Consider this: 1. God created you to love you and God wants you to spend eternity with Him. 2. God has an enemy who hates you and wants you to spend eternity in Hell away from God. 3. The nature of God’s love demands that we have the power to choose whether we accept or reject the love of God. 4. Acceptance of God’s love requires that we recognize Him as ruler of our lives so that ultimately we experience full transformation into His likeness. 5. Rejection of God’s love and authority over us leads to separation from Him so that ultimately we experience the full force of His wrath against sin and evil.
God created you to love you. Listen to Romans 8:35-39.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What does this tell us about God’s love for us?
First of all, GOD’S LOVE IS DURABLE. Nothing you go through can pull you out of, or away from God’s love in Christ. God’s love isn’t escapable. Nothing can separate us from it, nothing can undo it, nothing can destroy it, nothing can diminish it, NOTHING.
God’s love is amazingly strong and long lasting. It takes a licking and comes back ticking. There used to be commercials for Samsonite luggage. They would do all kinds of things to a Samsonite suitcase but it just wouldn’t tear it up. They’d drop it off the top of a car going down the highway, they’d slam it around on the back of a truck, they even gave one to an ape at the zoo to play with and he threw it all over the place and bounced on it, jumping up and down, but it stood the test.
God’s love will outlast all its enemies. God’s love will be there when the Devil is finally done for and gone. You and I need to know that God’s love doesn’t go away. Why do we need to know that? Because there are times when it can feel like God does not love us. That’s the second thing we learn here about God’s love.
Secondly, God’s love does not depend on positive circumstances, nor does God’s love deflect all difficulty. In fact, sometimes God’s love directs us right into the storms of suffering and sacrifice. GOD’S LOVE IS LONGSUFFERING. God’s love is even proven through suffering sacrificial service. There is something about love that demonstrates its strength best during trials and pain. More than that, God’s love seems to be instilled in us that way. Satan would have you think that God’s love is always fun, soft and sweet. If God really loves you, he would never let you go through pain. But this is a dangerous lie.
Growing in God’s love may be the most excruciating experience imaginable. But is God’s love worth it? Read Romans 8:16-18, 2 Cor. 4:16-18.
Stephen, an 8th century Christian wrote this song that was translated by J.N. Neale in the mid 1800’s.
1. Art thou weary, art thou languid,
Art thou sore distressed?
"Come to Me," saith One, "and coming,
Be at rest."
2. Hath He marks to lead me to Him,
If He be my Guide?
In His feet and hands are wound prints
And His side.
3. Hath He diadem, as monarch,
That His brow adorns?
Yes, a crown He wears it surely,
But of thorns.
4. If I find Him, if I follow,
What will happen here?
Many a sorrow, many a labor,
Many a tear.
5. If I still hold closely to Him,
What hath He at last?
Sorrow vanquished, labor ended,
Jordan passed.
6. If I ask Him to receive me,
Will He say me nay?
Not till earth and not till Heaven
Pass away.
7. Finding Him and following, keeping,
Is He sure to bless?
Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs,
Answer, Yes!
(Lyrics: Stephen the Sabaite, 8th century
Translated: J.M. Neale)
Think of the biblical characters that learned this from experience. Job certainly must have wondered about God’s love. When God allowed Satan to do his worst on Job, and Job’s wife and three friends gave Job no support at all, Job surely didn’t feel the love of God. But did God still love Job? And did God prove His love at the end?
As a youth, Joseph had dreams from God that he would become a great ruler. Then his jealous brothers sold him into slavery and he served Potiphar faithfully until Potiphar’s wife lied about Joseph and Potiphar threw him into prison. Surely Joseph didn’t feel the love of God in those dark times and places, did he? But did God still love Joseph? And did he prove His love at the end?
Paul quotes Psalm 44 here in Romans 8 and if you read the whole Psalm you will see that the Psalmist is wondering about God’s love. They are going through some really bad times as a nation and the Psalmist begins by talking about the good times when God expressed his love toward them with lots of enjoyable things, things like deliverance and victory, things like prosperity and bounty. Oh, now that was love like we like it! Someone says, “Now, that’s what I call love!”
But then the Psalmist looks at what’s happening to them in their oppression and defeat. Israel is in captivity. He sees the humiliation as nations around them scoff and reproach and scatter them. He asks God, “Why do you hide your face and forget our affliction and our oppression?” Verse 22 is the verse that Paul quotes in Romans 8 while declaring God’s love. That verse says: “For your sake we are killed all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” In other words, where is the love? Does God still love us when we face hardship and trials? Would love ever allow sorrow and suffering to be our companions? God’s love is durable, and God’s love is longsuffering.
Did God still love Jesus when He sent Him to the cross? Did God still love Jesus when Jesus cried out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
God’s love is richer, deeper, wider, longer, higher, fuller… God’s love never fails. In fact, God’s love has been proven over and over to endure and even thrive in the most difficult of places. Perhaps this painful lesson is the most important one for us to learn and accept. God’s love seems to be forged into our hearts, not through pleasure, but through pain.
And, you and I, brothers and sisters, were created for God to love. And God wants to form that love into our hearts and lives.
Listen to Isaiah 43:1-7.
43 But now, this is what the Lord says—
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
3 For I am the Lord, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush and Seba in your stead.
4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and BECAUSE I LOVE YOU,
I will give men in exchange for you,
and people in exchange for your life.
5 Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east
and gather you from the west.
6 I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth—
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.”
Thirdly, we need to be assured that ultimately, GOD’S LOVE LEADS US HOME. God’s love brings those who embrace it into God’s glory and eternal life.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
That whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
But that the world through Him might be saved.
This is the judgment. Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, for their deeds were evil. Everyone that practices evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
But he who practices truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be seen plainly as having been done in God.
It is a small wonder that the most important commandment in scripture is that we love God. God designed us for love, His love. He made us to love us and to learn to love Him and others. When we receive God’s love and grow in God’s love we are led by God’s love to live like God in love. Eph. 5:1-2.
God created the church as a place of light and truth where all who love God can come and grow together in God’s love until He comes. None of us is perfect. We all still have a long way to go to fully know and follow God’s love in its completeness. But that’s who we are and what we are as a church. We are on the way. We need one another to encourage and be encouraged on this journey home.
We have heard of God’s love in Christ. We have seen God’s love demonstrated through Him and have come to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God our Savior, Sacrifice and Lord. We have turned from darkness to light and from sin to righteousness by repentance. We confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, Son of the living God. We are baptized into Christ’s death, buried with Him in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life in Jesus Christ. We follow Him in faith and obedience, with full assurance that He who died for us and rose again will finally bring us into eternal glory with Him, where we will enjoy the fullness of the love of God forever.
