[The following was delivered at Christ Community Church, Monroe, NC, on Sunday, May 16, 2010.]
Old Testament reading:
O nations of the world, recognize the Lord, recognize that the Lord is glorious and strong. Give to the Lord the glory He deserves! Bring your offering and come into His presence. Worship the Lord in all His holy splendor. Let all the earth tremble before Him. The world stands firm and cannot be shaken.
Let the heavens be glad, and the earth rejoice! Tell all the nations, “The Lord reigns!” Let the sea and everything in it shout His praise! Let the fields and their crops burst out with joy! Let the trees of the forest rustle with praise, for the Lord is coming to judge the earth.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever.
-- 1 Chronicles 16:28-34 (New Living Translation)
New Testament reading:
Since we have been made right with God by our faith, we have peace with God. This happened through our Lord Jesus Christ, who through our faith has brought us into that
blessing of God's grace that we now enjoy. And we are happy because of the hope we have of sharing God's glory. We also have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience. And patience produces character, and character produces hope. And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out His love to fill our hearts. He gave us His love through the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to us.
When we were unable to help ourselves, at the right time, Christ died for us, although we were living against God. Very few people will die to save the life of someone else. Although perhaps for a good person someone might possibly die. But God shows His great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners. So through Christ we will surely be saved from God's anger, because we have been made right with God by the blood of Christ's death.
While we were God's enemies, He made us His friends through the death of His Son. Surely, now that we are His friends, He will save us through His Son's life. And not only that, but now we are also very happy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we are now God's friends again.
-- Romans 5:1-11 (New Century Version)
Message scripture:
This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:9-11 (New International Version)
In the mid-70s, Telly Savalas starred in the title role in the television crime drama “Kojak”. One of TV's first characters with a completely shaven head, Lt. Theo Kojak had a fondness for lollipops and at least once a show uttered his trademark line, “Who loves ya, baby?”, usually asked of one of his subordinates after solving a case, making an arrest, or doing some other type of favor, and always with the implied answer that Kojak loves you. Someone truly does love us, and it isn't a television character.
Who loves us? God loves us, every one of us. How do we know? Just as it says in the children's hymn: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. The scripture I just read assures us of God's great love for us, His ever faithful love, His enduring love. One translation of Romans has Paul explaining the depth of this love when he notes that Jesus came to us while we were God's enemies to make us God's friends again. Did we become friends of God because of something we did, something we said, maybe our good deeds and acts of kindness to others? No! John reminds us it isn't that we love God that really matters. It's that God loves us! That is what makes all the difference. God loves us, and He loves us so much He sent His one and only Son so that we might live through Him.
Arguably, the best known and most often recited verse in the Christian Bible is John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This is what John is referring to in his first letter, this is how God showed His love among us. But how many are familiar with the next verse, John 3:17? This is one of my favorites. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
When talk of a Messiah started spreading out before Jesus as He traveled, preached, taught, healed, performed miracles, the people looked to the prophesies of old and interpreted them to mean a mighty conqueror would come, someone to deliver them from cruel tyranny. Some have conjectured that Judas turned Jesus in to the authorities to get Him to act, to become that great deliverer, the warrior king they anticipated. At any time during His ordeal, Jesus could have called down an overpowering army from heaven, God could have intervened and crushed Rome and all who opposed our Lord. But God did not send a warrior to condemn and conquer the world, He sent a Lamb to love and save the world.
I sometimes worry that we tend to focus too much on punishment, on what happens if we are sinful. Do we usually react to bad behavior with a threat of retribution? Isn't it rather common to hear a parent say, “You just wait until your father gets home!”, or “When I get you home you will regret making a scene in public.”? Sometimes those words come from our own mouths, in one form or another, for one reason or another. It starts when we're young and continues throughout our lives. We don't act up in class so we don't have to sit at our desk during recess. We don't sass our parents to keep from getting grounded. We don't speed so we avoid getting a ticket and having our insurance rates skyrocket. And in his Book of Revelation, John tells us how those who turn their backs on Jesus are punished. We are cautioned about that a lot, aren't we? We are warned to do good and keep God's commandments and obey Christ so we don't end up in that lake of fire for all eternity. The threat of ultimate punishment even comes from the pulpit at times. And that is all well, for sometimes we need those little reminders.
But is that really what God has in mind? I truly feel the main theme running throughout the New Testament is inescapable and is that God loves us! He doesn't want to punish us. He didn't send Jesus to condemn us to eternal damnation. He sent Jesus to save us from just that harsh fate. John 3:16 and 17 say just that, in no uncertain terms. It would take all day to talk about all the verses that reference God's love in the Bible, but let me provide just a few.
From the New International Version, more from John's first letter, chapter three, verses one and two: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Think about that for a moment, about how great an honor it is to be called a child of the Almighty God. Isn't that a sign of His love, that He would call us His children, and want us to call Him by the familiar endearment “Daddy” (Abba)?
From the New King James Version of Romans 8:28, Paul encourages us with this truth: “And we know that all things work together for the good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” That ties it all together. God loves us and will shower us with His grace and goodness when we love Him in return. No matter how bad a situation seems, God will make something good come out of it for us.
John gives a little more definition to this, in chapter 14, verse 21, this time reading the words of our Christ as rendered in the Amplified Bible: “The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who really loves Me; and whoever really loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love him and will reveal Myself to him. I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.” Is Christ real to you?
And what are Christ's commands? A Pharisee once asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment, an exchange recorded in Matthew chapter 22, verses 34 through 40. Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39 NIV)
What does it mean, this word “love”? Paul gives us a solid guide in scripture often read during wedding ceremonies: 1 Corinthians 13, particularly in verses four through eight. “Love is patient.” Is God patient with us? Certainly! He could have crushed us effortlessly when we persecuted His Son. He could destroy all of humanity more easily than we can squish an ant. His patience is evident throughout the Bible, both for nations of people and for individuals. He gives us chance after chance to do what is right, even when we deserve no chances.
“Love is kind.” Think of the many miracles Jesus performed, all the people He healed and helped. All these represent acts of great kindness. Even as He hung upon the cross, gasping for breath, He extended a loving kindness to a convicted criminal by reassuring him that salvation was his.
“Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” What could we possibly have that God, the Creator of all things, could envy us for? What could He want that He could not simply wish into existence? But the point is that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, did not do this. He came as a humble servant, seeing to the needs of others, washing the feet of those who strove to follow Him.
“It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered.” We know from the Bible, and personal experience, that anger is to be expected as a human emotion. For example, Job grew angry at God but God did not hold that against him. He patiently explained that Job was not capable of understanding the reasons for all God did. Even Jesus once showed anger, when He chased the merchants and money changers from the temple, to chastise them for making it a den of thieves. He was not rude, He was direct. And He was not self-seeking, He was doing the work of His Father. So yes, anger can be expected and even understood to a degree. But the point is that it took a great deal to anger Jesus, and He expects us to be patient and cautious, not to let our anger grow too fast or too strong that it overwhelms us and rules our minds. For unbridled anger can destroy lives.
“It keeps no record of wrongs.” This is surely God's love in practice. The Bible instructs us that when we sin, when we go against God's wishes and commands, if we realize what we did was truly bad, if we turn from that behavior and not continue along that path, if we hate that we did it, then we need only confess our sin to God and ask His forgiveness. He will not only forgive, He will forget that it ever happened! One definition of “forget” is to purposely ignore. When we repent and humbly seek God's forgiveness, He will forgive us for acting against Him and deliberately ignore that we did so. He loves us that much.
“Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.” God goes to great lengths to give us the truth, to make sure we have the truth in our hands to use as defense against evil. His word in our Holy Bible is the truth. His Son is the truth in the flesh. God hates evil, and despairs when His children fall to evil ways. But He and all heaven rejoice when we turn back to Him and reject the evil one.
“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd in John chapter 10. A shepherd protects his flock, guards it from danger, goes to great lengths to find a sheep when it strays. And a shepherd is on duty as long as he is with his flock. Jesus is with us always, as He promised. The Holy Spirit is with us always, inside us. God is with us always, for He is everywhere and exists forever, even before time itself began and after time ends.
“Love never fails.” And this is the ultimate sign of God's love, that it never fails us. His love endures forever. His faithfulness to us knows no boundary. He offers us the greatest love and the most wonderful rewards if we only believe in Him and love Him in return, following the path and the example of His beloved Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus told us, in John chapter 13 verses 34 and 35: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (New American Standard Bible) By loving one another, by obeying this command, we glorify Jesus and our heavenly Father and give others a reason to look into this Christianity thing to see what it is all about. We can be like God in this one way, by loving one another as He loves us.
One more quality we can give to love is that love hurts. Who hasn't had their heart broken by someone they loved? Who hasn't been hurt or felt betrayed when their love wasn't returned? How horribly Jesus must have hurt, in His heart, when the very people He came to save shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” His heart must have broken when they chose to free Barabbas rather than Him, even though He knew that exact sequence of events must transpire. Yes, love can hurt.
And finally, love means sacrifice. When we truly love someone, we are willing to give anything and everything for them, even our lives. God made this sacrifice for us, giving us His only Son that we might be saved by His love. Jesus made this sacrifice for us, taking a beating for our sins, dying a horrible death in our place, defeating death so that we would have the chance to live forever.
Jesus said, “My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command.” (John 15:12-14 NIV) Jesus did that for us. He laid down His life for us. Why? Because He loves us and considers us His friends.
No matter what happens in our lives, no matter what we may have done in the past, we can awaken every morning and go to bed every night knowing that we are loved, truly loved. Who loves ya, baby? God loves you.
Amen.
In the words of John from Revelation 1:5c-6 (NKJV): “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
Who loves us? God loves us, every one of us. How do we know? Just as it says in the children's hymn: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. The scripture I just read assures us of God's great love for us, His ever faithful love, His enduring love. One translation of Romans has Paul explaining the depth of this love when he notes that Jesus came to us while we were God's enemies to make us God's friends again. Did we become friends of God because of something we did, something we said, maybe our good deeds and acts of kindness to others? No! John reminds us it isn't that we love God that really matters. It's that God loves us! That is what makes all the difference. God loves us, and He loves us so much He sent His one and only Son so that we might live through Him.
Arguably, the best known and most often recited verse in the Christian Bible is John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This is what John is referring to in his first letter, this is how God showed His love among us. But how many are familiar with the next verse, John 3:17? This is one of my favorites. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
When talk of a Messiah started spreading out before Jesus as He traveled, preached, taught, healed, performed miracles, the people looked to the prophesies of old and interpreted them to mean a mighty conqueror would come, someone to deliver them from cruel tyranny. Some have conjectured that Judas turned Jesus in to the authorities to get Him to act, to become that great deliverer, the warrior king they anticipated. At any time during His ordeal, Jesus could have called down an overpowering army from heaven, God could have intervened and crushed Rome and all who opposed our Lord. But God did not send a warrior to condemn and conquer the world, He sent a Lamb to love and save the world.
I sometimes worry that we tend to focus too much on punishment, on what happens if we are sinful. Do we usually react to bad behavior with a threat of retribution? Isn't it rather common to hear a parent say, “You just wait until your father gets home!”, or “When I get you home you will regret making a scene in public.”? Sometimes those words come from our own mouths, in one form or another, for one reason or another. It starts when we're young and continues throughout our lives. We don't act up in class so we don't have to sit at our desk during recess. We don't sass our parents to keep from getting grounded. We don't speed so we avoid getting a ticket and having our insurance rates skyrocket. And in his Book of Revelation, John tells us how those who turn their backs on Jesus are punished. We are cautioned about that a lot, aren't we? We are warned to do good and keep God's commandments and obey Christ so we don't end up in that lake of fire for all eternity. The threat of ultimate punishment even comes from the pulpit at times. And that is all well, for sometimes we need those little reminders.
But is that really what God has in mind? I truly feel the main theme running throughout the New Testament is inescapable and is that God loves us! He doesn't want to punish us. He didn't send Jesus to condemn us to eternal damnation. He sent Jesus to save us from just that harsh fate. John 3:16 and 17 say just that, in no uncertain terms. It would take all day to talk about all the verses that reference God's love in the Bible, but let me provide just a few.
From the New International Version, more from John's first letter, chapter three, verses one and two: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Think about that for a moment, about how great an honor it is to be called a child of the Almighty God. Isn't that a sign of His love, that He would call us His children, and want us to call Him by the familiar endearment “Daddy” (Abba)?
From the New King James Version of Romans 8:28, Paul encourages us with this truth: “And we know that all things work together for the good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” That ties it all together. God loves us and will shower us with His grace and goodness when we love Him in return. No matter how bad a situation seems, God will make something good come out of it for us.
John gives a little more definition to this, in chapter 14, verse 21, this time reading the words of our Christ as rendered in the Amplified Bible: “The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who really loves Me; and whoever really loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love him and will reveal Myself to him. I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.” Is Christ real to you?
And what are Christ's commands? A Pharisee once asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment, an exchange recorded in Matthew chapter 22, verses 34 through 40. Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39 NIV)
What does it mean, this word “love”? Paul gives us a solid guide in scripture often read during wedding ceremonies: 1 Corinthians 13, particularly in verses four through eight. “Love is patient.” Is God patient with us? Certainly! He could have crushed us effortlessly when we persecuted His Son. He could destroy all of humanity more easily than we can squish an ant. His patience is evident throughout the Bible, both for nations of people and for individuals. He gives us chance after chance to do what is right, even when we deserve no chances.
“Love is kind.” Think of the many miracles Jesus performed, all the people He healed and helped. All these represent acts of great kindness. Even as He hung upon the cross, gasping for breath, He extended a loving kindness to a convicted criminal by reassuring him that salvation was his.
“Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” What could we possibly have that God, the Creator of all things, could envy us for? What could He want that He could not simply wish into existence? But the point is that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, did not do this. He came as a humble servant, seeing to the needs of others, washing the feet of those who strove to follow Him.
“It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered.” We know from the Bible, and personal experience, that anger is to be expected as a human emotion. For example, Job grew angry at God but God did not hold that against him. He patiently explained that Job was not capable of understanding the reasons for all God did. Even Jesus once showed anger, when He chased the merchants and money changers from the temple, to chastise them for making it a den of thieves. He was not rude, He was direct. And He was not self-seeking, He was doing the work of His Father. So yes, anger can be expected and even understood to a degree. But the point is that it took a great deal to anger Jesus, and He expects us to be patient and cautious, not to let our anger grow too fast or too strong that it overwhelms us and rules our minds. For unbridled anger can destroy lives.
“It keeps no record of wrongs.” This is surely God's love in practice. The Bible instructs us that when we sin, when we go against God's wishes and commands, if we realize what we did was truly bad, if we turn from that behavior and not continue along that path, if we hate that we did it, then we need only confess our sin to God and ask His forgiveness. He will not only forgive, He will forget that it ever happened! One definition of “forget” is to purposely ignore. When we repent and humbly seek God's forgiveness, He will forgive us for acting against Him and deliberately ignore that we did so. He loves us that much.
“Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.” God goes to great lengths to give us the truth, to make sure we have the truth in our hands to use as defense against evil. His word in our Holy Bible is the truth. His Son is the truth in the flesh. God hates evil, and despairs when His children fall to evil ways. But He and all heaven rejoice when we turn back to Him and reject the evil one.
“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd in John chapter 10. A shepherd protects his flock, guards it from danger, goes to great lengths to find a sheep when it strays. And a shepherd is on duty as long as he is with his flock. Jesus is with us always, as He promised. The Holy Spirit is with us always, inside us. God is with us always, for He is everywhere and exists forever, even before time itself began and after time ends.
“Love never fails.” And this is the ultimate sign of God's love, that it never fails us. His love endures forever. His faithfulness to us knows no boundary. He offers us the greatest love and the most wonderful rewards if we only believe in Him and love Him in return, following the path and the example of His beloved Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus told us, in John chapter 13 verses 34 and 35: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (New American Standard Bible) By loving one another, by obeying this command, we glorify Jesus and our heavenly Father and give others a reason to look into this Christianity thing to see what it is all about. We can be like God in this one way, by loving one another as He loves us.
One more quality we can give to love is that love hurts. Who hasn't had their heart broken by someone they loved? Who hasn't been hurt or felt betrayed when their love wasn't returned? How horribly Jesus must have hurt, in His heart, when the very people He came to save shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” His heart must have broken when they chose to free Barabbas rather than Him, even though He knew that exact sequence of events must transpire. Yes, love can hurt.
And finally, love means sacrifice. When we truly love someone, we are willing to give anything and everything for them, even our lives. God made this sacrifice for us, giving us His only Son that we might be saved by His love. Jesus made this sacrifice for us, taking a beating for our sins, dying a horrible death in our place, defeating death so that we would have the chance to live forever.
Jesus said, “My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command.” (John 15:12-14 NIV) Jesus did that for us. He laid down His life for us. Why? Because He loves us and considers us His friends.
No matter what happens in our lives, no matter what we may have done in the past, we can awaken every morning and go to bed every night knowing that we are loved, truly loved. Who loves ya, baby? God loves you.
Amen.
In the words of John from Revelation 1:5c-6 (NKJV): “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
