Trinity Baptist Church

 

We've been looking at this matter of God's love, and trying to understand the kind of love that God has demonstrated. John 3:16 says, "God so loved the world," and we've looked at how God loved the world. The love of God to the world is manifest in His common grace, as theologians call it, or His general goodness.

 

Skies are blue and the grass is green and the flowers grow in the garden of even the unregenerate people and music comforts our hearts and gives wings to the expressions of our emotions and we can enjoy a little child and we can enjoy the fruits of love and labor. And all of that is common grace, common to all people and is manifestation of God's love.

 

And then God manifests His way to the whole world in terms of His compassion. He pities. And we showed in Scripture how God has compassion even to the point where Jesus wept as He looked at the plight of people. We saw the compassion of God also in the healing ministry of Jesus as He touched them in the time of their great need.

 

And God's love to the whole world is seen in warnings. All through the Bible God warns about sin and its effect and its consequences and eternal judgment.

 

 

 

 

Then we see God's unlimited love in the gospel as it is to be spread to the whole world and people are to be told that if they'll come to Christ their sins can be forgiven and they can have the hope of eternal life in heaven forever. That's all God's unlimited love.

 

And so we said that God's love is unlimited in its extent.

 

But the second proposition we started last week and we'll continue it this evening is that God's love is limited in degree.

 

While He loves the whole world He does not love them to the degree that He loves His own. Those who belong to the Lord are the special objects of His love. He had for them a love that is beyond the love that He has for the world.

 

In fact, the love God has for the world is temporal; that is it exists only in the framework of time. It exists only in this life. It is temporary. And eventually, for those who refuse Jesus Christ, that love turns to hate, that hate results in eternal judgment.

 

God does love the world in a temporal temporary way bound by space and time, in the physical realm. But eventually, that love turns to hate and judgment for those who reject Him. And the sad truth is that while God loves the world, extends compassion toward the world, common grace, warnings about judgment and the gospel, Jesus said you will not come to Me that you might have life. Men refuse the gift that God offers. Therefore God's love turns to hate and judgment.

 

But to those who receive God's love, to those who come to Christ, to those who accept Christ as Lord and Savior, believing in His death and resurrection and committing their lives to obedience to His will, to those people God brings a love that is beyond the love that He has for an unregenerate mankind.

 

He loves His own with a love that is far beyond anything that we could ever imagine or fathom and even all eternity will not be able to fully exhaust the demonstration of God's love toward His own. He loves His own with a love that reaches to the fullest of His capacity to love, as we saw last time.

 

And no one has expressed that better than the Apostle John who said, "Having loved His own who were in the world," John 13:1, "He loved them to the end, and that phrase can mean He loves them completely, perfectly, fully, it can mean to the end, to the limit, to the max, to the last. It can mean undying, eternal, ever lasting and it means all of that...all of that.

 

The Lord loves His own in a way that is going to be demonstrated throughout all eternity, and as I said, even all eternity can't exhaust the expression of that love.

 

When John sums it up he does it in these simple words, "See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us?" See how great a love, and he doesn't exhaust a half a dozen or a dozen adjectives because they wouldn't even come close to saying what needs to be said. He just says how great a love that we should be called children of God, 1 John 3:1. It is that great love with which He has loved us. And it is that love that causes us to be called His children. Remember now, He set that love upon us in eternity past before the world began just as He did the nation of Israel, the predetermined sovereign uninfluenced desire and will to love us while we were not yet born and knowing that when we were born we would be unlovable sinners.

 

John again says it as well as it can be said in

 

First John chapter 4 verse 9.  

 

God first loves us. Because God loves us He sends His Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

 

Verse 10, "In this is love." There is love manifest in the gift of Christ, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His son to be the covering for our sins.

 

Down in verse 16 John says, "We have come to know and believe the love which God has for us, God is love and the one who abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him."

 

And then verse 19, "We love because He first loved us."

 

Let's get the sequence right. God determined to love us before the world began. God loved us when we were yet in sin. God loved us when we were not lovable. And it was that predetermination to love us in spite of what we were, that is the essence of God's great redeeming love.

 

The message of the Bible then is God loves sinners and sends His Son into the world to redeem them. To those who believe and accept that redemption He pours out a love that knows no limits forever and ever and ever.

 

How is that love demonstrated? First of all, that He was willing to die for us, and then He will spend the rest of eternity pouring out expressions of that love upon us.

 

It's mystery. How can we ever expect to understand why He would choose to love us in such a way? Why is it that God didn't just say, "Well I'm going to concede to you, you're a bunch of wretched sinners, but I am compassionate and feel sorry for you so I'm going to let you into My heaven and you can enjoy a few things but don't expect a lot?"

 

And why isn't it that there's some minimal expression of God's love to those of us who have sinned against His holy name? Why doesn't He express the maximal levels of His love for the holy angels who never fell and who faithfully throughout all of time have been loyal to love the God who made them?

 

He damned the angels who fell with no hope of redemption. Why would He redeem man? We don't know the answer to that except that He predetermined to love us and by loving us to draw us to Himself.

 

Daniel Whittle wrote the poem for a song that I've sung since I was a small boy. The words express the question that must be on all of our hearts,

 

"I know not why God's wondrous grace to me He hath made known, nor why unworthy Christ in love, redeemed me for His own.

 

But I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day."

 

We don't know why. Maybe in eternity we’ll know, maybe we'll never know why. Why would God love us? There was nothing in us to love. We're no different than anybody else, as we saw last week in Ezekiel chapter 16, God said to Israel, "You are worse than Samaria, you are worse than Sodom, Samaria and Sodom perish in judgment and Israel...He says...I will forgive you."

 

Why? "Because I've chosen to love you." It's an immense incomprehensible mystery, but God loves His own. And because of that He sent His Son into the world to die for us that we might become His children.

 

Now when we become His children by faith in Jesus Christ, what kind of love do we then enjoy?

 

Let's talk about the love He has toward us. And that's really what I want to share with you this evening. Nothing profound, nothing new, but just a reminder of the way in which God loves His own, which is really the essence of our salvation: 

 

God manifesting His love toward those who would come to faith in His son.

 

Let's begin by looking at Luke chapter 15

 

Luke chapter 15 is a very familiar chapter. In it is included the parable of the prodigal son, as it's called. It really is the parable of the forgiving father...it is misnamed the prodigal son, it's really the story of the forgiving father or the loving father.

 

Let's look at Luke 15 and verse 11 through 20

 

Stop at that point.

 

The father is God. The son is the irreligious worldly sinner. Every sinner has in himself a sense of God as a Father. And every sinner has privileges because he is a created in the image of God.

 

This young man pictures the sinner who squanders those privileges in a dissolute irreligious life. He took all of the good things that God had given him by virtue of being created in God's image and he went out and wasted them in loose living, immorality and drunkenness and all that you could imagine.

 

He comes to a point in the midst of his debauchery where he realizes he has hit bottom. He's serving pig slop and having to eat his own meals from the same. And he realizes that this is not the way to live. And so he decides to come to God. Here is the penitent sinner and he comes back to God.

 

And he's coming sorrowful over his wasted life, sorrowful over squandering all of the wonderful gifts that are his by virtue of being created in the image of God. He's wasted his time and all of his opportunity. But he knows where he is. He understands his iniquity. He understands his wickedness. He wants to go back and make things right with his father, with God, and he heads back.

In verse 20 then you see God's love demonstrated toward a penitent sinner.

 

While he's still a long way off, he's still down the road, he hasn't even been able to reach the presence of his father, his father saw him because he was looking. And he felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him over and over...is the indication of the Greek language.

 

Here you have a picture of the character of God's love. And the amazing thing about this love is that it's given toward one who is utterly undeserving, one who has wasted and squandered opportunity and privilege and yet the father sees him, feels compassion for him and runs to meet him and throws his arms around him and repeatedly kisses him.

 

Here is tender mercy. Here is forgiveness. Here is compassion. Here is a father treating the son as if there were no past, as if his sins had been buried in the depths of the deepest sin, removed as far as the east is from the west and forgotten. Here is effusive affection.

 

There is not a reluctance that says, "Well, you know, you've really lived a wretched life and I'm going to let you into the kingdom but I really shouldn't do that" attitude.

 

There is no past. It is gone. It has disappeared. And all that the son experiences is embracing and repeated kissing and hugging and the joy of the father is overflowing.

 

And this is emblematic of how God loves the penitent sinner who comes to him. 

 

He loves him lavishly, He loves him grandly, greatly, affectionately.

 

And the son is so shocked by this, in verse 21 the son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, I'm no longer worthy to be called your sin."

 

It's almost like he pushes him away and says, "Wait a minute, do you understand what I've done? Do you understand what I'm like?" It's almost as if he can't deal with this. This is perhaps the profoundest humiliation.

 

Coming to God is a humbling experience. And the first thing that humbles you when you come to God is the awareness of your sin. He was humbled while he was eating the pig slop. He became very much aware of a wasted and squandered life. He knew what was available to him from the father.

 

He went back, he confessed his sin against heaven and in the sight of his father. He is a true penitent. He is turning from his sin, turning from his wasted life and he comes to God and he is humbled, first of all, by his sin.

 

But then secondly and perhaps more profoundly, he is humbled by God's grace. What is more humbling than the awareness of one's sin is the awareness of God's grace. That is...that is far more humbling.

And he wants to push his father away, and say, "Do you really understand what I've done? You're just pouring out love and affection on me. Do you know who I am?"

 

That is even more humbling. But such is the love of God toward a penitent sinner. It is rich, lavish, effusive, exalting love. The father doesn't even respond to his hesitant questions in verse 21.

 

The father just says to the slaves, "Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fattened calf, kill it and let us eat and be merry."

 

There's not even a regard for the queries of the young man about whether he's worthy or not, he just says start the party, folks. "This son of mine," verse 24, "was dead, has come to life again, was lost, has been found, and they began to be merry."

 

And that's the picture of the love of God toward a penitent sinner. It is not minimal, it is maximal. It is lavish.

 

Turn to Romans chapter 8 and here is another picture of the character of this love. Romans 8 verse 35, this too is an absolutely crucial understanding to give us the greatness of God's love.

 

Verse 35, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Paul asks the rhetorical question, "Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Just as it is written, For thy sake we are being put to death all day long, we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered," that's taken from Psalm 44.

Paul says, what's going to separate us from the love that God gives us in Christ? I mean, we're being put to death all day long, he lived on the brink of death constantly, as we all know. He was always being considered as a sheep to be slaughtered by somebody who wanted him dead. That was his pattern of life. Is that going to separate us? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword?

 

Verse 37, "But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who...what?...loved us."

 

You see, this is personal experience. Paul says I've been through tribulation, God didn't stop loving me. I've been through distress, God didn't stop loving me. I've been through persecution, I've been through famine, I've been naked, I've been in peril, I've stood on the edge of the sword, I've been through all of that and I can tell you, in it all the one who loved me never, ever, ever, severed that love.

 

"And so I'm convinced...verse 38...that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, or things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

 

The second thing we learn about God's love toward His own is that it is Secure. 

 

It is unbreakable, inseparable, unconquerable and ever lasting love. It never fades, it never wavers, it never wanes, it never grows cold and it never changes. God loves us with an everlasting love.

 

Now we're back to the eis telos  “to the end” again, Jesus having loved His own who were in the world loved them to the eternity. It is a love that will never die, never grow cold, never diminish, never fade. A love from which we can never be separated, nothing can separate us, nothing, not death, life, not anything angelic, not anything in the present, not anything in the future...no thing that's created. And everything was created except God Himself. Nothing in existence can separate us from that love.

 

He loves the world, that’s true, but with a temporal love. He loves with world with a love of compassion, a love of goodness. He loves them enough to warn them. But that love is bound by time and when time ends for them, so does that love and they enter into hell and judgment. But His own who believe in Jesus Christ and have come to Him in repentant faith, He loves them with an everlasting love that cannot ever be broken.

 

Look at Ephesians chapter 2 and let's see another passage that defines for us the character of this love.

 

Ephesians chapter 2, some more reminders that I know you're familiar with. Verse 4, and here Paul uses the same term that John does, "His great love with which He loved us." Everything starts out of God's love. This great love with which He loved us.

 

And then he goes on to define this love. "He loved us so much that even when we were dead in our transgressions," there again is that emphasis on having loved us when we were not worthy, "He made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved."

He loved us, first of all. He loved us in our transgression. Out of that love He sovereignly made us alive together with Christ. That is He placed us in Christ by our faith in Christ we were placed on the cross spiritually, we died with Christ, we rose to walk in newness of life so that He literally dealt with our sins and gave us new life through grace.

 

Verse 6, "He then raised us up with Him." We came out of the grave with Christ. "We are now seated with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus."

 

What does that mean? That our real home is in heaven, that our real life is in spiritual dimension that is beyond this world. That's what He did for us. He loved us so much that even when we were dead in our transgressions He made us alive with Christ through grace, He raised us up out of the grave to walk in newness of life. He seated us permanently in the heavenlies, that's now our home, that's our abode, that's where our life is.

 

And why did He do this? Why would He save dead sinners? Why?

 

Verse 7 gives you the reason for all of it. "In order," and that's a purpose clause, "for the purpose that in the ages to come," that's through all eternity, "He might show the surpassing riches of His grace."

 

How's He going to show the surpassing riches of His grace toward us? "In kindness." What? What does that mean? That means God saved us when we were dead in our sins so that He might be able forever to show us His kindness. That's astounding.

 

You say, "We don't deserve His kindness." That's the whole point. That's why He gets so much glory from showing kindness to us. Forever and ever we'll not only thank Him for His kindness but we'll thank Him for His kindness because we know we never deserved it. But that's the point. He loved us so much that He wanted to show kindness to us forever.

 

You say, "What is heaven?" What is heaven? Heaven is where God will show us kindness out of the surpassing riches of His grace forever.

 

You say, "You mean, we're going to go to heaven and God is just going to spend forever being kind to us?" That's right. Now that is a love that transcends. It is a love that gives life. It is a love that promises eternal glory. It is a love that pledges eternal kindness.

 

The eternity of heaven is God being kind to us...kind to us forever and ever and ever. And people sometimes think about heaven and they think, "Oh I don't know, it might be boring up there."

 

Now remember this, God has an infinite mind and God has an infinite number of ways in which He can demonstrate His kindness. And so eternally we will just have exploding on us one experience of God's unsurpassed kindness after another, no two of which would ever be the same. That's how much He loves us, while we were yet sinners.

 

Look at Ephesians chapter 5 and look at another area of this love and that is its purifying aspect.

 

First it is a lavish love; secondly, it is a secure love; third, it is a love that shows eternal kindness; and here it is a purifying love.

 

It says in verse 25, "Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her."

 

Why? "In order that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and blameless."

 

So now we find another purpose. Not only does He want us to experience eternal kindness forever, but He wants us to experience eternal holiness. Christ loved the church enough to die for the church in order to sanctify, that is to separate the church from sin, to cleanse the church by the Word, to bring the church into heaven in all her glory without spot, without wrinkle but holy and blameless.

 

Now the amazing reality of that is there's only one being in the universe that's holy and blameless and that’s God. He loved us enough to make us exactly like Him. That's why John says we'll be like Him when we see Him as He is.

 

It's an incredible thing. God loves us enough to separate us from sin, to cleanse us, to purify us, to bring us into glory without spot, without wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. I mean, the transformation is incredible...from being dead in trespasses and sins to being alive in holiness and perfection.

 

And all of it due to nothing of our own...no worthiness in ourselves, no desirability in ourselves, no achievement in and of ourselves, nothing but God's free grace.

 

What love! No wonder John said, "What great love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God." It is a love that lavishes, it is a love that is securee, it is a love that will demonstrate itself in eternal kindness, it is a love that will demonstrate itself in eternal holiness.

 

Look at Hebrews chapter 12  

 

This too is an important aspect of His love. God always wants the best for His children and He knows that the path to the best is always the path of obedience. Did you get that?

 

 

God knows that the path to the best is the path of obedience. You know, it's like a parent. A parent says, "Well, I really love my child, I really love my child," and doesn't discipline the child, I question the love. Because if you don't discipline your child you're really programming that child for the worst.

 

Love doesn't seek the worst, love seeks...what?...the best. And so love learns to discipline because discipline becomes then protection and the guarantee of blessing. And God says I love you too much not to discipline. We've said that as parents, haven't we? Bend over, this is because I love you...and you get a quizzical look from the kid who says, "Sure." But in the end it is and they learn.

 

But God loves us enough to discipline us. Why?

 

To push us back into the path of blessing.

 

Chapter 12 verse 6, "For those whom the Lord loves He...what?...He chastens," He disciplines. "And He scourges every son whom He receives." It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. "For what son is there whom his father doesn't discipline? If you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, then you're illegitimate children and not sons."

 

If you're not being disciplined by God, you don't belong to Him because if you belong to Him He'll discipline you because He loves you so much.

 

"We have furthermore," verse 9, "earthly fathers to discipline us, we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live? Our earthly fathers disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them. But He disciplines us for our good...here it is again...that we may share His holiness."

 

Not in eternity, that's already going to happen, but in time. "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

 

God loves you enough to discipline you. It is a love that corrects. It is a love that rebukes. It is a love that reproves. It is a love that chastens. It is a love that trains. It is a love that disciplines toward righteousness, toward godliness.

 

This is the saving, justifying, sanctifying, glorifying love that God has for His own and only for His own-- those who believe in Him. How great a love...great enough, said Paul to the Thessalonians, to give us eternal comfort and good hope.

 

And, you see, that's what being loved by God is all about. It's all about God demonstrating this immeasurable and immense love toward those who believe in Him through His Son.

 

It's really impossible to grasp the fullness of it. I've made a feeble effort this evening to give you some sense of the greatness of this love.

 

Let me take you to one other passage that may sort of finalize your thinking with regard to the greatness of this love. Ephesians 3 verse 17, and I'll look at just three verses here with you, Ephesians 3:17 to 19.

 

Now Paul is praying here for the Ephesians and, of course, for all believers. And he's praying in verse 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That is more than a prayer for salvation.  

 

The word "dwell," is a word that means to settle down and be at home. When Christ settles down and is at home in your heart, or to put it another way, when Christ has unrestricted access to every area of your life, when Christ is in control...it's not just that you're a believer, it's that Christ has settled down.

 

When you're committed and devoted to Christ and He has unrestricted access to your life, then Paul says you are being rooted and grounded in love.

 

In other words, you will be solidly, firmly fixed in the love of God when your life is fully yielded to Christ. When every area of your life is yielded to Him and He has that unrestricted access to every part of your life, you will be solidly fixed in the love of God. You will experience that love.

 

That's what Paul meant in Romans 5:5 when he said, "The love of Christ is shed abroad in your hearts." That's what Jude meant in Jude 21 when he said, "Keep yourselves in the love of God."

 

What did he mean? Stay in the position of devotion, dedication and obedience in which you will rooted and grounded in love. If you want to experience the fullness of God's love, then let Christ have unrestricted access to every area of your life. Keep yourself in the love of God. It doesn't mean keep yourself saved, it means keep yourself obedient and devoted to Christ so that you're feeling the full benefits of God's great love.

 

And when you do that, verse 18 says, you will be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and you will be able to know the love of Christ which surpasses...what?...knowledge.

 

The point is the love that we're talking about here is unknowable. It's unknowable by human reason. The human mind cannot know it, the unregenerate can't know it. It is incomprehensible.

 

It surpasses knowledge. But you can know it, he says, you can know the love of Christ which no one else knows. 

 

You can comprehend it in its breadth and its length and its height and its depth when you are rooted and grounded in it.

 

And that happens when Christ has unrestricted access to every area of your life, when Christ fills your life. When Christ has every part of your life then the love of God fills your life and then you will comprehend it.

 

But the point is, you can only comprehend it when you've experienced it.

 

That reminds me of Louis Armstrong the great jazz trumpeter who was once asked to explain jazz. And his classic answer was, "Man, if I've got to explain it, you ain't got it."

 

Now we understand that love is a little like that. If I have to explain it, you ain't got it. But the love of God shed abroad in our hearts through Jesus Christ by faith in Him, if I've got to explain it to you, then you're not experiencing it.

 

But if Christ has unrestricted access to every part of your life, you will be rooted and grounded in love and you will comprehend with the saints, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and you'll know the love of Christ which otherwise is absolutely incomprehensible and unknowable.

 

Some old saint looked at that verse 18 where you have the love of God cubed...do you see it there? It's just the love of God cubed. I mean, just to show the vastness of it. How long is long? How wide is wide? How high is high? How deep is deep?

Well one old saint took the cross and said, "The cross is the illustration of that: the upper arm points to the height, the lower arm points to the depth, and the two cross piece to the breadth and length and they're endless."

 

How broad is God's love? It's to all who believe.

 

How long is His love? It's from eternity past to eternity future.

 

How high is His love? High enough to enthrone us in the heaven of heavens.

 

How deep is His love? Deep enough to reach to the deepest pit of sin and rescue us.

 

There is the sum of it all. It's a love that is broad and long and high and deep and we've seen something of its character in the other passages.

 

And this is God's love that leads to verse 20 and you can't really look at this section without verse 20. Verse 20 says, "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."

 

What is that? It’s a doxology. Well what is causing Paul to burst into a doxology?

 

What is causing it is that he has just comprehended as much as is humanly possible the love of God in Christ and he bursts out in praise.

 

That's God’s love! God loving sinners so much that He makes them His own, forgives them all their sins, pours out kindness for all eternity, makes them as holy and blameless and perfect as He Himself is...by granting to them His own righteousness in Christ. That's His love.

 

And my prayer for you is Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians: 2 Thessalonians 3:5, listen to what Paul wrote,

 

 "May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ." May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.

 

There's a lovely hymn written by George Matheson called "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go."  There’s a sad story behind that hymn. George Matheson, the writer, was to marry the love of his life. When he announced to her that he felt God's call to missionary service she said I don't want to be a missionary and left him, refusing to marry.

 

All alone he wrote these words, "O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee, I give Thee back the life I owe that in Thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be."  

 

God loves you this much. Can you say with Matheson, I give Thee back the life I owe, that in Thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be? That's the question. To be loved of God is to experience God's undying, full, rich love in Jesus Christ and to do what 1 John 4:19 says, we love Him because He first loved us.