So how do you measure things to use a tape measure, You know, the old adage measure twice. Cut once and your tape measure person. Maybe you use measuring spoons and measuring cups when you're doing your baking and your cooking. Or maybe you just eyeball things right? You have your own metric system that includes a smidgen a dash and a pinch. Right? You're your own way of doing things. Have you ever used a trash can to measure the weather? I'm not talking about, you know, measuring rain water in the bottom of a trash can. No, I'm talking about using your trash can as a wind meter. Yeah, that's right. One weather report gave an entire breakdown of how you can measure things. It begins like this. Level one on the wind meter is your lid flipped over, Level two, you're can tipped over Level three, you're can is in the neighbor's yard, level four your can is down the street somewhere and level five of the trashcan. Wind meter is, where is my trash can? It's gone. If your trash can is gone, The wind was pretty strong. Then there's the kid asked his dad, Hey dad, how many feet are in a yard? And his dad said, well, I guess it depends on how many people were in the yard. Mm hmm. Or maybe you're struggling isn't with measuring its with being measured. Maybe you feel like no matter what you do, it's not enough, no matter what you do. It's never enough to get you where you need to be or or to get you where you want to be. Maybe your biggest struggle is being measured today. We've come to our final checkered flag in our seven G and seven G plus series. We've been looking at the speed that you need to do life. And each week we've taken a theme from the bible that begins with the letter G. And we've focused on that. And so our final seven G plus sermon is going to be grasped. Our message today is simply grasp. And we're going to be looking at the third chapter of Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus. And and as we look at chapter three of Ephesians, what I want us to do is to to consider this question, is there a measurement that you can use when you feel like you don't measure up? Is there a measurement in life you can use when you feel like that, nothing that you do measures up? Well there is. And let's see if we can find out what it is, Ephesians, Chapter three will be beginning in verse 17 Paul is praying for the church here and he begins this portion of his prayer like this. I'm praying that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith paul didn't want them to leave their bibles in the youth room, he didn't want them to leave their worship in the sanctuary. He didn't want them to leave their Christianity at church. He wanted and prayed that christ would dwell inside of them. That christ would live inside their hearts that he would take up residence in their hearts Now does that mean that every Christian has a little tiny microscopic Jesus that lives in their heart and has a love seat and Ottoman, he puts his feet up on while he's eating unleavened bread and and watching reruns of 7th heaven. Is is that what all this is about? No, it's not to have christ dwell in your heart means that you trust jesus, that you trust him. That when gas prices get high, when it's time to do the taxes, when there's peer pressure at school, when there's depression at home, whatever it is that we face in life that we still trust jesus, we keep believing in jesus, we keep relying on jesus, We keep trusting in jesus, we keep clinging to jesus even when we don't want to, even when it may not be popular and especially when it's hard, we keep trusting, we keep believing when all of our feelings say do something else, when our emotions say do something else, we just keep believing and why would we do that? Well we do that because for six hours on one particular friday in history, Jesus loved us and gave himself up for us so that as we have shared in recent weeks, we can breathe easy because salvation in jesus means that death is no longer our fate and so we dwell on that we keep believing in that and and relying on that and and trusting in that and clinging to that, that in christ death is no longer our faith. That in christ we can breathe easy because we have christ, paul says that we're believing by faith. Not not blind faith. Ok? It's not it's not blind faith to follow jesus, But it is true, historical, practical, spiritual, real faith in jesus, christ. If we do that, that jesus will be dwelling in our hearts. Someone put it in a very interesting way. It says, if you sit on your horse, then your horses under you. If you sit on your horse, your horse is under you. Pretty simple math. But if you get off of your horse and start walking your horse will not be under you. Again, Simple math. Right? With a picture that paul's painting is this don't get off. You're a christian horse. Don't walk away from jesus. Stay with jesus. Make sure that the gospel is still underneath you. That is still holding you up, that you're still in the right place, that you're still believing, but you're still trusting that you're still dwelling our faith in christ is how christ dwells with us. But paul's not just talking about our our house here. He's not talking about the the home of our heart. He's talking about your front yard too. This is the next part of verse 17 and that you being rooted and grounded in love like grass like trees like azaleas at the masters, you have to have roots to grow. But something that has roots grows, it grows none of us are perfect, okay none of us are, but if we are a christian, we should be growing in our love for jesus and growing in our love for other people. And why should we be doing that? Because our faith by definition means that christ is dwelling within our heart. The love of christ is in our heart when christ is dwelling in our hearts. So we should be growing in love. We should be rooted in love but also we should have something that is foundational paul says, we should be grounded to grounded means you you have a foundation again, none of us is perfect, but there should be enough of the gospel in our life. Something about us, a love toward God, a love towards people. That means that something spiritual can be built on our lives, something can be built on top of us so that our neighbors are not having to use the wind meter trash can to figure out where we are with our faith and that every time something hard or difficult happens that that our lid blows off or are all of the faith of our trash can just blows away now that we're believing that there's this foundation and maybe to make it a little more uncomfortable. What does it take or what would it take for you to bail on the Church? Look sometimes sickness or or new job responsibilities or maybe some other things might keep us away from the Church for a period of time, but don't let anything else pull you away from the joy that God has for you in the life of the Church, there are no perfect church is okay, There aren't and there are times that God leads us to believe one church and go to another church, but if we do that, don't let it be over petty things. Look at the life of any particular church and say, is the gospel being preached? Is the bible being taught all over the building during the week by by lots of different people. Is there a desire for people who are not christians to become christian? And generally speaking, is there a love for people in the life of the Church? If those things are there, everything else is secondary, Everything else is negotiable in the words God's designed the church to be this place for you, so that you could come and be a part of this glorious gathering of people who are rooted and grounded in the love of Jesus Christ. So don't let fear or pouting over a pandemic, Keep you away from the church. Don't let fear or pouting over change in the church? Keep you away from the Church? Don't let fear or apathy over truth, keep you away from the Church and don't even let pain and fear and grief and anger from death, keep you away from the Church rather be rooted and grounded in your love for christ be rooted and grounded with a love for the Church. Be rooted and grounded with a love for people inside the church and especially people outside the church, be rooted and grounded with a desire to serve, be a door holder in the life of the church. Find your place to volunteer, your place to teach your place to give money, your place to pray whatever it may be, be a part of holding the door of the Gospel open for other people. And one of the most strategic reasons you would hold the door open is because the door was held open to you and you went through in other words, the Foundation of all foundations, the thing that you need to be rooted and grounded in the most is salvation in Jesus Christ. The Foundation, that will help you stand up two failed tests at school, the foundation that will help you stand up to peer pressure at school and work in other places. The foundation that will help you stand up in the midst of health difficulties or our conflicts in your marriage. All of that foundation was built at the moment of conversion. See, Salvation is your foundation and everything is built on that paul is praying that we would be rooted and grounded in love, but he is mostly praying that we would be rooted and grounded in our salvation? Your salvation in Jesus Christ is the foundation. If that foundation is not there, then anything and everything can crumble at any given moment. So are you truly saved? Do you have this foundation of salvation in Jesus Christ? Is christ dwelling in your heart. If not then we would plead with you to come to jesus to repent of sin, to put your faith in him. You see the message of jesus, the gospel story. It is amazing. It is spectacular. It is fantastic. It is what your heart longs for the most, even if you don't know it because here's the promise of what it means to be in christ, there is no more guilt, there is no more punishment, there is no more wrath and there is no more condemnation no more. It's it's all removed. There is something you bring to the table though and that's complete and total surrender and devotion, total surrender to jesus. Now to people outside of Christianity, that sounds crazy, right? Total surrender to a religion, total surrender to this person called jesus and to those of us in the church, it doesn't sound completely crazy because we see this concept of surrender and devotion in the bible, we we've heard it. If we've ever been around the church a little bit, but if we're really really honest with our hearts, we still kick against it? We do we still kick against the concepts of, of surrender and devotion. How well in the same way when we say I'm not given the government one more nickel than what I have to In the same way that we'll drive halfway across town to spend $25 on a bumper sticker that's protesting gas prices instead of just putting the $25 worth of gas in our car for the same reason that we want to fire the coach Of our favorite team if they don't win 90% of their games by at least 90 points every single time for the same reason that we will grumble and complain against that unfair teacher at school grumble and complain against that pastor that church staff person is changing everything. Grumble and complain about that politician that won't vote the way that we want them to vote grumble and complain about that doctor that won't fix every single problem in our aging bodies grumble and complain about that barista that keeps getting our our mochaccino order wrong because they put almond milk in there when we're clearly asking for vegan gluten free Mazzetti tree creamer. And they just, they're just not paying attention. In other words, if we're honest, none of us are prone to surrender. We're not, we're not prone to surrender and we're definitely not prone to devote ourselves to anything that requires everything. So why should we surrender to jesus paul's going to tell us, he's he's got it right here in this prayer. He's prayed that christ would dwell inside of us. He's praying that we'd be rooted and grounded in love. And why would we need those things? Look what he says, continuing in verse 17 and 18, so that you may be able to comprehend, paul is praying all these things because there's something he wants us to comprehend. There's something that he wants us to lay hold of to apprehend. Two to grab, to seize, to grasp. There's something that we need to grasp. The language here is that of having enough strength to fight with a fierce opponent. Years, many years ago, I was reading a story about a man who was being asked about some scars on his hands. And he said, well, when I was a little boy, he said, I fell into this pond and and when I fell in, I actually fell on top of an alligator and the alligator attacked me and I was screaming, my mom heard my screams. She came running, jumped in the water and she began a serious tug of war over my life with that alligator. He said, these scars on my hands remind me my mom, one what paul is praying is that we would grasp something that would rescue us over and over and over again at any given moment, no matter what we're facing in life. That's that's something to pay attention to, right Paul's praying that we might see that there is something we need to grasp that we really need and he doesn't just want us to grasp it by ourselves. Look as he continues in verse 18, so that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints. The church is is not a country club and primarily it's not an organization, it's not an association, it's not a denomination, it's not a business. The church by definition is a living organism. The bible describes it as the body of christ john stott said this, the isolated christian can indeed know something of the love of jesus, but his grasp of it is bound to be limited by his limited experience. He needs the whole people of God to understand the whole love of God, all the saints together, jews and gentiles, men and women, young and old, black and white with all of their varied backgrounds and experiences. Yeah, you can be isolated and know something about jesus, but God has designed the church for you to be a part of the whole message of jesus. I got a text from one of our moms here in the church this week about prayer time at their house Wednesday night with their kiddos and this was one of the prayers from one of her kids. Dear God, thank you that we got to be in the house of the Lord tonight. Please help pastor doubt take us on a field trip on that school bus. Yeah, it's legit prayer. Right? I mean now I feel the pressure. I need, I need to come up with some kind of field trip. This was a prayer from one of her other kiddos. Dear jesus help me to be like the missionaries and spread jesus all over the place like pollen. Hey, that's a different way to look at pollen. Right? I mean it's going to remind me to share the gospel. We get text and phone calls and and have conversations here the church and emails almost every single day with things just like that. It it is humbling and fun and exciting to see how much work God is doing in the life of our church and the life of our church families every day all day. And and that's why we don't want you to be isolated. We we want you to be a door holder. We we want you to be a part of the church. We want you to have christ dwelling in your hearts. We want you to be rooted and grounded in love and we want you to love this church. We want you to love Holland Avenue baptist church or whatever church you're a part of. We want you to love the church because God has designed the church to be one of those places where you can discover over and over again, that thing that will rescue you over and over again As he's praying Paul suddenly pulls out a tape measure. Look at verse 19 and that you would know what is the width and the length and the height and the depth paul is talking about something real. I mean in his mind, this is something that can be measured, Okay, this isn't some hocus pocus religion. This is something that can be measured. This thing that you can go to over and over again, that can rescue you over and over again no matter what you're facing in life, this thing is real. It can be measured. So what's Paul measuring verse 19 and to know the love of christ which surpasses knowledge. This is what paul wants us to cease. That's what he wants us to lay hold of to apprehend to comprehend. He wants us to grasp the love of christ when you feel like you don't measure up, measure your life by the love of christ. When you feel like no matter what you do, it's not good enough to get you where you need to be, where you want to be measure your life by the love of christ, grab hold of the love of christ, grasp the love of christ. It sounds in a sense though, that maybe paul is talking out of both sides of his mouth and one sentence he says, hey, you can measure this and then in the next sentence he says, hey, it's surpassing, it's immeasurable. So which is what's both. It's both. You can know the love of christ and at the very same time, the love of christ is unknowable, That's two grand. It's too great. You can grasp some aspects of the love of christ and at the very same time, the love of christ, you can't grasp. It's it's vast, it's unmeasured, its boundless, it's free. There's something about the love of jesus that can't be explained and then there's something about the love of jesus that can be explained, something that can't be grasped and something that can be grasped. So which parts can we grasp? David got sick I think does a very good job of of just kind of giving us some very simple categories. He says this, the love of God in and through Jesus Christ is wide enough to include every person long enough to last through all eternity, deep enough to reach the worst center and high enough to take us to heaven. You can measure that those are those are phrases, those are real truce, You can measure the love of God in and through Jesus Christ is wide enough to include you. The love of God in and through Jesus Christ. It's long enough to be with you forever. The love of God through Jesus Christ, it's deep enough to reach you, no matter what you've done, no matter where you are and the love of christ is high enough to take you to heaven. Get this, this pronoun, okay, this, this is just religious, hocus pocus, this is for you. These are things that you can measure in your life and these truths can rescue you at any given moment no matter what's happening. So is that how you're measuring your life? Are you measuring your life with the love of jesus? Are you measuring it with something else? Are you measuring it with pressure from your parents? Are you measuring it with apathy from your spouse? Are you measuring it with acceptance from your Children? Are you measurement with fear of taxes or fear of gas prices or or fear of the economy? Are you measuring your life with the uncertainty of your grades at school? Are you measuring your life with anxiety over finding a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a spouse or anxiety over finding a job or a career or a house or a car. Are you measuring your life with the unknown future of your retirement account? Are you measuring your life with the number of likes and hearts and comments that you get on your pictures on instagram? What are you using to measure your life? Look, we're all going to have moments of anxiety and fear and anger and and so many other things. But generally speaking, do you measure things in your life with the love of Jesus Christ? You see the love of christ is not like the love that most of us talk about all the time. You know I mean I've told you all before I am, I'm a chick flick guy. You know, I'll watch a rom com. I love him, you know, no big deal, but that's not the love we're talking about. See the love in this world that we usually engage with even the good loves most of the time. They are based on some notion of attraction and then when the attraction is gone, the love is gone. But the love of Jesus Christ is based on his very nature. He can't help but love be love give love and he never takes his love away. The love that we usually deal with here in this world often will fade if there's any kind of rejection, but Jesus by his very nature, cannot reject his own. He can't reject his love. So his love lasts forever. The love we experience here is always kind of known for what it can get out of something. But the love of jesus is defined by what it gives and what is Jesus given. Jesus gave himself. How can you measure the love of christ About 16 ft high and six ft wide. Those are the general dimensions of of an ancient roman cross. See, Jesus and to believe in jesus is not sentimental, it's not some superstition, it's not some emotion or some feeling, to believe in Jesus, to keep believing in Jesus to to dwell on jesus, to let jesus dwell in your heart is to believe in a person, a savior. The son of God and that person that savior, he loved you, he gave himself up for you on a particular friday and he is in many ways still loving you and still giving himself to you. A few years ago, Jenny Allen was driving down the road with her teenage daughter Kate and Kate said you know mom, it seems like everywhere I look in my life, I'm, I'm just not measuring up, I just just don't measure up. And she had her pull out her phone and told her to to look at Matthew chapter 11 on her phone and asked her to read it out loud and and three of the words that she read in that passage from scripture are words from Jesus and those words are this come to me, come to me see we're in the habit of going almost everywhere else. We go to spouses and parents and kids and grandkids and bosses and pastors and doctors and and that's fine, all of that is good, but we seem to not learn how to go to jesus and jesus never changes the invitation. Come to me, come to me, come to me, jenny went on to say this. The truth is that we aren't all losing. We just forgot what winning actually is. We need to give up, trying to measure up because what we really need is to be filled up, Winning is the love of christ whatever your definition of winning is. if it doesn't include the love of christ, your definition is faulty, winning is the love of christ. Winning is the love of christ, measuring up is the love of christ. It is not all the other things, but it is first and ultimately the love of christ. When you consider that jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, I loved you gave himself up for you voluntarily was crucified on a cross outside of Jerusalem, on a friday. And when you consider that that story, that message began before the foundations of the world, at least me to ask you one question, how long has God loved you? How long has God loved you? If if God's plan all along was for jesus to make things right between you and him and that plan began before the foundations of the world. How long has God loved you measure your life with the love of christ because it is the love of christ and only the love of christ that will always and only and ultimately help your heart and your mind and your soul feel what it means to truly measure up with jesus, you will always measure up