Series: Amazed?
Sermon 1: Amazing Savior! - Palm Sunday
Sermon 2: Amazing Grace! – Good Friday
Sermon 3: Amazing Love! – Easter Sunday
Video Clip: From Amazing Love --- http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=WDZLD7NX
Main Scripture Texts:
Hosea 1:2-3; 3:1-3; 9:1; 14: 1-2:9
John 21:15-19
Thesis: Easter describes for us the power of love and that love is an “Amazing love” that astounds all who become recipients of it!
Introduction:
Easter Sunday is all about love – “Really the power of love” - it’s about the victory of love over death and destruction. It’s the promise of the Bible that love will always defeat sin and death. It’s the story of the triumphant God of love manifesting that love through Jesus Christ. Easter Sunday is revealing, and it shows us the power of love to overcome evil. Love won out Easter morning! Love sent death packing with its tails between its legs! Love stood up and death went down for the count! Love as the Bible describes is “Amazing!” and that amazing love is described for us not only in the Gospels but it is also found in the Old Testament in the book of Hosea. So let’s start there this morning as we learn the amazing power of love.
I. The amazing love of Hosea for Gomer and the typology of that love between Jesus and His bride the church today:
a. Hosea is a symbolic representation of God in OT/ And Christ in the NT. Gomer represents Israel in the OT/And The Church or Bridegroom of Christ in the NT and typified in Hosea's faithfulness to his adulterous wife “Gomer” (Hos 3)
b. Hosea 1:2-3; 3:1-3; 9:1; 14: 1-2; 9
i. Hosea 1:2-3 (Key verses of the book):
1. 2When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD.” 3So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
ii. Hosea 3:1-3: Hosea takes her as his wife but later after 3 kids he has to go buy her out of slavery – not sure if she left him for another guy - but most likely or returned after having three kids she just decided to go back to her former promiscus lifestyle.
1. 1The LORD said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” 2So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 3Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.”
iii. Hosea 9:1: Israel compared to Gomer.
1. 1 Do not rejoice, O Israel; do not be jubilant like the other nations. For you have been unfaithful to your God; you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor.
iv. Hosea 14: 1-2:
1. 1 Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God. Your sins have been your downfall! 2 Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.
v. Hosea 14:9:
1. 9 Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them. The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.
c. The Story of a prophet of God and his unfaithful wife:
i. It’s more than a story – it’s a story painting a spiritual reality of our relationship with God.
1. Hosea is the faithful one.
2. Gomer is the unfaithful one.
ii. The story line:
1. Hosea – Hosea served as a prophet to Israel (the northern Kingdom) from 753-715 BC.
a. In this time frame Israel’s last 6 kings were very wicked and they promoted heavy taxes, oppression of the poor, idol worship, and a total rejection of God and His ways. Israel was drained dry of financial funds by having to pay tribute to Assyria to keep from being invaded -- but they were eventually invaded by Assyria in 722 BC and destroyed - they then ceased to be a separate nation at this point.
b. Hosea’s main message was pointed toward Israel the northern kingdom of Israel which split ---“The nation of Israel had split in two ---Israel north – Judah south after Solomon’s death. The message primarily revealed how God saw their sinful condition. They had sold God out and rejected Him and His ways. Therefore they had become an adulterous nation betraying their true God, their true lover and true provider. Their total disregard for God cost them dearly - they lost their freedom - they became slaves because of the judgment of God on their adulterous nation.
c. An important point of Hosea’s message was that even though we all sin and have severed our relationship with God - He still loves us like Hosea loved Gomer.
d. Hosea was willing to buy her back out of slavery even though she was unfaithful to him. Just like God sent Jesus to pay our debt of sin for our unfaithfulness and therefore opened the door for us to be restored to our right relationship with the One who loves us.
2. Gomer – Gomer was a woman with a reputation and that reputation was not a good one.
a. She had developed a persistent promiscuous lifestyle.
i. She sold herself into sexual slavery for money whether for food, for clothes, for a meal, for jewelry or even for money.
1. Story from Max Lucado: In the summer of 1980 a story about an attractive girl who was young and successful stirred the US. The story broke the evening news with the headline; Judith Bucknell was dead – it was number one hundred and six that year in the steamy city of Miami in the month of June. She was 38 years old and weighed 109 pounds. She was stabbed 7 times and also strangled. What struck the nation that steamy day was not just her murder but her diary. She had kept a diary of her life and the reporters started reporting what she had written in it. It unveiled a painful epitaph to a very lonely life. One writer made these comments about Judy a character in her diary which was her- the character is struggling to find love, weary of all the broken promises of love, she has a voice which is yearning for love. The character Judy at age 38 had many lovers over the last fifty six months 59 to be exact. No she was not a proprostitute but actually lived in a lavish place called Coconut Grove. She was a successful secretary but a loser at real love-amazing love. She wrote: Where are the men with flowers and music..I feel so old, so alone, unloved, unwanted, abandone and used up…I want to cry and sleep forever…I’m alone…I want to share something with somebody” (Page 44, 45 No Wonder They Call Him the Savior).
2. Her diary was filled with loneliness and despair, a success at work, respectable, designer clothes, apartment overlooking the bay, a jogger, successful in the eyes of the world but really alone in her life – very alone – Can you hear the cry of loneliness and pain?
3. She was like Gomer and our city of Chicago is filled with people like Judith Bucknell and Gomer’s.
a. Cries of loneliness – listen again to the cries within your city! They come from the rich and famous, the poor and unknown, the married and the single, the high schools and the colleges, the blue collar workers and the white collar workers.
i. Can you hear the cries?
b. God did – he heard their cries – he experienced their loneliness and brokenness.
ii. The story is unclear if she was a working professional prostitute or just a promiscuous girl. But she definitely was not the kind of girl Hosea’s mom would want him to take as his wife because she most likely would not be faithful in this marriage relationship.
iii. Gomer seemed in the story ambivalent to Hosea because she leaves after having three children and re-enters her sexual slavery. Not sure why other than she did not want to remain faithful to her loving husband.
b. Gomer’s lifestyle sends a few messages:
i. Unfaithfulness damages our integrity but does not necessarily prevent someone else from loving us in spite of our failures.
1. God loves us in spite of our past sins and desires a loving relationship with us if we choose to repent and turn away from sinful lifestyles.
3. God – God the Father is involved in this relationship with Hosea and Gomer – He puts it together and He uses it as a teaching tool to the nation of Israel, and even to us today and to our loveless world.
a. God has established an amazing love relationship with us- He pursues that love relationship with us daily and He wants it because He loves us.
b. He proved his love for us by sending His son Jesus to die on the cross for us and our sins. He did this so that we could be bought back out of the life of slavery to sin and be restored to right relationship with our loving Heavenly Father – God.
c. God is committed to loving us even though we sin but He will forgive us if we repent and ask for forgiveness.
T.S. - Love that is spoken of in the Bible is an “Amazing Love” it’s a love that astounds others, astonishes others, wows others and makes others look on in amazement!
II. The power of love is what makes love so amazing (John 3:16; 15:9; 15:12)!
a. The power of love restored a world back to right relationship with God the Father.
i. Romans 8:37:
1. 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
a. God loved us before we ever loved Him and He pursues a love relationship with us.
b. Some people think that God is out to get them or punish him but thevtruth is God wants a love relationship with you.
ii. 1 John 4:7-12:
1. 7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
2. Amazing love is a God thing its actually His very nature to love.
3. His love is an amazing love that comes with divine power behind it.
iii. The power of Love:
1. The power of love defeated death.
2. The power of love crushed the head of evil.
3. The power of love unleashed forgiveness and grace to a hopeless world.
4. The power of love brought back hope and happiness.
5. The power of love changed people’s destinies.
6. The power of love set you and I free too!
a. Have you experienced this amazing love?
b. Story of amazing love: Story from Melvin Newland on sermoncentral.com: Do you remember the story about Tony Toto, of Allentown, PA.? He operated a pizza parlor there. Tony Toto survived at least 5 attempts on his life, all arranged for or carried out by his dear wife, Frances, & her lover.
Twice she arranged for assailants to beat him over the head with baseball bats. On one occasion she put a tripwire across the basement stairs in their house, hoping that he would trip over it & plummet to his death.
Twice she arranged for him to be shot. The first time she drugged his chicken soup so he would sleep soundly, & he was shot in the head, but miraculously survived. The 2nd time he was shot in the chest, but only sustained minor injuries. Now this is a picture of a real happy couple, isn’t it?
Even more miraculous than Tony’s survival was his attitude toward his wife once he found out she was responsible for all of this. Tony, a self?confessed lady’s man himself, said that he held his wife blameless.
When she was found guilty & sent to prison for arranging for his murder, he took their 4 children & visited her every week - every single week. Then when she was released from prison, she went back to their red brick home to resume her married life with Tony.
With his arm around her, Tony said, "We’re more in love now than ever before. I don’t understand why people break up over silly little things."
b. The amazing love of Jesus for Peter a man who actually denied Jesus 3x shows us its power (John 21:15-19):
i. 15When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
16Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
17The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.
18I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”
19Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
1. Jesus came to Peter who had left his calling to return to what he thought he was good at fishing.
2. Jesus let Peter experience His amazing love that morning on the shore line.
3. Peter received the power of God’s amazing love and it changed Him from the inside out.
a. He would never from this point on deny the one who loved him so much as to die for him and to forgive him even after betraying him three times.
b. Peter went on to eventually die for the message of Jesus and revealed to all the amazing power of love.
Conclusion:
The amazing power of love can only be found in Jesus an in a
intimate relationship with Him.
Quotes:
Max Lucado in “The Grip of Grace” tells the story of a man who went to a family therapist about a troubled teenage girl he was in the process of adopting. She was very destructive, disobedient, and dishonest. One day she came home from school and ransacked the house looking for money. By the time he came home she was gone and the house was in shambles. His friends urged him not to finalize the adoption. “Let her go,” they said. “After all, she’s not really your daughter.” His response was simply, “Yes, I know. But I told her she was.”
Rick Warren in his book The Purpose Driven Life says, “Life is all about love!” “Because God is love, the most important lesson he wants you to learn on earth is how to love. It is in loving that we are most like him, so love is the foundation of every command he has given us; ‘the whole Law can be summed up in this one command; ‘Love others as you love yourself” (123).
Philip Yancey wrote, "The notion of God's love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of Karma, the Jewish covenant, and the Muslim code of law—-each of these offer a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional."
Amazing love – God’s amazing love brings us back to John 3:16 and to Easter!
Reflections on John 3:16: 16“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16 will help answer the question of why Paul called this the most excellent way. This passage is the most famous and the most familiar passage of the Bible. It is quoted the most and it's reference numbers are seen at football games, parades, graffiti, and the like. Max Lucado calls these numbers, "The numbers of hope." In his book 3:16
In his book 3:16 Max shares some reflections on 3:16 from some famous people:
CeCe Winans said, "To me, John 3:16 is the very foundation of my faith. It is because of God's love that he gave and it's because of God's love that I am saved forever."
Sheila Walsh stated, "This is the first verse I learned as a child and it changed my life. To most 10 year olds, these would be sweet words to recite to Mom and Dad to make them smile. To me they were a lighthouse in the darkness, a concrete promise when everything else seemed untrue and a hope that could not be extinguished. Over forty years later I wrap the truth of these words around me every day as I look for others who are lost at sea, betrayed and hopeless. All the literature in the world cannot compete with the treasure contained in these twenty-five words."
Mac Powell (lead singer of Third Day) stated, "I love John 3:16 because it is the gospel in a nutshell. It shares God's great love for us, and our great need for him."
Jeff Foxworthy (Comedian) stated, "This is the promise that bears hope for the hopeless. When we finally realize "I can't do this on my own" this is the Father responding, "I know, so I've done it for you."
Greg Laurie, Pastor stated, "God's love is not some mere sentiment, but rather something that He showed in a tangible way. God offers to us the gift of eternal life. To receive a gift, you must reach out to accept it, and then open it."
Don Moen, singer/songwriter, "John 3:16. What an amazing scripture-God loved us while we were quite unlovable. He reached out to us when we were unreachable. Knowing that we would fail Him, deny Him, and spurn this unconditional love, he still gave...unconditionally!"
Max shares this about our verse from his book 3:16:
A twenty-six-word parade of hope: beginning with God, ending with life, and urging us to do the same. Brief enough to write on a napkin or memorize in a moment, yet solid enough to weather two thousand years of storms and questions. If you know nothing of the Bible, start here. If you know everything in the Bible , return here. We all need the reminder. The heart of the human problem is the heart of the human. And God's treatment is prescribed in John 3:16. He loves. He gave. We believe. We live. The words are to scripture what the Mississippi River is to America-an entryway into the heartland...
Source: Max Lucado, 3:16-The Numbers of Hope.
So today on this Easter Morning embrace the amazing love of God for you through Jesus and let it change your life.
