¡§Anchor Points¡¨
¡§An Awful & Surprising Truth¡¨
Selected Scriptures
March 5, 2000
Anchor Point #6:
¡§God is Love¡¨
INTRODUCTION: ¡§The Niagara Tubing Society: A Parable for our Times¡¨
It was late; sometime after 11:00, to the best of my calculating, but since I¡¦d left my watch in my room, I couldn¡¦t be sure. All I knew was that there weren¡¦t many folks left out on the street at this time of the night. In fact, the only other person I could see was a young man, barely past his teens, making his way down the street in my direction. As he got closer, I could tell from his carefree demeanor, his bleached-blonde shoulder-length hair, and the ever-present grunge music blaring from his headphones that he was another of those early-twenty-somethings who had seemingly few worries other than living life to the hilt. At least he seemed to me like he fit the part. As he passed by, I couldn¡¦t help but notice the message on the front of his forest green T-shirt. It read: ¡§Tubing is life; everything else is just details¡¨, with the initials N.T.S. in bold print on the back: ¡§Niagara Tubing Society.¡¨ ¡§Niagara Tubing Society¡¨, I thought, ¡§he can¡¦t be serious!¡¨ I pondered the thought for a few moments and then, exhausted from a long day of sightseeing, began to make the climb up the hill to my motel room. My thoughts of the young man faded from mind well before my head hit the pillow.
The next day was bright and sunny, and the crowds began to line the streets, waiting for the opening of some dubious tourist trap-type places and just leisurely enjoying the day. It had been a cold winter, and the coming of spring must have signaled to many the need to catch a weekend break. The throng of people by the Falls themselves seemed to be especially large for this time of year, but the unusually warm weather had brought many out. People seemed to linger a little longer than usual, no doubt, to take in not only the beauty of nature but also to catch the refreshment of the spray on their sunned faces. ¡§I¡¦m not getting into THAT mob,¡¨ I thought, and began to make plans to take in some of the Niagara region¡¦s OTHER wonders. Climbing into my car, I decided to head several miles upstream, to a park where I could, I thought, stretch out on the grass and settle into a good book.
I pulled the car into a parking spot, pulled a blanket and a cooler out of the back seat, and headed over to a spot near the river where I could periodically take a break from my book and enjoy the serenity of the river. Finding an appropriate spot, I settled in and was quickly enmeshed in the thick of the book. I was well into Chapter Five when I was distracted by the noise of a group of revelers. I looked up from my book and was astonished by what I saw: a group of young people, thirty-five or forty, by my best estimation, unloading inner tubes and wetsuits from their SUV¡¦s and pickup trucks. Then, to my amazement, they began dragging their tubes over to the edge of the river. In the middle of the throng was the young man I had seen the night before; now, he was laughing it up with his cronies as he popped the top on a cold Bud Lite. ¡§This is insanity,¡¨ I thought, ¡§I cannot believe that they intend to go tubing on the Niagara River. But it was clear that this was just what they intended, and presently the first of the group jumped the fence and began to venture out into the water. What could have they been thinking? Weren¡¦t they aware of what lay several miles ahead? Was this some crazy stunt, a fraternity prank they thought was daring and cool? Never mind that this was certainly illegal; it was crazy! I mean, I had done some stupid things myself when I was nineteen, but this was well beyond stupid; it was guaranteed suicide!
As more and more of them began to jump the fence, I began to weigh my options. It wasn¡¦t really my business, in one sense. And yet, I knew that I couldn¡¦t allow them to simply head downstream without doing SOMETHING. I had to say something; I¡¦d forever have it on my conscience if I did nothing and allowed them to plunge to a certain death. I got up from my place and hurried over to where they were. By now, all tubes were in the water and the young people were grouping up to begin.
¡§Hey, do you guys know what you¡¦re doing?¡¨ I shouted. ¡§You shouldn¡¦t be out on the river, not even fooling around; this is the most dangerous river around! You¡¦ll get yourselves killed!¡¨
The young man from the night before emerged as the spokesman of the group. ¡§What are you talking about, old man?¡¨ he said derisively to the hoots and hollers of his friends. ¡§Don¡¦t worry about us; we¡¦re having fun, and we know what we¡¦re doing! Go back to your book and leave us alone!¡¨
¡§But you¡¦re going to get yourselves killed! What you¡¦re doing, it¡¦s wrong, in more ways than one!¡¨
¡§Who are YOU to tell us what¡¦s wrong?¡¨ was his reply. ¡§Who made you the judge, old man? If you don¡¦t want to go tubing, stay on the shore¡Xbut don¡¦t try to force YOUR rules on us!¡¨ And with that, they pushed off from the shore.
I couldn¡¦t let it go, though, and as I watched them floating down the river, I knew that I had to do something more to help them. I had to persuade those foolish kids to get out of the water and to safety before it was too late. I ran to my car and followed the path of the river to a bridge under which they would shortly pass. Perhaps I could try again to reason with them.
I saw them coming, and I prepared what I would say this time to try to persuade them to give up this foolish course of action. But before I could say anything, this same young man spoke up again.
¡§Hey, old man, it¡¦s you again! Why don¡¦t you just leave us alone? Tubing is in our blood! We¡¦re born tubers; we can¡¦t change that, and your rules aren¡¦t going to change it either!¡¨
¡§But don¡¦t you know what lies ahead? You¡¦ve got to change your course,¡¨ I said.
¡§Shut up, old man; who do you think you are?¡¨ There was hatred in his eyes now as he spoke. ¡§Leave us alone!¡¨ And with that, the group, having picked up speed, now passed laughing under the bridge and, with increasing speed, moved downriver.
I had to try one more time; they would soon be caught up in a river rushing too quickly to get out of, and certain doom awaited them. Once more, I climbed in my car and headed downstream to another bridge where I awaited their arrival. As I got out of the car, I could hear in the distance the roar of the falls; as I looked at the water rushing under the bridge, I wondered if even at this spot the group would be past the point of no return.
Soon the party came into view. The alcohol-fueled laughter was louder and more raucous than ever as the ill-fated group sped closer and closer to oblivion. I realized that this would be my last chance to try to persuade them to turn around.
¡§Stop now! Get out of the water! You¡¦re going to be killed! You can¡¦t possibly survive this!¡¨ I screamed like I had never screamed before, trying to be heard over the sounds of the rushing water and the falls ahead. ¡§You¡¦ll die if you don¡¦t stop NOW!¡¨
But my words were met with the same icy glare and, for the final time, I heard the voice of the angry young man. ¡§Shut up, you bigot,¡¨ he said, ¡§Take your hatred and intolerance somewhere else. Who made you the judge over us? Who said you could play God? What are you, some kind of tubiphobe? We don¡¦t NEED your rules!¡¨
Those were the last words I heard the young man say.
Though they searched for the better part of a week, they never found all of the bodies.
PRAYER
¡§In awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love¡KHe has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense¡KLove in its own nature, demands the perfecting of the beloved¡Kmere ¡¥kindness¡¦ which tolerates anything except suffering in its object is, in that respect, at the opposite pole from love¡Kwhether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we think we want. Once more, we are embarrassed by the intolerable compliment, by too much love, not too little.¡¨
- C.S. Lewis, from The Problem of Pain
The very nature of God is love.
This is asserted over and over again in the Bible, in more places than we can count; it is seen time and time again; it is part of the warp and woof of the Bible story. As quickly as we make this statement, we must qualify it! Remember our closing point last week, the quote from Martin Lloyd-Jones, ¡§We live in an age in which definitions are at a discount.¡¨ Our postmodern friends, and our New Age friends, by and large, have no qualms whatsoever with this particular assertion of Scripture.
Postmoderns take the love of God and attempt to use it as the basis for contemporary pluralism and universalism. To do so
„« Denies the context of Scripture.
It is a particular inclination of people in general, I think, (even Christians!) to rip Scripture from context for the support of their various positions. We want to arrive at our beliefs and then appeal to the Bible to back them up. This is one of the many manifestations of our fall into sin! The universalist yanks this particular truth out of its context!
„« Denigrates the totality of God¡¦s revealed character.
Ripped then out of context, God is redefined in ways that fit with this limited understanding of His character and nature, rather than as He has defined Himself in His Word. Whatever fits with who we WANT God to be is retained; whatever pictures God in ways which offend our modern sensibilities is discarded.
„« Doesn¡¦t wrestle with a full-orbed definition of love.
Today, love means giving a person what he says he wants. It means never pointing out to a person any deficiency on his part. It means never causing her any pain or embarrassment. It means total, almost unquestioning acceptance of whoever that person is and what that person wants to do with his life, regardless of how the person might want to fill in the blank. It means almost never criticizing the person or inflicting damage to his already deeply damaged self-esteem. To do any of these things is to be filled with hate! Thus to suggest that a couple not follow thru with divorce proceedings is to be hateful; to tell homosexuals that they do not have to be trapped in their bondage to sin is to be a bigot!
Let us wage war against this truncated definition of love! No one who truly loves us always gives us what we want; in fact, good parenting involves a whole lot of giving to children something other than what they say they want; it involves giving to them what they need! And this is the way that God loves; He is far more concerned with our eternal good than our momentary self-gratification; ironically, we will best live lives filled with true joy when we pursue our joy in the glory of God!
I. The Context of His love
We need to talk about His love, but
Before we can begin to understand His love, there are some other truths which we must understand first:
A. God¡¦s creation of us
We were created by God to live in fellowship with Him. We are created in His image.
B. Our incapacitating sin
The root of all of man¡¦s problems is the entrance into the world of sin thru Adam. This is the core problem. If we don¡¦t get to the root, we won¡¦t ever arrive at the solution.
C. God¡¦s holy, wrathful reaction to our sin
The context in which love takes place is the context of God¡¦s resolute disposition toward our sin. Sin is an affront to God, and is our ruination. God will not allow sin in His presence, nor can He be content for us to be destroyed by sin. He would be less than God for either of these things to be true¡Xand those who picture God¡¦s love without His just condemnation of sin do not have even a correct understanding of His love. People want to say, ¡§I can¡¦t believe in a God Who gets angry¡¨; I want to say, ¡§I can¡¦t believe in a God who doesn¡¦t!¡¨
II. The Acts of His love
Since His nature is love, he acts lovingly.
When we read, ¡§God is love¡¨ (as in I John 4:8, to give but one reference), we might be tempted to interpret that as ¡§God is loving¡¨, which of course He is, but love is His very nature. It is Who He is before it is what He does. But since it is Who He is, there are outward ways in which He demonstrates His love for us.
„h Genesis 1 ¡V Creation of this world for the well being of man.
„h Genesis 2 ¡V Creation of Eve, a flesh-and-blood companion for man.
„h Genesis 3 ¡V Coverings for the fallen man and woman.
„h Genesis 4 ¡V Mercy for a murderer.
„h Genesis 6 ¡V Warning and instructions to Noah to save himself from judgment.
„h Genesis 8 ¡V God¡¦s promise given to Noah following the flood.
„h Genesis 9 ¡V Establishment of a covenant with Noah for the good of mankind.
„h Genesis 11 ¡V Establishment of a covenant with Abraham, and thru Abraham the promise to bless all of the peoples of the earth.
Over and over God acts in loving ways because love is His very nature!
III. The Senses of His love
Saying that ¡§God is love¡¨ does not mean that he loves all things equally or in the same way.
Now, when we say, ¡§God is love¡¨, what do we mean by that? Does he love everything and everyone the same in every sense? Is that the Bible picture of God? In a word¡XNO! What kind of God would God be if He loved a toaster as much as a baby? A gnat in the same way as a lost sinner? A child of His own in the same way as an idolater?
A. God loves the world, in that He providentially rules/reigns over it, and provides for it. Matthew 5:45
¡§He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.¡¨
B. God loves the world with intent to save. John 3:16
¡§For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.¡¨
¡§God loves us, not because we are lovable, but because He is love, not because He needs to receive, but because He delights to give¡KChrist did not die for men because they were intrinsically worth dying for, but because He is intrinsically love, and therefore loves infinitely.¡¨ -- C.S. Lewis
It is not, ¡§Christ died for me; praise me!¡¨ but rather ¡§Christ died for me; praise God!¡¨
C. God loves His own especially. Deut. 7:7-9; Eph. 1:5-6
¡§The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments.¡¨
¡§He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.¡¨
Is this so unusual to us? Do we not do the same? Should we not do the same? Galatians 6:10 says that we are to do good to all, especially those who are of the household of faith!
D. God loves His own conditionally, based upon their obedience.
John 15:10; Romans 15:9; Jude 21
¡§If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father¡¦s commandments and abide in His love.¡¨
¡§Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for he mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ in eternal life.¡¨
IV. The Dimensions of His love
God¡¦s love is multi-faceted.
A. It is great. Ephesians 2:4
¡§God, Who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us¡K¡¨
Karl Barth, the German theologian, was asked toward the end of his life this question: ¡§Professor Barth, what is the greatest theological truth your mind has ever contemplated?¡¨ He thought for a few moments and then answered,
¡§JESUS LOVES ME, THIS I KNOW; FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO.¡¨
B. It is inexhaustible. Ephesians 3:18-19
¡§¡K(that you) may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.¡¨
C. It is giving. John 3:16
¡§For God so loved the world that He gave¡K¡¨
D. It is sovereign. Deuteronomy 7:7-8
¡§The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
E. It is eternal. Romans 8:35-39
¡§Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written,
¡¥FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG;
WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.¡¦
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.¡¨
Every possible enemy is named and faced, and then Paul makes this unassailable assertion: he has utter confidence that none of them can separate us from God¡¦s love!
V. The Zenith of His love
God¡¦s love is demonstrated in its most vivid picture in the cross of Christ.
John 3:16; Galatians 2:20; I John 4:10; Revelation 1:5
Here is where I want to talk about this emasculated definition of ¡§love¡¨ which we have enthroned in our society. We are told that ¡§love = acceptance¡¨, and there is a sense in which this is true¡Xbut not in the way that society is defining it today. They say, ¡§Don¡¦t question my lifestyle; don¡¦t tell me I¡¦m ever wrong; don¡¦t tip the apple cart of my life. Accept me for who I am, and don¡¦t ever ask me to change¡Xanything!¡¨ Is this the way God accepts us? I mean, we sing, ¡§Just as I am, O Lamb of God, I come.¡¨ Doesn¡¦t God accept us as we are? And do you know what the best answer to that is? YES¡Kand NO!!! We come to God just as we are; we CAN come no other way! But in His love, He will not allow us to stay there! He cannot be content to take us in and then do nothing to change our condition! He will not leave us in the nakedness of our sin, anymore than he left Adam and Eve that way. An author wrote I¡¦m OK, You¡¦re OK. Truth is, I¡¦m not so hot, and neither are you! You have all sorts of things wrong with you; furthermore, you can¡¦t do anything on your own to fix the problem¡Xbut don¡¦t despair; THAT¡¦S WHY JESUS CAME, AND DIED ON THAT CROSS! Because Jesus took all of your sin and junk and ugliness and pride and misery and nailed all of it to the cross, God takes you and clothes you in the robes of the righteousness of Christ.
When I think of the love of God, I don¡¦t think first of the blessings I get materially, or the answers to prayer, or the peace, or ¡KI think of the cross! This is where I see God getting down to business in demonstrating tangibly that His love is not talk, it is action! God¡¦s love met His justice head-on at the cross; a holy God demanded payment be made for sin, but a loving God Himself provided that payment. ¡§Beneath the Cross of Jesus¡¨ ¡V There is a verse which is not in our hymnal which speaks of the cross as the ¡§trysting-place where heaven¡¦s love and heaven¡¦s justice meet.¡¨
„h Cross love says sin is horrible, but grace is greater!
„h Cross-love says there is hell to pay for sin, but that Jesus paid it all!
„h Cross-love says that I am a terrible sinner, but that Jesus is a terrific Savior!
„h Cross-love says that the debt is great, but that Calvary covers it all!
„h Cross-love says that God would rather die than live without me!
¡§Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.¡¨
- Frederick M. Lehman, from The Love of God
There in the Garden of Eden, God came to a man and a woman who had made the greatest mistake of the ages. They had sinned and, in an effort to hide themselves, had woven fig-leaf aprons to cover up. This was man¡¦s approach¡Xand it still is. We try to figure out our own plan for dealing with our sin; we try religion, or goodness, or enlightenment, or some type of self-effort. All of it amounts to fig leaves. But God comes and in His love He takes the life of an animal to provide skins to cover the nakedness of the man and the woman. In so doing, He foreshadowed the day when His only Son would hang suspended between earth and sky and die for the sins of mankind. God offers to you His own clothing¡Xrighteousness¡Xpurchased at the cost of the life of His Son. What¡¦ll it be for you? The fig leaves of your own efforts, or the royal robes of God¡¦s righteousness?
Since God is love, and He offers to clothe you in righteousness, what is your choice?
