God Really Loves Us
God Really Loves Us • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Please open to 1 John 4. Today is Palm Sunday. Not only do we remember that Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem, but also it marks the beginning of the events that led to His crucifixion, death, and resurrection. Knowing that these were ahead of Him, I wonder what would compel Jesus to willingly surrender His life to the torment of being flogged, beat, spit upon, thorns, nails, a spear, and ultimately the forsaking of His Heavenly Father? What compelled God the Father to allow His only one-of-kind Son to endure suffering and torture at the hands of sinful men?
Most of us know the answer. It’s love.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Now, there is a difference between knowing the answer – love – and believing or trusting in the answer. And I would venture to say that people, even Christians, struggle with believing God really loves us.
Why is that? I’m sure there are many reasons, but in my own story and in nearly 30 years of ministry and listening to the stories of others it comes down to a matter of focus. What do I mean? We can say this in many different ways – for instance, our primary focus in life can become what we truly worship. Or whatever we focus on becomes the biggest issue, and often becomes bigger than it really is. Good example – a pimple. We look in the mirror and see a little pimple, and that little pimple becomes our main focus. And before we walk out the door that little pimple, in our minds is the size of a bowling ball. Or our primary focus in life determines our behavior. Again, there are many different ways we can look at this, but you get the point.
I think the reason many struggle with believing in and receiving God’s love is because our focus is on the wrong thing. And more than that, we often assume that God is focused on the same things we are. And that influences how we perceive whom God to be.
Question: This actually comes from author David Benner.
“Imagine God thinking about you. What do you assume God feels when you come to His mind?” ~ David Benner
How many would say disappointment? Disgust? Critical? Angry? We can go on. How we answer that question influences how we perceive whom God to be. So, we need to learn to focus on what our Heavenly Father focuses on.
In 1992 I want to Air Assault school at Ft. Drum, NY. Air Assault is when you repel out of a helicopter. Dopes on a rope. Before you repel out of a helicopter, you learn to repel off of a hundred-foot tower. One side is solid – represents repelling down a cliff. Two sides are open – represents various helicopters. I did fine on the solid side, but when I got to the open side, for whatever reason I was petrified. I couldn’t even get to the edge. I knew what to do. I was strapped in. I was safe, but I was focused on the wrong things and that caused intense fear. The DS came over and kicked me off. Just kidding. He said, “Soldier, eyes on me.” As I focused on him, my fears subsided and that empowered me to do what I already knew what to do. I went from knowing, to believing, to doing. All I needed to do was focus on the right thing.
God is saying to all of us, “Eyes on me!”
Where’s your focus? Is it truly on Jesus and how much He loves you? Or are you focused on something that God is not focused on?
Do you truly believe God is focused on your sin, shame, unworthiness, faults, failures? Let’s see what He’s truly focused on.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Not talking about an emotion.
Love is a fundamental attribute (or nature) of God (Yahweh). Remember, God is always all of His attributes all the time.
God is always faithful, always mercy, always righteous, always just, always compassionate, always holy, always love and more. Because God is eternal, all of His attributes are eternal – without beginning or end. Arguably, the two attributes that set Yahweh apart from all other earthly or spiritual creatures is His holiness and love. Holiness is Yahweh’s complete and utter uniqueness, unlike any other being in the physical or spiritual realms.
Because Yahweh is unlike any other being, His love and how He loves is unlike any other.
Think about that. God is eternal; therefore His love is eternal. God is infinite; therefore His love has no end. Because God is perfect, His love is perfect. Because God is immutable (never changes), His love for His creation never changes, never waivers, never fluctuates. His love neither increases nor decreases. (see 1st pic). Or maybe it’s like this (see 2nd pic).
Love is an attribute of God. In Exodus 34, Yahweh revealed to Israel what His love is.
God’s love is a loyal, steadfast abounding love.
What does abound mean? It means to go beyond. The Apostle Paul alludes to this in
may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
God’s love abounds. His love goes beyond. Think about that – no matter how far you move away from Jesus, no matter how low you get in life … Christ’s love abounds! His love doesn’t just reach us where we are – it goes beyond, surrounds, encapsulates …. Hold onto that truth.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
Does that seem like an angry God who is eager to punish those enslaved to sin and under the authority of Satan? Does that seem like a God who finds joy in pouring out His wrath and judgment on humanity?
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.
Propitiation or atonement - Jesus was the recipient of the wrath of God instead of us. God the Father took the consequences and penalty of our sin and the fullness of His wrath and placed it upon Christ. And through that atonement we can be liberated from sin, Satan and death. But that’s what Jesus did, but that doesn’t answer why.
In my little pea-brain, there is a difference between what and why. What is an action – something is accomplished. The why is about motive. What was God’s motive for becoming a man? What was Jesus’ motive to ride into Jerusalem and die on a cross? Many might say sin, but I disagree. Sin did not motivate God, love did. Because He loves us, He had to do something about sin. Love compelled Jesus toward Jerusalem. Love compelled Jesus toward the Cross and into the Grave. See, Jesus didn’t die on a cross just because we’re sinners. He died on a cross because God really loves us with a perfect, eternal, abounding love!
Let me ask this – as Jesus hung on the cross, was He focused on our sin, our shame, our wickedness, our inadequacies, our unworthiness …? Or was He focused on how much He really loves us?
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
Not saying we ignore sin or …, but if our primary focus is on how bad we are … then were not focusing on what God is focused on. God says, “Eyes on me! Eyes on my love!”
By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
We love because he first loved us.
There’s no fear in love. There’s no fear when we’re focused on the right things. There’s no fear when we’re focused on what God is focused on. Again, what does God tell us to focus on? “Eyes on me! Eyes on my love! Eyes on my Son, Jesus.”
I can still hear some of you, “But Chad, you don’t know me. You don’t know who I am or what I’ve done.” I get it. But what do statements like that reveal? You’re not focused on what God is focused on. You’re focused on self and not His love.
Two things before we go. First -
But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Some of us are so focused on ourselves and our insecurities and failures and sin … we actually hinder God’s love from pouring into our hearts.
Secondly -
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
In case you didn’t catch that -
God, through Christ condemned sin, not our humanity. Being human is not the problem!
Sin is the problem, but people often confuse the two. God is not angry with us because we’re human. There is no condemnation for us who are in Christ. He made us to be human and He loves humanity – and you and me.
So as we close -