Sunday 15 February 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIu92MsPbh8

Ephesians chapter three, verse 14 through to 21. It's on the screen. You can follow with me. For this reason, I kneel before the father from whom every family in heaven and on Earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the lord's holy people to grasp how wide. And long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory.

In the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and forever. Amen. Thanks, Richard.

Thanks Ian for such a lovely reading of this text. Ephesians chapter three. And just by a show of hand, how many of you have heard a sermon preached from this passage before? Oh, very good. How many for you is the first time? Well, this is gonna be the best sermon on Ephesians chapter three. You're gonna hear under the next one.

Right? Right. And you know, in the West you have one New Year Eve and one new year Day. But in for us, we have, where's my, where's my notes? Flew away now. Might come back to me. Alright. Sorry. In August you have one new IE and one New Year Day. For us Chinese, we have one New Year Eve and 15 days of New Year celebration.

We Chinese know how to celebrate, eh, and all the Chinese years, eh? Amen. Alright, but one thing about us, why we have 15 days, because China was very big. Right. And so it take days to travel, one end to night end. And sometimes, you know, there's, that's why it, we have to celebrate such a long festivities because of the distance, but also because of the relationship.

And so we think very relational. And on the seventh day, now this, this gonna come out in one of church squeeze, I'm telling you, on the seventh day of the Chinese New Year or the non new year is what we call human day. On the seventh day, we celebrate everyone's birthday, right? That means you are loved, you are precious, and you are blessed.

So on the 23rd of February this year, we are gonna text everybody here in church wishing every birthday. So you go, it's not my birthday, it is as far if you are part of this celebration. Church is about celebration and today I'm talk about us. The sermon topic is about God's community of love. Right? And, and, and this is, love is something that all of us in church, we, we really been hearing this.

We've been, we, we know, we sing about it, we pray about it, we talk about it, but we are invited to live it through, we're invited to express. Love to one another, especially the agape love of God. By a show of hand, how many of you like to be love? Put our hands, keep their hand up. Keep their hand up. How many of you like to be love unconditionally?

Both hands up. Alright, thank you so much. This is one rare time in church. We agree? Yeah. And this is what we are about. And Paul, when he wrote this to the Ephesian, he reminds them of the power and the goodness and the present of love. But we must understand what Paul. Wrote to the Ephesian, goes back to Jesus commandment, and this was so-called his last commandment.

Before he went to the cross, he told his disciple in the upper room that look, a new commandment I gave to you. Why is it new? Because it was not included in the 10 commandment. It's a new commandment. It is expression here right now for you as my disciple that you. Love one another. Do you notice it's easier to love people when you do not know them so well?

I feel that way. But once you love them, well, it has your love in many ways. But here, Jesus says, love one another. Not because you like them or because they didn't irritate you, but you love one another as I love you. So the way we love each other flows from the grace flow, from the strength of God's love for us.

Amen. Amen. So love no longer becomes a goal or an objective that we want to achieve, but love is a gift that we open up to one another. Amen. Amen. So we are not trying to make love a goal in our life, or especially in our church life, but love becomes a gift. We open up to one another and he says that if we really love one another, he say, by this, all will know that you are my disciples.

The world doesn't know us by our theology or by our doctrine, but the world will know how much we love one another. And they'll say by looking at how we love, they will say, surely these are disciples of Jesus. Why? Because NR they, the way we care, the way we love people is extraordinary because as I said again and again, this way of loving is not because it's a commitment as a goal.

But it is a gift that we express to one another. And Paul later will talk about this culture of love. And in Ephesians chapter three, he talk about praying. And he prayed a, he prayed a few. Good prayer. If you've got time, read the whole whole letters of, of, of Ephesian and the ephesian and collusion are what we call twins epistles.

Paul wrote these two letters beside others when he was in prison. If you read these two letters together, you discover something beautiful. Collusion reviews to us, the Christ of the church. Amen. I hear in Ephesian, it reveal to us the Church of the Christ. So in one sense, we read collusion. You discover the bright groom.

When you read ephesian, you discover the bright and who is the bright in your neighbor? You. We are part of this whole body. We are called the bride of Christ, and this is what we are, is that we discover how we are love so that we can love each other. And prayers or Paul in Ephesian are so well written and talking about prayer.

I'm not sure how many of you have read this prayer or read this prayer. It's called The Prayer of Serenity. He says, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. The thing is, no one know who wrote this prayer, what is attributed to this German theologian called Rahul Nuba.

But most people say, we do not know who wrote this prayer. I have my pet theories. I think this prayer was written by a married man.

Accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Or perhaps it was written by a mother with two teenage kids, right? Or it could be church members who doesn't know what the pastor is saying. All right. You can hear a pet theory, but glad when he come to this prayer of Paul.

We know he was inspired by the spirit telling the church. This is one of the powerful prayer. He says, for this reason, I bow my knees to the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. What was this reason? If you read the beginning part of chapter one through chapter three beginning, it talks about the church. It is formed by God to express God's e eternal purpose.

It talks about us as a people. We are God's masterpiece. We are God's best work. Sometime we may not feel, sometime we may think we are a lousy peace of work, but as far as God is concerned, when you are in Christ, you are now a new creation. And every one of us who are new creation, it means as a community, we have a divine advantage.

And this advantage is for us to live the life of the kingdom. And Paul says in Ephesians chapter three, he says, the church is not just formed as a body, as a, as a citizen of the kingdom. We are not here merely to preach the gospel, but he says that we exist for God to reveal to the rulers and the powers and principalities that we have power to overcome.

Them because Jesus say no. If you know who I am, the gates of hell will not prevail against you. Too often we think spiritual warfare is the devil attacking us. What if spiritual warfare is us? When sacking the kingdom of darkness, exposing what is evil and bring what is good. That's why Peter would say that we have left the kingdom of darkness, that we have been translated, we have brought into the kingdom of light.

And you glad the spiritual warfare is not always, oh the devil. It's up to get me, but ask up to get the devil. Let me tell you one thing, let me give a secret. Number one, tell you devil have, have, God has unlimited budget, but the devil has limited budget. He can't spend too much time on us. He can't spend too much on his budget, on us.

One lie he will tell right from the beginning of God, ed here today, only one lie. You just have to believe this one lie. Don't believe it, but believe this lie that he says all this time is you are not good enough. That's why he say to Adam, Eve, God doesn't wanna eat the fruit because the day you eat it, you'll be like him.

See, that's a lie. Means you are not enough. And if we believe that lie of not enough relationship, get very stressful,

offense can easily comes into our hearts now. That's why we, we sometimes we say, I take offense. Who's doing the taking? You taking it. No one gives you orhan. Imagine. Come to church. Someone say You want an orhan today? No. Right, but we take offense because the pastor didn't smile, right, didn't smile at me, or didn't shake my hand and all this and that.

You know, I used to get that as a pastor. I'm glad I stepped down since say, oh, this pastor's not friendly. He doesn't shake hand. Thank God for COVID. After that, we don't have a shake hand. You know, sometime we think that someone shake our hands, make our day. But more than that. We come as a community, we have a divine advantage.

And here Paul, in this short passage, gives us three invitation. He say for this reason, as a church, okay, we are here for something so divine that we are not here just to testify the gospel, but we are here to demonstrate to the rulers, to the powers and principalities that we are much more. We are overcoming the lie of the devil because now Paul says we are God's masterpiece.

So stop thinking you're not enough because he has made you so much more than you can ever think or imagine. Hallelujah, right now. Turn your neighbor. Isn't he a good sermon? Yes it is. Now he give us three invitation. The first invitation, he says, being rooted and grounded in love to be rooted means is for us to be established, to fix ourselves.

If you plant a seed, what's the most important? You know, a seed is a, it's a library grows roots, but one, once it's going to grow roots. If you give it enough time. It'll be grounded. It will come a time that you come. Just simply just plug it out, right? And this is what it is about. Let love be your foundation.

That is a first invitation. That foundation is the most important thing in the house. I know sometimes we go and visit someone's house. We look at the first side, we look at the features, we even look at the finishes. But most time you can't see the foundation. But the foundation is the one and most costly bit building a house, right?

Because you can't control the weather as what Jesus says. The rain will come, the wind will blow, but what's built on that strong foundation will stand. So when love is out foundation, as a community, we can overcome all things for the past few years, let me tell you, I'm a professional church hopper. I've been visiting about 70 to 80 churches, right?

So when people tell me I wanna go to that church, I say, uh, okay, okay. I have my own, uh, checklist, right? What makes a good church? What does it mean a good church? Let me just give you couple of hin. Churches that does not have good preaching. But a strong community will last better than a church with good preaching, but no community life.

Okay? This is not exact science, but all you will agree, sometimes, some days you do not know what the pastor is saying. All you need to do is pray the prayer of serenity, right? But if we have a good community, we can overcome. Amen. Whatever storm comes, whatever thing that shakes us as a community, we will not only survive, but we will try because we are rooted and grounded in love.

If I come to church and I know that my brothers, my sisters. Are like me rooted and grounded in love. Whatever they do sometimes seems not consistent. It will not phrase me sometimes. Most of us, I'll tell you the truth is this. We don't cause grief to one another. Not intentionally, but once in a while, there are people who grieve us, but we must look at the life the whole summer, who they are, that they have not grieved us.

But today they may act out of character today. They may say something that seems offensive, but you don't have to take offense. You say, well, maybe today that person is not in the right place. And so here we are. When love becomes our foundation, we know we will stand. And so here is what paused right to the Ephesian.

Remember, if the Church of Ephesus is very dear to Paul, right? He was there for a whole long season. He have this Bible school there and he loves the people. There will come a time he had to depart and then he acts, he calls this elders together. And he give them a whole long sermon, but he warned them. He says in chapter 20, verse 28 to 35, therefore take he to yourself, to all your flocks among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he ed with his own blood for I know this, that after my departure, Savage Ws will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

Also for among you yourselves, men will rise up speaking purpose, things to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore, watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and days with tears. Paul gave a prophetic word to the community, say, for three years, I warn you guys know the gospel, live the gospels.

Invest yourself in the gospel, build a foundation of love because there will come a time after I'm gone, wolves will come,

we will come to destroy the community, not spending the floor, and then men among us who will teach perverse things.

And over many years, this is something I've been reflecting. Every heresy that you ever know of is a effect on one or 2% or the 3% of the trinity. Every heresy, but every heresy has a core featuring and their core FI is You are not enough. Every cop will teach you this thing. You are not enough. Join us because we are the true church.

But if we can see through the light, Paul says, we can overcome. And it's true. What happened to the church? Ephesus, things went wrong for a season, and then later Paul wrote two letters. Timothy, Timothy became pastor of the church, Ephesus, to put things back in order.

But after a generation, when Timothy stepped down. John was around and John saw this vision when Jesus spoke about, uh, the Church of Ephesus. What did he says?

To the angel, the church and Ephesus, right? These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstand. I know your deeds, your hard work, and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people that you have tested those who claim to be a pulses but are not and have found them false.

You have persevered and you have, and your hardship for my name and have not grown weary. So what? Poor prophecy, maybe 30 years earlier happened. It happened and through Timothy the church, no struggled against the church prevailed and Jesus commanded the church through John and say that you did not tolerate.

We keep people,

you have overcome them. You tested those who are S but are not. You have persevere and your hardship. You're not going wary, but Jesus say I one thing that hold against you. You have forsaken the love you had at first. This church has become just a performing church. It can do the right thing. It dot the i's and cross a T.

It function as a church. But what was missing is love. The word forsaken is not, you had lost our first love. I heard preaching. They say, oh, we had lost our first love. We never lose our first love. We forsake our first love. What does forsake forsake means? You know, once a while this happened to us, man. We volunteer to do the dishes all, so what do we do?

We take out our wedding rings or, or our watch, we just put by the counter and we do it. After that, we forgot to put it on. That act of putting it away is called forsaken. You know where it is? You know where it is, but you just did not take it and put it back in the right place. That's what forsaken means.

Forsaken means. I know God calls us to laugh. I know the love of God is in me. We have been perfected by love, but sometimes we choose not to love. Come on, fever. Let's be honest, I'm not, not here about you, but have you been to church? Hopefully not. Here. You see a sister, you see a brother? You turn the other way.

I'm glad about this church. There's only one passage in one passage out, right? And that becomes our second invitation. Let Love be your Comprehension. He says, what? That together as a people, not only we are rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the sins, what is the width and lang and depth and height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge.

Now, what does it mean? Comprehend means to take hold of something. Okay. When you go to school, you realize the teacher can say a lot of things you may not comprehend means you cannot take hold of the knowledge, you cannot take hold of the information. So when Paul says, look, when we are rooted in love, we will be fruiting in love.

But when we are comprehending love, it is not just the chore or the task of the pastor. Sometimes we put pressure on the pastor, pastor, you love us. You are the one who must love people more. Okay. Or the leaders must love people more. And who are you? I just need to be love. No, we all must comprehend together.

That means we all must understand together. We all must take all together to love. Amen.

So it's not someone's house's job. Remember, it is not a goal to be attained, but it is a gift to be shared. We receive this gift of love now. We share this gift of love. We comprehend with everyone to know the with lang and depth and height. Wow, God's love is incomprehensible. But Paul says, while it is incomprehensible, it is measurable.

If you watch the movie Oppenheimer, you, you, you'll see the, the part where they were building the atomic bomb. It says they pack 64 kilogram of uranium into the attom bomb that landed or explode in Hiroshima. And some of us have watched documentaries before. See the, the, the mushroom crowd and everything.

Do you know that what achieve nuclear fusion? Nuclear fusion is only 0.5 gram. That means of all the 64 kilogram of uranium that actually exploded is only 0.5 gram, and that is the weight of a butterfly.

You see the destruction. It's so great. Just 0.5 gram. Imagine whole or 64 kilograms of urine actually explode. I think there will be a huge hole in Oshima till today. It is uninhabited.

Now imagine God's love is incomprehensible, but if we choose to say, let us together, learn to comprehend, even 0.5 gram of God's love, I'm telling you something wonderful is gonna happen among us. I tell you, I've been to this. Many churches. I'm a professional church hopper. One thing I realize, whether you are traditional church, charismatic, church Pentecostal, church evangelist, evangelical church, everyone don't like to say hello to you.

They don't like to shake your hand. Everyone will find their favorite spot and sit there.

And the greatest irony is you tell people why you, what sort of church are you looking for? I'm looking for a friendly church. Well, you're wrong place, man. I've been to a church one time, Anglican Church and other service. I, I, I saw this cup and we have a good chat for half an hour talking about things and this and that.

Then after, at the end of the conversation, I ask them, so how long have you been fellowshipping in this church? And look at me and say, this is our first Sunday here. And they asked me, how long have you been fellowshiping here? This is my first Sunday too. And everyone was walking past us, but no one actually said, welcome.

And now let me go further than this. It's not about looking for a friendly church, but look for a church that loves you. Genuinely look that a church is loving and lovely, but that takes a while. Why I say that? Most time if you go to a church or you're visiting this church, if people don't shake your hand, it's not because they're unfriendly.

I read this article, majority of people come to church. They are fearful of connecting because they have their own trauma. They have their own brokenness. Sometime that few minutes before service start is the first few minutes of the week they have by themself just to breathe. Just to take in the, the air in a sense of just to rest.

And so if we don't get it right, we come to a church and say, oh, this church is not friendly. This church is, is, is, is this and that. It's, but sometime maybe if we comprehend, maybe that brother that sister is struggling is in in, in trauma. And because all of us are broken, we cannot break each other further, isn't it?

But we get space,

we reach out, we share. So the truth is this, after visiting, visiting so many churches, I've decided to do one thing. Every church is my church. Jesus doesn't have a haram. He only had one wife. So I go to a church, I behave Isaiah. I've been at church for a long time. I walk with certain gate, certain, confident, and welcome to church.

Yeah. And people thought I, I've been there a fixture for a long time because I begin to discover, and I know it's true, that people are broken. And sometime a smile, A handshake can go a long way sometime. We don't have to give them the greatest truth because

the best truth or the most perfect truth is Jesus. We point them to Jesus. But we can create an environment. We can create an atmosphere that people can say, this church is not. Or should I, should I say this? Church is much more than a friendly church. It is a loving, loving and lovely church because why All us are comprehending together, imagine 0.5 gram of God's love can do amazing thing.

And the third is let love be. Your experience. This is the third invitation. Let Love be your experience. He says in verse 19, to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge.

To know God's love goes beyond what we can be taught. It must be caught. And he says that we are filled. With the fullness of God. Remember when Jesus was one time teaching, he say, you know, if you ask your father, the earthly father will not give you, uh, a serpent when you ask for a fish, right? He said, how much more your heaven father, your perfect father?

How much more word not? He gives you the Holy Spirit if you ask. If we believe in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is God giving himself to us, that we will have the fullness. And this is a spiritual paradox. What does it mean? It means while we already have all of God in us, we still can have some more.

There's always room for dessert. No matter how much you eat at Buffet, there's room for dessert. Likewise, our experience of God is so powerful and so wonderful that now I have all of God in me, in his spirit. Wow. I can have still some more. So in my visiting our churches, most time I go in connector, people do not know I'm a.

Pastor, they don't who I, I, I go in, I very well behaved, very quiet. I'm ex ex showing my trauma. I don't wanna shake hands, but once in a while I meet some friends, they will see me and they see me and say, what are you doing here? Well, that's the best welcome. What you doing here? Then I will smile and say, I'm looking for a perfect church.

You say, oh, there's a door. Said, there's no perfect church to tell you. Until one day I came to this church, I say, what are you doing here? I said, I'm looking for the perfect church. And the pastor was laughing, said, well, this church is not a perfect church. We are the perfected church. I said, what is true?

We have everything in Christ, but yet there's still so much more we can have in him. So we do not start from a place of limitation, but we start from a place of abundance that we had the fullness of God. And sometime in church we, we, we tell people that we need to do things to earn his love, for his love, but rather we do things from the love of God.

If you serve for the love of God and you serve from the love of God, the energy is different. I'm telling you the truth. And unfortunately in my church visit, I will tell you many churches practice the bait and switch. What's a bait and switch? They'll say. They'll tell you, come to church, come to Jesus unconditional love.

God accepts you for who you are. Come come and people will cry and we sing just, just as I am for the 13th time and people be crying. I say, well, finally I found a community that loves me just as I am. Right. Uh, after a while we say, oh, I'm not sure God will love you for that. We start to put condition. We start to put standards.

I'm not saying that standards and condition, if it protects people, definitely you must say that, but I'm just saying about sometime we can end up with a bit and switch. That means when we come to know Jesus Christ, it is unconditional love, but along the way, we imprint on people. That is a conditional love.

It shouldn't be. But when we have the fullness of God, he says that we are filled with the fullness of God. Something marvelous happened, and that is my next slide. Look at the last verse. Now, to him, who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think. According to the power that works in us.

This verse will take about 12 sermons to unpack. Alright, but quick one is simply about the power that's at work in us is God's salvation power. He's saving power and God is able to save us to such a degree. He says it's above what we can think and perceive. If I can be safe. In spite of who I am, the person next to me is also, is also safe in spite of who they are.

It means that every one of us go beyond just tolerating one another, but we truly love one another. We stir. We surely want to stir each other to love. And good works. And he says to him, be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generation. Our church here, our church here exists for God's eternal purpose.

Not just to preach the gospel, but to live the gospel. That we are a testimony, not just to the world, but to the rulers and power and principle principalities of this age, but we also have a legacy passing on down from one generation to another generation.

Imagine in the years to come in a season that is before us. When people talk about us as a community.

May they say, huh? We talk about law, my church. Let me tell you, these people, they really know how to love each other. That's amen. And should this be our prayer now I just for the close, I won't close in prayer for you guys. I want us to pray together. This pray. Bring two groups of two or three. Just lay hands on people's shoulder.

Ask them are they comfortable for you to lay hands before you lay hands, but just, you know, just stand up. Just stand right now. Rise up right now where you are from, groups of two or three, and I want us to pray this prayer for each other. Okay?

Just stretch your hands with someone and start praying this prayer.

Okay. Hello each other lovingly.

If you can't at least practice. All right, now look one another. I also try to look at that screen. I dunno how you're gonna do that, but it's a gift. Now say it together for this reason. I bow my knees to the father of Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he will grant you according to the reaches of his glory, to be strengthened with Mike through his spirit in the inner man, that Christ will dwell in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints, which is the width.

A length and death and height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now, to him, who is able to do accidentally, abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generation, forever and ever.

Amen. I pray this prayer for my church every day. If you do not know how to pray for one another, just pray this prayer. It's a good way to start. May God's blessing be upon you. Thank you so much. Please be seated.