“His Kind Of Love”
John 19:25-30
David P. Nolte
A little boy wanted a cookie but his mother said “No.” He said, “I only like you when you give me cookies.” She said, “You only like me when I give you cookies?” He agreed and she said, “I love you.” He said, “I love you too, but I can’t like you all the time.” He loved her, but only for the cookies! We can overtook his immaturity but I ask, “What kind of love is that?”
A young swain texted his girlfriend, “I love you so much that I’d swim the widest river, climb the highest mountain and cross the most barren desert just to be with you!” She texted back, “That’s so sweet. Are you coming over tonight?” He replied, “I don’t think so, it looks like it might rain.” Hmmm. What kind of love is that?
Certainly not Jesus’ kind of love. The song said, “It wasn’t nails that held Jesus to the cross, it was His love for us that made Him pay the cost.” He died to bring us love – His kind of love.
But what kind of love is that? The Scripture enlightens us: “Standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ From that hour the disciple took her into his own household. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth. Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.” John 19:25-30 (NASB).
Think with me about His kind of Love and what it means to each of us.
I. IT IS A TASK COMPLETING LOVE:
A. “It is finished!” He said.
1. “Finished” does not mean “It’s all over!” or “It’s all washed up!” as in the sense of failure
2. It means “accomplished, brought to fulfillment, successful completion of the job.”
B. Nobody would have benefitted if Jesus had quit before the last nail was driven or the last drop of blood had fallen. He completed the task He had begun.
1. He went through the pain of desertion, betrayal and denial by His closest friends.
2. He endured rigors of the inquisition before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, Pilate and Herod.
3. He suffered the beating and mockery, the pain and agony, without regret or thought of quitting.
C. He came to do a particular task – and He did it.
1. That task was to offer Himself as a vicarious sacrifice to satisfy the judgment that “the soul that sins shall die.”
2. He came to seek and save the lost – including His enemies for whom he asked forgiveness even on the cross.
3. He came to build a church using His true disciples as means of carrying the gospel to the world.
4. He came to open the way to God by reconciling us to Him.
5. He came to make peace with God on our behalf.
D. All that He set out to do, He accomplished.
1. Not a sin unatoned.
2. Not a teaching untaught.
3. Not a truth we need to know unrevealed.
4. No part of God’s plan of salvation incomplete! He got through with what He was doing.
E. Tasks are not always completed: for example, when I first went to Molalla, I found that the high school youth had hired on to a local farmer to build a wood fence to divide his land from the neighbor’s land. As pastor / youth leader I was expected to supervise and help.
I had never built a fence across an uneven, rolling pasture – or anywhere else for that matter – nor had they – so it was a slow process and we were running out of time since the money was needed for a mission trip.
We finally admitted we were in over our heads but the farmer, to support the mission trip, kindly gave a generous offering and had competent people finish the job.
But Jesus got it finished, because His love is a task completing love.
II. IT IS A CROSS BEARING LOVE:
A. Jesus didn’t work in an air-conditioned office; His work was among the needy, the demon possessed, the rejected – and at last on the cross.
B. “He let this old world have its way, for one dark and tragic day to bring us love, perfect love, His kind of love.”
1. Jesus was not a helpless victim or deluded martyr.
2. He said, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” John 10:17-18 (NASB).
3. “Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?” Matthew 26:53-54 (NASB).
C. The cross – not a symbol of Christianity then – it spoke of wrath and judgment and punishment and shame and death.
1. It was a cursed thing to be crucified.
2. It was a painful, lingering death to be crucified.
3. It was a criminal’s fate to be crucified.
D. A lady once told me I preached about the cross too much and what she wanted to hear was grace.
I explained to her that the cross is the focal point of grace and that it was grace that provided the cross. Jesus’ love was a cross bearing love. And “it wasn’t nails that held Jesus to the cross! It was His love for us that made Him pay the cost!”
E. When he was crucified He surrendered to the worst Satan and the world could do to Him – but in the resurrection He bested their worst.
1. It’s like when, as a youngster, I’d wrestle with my Dad. He would let me get him in all sorts of holds – hammerlock, full nelson, scissors – I tried ‘em all. He merely let me win when he could have thrown me across the room.
2. As a teen, I wrestled with my 3 young nephews and allowed them the freedom to get any hold they wanted – but not the nice guy my dad was, I didn’t let them win. I would shake off their worst efforts and then we’d go at it again.
Jesus allowed death to hold Him for those 3 days and then with ease, shook off its best efforts and rose again. His was a cross bearing love.
III. IT IS A DEBT PAYING LOVE:
A. In addition to referencing “completion,” the word for “It is finished” is equivalent to our “Paid In Full!” It was written across a paid bill.
1. It means there is nothing owed the creditor.
2. It means that all monetary considerations have been satisfied.
3. It means that all debts are “paid in full!”
B. Sin pays us, and He paid for sin: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 (NASB).
1. We earn death by sin – physical death sometimes, spiritual death for sure.
2. Jesus, though sinless, took our paycheck to the cross and the grave and by rising again defeated death.
3. Not only did He take what we have earned, but He paid for what we can never earn. An old song says, “He paid a debt He did not owe; I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away And now I sing a brand new song, Amazing Grace! Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay.” (E. J. Crum).
C. Through the Old Testament we see the grace of God accepting a sacrificial animal in place of requiring the life of a sinner.
1. The price of a life had to be paid as the cost of sin, but God allowed that the forfeited life could be an animal substitute.
2. Jesus is our sacrificial Lamb.
3. He substituted for us and in God’s eyes our sins are paid for by the forfeiture of His perfect life.
4. Peter said, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (NASB).
5. Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20 (NASB).
D. Consider the matter of paying someone else’s debt:
1. Sometimes we might think, “Wow! If only some mega-rich benefactor would pay all our college loans, credit card debt.” Who would snub that?
2. But what about our paying someone else’s debt? I’d love to do that more than I am able. I asked God for a million dollars and He gave it to me – spread out over 75 years. But, though it would be wonderful to have millions to help those in genuine need, God has not considered my want to be a need. We are merely responsible to use what we have, not what we don’t have.
3. Jesus had the required payment price and He paid the debt.
E. VIDEO CLIP: RIPPLE on Youtube A little girl was shopping with her grandmother and she wanted to take her grandpa a special cake for his birthday. Picking out the one she wanted, she was saddened when grandmother didn’t have enough for the groceries and the cake. She was sad as they left, cakeless, a young man who had witnessed their dilemma, bought the cake and gave it to the little girl. He explained that when he was 7, his mother didn’t have enough money for the birthday cake he had picked out, and a kind man had paid for it, wishing him a happy birthday. Someone paid what he could not pay – and since he couldn’t pay it back, he was just paying it forward.
Jesus died for us but not for us alone. He reconciled us to God and has made us His ambassadors, His representatives to others. His kind of love should constrain and compel us to take it to others. What He paid for, let’s pay forward. PRAY / INVITE
We need to cease trying to earn what He has earned for us. He paid a debt He did not owe because I owed a debt I could not pay.
He offers a gift we cannot earn or merit or pay for – but we receive it by surrendering to Him as Lord.
Have you obeyed His command to repent; to turn from sin?
Have you obeyed His command to be baptized?
Have you obeyed His command to love one another as He loves us?
That seems the least you should do since He paid it all for you.
