Sermon Central
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The Amazing Love Of God
Contributed by Mark Aarssen on Sep 15, 2015 (message contributor)
Summary: Saints the Lord is calling us each and every one of us today to that cross to see the full measure of His amazing love for us.
The Amazing Love of God
8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious
slow to anger, abounding in love
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 He does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Message:
From the pen of a shepherd boy who became a King we have these wonderful words from the Old Testament that reveal God’s amazing love for us.
The dictionary defines compassion as being granted because of unusual distressing circumstances affecting an individual. – Merriam-Webster dictionary
What unusually distressing circumstances might you be experiencing today?
Maybe you are distressed by the usual and not the unusual?
Whichever it is you need to know that God truly cares about you and the things that are distressing you.
God goes beyond that and extends His grace to you. God is gracious.
I know many of you know what grace is – unmerited favor.
That simply means you and I do not deserve it in any way, shape or form.
But God gives it. That is some kind of love.
Many the time was when I did not deserve my Mother or my Fathers compassion but they extended it to me.
But this is not my Mother or my Father it is my Heavenly Fathers compassion and that compassion is greater and more extensive than I can understand or know.
It reaches beyond the heights of Heaven and below the depths of earth.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Our God is slow to anger and abounding in love.
How wonderful that God is not like us. I know God is slow to anger because this old world is still spinning.
We do not deserve to be alive today but God is holding back His anger that more people might be saved.
Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.
Our God is abounding in love.
What a wonderful word abounding is; it means copiously or large quantity or scale.
For God to forgive us of our sins it did in fact take large amounts of love.
For who are we that we should be saved at all?
God decided to save us because He loves us copiously. A whole lot and then some.
For God so loved the world we are told in John 3:16.
Never has such a small word measured out such a vast number.
So great is God’s love for us that it is so impossible to weigh its full measure.
It goes beyond the highest height and below the deepest depth.
God’s love for us is so amazing that He loves us enough to discipline us
.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
Have you ever had to deal with an obstinate child who did not want to apologize to their brother or sister for one thing or another?
No matter how many opportunities you gave them to apologize they still would not yield and make peace.
Well, some of us are really pushing it and we need to realize that we need to make peace with God before it is too late.
Do not test God’s patience friends. You do not want to be around when God unleashes His anger; He has tied up like a ship in a harbour.
Verse 10 says… God does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. Psalms 103:10
Think on that Saints. Think on your life and your long list of sins. What should you have received for them?
The word of God says that “the wages of sin are death.” Romans 6:23
The other half of that verse is the picture of God’s great love for us.
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Someone else paid the price for our sins Saints and what a very great price it was.
How amazing is our God’s love for us?
God uses a yardstick to measure out His love for us and it goes all the way from Heaven to earth.
That is a long way but there is a qualifier Saints; we must fear God.
