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Good morning. Good to see you. Oh, hey. We've got a new mic today, so you're gonna have to bear with all of us.

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Otherwise, I'll just have to yell really loud, which isn't a problem, but we can do it.

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If you have your Bibles, it'll be in Ephesians chapter 3 this morning, starting verse 17 here in a minute.

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Some of you may or may not know that I used to be a licensed electrician when we lived in La Mesa,

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I've wired many houses, traced many shorts, electrical lines, and have shocked myself countless times.

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When you are wiring a house, they will usually provide a diagram that shows how many plugs go in each room,

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where the lights are gonna be, where the appliances are gonna be, and things like that,

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where the electrical panel is supposed to be on the house.

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So once that is established, once you know where everything is going, you can begin to run wire throughout the house

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and put boxes where the plugs and lights are gonna be, and then piece together the other electrical components of the house.

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Now, the goal, when all is said and done, when everything's put in place, is that when you turn the power on,

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there isn't any problems. There is right voltage in the right places.

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You don't want 240 volts in a plug in your bedroom. It will blow everything.

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Unless you like to weld in your bedroom, then it makes sense.

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So with that in mind, let's read our text this morning, verse 17.

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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,

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what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,

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that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

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Now, last week we began verse 17, where we talked about creating a home for the Lord to dwell,

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creating a home inside of us for the Lord to dwell, a place where he can make himself at home.

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But this week, I really want to focus on the last part of that verse, rooted and grounded in love.

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Everything else that we covered this morning will hinge on us being rooted and grounded in love.

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Now, if I was a gardener, if I was a farmer, I might have chosen to focus on the word rooted, but I'm not.

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So I'm going to focus on the grounded part, alright?

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Essentially Paul is referring to the same idea.

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Now, I'm not like everybody else. You might hire an electrician and they do things differently than I do, but that's okay.

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But once I know where the power is going to come into the house, the first thing I will do is drive in an 8-foot-long ground rod into the ground.

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This is potentially one of the most important things in your house.

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It costs anywhere from $20 to $30, and it will save you thousands of dollars if something were to go wrong with your electrical system in your house.

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If done right, everything is connected to the ground rod.

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Everything is connected.

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The purpose of that rod is that if you get an electrical surge, such as from something getting struck by lightning,

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it will send that surge of voltage to the ground rod where it will be dispersed in the ground.

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Now, you'll probably lose your AC or whatever gets struck by lightning, but the rest of your house will be protected.

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It's one of those things that you never think about.

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You've probably never once thought about your ground rod, but it's one of the most important things in your house.

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You want your home to be grounded.

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You want everything that you plug in to be grounded and connected to that ground rod.

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But Paul is saying here is that you want your life grounded in love.

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So when you think about last week, and we view our heart as Christ's homes,

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when things go wrong in our life, if we are grounded in love, then it doesn't wreck everything else.

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So how do we begin to be grounded in love?

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The psalm writer in Psalm 1 says,

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Blessed is the man who walks, not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners,

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nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord.

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And on his law, he meditates day and night.

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He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in the season,

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and its leaf does not wither, and all that he does, he prospers.

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So the psalmist gives us this beautiful picture here of a righteous man who is like a tree planted by streams of water.

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Where the roots can go down deep and provide stability,

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and allow that man to produce fruit in his life season after season.

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Now I think we all want to be like that man.

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So how can we develop deep roots?

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The psalmist indicates that the key to putting down deep roots is to meditate on the words of God night and day.

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Now the Hebrew word for meditation comes from a root word that means to utter or speak.

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Meditation, as used here, means to speak God's word to yourself,

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and to speak God's word to yourself, and then apply what it means to your life.

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The act of meditation takes place in the heart, or in the mind.

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And you'll notice that the psalmist wrote that the man who was blessed will delight in meditating on the word of God day and night.

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So if I want to be grounded in love, the first place that I have to start is to delight in his word to the point where I constantly think about it.

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I'm constantly speaking it to myself.

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And I'm constantly asking how does this apply to my life?

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Do you know what it is to be in love?

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The love that I have for my wife, Sina, means that I think about her often.

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When we're apart, I'm already thinking about when I'll get to see her again.

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And because I love her, I think about what I can do to make sure that I meet her needs

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and how high can be the person that she can trust and that she can respect.

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Now although that certainly requires some effort on my part, it's also my delight.

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I get to do that to her and for her.

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Now when we fall in love with Jesus, we ought to have the same kind of attitude.

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We ought to delight in getting to know him through his word.

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And thinking about how we can take that and apply what we're learning so that we can live a life that is pleasing to him.

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Now most of us are pretty familiar with Matthew chapter 7 where Jesus says that a wise man builds his house upon the rock.

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Jesus gives an excellent picture of how we can make sure that we are building our lives on a firm foundation.

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It's not enough just to think about and meditate on the words of Jesus.

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If we really want to build a firm foundation, we also have to act on those words.

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We have to put them into practice in our life.

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If all I ever did was to think about Sina and think about how to meet her needs,

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but I never actually acted on any of those thoughts, that wouldn't go as far as building a good foundation for a good marriage.

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In fact, I would be willing to say we probably wouldn't be married anymore, right?

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The same thing is true for us spiritually.

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If we truly want to experience the love of Christ in our lives, we have to be grounded in him by practicing what he preached.

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So when things go wrong in your life and things will go wrong in your life,

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when you mess up and you think that you've failed again, I disappointed him again.

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If we are grounded in his love, if that is our foundation and you've been meditating on his word,

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then you will know that you were still loved by him, that his love is unconditional.

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If you were grounded in his love, when someone does something wrong to you,

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you don't let it mess up everything else.

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You respond in love, when the world is going crazy around us and calling evil good and good evil,

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if we are grounded in his love, we will know how to respond.

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You won't let the ideologies of the enemy ruin how you treat people, how you love people,

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and you will stand firm when the storms of life begin blowing against you.

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If you are grounded in politics, guess what happens when someone comes to you who thinks differently than you do.

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You don't view them the way Christ does, but you begin to view them as the enemy.

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If your whole life is grounded in your marriage or your kids, when they disappoint you,

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it will mess everything up because those things can't handle the load.

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Be grounded in the love of God because he can handle it.

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So once I get the ground raw driven into the ground, the next thing I would do is I would install the breaker box.

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The breaker box is the heart of the electrical system.

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All the power to the house flows through that house.

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Once we are grounded in love, the next step is that we would have the strength to comprehend the love of God.

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Ever so often we would get a call from someone who wanted to add a new appliance or they wanted to add a hot tub or things like that.

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The first thing that we would do is we would go to the breaker box and we would try to determine if that breaker box could handle the load.

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Most of the time it couldn't, so we needed to replace the breaker box with a larger one that could handle more amps.

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All the wiring would stay the same, but now the box could handle the additional load without overwhelming the rest of the house.

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The word that Paul uses here is much stronger than comprehending or understanding.

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He is truly expressing the idea of grasping, of being able to grab and hold on to the love of Christ.

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But there's an interesting paradox here in these verses.

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Paul writes that Christ's love is wide and long and high and deep, and it's the kind of love that surpasses knowledge.

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Then he turns around and he prays that his readers would be able to know this unknowable love.

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The word Paul uses for know is a word that means to know by experience.

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Literally here, this is what Paul is praying for his readers.

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I pray for you to know experientially this love that surpasses the ability to be known experientially.

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That's what he's praying for us.

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On one hand, that seems impossible.

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How can we know something that is beyond knowing?

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How can we understand something that can't be understood?

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But it must be possible or else Paul wouldn't have prayed for his readers to do that.

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It seems to me that Paul is emphasizing for us this kind of knowledge we can't figure out on our own.

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Only God can impart that kind of knowledge.

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Now, Paul has certainly described the love of Christ in the first three chapters of Ephesians.

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He has written about how we have been redeemed from an empty way of life by the work of Jesus on the cross, by his resurrection.

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But Paul wants us to realize that we can never know that kind of love just by reading about it.

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Paul prays again in Colossians chapter one that we would increase in our knowledge of him so that we would walk in a manner worthy

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that is pleasing to him.

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Do you have the capacity to know how much God loves you?

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God doesn't just say he loves us.

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He has showed us that he loves us.

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The more you experience his love, the better understanding you will have of his love.

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When we just had one child, when we had my daughter Adalie, but we were expecting Asher, I had this nervous feeling.

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I was genuinely concerned that I wouldn't love him as much as I loved my daughter.

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I could not comprehend how I could love another kid as much as I loved Adalie.

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I was really nervous about it.

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This is what was going through my mind.

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And any time I brought it up, people would just say, oh, your love will just expand and grow.

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I hated that answer.

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Because I couldn't comprehend how that was even going to be possible.

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But sure enough, it happened.

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Then when River, when we had River, it happened again.

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And then when Riker, it happened again.

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I can't imagine my life without those four.

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But for a period of time, I just couldn't understand how parents could love more than one kid.

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Every time we had another kid, it was just like my life got a new breaker box.

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Got a new breaker box that could handle the load.

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The more we experience Christ, the more we learn about Him, the more we worship Him,

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the more we follow Him, the more that we will begin to understand His love.

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Our capacity to understand and grasp will grow.

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This is the reason that Paul saw himself as the chief of sinners.

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Because the closer he got to the Lord, the more he understood and realized and was able to hold onto His love.

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And the more he understood how much he still had to learn.

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His capacity just kept growing.

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In 1 Peter chapter 4, it talks about how we were to grow in love.

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Matthew tells us that Christ didn't come to be served, but to serve.

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So how do we begin to comprehend how much He loves us?

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How do we begin to expand our capacity for love?

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We increase our capacity by following Jesus, following His example.

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Are you waiting on the church to serve you?

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Or are you serving the church?

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Are you loving one another earnestly, as Peter tells us?

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Do you show hospitality to others without grumbling and complaining?

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Obviously reading about the love of Christ in His Word is the starting point, but it's inadequate on its own.

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We have to experience His operation in our lives in order to really know and understand it in the sense that Paul is writing about here.

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Experientially knowing the love of Christ is the key to growing in our capacity to understand.

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Once I drive the ground rod in, once I put the breaker box on, the next thing I would start to do is run some wire.

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Now wires serve a couple purposes.

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They send the power to the plug, they send the power to the light or wherever it's going,

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but there's also this other wire that comes back to the breaker box and it completes the circuit.

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If you don't complete the circuit, the plug will not work.

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It's dead. The wires in this illustration represent the body of Christ, the church.

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I need you, and you need me.

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If you are constantly giving out, but not getting anything in return, the circuit is incomplete.

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Although the things I need to do to allow God to root me and ground me are personal, no one else can do them for me.

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God never intended for them to be carried out in isolation.

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So Paul emphasizes once again the idea that we are to experience the love of Christ with other believers in the community that we call the church.

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Because we have seen Paul make this point over and over again throughout our journey of Ephesians, I'm not going to belabor the point this morning.

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However, I also don't want to diminish its significance.

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Now in the book of Acts, we have a very vivid description of how believers in the early church understood the importance of community

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and what that should look like in Acts chapter 2, start in verse 42.

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And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

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And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.

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Praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

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Now unfortunately, the church doesn't really look like that a whole lot today doesn't.

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We've been so influenced by individualistic culture that we often retreat into our own shells to live out our faith on our own.

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But that's not how God planned it.

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What do you think it means when it says they had all things in common?

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It's not like they all had the same hobbies.

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It's not like they all had the same amount of kids or they all had the same job.

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It means that they were meeting needs.

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All of them were broken.

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All of them needed a savior.

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They were all on the same journey that you and I are on today.

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We are trying to be more and more like Jesus.

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So when a need came up, it wasn't just one person's problem.

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It was all of theirs.

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If someone was grieving, they were all grieving.

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When someone was in need, they took on that need as if it was their own.

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Now keep in mind, this is believers.

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This is the church.

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They didn't take on every need in the community necessarily,

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but they took care of each other.

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No pretending.

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Now just so I'm clear, I'm not saying that we don't take care of the needs around us outside the church.

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But the emphasis here is that if you have a need, the first place that you come is here.

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The first place you come is to the church.

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No one is perfect here.

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No one has it all together, but we sure act like we do, don't we?

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We come in here after having a terrible week and what do we say?

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I'm fine.

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I'm fine.

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I don't know how I'm going to pay my mortgage this month, but I'm fine.

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I don't know how I'm going to kick this sin issue, but I'm fine.

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My wife and I had a screamy match on the way to church this morning, but we're good.

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Stop pretending.

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We got to stop letting pride keep us from experiencing the love of God through the church.

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No one checks into a hospital room for a good time, right?

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We can't sit around bored at the home and think to themselves, you know what sounds like a great night out?

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I'm going to go check myself into a hospital room and let a bunch of doctors run a bunch of tests on me.

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We go to the hospital when things are wrong and we need some help.

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Now, I think church, I think church should be a joy filled place and I think we should enjoy being here.

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But if you think that you are fooling anyone by acting like you have all your stuff together, you've come to the wrong place.

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I am the last person who thinks that I have my life together.

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I love that I can come here and find someone older than me and wiser than me and say, hey, you've been married 50 years.

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How did you do it without losing your mind?

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I love finding people and say, hey, you have some really great kids.

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How did you get them through without killing one of them?

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Hey, I really like how you're walking with a Lord.

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How do I get some of that? What are you doing?

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That's what the church is.

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Does anyone struggle as a parent? Raise your hand.

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Anybody struggles as a parent? No, keep your hands up.

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Now, look around. Look who has their hands up.

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Look who has their hands. You're not the only one.

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My hands up.

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Okay, pay attention to who's around and then you go up to them afterwards.

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What struggles are you having? What issues are you having?

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Maybe my kids not the only side go out there, right?

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Find community in that way.

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Has anyone overcome some really difficult things in your marriage?

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Raise your hand.

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Look around.

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Find somebody that has their hand up later.

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How did you get through it? How did you overcome it?

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How did you stay faithful?

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Has anyone had a long dry spell with the Lord?

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Walking through the desert for long periods of time? Raise your hand.

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Just me? Okay.

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Okay, look around.

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How did you get out of it? How did he sustain you through it?

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What's the testimony that you have?

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That's what the church is.

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Nobody's pretending.

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I've had dry spells with the Lord and I've still stood up here and preached.

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Sometimes you just have to fight through it, right?

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But sometimes you need somebody to come alongside you and give you a drink of water.

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And get you through it. That's what the church is.

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All right, now finally once everything is connected, let's turn on the power.

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Paul says that you may be filled with the full measure of the fullness of God.

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God's goal.

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God's goal for the lives of His children is that they might experience a life that is filled to the very brim with the fullness of God.

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In fact, Jesus indicated that was the very purpose in which He came to earth in John 10.10.

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I've come that they may have life and not just life, but have it in the full.

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But what exactly does that mean?

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More money in your bank account? Health?

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Obedient children?

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Paul indicates that when we make the decision to become a follower of Jesus Christ,

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God imparts His fullness to us in Christ.

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In Colossians chapter 2, he says,

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All the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given the fullness in Christ who is ahead of over every power and authority.

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Now Paul, remember that Paul is writing to believers here in Ephesus.

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So if those believers already have the fullness of God in their life as a result of their union with Jesus Christ,

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why would Paul pray that that might be filled to the very top with the fullness of God?

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It seems to me that Paul is praying for his readers to become what they already are in Christ.

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Now when we make the decision to become a follower of Jesus Christ,

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we get all of Jesus that we'll ever get in Him, and we get the fullness of God,

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but we don't experience the entire impact of that fullness right away.

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In fact, none of us will be able to know all that fullness in this lifetime on earth.

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But as we mature and as we develop our relationship with God,

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we are able to experience more and more of that fullness operating in our lives.

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Now Paul is going to address this idea of spiritual maturity much later in chapter 4,

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but I'm going to give you a quick glimpse.

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In chapter 4 he says,

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So that the body of Christ may be built up until all reach unity in the faith

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and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature,

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attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

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Now in order for your electrical system in your home to work correctly,

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you need all four of these components.

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If you are not grounded, it will cause catastrophic damage.

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If you don't have a breaker box, nothing is getting turned on.

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If you don't have wire running through your home, your breaker box will just sit there unused.

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And finally, if you don't have power coming in, everything else is pointless.

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So what needs your attention this morning?

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Are you grounded in something other than love?

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So that when life gets hard, it wrecks everything else in your life.

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You ever been there?

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Everything we talked about last week hinges on this idea that you need to be grounded in love.

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Because when you mess up one part, it won't wreck everything else.

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Have you grown in your capacity to understand and know God's love for you?

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Are you just collecting knowledge?

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Or are you actually putting that knowledge into action by being willing to sacrifice?

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Just like he did.

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Sacrifice your time, sacrifice your money, or your comfort.

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Are you willing to serve?

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Are you willing to serve people?

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Not necessarily those people that are easy to serve, but are you willing to serve anybody?

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Are you willing to serve the Republican or Democrat that you don't agree with?

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Are you willing to serve the homosexual?

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Are you willing to serve the bully?

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Serve your spouse even when you are mad at them?

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Are you connected to the church?

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Not the organization known as Cornerstone, but the people that are sitting next to you.

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Not just coming out Sunday morning, but engaging with the people that are trying to be more like Jesus.

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Now there are seasons when we need to be a taker.

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Just give me all that you got.

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And that's okay.

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We're happy to minister to you in those seasons.

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But there comes a time when you need to be a giver as well.

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We need you to help complete the circuit.

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Finally, are you ready to have the power turned on?

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Are you ready to experience the fullness that Christ came to offer you?

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Now I'm not a body language expert, but I do notice body language, especially when I have a couple in my office.

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Because nine times out of ten, if someone's coming to me because they're working through some issues,

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when they come into my office, they will sit like this while the other spouse sits like this.

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There's a separation.

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And so I'm very keen on that when they're separated like that.

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I'm very keen on that.

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And as conversation happens, I begin to notice, hopefully, that they're coming more together.

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They're doing it subconsciously, but they're starting to come together and I take notes.

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That brought them closer, that separated them again.

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And so a lot of times I think our body language isn't willing to accept the fullness that Christ has to offer.

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And so one thing I've really been practicing and trying to put into practice is, as I pay attention to people,

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I can tell who is wanting a hug from me as you come through the door,

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and I can tell the ones that don't want to touch me.

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Right?

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I get it. That's fine. There's no hard feelings.

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But have you ever come up to hug somebody and they're like this?

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They're telling you, don't touch me. Right?

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That's okay. I'm aware of it.

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It's awkward if I stick my hand out to shake somebody's hand and they just look at me. Right?

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That's okay. No hard feelings. They just don't want to touch me. That's fine.

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So I'm very aware of body language.

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And so what I've been trying to practice in my own life is, God, I want to hear from you.

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I want to receive you. I want to know you.

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And so I just, I've been praying with my hands open like this.

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Maybe that doesn't mean anything, but I've been praying because this is more of a,

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I'm consciously making the decision, God, I want to receive something from you.

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I want to receive the power. I want to receive your spirit.

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I'm not going to be closed off. I'm not going to keep my hands in my pocket.

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I'm not going to be closed off when crossing my arms. God, I want to receive something from you.

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I want to surrender to you.

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So I'm going to pray for us and we're going to sing another song.

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And I'm going to ask you to be aware of your body language.

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I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm just saying, just be aware of it.

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Just be aware of it. Are you, are you receiving?

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Are you in a position to receive?

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Are you, are you humbly coming before Him?

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Maybe, maybe that means getting on your knees.

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Maybe that means putting your, your hands up.

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You're waving the white flag, right? I surrender.

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Are you willing to receive?

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Because when I see couples coming together,

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that's when I know there's a chance for some reconciliation.

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That's when I know that they're on the receiving end.

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I think the same is true with how the Lord operates.

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Are you willing to receive the power?

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Are you really ready to receive His Spirit?

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So just be aware of that as we worship. All right? Let me pray for us.

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Father God, I thank you.

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I thank you for another Sunday with these people in this room.

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I thank you for how, for the journey that all of us are on.

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I thank you that I'm encouraged here and loved here and accepted here

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in spite of all of my flaws.

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That's a testament to how you view all of us.

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And so Father, I pray that we will be a church that's grounded in love.

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That's grounded in your love, not grounded in a denomination,

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not grounded in an ideology, not grounded in a politics or anything else.

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Father, we want to be grounded in your love.

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So Father, I pray that you will help us comprehend and understand how much you love us.

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I pray that we will receive your spirit this morning.

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That we won't be closed off.

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So Father, I pray that you speak to us through your spirit.

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I pray that you will replace some breaker boxes in this room

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so that we have greater capacity to understand and know you.

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How much we are loved by you. How much we are accepted by you.

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Father, I pray that you put all the pride that walked in here today.

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I pray that you put it on the shelf and help us move forward in humility.

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So I gotta pray you speak as we receive your name and pray. Amen.