Battle Ready: "Are You Grounded?" Ephesians 3:17-19 Pastor Daniel Reese

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.

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

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

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Essentially Paul is referring to the same idea.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Everything is connected.

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

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

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

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

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

You want your home to be grounded.

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

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

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

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

So how do we begin to be grounded in love?

The psalm writer in Psalm 1 says,

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

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

And on his law, he meditates day and night.

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

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

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

Where the roots can go down deep and provide stability,

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

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

So how can we develop deep roots?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I'm constantly speaking it to myself.

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

Do you know what it is to be in love?

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

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

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

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

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

I get to do that to her and for her.

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

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

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.

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

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

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

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

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

We have to put them into practice in our life.

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

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.

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

The same thing is true for us spiritually.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

you don't let it mess up everything else.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The breaker box is the heart of the electrical system.

All the power to the house flows through that house.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's what he's praying for us.

On one hand, that seems impossible.

How can we know something that is beyond knowing?

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

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

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

Only God can impart that kind of knowledge.

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

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.

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

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

that is pleasing to him.

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

God doesn't just say he loves us.

He has showed us that he loves us.

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

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

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

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

I was really nervous about it.

This is what was going through my mind.

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

I hated that answer.

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

But sure enough, it happened.

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

And then when Riker, it happened again.

I can't imagine my life without those four.

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

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

Got a new breaker box that could handle the load.

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

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

Our capacity to understand and grasp will grow.

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

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

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

His capacity just kept growing.

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

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

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

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

How do we begin to expand our capacity for love?

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

Are you waiting on the church to serve you?

Or are you serving the church?

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

Do you show hospitality to others without grumbling and complaining?

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

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.

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

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.

Now wires serve a couple purposes.

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

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

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

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

I need you, and you need me.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Acts 2 · chapter mention

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

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

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

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

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

But that's not how God planned it.

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

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

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

It means that they were meeting needs.

All of them were broken.

All of them needed a savior.

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

We are trying to be more and more like Jesus.

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

It was all of theirs.

If someone was grieving, they were all grieving.

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

Now keep in mind, this is believers.

This is the church.

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

but they took care of each other.

No pretending.

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

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

The first place you come is to the church.

No one is perfect here.

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

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

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

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

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

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

Stop pretending.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

How did you do it without losing your mind?

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

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

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

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

That's what the church is.

Does anyone struggle as a parent? Raise your hand.

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

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

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

My hands up.

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

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

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

Find community in that way.

Has anyone overcome some really difficult things in your marriage?

Raise your hand.

Look around.

Find somebody that has their hand up later.

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

How did you stay faithful?

Has anyone had a long dry spell with the Lord?

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

Just me? Okay.

Okay, look around.

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

What's the testimony that you have?

That's what the church is.

Nobody's pretending.

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

Sometimes you just have to fight through it, right?

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

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

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

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

God's goal.

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.

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

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

But what exactly does that mean?

More money in your bank account? Health?

Obedient children?

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

God imparts His fullness to us in Christ.

In Colossians chapter 2, he says,

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In chapter 4 he says,

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

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

attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

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

you need all four of these components.

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

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

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

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

So what needs your attention this morning?

Are you grounded in something other than love?

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

You ever been there?

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

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

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

Are you just collecting knowledge?

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

Just like he did.

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

Are you willing to serve?

Are you willing to serve people?

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

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

Are you willing to serve the homosexual?

Are you willing to serve the bully?

Serve your spouse even when you are mad at them?

Are you connected to the church?

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

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

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

Just give me all that you got.

And that's okay.

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

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

We need you to help complete the circuit.

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

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

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

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

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

There's a separation.

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

I'm very keen on that.

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

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

That brought them closer, that separated them again.

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

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

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

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

Right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I'm very aware of body language.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I want to surrender to you.

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

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

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

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

Are you in a position to receive?

Are you, are you humbly coming before Him?

Maybe, maybe that means getting on your knees.

Maybe that means putting your, your hands up.

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

Are you willing to receive?

Because when I see couples coming together,

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

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

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

Are you willing to receive the power?

Are you really ready to receive His Spirit?

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

Father God, I thank you.

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

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

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

in spite of all of my flaws.

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

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

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

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

Father, we want to be grounded in your love.

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

I pray that we will receive your spirit this morning.

That we won't be closed off.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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