Faith, hope, love
Faith, hope, love
In Ephesians 3:19, Paul's prays that we should "know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge". Can you think of anything else that you and I need to know, that would transcend this? Surely there is nothing more necessary than "to know the love of Christ." Paul himself says as much. He reckons that the love of Christ "surpasses knowledge". So we begin with this simple idea:
If you don't know Christ's love, then, as the saying goes, you “don’t know nothin’ ”.
You might object that therefore we all must “know nothin’ ” and be virtually ignorant, because the love of Christ is surely too profound for anybody to even begin to know. But you would be wrong about that. The love of Christ is not too deep for us, rather our deepest need is to know that love.
Certainly, the more you come to know Christ's love, the more there seems to be to learn. Yet it is possible to know his love in depth and in a mature way. We insult Christ if our knowledge of his love is puerile and superficial. We are capable of much more, and owe him much more.
Paul himself expects that we be "rooted and grounded" in Christ's love, and that we be "able to comprehend with all saints what is the width and length and depth and height" (Eph 3:17-18) .
These dimensions of Christ's love are not bewildering, but rather enthralling. Good friends are often surprised to discover new things about the other. Even after years of close friendship, one may suddenly see a whole new dimension to the other person that one never realised before. Being friends with Jesus is always a rich experience of discovery. But his love is richly knowable. It is not beyond anyone's reach.
There is something else to be said, before we get into the lesson: Our knowledge of Christ's love should be shared. It should be no secret. A common greeting in our Australian community is, "G'day mate, whadda ya know?" Of course, no answer is expected. But it rather tempts one to say, "I know the love of Christ, mate, what about you?"
Naturally you don't say anything quite so "holier than thou", but it should be always on the tip of your tongue to humbly impart your knowledge of the wonderful love of Christ. When we share it with others, we enrich our own measure of it. Truly, the person who does not share Christ's love, does not know Christ's love.
The love of Christ can be known in several ways. I suggest to you three themes which run through all Paul has said to the Ephesians, in leading up to the verse (Eph 3:19) that we chose as our text. These three themes are the cross, counsel, and coming of Christ. You may like to read the first three chapters of Ephesians to observe this triad.
Perhaps it has occurred to you that these themes encompass the entire Christian age.
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