Love
Notes
Transcript
Handout
The Language of Love
The Language of Love
Poets, musicians, authors, and script writers alike have all tried to capture in words the profound impact of love. Whether it’s selfless, unconditional love or the romantic love experienced between two people - love is the topic of countless songs, poems, movies, books, operas, and more.
In much the same way, hymn writers have tried to express the vast nature of God’s love.
The ancient hymn “Here is Love” talks about the breadth and overwhelming power of God’s love.
Here is love, vast as the ocean
Loving kindness as the flood
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom
Shed for us His precious blood
There is another ancient hymn text that has it’s roots in nearly a thousand years of Jewish worship - The Love of God. This text suggest that the love of God is so profound that all the resources in the world could not contain the material to even express richness and expansiveness of God’s love.
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled
And pardoned from his sin.
The final verse says:
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 ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
In more recent years, John Mark McMillan expressed the love of God in a bit more of a raw and tempestuous way as he said that God...
Loves like a hurricane
Whether modern or ancient, our songs about the love of God are rooted in both in scripture and in the experiences of God’s people.
Psalm 136 is a Psalm that both references the experiences that we can read about in scripture and seeks to imbed God’s actions in love.
Background:
it’s often categorized as a Psalm of thanksgiving
a Psalm for corporate worship as it consists of what seems like a call and response
it remembers and reflects on God’s steadfast love - his hesed - as it was realized throughout Israelite history.
Rough outline of the Psalm
1-3 - General thanks for God’s goodness and sovereignty
4-9 - Thanks/Praise for God’s work in creating the universe
10-16 - Thanks/Praise for God’s work in the Exodus - bringing the people out of Egypt
17-22 - Thanks/Praise for God’s work in the conquest of the Promised land
23-25 - Thanks/Praise for God’s remembrance, rescue, and refreshing of his people
26 - a summary offering of Thanks.
Based on the repeated refrain of “for his steadfast love endures forever” we can conclude that it is because of God’s hesed or covenantal love for his people that he acts.
As we saw last week, love is part of who God is. It defines his character. That was the reason Jeremiah could hope. That is the reason we can hope - both in the promised Messiah - Jesus, in the salvation that He offers, and in the promise of his second coming.
While God’s covenantal love is what provided fuel for hope, today, as we reflect on this second candle, the Candle of Love, we get to reflect a bit more on the impact of God’s love.
It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
and rescued us from our foes,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
If we could boil all of this down into one statement or theme, that would be...
In love Yahweh remembers and rescues his people.
First of all we get to see that...
In love, God remembers (23)
In love, God remembers (23)
There are some who have a view of God that He is an aloof deity that does not care for His people or creation. This view says that God started things, put creation in motion and then let go - leaving the universe and it’s inhabitants fully up to their own devices.
One of the things that this Psalm helps us to see is that God remembers - in other words, God knows. He knows the condition and the plight of His creation and he steps in from time to time to help and to remind his people about who He is.
Not only does God remember, but...
God remembers us...
God remembers us...
How often do we forget about God? How often do we live as practical atheists - claiming to be followers of God, but forgetting to interact with him? How often do we live as though God doesn’t exist?
We may forget Him, but he doesn’t forget us.
The people of Israel had forgotten God in so many ways. As a result, they had been disciplined at different times. And yet, as this Psalm illustrates, God remembered the very people who forgot him - the very people who had forsaken him. They were slaves in a foreign land - God remembered them. They were rebellious pilgrims on the way to the land He promised for them - God remembered them.
Of course, God’s remembrance is of his people - but it’s rooted in his covenantal - steadfast love for them. God had told Abraham that his descendants would be in a foreign land but that God would restore them…
Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Just as God remembered the people of Israel, so to He remembers us - because His remembrance is rooted in His steadfast love.
God also remembers us...
...in our humiliation.
...in our humiliation.
For the people of Israel, they initially found themselves in a “low estate” as slaves in Egypt. God redeemed them from the land and then sent them through a sort of baptism at the Red Sea.
In much the same way, God remembers us in our humiliation. We may not be slaves in a foreign land, but we are slaves to sin. We are shackled by the bonds of our fallen humanity. God-the-Son entered into our humiliation. He took on flesh like ours.
1 John 4:8 reminds us that “God is love.” It is part of his character. He is the definition and standard of love. His love is not dependent on our love in return. His love toward us is not dependent on our worthiness to be loved.
So, we’ve discussed briefly that “in love, God remembers us in our humiliation.”
But not only does God remember us in love, verse 24 reminds us that...
In love, God rescues (24)
In love, God rescues (24)
God’s loving remembrance of his people goes far beyond simply thinking of them. This Psalm helps us to see that God stepped into the story of their lives rescued Israel. By extension, He rescues...
...us from our enemies,
...us from our enemies,
Israel’s enslavement in Egypt prompted God to step in with great signs and wonders to bring them freedom. Verses 10-16 state: as I read the first line, let me encourage you to read aloud the second line “for his steadfast love endures forever”
to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
and brought Israel out from among them,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
with a strong hand and an outstretched arm,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
to him who divided the Red Sea in two,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
and made Israel pass through the midst of it,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
to him who led his people through the wilderness,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
Then verses 17-22 discuss the way that God overthrew the rival kings on the way to the promised land.
As Christians, eventually He will rescue us from the ruler of this world, from the evil that exists here. When Jesus returns, he will usher in his full kingdom. He will cast the Devil and his army into the Lake of Fire and will bring a full and swift judgment.
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.
Then, after Satan is released for a little while, the final judgment, the second death will take him.
and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
God, in his love, will rescue us from our enemy. But, I think we also need to recognize that while that is in the future sometime, we must realize that In love, God has rescued...
...us from ourselves.
...us from ourselves.
He rescued us from our sin.
The people of Israel had become complacent and comfortable in their lives of slavery. So God sent someone who could relate to them - because he was an Israelite, but also who had royal connections - because he was raised in Pharaoh’s house. More than that, he was sent by God to advocate for the people, to lead them toward redemption and freedom from their slavery.
In much the same way, Jesus Christ, in being born like us could relate to our slavery. He was sent by God with a royal heritage and divine nature and then instead of simply leading us to redemption, actually became our redemption...
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Gregory of Nyssa wrote:
Sin, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state? (Gibson, 123)
Today we reflect on the steadfast love of God which prompted him to remember the covenant He made with his people. In his love he rescues us from our enemies, and from our sin for eternity.
Friend, if you have not yet trusted in Christ as your savior, know that He came not simply to be an example for us. He came to free us from the bondage of our sin. He came to bring us into eternal life. Put your hope and trust in Him! Respond to the love of God that rescues you.
Beloved, rejoice in the love of God. In your own advent celebrations, revel in the love he has for you.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Let’s pray.
Benediction
Benediction
But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.
Discussion Questions:
Read through Psalm 136 - possibly as a call and response. What stands out to you in that chapter? Why do you think the Psalmist calls for the repeated response?
Thinking about verses 23-24, how do those verses relate to the rest of the Psalm? How do those verses relate to a Christian’s life in Christ?
How does God’s remembrance of us get realized in Christ?
How does God rescue us through Jesus? Have you received His rescue?
Sources
Sources
Gibson, Jonathan. O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023.
Ross, Allen P. “Psalms.” In The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, edited by J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985.
Spurgeon, C. H. The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons. Vol. 13. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1867.
Wiersbe, Warren W. Be Exultant. 1st ed. “Be” Commentary Series. Colorado Springs, CO: Cook Communications Ministries, 2004.