God’s Unfailing Love
By
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
OPENING: - In 1966 Dionne Warwick sang a song titled “What the world needs now”. The word were What the world needs now is love sweet love, It’s the only thing that there's just too little of, What the world needs now is love sweet love, No, not just for some but for everyone,
Lord we don't need another mountain, There are mountains and hillsides, Enough to climb
There are oceans and rivers, Enough to cross, enough to last till the end of time,
What the world needs now is love sweet love, It’s the only thing that there's just too little of,
What the world needs now is love sweet love. No not just for some but for everyone.
Our world is filled with brokenness, heartache, sadness, prejudice, hatred, contempt, bitterness, animosity, and hostility. Tensions are high, Emotions are on edge, Relationships are breaking down, the governmental system has failed, medical reliability failed, security and stability is crumbling. Violence, war, sickness, disease, and unrest are mere indicators that things in this world are not the way they are supposed to be.
Political, racial, judicial, and economical divide has people separated in ways that seem to be an unsurmountable task of ever having unity and peace again. People carrying assault rifles to the State Capitol building protesting against an order that was put in place to possibly save their lives, vigilante crimes being done based on racial profiling which in turn is nothing more than a modern-day lynching. Police killing a black man by putting his knee on his neck for nearly 9 minutes. Unrest, confusion, and agitation seem to be the normal emotions people are carrying instead kindness, gentleness, and happiness. People living in the streets without food to eat, unemployment on the rise, yet we are sending rockets and satellites high into the sky.
We undeniably live in a world that is truly crying out for love and this is or at least should be the desire of everyone’s heart that this world would be a better place. However, it is also something that we find ourselves struggling to pin down, perpetually chasing after and never being completely satisfied.
There is a longing to make sense of our world and to make it right. When everything looks like it could fail, the question becomes: - Is there anything that can give us that sense of security and make our broken world right? The answer Yes and it is only found in God’s unfailing love.
PRAYER
SCRIPTURE:- (KJV) 1 Corinthians 13:8 “Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away” (NLT) Psalm 33:18 “But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love” (NIV) Proverbs 19:22 “What a person desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar”.
1 Corinthians 13 is called the Love chapter because it tells what Love is, what Love does and what is does not do. Verses 4-8 says “Charity (Love) suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things Charity (Love) never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away”.
The word faileth Paul uses describe the demise of a flower as it falls to the ground, withers, and decays. It carries the meaning of death and abolishment. God’s love, says the apostle, will never fall to the ground, wither, and decay. By its nature, it is permanent.
1 John 4:8 & 16 “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him”
LOVE describes the nature of God, provides the basis of Christian ethics, and manifests the object of Christian faith and the culmination of Christian hope.
LOVE is how God deals with his creation. It was this Love that was shown to us through the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ – John 3:16 says “For God so LOVED the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life”.
Both the Old and New Testaments paint a wonderful picture of this love that originates from God, because God is love and love is God, we can be assured that this highest form of love is an unfailing love.
UNDERSTAND: - Having a healthy definition of this love is crucial to understanding the central message of the Bible. Why? because there are various kinds of love and differing degrees of those various kinds.
There are mainly 4 Greek words used to describe the different levels or types of love and they are: - Philia - Affectionate Love this is brotherly love.
Storge – This is the love you have for your parents.
Eros - Romanic Love. This is the love you have for your spouse. It is Erotic love. Eros is named after the Greek god of love and fertility
Agape — Unconditional Love. Agape is applied to the love that God has for man. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. There is nothing we can do to diminish His love for us. He loves us even if we don’t love Him back. An atheist that claims there is no God, God loves them also. God does not have split personality He is not walking around heaven talking about I don’t know why they don’t love me He just loves us. He doesn’t love us because of what we do or don’t do He loves us because He is Love.
Our love is often predicated on what someone does to or for us, but God is not that way He just Loves for He is Love.
WATCH THIS:- In the Old Testament there are two other Hebrew words that express the greatest kinds and degrees of love they are Ahab and Hesed.
Ahab occurs over 200 times in the Old Testament and signifies spontaneous and outflowing love. This is pretty much like the word Eros for this type of love unites two of the opposite sex together in marriage.
The second word, Hesed, is a Hebrew noun that occurs over 250 times in the Old Testament to signify a "deliberate choice of affection or kindness." this noun can also be translated as the English word "mercy." It means unfailing love. This concept coupled with faithfulness gives the overall feeling of “loyal love” or “covenant love.” It is Unfailing Love. The Hebrew word for “stork” comes from hesed, because of the tender care the stork has for its young. Stork parents often make their nests high in the trees to protect their babies from predators. The word ?ése?, is the main term used to describe the love of God. However, to translate ?ése? simply as “love” doesn’t adequately convey its richness and depth. The love of God far surpasses that of humans. His ?ése? incorporates mercy, kindness, goodness, grace, and loyalty—and each aspect finds its supreme expression in Him.
Lamentation 3:22 says “It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not”. This is Hesed.
Now that we understand the different levels or types of Love let’s look at the meaning of Unfailing Love.
What Is Unfailing Love?
The word unfailing means: - without error or fault reliable or constant. It is consistent, doesn’t diminish or fade.
Psalm 36:5-6 (NIV) “Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths. You care for people and animals alike, O LORD”.
God’s faithfulness means that He always keeps His promises. He is consistent, trustworthy, and never changing. The analogy of God’s loving kindness reaching to the skies means that there is no limit to how vast God’s love is for us. We can keep coming back over and over and He always has more for us to receive. You cannot deplete God’s Unfailing Love. I live in Florida on the Atlantic Ocean side, the East Coast. I could take gallon jug to the ocean and begin to take a jug full of water out from now until forever and never drain that ocean. That is how God’s Unfailing Love is you could never drain it.
The unfailing love of God remains and endures, even when we do not. We notice this time and time again in the Bible where God’s people fell into sin and turned their backs on God, yet God continued to stand by His people. We all fail and make mistakes against ourselves, each other and ultimately against God. David wrote after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba, Psalm 51:4 “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge” Yet God loved him and called him a man after His own heart.
1 John 4:19, says “we love because He first loved us.” We can love others, but we are still fallible sinners who get things wrong and hurt people at times. However, God’s love does not change for He is the same yesterday, today and forever Hebrews 13:8.
God’s love has no limits. Love “will last forever” (NLT). It “never dies” (MSG). It “never ends” (RSV). Love “is eternal” (TEV). God’s love “will never come to an end” (NEB). Love never fails.
Proverbs 19:22 says “What a person desires is unfailing love”. We know that in this world everything and everyone will let us down eventually. Friends may eventually fail you, divorce my happen, automobiles will fail, banks will fail, and government will fail but the Love of God will never fail.
None of us are capable of truly loving except for God. Why? Because God is love. He showed us what love really is when He stepped into our world to take our place. There is no greater love! “We love because He first loved us” 1 John 4:19.
His Love Endures Forever. Remember earlier I said Hesed is often translated as Mercy.
Psalm 136 contains 26 verses and each one ends with the phrase “His mercy (love -Hesed) endureth forever.” What is interesting about this is that the numerical value of the Divine and Most Holy Name: The Tetragrammaton:- YHWH (yohd, hey, vav, hey) is twenty-six (26). The Torah (Law) was given on Mt. Sinai in the 26th generation of mankind. The 26 verse of the Bible talks about being made in the image and likeness of God Genesis 1:26 says “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 26 in the Bible often represents the power of Salvation and that is Hesed – LOVE.
While we struggle to love for a short time God does so forever. God has loved us from everlasting to everlasting. Psalm 103:17-18 “But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children – with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.”
God’s unfailing love is the constant theme that is woven through the Bible. Psalms abounds with occasions of thanksgiving and praise for the Lord’s faithful love: “Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds” Psalm 36:5, Psalms 13:5; 17:7; 31:16; 107:1; 136:1-26.
One of the most astonishing examples of unfailing love in the Bible is presented in the book of Hosea. God commands the prophet Hosea to marry a woman named Gomer, who is a prostitute and would prove to be an unfaithful wife. Gomer’s infidelity paints a picture of Israel’s disloyalty to the Lord in worshiping other gods. God uses this marriage to illustrate how His righteous anger regarding Israel’s sin of abandonment and spiritual adultery, while never ceasing to invite Israel to return to Him so that He may love her again. Hosea’s relentless love and faithfulness to his wife are a stunning portrait of God’s unfailing love for His people.
At one point, while Gomer is on her own and probably living as a slave, Hosea buys her back with 15 shekels of silver and a quantity of barley. This shows how Jesus Christ forgives, restores, and offers a new life of freedom to the woman caught in adultery. Hosea also foreshadows how Jesus Christ would one day redeem a sinful world by paying the price with His own death on the cross. The prophetic book assures us of God’s unconditional, unfailing love.
The Bible says it like this in Romans 5:7 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. You like me before I gave my life to God may be living like Gomer, spiritually doing everything totally against the will and Word of God. You may be a slave to drugs, alcohol, or any kind of lasciviousness trying to satisfy the lust of the eye, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, but God’s unfailing love is for you. It doesn’t matter what you did before, He loves you, never stopped loving you and He wants to save you.
Ruth contains another stunning example of God’s unfailing love. The story involves a family from Judah—Naomi, her husband, Elimelek, and their two sons. To escape a famine, they move to the foreign land of Moab. But after Elimelek and Naomi’s two sons die, Naomi decides to return to Judah. Instead of going home to her own family, Ruth, one of Naomi’s Moabite daughters-in-law, refuses to leave her mother-in-law alone and penniless. Together they return to Judah, where Ruth finds work gleaning grain in the barley fields of Boaz. Boaz is their family redeemer, the man who will rescue them from poverty and provide an heir for Elimelek’s family.
Ruth’s selfless loyalty to Naomi is an example of the Lord’s compassion and faithfulness to keep His covenant promises: Deuteronomy 7: 9 “Understand, therefore, that the LORD your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands”. Boaz’s role as kinsman-redeemer exemplifies the steadfast love of God, which is revealed to us through salvation in Jesus Christ. You may be as Ruth a foreigner to Christianity and God in general. You may have never stepped foot in a church, or even touched a Bible before, but His unfailing love for you is the same. He wants to be your kinsmen redeemer and take you from mothing to something.
In Luke 15:11–32 we read of the Prodigal son and the unfailing love of our heavenly Father has for His’s wayward children. The story tells of a father and his two sons. The younger son asks to be given his share of inheritance. With money in hand, he sets out on a wild adventure in a distant land. Soon he has spent everything. When a famine strikes, he finds himself working feeding pigs and is to the point that he longs to eat the slop he is feeding the pigs. Finally, he comes to senses and remembers his father and decides to return home and humbly ask for forgiveness and mercy. When he does, he finds his father waiting: verse 20 says “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him”
Joy, love, and tender compassion filled the father’s heart at seeing his son return home. Immediately, the father throws a party in celebration. All is forgiven. This father is a brilliant picture of our joy-filled Father in heaven when one sinner repents Luke 15:7, 10. He waits patiently for lost sinners; He pours out His unfailing love and compassion on them when they return home. You may be a backslider and turned away from God for whatever reason there maybe, but His unfailing love is still there. He loves you and is waiting with arms wide open for you to come back home.
Romans 8:38–39 reminds us “nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord”. His love is absolutely unfailing: “How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings” Psalm 36:7.
CLOSING:- The Cross as the Ultimate Unfailing Act of Love
The song writer said they hung him high and stretched him wide he hung his head for you and me he died that’s love but let’s look how this unfailing love.
THE SCOURGING: - They took him and stripped him tied his hands above his head to a post, then two Roman soldiers, one on each side, began to beat him with a flagellum, this is called scourging. A flagellum is a whip with 3 braided leather straps, at the end of the strap were pieces of metal, half-way up the strap were pieces of bone, they began to beat him, every time this flagellum hit him it took chucks of flesh from his body.
After whipping him until he was a mass of mangled, bloody, flesh they cut him from the post, he fell to the ground nearly dead, they picked him up, put a robe on his back, the blood from his back began to soak the robe causing the robe to cling to him, they put a reed in his hand and a crown of thorns on his head. The crown of thorns were made from a bush called a “Zizyphus Spina” and the thorns were 1 – 3 inches long. These thorns dug into his head causing blood to run down His face into his eyes. The soldiers then take a blind fold and place it over his face, they spit on him and pull his beard out, and even punch him in the face a began to say prophecy tell us who did this to you. The they took a stave and hit him over the head causing the crown of thorns to be pushed deeper into his skull. After this they pulled the robe, which had clung to his body off him, pulling flesh from the bloody mangled back from our Lord and savior.
Then they gave him a cross which He had to carry some 600 yards to Golgotha’s hill. Along the way he fell, a man by the name of Simon made to carry the cross for him. At the top of Calvary’s hill Jesus is offered a drink of wine mixed with myrrh as an anesthetic, it is called a stupefying drink. This drink would cause one to become unaware of the pain they were about to feel.
Jesus refused this drink, by him refusing this drink he is saying I want to feel everything, I want to feel what it feels like when one is far from God, when someone feels they have no power, I want to know what it feels like when one of my children feel hopeless, suicidal, when all their friends have turned their backs upon them, when they are discourage, depressed, unloved, forsaken, lonely, in despair, and about to lose their minds.
He did that just for you and me. Now that’s LOVE.
THE CRUCIFIXION: They grab him, pull him to the ground, the dirt from the ground enters the bloody mangled back. 4 soldiers, 2 on the left and 2 on the right, pin his arms down smashing their knee at the elbow and holding his hands to the crossbeam, the other 2 would drive the spikes into his hands, the spikes were 6” long & 1” thick.
There is in the entire length of the arm to the tips of the fingers a sensory & motor nerve called the median nerve. This nerve is what causes us to move our fingers and feel what we have hold of. These spikes cut that median nerve sending fire through his body his hand began to draw up like a claw.
They lifted him to the top of the stipe dragging his body over the ground and up along the wood of the stipe. At the top of the stipe they drop him into the section that was cut out, the weight of his body began to pull on the spikes in his hands, just imagine the pain. In the leg there is a nerve just like in the arm, which is a motor and sensory nerve, they nail his feet to the cross cutting the perennial nerve, his feet begin to draw up, he has fire running all through his body, he didn’t have to go to hell he had hell in his body. Now that’s LOVE.
He hung there on the cross for 3 long hours every time he took a breath it caused his back to rub against the cross, his hands to move on the spikes, his feet to move on the spike causing fire to run through his body, the pain was immense, yet in still he hung there for you and me.
THE DEATH: Jesus finally said it is finished and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Ever since that time scientist and doctors have said that the cause of his death was Hypokalemic shock, or Congestive Heart Failure, Dehydration, or Stress Induced Arrhythmias; however, I want you to know that these things didn’t kill Jesus, but he died because he love you and me.
Hebrews 12:2 says “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God”.
What is the joy that was set before Him – Having you and me reconciled to Him.
Now that is the UNFAILING LOVE OF GOD.
CLOSING: - We do not need another Hero. We don’t need another political uprising. We don’t need any more bloodshed. We do not need another super-star. All we need is God’s Unfailing Love.
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
