Sermon Tone Analysis

I am going to begin tonight by stating a simple, profound, and moving truth.

Jesus Loves You.

God Loves You.

What a glorious truth!

Jesus loves me.

God loves me.

I would submit to you that there is no song that we could sing together as profound, as joyous, or as awe-inspiring this evening as /Jesus Loves Me/.

But perhaps to the unprepared heart these words ring hollow, too familiar, possibly misunderstood and probably minimized.

Consider the words with me,

 

“Jesus Loves me, This I know

For the Bible tells me so

Little Ones to Him Belong

They Are Weak But He is Strong

Yes, Jesus Loves Me.

For years that truth meant very little to me.

For years that truth did not affect me as it should have.

Sadly today even as I read those words, they do not affect me as it should.

Perhaps for you this song does not mean what it should.

So let us shepherd our hearts together to understand the love of God together, the love of God which is at the *heart* of what it means to be a Christian.

To misunderstand this point is to misunderstand yourself, to misunderstand God, and to misunderstand the very gospel and assurance of salvation.

There is no more important topic for us to consider or understand tonight than God’s love that moved Him to die for us in order that we escape His Wrath and be with Him and enjoy Him forever.

What do you love?

I’ll give you a list of a few of the things that I love:

·        I love pizza

·        I love Starbucks

·        I love Kraft macaroni & cheese

·        I love to read

·        I love to go on vacations

·        I love basketball

More seriously:

·        I love my wife, Kiki

·        I love my family

·        I love my church, all of you

·        I love my small group

·        I love the cross

·        I love Jesus

·        I love God

 

What do you love?

I’m sure that we could come up with a list of many things that we love.

And do you know what would be common to every single one of those items that we put on that list?

For every item on that list – God, a person, Starbucks, whatever – there is something inherently attractive, appealing, alluring, beneficial, and beautiful in the objects of our love.

The error we may make to misunderstand God’s love for us often lies in this.

In this age where we are encouraged by our culture to *find the best in ourselves, enhance our self-esteem, and believe the lie that we are inherently good and beautiful creatures*, when somebody is told, “*Jesus loves you*” they believe that God’s love must be just like our love, and they respond, “*Well, why wouldn’t he? There’s a lot to love.*”

Or “*Of course, God should love me.” *Or we may even think that if He were to not love me that there would be *something wrong with God.*

If you are not deeply affected by that statement “Jesus loves me” do you think that any of those thoughts could be at the heart of your apathy.

Or perhaps *you are affected, but not amazed, not in disbelief at the incomprehensible, unfathomable love of God for me, for you.

*Let’s open our Bibles together to learn more about God’s love: Ezekiel 16.

 

Ezekiel 16 says much about our sin, but it says much more about God’s gracious love.

Tonight we will say much about our sin, but much more about God’s gracious love.

*We cannot truly understand God’s love until we understand our sin; we cannot truly understand God’s love until we understand who we are before a Holy God.*

 

Ezekiel 16 is specifically written to the people of Judea left at Jerusalem during the exile, but it has application to us believers today God chose Israel from among all of the peoples on earth to be in special covenantal relationship with Him.

That relationship was initially manifested to the 12 tribes of Israel but could not remain there.

With Christ, what had only trickled beyond the banks of Israel before, burst into the entire world to all peoples, to the church.

So what we hear God say to his Old Covenant people here is even more true to his New Covenant people: The Church.

Read with me starting in [[verse 2|Ezekiel 16:2]], describing how he found all those who he would call to himself—completely undesirable, unclean, unattractive, helpless, ugly:

         

*2 *“Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, *3 *and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.

*4 *And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths.

*5 *No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.

(Eze 16:2-5)

* *

Before Judah could be told of God’s love, God had Ezekiel remind them of the way that they were found.

In this analogy that Ezekiel is building God’s people were found by God as rejected, abhorred, dirty.

Elsewhere in the Bible God described this pre-God condition as:

·        Dead in trangressions and sin (Eph 2:1)

·        Sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2)

·        Children of wrath (Eph 2:3)

·        Weak…ungodly…sinners (Romans 5:6-8)

·        Enemies [of God] (Romans 5:10)

·        Alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds (Colossians 1:21)

 

There are some out there who agree with this in concept.

Pause and consider the reality of this.

These statements that the Word of God makes about you, about me, are not just mere propositions with which we should agree.

These statements describe natural position before God.

If you have truly been saved, this is from what you were saved.

This is what you brought to God.

If you look at this list and do not recognize yourself in that list – as dead in sin, an enemy of God, hostile to God – praise God that you’re here this evening.

What you are hearing will be part of the most life-changing news you have ever heard.

You must recognize your position before God before you can ever appreciate God’s love for you and receive the greatest manifestation of that love: Salvation found at the cross, the salvation that we read of here in Ezekiel 16:

 

So we have God, the one who with a Word spoke all things into existence, the one who is too beautiful for human eyes to even gaze upon, to great to even comprehend, the one whose Holiness will decimate us if unclothed in Christ’s righteousness we were to venture into His presence, the majestic, the powerful, the perfect one, without beginning, without end.

He needs nothing; he lacks nothing.

*That one* in these verses passes by me and you, a rejected, helpless, ugly baby who in fact is in complete rebellion to Him—would kill God if he could—God passes by this hostile creature to whom He owes nothing but wrath and here’s what he says to that creature, to you and to me ([[verse 6|Bible Ezekiel 16:6]]):

 

And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood (the symbol of our uncleanness, rejection, and abhorrence), I said to you in your blood, “Live!”

I said to you in your blood “Live!” (Ezekiel 16:6)

 

And with what end did He say “live!”?

To bless us, [[verse 7|Ezekiel 16:7]]:

 

“I made you flourish like a plant of the field.

And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment.”

Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 2:

 

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins…and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly place in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

(Ephesians 2:1-8)

 

This is a picture of what God did in his love for the nation Israel; this is a picture of what God did for the Church; this is a picture of what God did for me, and for you if you are saved!

He did not pity us.

He loved us!

What love!

What love unlike our love!

Remember our list that we made of things we love?

This love is completely unlike the love that you have for any of those things.

We have no category for love like this.