The Love of God

I John 4:7-11

Thank you, thank you, thank you, my friend for the invitation into your home today to study the Bible in Search of the Lord's Way to become and to be a child of God. We believe the Bible is the only place that we can find the Lord's way to come into a saved state with God and the way to live the good life He teaches. I pray we will both be blessed by our study today.

If you are a regular viewer of this program, you know I'm deeply concerned about the direction our country's taking. And if you are a regular viewer, you also know, I am not talking politics. I am talking about the nation's turn from God to the secular left; and the inevitable results. I have read the results of different polls giving the percentage of Americans who are believers and unbelievers. One 2006 book that I'm reading says seven percent of us believe there is no God. Another says, eight percent. They are both by credible and knowledgeable authors. So, I am not sure, but there is only one percentage point difference between them, isn’t there? Well, that would mean, wouldn't it, that 92 to 93 percent of us do believe in a deity. Well, really, we are a nation of many gods. Yet, we are witnessing frequent successes of the seven or eight percent of the people prohibiting the 92 to 93 percent of us making any mention of God in public life and policy. The end result is we no longer have a moral compass. I am convinced one of the first causes is the casual and careless way American religion treats God. So, we are studying Bible lessons about God.

I have enlisted some trustworthy men to help me in my studies. And one of them is a long-time friend and our guest speaker today. He is Philip D. Sanders. He is minister of the Concord Road Church of Christ in Brentwood, Tennessee (the Nashville area). He has been with that growing church several years now and is enjoying God's rich blessings in a great ministry there. He has a BA in Bible and Biblical languages, a Masters in Christian Doctrine and a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies. He has a TV program on the Nashville station WNPX, cable channel 17. It is called, "God's Answers to Life's Questions." He is Assistant Director and Instructor in the Nashville School of Preaching and Biblical Studies. He writes for several papers and has published three valuable books: Adrift: Postmodernism in the Church, Let All the Earth Keep Silence and Evangelism Handbook of New Testament Christianity. He and his wife have three daughters and one granddaughter. After the hymn, Phil Sanders will read the text he has chosen, lead us in prayer and, at the proper time, he will deliver the message on The Love of God.

The scripture reading today is from 1 John, chapter 4, verses 7 through 11. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Let us pray. Oh, Lord, help us today to understand more of the great love You have given to us so that we may be able to love others. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Thank you, Mack, for inviting me to speak today. Brother Mack asked me to preach on a subject about which I am passionate on the Search program. And I am passionate about the love of Christ, because I am passionate about Christ Himself. No one has ever loved me like Jesus. Oh, I had very loving parents, a father and mother; an incredible wife Jackie of 32 years; four lovely daughters; a happy granddaughter and one on the way; brothers and sisters and family. And I love them, and they love me. However, no one ever died for me but Jesus. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

Jesus laid down his life for you and me on the cross. The cross is not like a hangman’s rope, or a guillotine, or a gas chamber, or a lethal injection. Now these methods take away life, but they are relatively quick and humane. The cross is anything but quick or humane; it was designed for suffering. The cross is a slow and excruciating death, requiring several hours of intense suffering. Jesus loved you and me enough to endure the lies of men, the unfair trials, the sarcastic abuse, the physical torture of beatings and scourging, and the humiliation of carrying a cross through Jerusalem. He gave his back to the scourge, his brow to a crown of thorns, his hands and feet to the nails, and his side to a spear.

Now what is astonishing is that Jesus knew what the cross would be like, but He still bore it anyway. The night before his death in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 23 and verse 42). His love for his Father and his love for you and me weighed more heavily on his heart than the suffering that he would face at the trial and on the cross. The love of Christ is truly astonishing! What is even more incredible is that his love was undeserved. Paul said in Romans 5, verses 6 to 10, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” This passage teaches us some things about ourselves.

First, God loved us in spite of the fact that we were helpless, that is, people who could not save themselves. We were spiritually lost and in great need of God to rescue us. We didn’t beg God or even ask Him to help us. Christ acted on His own initiative out of love for us. He saw that we needed saving and He saved us. Second, he loved us though we were ungodly. An ungodly person is one who lives without God mattering in his life. Can you imagine showing great love to someone who spent his life ignoring you? Third, God loved us in spite of the fact that we were sinners. Now many people don’t like the word sinner; they don’t think of themselves as sinners. The Bible says, however, in 1 John 1, verse 8, “If we say that we have no sin, then we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” A sinner is a person who lives outside the will of God. He has chosen to please his flesh, or his eyes, or his pride. Because of this sin, Paul said that we are, fourth, enemies of God. Sin is rebellion to God; it is a transgression of God’s law. Sin leads us to fight with God for control of our lives.

Paul explains in Titus 3 and verse 3, “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” Sin ruins people’s lives. And God looked down at mankind whom He created with a heart full of compassion. And He saw all the ugliness in people, but He loved them anyway. Paul continues in verse 4, “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Now God did for us what we could not do for ourselves-- that is save us from our sins. He washed us from those sins in baptism and caused us to be born again. He gave us hope. He gave us new life and made us heirs. God loved us when we were helpless nobodies and made us his children, heirs of eternal life. God looked at us and said I want you to live in my house in heaven with me forever and ever.

There is one thing, however, that we must understand about the love of God. Though the love of God is undeserved and though God took the initiative to save us, God doesn’t offer his love without limits. Someone says, “Well, what do you mean by that? I thought nothing could separate us from the love of Christ.” Well, that’s true. Nothing can separate you or me from Christ’s love; but, my friend, you can separate yourself. You can fall out of the love and grace and blessing of God, if you choose to forsake him. God will never forsake us, but we may forsake Him and leave His love and care. The prophet Azariah told Asa, the king, “The Lord is with you when you are with Him. And if you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you” (2 Chronicles 15 and verse 2). Now, forsaking means that we give up on Him; we forget Him, ignore Him or cast Him out of our lives. Now if we forsake God like that, how can we expect Him to bless us?

You likely learned John 3:16 as a child: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Now, the positive side of this verse is that God rewards believers with eternal life; but the negative side of this verse is that unbelievers who don’t want God perish. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 4 that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” You see, God is in the saving business; but God won’t make you believe, or make you repent, or make you be baptized. He won’t make you love Him. If you have no place in your heart for Jesus, He won’t force His way in. Oh, He will knock again and again, but the time comes when He understands that you have rejected him. Now God will leave you to your choice. Jesus said in John 15, verses 9 to 11, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, then you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” Now, to stay close to God we have got to keep His commandments. The Hebrew writer in Hebrews 10 and verse 26 said, “If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” The blood of Jesus is precious, but we must never take it for granted. Those who will not repent, who keep on sinning willfully against God, lose the blessing of that blood. God will stop forgiving.

I worry about people who ignore God or dismiss God, as if he were unimportant. God is good to us, and our salvation is a great salvation. The Hebrew writer warned in Hebrews 2 and verse 1, “For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we don’t drift from it.” Sometimes people slowly move away from God. They quit reading their Bible; they quit praying and going to church; they start saying no to the things of God and yes to temptation. They start living like the people who don’t know God. I hope that doesn’t happen to you. Jude 21 says, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” Paul fervently prayed for the church at Ephesus in Ephesians 3, verses 17 to 19 that the Ephesians “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.” My friends, our lives would radically change, if we could but grasp how much God loves us. I don’t know how broad the grace of God is, but I know it is sufficient to save me. I don’t know how long eternity is, but I know it never ends. I don’t know how high God’s goodness is, but I know He is good to me. I don’t know how deep God’s love is, but I know His love is greater than my sin.

Grasping God’s love in our hearts will change us. We will live differently, more sensitive to His will, more concerned about His work of saving souls, more removed from worldliness, more against the hurt of sinful behaviors, more often in prayer, more often in the Bible, more often in service to others, and more often in worship. I am convinced that our greatest need is love for God. I fear many are all-too-willing to just tell God to go away or to hush up. What they don’t understand is how much they need God. So much of the pain, the emptiness, and the ugliness in our world come from not knowing God or his love for mankind. This is why Paul said he was “determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2 and verse 2). The cross helps us to keep focused on the love of God. And I want to challenge you today to do something. My friends, I want you to take a long, hard look at the cross. I want you to read carefully the last three chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. See what Jesus was willing to do to save you and me and everyone from sin. Let his love touch your heart and your life. Love Him enough to be obedient to His will in everything. I hope you today will become a child of God by obeying the gospel of Christ. Believe in Jesus, repent of your sins, and be baptized in water for the forgiveness of your sins. Let’s pray. Oh, Lord, we pray that each one may come to love You more and more as days go by. And, Father, help us, each of us, to be obedient to Your will in everything. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

Thank you, Phil Sanders; thank you for an inspiring and informative message about God and His great love for us. Thank you for making time in your busy schedule to be with us today. Thank you for reminding us that "God so loved" each of us that He gave His only begotten Son to be executed on a cruel cross to redeem us. Thank you for the challenge to become one of His disciples-- to respond to that love as best we can-- by faith and obedience to His gospel. Friend, Phil spoke to some who have already been baptized into Christ but have drifted away. You can be lost that way, too, you know. As a fallen child of God, you should be motivated to admit it, repent (get your life turned around), and pray to God for your forgiveness. In all our studies about the nature of God, we will not forget His immeasurable love as you taught us today, Phil. May God bless you and your great work for Him.

My friend, I pray and I hope if you are not a Christian, you will become one today. Please don't put it off. It is too important. Your eternal life depends on it. Let us hear from you if we may be of any assistance to you for that-- or to obtain a CD or an audio cassette tape or a printed copy of the lesson on The Love of God. Our address is In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. If you prefer e-mail, then our address is searchtv@searchtv.org. And should you prefer to call us, please use our toll-free telephone number, 1-800-321-8633. We offer also, free to you, a Bible correspondence course that you can study the Bible from beginning to end right through at your own pace, at your own speed. The first one, the primary one, is eight weeks; eight lessons and you may do it one week at a time or you may do it slower or faster as you have need. So if you would like to enroll, please use one of those addresses. I hope you will. God bless you, keep you. We love you.