Rooted in Love
A Sermon on Ephesians 3:17
How can one have an abundant life in Christ? What is the secret to living life to its fullest?
In this sermon from Ephesians 3:17 titled “Rooted in Love,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones takes the listener through a section of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians to answer these questions.
In this section, Paul is praying that
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner men, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us, and to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.
Amen.
Now we have reached the 17th verse, and in particular this morning, the last statement in that 17th verse, the statement that follows the one we've been considering together on a number of Sunday mornings, which was that Christ may dwell in our hearts or in your hearts by faith, then the next step, that ye being rooted and grounded or founded in love, or if you prefer, that ye having been rooted and grounded in love, may be able, with all the saints, to comprehend this great and unexpressible love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.
Now, every single statement in this great prayer is a wonder and a vital importance for us all. We have tarried with that last statement about Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, because it is, of course, in many ways the crucial statement, the one that makes all the others that are going to follow possible. And we have especially dwelt on the way in which that is possible to us and may become actual in our various experiences. We can sum it all up, if you like, by this, and it is important that we should be carrying this in our minds constantly as we go forward. minds constantly as we go forward. What the apostle is praying for is that these Ephesians may know the Lord Jesus Christ himself, that they may seek him, not even seek the blessings that he can give primarily, not even seek holiness primarily, but seek him.
There is a very subtle danger there, into which Christian biography in the history of the church shows so plainly. It is so easy for us as Christians to fall, and that is to make anything an end and an object in itself apart from the Lord himself. All holiness, sanctification, every kind of blessing and every condition in the Christian life is to be the result of our knowledge of him as a person and our communion with him himself. That is the essential meaning of this Christ dwelling in the heart by faith. So that my primary ambition should be not to be a good man, not even to be a holy man.
Amen.
There are holy men in other religions, as you know, in Buddhism, Hinduism, even in Judaism. To be a holy man is one thing in a sense, but the specific thing that makes us Christian is that our holiness is the result of our knowledge of him, our relationship of him.
So that in a sense, we must not even speak about deepening the spiritual life. What we should speak of is deepening our knowledge of him and our love of him. And if that becomes the case, well then, our spiritual life of necessity will be deepened. Now that's exactly what the apostle is saying here, that if Christ dwells in our hearts, well then, this is the result, that we will be rooted and grounded in love. And that, you notice, is the order in which these things come. And if we vary that order, we are guilty of doing something which is extremely dangerous.
... Here it is that we ourselves should be rooted and grounded in love. That love, in other words, should be the predominating, prevailing element in our lives and in our whole conduct and in our lives and in our whole conduct and in our experience. Obviously, we have no love in us at all apart from his love. We love him because he first loved us. (1Jn 4:19) And there is an element of love in the Christian life from the very beginning of necessity. One simply cannot believe that the Son of God came on earth and gave himself to the death of the cross for us and for our sins without there being an element of love toward him immediately. Now the apostle knows that. He's already dealt with it in the first chapter and in the second. Here he is concerned about this deeper love, this more permanent love. And therefore he is very specifically speaking about our love to him rather than his love to us. Now we must take hold of that, I say. That what he is dealing with is the love that we are aware of, that is in us and that we manifest. The love that we are aware of, that is in us and that we manifest. So, he is considering and describing our love to God. Our love to the Lord Jesus Christ. Our love towards our brethren in the faith. Our love of Christian work, of Christian activity. Indeed, our love for everything that pertains to our life as a totality. And therefore, I say, holding that idea in our minds, we can now go on to look at the way in which the apostle speaks of it.
The whole element of the Christian life, he says, is to be one of love. And in order to bring that out, he uses his two pictures, rooted and grounded in love. One, you see the first picture, at once makes you think of a tree, and the second makes you think of a building. And the apostle quite deliberately uses the two pictures, the two comparisons. And he must have some very good reasons for doing that.
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But there is also a subtle distinction between the two. So let us look at it like this. What are the things in common in the two pictures? What is there in common between a great tree and a great building? Well, the ideas at once are the ideas of depth and of firmness, of strength, of strength, of permanence and durability. Rooted, you see, means deeply rooted, so that you mustn't think of some kind of a sapling that can easily be blown down if a slight gale should happen to rise. You think rather of a majestic oak tree, with its roots down in the depths and its tendrils spreading out and taking a firm rooted, deeply rooted. It's been there for years, and it looks as if it's going to stand forever. There it is. Well, then you look at a great building, and it's a massive building, a high building, if you like, a skyscraper, but it's got a wonderful foundation.
