The Depth Of God's Love (Good Friday 2022)

As we observe the Good Friday today, let’s meditate on the depth of God’s love. Let’s read Romans 5:5-11. The word 'love' has lost its true meaning. Some people use the word 'love' in the same way they use the word 'like.' They say, "I love God," "I love my wife," they also say, "I love traveling," "I love pets." Some people also understand 'love' as expressing certain feelings like feeling happy or excited to be with someone or to like someone. True love is more than just a feeling. Feelings come and go, but true love remains.

There are three signs of true love:

1. It's a choice. True love is not based on a specific condition or feeling, e.g., "if they are kind to me, I will love them," or "if my spouse loves me, I will love her/him." Jesus said, "If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:46-47).

2. It's shown through action. Love is not only an adjective but also a verb, and it is not a NATO (No Action Talk Only).

3. It requires sacrifice. The deeper we love, the greater we are willing to sacrifice.

Do you realize that God has loved us in all those ways to the degree that is beyond human comprehension? Today we will see the depth of his love that is revealed in Jesus Christ—in how undeserving we were to receive it.

1. Jesus has loved us while we were sinners. Verdescribeption of God's love that the Holy Spirit pours out into our hearts: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The central fact of the love of God is that Christ died for us. Christ sacrificed his life—not just his time and energy and convenience and money and health—but his sinless, holy, tender, wise, loving, divine life. But that is not Paul's focus in these verses. Here the focus is on the moral and spiritual condition of those He died for. He died while we were ungodly and sinners! This is the amazing love of Jesus Christ.

Let's begin with Paul's comparison to human love in verse 7: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.” The point here is that human love rarely reaches high enough to die for someone who has been especially good to us. And rarely would human love sacrifice itself for one who is simply a just and righteous person.

Illus: Brandon Gamble, a 30-year-old father, yelled for his five children to break a bedroom window and escape when the fire erupted early Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018, in a Forest Park home. His wife was also able to make it out alive. But Gamble — the one who put family members’ lives before his own — could not make it out, fire investigators said. Why was he willing to risk his life? Because they were his family whom he loved dearly! In contrast with that, Paul describes the love of God. Verse 8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Before we knew Christ, we were sinners. Therefore, we were not His children and did not have a relationship with the holy God. Verse 5 also says, “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” V. 5 and 8 tell that God demonstrates His love in history and his Word, and we experience the application of the love of God through the outpouring work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

The depth of God's love for us—and Christ's love for us—is seen in this: when He chose to love us, even at the cost of Jesus' life, we were not worthy of His love. We were deserving of His wrath, and we

deserved His punishment for our sins against him. And his love is shown in this—precisely in this—that his love did not wait for any moral and spiritual improvement in us. The complete sacrifice was made while we were still sinners.

2. Jesus had loved us when we were helpless and ungodly. Paul heightens this with two other words. Two of them in verse 6: “when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” Christ loved us and gave himself for us while we were 'powerless' or 'helpless' and while we were 'ungodly. 'Powerless' implies weak, sickly, unable to impress or contribute to our salvation. Paul said God had chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong things. . . that no man should boast before God. The love of God is given to the unlikely and unworthy so that we will never boast before God. We will always be humbled that His grace and mercy saved us.