How I Know that God Loves Me
Malachi 1:2
The book of Malachi is about the indifference of Israel to God’s love. The Lord tells Israel, “I have loved you” – literally I have loved you in the past and continue to love you. To which they replied “How have you loved us?” Their reply reflects their obliviousness to what God had done and was doing for them. Being so focused on their problems they failed to see God’s unfailing love. At times in our lives we may find ourselves asking the same questions as we focus on our problems. Does God love me? How does God love me? How do I know that God loves me? For the next few minutes I want to share with you how I know that God loves me.
I. I know that God loves me for the Bible tells me so.
A. Jeremiah 31:3 “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.”
B. One day C. H. Spurgeon was walking through the English countryside with a friend. As they strolled along, the evangelist noticed a barn with a weather vane on its roof. At the top of the vane were these words: GOD IS LOVE. Spurgeon remarked to his companion that he thought this was a rather inappropriate place for such a message. “Weather vanes are changeable,” he said, “but God’s love is constant.” “I don’t agree with you about those words, Charles,” replied his friend. “You misunderstood the meaning. That sign is indicating a truth: Regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love.” - copied
C. 1 John 4:16, 19 “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him…We love him, because he first loved us.”
D. I trust and accept what God says in His Word, the Bible – He loves me.
II. I know that God loves me because He sent His Son to die for me
A. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
B. God demonstrates His love for us through the death of His Son. The Bible declares that our sin separates us from a holy God and that no amount of human goodness, works, morality, or religious activity on our part can gain acceptance with God. Yet He still loves us and provided the means for us to have everlasting life through the death of His Son on the cross.
C. 1John 4:9-10 “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
D. I would like to tell you a story about a man named John Griffith. John was the father of an 8-year-old boy during the 20’s and 30’s. John was very fortunate during those times, because he had job. John loved his son very much. He was the apple of his eye. John’s son was a normal little boy who constantly wanted to go to work with his father. John decided he would take his boy to work with him one day. John was bridge conductor across the Mississippi River. John was in charge of raising and lowering the bridge so that boats could get through and trains could pass. John’s son was so amazed at the gears and all the things that went along with his father’s job. They had brought their lunch to work with them that day and decided to eat their lunch on the bank of the river. John and his son was eating lunch and John had realized that in about 3 minutes the Memphis Belle carrying 300 passengers was getting ready to cross the bridge, but the bridge was not lowered. John didn’t want to alarm his son so he patted him on the shoulder and told him to sit right their and he would be right back. John hustled up the stairs, he grabbed the lever to lower the bridge and he had realized that somehow his son had climbed to the bridge and had fallen in between the gears of the bridge. John could hear the train coming carrying the 300 passengers. In his mind he started going over ways he could get his son from the gears and still lower the bridge, but he knew he had to make a choice. John lowered the bridge just in time for the train to pass crushing his son in between the gears. John looked at the train passing by and saw a man reading his newspaper a woman drinking her tea and another talking to his wife. John screamed at the top of his lungs “Hey, Don’t you know what I’ve just done for you” they didn’t hear him so he screamed again “Hey, Don’t you know what I’ve just done for you” But again they just went along with their lives not ever realizing what John had done for them. God is asking us the same question “Don’t you know what I’ve done for you. I sent my only son to this earth for you. He died a terrible death so that you could spend eternity with me. Why are you going on with your busy meaningless live not serving me, and some of you have not even accepted me as your savior. I love you so much. – copied Brent Williams, Sermon Central
E. John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
F. Calvary shows how far men will go in sin, and how far God went for man’s salvation. - H. D. Trumbull
G. John 3:16 “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.”
III. I know that God loves me because He chastens me when needed
A. Vance Havner used to say, “God’s chastening originates in His love.”
B. Proverbs 3:11-12 “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: for whom the LORD loves he corrects; even as a father the son in whom he delights.”
C. Someone has said, “By chastening, the Lord separates the sin that he hates from the sinner whom he loves.”
D. Hebrews 12:5-7 “And have you completely forgotten the exhortation which instructs you as sons? My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, or give up when you are corrected by him. For the Lord disciplines the one whom he loves, and punishes every son whom he accepts. Endure it for discipline. God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there whom a father does not discipline?”
E. The scourges by which God chastises his children are testimonies of his love. -
John Calvin
F. Revelation 3:19 “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”
IV. I know that God loves me as He works good in my life
A. Sometimes we’re like the little girl who wrote to her pastor, “Dear Pastor, I know God loves me but I wish He would give me an "A" on my report card so I could be sure. Love, Theresa. (Age 8, Milwaukee) - Dear Pastor, 1980 by Bill Adler Books, Inc.
B. God loves us and because He does He gives us what is best for us not what we want. This may involve some bumps, bends and breakdowns along the highway of life. But rest assured He knows what He is doing.
C. Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.”
D. Sometimes love has to be cruel to be kind. Years ago, in the days before stagecoaches had been superseded by railways, a mother and her infant were the only passengers in a coach in western Montana during a bitter winter. The woman had not provided against such intense cold, and although she could protect her baby, her own life became endangered. The driver quickened the pace of his team, hoping to reach warmth and refuge before her condition became serious, but the fatal drowsiness stole over her, and when no answers to his inquiries were returned, he stopped and got down from his box. The woman’s head was swaying from side to side. He took the baby from her and bestowed it as comfortably as he could in a furry bundle under the shelter of the seat; then, seizing the mother roughly by the arm, he dragged her upon the frozen ground. His violence partly awakened her; but when he banged the door and sprang on his box and drove on, leaving her in the road, she came fully to her senses and began to scream as she ran madly after him, calling, "My baby, oh, my baby." The horror of her loss and the violence of the exercise to which she was forced saved her. When her blood was in healthy circulation, the driver pulled up his horses, and allowed her to resume her place with her unharmed child.—Methodist Recorder.
E. Two Examples of God overriding in the affairs of life for His glory and the benefit of those He loves are seen in the Old Testament.
1. Deuteronomy 23:5 “Nevertheless the LORD thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the LORD thy God loved thee.”
2. Genesis 50:20 “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive..
F. Because God loves us, God wants what is best for us not necessarily what we think is best for us.
G. Psalms 84:11 “For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
V. I know that God loves me as He calls me His son
A. Ephesians 2:4-6 “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
B. In His love God made me His child (John 1:12)
C. In His love God made me a joint-heir with Christ (Romans 8:17)
D. In His love God made me a citizen of Heaven (Philippians 3:20)
E. In His love God chose me (1 Thessalonians 1:4)
F. In His love, His Son is preparing a place for me (John 14:3)
G. In His love He is coming one day to take me to be with Him forever (1 Thessalonians 4:17)
H. 1 John 3:1-2 “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”
