Every sermon we preach, no matter what time of year it is, points to the Person of Jesus Christ because He is the Cornerstone of our faith. Christ’s incarnation - was when God, the Creator of the earth and of every living creature and of the entire universe was born on the earth as a man. Christ’s death and resurrection is what made it possible for us to stand before our holy and righteous God, completely forgiven and washed clean. What can we say about this unfathomable love except that no other love can compare to it.
The love that people have for each other is an expression of different levels of care and commitment. People will go to great lengths to prove just how much they love someone, but human love is limited and is only an infinitesimal reflection of God’s immeasurable love.
Today we are going to be talking about God’s love and how He expressed this love for the world. When we reflect on the meaning behind Christmas it gives us a glimpse into God’s perfect love. In fact, Christmas would be meaningless without understanding the significance of His love.
Let’s turn and read John 3:16 together.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him (NASB).
Have you ever doubted God’s love for you?
This verse reminds us about the:
Measureless love of God
Manifestation of God’s love
Meaning of God’s love
Let’s talk about the
1. Measure of God’s love
How do you measure love? By a person’s words or by the feeling you get around certain people? One way we can measure love is by their sacrificial actions.
Almost 400 years ago, the Emperor of India, Shah Jahan, lost his beautiful wife. As a memorial to her, he poured his entire fortune into building a tomb for her. Twenty thousand workers labored for more than 20 years, building exquisitely in marble and inlaid precious stone, and in the end, the Shah had erected one of the most breathtaking buildings in the world called the Taj Mahal. It still stands today, in India, as a testimony to the magnitude of his love.
But as we said earlier, people go to great lengths to prove their undying love. Yet it can’t even come close to God’s boundless, perfect love. God’s love is infinite, eternal, unchanging, holy, sacrificial, and personal. God is love.
Psalm 103:16-18 (NLT) tells us that our days on earth are like grass, like wildflowers because we bloom for a short time and then die. The wind blows, and we are gone—as though we had never been here.
But the love of the LORD remains forever with those who fear him. His salvation extends to the children’s children of those who are faithful to his covenant, of those who obey his commandments!
In Eph 3:18-19 Paul talked about the love of Christ which is higher, deeper, wider, and longer than any other love we could imagine. It is an amazing and endless love which far surpasses our understanding.
We have seen just how immeasurable God’s love is - from creation, to the coming of Christ to His death on the cross. We can’t even fathom how far God's love was willing to go to reach a world that wanted nothing to do with Him. And this brings me to my second point:
2. The manifestation of God’s love
What lengths did God go to to manifest His great love to us? Can we fathom the most powerful Being in the universe, loving us by coming to the earth to be with us not only making sacrifices for us but becoming the ultimate Sacrifice for us so we could have a relationship with Him?
The Apostle Paul said about Christ:
Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross (Phil 2:6-7 NLT).
Our holy and righteous God lives in heaven, where the angels continually worship Him, in a place of splendor, perfect peace, and holiness and then He decided to step into time. He came into the very world He created but the Bible says we didn’t know or recognize Him and even rejected Him. The world didn’t see its need to be saved from their sin and be reconciled back to God and because His light exposed our darkness, we hated Him.
But He knew this would be our response and came anyway because of His immeasurable love for us.
1 John 4:9-10 says,
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. The scripture says: This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Jesus’ love wasn’t empty words or claims about how great His love is for us or what others said about His love. Nor was it some sentimental fluff to make the disciples feel warm and fuzzy inside. He was born to die. His love was manifested by the times He stood silent before His mockers and accusers and didn’t retaliate. His love was manifested by every cruel lash He took for us and by wearing the crown of thorns, by every step He took on the road to Calvary, by each nail driven into his body and by the suffering and shame he endured on the cross until His last breath. His love was manifested in the fact that it should have been us paying for our own sins but since there was no way to redeem ourselves, Jesus redeemed us with His own blood. His sacrificial love satisfied God’s perfect justice.
Which brings us to our last point:
3. The meaning of God’s love for us
1 John 3:1 says,
See what an incredible quality of love the Father has shown to us, that we would [be permitted to] be named and called and counted the children of God!
The apostle John says “see” which means to examine carefully, look at it, think about it, and receive this incredible love.
For those of us who believe in Jesus and have received His gift of love and atonement, it means that every day we have a clean slate with God because His mercies are new every morning. The incredible, boundless, infinite love I have received means that I have a new identity as a child of God and as a member of His royal family. His perfect love drives out fear, the fear or expectation of divine judgment and punishment. It means I am no longer an object of God’s wrath but an object of God’s divine love.
As Christians, this is who we are and it should become evident in the way we live, in the way we love each other, look for the best in others, and walk in the light and in truth. God’s love is now the source of our love. 1 Jn 4:11-12 says,
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
Are you keeping yourself in God’s measureless love? Are you manifesting His love to your family, your friends, your neighbors, and even your enemies? Are you telling others about what God’s love means to us today?
This message is not just for us Christians to treasure and keep to ourselves, it is the good news of God’s love that we are to receive and share with others.
My prayer is that you not only receive and experience the measureless love of God, but that God’s love is manifested to others throughout each day. There is no greater love.
