Filled to all the fullness of God

I am going to be speaking in the book of Ephesians, the letter to the Ephesians, in chapter 3, verses 14 to 19: “…For this reason I bow my knees before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every family in the world is named. heaven and on earth so that he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man by his spirit so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith so that, rooted and grounded in love, you may be fully able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width, the length, the depth and the height, to know the love of Christ, which surpasses all knowledge so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God..."

God bless your word this morning. The Apostle Paul at the beginning of this letter to the Ephesians establishes a pattern in which he explains the mystery of the ages. And it strikes me because while Paul is in prison, while writing this letter, he begins this portion of this chapter 3 by saying, "For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ..." And that doesn't say much.

For us it is common to see someone kneel down and pray, but for a Jew the prayer was done standing up with hands stretched out towards heaven. And in this way Paul is saying to this group of Gentiles and Jews, this prayer that Paul is doing from prison has a greater meaning, it has a deep meaning and it has to do with the future of the church.

It is incredible that Pablo is in prison. Paul is suffering. The great Apostle, the man of God, does not have freedom, but even from his prison, even from his circumstance, Paul recognizes that there is a greater cause than his own circumstance. And this greater cause makes him write in a passive and imperative way and tells the Ephesians in other words, I have to submit and humble myself before the Father, because I understand what the church will mean in the future. And it has to do with the fact that we are sown – and I will talk about that later – and we are grounded and we live in the love of God. If you did not know it, now you do.

We do not move if it is not within that love of God. It is a Pauline thought. In Romans it says, “Who will separate us from that love?” He emphasizes that.

Verse number 15, in this submissive way, in this humiliating way he says to them, "I am praying right now but it is not to any Father, it is from whom he takes his name in every family in heaven and on earth."

There is no other way to explain this phrase unless we understand that within that love in which we live, walk, breathe, move us, direct us, guide us, unite us, as a single family of those who We are already here and those of us who have left are participants without knowing it in that great love of God, that not only before we were gentiles, but before we did not know him. Before we weren't even thinking about serving our creator, but now Paul from his prison says, to the one I'm praying for, he has given me a name, but not just any name, he has made me part of the family, he has inserted me, he has given me brought, he has made me his, he has given me a position that I did not have before, not because I deserve it, not because I am better, not because I have money, for the love of God he has made me a participant, now I can call child of God Now I can walk with my head up, no matter what my past has been, no matter what my story has been, no matter where I was, Jesus, to whom Paul is praying, is telling us, now I am part of the family. Now I am, as Peter said, I am a royal priesthood, I am a holy nation, I am a lineage chosen by that love of God that surpasses all creation.

I am no longer just Isaías Rivera, I am Isaías the man for whom Christ gave his life. I am Isaiah the person because who the Lord Jesus raised me up and saved me. That even though I can't stay perfect in my ways, God's love is so deep, there's no way to measure it.

I imagine that these people who are listening to this letter will think, but why doesn't Pablo write us about his problems? Why doesn't Pablo tell us about his situation? Why doesn't Pablo complain? Why doesn't Paul say something against the cause? Which is what he establishes in verse 14, "for this reason," not because I want to, not because I want it, not because I have studied it or heard it, it is because of what I have received, it is because of what I I have felt in my life, it is because of what I have seen that I have to bend my knees and intercede and tell the Father to take action because the church that was forming at that time is going to need divine intervention in order to be a church in the future. future.

And it's important that we think about that. It is not what we can do as God's people, it is not our energies, it is not our strength, it is not our money, it is not our wisdom, it is the love of God that lives in us and we in that love that it promotes, that exercises us.

If we were the ones who were in prison, like Paul, and this is a different jail, not a modern jail, how many of us in Paul's position would have written a letter like that? The letter would say, “I don't get good food, the food is cold. My cellmate doesn't bathe often. I don't have much opportunity to exercise.” Or I would also say if the person is younger, "bring me some sneakers but they have to be Nike and it can't be [Inaudible]" Are they following me?

A selfish attitude, an attitude of a heart that has not known or understood what the love of God is. Oh, if we fully understood what it means to be loved by God. If we understood the fullness of that knowledge that it was not that I loved him, it was that he loved me, and not only loved me, he demonstrated it, because as the scripture says, "he left all his glory," he left everything beautiful, he left all adoration, to come to this earth, to be part of a corrupt body, a body that is useless, to tell the creature that he had created, now I am going to take your place, now I am going to die for you Now I'm going to take your sin, not because you're good, you're better, it's because I love you, it's because I love you and it's because I love you.

This morning let us give the Lord a spiritual hug. That is my beloved. And Pablo understood that, that's why Pablo was able to go through his vicissitudes, that's why Pablo, in these traumatic moments, forgets himself and thinks about the cause. How many of us in our traumatic moments that come our way, forget the cause and think about ourselves? And not only that, we are worse than Pedro, because at least Pedro did not have the story, we know the story of Pedro and we repeat it.

On one occasion a monk was praying and he wanted to explain to his people what the love of God is and what he wanted to do in a more visual way, he did not want to bring words, he wanted to bring poetry, and he was praying for a while, and it occurred to him to open a Mass at 7 at night, when there was no more sunlight, and he invites his congregation for a month, that on those Sundays in particular at 7 at night he will speak and teach in a tangible way what is God's love. And he says that these people always came to his congregation and that Sunday it was full, almost a thousand people and people outside the temple, because he was going to speak about what the love of God is.

When they arrived at the church, he did not allow the lights to go on, instead they put up countless candles so that people could at least walk and sit. So when the moment of preaching arrived, this priest went to the cross, the image of Christ with a lantern, because nothing was visible from the altar either, and he told that congregation, "This is the best way to explain to you what means the love of God.” And he took his lantern and shined it on the head of the image, the crown; then he focused on the nailed hands; then he focused on the nailed feet and ends by saying, “This has been the greatest expression for humanity of what the love of God means. God bless you." And with that he finished his sermon.

Karl Barth, famous, very famous theologian, is at a conference in Holland and was asked, “What has been your most important moment in your life as a theologian?” And when he went to answer, everyone was waiting to start writing because he is Karl Barth, and he told him, "Christ loves me, Christ loves me, Christ loves me, the Bible says so." God's love.

Even though the world rejects us, even though the circumstances are negative, even though I have grown up without being embraced or shown love, passion as a family, now I have someone who loves me for all eternity. That love does not end.

That love does not depend on whether you did the chores with your wife or your husband. That love does not depend on whether or not you are good at your job, because that love does not depend on you, that love does not depend on you, that love depends on the divine and full and sufficient love of our Lord Jesus Christ, shown not only on the cross of ordeal, even today with our mistakes and problems and denials, we go backwards and we don't want to walk, he still loves us. As Paul said, “Who, who, who will separate us from that love?” Because the love of the Father, the love of the Son and the love of the Holy Spirit are loving us.

And not only does Paul stay in prayer, verse 16 says, "That he may give you according to the riches of his glory." So that he may give us according to the riches of that glory that we do not know. What can we think? Maybe it's wealth like Donald Trump has, maybe some positional property.

A few years ago I had the opportunity when I worked in hospitals, Donald Trump's head of security was hospitalized and we started talking since we were united by the fact that he is a fan of the Yankees and you know that I am a fan of the Yankees. So, we started talking about sports, no one is perfect, and I ask him, "How is that life?" And he told me, "Where Donald enters, I enter, if Donald books a very luxurious hotel, I also have my room there." And I say to him again, "Yeah, but how is your life in that life?" and he told me, “I don't have peace, I don't have tranquility. The people who are close to me not because they appreciate me but because I am close to Donald Trump. So, I don't know who is sincere, who is honest. When I'm in really big activities, I have to keep an eye on Donald Trump, I can't keep an eye on anything else."

I say, “Wow, and do you like that life?” He tells me, "Well, it's a good salary, but I don't have a life." So, he asks me, “and what do you do?” “No, I am the director of maintenance here, but I don't have to watch out for the patients, nor do I have to wait for the doctors, because I have one that I knew in my youth, who not only watches over me, he He is the owner and Lord, not only of the earth, of everything created in the universe and the one I know is the one who protects me, who watches over me, and not only because I am something important, I am nothing, but because he loves me, he makes me special. I am special because the love of God is reflected, it is deposited, it lives in my life.”

And I remember he said to me, “Wow! And how much does the pastor pay you?” He meant tithes, and I said, "No, just 10% and something else." He told me, "I would give everything I have to have that, someone who loves me."

"That he may give you according to the riches of his glory." Can you imagine that he is talking about a glory and riches that should not be put in the bank, that are not damaged, that are not corrupted, that are eternal, and even if I lose my life, even if I leave this world, that glory that God has given me, within that wealth that he has placed in my heart, has been able to in my life. Nobody can take it from me because he has put it on. I am the property and piece of the Lord and I now carry within my being that wealth, that glory. Hallelujah! I am glad this morning that although I am not an angel, I am a human being who is going to die, but I pose as the recipient. I am the cup that receives that divine love of God and I can say, even if I don't have much, I have within me the glory and riches that Paul wanted us to have and that no one can steal from me. I can lie down peacefully, I can sleep peacefully, no one can take away what God has given me and has placed in me.

That is the magnitude and splendor of that love of God. And not only that wealth, being strengthened with power in the inner man by his spirit. There Paul made it a little more difficult for the Ephesians, he wants the church, that spiritual strengthening begins from within, he is talking about character, he is talking about virtues, he is talking about values, he is talking about what we reflect on the outside. He wants that power to start working from within. That new man, that new woman, may those values change.

I used to tell the discipleship class the other days, when one comes to the Lord and one walks through one's life, and you meet the Lord, I changed my whole direction. I met the Lord and now in that walk, since I have been justified, sanctification is a process. Paul says, give me the power so that I am no longer following the same lifestyle but I have already changed and I have the power by the spirit of God. As Jesus Christ said, "I am leaving but I will leave a paraclete," a lawyer, a help, someone to guide us so that I can continue in that power, not because I want to, it is because the power of God founded on that divine and eternal love , makes me walk away and stay so that then my character, my values are different from when I walked without the Lord.

The dilemma is, the problem is that many of us, not in this church but in other churches, follow the same lifestyle. And they want to claim God's love but they follow their lifestyle. It is as if you were given a license to sin. No. That's not what the Bible says. It's that I already changed. I'm on a new walk. I am a new man. Because? Because I feel in my life, I breathe that love of God, that breath, that even though life looks bitter, I have the glasses that tell me, "No, even though life looks dark, God continues to love me as I am."

Paul goes on to say, verse 17, "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." Inhabit, which comes from the Greek, has to do with permanently dwelling. So, Paul's message and prayer and the message of the Gospel, brothers and sisters this morning, friends, is that the Gospel, that love that God has placed in your life, that change that you felt at some point in your life, in that walk, is something permanent for him to dwell on. He does not come to stay two or three days with you. He doesn't come as a guest. Jesus wants to be the owner of your life. He wants to dwell and when Jesus is the master of my life, because I was in that love and I have seen that I have submitted myself… I was lost and had no hope, the Lord found me, God found me, I met him, he comes to my life not to say Hi five.

He comes into my life to inhabit it. He comes into my life because he created my life. He is taking back what he has created in the beginning. He comes, I'm here, and I come to stay. I come to make home. I come to build, I come to lift. I come to build. I come to do something completely new. Claim this morning the blessings of that new life that is not just something emotional or something philosophical or something theological, it is something real in our lives. The Lord of heaven is the great mystery that Paul deciphers, the Lord of heaven dwells in my life, he is part of me and is my owner. I have a master, I have a Lord, that is why I say to him, “Lord, because you own my life, because you are the owner of what I do. And the funny thing about all this is that although I am imperfect, you are still my owner and you continue to love me.

It says, "so that rooted..." that is like plants, planted, cemented like buildings, foundation. Oh, what a blessing, brothers and sisters, friends this morning, we are discovering that it is not only something mental, the Lord of heaven has planted his life in me. It has grounded me in the depths of that love. So, if I am sown and I am planted in the soil called love, our fruit should be love. If we are not planted, that means that when we are planted… I don't know how many here have seen a hurricane in person, not on television.

When I lived in Puerto Rico years ago, they announced that a hurricane was coming, I was like in high school and a friend of mine got funny and drove to the beach because we wanted to see if palm trees really hold up in a hurricane. And we were in that vehicle, an old, small vehicle, without thinking that the vehicle could be caught by the hurricane and flipped over. We were standing on the beach of Luquillo, next to a palm to wait. Okay, yes, yes, now he comes, with a battery radio, and there's the hurricane, the force blah, blah... and when the palm began to do so I look to the side, my friends had left. I was left alone with the radio and the hurricane. The palm was bent but he couldn't tear it off.

I barely fly. In addition. We are like the palm, we should be like the palm. When I am planted in that fertile ground, it is not just any ground, it is the ground that the blood shed on the cross of Calvary possesses, it is the ground that reflects the divine and ample love of our Lord Jesus, when I am standing there, that they have planted me That I have not planted myself, I have not made the hole. I have not prepared the ground. God has prepared the ground. God has planted me. God has taken care of me. God has protected me. It doesn't matter how big the winds are. It doesn't matter how big the storms are. It doesn't matter that I bend, it doesn't matter that I lie down, it doesn't matter how I put myself. God has planted me in his love and God's love covers absolutely everything.

I think that this is something that the enemy envy because we were created less than the angels, but the love that the Lord has for us... when sometimes they say that we don't have opportunities, that we can't do anything in life, when you're going to do anything , people forget that our forecast has already been written.

Jesus says in the world you will have afflictions, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Grounded in the love of God. Rejoice this morning, celebrate this morning, it's not that we can only sing “I have a friend who loves me,” I have the Lord God sovereign of the entire universe who loves me, loves me, and loves me.

Sometimes we think, will someone love us? Will someone love us? Paul says, verse 18, “be fully able to comprehend with all the saints – and this is lovely phraseology – what the breadth is.” There is no way to measure how wide that love is, although the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, tell us of seen experiences of that love. Its length is endless, it is eternal. So it is a love that is wide, it is a love that is eternal, it is a love that is... Paul meant with height, in the Greek, it is that this love is so, so high that it picks us up where we are and takes us immediately for that love of the presence of God, only for having the love of God.

And it is so deep that it reaches our depths. I want to read what the psalmist wrote about this in psalm 139, when he says, verse 7 to 12, “…where will I go from your spirit? Where will I flee from your presence? If I ascended the heavens, there you are. If I made my stand in Sheol, behold, there you are. If I take the wings of dawn and dwell at the end of the sea, even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me. If I said, certainly the darkness will cover me even the night will shine around me.

Not because I am Isaías Rivera, it is because God has loved me from the beginning and still his love continues to flow, flow, flow, flow. Praise the Lord. It is an inexhaustible source. It is an incessant source. Paul tells this church, in those moments, they have to understand, they have to understand that in order to understand that love of God you need to have God in your life. Otherwise it would be completely philosophical and we don't believe in philosophies.

At the end of the verse it says, verse 19, “and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge so that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.” God's perfect love makes growth and stability possible in us. God's perfect love makes growth and stability possible in us. Once again, the perfect love of God in our hearts makes it possible for us to grow and be stable.

So, this morning first of all, let's go back to that moment and think and meditate, on my walk with the Lord, on my walk in this life, in which I am walking, I must first feel safe because I am walking, or I must be walking within that love of God. Second, I will grow as long as my feet, my life, are planted. And what does it mean to be sown and grounded in the Lord? It means that everything that I am, which is a Pauline thought, do you remember what it says? I do not live, but Christ lives in me. That sounds very nice but now in the context of that love is that everything I am, my mind, my heart, my body, my interests, my goals, my family, what I own, no longer belongs to me. I have not achieved it because I am better, I have not obtained it because I am very beautiful, everything I have, if I am sown, if I am grounded, you have to be one hundred percent grounded. What I want to do has to be within that love that God wants. Even, still, the finances of my personal life, if I am sown in the Lord, do not belong to me. He doesn't want half of you, he doesn't want half of your life.

And I am going to tell you something, I make many visits to hospitals, but I am going to talk about people that I have visited before the year 2000 in New York. There is no one here who has lived in New York. One of the problems when we talk about being grounded and planted in the Lord, is that we are all but our pocket. That doesn't happen here, I'm talking about New York, okay? And look, we are committed and we rejoice and express Hallelujah! We express amen and we are grateful for that great sacrifice of Jesus until they touch our finances, that's as far as our commitment. But when you have fallen into the hospital, when you have no alternative, when there is nothing that can be done, you would give everything you have for a miracle from the Lord. So why wait to be in a situation like that?

Not only in the hospital, the family problem, divorce problems, problems that God does not listen to me, the children do not want to follow me, drug problems, imprisoned children, imprisoned husbands, I cannot get a job, they do not promote me, the people don't like me But are you really grounded and grounded in the love of God? Think about that this morning, because if I am grounded and grounded when it comes to finances, when it comes to my heart, I give my pocket to the Lord. And it's not that now I'm talking about... Pastor, are you talking about when you get paid you're going to give all the money to the church? No. It's just that there are people in New York who don't give anything to the church. They enjoy what the church has, they take advantage of church ministries, children's ministries, youth ministries, pastoral counseling, premarital counseling, jail ministry, I wanna Friday ministry, discipleship ministry, alpha ministry, not anymore , I am in New York.

The reality, brothers, if we, the Lord's church, talk a lot about commitment and that we are rooted but when it comes to our finances there is no one who speaks to us. You have not known what the full love of the Lord means in our lives. A love that says he will provide. I don't have to hit this church because they are going to build a bridge. I have to give it because that is my duty as a believer. I don't have to wait for Roberto to come and tell me, you have to give, you have to promise. No. When I was on that path of sin and Jesus came into my life and I changed and started a new life, I understood that my whole life, even my wallet, belonged to God. And if I wanted a blessing, I had to commit myself, because I am sown, I am grounded.

The God I know backs up and answers. How good it is to serve the Lord. How good it is to enjoy the Lord. I told the church, those who came on Wednesday that I have lost 21 pounds, I have lost. I owe it to a diet and crossfit. And I understood that in order to lose weight on that diet I had to commit. It was eating all kinds of meat, and I love using marinade. So, I couldn't use marinade, only garlic. They took away my bread, pasta, only eggs in the morning, turkey, bacon, a few portions and water or liquids, coffee without sugar and black. But something material, something of the body, I did it for 30 days, I lost 21 pounds.

If we go from spiritual to reality, as a church, each people of God, as a family of God, God has given you his love. God has given you his love. God took your place. God took your place on the cross. God gave us what we don't deserve. God gave us what we have not worked for. What only does the Lord ask? That you commit yourself, that you let him sow you. But to seed yourself you have to be submissive.

Paul begins the prayer on his knees, as he said at the beginning, something that is not Jewish. Underwent. Let him dig that hole in the ground and plant you. Brothers, try the Lord, take the risk. Church, test the Lord. Put your finances in the hands of the Lord. Give your finances to the Lord and try it, just try it. You will see that he will not fail you because up to now the Lord has not failed us.

How many say amen for that? so that you may be filled to all the fullness of God. Paul's aspiration is that at the end of his days, when he is no longer on this earth, he can think, even though I am no longer here, there are no Apostles, everything has already happened, if Paul could come now and see the church , the product of 12 men with a Master and how that impacts an era and how that has impacted history. Paul could say, the Lord answered my request because I humbled myself, people then began to understand and comprehend that it is not me, that it is not what I possess, it is not what I have, it is that the love of God has given me covered and God's love is enough for me to receive and understand its fullness. When I reach that glorified body there in heaven, I will say, Lord, what a blessing to have felt on earth in a human body the blessing of being loved.

I can no longer walk alone or walk like nobody loves me. I have not a friend, I have a king who loves me, who loves me, and nothing can separate me from that love. God bless you this morning.