saying is that because of our sinfulness, we were destined for wrath, even as the rest.

That was our destiny prior to God's intervening grace in saving us from that wrath. There's certain injustices that I hate. As I look around in the world, I hate abortion. Our country has aborted millions, millions of babies.

The estimate is over 50 million children have been aborted. I hate child abuse. When I look at the needs and the poverty in the world, and I see the poor and needy being abused, there's something that rises up in my heart that hates that injustice. Even this past week, you heard on the news in Foshan, China, a 2 year old toddler.

I was walking in the middle of a busy street and this video was caught on security cameras. And for those of you who saw it, you just saw this gruesome, horrific scene as the child was run over by a truck. Caught under the front wheel, the truck driver stopped. And proceeded along, running over the child again with the rear wheel.

The child lay there, unable to move. Another truck came by, tried to avoid it but couldn't and ran over that child's legs. And as the video played on, over 10 strangers walked by that dying child in the middle of the street and did nothing. And my heart rose up in an anger over the injustice, the callousness of what was happening on that video.

And listen, if I, a sinner, made an image of God, can have a sense of justice, and I can get angry over the injustices of the world. How much more does an infinitely holy and just God hate sin? God was rightfully angry with us as sinners. Even now, these, the highest ranking angelic beings surround the throne, and they cry out without ceasing night and day, holy, holy, holy.

Habakkuk 1:13 says, your eyes are too pure to prove evil, and you cannot look on wickedness with favor. And because God is holy, and because he is infinitely just, his wrath is what we rightfully deserved. And the wrath and anger of God directed at those who reject Him. is the most frightening reality in the universe, bar none.

This is why the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 10:31, it is a terrifying thing. To fall into the hands of the living God. It is the thing that will grip your heart with such fearful dread. That's what he's describing.

And Jesus, when he came the first time, He came to endure this wrath. And he did not come to judge, but he came to save. The men and women, when he returns, On a white horse as the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. He will bring the justice of God to bear upon sinful humanity.

In Revelation 19:15, it says from him comes a sharp sword so that with it, he may strike down the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron, and he treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. Men and women, that's what we rightfully deserved. Every single one of us in this room, we're headed blindly towards the cliff of everlasting destruction. We had no idea what we're doing.

We had no idea what was beyond that. And yet that was the love of our life, and that's what we rightfully deserved. And human history ended there with every single sinner being condemned to everlasting destruction forever, there would be zero change in regards to the holiness and the justice of God. Without a single redeemed soul in heavenly glory, the angels would continually cry out, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, forever and ever.

And yet praise God, the story does not end there. Because as you go from verse 3 to verse 4 in Ephesians 2, We see that that serves as the backdrop to the main point, which is found in verse 4, God's love for sinners. God's love for sinners. It's on this dark, sin stained backdrop that verse 4 is given and these two words are just like a, a blinding, brilliant, radiant light that shines the glory of Christ.

But God, But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. And here we were, helpless, hopeless sinners, destined for wrath. And out of this dark scene emerges this light of mercy, richness of mercy, abundance of mercy, amazing mercy, that when God sees when he saw us in our helpless condition, headed for this cliff of destruction, his heart was not callous. But he moved.

His heart was moved and tender, compassion and mercy and mercy sprung into action. But the question we have to ask is why? Why? And Paul goes on to explain it because of his great love with which he loved us.

Paul is saying very clearly that mercy was the result of his great love for sinners like us. It was his love that motivated this entire plan of redemption for his people. So what makes this love so great? Let me give you 5 truths related to the essence of God's great love.

This is the only time in the New Testament, where God's love is described this way, a great love. Look at the first, God's love for you was a free, uninhibited choice. If you look at the verse, it says, because of his great love with which, and he doesn't use a present. He says he loved.

There was a point in time in the past, in which God chose to love us. When did he choose to love us? If you turn back a chapter, Paul gives us the answer in Ephesians 1:5. In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of His will.

When was that? Paul is describing a scene before the universe was made. Where God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, concocted a divine plan that would now enter into time and space. And it was at this moment, where God set his affection, he chose to set his love on those he would save.

God chose us even before he created the world. Now, you're saying, well, big deal. That's, that's great theological truth, but what relevance does that have for me? God set his love upon us, not because of anything in us, not because he saw your life and saw what a good person you turned out to be or how valuable you would be for the kingdom.

But God chose us despite us. When he had every right to condemn us. He chose some. For the salvation.

And what this ought to do is it ought to melt our hearts because men and women, the estimates by sociologists of the number of people who have ever been born to this earth is staggering. Sociologists have estimated that there are well over, this is a conservative estimate, well over 60 billion people who have ever been born on this earth. Right now, in parts of our world, there are places where people have never heard of Jesus Christ. If you say Jesus Christ, they would look at you funny.

They've never even heard of the Bible, they've never even heard of the gospel. And to think that, what, I could have been one of them. I could have been in some foreign land, some, some city or even some primitive tribal region where Jesus has never been preached, and I would live my life 30, 40, 50 years and die and deserve what I deserve at that point, eternal condemnation, and God would be fully just. I would have no right to stand before him and say, Well, God, I never heard you never sent anyone.

No, God will be fully just, and I have to ask myself, why me? Why not my unsafe Hindu neighbors who live right next door? Why not the countless souls that I've witnessed to, who still to this day, reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? Out of sheer mercy, born out of love.

God made this free, uninhibited choice. What a privilege it is for us to know the Savior. Here's the second truth of His great love. God's love for you is always the best.

No, he says, because of his great love, This, this adjective is describing the greatest range on a scale. It's the highest, it's the, it's the best. It's the greatest in quality and quantity. And so we have to ask ourselves why is God's love so great?

What makes God's love so great? What is it for you? Is it great because you can feel better about yourself? Is that what makes God such a great being?

You walk out of here and say, man, I'm, I'm so glad I went to church this morning. I feel so good about myself. It's good to be me. Good job for being me.

Is it great because we have been forgiven and we no longer have to live with the guilt and the burden of our sins? Is that what makes God's love so great? Is it great because we don't have to face the horrors of hell any longer? Are these the highest points of God's great love?

Listen to the words of Jonathan Edwards in his classic work, the Religious Affection. He says this, true saints have their minds in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the things of God. But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites is in a contrary order. They first rejoice that they are made so much of by God.

And then on that ground, he seems in a sort, lovely to them. Men and women, what makes God's love so great? is the fact that he gave the very best expression of love he could have ever given to us. He gave us His own beloved Son.

He gave us the glorious Christ. And not only did he give us his perfect life, but he also gave us his life in torturous death. That is the explanation for this great love here in Ephesians. In fact, Paul goes on to explain it in verses 5 and 6, even when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ.

By grace, you've been saved and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You want to find the greatest expression of God's love. You want to see the highest point of God's love for you, the very best gift. Look no further than to the person and work of Christ.

Look no further to the cross of Jesus Christ. In his death, and in his resurrection, we see the greatest, fullest, deepest expression of the Father's love for his people. Romans 5:8 says, but God demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Humanly speaking, is there anything higher than we could give to someone else?

Then our own lives. If I, if I give you A car, you ought to need. If I gave you a gift, if I gave you loads of cash. Is there anything higher than material things that I could give?

There is When we give our own lives. This past week, a woman by the name of Stacy Krim, 41 year old single mom, made the ultimate sacrifice for her infant daughter. Several weeks after finding out she was pregnant. She received this grim diagnosis of terminal head and neck cancer.

And she had two options. One was to receive chemotherapy to save her life, potentially save her life, but to jeopardize the life of her daughter in her womb. The other option would be to forego the chemotherapy. And give her life in order to protect her daughters.

She made this decision without any hesitation. Her life, her health was deteriorating. The doctor said, we need to do emergency surgery. We need to get that baby out, because you may die before that baby is birthed.

And so 10 weeks early before the due date, the doctors went in, did a C-section. Baby is alive, healthy, growing. A few days later, they had the mother in a separate ICU. She, she didn't even see her baby.

Nurses brought the baby to her. She held her for a brief moment. Fell into a coma and several days died. That baby girl received the greatest gift, humanly speaking, her mother could ever give her.

No toy, no dress, no gift, no vacation, no education will ever match the ultimate gift of her very life. And men and women, God has given us the very best gift of all. He gave us the gift of Jesus Christ. The beloved His person and his work put on full display at Calvary.

And that is the highest expression of God's love for you and for me. He can't give us anything better. If you have Christ, you have everything. But if you have everything in the world, but you don't have Christ, you have nothing.

Because God gave us the very best. He gave us Christ. Let her see. Here's a third truth, God's love.

never changes. God's love for his children never changes because of what Christ did on the cross on our behalf. And because by faith, we are brought into this mysterious union with Christ. God's love for us never changes.

And this is what Jesus is getting at in John 17, starting in verse 22, when he said, the glory which you have received, which you have given me, he's praying to the Father, I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one. And here is this most remarkable statement in verse 23, I in them, Christ. Living in us, in some mysterious fashion, sinners, and yet justified living in union with the Son of God. He says, you and me.

Why in order that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them, even as you have loved me, because of Christ, because we are brought into union. with Christ, we then are the objects of God's unconditional love. And the only way, listen, the only way God's love for His people would ever change is if it changed first towards His beloved Son. That's the only way if God were ever to diminish his love towards his son, which will never happen.

That would be the only way in which his love for us would ever be diminished. Why? Because we are in complete union with the Son. Therefore, God's love for you, God's love for me is truly unconditional.

The greatest chapter, in my opinion, is Romans 8, and the book ends of that chapter are bookended with this idea of unconditional love. God's grace. Verse 1, therefore, there is now No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And in the end of that chapter in verses 38 and 39, Paul says, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God's love. Listen, even on our worst days, you've heard it. You probably heard that all the time here from this pulpit. God's love for you on your worst days, on your best days, does not change.

I know we can feel as if it's changed. We can allow our hearts to wander in unbelief as guilt is our motivation. Because these expectations that we have about how faithful we ought to be and we're not lead us down this path of unbelief about His love. And I've been there many times.

I'm there everyday battling my unbelief, trying to keep myself in the good grace of the gospel, not moving there. And the Christian life is not meant to be lived based on how we feel. But based on what is real. And men and women, what is real is that Jesus Christ died and paid for every single sin of everyone who would ever believe.

And therefore, what is real is that I am forgiven. Colossians 3:13, having been forgiven, how many of my transgressions? 90%, 99%? No, all my transgressions.

God has forgiven. And therefore, if we look to God, right now, we don't see a diminishing love, we don't see a conditional love, we don't see a waffling love. We see a faithful covenant keeping love. My son Caleb performed in his first school play.

He goes to a private Christian school in our area and this was the first year he actually had lines. In the past, he was just an inanimate object. He was a rock, he was a tree. And he got to actually play a human role and he got two lines in the play and he was thrilled and he came home and he said, hey, I got these lines.

And so we were thrilled for him, the Shakespearean play and, and so we were there geared up with a video camera, waiting for this 12th moment of glory. And when it was time for him to give his lines, he absolutely choked. He comes on stage and his best friend was in the scene and his best friend is like cracking up. And so here he is and he's just like, he is just laughing and he's trying to get out these lines in the midst of this laughter and it's incoherent.

And he turns around, he goes off the stage, and he blew it. And there I was with a video camera, getting this 12th moment of glory, and if you would have seen my face in this moment of his failure, What you wouldn't have seen is probably what you're thinking right now. There was no anger in my heart. In the past, I think there would have been a lot of anger, a lot of shame.

But I, there was no anger. There was no harsh attitude. There was nothing by way of disappointment in him. What was in my heart was joy.

And if you saw my face in the moment of this failure, what you would have seen was me laughing with him as he laughed. Why? Because I'm his father. My love for him is not based on his performances in Grammar school Shakespearean plays.

I love him because he is my son. And I wanted him to see and to know that even in the midst of his failure, if he looked at me in that moment, he would have seen an expression of compassion, an expression of love for him. Laughter, joy. Men and women in your failure.

God's demeanor towards you has not changed. If you're up there choking in the midst of your moment, And you look at God, He's not looking at you saying. Again, No, his love never changes. Here's a 4th truth, a 4th truth concerning God's great love.

God's love for you is his delight. God's love for you is his delight. Because God loves us as he loves his son, his love for his children is a delighting love. So oftentimes we can just get the theology right, but we miss the heart of God.

And God's heart is not filled with some dutiful obligation, based on this contractual obligation to his son, because of precious blood. And therefore God's heart is OK. I'll put up with these people. I'll love them, but I'll do it out of duty.

That's not the heart of our Heavenly Father. God's love for us is his delighting, exuberant, joyful, uninhibited celebration of joy. He enjoys to love us. Zephaniah 3:17.

Here's a promise made to the nation of Israel that we are grafted into that speaks of the love that God has for his children right now. It says this, the Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exalt over you with joy. He will be quiet in his love, he will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

Does that sound like duty? Does that sound like God's arm is being twisted by our good works to force him to love us? No. This idea of exulting over you with joy speaks of being pleased, having a sense of fondness and enjoyment and the object of one's delight.

God enjoys to love us. He delights to love us. He shouts with joy as he rejoices over his people. And this is the delighting love the Father and the Son have for each of us who belong to Him.

And that never changes either. Right now, God looks upon you as His child with enjoying, delighting love. And here's the 5th truth, God's love for you is to be experienced. Men and women, it is not enough.

Listen, it's not enough for us just to get into our head. High lofty thoughts of God's love and to leave here this morning and say, wow, those great truths about God's love. That's not the point. God's love was meant and designed for us to be tasted and experienced in our relationship with Him.

And this is Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3 starting in verse 14, but we pick it up in verse 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you being rooted and grounded in love, and here's the intellectual side of it, verse 18, that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, so there is intellectual dimension of us understanding just how vast God's love is, and it will take eternity for us to figure that out.

But there's more because Paul concludes his prayer in verse 19 and he says, Look, I don't want you just to know intellectually about this love and to dot your theological I's and cross your T's. That's not, that's not the ultimate end. But he says in verse 19, furthermore, to know, literally to experience via relationship, to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge.

God's design in giving us His love is so that this would be the basis of our relationship with God, that we would fellowship in love, that we would commune in this love. That's God's point. And when we do, we get filled up to all the fullness of God. And what that means is that we get to experience in these moments, what the Father and the Son experience in their relationship.

They love each other. They glorify each other, they worship in a sense, each other. And we then are brought into this Trinitarian experience of love. To experience it is to be filled with a joy.

It's to have your heart delighting in the person and work of Christ. And that becomes the focal point of this love. It's rejoicing in Christ. So, we've seen 5 brief snapshots of God's love.

It was a free, uninhibited choice. It's always the best, it never changes. He delights to do it. And he's given it to us so that we might experience this fellowship and love with Him.

And when we grasp this love in faith, and we do so on the basis of Christ's merit, not ours, incredible life, heart transforming things will begin to take place. Gospel love is like nuclear energy. You don't have to do anything with it. You just have to be in the presence of it.

And it will affect you. Earlier this year, Our family Went to a Chris Tomlin concert and we had been to one before and just loved the time. if you've been to a Chris Tomlin concert, it's like the world's largest karaoke party. It's not entertainment, it's worship.

It's audience participation and we left that first concert so blessed that when he came back into our area earlier this year, we said, what, let's get tickets for the kids. We'll take them for Christmas and this will be our treat to them. And so we go and we are just pumped up for this concert. It's one of those special dates on the calendar.

But the night before, my wife and I had probably one of the worst arguments, fights that we've ever had in our marriage. This was a 10. On the scale of marital spats, this was, this was the mother of all marital arguments. And we could not get it resolved even into the late hours of the night.

We tried and And it wasn't resolved, and my heart was still just cold to God. And, I was avoiding going to God. I just wanted to go to my wife and try to figure this out. And so the next day we, I went to work, came back, and we left early for the concert.

Had about 1, 1.5 hour drive, and we're driving up there and we're trying to, we're still trying to get this thing figured out and in the car it's just getting worse. Maybe men, you've been there, right? You're trying to resolve this thing and you're just digging your grave deeper and deeper, and that, that was the tone and the direction of where we were at and we were planning to have dinner with these Christian friends of ours before and we're pulling into the parking garage and I said, sweetie, I may not have used that term of endearment, but I said, wife, listen, we're going to have to, literally, I was not loving her at all.

There was no affection, there were no roses, there was no violins playing in the background.

there was just like war music going on and bombs, exploding all around us. I said, look, we, we have to just put this on hold and we'll, we'll just try to get it figured out, see what happens. And so we go, and we have this dinner with these friends, we're like, hey, how's, how are you? Oh, we're doing good, everything's good.

We're just being fake and we go into this concert and this concert is just filled with worshippers of Jesus and the concert begins and everyone rises to their feet and people all around me. I just sense that they're just worshiping Jesus. And of all these people, I was the only one in there just saying, I don't want to be here. If I had my way, I would just go outside, find a lonely place, and just pray.

And try to get my heart right and And an amazing thing happened. Because in the middle of this concert, gospel truth was being sung by everyone all around as worship was taking place. And supernatural things began. I was just an innocent bystander, a bystander.

I was just standing there just minding my own business, but listening to gospel truth in songs like I lift my hands, Be Still, there is a river that flows from. Cry's tree, a fountain for the thirsty, your grace that washes over me. Let faith arise all the way my Savior leads me. Oh, the fullness of his love.

Oh, the sureness of his promise in the triumphs of his blood. The song Jesus Messiah, he became sin, who knew no sin that we might become his righteousness. He humbled himself and carried the cross. What love so amazing, love so amazing, and his gospel truth is just being sung to this hardened, lukewarm, cold, callous heart.

Listening to this gospel truth just transformed my heart in an instant. It did not take marriage counseling. It didn't take weeks of therapy. It took the power of God's love being listened to and heard and in that moment, God transformed me.

And as I began to repent of my sin, as God showed me my wayward ways, my sin, I repented of that, and tears began to flow down my face, because now I was free to worship God. And I just reached over and I had not touched my wife in a day. And I kiss her every time I leave and every time we go to bed and that night was probably one of the first nights I'd never done. I didn't want to do that.

I just reached over and I just grabbed her hand and instantly she knew what had gone on and tears began to flow down her cheeks as she realized, wow, things are OK. Things are good But it was the gospel that did it. Men and women, the power of God's great love and the gospel can change our hearts in an instant, in a moment. That's what God's love can do.

And therefore let's run to the gospel. And let's rest in this love. Let's just go to the cross and let's just listen to gospel truth being sung or spoken or preached to. And let's just soak it in and allow the grace of God to transform us as we soak in the riches of this infinite, glorious, Radically stupendous love.

that we will celebrate and enjoy for all of eternity. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you so much. God, we are undeserving sinners at best.

And yet, Father, as your adopted sons and daughters, we are mysteriously and remarkably the objects of your divine affection. And we thank you, Lord, that this love has enabled us to see and to believe and to receive the great gift of your love, which is Jesus Christ and all of His glory in his person and his work. Father, I pray for the hearts of my brothers and sisters here. I pray, Father, that if any are hesitant or struggling to truly rest their full weight on your love, God, that your grace would move them.

And Father, that you would embrace them again. And illuminate our minds and our hearts, God, so that we would see it and that we would worship you as a result of it. Thank you so much, Father, for your Son. Lord, he is worthy.

And it is our great privilege to know him and to love him, because you have loved us first. And it's in your Son's name we pray. Amen. Let's get