Unprecedented Love
“God’s Love For Us”
Watch on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Qrg2oqpkY
Alice thought she had the perfect fiancé. As she got to know Michael and his family, she was impressed by how much his parents loved each other. “They’re so thoughtful,” she said. “Why, your dad even brings your mom a cup of hot coffee in bed every morning.”
Alice and Michael eventually married, and as they left the wedding, Alice again remarked on Michael’s loving parents and his mom’s morning coffee in bed. She said, “Tell me, does it run in the family?”
Michael replied, “It sure does, but you should know I take after my mom.”
One morning, a woman woke up and told her husband about a dream. “I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace for Valentine’s Day. What do you think it means?”
Her husband replied, “Honey, you’ll know what it means tonight.”
That evening, her husband came home with a small package and handed it to his wife. Delighted, she opened it to find a book titled “The Meaning of Dreams.”
When it comes to relationships, love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but when it comes to our relationship with God, His love exceeds our wildest imagination. That’s because, from the very beginning, from the time God created us, He loves us even though He didn’t have to.
Think about this: God doesn’t need us. But He loves us nonetheless, and it isn’t something He’s forced to do; rather, He loves us because He chose us from the very foundation of the world to be His special people, that is, His bride.
The old hymn “The Love of God” describes God’s love as “greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.” It goes on to say that if the skies were a scroll, the oceans full of ink, and every stalk on earth a writing quill, we still couldn’t write of how much God loves us.
God loves us deeply, beyond anything we could ever imagine, and He longs for every one of us to experience the fullness of His love. And here’s something else that’s neat. God offers us the kind of love we need most. If we want real love, ideal love, perfect love, it’s not going to be found in any relationship outside of a relationship with God. Only God’s love is big enough to meet all our needs.
What I’d like to do during our time together is share some ideas and concepts about God’s love for us.
While Valentine’s Day is long gone, God’s love for us will never end. God loves us deeply and longs for us to experience His love.
One significant aspect of God’s love is that He loves us just because. Why “just because”? Because we are His special treasures and He desires to draw us into a deeper love relationship with Him. Therefore, He lures us away from things that are not healthy or helpful, which compete for our affection.
“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” (Jeremiah 31:3 NKJV)
Every minute of every day since we heard God’s call to come and meet with Him, He’s been pursuing a loving relationship with us, seeking to draw us close, just as a mother draws her child close to herself. He wants us near Him.
God loves us “just because,” which means that while His love defies logic, it still has a reason.
First, God loves us simply because it’s part of His very nature. That is, God is love. Because He loves us, He tells us to love others.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7 NKJV)
In fact, God loved us so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us, to take our place and die the death we deserve.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
And so, God loves us because God is love.
Second, God loves us because He created us in His image and likeness. Although sin has marred that image and likeness, God still loves us because each of us has unique value. In fact, God made us to have a relationship with Him.
“God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.’” (Genesis 1:26 NKJV)
We’ve been made in God’s image and likeness, and so within our DNA lies the potential for an intimate relationship with Him.
And so, God loves us just because, not because of anything we’ve done. Quite the opposite: we’ve done everything wrong, and still He loves us.
Next, returning to our verse in Jeremiah about how God has loved us with an everlasting love, we enter into our second concept about God’s love.
This tenacious, steadfast love that God has for us is evident in what the Psalmist says.
“But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him.” (Psalm 103:17a NRS)
Before we ever existed, God loved us. Long before we were born, God fixed His affection on us and chose to love us, not because we earned it, but because that’s who He is.
Before we were born, God knew the worst about us. Therefore, nothing we do will disillusion Him where He would say, “Didn’t see that coming. I guess I made a mistake.” God doesn’t make mistakes.
J.I. Packer, in his book “Knowing God,” wrote, “God’s love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on the prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself.”
Now, not only does God love us from everlasting, but He will love us to everlasting. His love will never end. This is a lifelong and eternal love.
In the chorus of “One Thing Remains,” it says, “Your love never fails, never gives up, never runs out on me. On and on and on it goes. It overwhelms and satisfies my soul. And I never, ever, have to be afraid. One thing remains.”
The one thing that remains is God’s unchanging love toward us, which brings us to the next concept about God’s love.
Does God ever change? Through the prophet Malachi, the Lord said, “No.”
“I the Lord do not change.” (Malachi 3:6a NKJV)
But we also read numerous examples of God changing because of the people’s repentance. In fact, God gives this promise.
“Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from his evil way. Then I will relent and not bring on them the disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done.” (Jeremiah 26:3 NKJV)
But what does that mean? It means God is creating opportunities for us to turn from our sins and escape the punishment due.
So, when the Lord said, “I do not change,” what is God’s unchangeable nature? May I suggest that, in His love, He desires to bless us! I believe this is the case, as the Lord went on to say through Malachi,
“So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.” (Malachi 3:6b NKJV)
But when we turn away from God and rebel against His word, He changes His approach and brings discipline. He does so not to hurt us but to help bring us back into relationship with Him.
Proverbs 3 says, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction; for whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights. (Proverbs 3:11-12 NIV)
And so, in His love, God disciplines us when we stray from the love relationship and toward what is wrong and hurtful, just as a parent disciplines a child when they have done something wrong or when they are about to be hurt by their actions.
And the purpose of God’s discipline is to bring us back to Him, because God cannot bear to have us separated from Him. God will never give up on us, nor will He ever abandon us, even though we may have given up on Him and abandoned Him.
And that’s comforting to know. While we may put other things before God, God still loves us and will discipline us so that we will not stray too far.
And when we repent, that is, when we turn back to God from the path we were on, God relents, that is, God changes His discipline into a blessing.
Therefore, God’s love for us is unchanging, even if it results in discipline.
We can see God’s amazing, unchanging love for us in the Old Testament book of Hosea. Even though the people turned to other gods and rebelled against God, God still declared His unfailing, unchanging, everlasting love for them.
“How can I give you up, Israel? How can I let you go? How can I destroy you like Admah and Zeboiim? My heart is torn within Me, and my compassion overflows.” (Hosea 11:8 NLT)
As a point of context, Admah and Zeboiim (Ad’-mah, Ze’-boim) were cities destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah.
This was God’s love for Israel, even though Israel continually broke His heart because of their rebellion. In His love, God continually warned the people, but they refused to listen. Finally, in love, He disciplined them, because He loved them.
And so, while we may have failed in one way or another, God’s love never fails and is always going to be there for us. In His love for us, He always brings us back to Himself. For this to take place, we must confess our sins and repent, that is, turn away from our sins and turn toward God. When we do, God’s love will overflow into our hearts and into our lives.
God’s love is infinite. His love has no limitations or boundaries, so we’ll never be able to go beyond His love.
The Apostle Paul said, “May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is.” (Ephesians 3:17b-18 NLT)
Paul then said we’d know and experience the greatness of God’s love, and that it’s far greater than anything we’ll ever know, and that it’ll accomplish within us infinitely more than we would ever dare to hope for.
God’s love is limitless, and no situation we’ll face is beyond His strength, encouragement, and hope to see us through.
Paul said, “May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father, who loved us and in His special favor gave us everlasting comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and give you strength in every good thing you do and say.” (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 NLT)
This means that God doesn’t parcel out His love; rather, His love is boundless and flows endlessly toward us. We might say it this way: God’s love literally floods our hearts.
God’s limitless love gives us all the encouragement and hope we’ll ever need, and His love will never fail because it’s by His grace, not by anything we do.
This leads me to another aspect of God’s love, and that is,
God’s love is inseparably linked with His grace, which is the basis upon which He first chose us and the basis upon which He continues to lavish His love.
“But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.” (Romans 5:20b NKJV)
God’s love is so great that no sin is beyond God’s ability to forgive. We just have to confess and repent.
We see God’s grace and his unchanging love in the story of the prodigal son.
Here, the son asked for his inheritance early, in essence rebelling against his father’s rule. He then took that money and committed all kinds of sin until it ran out. Having no money left, he hired himself out to a pig farm, where he had to muck out the pens and feed the pigs their swill. It got so bad that the pig swill started to look good.
Then it says that he came to himself; that is, he realized how well his father took care of those who worked for him, and so he headed back home, hoping only to be hired as one of the workers.
And here’s the really neat part. The father was waiting for his son to return home, keeping watch for him day and night. When the father saw his son coming, he ran to him, put his arms around him, put new clothes on him, placed the family’s signet ring on his finger, and welcomed him back into the family.
And this is the same grace we all need. God shows His love to anyone who’s in desperate need and willing to admit their condition. But we must be willing to say, “I’m messed up, I’m needy, and I’m unable to do this in my own strength. So I bring all of my messed-up, needy, and weak self to You, Father.”
And God says, “I’ll take you just as you are because I love you.”
God’s love for us is based on His grace, and through His grace He made the way for us to come to Him through His Son, Jesus Christ.
With that said, I come to my last point.
When it comes to human love, we like to see more action behind the words. As the saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words.”
The Bible is full of words about God’s love for us, but God also backed those words with action by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross. God paid the highest possible price so that we could experience the fullness of His love and have a personal relationship with Him.
It was costly, sacrificial love.
Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13 NKJV)
Now, such love is foreign to us and to our sinful nature.
Paul said, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8 NKJV)
Jesus went beyond dying for His friends; He died for His enemies, that is, for you and me, because we are all sinners. He sacrificed Himself for us so that we could have an everlasting love relationship with Him.
Conclusion
And so God’s love is truly the greatest of all.
God is immeasurably generous in His love for us. His love continues to give and is never depleted. He gives that love abundantly and without measure.
The question becomes, “Are we ready to receive it?” God wants to lavish His love on us, so this morning let’s open our hearts to Him, knowing He is reaching His heart out to us.
