This is the manuscript of the seventh sermon in the "Doctrine of God" series. It was delivered on Sunday June 26, 2022 at Christ Church, Los Angeles, CA.
During the last two months we've talked about "The Call of God", "The Image of God", "The Humility of God", "The Faithfulness of God", "The Gentleness of God", and "The Justice of God". Tomorrow's sermon is "The Love of God"
What should be our response to God’s love?
Listen to an audio recording of the sermon by clicking on the YouTube link at the end of the manuscript.
You can watch a video recording of the entire service on the Christ Church YouTube Channel https://youtu.be/BXxyt-LxEfM
Scripture:
Jeremiah 31:1-9 ESV “At that time, declares the Lord, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.” Thus says the Lord: “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit. For there shall be a day when watchmen will call in the hill country of Ephraim: ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.’” For thus says the Lord: “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘O Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’ Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who is in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
Introduction
During the last two months we've talked about "The Call of God", "The Image of God", "The Humility of God", "The Faithfulness of God", "The Gentleness of God", and "The Justice of God". Tomorrow's sermon is "The Love of God''
Text: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3).
The better acquainted we are with God’s love, the more our hearts will be drawn out in love to him. However wonderful human love may be, it is but a poor reflection of the divine love of God. Let's consider these three questions about God’s love.
What are the characteristics of God’s love?
What are the results of God’s love?
What should be our response to God’s love?
I. What are the characteristics of God’s love?
A. The love of God is unmerited.
The love one human being has for another is because of something in them, but the love of God is free, unconditional, completely unmerited.
Moses told Israel, “God loved them only because he wanted to, not because they deserved to be loved”
Deuteronomy 7:7-8 ESV It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
God loved us before we had in us an ounce of love for him.
Romans 5:8-10 ESV but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
What is there in me, what is there in you, to attract the love of God? Nothing! In fact there is a lot to repel His love,
Psalm 14:1-3 ESV The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
Romans 3:21-23 ESV But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
but he still loves us. Let’s read the next few verses
Romans 3:24-26 ESV and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
B. The love of God is eternal.
God himself is eternal, and “God is love”.
1 John 4:8, 16 ESV Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
16 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.
This means that God’s love has always been
Revelation 22:12-13 ESV “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
Since God always was and will always be so will His love.
Psalm 103:15-18 ESV As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
Love is more than a feeling. It is an act. God’s love is not only eternal, it is also historical.
Look at our text again;
“I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3).
C. The love of God is universal.
He loves all people.
John 3:16 ESV “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
“God so loved the world”; the good and the bad, the healthy and the sick, the rich and the poor, the saint and the sinner, the deranged, the dirty, the diseased, and the sinful everybody, everywhere. God loves all people as they are——and he sent his Son to save them all.
1 Timothy 2:1-6 ESV First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
D. The love of God is infinite.
Everything about God is infinite. His presence fills heaven and earth.
Jeremiah 23:23-24 GNT “I am a God who is everywhere and not in one place only. No one can hide where I cannot see them. Do you not know that I am everywhere in heaven and on earth?
His wisdom is infinite; he knows all things.
Psalm 139:1, ESV O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
7-12 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
The love of God cannot be estimated because His love is without limit.
Ephesians 2:4-7 ESV 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 places 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.
We already read that God even loved us while we were His enemies.
Romans 5:10-11 ESV For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
E. The love of God is immutable, which means His love doesn’t change.
James 1:17 ESV Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
As with God himself, there “is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, so his love never changes.
During Jesus’ last night on earth, one disciple, Judas would betray him; another, Philip, would ask, “Lord, shew us the Father” (John 14:8); and another, Peter, would deny him three times. When they came to arrest Him they all split.
Matthew 26:55-56 ESV At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples left him and fled.
Even with all this Jesus still loved them to the end.
John 13:1 ESV Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
Paul wrote that absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love.
Romans 8:35-39 ESV Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
F. The love of God is holy.
It is not regulated by passion, or sentiment but by principle. God’s love is no mere weakness or softness. God will not wink at sin, even in his children.
Just as I said in my sermon on “The Justice of God”
Too often we have viewed love as soft and naive sentiment, and justice as a hard-nosed demand for punishment. This contradicts the spirit of the New Testament. Jesus was never more just than when he forgave the adulterous woman, never more loving than when he drove the money changers from the temple. With God love and justice are one.
God’s justice shines a bright light on his love, grace, and mercy in a way that nothing else could because not only is God just, but he is our justifier — meaning he alone has the power and ability to make us righteous before him.
Romans 3:25-26 NIV God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
II. What are the results of God’s love?
What does God do because of his love for us?
A. Because God loves us, he saves us.
He prepared his plan of salvation before the foundation of the world. He alone is the author of our salvation.
Ephesians 2:4-7 ESV 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 places 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.
Salvation is grounded in God’s boundless mercy and love. God’s love is that divine unconditional love that sees something infinitely precious in people in spite of their sin.
B. Because God loves us, he sent Christ to die on the cross.
John 3:16-17 ESV “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.
Love has been defined, once and for all, by the act of Christ giving his life for us.
Paul wrote to the Galatians about Jesus.
Galatians 2:20 ESV I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
To the Romans, Paul wrote;
Romans 5:8 ESV but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Love substituted itself, that the one loved, us, might be freed from the slavery of sin and death. The cross is the thing that reveals love.
D. Because God loves us, he helps us.
John 14:16-17 ESV And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
I
John 15:26-27 ESV “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
Because he lives within us by his Holy Spirit, his power is available to us.
1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.
The Holy Spirit helps us in that He will enable us to live the life that God wants us to live.
Ephesians 5:15-21 ESV Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
To some, this may sound like taking the joy out of life. Quite to the contrary, it is love seeking the highest and best for us.
Galatians 5:18-24 ESV But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
III. What should be our response to God’s love?
How should we respond to a love so great?
A. We should respond with conviction of sin.
Realizing that a pure and holy God loved us enough to die in our place should break our hearts, striking conviction, deep and strong, into our souls.
B. We should respond with conversion from sin to Christ.
Conviction is not enough; we must totally commit our lives to Christ for all time to come.
1 Corinthians 2:14-16 ESVThe natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Romans 12:1-2 ESV I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
C. We should respond with commitment to Christ’s way, the way of love
When Paul wrote his first letter to the church in Corinth he didn’t write in chapter and verses so I want to read a part of that letter the way it would have been read to the church
1 Corinthians 12:31-13:3 ESV But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Christian commitment is to be for the things Christ is for and against the things he is against. Love hates war, racial discrimination, injustice, inhumanity, and dishonesty. Love will not stop until it does all it can do to to change conditions. If we love God, everything else will fall into place.
Conclusion
Love is not a luxury in our world. It is the most profound need of humankind. Psychologist Karl Menninger once said, “Half the diseases are due to hate, and half the accidents are due to hate.” He continued, “Love is the remedy.” Then he universalized it: “Love is the medicine for the sickness of the world.” Yes, it is—God’s love, that is.
Here is what that love looks like. It’s in Paul’s same letter to the church in Corinth.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ESV Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
Love is always accompanied by a
ction. Love is something we do.
So, when the Lord commands us to love our enemies He gives four actions that explain precisely what He had in mind.
Matthew 5:43-48 ESV “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
We are to do good things to our enemies.
We are to bless our enemies. That is, say good things to them.
We are to pray for our enemies. Ask God to do His will in their lives.
We are to give to our enemies.
These are the four most basic acts of love: Do good, bless, pray, and give. You do these things to your family and friends and a whole lot more, of course. But these four actions are what the Lord had in mind when He called on us to love our enemies.
We should love God because he first loved us.
Look at our text again;
“I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3).
Let’s Pray.
“Lord, if we don’t do anything else we want to get to know you better and we want to love you a little more.”
Father, Your love never fails. Even when we fail You, You love us all the same. Thank You for a love that never gives up on us. Thank You for the comfort of knowing that we are secure in the promise that nothing can ever separate us from Your love. Thank You for Your perfect love that seeks the best in our lives. We’re grateful for Your sacrificial love that did not withhold the Lord Jesus Christ from us. Thank You for sending Him to die on the cross so that we can truly realize that You love us greatly. You are good. Amen.
Sermon Audio
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