The Love Of God

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. You see, one of the most important things Paul says for you and I to function as believers is you need to know how much God loves you.

How much Christ loves you. You need to know that. He said because if you know that, that knowledge will change your life. You see, that knowledge will empower you. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. One of the worst things that we can do as human beings is to take for granted the true blessings in our lives. We take our health for granted. We take our economic good fortune for granted. We take our marriages for granted. We take our freedom for granted. And when we do this, we lose our appreciation for the very best things that we have. Sometimes I think we need to be reminded about the true blessings in our life.

And that's what I want to do this morning. I simply want to say one thing. God loves you. He always has.

And He always will. Some of you might be thinking, I don't know. I don't know how God could love me.

I've made such a mess in my life. You'd be wrong. Some of you might be thinking that I know that there was a time when God loved me because I could feel His love, but I just don't feel it anymore.

You'd be disillusioned. And for most of us, probably the rest of us, we would say, yeah, I know that God loves me. But really what happens is we end up taking that love for granted. One of our problems when it comes to God loving us is that we often define God's love for us the way we define our love for each other.

And because of that, we're never really sure. Some of you have been abused in the name of love. Some of you have been rejected in the name of love. Christian philosopher Peter Kriff says this, the more important the thing is, the more counterfeits there are. There are no counterfeit paper clips, he said, but there are plenty of counterfeits when it comes to love. Counterfeit ideas of love are all around us. Kindness is often a counterfeit for love. Discipline causes pain, which seems unkind, so parents withhold it in the name of love. But authentic love will administer discipline to achieve long-term good for the child. Sex is often misused as a counterfeit of love, causing unmarried couples to be led down a dead-end path of temporary pleasures instead of the harder but much more rewarding path of long-term marriage commitment. I can't give you a precise definition of the love of God.

I think that would be impossible. But what I want to do this morning as I remind you is I want to try to describe it the best that I can. Open your Bibles to 1 John 4 and verse 7. He starts out by making us the object of God's love.

Beloved. He said, Let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the perpetuation for our sins. The very first way I want to describe God's love is this. God's love is uncaused. Notice He says God is love. Now, nowhere in the Bible do you find that He's description like that God is an attribute. But God is love. Not at the expense of His other attributes.

That's a mistake we don't want to make. But the reason I believe that John writes that God is love is because God is a relational being and relational being needs objects to relate to. And he says God is love.

But notice he says how uncaused this is. In verse 10, In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and He sent His Son to be the perpetuation for our sins. You see, when did God love us? Before He sent His Son.

You see, before He sent His Son. God loved us when we were unlovable. God loved us when we were at enmity with God. You see, God's love is uncaused. We don't love people that way, do we?

That's not the way it works for us. Henry Newman writes this, The world says, Yes, I love you, if you are good looking, intelligent, wealthy. I love you if you have a good education and a good job and good connections. I love you if you produce much or sell much or buy much. There are endless ifs hidden in the world's love.

These ifs enslave me, since it is impossible to respond adequately to all of them. The world's love is and always will be conditional. As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain hooked to the world, trying, failing, and trying again.

It is the world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart, that is to be loved. God's love is not like that. God's love is uncaused. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 1. And again, just to reinforce this, verses 8 and 9. Paul writes to Timothy, he said, Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or me, his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, according to the power of God. He said, Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to works, not according to conditions, not according to something we did.

He said, Not according to works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus. And notice, from all eternity, God's love is completely uncaused. God doesn't love you because of something you do. God loves you because God is love.

It's an extremely important thing for us to understand. God loves you. He always has.

He always will. Secondly, God's love is unreasonable. Turn to Romans chapter 5 and verse 6. For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. He then says this, For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps, he says, for the good man, someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if, while we were at enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. God's love is unreasonable. That's what Paul is trying to say. If you think about it, soldiers in this last century, how many times have they fallen on a grenade for their colleagues?

Many times, on both sides. In other words, it's an honorable thing to do. But that's reasonable.

God's love is not reasonable. Let me ask you an interesting question. Would you die for Jack the Ripper? Would you die for Adolf Hitler? You see, would you die for them? Would you die for child molesters and pedophiles and rapists and serial killers? Would you die for them? Of course you wouldn't. God would.

You see, that seems to us unreasonable. That's exactly what Christ did. And before we get too pious, we have to understand something. Again, if you look at verse 10, he said, for while we were at enemies, that we include you and me. While we were enemies of God, that's exactly what Christ did for you and me. Card-carrying sinners.

That's us. Enemies of God. God says, yeah, I'll die for them. You see, from our point of view, God's love is not just uncaused, but it's unreasonable.

Boy, now I'm so glad it did. That unreasonable love reached across all these centuries and all those miles and touched my life, and I pray touched yours. God loves you. He always has.

He always will. God's love is also unending. Turn to Jeremiah 31 and verse 3. I'll read the beginning in verse 1 through the prophet Jeremiah. It says, At that time declares the Lord. He says, I will be a God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Thus says the Lord.

The people who survived the sword and found grace in the wilderness, Israel, he went to find its rest. The Lord appeared to him from afar and said this. I have loved you with an everlasting love.

Therefore, I have drawn you with loving kindness. I have loved you with an everlasting love. God's love is not only uncaused and unreasonable, it's unending.

Do you appreciate that? Think of Israel and think of how many times Israel was so disappointing to God and did things they should have never done, actually worshiped idols. God says, My love for you is unending.

You don't ever change. He is telling them what I am telling you. He loves you. He always has and he always will. His love is unending. David Jeremiah writes this, God's perfect love for you existed deep in the depths of eternity, even before time began. He created billions of wondrous galaxies, most of which no telescope will ever see.

He created lovely atomic level worlds that no microscope will ever penetrate. He knows all, he transcends all, and he is magnificent, he says, beyond all human imagining. Yet his love for you is so close and intimate that it far outshines that of doting human fathers who, when they first see their newborn infant, often count the baby's fingers and toes.

God numbers the hairs of your head and he does that throughout your life. He knows and cherishes the tiniest details of your life. He watches over you every moment.

He has a plan for your life, and he says, and you have been in his heart longer than the world has existed. You think about that, that that's the way God loves you, with his unending love. How does that make you feel?

You see, how does that make you feel? J. I. Packer, in his classic work, Worth Reading, Knowing God, writes this, What matters supremely is not the fact that I know God, but a larger fact which underlies it. He knows me. I am graven on the palm of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me.

I know him because he first knew me and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me, and there is no moment, he says, when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care ever falters. He says, there is unspeakable comfort in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me in the way that I am so often disillusioned about myself.

How comforting. God's love is uncaused. God's love is unreasonable. God's love is unending.

God's love is unlimited. Turn to Psalm 139, verse 1, O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You said, you know when I sit, and you said, when I rise up, you understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. He knows everything about you. You know, why is it that, by the way, we don't disclose everything about us to other people?

Not only will they not love us, they won't like us. You see, that's, and God says, no, look, you have to understand, I know everything about you. I know every terrible thought you've ever had.

I know every terrible thing you've ever done. You see, I know the larceny in your heart. I know your envy. I know your anger. I know your pride. I know your selfishness.

I got it. I love you. You see, we can't guard ourselves from that, and David understands that and says, I'm overwhelmed by this. He said, even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all. You have enclosed me behind him before and laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is just too wonderful for me.

It's too high. I can't attain it. He says, where can I go from your spirit? Or he says, where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you're there. He said, if I make my bed and shield, there you are. If I take wings of the dawn, he says, and if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will lay hold of me.

Now, I want you to see something here. John said God is love. David is talking about God. I want to take, starting in verse 7, and just wherever there is God, I'm going to say love because they're synonymous in this way. Where can I go from your love? You see, where can I go from your love? Or where can I flee from your love? If I ascend to heaven, your love is there. If I make my bed and shield, behold, your love is there. If I take the wings of dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there, your love is there. You see, no matter where it is, your love is there.

That's why he concludes as he goes on, he says, you know, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and I know why. You love me. You see, you love me.

You love me with a love that is unlimited. Let's reinforce that by going to Ephesians chapter 3. The Apostle Paul says it a little differently, but from his point of view, he's in awe of it as David is. Verse 14 of Ephesians 3, he says, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with the power of his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up with all the fullness of God. Notice what Paul says. He said, I want you to understand, he says, the breadth and the length and the height and the depth. Of what? The love of Christ. He says, I know you can't, because there's no way of measuring it.

It is unlimited. You see, one of the most important things Paul says for you and I to function as believers is you need to know how much God loves you, how much Christ loves you. You need to know that. He said, because if you know that, that knowledge will change your life. You see, that knowledge will empower you.

That knowledge, by the way, will certainly help you in your commitment to Christ. You see, when you see how committed God is to you, it's not a big step for you to be committed to God. When you see how much God loves you, how could you not respond by loving God? His love is uncaused. His love is unreasonable. His love is unending. His love is unlimited. His love is unchanging. Turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 13, verse 1. Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come, that he would depart out of the world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. What a great line. He loved them to the end.

It shouldn't surprise us. Malachi 3.6 writes, I am the Lord. I do not change.

Psalm 33, the counsel of the Lord stands forever. God is unchanging. He's immutable. And it's the same with his love. His love is unchanging.

Now you might think, could you love that way? You see, John knows he's part of a group here. When John is writing this, he said he loved them to the end. He means me and the other guys.

And he loved us to the end. Now I want you to think how disappointing this group is. This is the group that got together and, by the way, when Jesus is in deep, deep trouble because he knows what's happening and he understands the significance of what's going to happen the next day on the cross of Calvary, they're arguing about which one of them is going to be the greatest in the kingdom. They are all saying, I want to be the greatest. No, I want to be the greatest.

No, I'm going to be the greatest. How disappointing that would have been. And then you think of Thomas. Jesus spoke to Thomas and Thomas doubted him. How about Peter?

Thomas doubted him. Peter denied him. Not once, not twice, but three times. Not to the highest officials in the land, but even to a servant girl. And by the third time, it appears as though Peter even cursed and said, I don't even know that blank, blank.

How disappointing would that be? What about Judas? Judas betrayed him. Thomas doubted him.

Peter denied him and Judas betrayed him. But you could put your name in there and I could put mine and I could certainly put some adjective or some verb after my name of what I did to him. But what he says here is he loved him to the end. His love is unchanging.

John Piper writes something great about this. He said, with God, the honeymoon never ends. He is the infinite in power and wisdom and creativity and love. And so he has no trouble sustaining a honeymoon level of intensity. He can foresee all the future quirks of our personality and he has decided he will keep what's good and change what isn't good. He will always be as handsome as he ever was, he says, and we'll see that we get more and more beautiful as the relationship continues. He is infinitely creative to think of new things to do together so that there will be no boredom for the next trillion ages of millenniums.

Think about that. You'll be on your honeymoon with the Lord from the Lord's perspective forever. He never loses all his great qualities and he is determined to make you better and better and better and more beautiful and more beautiful and more beautiful. The honeymoon never ends because the love of the Lord is unchanging.

Wow, so different than us. Uncaused, unreasonable, unending, unlimited and unchanging. That's his love.

And there's more. It's completely unconditional. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

No condition. We know what the status of the world was. It was full of sin. For God so loved the world. Think of the covenants of the Old Testament, the Abrahamic Covenant.

It is called what by theologians? Unconditional. Why is it unconditional? God puts no conditions on it. Well, why did God give it? Because God loves.

You see, there's no conditions. It is an unconditional love. If you want an image of it that you can see and that I can see, think of the prodigal. He disrespects the Father. He grabs his inheritance early. He then leaves the land of his Father. And he goes to a faraway land and he squanders everything with the worst kind of living possible to bring shame to his Father. And then he finds himself in abject poverty, eating what animals eat. And decides, I think, at a moment of enlightenment, maybe I ought to go back to the Father.

And so what is the image then in the Word of God? His Father, and you've heard me say that many times in the past. His Father sees him from a distance and begins to run toward him. Jewish men don't run.

Not in public. You don't run. He runs to him. He belittles himself. He doesn't care. And when he gets to him, what does he do?

He kisses him. And then he throws a party. That's how God loves you. In spite of you. We're all that way.

We're all prodigal children. And he repeats the story of the prodigal in my life on a regular basis. And not because of me.

But simply because of him. His love is unconditional. Uncaused, unreasonable, unending, unlimited, unchanging, and unconditional. And the last one I would say is simply this.

Uncomplicated. It's so simple to him. Because he is love. St. Augustine said this. He said, God loves you as though you are the only person in the world. And he loves everyone the way he loves you.

What a great line. AW toes are in the knowledge of the holy. The love of God is one of the great realities of the universe. A pillar upon which the hope of the world rests.

But it is a personal, intimate thing too. God does not love populations. God loves people. God doesn't love masses. He loves men and women. He loves, he says, us all. With a mighty love that has no beginning and no end. Frankly, Tozer says, I am overwhelmed by that.

I just wonder if we are. This uncaused, unreasonable, unending, unlimited, unchanging, unconditional, uncomplicated love of God. There was a theologian in the last century. And I would not share all of his conclusions, but I have deep respect for his intellect. His name was Karl Barth. He was a great Swiss theologian. He is the father of modern-day neo-orthodoxy. Barth wrote a lot in his life, but his crowning achievement was a work that he wrote called Church Dogmatics. Now before you want to go out and read it, let me explain something to you. It has six million words in it.

He made only one trip to the United States in his lifetime, in 1962. And when he came to the United States and was addressing a student body, typically a student asked him to summarize his extensive biblical theology of his massive work in a short sentence. Karl Barth paused for a moment and looked at the student and said, Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. Exactly right. All the summary.

Simple, uncomplicated words. God loves you. He always has.

He always will. And he loves you with an uncaused, unreasonable, unending, unlimited, unchanging, unconditional, uncomplicated love. Whenever you believe that, whenever you don't take that for granted, whenever you internalize that and you meditate on that great truth, you know what you get? Unspeakable joy.

And you know what else you get? You get within yourself a desire to spend the rest of your lives loving the God who loves you. God loves you. He always has.

And he always will. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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That's fbcnola.org. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.