His Love Sets You Free!
By Ian Biss 4/7/02
Intro. . .
There was a guy who tried to rid his house of mice. He bought a mouse trap but had no cheese. To remedy the problem, cut out a picture of cheese from a magazine. He loaded the trap with the artificial cheese and went to bed. When he checked the mousetrap that following morning he was quite surprised to find a picture of a mouse in the trap. A counterfeit lifestyle produces artificial results!
* Proclaim, Jack Gulledge
God’s priorities are not always man’s priorities! There are a couple different types of people you will encounter in the circle of God’s people.
1, the tare, this is someone who resembles, and acts like 100 % wheat, but in the end is just a blade of grass.
2, the child, this is someone who has been a part of the church for many years, but their growth has been stunted by laziness in the study of God’s word, or laziness in prayer, or perhaps refusal to listen to what God says. This person bears little fruit in the church.
3, the adult, this is the person who seems to stand out, because there are very few adults in the church today. The adult bears fruit in abundance, people are drawn to this person, they want to be around him because he is just brimming with the Holy Spirit. The adult Christian is filled with the love of God, and he knows it.
There was a movie out when I was little that was about a group of people who go to some sort of therapy seminar, and at this seminar they learned about how they needed to get it. Get what, I don’t know, but they were supposed to get it. And when they got it, boy their lives would change. So these characters spent time doing everything from beating one another with padded bats to rolling around on the ground blaming their parents for everything that was wrong in the world. Well, needless to say, by the end of the seminar only one guy got it, but he couldn’t explain what he got, and the rest of the group got nothing but thinner wallets.
When I was in U.S, Army basic training, a d.i. sat us down early on and told us that he knew we didn’t understand what being a soldier was now, but by the end of basic training we would understand or not make it to the end. He said that something would just click, and he was right.
Friends God wants you to get it, God wants something inside you to click, He wants you to have a deeper knowledge of Him. But before you can do that you must know the root of the truth of God. That root is love.
I. God Loves You. John 3:16-17
Exposition
Yes God loves you, and that would include you as well! God sent His Son not to condemn the world, but that through Him the world might be saved. The message Jesus Christ brought into the world is not a message of condemnation, but a message of hope. In spite of who you are, in spite of what you’ve done, God loves you so much that He sent His own Son to take your place, to receive what you deserve. To accept the punishment that you should rightly bear. God gave Jesus, His own Son who was innocent, to die accepting your punishment so that you could live.
Application
Unbelievers and immature believers tend to look at God as one seeking only to punish them. The truth of God ‘s love for them just hasn’t registered, their lives are lived in bondage to their guilt and sins. They haven’t figured out that God, through the blood of Jesus has removed all of that guilt and all of that sin. Know this believer, all of your sin has been covered by the blood of the Lamb, your account has been paid, so let go of that guilt in your life and realize that God loves you then seek to serve Him in light of His love for you.
God does not want to judge you, He wants to love you and He will go to great lengths to prove His love to you
Illustration
One Sunday morning the preacher began addressing his congregation by inviting an old man up to the pulpit to tell his story. The old man walked up to the microphone and began. He said. “One day my son, his best friend and I set out on a fishing trip we had been planning on the outer banks. And boy, were we having a great day, the new boat was a joy to be in, and the fish seemed to be jumping out of the water to get on our hooks.
As you would expect, we were having so much fun that we lost track of time, it was getting dark, we had drifted further out into the ocean than we realized, and a storm was beginning to come upon us. So as quick as I could, I started for the coast. Boy that storm came up fast, we were in 10 foot swells and our boat was being pitched back and forth, and then it happened.” The man stopped at this point and began sobbing deeply.
The pastor was in tears as well, and just as he was about to comfort the old man, he started again. He said,”A wave crashed over the boat laying it sideways, sending both my son and his friend overboard. Because of the waves and the wind, by the time I got a rope to throw to them, they had separated and drifted almost out of reach. I was just getting ready to throw the rope when another wave rocked the boat and stalled the engine.
Another wave of tears came over the old man, then he began again,” So there I stood, boat dead in the water, with only one chance to save only one boy, my son or his friend. I quickly made a decision, then tossed the rope.” At this point the old man began crying uncontrollably, so the pastor stepped in and finished his story.
“You see,” said the pastor, “The two boys had drifted so far apart from each other and the boat that the man only had time to throw the life line to one or the other. One boy would have to be lost. The father realized that his son knew Jesus, and his son’s friend did not, if his son were to die now, he knew that he would go to be with the Lord, but if his friend died now he would got to hell. The father chose to rescue his son’s friend.”
That’s when the pastor couldn’t control his tears any longer, and also began crying. Going on through his tears, the pastor said,”He sacrificed his own son to rescue his son’s friend-----------ME. Yes,” said the pastor,”I was the friend on that boat that fateful day, and because my best friend loved me more than himself I am alive today. How do I know that my best friend loved me more than himself you may be asking yourself? Because before I was rescued Jimmy’s father told him the situation and allowed him to choose to be sacrificed. My life was in Jimmy’s hands and he chose to save me rather than himself.
Jesus chose to die for you because He loves you. And it was for no other reason but, that He loves you.
II. So Return His Love. Matt 22:37-38.
Exposition
God wants nothing but your love, when you take the bible, and in proper context, put it all together, the love of God shines through. God created the earth and the universe, He created you and me, and He did so with loving hand. Above everything else God loves you. If you take every command He has given for you to obey, it’s given not because He just wants to exercise His authority as God. He wants your obedience to His commands because He knows what is best for you. His love for you has caused Him to give you life, to give you a savior, Jesus Christ, and to give you an instruction manual that will teach you how to operate this life He has given to you. And the most important instructions to follow in the manual is to love God with all of your heart, mind and soul.
Application
The number one, top priority for you is to love God. Ask someone how to do that and you will get many answers, most being wrong. Love is not a sexual act, love is not something you work at. Love is not a feeling that you have. True love is a condition of the heart, mind and soul. Love is something deep within you, and you can’t explain how it got there, you just know that it is. When everything else has left you, love is there. If you know love you understand what I am saying, but if you’ve never known love you are probably completely oblivious to what I am saying.
Love is, and either you love or you don’t. There is no in between, if you don’t love God with all that you are, then you don’t love Him at all.
Illustration
Joan Mills enjoyed a bedtime ritual with her little boy. They each compared how much they loved each other. She said, “I wouldn’t trade you for all the boys in the world.” Then he creatively compared his love for her by saying, “I wouldn’t trade you for forty motorcycles,” or, “I wouldn’t trade you for Aunt Judi’s pool if it were filled with cash and I was swimming in it.” Joan says one comparison has stood out above all others. One time little Andy said, “I love you with all the pieces of my heart.” Does your heart ever feel like it’s in pieces? Maybe it has been broken by disappointment, or torn by decisions, priorities, and tasks. Andy is right, our hearts are made of many different pieces. The question is, how many of those pieces will be devoted to loving God and others? “You shall love the Lord your God with all the pieces of your heart . . .”
Passages of Light, A Guidepost Devotional, 1995, p. 2–3
God wants your love, begin today to find a way to give it to Him.
Conclusion
Don’t pretend with God, He knows better, besides, God wants the truth from you because God is truth, and the truth is God loves you truly, so truly love Him back.
And move on in your life with God, He is seeking to have an honest, up close and personal relationship with you. Let Him break through to you with His love.
Illustration
The rebellion of a teenage daughter was breaking her mother’s heart. Their struggle reached its zenith when the young girl was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. After posting bail for her daughter, the two did not speak until the next afternoon. When they came together, the woman handed her daughter a small wrapped gift. The girl flippantly opened it and was exasperated by what she saw. The box contained a small rock. She rolled her eyes and asked, “What’s this for?” Her mother simply replied, “Read the card.” She did and was overcome by the words inside. Tears began streaming down her cheeks as she reached out to embrace her mom. The card said, “This rock is more than a million years old. That’s how long it will take before I give up on you.” God broke through to us with his unrelenting and enduring love. We would do well to use that same strategy to break through to one another.
Bits & Pieces, July 16, 1998, p. 16
