Francis Chan: Falling Madly in Love with God

oh this is a I was flying over here yesterday and I was thinking gosh you guys have no idea how much I enjoy this coming back and being with you seriously like it's I I was thinking yesterday in the plane I go I feel like grandpa um you know I get to come and play with the kids and then give you back to your elders you know it's it's it's you know people would tell me gosh being at grandpa's better than being a dad because you still get to influence you still get to play with them but then they're not really your responsibility anymore and and and I was thinking gosh that's that's the way I feel like we're still family and I'm in a different role now and I still get to come and and share some things in your life but the other thought that came to my mind is you know I my kids are all still at home right now we're probably still a couple years away before you know my oldest will probably leave the house and some of you have been through that already where your your kids have grown up and and the day they go off to college or they head out and and I was just imagining what that day would feel like you know and there's probably just some serious pain of that separation that's it's never been there I've heard some of you talk about that there's there some some rejoicing you know there's some like okay you know there that there's some of that separation that's good and it's a right time for that as well but I'm guessing that once the child leaves over time you begin to see more clearly mistakes that you made is that true I would guess that would be true because you know how when you're in the middle of something you don't see it clearly but then sometimes once you're out of the situation you know the hindsight thing is 20/20 right you you look back and go why didn't I do this why I couldn't see it at the time though you know it's like when you're watching a football game and you're screaming like why didn't you just pass it to him you know and you that's easy for you and your living room you know because you can see that you know in your plasma screen all the guys that are open and you don't have a 300-pound linemen in your face you know of course I can see from that view but when I'm in there I'm in the pocket and these guys are rushing at me and in the same way as when I'm in the thick of it and all these pressures coming towards you of the children and all of life at you you don't see so clearly but my guess is is once you remove yourselves and the kids have moved away that somehow you look back and go ah why didn't I do this and you'll see so clearly and and I say that because as I studied Ephesians three this week I feel like I saw a lot of things more clearly and as I've been out of the day and day out I still pray for you I still hang out with the elders I hang out with Todd we have conversations but I'm out of the daily grind of trying to keep this thing going it's it's suddenly wow I can see some things more clearly and and the hard part of that is is as I studied this passion passage it really opened my eyes to regrets now and going wow I really screwed up in some ways and I can see it more clearly now just through what Paul says here in Ephesians 3 some things that I never saw before and I think it's because I'm out of it and I think it's because of the study in the Word of God and as we we look at this topic of the Holy Spirit I even assumed when Todd gave me the topic the Holy Spirit I thought okay I got this one I wrote the book on it you know I ever think and yet as I was led to this passage about the Holy Spirit this is something you won't find in anything I've ever preached or written about because it's fresh it's new it's something the Spirit is teaching me now about what he does and I feel bad that I never really preached this or or got this to this extent in Ephesians 3 verse 14 we'll be looking at Ephesians 3:14 through 19 today and I know you've been in the book of Ephesians so you understand the context of this but he says for this reason I bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being 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 Lord please open this up to us and help us understand this passage this morning by the power of your Almighty Holy Spirit in Jesus name Amen this passage is very much about the Holy Spirit and his power and the power he can give you but typically when I think Holy Spirit I think power its power to do this power to do that power to perform miracles power to change people's lives and yet here he's talking about something different he's talking about this this inner power for us a strength that he gives us a power that he gives us so that we can know and understand the love of Christ which is beyond knowledge and at the very end it's so that you could be filled with all the fullness of God now the goal is clear the goal here is is is the goal that I've had for you and I have from my own life it's to be filled with all the fullness of God right we just want to be full I mean you know we preach against being shallow right that's the opposite of being full or being empty and and sometimes in our lives we feel empty and we look at at people's lives indigo kasha seems like he or she has a very shallow relationship with God it's there's not a depth to it and there's other times you'll look in someone's life and go wow he or she gets it they're just full of the spirit full of this fullness of God they're filled with it and and and in this passage you understand at the very end he says so that you may be filled to all of everything he says is towards this end goal all of this is so that we wouldn't be shallow that we wouldn't live empty lives but that when people looked at us they saw a fullness a fullness of God a depth in us and the very core of our being and that's why I says so that in a few times he says so that so it's this progression like he gets on his knees and he prays to God he boughs before God why so that Christ might dwell in their hearts why so that they might be rooted and grounded in love and why is that so that you can know this love of Christ why is that so that at the end you're just this mature complete person and you're filled with the fullness of Christ and what I learned from this is that if you notice in this passage Paul is dealing with the inner man he's dealing with heart issues and this is one of my regrets I think that a lot of times I didn't go to the heart of the issue and I would deal with the symptoms or the byproducts kind of right now I have a cold okay and so I think nyquil every night I just do you know I don't even use the little cap thing I just you guys do that it's like I'm much about a capful you know and it just puts me out to sleep you know because the symptoms is I just coughed and whatever else it but nyquil takes care of all of that and and I'm you know sucking on you know cough drops even during worship I'm just you know cough drops blowing my nose dealing with it but but but probably what I need to do is eat some vegetables you know and work on the core the overall health and so my body can actually fight off this thing but instead you known I equals fine and it just gets me through the night and and and when I look at ministry I I think a lot of times I would look at external issues like man why don't you serve why don't you give more why don't you you love the people in your neighborhood why don't you share your faith you know why do you keep looking at pornography why don't you guys just get along why do you guys keep fighting in your marriage why are you holding on to all this stuff why you you know you're so greedy and you just want more and more and more see but these are all symptoms of a deeper heart issue if you don't understand how much you have in Jesus Christ you don't understand this love relationship you don't understand do you understand who it is that loves you and how much he loves you if you got that you would look at your stuff and go I don't care I don't care about this I don't care about that then it's at the core issue Paul prays for that he goes man I'm praying for your inner man not these external things not these physical things not these symptoms but there's something about the core of your being because if you really understood the love of Christ you would with great joy sell everything you have and go man I gotta have this love of Jesus and and as I looked I go well the problem is we don't understand how good god is and some of us in this room don't understand the love of God like we should and the depth of that how wide and long and high and deep we kind of do we kind of get it and so we kind of follow and if we really understood and we would it changes us and that's the miracle that Paul's praying for here is not a miracle of a physical healing or some manifestation that way but of your the core of your being that you would understand this love and Paul prayed for this because he note he knew there was nothing he could do physically to cause this to make it happen see and while I see some of the things I did wrong was that Paul dealt with the heart and really got to the core and sometimes I dealt with symptoms the other thing was Paul really committed to pray where as I often time committed to work and try harder and maybe I can craft the perfect sermon or maybe through this counseling session I would really get it across or this program and and I need to confess that to you that I look at this passage I go I did not pray hard enough for you the beautiful thing is that I think I've been praying harder for you this week than when I was actually living here and the beautiful thing is that this can still happen and I praise God for that that I could get on my knees and I I picture your faces and go God I want them to get the depth of your love and I want them to understand seekers Paul notice what he says he goes for this reason I bow my knees I get on my knees and then that's not the only way that we pray I mean there are other times in scripture when someone stands and prays other times when they're sitting in and then they pray but there's something about bowing and getting on your knees and we it's it's do in our culture we don't bow before anyone you know in their culture they did they would bow before Kings bow before monarch but but maybe it's a good thing that we don't bow before people so that this is the one instance in which we do you know so it's not like all we bow before our King without for this guy we bow before God no we don't really bow for anyone but but this is pretty cool that we should we could do this gesture this this posture of Prayer where we just get on our knees and say okay I've met my match that is not even a clue I surrender who in the world am I I am getting on my knees I'm getting on my face you're Almighty God I bow before you and Paul says and I bow before this is the reason you want to know why I bow he goes I'm bowing on your behalf I'm bowing in prayer for you for this reason I bow my knees before the Father from every family in heaven on earth his name I'm bowing before the creator of everyone I'm bowing before our God the one that saved us and gave us his name Christian you know that we've all taken on this name no matter what background denomination you came from you know the bottom line is right now you really take on the name of Christ and we've become a part of his family we bow before him and he says according to the riches of his glory he may grant you see that's like such a key word there that he may grant you to be strengthened see Paul understood this it was something that God does grants to a person I can't I no matter how hard I work I can't make you understand how much Jesus loves you God has two super naturally do that by the power of His Holy Spirit and as someone you just get it and while we waver in and out of that it's it's the Holy Spirit that keeps you getting it it's granted to you and it happens through prayer that means if you come in here and you do not love Jesus Christ and you do not understand that Jesus Christ really loves you I am NOT going to talk you into that right now it's something God's got to just do and that's why Paul understood I'm gonna get on my knees it's like this well when Lisa and I lived in Simi Valley we always had people living with us and we had this one gal that lived with us a long time Rochelle and so we tried to marry her off and and we would always just kind of fun to us we would try to set her up even all our kids pray that Rochelle would get married you know and we were just yeah we try to set her up with some of you you you know with just you you know and some guys are nodding your heads and it was just like anything you know and in hose like he was she'll we got a plumber coming over they he's single you know after he fixes the sink come out with cookies you know and I'll go ha Rochelle you're always baking you know if you're not at the gym or praying or baking uh what a great wife you'll be you know and and you know we would embarrass the heck out of her you know but just always trying to set her up and you know it's like hey what do you think of Rochelle you know and it's great isn't she done you want to marry her you know and and you know and sometimes you know they'd be like I know she she's nice she's nice you know or sometimes Rochelle we gone he's fine he's nice but we can't make them fall in love right it's like it's just either they're not she ended up falling in love on her own you know and I'm getting married and she's pregnant now Gregory you know but um but it's it's it's almost like that where it's the same thing here I can't make you fall in love with Jesus I can make the introduction okay you can walk in this room and I can tell you listen God who so you the creator of the world the only one that matters he so loves you more than your wife more than your kids one your mom your dad any friend any girlfriend boyfriend he's crazy about you he so loved the world so much that He gave His Son and do you understand how wicked you were how much you rebelled against him and he he loved you in the midst of that while you were a sinner he gave his son can you believe that his son and he watched his son on a cross I mean who does that what kind of love is that that watches his son die for someone else and then his son rises from the grave after being buried for three days he just gets up by the power of the Spirit and he's just talking and you know a sentence back into heaven and then he can put his spirit inside of you he'll change everything what an amazing God and some of you will go that's nice and I can make that introduction and seriously nothing will happen until somehow here like Paul says the Holy Spirit gives you a strength - no - no interesting phrase that you may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge he lets you know something that you can't know you get to a depth of this real understanding your inner man there's knowledge of God loves us Oh how He loves us and we sing these songs with his depth and this understanding if I get that Oh how He loves us see I can make the introduction but for you to get that love that happens as I get on my knees and pray for this and say God would you grant this to them because if they got your love they wouldn't love their sins so much if they got your love they wouldn't fight with each other you realize there has never been never in the history of this earth a spirit-filled couple that has divorced never so the issue is not about his needs or her needs or love languages or this or that the issue is somehow as individuals you don't understand the love of Jesus you don't understand them you don't get him um and filled with that love and so that's why you start fighting and arguing and quarreling it's because of that emptiness that you want that other person to fill it all goes back to the see that's the core issue I think about how many hours I've wasted counseling and marriages when it really wasn't about the marriage and I was like now you don't really understand how much God loves you do you you don't really understand this love of Christ that surpasses knowledge to you you understand how much you would just be filled just in him to where you'd be overflowing and so you need this and need this from other people so let me just get on my knees and pray that you would really understand the love of Christ that you would be strengthened into the in the inner man not the outer and we all understand the outer uses some of you guys spent a lot of time this morning looking at the outer man or out a woman fixing it up looking right and everything else and how much time did you spend on that inner man just praying now it's about my soul my soul is ugly right now and I want this I need this love of Christ to get it so we work and we work and we were let me ask you something because it's about knowing the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge are you sure right now are you sure don't quickly answer this one don't nod your head this is just between you and God no one needs to know you can keep the facade going but between you and God are you sure right now that Jesus Christ is crazy about you are you a hundred percent sure not that he so loves the world but that he so loves you as an individual do you can you really come with that type of security before God and go I know I know before on a shadow of a doubt that you love me or is there a part of you that's insecure I don't know I think he loves me I mean I've been told it my whole life I've been a part of this church but right now as I have to confess to you that I go in and out of this sometimes and there have been times as I look back I go because the Lord is revealing to me that I minister to some of these symptoms because I have some of these issues and and there are times I'm so sure of the love of Christ that he loves me and I can sing that oh how he loves me but the way that I wandered the way that I am prone to wander is I wandered toward insecurity and I wander back towards trying to earn it somehow and I think you guys have seen some of that pattern in my life and so no doubt that reflection is going to come into some of your lives too of this coming in and out of this assurance and so I got to ask you again right now are you sure that God loves you a friend of mine was just sharing about his own life just yesterday and he he quoted a verse that I preached two years ago but I haven't preached in a long time it's it's John 15 nine wherewhere that every before we even turn there let me ask you something how much do you think God the Father loves his son could try to try to imagine that just right now how much you think right now God the Father loves Jesus pretty good amount pretty much a perfect love right that's why John 15 9 is one of the most difficult passages for some of us like me to embrace because in John 15 9 Jesus says just as the father has loved me so have I loved you now remain in that love think about that just as in so much as in the same way as the father loves you that's how much you love me come on shouldn't the verse read just as the father has loved me cut that in half you know or 1/3 or I mean that's the way I feel sometimes right you you'll some of you hear that verse some of you some of you guys get the love of God and praise God for that I am so grateful for you and I learn from some of you but some of you struggle like I do and believing that verse and going no way that much as much as the father loves you that's what you think of me and it's even going back to the John 3:16 that God so I had that word so like I believe he loves but so love the world like that much Jesus I believe you love me but just as the father loves me yeah that's why for us to comprehend that I cannot physically comprehend that it is a knowledge it's a love that I can't know just physically I can't just study and know that I can't just see you know check it off on an exam something has to happen through the power of the Holy Spirit to where I get it it's a power that it's a strength that is required for us to get love of God and that only comes through the Holy Spirit and so we try try try many of you you know talk to me and you say hey how can I help my husband understand the love of God how can I share with my friend at work to get the love of God and I'm going and every time I touch like oh man that's the million dollar question you can't you can't make someone else fall in love but unlike a physical relationship and this one you can actually pray like Paul doesn't get on his knees on behalf of that person and so I say you know I I do know that God loves me and there have been times and there are periods when I am so secure in that and there are other times when I am NOT and that's me different people have different issues this is mine and I also realize I have not prayed about that issue as much when I pray for the power of the Holy Spirit I pray four times like this God give me a power so that I can impact other people's lives that I love empower me gift me for the common good these are all biblical good prayers and yet I've neglected this one in my own life and for that for others I don't pray enough okay God now empower me strengthen me so that I can understand your love from and empower these people in this room whom I love strengthen them right now by the power of your Holy Spirit so that they can know your love and rest secure in it security that's what I'm praying for this morning security debating whether now to share something is it's kind of weird but I think I'm supposed to share it yesterday yesterday I woke up with a weird weird dream you know you have you wake up in the mid and you normally don't remember your dreams by remembered mine from yesterday yesterday morning I woke up it was a weird one of those dreams that didn't make sense I am I was playing with a buddy of mine Jesse and we're competing in something and he was winning which right then I should have known it was a dream and but you knows how suddenly you're in a room and then suddenly it's weird like that you were actually in an airplane you know but you thought it was a room like this and you're playing basketball and suddenly he says hey you know let's go to my uncle's and get some avocados and you know it's like you know how random things but it makes sense in your dream you know like oh yeah of course avocados would come next and and then he opens the door like it would've been like this door and that's when I found out why we're in midair you know in an airplane and he has this yellow backpack thing and he's getting ready to jump out and throws one to me and then he's like you know so I strap this thing on and and I'm going what did this is a parachute and looked like a parachute you know with some crazy weird yellow backpack thing and he goes just trust me I'm like where do I go where do I pull and he just jumps out of the plane and he start stumbling backwards and I just remember going there I don't know this thing works I don't know he's like trust me but I think Jesse he says that all the time and he's in the wrong half the time you know and then I'm just got men I don't know I don't know what do I pull something what do I do right then I woke up you know and I was like wow good good you know and it was one of those weird I don't know if you ever do this where you wake up and you think okay cuz you're so confused in the dream then you figure out the solution and and so I think okay okay and you try jump back in the dream because they're still early in the morning so I'm gonna fall back asleep and dream that the parachute worked and and but I never could fall back asleep yeah I drank more nyquil did it no it just but but but it's it's it's a but but then I woke up and I just kept thinking about that dream yesterday morning and and in the cone okay so is there a point to it you know um I don't know a big dream guy whatever but it's whatever it whatever the point then it probably wasn't anything what I got from it was but there's some things you don't want to screw around with you're right and I woke up because there was just this nervousness of I am about to risk my life jumping out not shirring if this is a backpack or a parachute and not sure if I'm going to figure out on the way down what to pull because there were no straps or there were no instructions there was nothing and and I share that because you know what this this thing about the love of Christ and this security is is is not something we mess around with right you don't want to go I think he loves me I think I get the love of Christ I I think I understand his grace it's something we all want to be secure and right and and I apologize if I because I I'm still growing in this area in a big way in a big way not a little way and I you guys know I confess my stuff to you but I I don't think I really understood the depth of this one of how my insecurities can then come out and some of the result of that can be pushed on to other people and and when I don't really get the security at times then I will Minister out of insecurity and and treat symptoms rather than the heart issue and so even right now my tendency would be to try to fix everything with a sermon and what I learned from this is you you don't do that and there's a power and prayer that we have to trust there's a power of the Holy Spirit that we have to trust and so here's what we're going to do I'm going to have Jared come up and just just play softly but what I'm going to ask you for is I want as I'm going to be praying for you and the weeks to come and and I you know I think this is I really loved this coming back and and seeing things more clearly and coming back and sharing with you and doing that on on a regular basis like a grandfather type of relationship where I can still pour into your life and pray for you and and yet not be there every day I ask that you would pray for me that I really get the Holy Spirit would fill me with a deeper security in this love and I'm we praying that for you that your inner man and the inner man you would be strengthened so you really would get this and even right now I asked Jared to play does that you ran out any other noise but some of you have friends and relatives and people you work with and you care about very much and you know there's an emptiness in their life because they don't get this love of Christ that's the heart issue and you've been treating their symptoms and trying to fix this fix that get them off drugs get them to be less greedy game to quit worrying about their future and bottom line that's not the issue the issue is something supernaturally the heart needs to be changed like the passage Todd quoted last week from if from Ezekiel where they've got a heart of stone and needs to be turned into flesh they need to get the love of Jesus and what I'm going to invite you to do for those who are comfortable is to bow and you know bow your knees and get on your knees and pray for those people who might even be in this room and then there's some of you here that you are so insecure right now so unsure it's like that parachute backpack you go I don't know man I don't even know where I am with God right now but I certainly don't know this love and you need prayer for yourself throwing this time I'm going to invite you to come up to the stage and just get on your knees just along the front of the church and the elders and ask some of the community group leaders to come up and just lay hands on you and pray for you that something supernatural would happen because that's the only chance we have that God would grant to you through the riches of his glory to know this love of Jesus and maybe some of you will get it today and then those of you that get it and get baptized right after worship will celebrate that knowing of the love of Christ you

Channel: Crazy Love

Views: 272,476

Keywords: Francis Chan, sermon, church, GOD, Jesus, Crazy Love, Crazy, Love

Id: WjibGOQ6zfQ

Length: 37min 43sec (2263 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 05 2014