Lesson Three: Rooted and Grounded in Love
For 2019, our theme is “Take it Home”. The last Wednesday of every month we cancel service and encourage every family to have a Family Bible Study night. Here’s the Bible study we provide for each family.
FOCUS VERSE
Ephesians 3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
BEGINNING TOPIC
How much does God love us? What is the breadth, length, depth, and height of His love? The exact amount, no one knows. But I can comprehend that His love far surpasses my understanding. It’s that comprehension of God’s love that will root and ground us in the fulness of Christ.
HISTORICAL SETTING
Paul is the author of the book of Ephesians. He stated that he was a prisoner at the time he wrote the Epistle to the church in Ephesus (see Ephesians 3:1; 4:1; 6:20). It is believed that he wrote it during his first imprisonment in Rome, around AD 60-62. During this time Paul was being held under house arrest, but he had the freedom to receive visitors and teach the gospel (see Acts 28:16-31).
Obviously, Paul understood what it was like to have hardships. He had written a list of them in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27:
“Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.”
Through all the hardships he endured, Paul was still able to testify about the love of God. While writing about the great love of God which passes all understanding, Paul was sitting in a prison cell. He was convinced that nothing could separate him from the love of God in Romans 8:35-39:
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
VERSES TO CONSIDER
God is love and manifested His love characteristic by sending His only begotten Son to die for our sins (1 John 4:8-10; John 3:16).
Jesus testified that there is no greater love than the willingness to lay down one’s life for His friends (John 15:13). Yet, Jesus demonstrated His love by laying down His life for sinners, not friends (Romans 5:8).
CONCLUSION
Never forget, God loves you. Going through hardships will not separate you from the love of God. And when we fail and sin, God loves us and has died so that we can repent of those sins.
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