The Love of Christ: How Long!

3/11/12 “The Love of Christ: How Long!” Ephesians 3:14-19
I. Introduction
A. Series: the dimensions of the love of Christ
1. There will be no more fascinating subject of study in eternity.
a. What happened, how things work, what people are like.
b. An eternal study: Knowing something unknowable “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (v.19)
c. This love is the most important thing about us, the most important aspect of our lives.
(1) Accomplishments, talents, relationships, influence
II. The length of Christ’s love
A. Last week we talked about how Jesus was a man of love, how He loved people no one else loved, how His love extended beyond the boundaries of ordinary human love.
1. “I’ve never seen a man with so much love” Jeoffrey Benward // Love Walked Among Us by Paul Miller
2. But His love was not just a flash in the pan which inspires us today.
3. If His love is merely human, then we derive little benefit from it.
B. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever! Heb.13:8
1. It wasn’t just present in Palestine 2000 years ago.
2. He didn’t just love John and Peter and Lazarus and the rich young ruler and three or four Marys.
3. The love of Christ is not merely human and earthly. It is divine and eternal.
4. Just as He is from everlasting to everlasting, so is His love! Ps.136 His mercy endures forever!
III. Implications
A. The faithfulness of God
1. It is not variable, but constant.
2. There are no interruptions in His love.
3. “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” (Jeremiah 31:3)
4. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” (James 1:17)
5. “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor 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.” (Romans 8:38-39)
6. 1Corinthians 13:7-8 “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” I.e. Be like Me.
B. Christ’s love can be a grieving love, even a broken-hearted love. But Christ’s love is never ever a despairing love.
1. Prodigal son: the Father’s love for His lost son never diminished, never wavered.
2. And it is the love which causes the grieving.
a. Grief at loss is a sign of love.
b. This is why the angels rejoice when one sinner repents. It’s because of love.
c. It’s not that loves begins at repentance. That wouldn’t justify celebration.
d. It is because love was already there that makes repentance so celebratory.
C. When it seems that His love has come to an end for you
1. His love can be said to be affected by the state of our hearts. And at times the Bible uses language like that.
a. Those passages are referring to His pleasure with us (or lack thereof) in the moment, and in particular with the state of our hearts.
b. We can grieve Him.
c. But beneath all that, there is a foundational, unshakable love which is eternal and unchanging.
2. Think about Job. Did God’s love for him end? It probably seemed like it, didn’t it?
3. Job as a microcosm of mankind
a. Righteous and blessed
b. Cursed and troubled
c. Blessed again more than before
4. Sometimes it appears that His love has ceased, that He’s forgotten about us.
a. He allows this out of love.
b. But the fact is that His love never ceases.
c. “He drove the arrows of his quiver into my kidneys; I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. He has filled me with bitterness. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” My soul continually remembers my affliction and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lam.3:13-23)
D. Eternity past
1. From before the foundation of the world - “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world... In love he predestined us for adoption as sons...” (Ephesians 1:4-5)
2. This is the most important thing about you and me. We were in the heart of Christ before the world was even created.
3. “everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” (Revelation 13:8) “the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world” (Rev.17:8)
4. My name written in the book of life: The very God I hated loved me.
5. He loved me even when I had no inkling of that love.
E. The preservation of the saints: He finishes what He begins.
1. “No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (John 10:29)
2. “O Love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee.” George Matheson (Trinity #708)