Trinity Baptist Church

 

We are very much aware of the great truth of John 3:16 that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The real story of the Bible is the story of a loving God. The Bible says God is love. It is consistent with God's nature to love.

 

And that wonderful truth is unique to Christianity. The reason it is unique to Christianity is because Christianity is the only true religion in the world therefore it is the only religion that reflects the true God.

 

And the author of all other religions in the world is Satan who has no comprehension of love, no capacity to love and so that which he spawns by way of religion is void of love. The false gods of the world's religions are not known for their love. They are fearsome, angry, selfish, threatening deities who must be constantly appeased or their temperamental character will motivate them to inflict pain, torture and even death on their subjects.

 

When Christians say God is love, they are announcing something that is unique to their faith. And never is God's love more evident than in the gift of Jesus Christ. And so we it is extremely important that we come to understand it and embrace it. 

 

IN order to grasp the character of God's love in some manageable ways and to begin to understand it, I have offered to you three propositions.

 

 

First of all, God's love is unlimited in extent...God's love is unlimited in extent. Secondly, God's love is limited in degree. And thirdly, God's love is ultimately directed at His own glory.

 

Now the last time we discussed this we considered the principle or the precept that God's love is unlimited in extent. And we saw that because it says in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world." Titus 3:4 talks about God's love for mankind. We find in 1 John 2:2 that He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world, because as John 4:42 and 1 John 4:14 say, Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.

 

And so we talked about the fact that there is a sense in which God's love is unlimited. And God has demonstrated that unlimited love by sending His Son to be the Savior of the world.

 

That universal love, that unlimited love is demonstrated in four ways. First of all, in common grace, that is to say that it rains on everybody and everybody enjoys sunlight and blue sky and fresh air and flowers and affection and families and all the good things of life. God demonstrates His love in His kindness toward all.

 

Secondly, that universal, unconditional, unlimited love of God is revealed in compassion. God has pity. God were He a human would cry and when He became one, He did. There is compassion and pity with God toward all the distresses of all men.

 

 

 

Thirdly, God's universal love is demonstrated in His warnings. Throughout all of Scripture and throughout all of redemptive history, God has repeatedly warned about the consequence of sin, the inevitability of eternal judgment. Those are warnings out of the love of God who is not willing that any should perish and who has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

 

And then fourthly and finally, God's universal love is demonstrated in the Gospel invitation, that is in calling all sinners to repent and embrace Jesus Christ. The gospel was designed then to be extended to the whole world and preached to every creature because Jesus Christ, in fact, is the Savior of the world.

 

Romans 10:13 sums it up by saying, "Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved." "Whosoever will, let Him come," it says in the book of Revelation. God then loved the world enough to provide a sufficient atonement for their sins and to call them all to repentance and faith.

 

That is God's unlimited love.

 

But there is a second proposition and it is this,

 

 

What I mean by that is God's universal love has its limits.

 

First of all, let me suggest this to you, that when that universal love of God is rejected, when it is spurned, when it is denied, it turns to hate.

 

You say, "You mean God reaches the point where He hates the ungodly?" I would never say such a thing were it not said in Scripture.

 

Listen to Psalm chapter 5, verse 5. 

 

Psalm 11:5

 

That's why we have to say that while there is a sense in which God's love is unlimited, there is another sense in which it is limited. His universal love is temporal. It is limited to time. It is not eternal. It is not complete.

 

And I might add, it is not necessarily a saving love. In a sense it is because it says He is the Savior of all men, but that means in a temporal way, that He delivers them in this life from the judgment they deserve and lets them breathe and live. But there are limits. He loves them only in this world, only for a while and when they are fixed in rejection toward Him, His love turns to hate.

 

And so, the universal love of God is not nearly to the degree of His love for His own. And so when we make this second proposition that God loves in a limited degree, we're talking about a very, very important reality.

 

There are some people who would like to believe that God will just love everybody so much that ultimately they'll all get saved. And if they don't get saved, then He'll take them to heaven anyway and forgive them on the other side of the grave. No...no, God's love, when ultimately rejected, turns to hate and God's love universal becomes animosity and vengeance when it is rejected.

That's what prompted the Apostle Paul to write in 1 Corinthians 16:22, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed."

 

Literally, let him be damned. God's love, His temporal love, His temporary love which is to all men spurned turns to hate.

 

But let's talk about this second love, that love which is unique to believers.

 

Turn to John 13

 

Now we're talking about a love of a completely different kind, to a completely different degree. His love for those who believe, His love for those who respond to the gospel is far greater than His love to the world in general. And this love which is to the greatest degree is limited only to those who believe.

 

John 13:1 sets the scene. It is the last Passover meal that Jesus is having with His disciples. This is the night Judas will go out to betray Him. The next day He will be arrested and executed. He knows He is on the brink of that. And that's the scene as John writes. 

 

13:1

 

There is no question, as I pointed out, that He loves the world in an unlimited sense, but He also has a special love for His own who are in the world. And how is that love defined?

 

By this phrase, "He loved them to the end."

 

That is the descriptive that tells us what it means that He loves His own who were in the world. He loves the world. But to a completely different degree, He loves His own who are in the world. And it is described as loving them to the end.

 

Now that little phrase "to the end" is the key to unlocking this understanding.

 

From the Greek, it could be translated “in the end” or “to the end”. Either would be acceptable. But let me give you the broadest possible understanding of that phrase which I think is its intention.

 

 

The root of the word translated “end” is “telos”. It is related to the word “tetelesti”. which Jesus said on the cross when He said it is finished. It means completely, perfectly, fully, comprehensively.

 

Now catch this: Jesus loves the world,  but He loves His own perfectly, completely, fully, omprehensively.

 

Let me say it simply, He loves His own as much as He can love. He loves His own to the complete extent of His capacity to love. He loves His own enough to make them equal to Jesus. As far as redeemed humanity could bear any equality, He makes us joint-heirs with Christ to inherit everything that is His, and He makes us into His very image. 

 

He lavishes us with all of the blessings of eternity. He loves us as fully and completely as a redeemed human could ever be loved by a God whose love knows no limits. That's what “To the end” conveys.

Secondly, it can mean to the last or to the end.

 

In that regard, it would be saying that He loves us all the way to the end of life. It never changes. That love will never turn to hate. There never will be a time when some limit to it is imposed. He will continue to love us right on to the end.

 

And this was such an appropriate time to say that because frankly, if this love were somehow conditional on us, there would be every reason for it to wane.

 

I mean, He's gathered in the upper room with His disciples and He's very much aware of their failures and their weaknesses and their disappointing actions...very much aware that they struggle to comprehend the simplest truths, very much aware that they are a cowardly disloyal frightened group who very soon will demonstrate that by scattering all over the place when He is taken prisoner.

 

The most outspoken among them will deny Him with a curse. Even after the resurrection they will be pining away in unbelief and He'll have to appear to them to let them know He's alive. Even after they're able to see Him in His post-resurrection appearance, even after they've touched Him and heard Him and seen Him, they will still lapse in to significant disobedience and He will have to confront them in Galilee and restore them and call them back into ministry and even ask the question...Do you love Me? And when He's hanging on the cross dying for their sins, they won't be there...with the exception of John and some women.

 

Now He knew all their weaknesses and there was every reason to assume that He had given it a good shot and He had loved them as much as they could experience, and this is what He got in return.

 

And as if all that was not enough, at the very supper where He is with them now they are arguing about which of them is going to be the greatest in the Kingdom...blatant pride and self-promotion and boastfulness as opposed to the humility which He had exemplified before them.

 

And He has to exemplify again immediately after this by washing their dirty feet and showing them how to humble themselves.

 

To put it simply, there wasn't a lot to love. But He loved them to the end. In other words, this was a love that would never ever die, it would never ever wane. It didn't matter what they did because it wasn't conditioned on that. If it had ever been conditioned on that it never would have existed in the first place.

 

 

It means not only will He love them to the end of their life, not only will He love them to the end of His life, but He will love them forever.

 

 

 

 

 

In fact, He will tell them a few moments after this, "I'm going to heaven to prepare a place for you that where I am there you may be also," which is to say I love you to the degree that I will take you to be with Me forever. This all is contained in the phrase “to the end”. 

 

This is not just some general love that extends itself in common grace, in compassion, in warning and in the call to the Gospel. This is not a temporary temporal brief love that turns to eternal hate for all who spurn it, this is something different.

 

The degree of this love is very limited, it is limited to His own. That's the key phrase, it is limited to His own. And on their behalf it is a love that is as comprehensive as God can love, that lasts as long as life lasts and then beyond that lasts forever. That's God's love for His own. And He is about to make the single greatest demonstration of that love by dying for those He loved.

 

"Greater love hath no man than this," Jesus said, "than that a man would lay down his life for the ones he loves." And that's what He will do. And the ones He loves are not worthy, that's evident. They're not the people who have somehow earned it. They are the people who by grace have been granted it. "While we were yet sinners God commended His love toward us." How? "In that Christ died for us."

 

He's only a few hours away from His death where He will demonstrate that He loves His own perfectly. He loves His own through all of life. And He loves His own forever. This is the greatness of this love.

 

He faces the cross. He faces the sin bearing, the agonizing separation from God, the painful, lonely, forsaken execution and murder. And yet like a father who loses himself in the love of his children, as He Himself faces death, He wants to affirm how much He loves these utterly unworthy men.

 

And beyond them, all who are included among His own. It is a love that only those who belong to Christ can experience. It is a unique and marvelous love. It is a love that gives its life. It is a love that forgives. It is a love that saves. It is a love that gives eternity and all its glories.

 

Now when you try to grasp the uniqueness of this love, you're looking for an illustration to grab and I want to share one with you. But you need to know, it's going to take some time to develop it. But it's worth the time.

 

The best way to illustrate the different kind, the different quality, the different degree of love that those who are His own experience is to go to the Old Testament and look at Israel because Israel was His own people. And they provide for us a very good illustration.

 

Let's go back to Deuteronomy chapter 7.

Here God is speaking about Israel, His chosen people. They are the elect nation called "Israel, My elect, chosen before the foundation of the world to be His nation."

 

Note verse 6

 

Why was Israel God's people? Not because they chose God, but because God chose them. Plain and simple.

 

And then notice this choosing is connected to love. 

 

verse 7-8

 

Why did He love them? Because He chose to love them.

 

There you go, there's the picture. He loved you first, then He chose you, then He redeemed you.

 

Keep reading: 

 

verse 9-10

 

Now stay with me: God loves by His own will. Out of His love He chooses. He makes a covenant and He will not break it but He will redeem whom He loves. That's the pattern.

 

Now to see that pattern unfold in the most graphic terms of the whole Old Testament, go to Ezekiel 16.

 

This is the longest chapter in Ezekiel's prophecy. There are 48 chapters, chapter 16 is the longest. It is the most vivid. It is the most dramatic. And it is the most forceful chapter in Ezekiel and one of the most dramatic in all of Scripture.

 

And what it does is explain to us this unique love that God has for His own. He loves so He chooses and He will redeem whom He loves and chooses. It is an incredible chapter.

 

Now let me give you some warning. It is very graphic. It is very distressing. It presents the nation Israel in such loathsome and sordid terms that rabbis within Judaism through the years have not permitted this chapter to be read in any public meeting.

 

But the truth is, the chapter is not primarily about Israel's iniquity. It is about God's maintaining His love toward a grossly sinful people, and to not read it disconnects you from the most profound truth of all Scripture, and that is that God has set His love by His own will upon a certain people, chosen them and will redeem them.

 

So when you miss the distressing picture of Israel, you will also miss the profound demonstration of God's love. This chapter focuses on God's electing gracious, saving, forgiving, eternal love for those He designates to be His own. Let's start at the beginning.

 

1-3

 

At this point in history Jerusalem is God's city, Jerusalem the beloved. It belongs to the nation Israel. It is to be a place for the worship of the true God, a worship place is there, a temple is there.

 

 But something tragic has happened. He says Jerusalem is full of abominations. He's referring to idolatry, the worship of false gods and idols. And the Lord says to Ezekiel, you've got to tell Jerusalem that I know about her abominations. And here is what the Lord wants to say. 

 

You're going back to your roots because your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites and your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. Amorite and Hittite are general names for the dwellers of Canaan. They simply scoop up all the pagan idolatrous tribes that were there when Israel arrived. Jerusalem once was in the hands of pagans. And he says you've gone back to those pagan abominations, you've gone back to being like it used to be.

 

Later on in the chapter he'll say there's a proverb like.."like daughter like mother," you've gone back to the way your mothers behaved...the Amorites and the Hittites. You've filled this city and you've filled this land with pagan idolatry.

 

Now keep in mind Jerusalem is a symbol for the whole nation.

 

Notice verse 4-5

 

He's talking about Israel.

 

You know, when a baby was born and it wasn't wanted, it was born to a prostitute, she couldn't carry on her profession with a baby in her life and so a prostitute typically would take that baby and throw it in an open field to be eaten by cur dogs and animals to die. She wouldn't even wash it.

 

In those ancient times they would take a salt solution to cleanse that which coated the little body as it came out of its mother's womb. That was not done.

 

With the umbilical cord still dangling out of the little stomach of that infant, it was just pitched into a field and God says that's how you were when I found you in Egypt.

 

Nobody in the world wanted you, you were a slave people. Nobody cared about you. You were defenseless, you were poor, you were liable to perish, you were loathed and abhorred by everybody. You were an outcast. You were unwanted. You were nobody. No compassion. That was Israel, unwanted, uncared for.

 

Now this is the marvelous reality that God decides to set His love on that child...dirty and outcast and left to die in the midst of a pagan world. He's talking about Israel's time in Egypt. They were scum. They were outcasts. They were waste material.

 

verse 6

 

I came along and I picked you up out of Egypt and I gave you life. Why? Because I determined to love you. Why? Because there was something lovable? No, you were ugly and bloody and dirty. Nobody wanted you. There was nothing about you to elicit compassion. But I passed by and saw you squirming and I gave you life. And here He's talking about the early period of growth as the nation Israel comes out of Egypt and comes into the promise land and starts to form.

 

verse 7

 

 

 

This looks at Israel, they've sort of become a nation and they're starting to grow and develop but there's no wealth and civilization is very limited, it's a pretty wild group, nomadic.

 

verse 8a

 

What does that mean? Marriage time. Israel had reached maturity.

 

Verse 8b

 

It wasn't proper anymore to be naked, you weren't a child anymore, you were an adult and you had reached the time of love and you couldn't be naked and so I covered you. I spread my skirt. That was a custom, by the way, which signified espousal to a marriage. You can read about it in Ruth chapter 3 verse 9.

 

So God says, I not only picked you up out of the field when you were a bloody dirty infant but I carried you until you grew. And then when you became mature enough, I deemed it proper to marry you.

 

Verse 8c

 

So this is the marriage of God to Israel. He just determined in His sovereign will to love Israel. That's all there is to it. Nothing lovable about her.

 

And then He describes what the wealthiest king would do for his bride.

 

Verse 9

 

It's like picking up a wild woman out of the most uncivilized kind of culture.

 

10-14

 

The love here is incredible, isn't it? This is just lavish, absolutely lavish. This is what we would call today a "makeover" of major proportions. This is what God did when He brought Israel to full bloom. And there came David and the kingdom flourished and it was magnificent and it was powerful and it was revered.

 

And then came Solomon and it was the greatest kingdom in the world. And the Queen of Sheba came because of the wonder of it, just to see it all and the beauty and the royalty of it was all because of the goodness of God.

 

And then verse 15

 

Yeah, you got widely known and you started having all kinds of opportunities to interface with all kinds of nations and people, and you became enamored with your beauty and how great you were. And you started to have relationships with all these others and you poured out your harlotries on every passerby who might be willing. 

 

Can you imagine that? This wife been picked up as a baby, nurtured until she was marriageable and then espoused to God and then wed to God and then adorned with royalty and now all of a sudden she is out on the street and she will commit adultery with any person who passes by. And this, of course, has reference to her harlotries, her spiritual harlotries in the worship of idols. Israel embraced all kinds of idols.

verse 16-17

 

In other words, you took your own clothes and turned them into shrines to the false gods.

 

When they were wealthy and God had given them silver and given them gold, they used it to buy idols, to form idols, to build alliances with pagan nations.

 

Verse 18-20

 

Notice how many times He says "My." It was always from Him.

 

Things became so bad, they took their little babies and they put them on a fire to the god Moloch and let the fire burn the little baby to appease the deity.

 

Verse 20b – 26

 

Literally the whole land was completely engulfed in idols.

 

Verse 27 – 29

 

It's an insatiable lust for spiritual adultery.

 

Verse 30

 

And then He says something that is just amazing.

 

Verse 31 – 34

 

Here the harlot is paying the person seeking harlotry.

 

You see the degree to which they've gone?

Verse 35

 

"Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord," here comes judgment.

 

Verse 35 - 43

 

What's that? The Babylonian captivity. God says I'm going to bring this about and you're going to be hauled off into captivity. And that is exactly what happened in the Babylonian captivity. Ezekiel is predicting 586 B.C. when Israel was destroyed and the whole nation massacred and the remaining living people carried off into the Babylonian culture to be refined.

 

Then notice what comes next.

 

Verse 44

 

What does that mean? Her mother was the Hittite and the Amorite and she's acting like her mother.

 

verse 45

 

In other words, you're just living out what you were. You've gone back in spite of My love. 

 

I won't take the time to read all of it but in verse 46 to 59 is an incredible section. He says your older sister in verse 46 is Samaria who is north of you, your younger sister who is south of you is Sodom. You're acting like Samaria and Sodom. Sodom which was consumed once by fire and brimstone and now has come back and been repopulated with paganism. Samaria judged by God and now has come back in paganism.

You're obviously the daughter of your mother and your father, the Amorites and the Hittites, you are pagan and to a degree beyond Sodom and beyond Samaria. Your abominations are worse and you're going to be more humiliated than Samaria and Sodom who are your sisters, for they too were born of the Amorites and the Hittites.

 

In fact, verse 57 says you have become the reproach of the daughters of Edom and of all who are around here, of the daughters of the Philistines, those surrounding you who despise you. Everybody sees how corrupt you are, even the pagans.

 

Verse 59

 

Is it any wonder that the rabbis don't like to have that read? All that, an unbelievable indictment ending in the Babylonian captivity, ending in the pagan world looking at the lewdness of Israel and thinking them to be worse than they were when in fact that is exactly the case.

 

Listen, they were less lovable in the beginning and they were more wretched after God made them His bride than any of the people around. They started out being the least, they ended up being the worst. And that's why the end of the chapter is so utterly shocking.

 

Verse 60

 

What is this? Why not do it with the Sodomites, they're a better bunch? Why not Samaria, they're better? You don't understand. These are the people I have chosen to love and with whom I have made a covenant that is an ever-lasting covenant.

I will love them eternally, I will love them enough to provide an offering for their sin. Why? Because I determined to do so.

 

Verse 61-63

 

Is that not overwhelming? I'm going to silence you, I'm going to reduce you to humiliation. How? By forgiving you. By forgiving you? Why didn't He forgive Sodom? Didn't choose them. Why didn't He forgive Samaria? Never made a covenant with them.

 

You see, when God loves whom He chooses to love and determines to make a covenant with those people, that covenant is an ever-lasting covenant. 

 

Sodom was destroyed and unredeemed, Samaria unredeemed, Israel worse than both and yet God forgave her.

 

Why is it that God would so forgive? Because He set His love on Israel...listen to this...and made Israel His own possession. They're Mine, He said. And His love for them is very different in degree than that compassionate warning love that He has for the whole world. This love is perfect. This love is comprehensive. This love is complete. This love is saving. This love is eternal. It is this love that caused Him to lay down His life for His own.

 

Let me give you a personal illustration. Second Samuel chapter 12, we've seen a national one, I want to close with a personal one.

 

Second Samuel chapter 12, this really points up how that love focuses on an individual.

You remember David's terrible sin with Bathsheba. He had committed adultery with her and caused her husband to be executed. And then and God, of course, was very displeased and the child of that adultery died.

 

He then married his adulteress and she was very sad because the baby died, an illegitimate baby, conceived in iniquity. But now they're married.

 

Verse 24 of 2 Samuel 12, David comforted his wife Bathsheba. He was trying to comfort her because her baby died. And he went into her and lay with her and she gave birth to a son and he named him Solomon.

 

Look at the next line, it says, "Now the Lord...what?...loved him." What does that mean? It just means that, the Lord loved him. The Lord determined to love Solomon.

 

Solomon is a baby. Solomon doesn't believe or not believe. The Lord set His love on him. But he was a child born of a sinful wicked union.

 

But the Lord loved him.

 

But when he grew up, I mean, he had hundreds of wives. A man is not only an adulterer who does that, he is a fool. And then he had concubines. Why...why would the Lord love him?

 

Because the Lord delights in loving sinners. He just loved him because He chose to love him.

 

Now for commentary on that, look at Nehemiah 13:26. 

 

It says this, "Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin regarding these things?" Yes, you know, all of his foreign wives which brought idolatry and all kinds of things in. Here we're back to the same kind of sin the nation committed. Didn't he sin? Yes.

 

"Yet among the many nations there was no king like him. He had foreign women caused him to sin, but God made him king over Israel," and then it says in the middle of the verse, "he was loved by his God."

 

People, that's all you can say. For whatever purpose exists in the mind of God, He chooses to love whom He chooses to love. And whom He chooses to love He forgives and redeems...the rest are left to the consequence of their own sinful choices. So when we talk about God's love, there is a love that is unlimited, but there is a love that is limited only to His chosen people.

 

You say, "Well, how do I know if I'm chosen?" It's not hard. Do you believe? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you believe that He came into the world as God in human flesh? That He died on a cross to bear your sins and rose again the third day? Do you believe that He is the only way in which your sin can be forgiven and you can go to eternal heaven if you believe? You were chosen.

 

I like the way Bill Stafford says it: I got elected and didn’t even know I was nominated!

 

Stirring in your heart. . .