The Love of God – An Everlasting Love

One truth about God we to keep in mind as look at His Character or Attributes is that you can not separate them. God is ONE. You can’t really separate His Love from His Wrath, or His Grace and Mercy from His Justice.

The concept that “God is Love” is clearly the most popular and the most universally affirmed truth concerning God.

1 John 4:8 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Almost everyone is happy that God is Love as long as you leave it in a simplistic definition. The fact is most people and even many Christians don’t really understand the Love of God. God’s Love is far more profound, far more complex and frankly incomprehensible and at times disturbing to contemplate.

We’re going to try to talk about the height, and breadth and depth of the Love of God. And the place His Love has in the total of His attributes.

3 Categories of Love of God

God’s Love for Himself – Intra-Trinitarian Love

Gods Love for All Humanity – God’s Common Grace

God’s Love for His Own – God’s Love to the Max

1 – God’s Love for Himself.

This is the starting point for for looking at God’s Love, because before there were any creatures to love, God was still Love and he loved the other members of the Trinity Mutually.

John 14:31 (NASB95) 31 but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.

The Son Loves the Father in perfect obedience.

John 15:9-10 (NASB95) 9 “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

The Father loves the Son. Again perfect Love in Perfect obedience

John 17:23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.

Perfect love in the Trinity

Let’s look at the Father’s love for the Son

John 5: 21-27

19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. 21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. 22 The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

You know what this says? Everything that the Father has He gave to the Son!! The Son does what He see the Father doing, The Father shows the Son everything that He is doing! This demonstrates the magnanimity of God’s love. He gives the Son EVERYTHING. He holds nothing back!!

All of the Fathers power, all of His privileges, all of His Honor, He give the Son.

Lets Look at John 6 –

John 6:37 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

And

verse 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

I’ll admit that this is a little obtuse. Does anyone see the demonstration of Gods Love for the Son in this passage?

The Father loves the Son so much that He gives to the Son a redeemed humanity.

We need to understand that God’s love for sinners is secondary. God’s Love for His Son is primary. The Fathers love for us is to give a love gift of a Bride to the Son.

Slide 6

!

Let’s look a little further into how this love is expressed

Titus 1:1-3 1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, 2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began 3 and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;

The key is at the end of verse two. This whole unfolding miracle of salvation comes “from God who cannot lie”. At the end of verse two, “He promised it before time began”.

Before time began, to whom did He make that promise?

Not to me, or any other human being, because we weren’t created. So to whom did He make this promise?

2 Tim 1:8-9 8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, 9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,

So, to whom did He make the promise? It was an Inter-Trinitarian promise. It involved a promise from the God the Father to the God the Son.

I know I’m treading on sacred ground here and I’ll try to support it from the Gospel of John in just a moment. But just bear with me for now. There was a moment in eternity when the Father determined to express His infinite and perfect love to the Son. There is an intra-Trinitarian love, the likes of which is incomprehensible to us.

But this we know about love …It gives. And at some eternal moment, the Father desired to express His perfect love for the Son. And the way He determined to express that was to give to the Son a redeemed humanity as a love gift. A redeemed humanity whose purpose would be…forever and ever throughout all of the eons of eternity to praise and glorify the Son and serve Him perfectly.

Evidently the angels wouldn’t suffice. Because there are characteristics of the Son for which they could never praise Him because they had never fallen and had never been redeemed.

Slide 7

He not only pre-determined it, but He pre-determined who would make up that redeemed humanity and He wrote their names down in the book of life before the world began.

Rev 13:8 (NASB) "And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain."

Rev 20:15 (NASB) "And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."

The Father told the Son this is the love gift that I want to give to you. And they will forever want to praise and glorify your Name.

When we get a glimpse of heaven in Revelation, what are they doing up there? The Saints are saying, “Worthy is the Lamb.” And that’s what’s going to go on up there forever.

So the Father determined to give a love gift to the son. Which means, if I can be so bold as to say it, you and I are somewhat incidental to the real issue here. Salvation is primarily for the honor of the Son, not the honor of the sinner. The purpose is not to save me so I could have a happy life, that is a by-product. The purpose is to save us to we can praise the Son forever and ever and ever.

Slide 8

To see further illustration of this LOVE, let’s look at the gospel of John to what has to be a most remarkable insight with few parallels into this theme.

In John chapter six, starting in verse 37, Jesus says this…

John 6:37 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

And

In verse 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Verse 37 "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me,…” Every redeemed individual is a part of an elect redeemed humanity that is a gift from the Father to the Son.

"All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me,” Why? Verse 44 "No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him;”

So all that the Father gives are drawn. All who are drawn come. All who come, Jesus receives and He’ll never turn one of them down.

Why would the Son never turn down a love gift from the Father? It’s not because we’re so inherently desirable. It’s because we are a Love gift from the Father to the Son. It is the infinite love of the Son for the Father, it is the perfect gratitude for the expression of that love by the Father that opens the arms of the Son to embrace the gift.

Doesn’t a gift from someone we love mean more to us than other gifts. Don’t You cherish it more. You want to keep it forever. Imagine what this is like on the Divine scale of Intra-Trinitarian LOVE.

There’s more. Verse 39 "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing,”

So here’s how it works. The Father chooses, He writes the names down in the Lamb’s Book of Life of who that redeemed humanity will be to be given to the Son as an expression of love. Then in time the Father draws. When the Father draws, the sinners come. When the sinners come the Son receives them. When the son receives them He keeps them and raises them the last day. To bring the plan formed before time began to fruition.

He must do this according to Verse 38 “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day”.

Inherent in this whole doctrine is the doctrine of the security of the believer. The perseverance of the Saints. Because it’s all built into the plan.

He holds His own that have been given to him by the Father and He has lost None of them. And never will. He’ll bring them all the way to resurrection.

Why? Because they are love gifts from the Father. They’re precious not so much inherently in who they are. But they are precious because they are expressions of the Father’s perfect love for Him. For the purpose of glorifying and honoring and serving Him throughout all eternity.

The Son will keep them. He’ll hold on to them. And if there is circumstance that would be more than they could bear, He’ll make sure it doesn’t happen to them.

He will do whatever He has to do to keep us.

Slide 9

Finally let’s look at the 17th chapter of John. This is one of the most remarkable passages for many reasons.

The context is that Jesus is anticipating the cross and He realizes that there is going to be a period of separation from the God the Father. Expressed, of course, in those profound words, “My God, My God. Why have thou forsaken Me?”

There are elements of that event that He has not experienced before. And who is He concerned about? He can say on the cross, “Into thy hands I commit my spirit.” He had no qualms about trusting God with himself.

But in John 17 he entrusts not Himself to God, but His own. After all he had the responsibility to hold on to them and to loose none of them and raise them up on the last day. And now he is going to go through some kind of deep water, the likes of which he has never experienced. And he is concerned about what could happen to them in the interval in which he might not be able to attend to them. Look at verse 7…

John 17:7-9 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

You gave them to me and I’m not going to lose them. But I’m going to go through something here and I don’t know what‘s going to happen to them when I’m not, even for a moment, there to hold them.

Verse 11…"And I am no more in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father”,

and here’s the main request of this whole chapter, “keep them in Thy name,”.

Is that an incredible statement? Lord I can’t hold them for whatever moment I’m going to bearing this separation. Would You just take over for me and keep them? They’re yours and you gave them to me and I will be faithful, and I’ll hold them, but there is going to be a moment and I can’t hold them. Would you do it then?

Verse 12…"While I was with them, I was keeping them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me; and I guarded them, and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

He says, “Lord I have kept them all the way along, and now I am leaving. I just need you to keep them for the time when I’m not here.

Was Jesus anticipating a window of opportunity for Satan?

Verse 15…"I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.

Isn’t it incredible to realize that if we are out of the care of God for even a moment that we could be catapulted into perdition?

Verse 24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world.

You see that’s the point. Jesus is saying, “I want them to be able to behold my glory. I want them to worship me and serve me and honor me. Just as You intended”

“for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world.” There’s the whole key. The Father’s perfect love for the Son.

The Father determines to give the Son a redeemed humanity. The Father gave the Son the redeemed humanity and says hold on to them. The Son faces a moment in which He fears they won’t have his full attention and says, “Oh Father, just guard them for that moment”. You gave them to me. They’re precious to me because they are your love gifts.

We begin to understand that the doctrine of election is way beyond us. Way out of our capabilities to comprehend. We are all caught up in inter-Trinitarian expressions of love that are unfathomable.

Slide 10

! So, we’ve seen the Father’s Love Gift to the Son and the value that the gift holds for the Son.

So when we talk about the Love God has for Himself, we talk about intra-trinitarian love primarily expressed between the Father and the Son, but not to exclude the Spirit.

We need to understand this aspect of the love of God because it is the well spring from which the other kinds of love pour fourth.

Because the Father perfectly loves the Son - salvation is planned.

As the Father seeks a bride for His Son. As the Son through perfect love and perfect obedience is willing to pay the price for that Bride. The immense price of redemption. Obeying the Fathers will out of Love for Him and becoming a substitute by receiving the wrath of God for all who would believe.

God’s loving people rises out of His Love for Himself and creating US to redeem as a bride for the Son.

Slide 1

4. God’s Love for His Own –He especially loves and saves believers.

This is always challenging for us but none the less true. He loves and saves in a temporal physical sense ALL Men. But He especially loves and saves Believers.

His love for His own is Eternal. It is limited in extent but unlimited in degree.

It is conditional and it is uninfluenced.

It is a love based on nothing but sovereign determination.

There isn’t anything you and I are or did to deserve this Love.

Though God genuinely loves the world:

He loves them enough To give them Common Grace

To feel compassion for them

To continually warn them

To extend the Gospel offer to them

This love has no limit in extent but it has a limit in degree.

Slide 2

John 13 – Of all the passages where you can see this love, this one is foundational.

Our Lord is on the brink of His own death gathered together with “The Oh you of little faith assoc. to celebrate the Passover. The night of course that Judas would betray Him and the would end in His crucifixion

“

Verse 1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

Having loved His own who were in the world, We know that He loves the world. We looked at that

But He has another kind of love for His Own . . .

He loved them to the end.

If we read the other gospels what else do we know was going on among the disciples during this Passover eve?

The disciples are arguing over who will be the greatest in the Kingdom.

They’re so ambitious and self centered. So immature.

All they can think about is their own glory.

Here in their ugliest of moments . . .and It says He loved them “eis telos” – to the max – to completion and perfect and full. To the end of His capacity to love them. To the last.

this cannot be said of His love for humanity.

He Loved His own to the Max even though He knows they will desert Him and deny Him. They were cowards and disloyal.

Jesus was used to love being demonstrated by obedience because that’s the way He loved His Father.

He Loved them all the way to the cross.

Jesus had told them that this was coming and told them to go to Galilee and wait for Him and most of them went back to their old careers.

He loved them in their disloyalty.

His Love is so astonishing. You can see it in the events that follow that night.

He pledges His Love to them. He shows His love for them by washing their filthy feet. A task they were too proud to do.

He shows His love for them later on in the garden when He is taken captive. Jesus knew that these men could never survive if they were taken captive.

He Knew that. He knew that it would be more than they could bear. More than their faith could handle.

So . . .

John 18:1-9 show us that when they came for Him he didn’t hide but instead He moved toward them.

Verse 1-9

1 When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth with His disciples over the ravine of the Kidron, where there was a garden, in which He entered with His disciples.

2 Now Judas also, who was betraying Him, knew the place, for Jesus had often met there with His disciples.

3 Judas then, having received the Roman cohort and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons

4 So Jesus, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, “Whom do you seek?”

Jesus is saying, I want to know what’s on your orders. I want to know who the warrant is for.

5 They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He said to them, “I am He.” And Judas also, who was betraying Him, was standing with them.

6 So when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

7 Therefore He again asked them, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.”

He was affirming by their own lips that they had no right to take the disciples prisoner

8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am He; so if you seek Me, let these go their way,”

Why?? He knows they couldn’t have handled it. It would have been more than their faith could bear. And so He protected them

9 to fulfill the word which He spoke, “Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one.”

He protected them from what would have been shattering to them.

And . . . He never lets us be put in a position where our faith could fail to that degree.

Later on the shores of Galilee He restored them even though they were disobedient

He sent the Holy Spirit (Acts chapter 2) who empowered them to preach the Gospel.

He Loved them to the max

Slide 3

And of course He showed it on the cross.

John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

This love is Eternal.

Jeremiah 31:3

The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying,

“I have loved you with an everlasting love;

Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.

John 14:1-3

1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.

2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.

3 “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

stop letting your heart be troubled.

There will be no empty rooms in Heaven, The rooms he prepares . . . he fills. And . . Heaven will NOT be oversold!

This is not just that general love that gives common grace, compassion, warning and Gospel opportunity.

It is a love that is WAY beyond that. It is a Saving love, a covenant love. Unbreakable love

one of the greatest illustration of this kind of Love is found in . . .

Ezk 16

This is so extraordinary. It is Such a sad commentary that ancient Rabbi’s would not let it be read in public.

We can’t read the whole chapter now but let me pick out a few verses to get the message:

1 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

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 from the land of the Canaanite, your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. You have behaved as though you were from pagan linage.

4 “As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths.

5 “No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born. You were unwanted by the world at your birth when they were thrown out of Egypt

6 “When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’ Yes, I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’

7 “I made you numerous like plants of the field. Then you grew up, became tall and reached the age for fine ornaments; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown. Yet you were naked and bare. I multiplied you.

8 “Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love; so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine,” declares the Lord God.

9 “Then I bathed you with water, washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil.

10 “I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk.

11 “I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck.

12 “I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head.

13 “Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty.

14 “Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,” declares the Lord God. I Made you into Royalty and displayed you before the whole world.

15 “But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame, and you poured out your harlotries on every passer-by who might be willing.

16 “You took some of your clothes, made for yourself high places of various colors and played the harlot on them, which should never come about nor happen.

17 “You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them.

18 “Then you took your embroidered cloth and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them.

19 “Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them for a soothing aroma; so it happened,” declares the Lord God.

20 “Moreover, you took your sons and daughters whom you had borne to Me and sacrificed them to idols to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter?

21 “You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire. You became a harlot and took my gold and silver and made images to be a harlot with and God says, “you sacrificed MY children to them.”

22 “Besides all your abominations and harlotries you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare and squirming in your blood.

23 “Then it came about after all your wickedness (‘Woe, woe to you!’ declares the Lord God),

24 that you built yourself a shrine and made yourself a high place in every square.

25 “You built yourself a high place at the top of every street and made your beauty abominable, and you spread your legs to every passer-by to multiply your harlotry.

26 “You also played the harlot with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and multiplied your harlotry to make Me angry.

27 “Behold now, I have stretched out My hand against you and diminished your rations. And I delivered you up to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your lewd conduct. Your actions embarrass even the pagans

28 “Moreover, you played the harlot with the Assyrians because you were not satisfied; you played the harlot with them and still were not satisfied.

29 “You also multiplied your harlotry with the land of merchants, Chaldea, yet even with this you were not satisfied.” ’ ”

30 “How languishing is your heart,” declares the Lord God, “while you do all these things, the actions of a bold-faced harlot.

31 “When you built your shrine at the beginning of every street and made your high place in every square, in disdaining money, you were not like a harlot.

32 “You adulteress wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband!

33 “Men give gifts to all harlots, but you give your gifts to all your lovers to bribe them to come to you from every direction for your harlotries.

34 “Thus you are different from those women in your harlotries, in that no one plays the harlot as you do, because you give money and no money is given you; thus you are different.”

35 Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord.

36 Thus says the Lord God, “Because your lewdness was poured out and your nakedness uncovered through your harlotries with your lovers and with all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your sons which you gave to idols,

37 therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, even all those whom you loved and all those whom you hated. So I will gather them against you from every direction and expose your nakedness to them that they may see all your nakedness.

38 “Thus I will judge you like women who commit adultery or shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy.

39 “I will also give you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your shrines, demolish your high places, strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and will leave you naked and bare. God judges them by taking them back to the way He found them.

40 “They will incite a crowd against you and they will stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords.

41 “They will burn your houses with fire and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women. Then I will stop you from playing the harlot, and you will also no longer pay your lovers.

42 “So I will calm My fury against you and My jealousy will depart from you, and I will be pacified and angry no more.

43 “Because you have not remembered the days of your youth but have enraged Me by all these things, behold, I in turn will bring your conduct down on your own head,” declares the Lord God, “so that you will not commit this lewdness on top of all your other abominations.

44 “Behold, everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb concerning you, saying, ‘Like mother, like daughter.’

45 “You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and children. You are also the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.

46 “Now your older sister is Samaria, who lives north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lives south of you, is Sodom with her daughters.

47 “Yet you have not merely walked in their ways or done according to their abominations; but, as if that were too little, you acted more corruptly in all your conduct than they.

48 “As I live,” declares the Lord God, “Sodom, your sister and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.

49 “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.

50 “Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.

51 “Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half of your sins, for you have multiplied your abominations more than they. Thus you have made your sisters appear righteous by all your abominations which you have committed.

52 “Also bear your disgrace in that you have made judgment favorable for your sisters. Because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. Yes, be also ashamed and bear your disgrace, in that you made your sisters appear righteous.

53 “Nevertheless, I will restore their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and along with them your own captivity,

54 in order that you may bear your humiliation and feel ashamed for all that you have done when you become a consolation to them.

55 “Your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will return to their former state, and you with your daughters will also return to your former state.

56 “As the name of your sister Sodom was not heard from your lips in your day of pride,

57 before your wickedness was uncovered, so now you have become the reproach of the daughters of Edom and of all who are around her, of the daughters of the Philistines—those surrounding you who despise you.

58 “You have borne the penalty of your lewdness and abominations,” the Lord declares.

59 For thus says the Lord God, “I will also do with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath by breaking the covenant. You have done worse that all the pagans and You have been judged severely for what you have done.

Then look at verse 60 and that unbelievable 1st word . . .

60 “Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.

61 “Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both your older and your younger; and I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your covenant.

62 “Thus I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord,

63 so that you may remember and be ashamed and never open your mouth anymore because of your humiliation, when I have forgiven you for all that you have done,” the Lord God declares. I will humble you by forgiving you

Amazing how gracious the Love of God is for His Own.

Israel was worse than Sodom, and worse that Samaria and they were both destroyed. And yet God saves Israel

Remember what Jeremiah 31:3 says

“I have loved you with an everlasting love;

Therefore I have drawn you with loving-kindness.

Before the foundation of the world God set a love on His own. And it is an everlasting love

Those whom He chooses to love in a covenant way . . His Love is Perfect, complete, saving and eternal.

Let’s look at

Rom 8:35-39

35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 Just as it is written,

“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;

We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God’s love for His own is An Inseparable, unconquerable Love

Slide 4

To find more attributes of His love for His own

Look at Eph 2;

–v 4 Forgives, v 5 gives life, v 6 promises eternal glory, v 7 grants to us kindness and v 10 produces righteous behavior. And it’s all of grace.

Eph 5;

–v 26 This love cleanses, v 27 purifies, makes Holy, v 29 nourishes, cherishes

Luke 15:22-32 the Prodigal Son –

this love Lavishes, rejoices, overlooks past sin, restores, enriches.

Slide 5

So That leads to a final troubling question

Why didn’t God choose to love everyone like that???

Anytime we pose a WHY question about Gods ultimate sovereign determination we are way outside the boundary of human ability to fully comprehend.

But we can get an idea by reasoning from the whole of scripture. Which of course we don’t have the time to do this morning. But we’ll Look at one significant one.

An educated guess???:

The reason God did not choose to love everyone savingly is because the love of God is qualified and controlled by His Glory.

God is not obligated to be the equal opportunity savior of everybody.

God is not a prisoner of His love

and He is not the prisoner of mans expectations.

God’s love is never separated as if it were superior or dominant over His other attributes. Such as justice and righteousness, and Holiness and Wrath.

Slide
6

This Love for His own is for the Praise of His Glory

Look at Eph 1

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love

5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace

8 which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight

9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him

10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him

11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,

12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.

13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,

14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

The ultimate purpose of election to salvation of His Own is the glory of God. And God’s glory is the supreme purpose of redemption.

So let’s wrap this up by looking finally at Romans 9. The pre-eminent passage on God’s Divine, Sovereign, Electing Love for His Own . . .

We really need to study the whole chapter but we can’t take the time now.

So let’s cut to the chase in verse 18.

Rom 9:18-24

18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”

20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?

The gap between a potter and his clay is Huge, but that gap is infinitesimal compared to the gap between us and God!!

21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,

24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

We need to Let God be God

In the end it pleased Him to do it the way He did it because it gave Him Glory.

For the purpose of His eternal Glory He does what He does. He chooses whom He chooses. He loves whom He Loves.

Slide 1

5. God’s Love for His Own –He especially loves and saves believers.