![]() If you read how he’s leading up to it and how he says it, without proving it, he just dogmatically says this, and then once he says it, it’s like that’s the conclusion – case closed, and now he just goes on to preach the message as though that is a fact established. Here’s what he says: “Paul…” He says this dogmatically. But you know as I was reading through his commentary, I got to what he said, and I just put a question mark beside the passage there in the margin. One of my favorite commentators – I make no qualms about this – I love Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Now, I want us just to think about this, and I’m going to actually throw some commentators at you. What love is the Christian life rooted in and anchored into and sends its roots down into when Christ comes in to dwell? Is this God’s love to us? Is this our love to God and to man? And so the question arises, what love is this? Here at the outset, we want to ask this: What love is being spoken of here? Who’s love for who? What is the love into which the mighty tree – rooted, that’s the imagery – rooted – a mighty tree. The love of God or the love of Christ oftentimes, I have found through the years as I’ve studied different passages where that concept comes up, very often it’s not readily apparent if it’s the love that we have for God and others, or whether it’s His love for us. What love? That often arises when you find the concept of love in Scripture. ![]() So the question arises right off – now think about this – rooted and grounded in love, or as in the order of the original – in love being rooted and grounded. This is what I want to explore this afternoon. And as that happens, the result will be that we shall be rooted and grounded in love. Christ dwelling in the heart of the believer by faith. And as the increase comes, Christ comes in and settles down. So what the apostle is saying here is that if Christ comes in to dwell – now, if you’re a believer, you already have Christ in there, so obviously he’s praying for an increase, an expansion of this. This prayer is for people who are already believers. This is something that is done to you when Christ comes in and dwells. Rooted and grounded, they are passive participles. “…In love being rooted and grounded.” Christ dwells through faith in your hearts in love being rooted and grounded. So it literally reads this way: “the Christ may dwell through faith…” there’s one. In the original, if you were to read this right out of the Greek in the order of the words, what you have is you have three prepositional phrases back to back. So I want to deal with those last words there in verse 17. “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom the whole family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of God’s glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…” This is what I want to deal with today: “…that you being rooted and grounded in love,” that right there – “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.” He’s shown them mercy and poured His love on them. He’s chosen them out of all the other people upon the face of the earth. They’re being built together into a dwelling place for God. “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father.” For the reason that these Ephesians – all the reasons he’s been establishing really through the whole book up till now. We greatly need to be rooted in the love of Christ so that nothing in this life can move us.Įphesians 3. When we are planted in the love that Christ has for us, it will cause us to respond with love towards Him. The starting point in the Christian life is not our love for Christ, but His love for us.
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