Secure in the Love of God
The sermon emphasizes the transformative power of knowing the love of Christ, which brings security, protection, and unconditional love for others.
This sermon emphasizes the profound, incomprehensible love of Christ for us, as seen through Paul's prayers for the Ephesians to be strengthened by the Spirit to grasp the depth of this love. The speaker highlights how experiencing and understanding Christ's love sustained Paul through trials and enabled him to endure hardships. The story of Hal Harris further illustrates the transformative power of knowing and being filled with the love of Christ, leading to a deep sense of security and overflowing love for others.
Full Transcript
We know so little about the love of Christ for us. It's amazing, and Paul's praying for the Ephesians, and he keeps building these things up. I pray that you'd be strengthened with power by His Spirit in the inner man, that you might be able, and finally it gets to the end, that you might know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
You'd be filled up with all the fullness of God. It's like he puts the love of Christ at the epitome. If you could just get a glimpse of the love of Christ.
Why is he praying like that for the Ephesians? Because evidently, Paul, he had seen something, and felt something, and known something of the revelation of the love of Christ for him, and that's what sustained him. That's what enabled him to take beatings, and stonings, and stripes, and shipwrecks, and everything else. He could not have done it otherwise.
Hal Harris, who lived there in Wales in the 1700s, he was out praying in a bell tower there. He said, Love fell in showers on my soul, so I could scarcely contain or control myself. And he said, I cried out to God.
He says, I'll go through fire and through water. But this is what he said. Now, you know, Hal Harris would go out and preach for nine hours.
He'd be so exhausted. One time he was crossing one of those stiles that goes over a fence, and he fell asleep on the stile. He's out preaching in the open air, and William Sheward with him gets hit in the head with a rock and killed in his twenties.
He said, Were it not for the love that I had known, I could never have stood against the flood. I would have turned back. And you know, our problems, many times, it just goes back to this.
We have no comprehension of how much Christ loves us. Paul prays for those Ephesians. I'm praying for you that you might know the love of Christ.
It changes everything. When you're filled with the love of God, when the love of God is poured out in your heart by the Holy Spirit, the first thing that happens is you're so full of love for every person you meet. They couldn't do anything to you to make you not love them.
I mean, every person you walk, you see them coming at you on the sidewalk, you want to hug everybody. Because you're absolutely secure in the love of God. Nothing can touch you, nothing can harm you, because He died for me.
He loved me and gave Himself for me. That's security.
Sermon Outline
- I. The Love of Christ
- A. Paul's prayer for the Ephesians
- B. The power of knowing God's love
- II. The Revelation of God's Love
- A. Paul's personal experience
- B. The impact on his life
- III. The Security of God's Love
- A. Protection from harm
- B. Unconditional love for others
Key Quotes
“Were it not for the love that I had known, I could never have stood against the flood.” — Charles Leiter
“He loved me and gave Himself for me. That's security.” — Charles Leiter
“Love fell in showers on my soul, so I could scarcely contain or control myself.” — Charles Leiter
Application Points
- We can experience the love of God by being filled with the fullness of God through the Holy Spirit.
- Knowing God's love fills us with love for others, making us secure and unable to be harmed by anything.
- Our security in God's love comes from His sacrifice for us, demonstrated by His death on the cross.