Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

“God, I think I’m doing a better job taking care of Your children than You are of mine.”

A quote from one of the author’s friends whose child was going through a difficult spiritual time.

After saying this, he immediately repented.

Author’s own child went through a series of difficult experiences, and he felt the same way.

“God, I wouldn’t treat my child the way You are treating he.”

He was also convicted of this thought and immediately repented.

It seems the more we come to believe in and accept the sovereignty of God the more we are tempted to question His love.

If God is in total control of all that happens to me and can do something about it, then why doesn’t He?

Rabbi Kushner chose to believe in a loving God who wasn’t sovereign.

Sometimes we are tempted to believe in a sovereign God who doesn’t love us.

Satan will even have us believe God is in heaven having a great time watching us struggle through our adversity.

You would be hard pressed to find a page in scripture where the goodness of God and the sovereignty of God are not referenced or mentioned.

The Bible is filled with examples of both.

Philip Hughes - “That he cares not is just as unthinkable as that he can not.

(ESV)

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

e. John says in this scripture that God is love.

(ESV)

Walking in the Light

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

f.

In this scripture, John says God is light or holy.

i.

These two scriptures sum up the characteristics of God which we learn in the Bible.

ii.

Just as God is holy - and it is impossible for Him to be anything else, God is also good - and it is equally impossible for Him to be anything but.

g.

God is love.

He shows us goodness and mercy.

He even says in that He doesn’t take pleasure “in the death of the wicked,” when He plays the role of judge.

h.

When we are in the midst of storms in our life, we will be tempted to question the goodness of God.

Satan will use these opportunities to make us question this.

It will come in the faintest of whispers making us doubt.

i.

We can’t keep from being tempted, but if we truly trust God, we won’t let these temptations lodge in our brain and take up residence.

j.

In the two incidents previously mentioned, these men questioned the goodness of God.

They put their love for their children above God’s love and kindness for them.

k.

Job, who sets the example for us in adversity and trusting God, even came to the point where he questioned God’s goodness.

l.

Tonight we’ll take a look at how we can take a stand in our own doubts and Satan’s temptations he will send our way when we question the goodness of God.

II.

God’s Love at Calvary

A. The most convincing evidence we have of God’s love is allowing His Son to die for our sins.

(ESV)

9 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.

10 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.

God showed His love for us by allowing His Son to pay the price for our sins.

All the trials we face cannot measure up to the worst thing which could happen to us if we faced separation from God.

God showed His love for us by meeting our greatest need.

There is no other need that can even come close to meeting the need of the sacrifice that was made for us at Calvary.

‘One of the essential characteristics of love is the element of self-sacrifice, and this was demonstrated for us to its ultimate in God’s love at Cavlary.’

Consider our condition

miserable and wretched (ESV)

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This thought is hard for us if we grew up in a Christian environment.

Paul describes us as spiritually dead.

“How dead is dead?

No matter how upright or uptight a lifestyle we lived or live, we are spiritually dead to God without the sacrifice that was made for us at Calvary.

The sacrifice which God and His Son made for us out of the love, goodness, and mercy they showed and show toward us.

In our unsaved state, we also have followed Satan and his direction at times.

Perhaps not consciously, but we have been guilty of it.

Paul goes through a list of things we did that showed we were enemies of God while we were unsaved.

While we were enemies of God, He and His Son still paid the price for our sins.

We’ve spent so much time talking about this to number one, show the depth of God’s love for us.

The second is to remember who we were to God before salvation.

God loved us when we were totally unworthy.

Anytime we doubt God’s love for us and His goodness, we need to return to the cross.

We should reason, “If God loved me enough to give His Son to die for me when I was His enemy, surely He loves me enough to care for me now that I am His Child.”

When we are in the midst of the storm, we must reason.

We mus think our way through it and realize the sovereignty, wisdom, and love that God has for us which is revealed through Scripture.

Emotions will make us react.

Reasoning will help us work our way through it and allow us to realize we are still loved by the One who created us.

It may seem cold to say to reason during a time of heartache and despair, but Paul even reasoned in Romans that if God loved us enough to give the greatest gift through the death of His Son on the cross, then why would He hold back lesser blessings.

God’s Family of Love

By trusting Christ as our Savior, we have been brought into the family of God.

We have been adopted through Christ.

In the Jewish household, slaves were not to address the father of the household as Abba.

That title was only to be used by the children.

Paul’s use of this word shows the familial relationship with have with God.

Because of this relationship, He loves us as a father loves his children.

(ESV)

(ESV)

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

e.

Just as God’s wisdom can’t be measured, neither can His love for us.

How high are the heavens?

God’s Love in Christ

This love that we cannot measure is given to us because of who we are in Christ.

Not because of who or what we are on our own.

There are several instances in scripture where our relationship with Christ is compared to organic things.

the vine and the branches

the head and the body.

we are spiritually related to Christ in this way.

God’s love for us cannot waver because of who we are to Him in Christ.

Just as His love can’t change for His Son, so His love can’t change for us.