Rooted and Grounded in Love
Pastor Tan Thai · May 4, 2019
This sermon expounds Paul's second prayer in Ephesians 3:14-19, focusing on agape love — God's unconditional love for humanity. Through three sections, the pastor leads the congregation to understand the difference between natural human love and agape love, calling them to actively practice loving their enemies through concrete daily actions.
This sermon was delivered on Sunday, May 5, 2019, based on Ephesians 3:14-19 — the apostle Paul's second prayer in his letter to the Ephesian church. Paul prays for four interconnected things: that the Holy Spirit would strengthen the inner person, that Christ would dwell in their hearts, that they would be rooted and grounded in love, and that they would be filled with all the fullness of God. The pastor emphasizes that these four realities are inseparable — like the roots, trunk, branches, and leaves of a tree.
The central section of the sermon analyzes four Greek words for love: storge (family affection), eros (romantic desire), philia (genuine friendship), and agape (God's unconditional love — not based on emotion but on reason and determined will). This is the word Jesus uses in Matthew 5:44 when commanding love for enemies, and the same word in John 3:16 describing God's love for the world. The pastor also demonstrates that the Old Testament — through Leviticus 19, Exodus 23, and Proverbs 25 — already taught God's people to treat enemies with kindness, but these teachings had been distorted over time through addition and omission.
The pastor uses the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment to illustrate that when people allow hatred to dominate, enmity escalates in an unending cycle of retaliation. Conversely, when one chooses to act with kindness — even without feeling it — the hatred gradually diminishes over time. The image of a bee sting in a sensitive spot causing death is used to illustrate the silent destructive power of hatred on the person who harbors it.
The application section calls the congregation to three practical steps: confess feelings of hatred to God and ask the Holy Spirit to help pray for enemies; decide to act rightly according to Scripture even when emotions remain negative; and proactively seek reconciliation without allowing anger to linger. The pastor affirms that agape love does not come naturally — it can only be granted by God through the Holy Spirit to those who believe and receive Him.