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God's Love Matters - Part 1

Fellowship in the Word / Bil Gebhardt
The Truth Network Radio
February 10, 2022 7:00 am

God's Love Matters - Part 1

Fellowship in the Word / Bil Gebhardt

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February 10, 2022 7:00 am

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Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

This will make all the difference in your life. God loves you. He always has, He always will. There are no conditions to God's love whatsoever.

It's an amazing thing. Your goodness can't win God's love. Your badness can't lose God's love. All you can do though is resist God's love.

It is a fact. And so he says, who will separate us from the love of Christ? What a tremendous question. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? 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. This past week I was reading a book by Sky Jethani. The title kind of intrigued me. The title was Reimagining the Way You Relate to God. In one of the parts of the book he writes about meeting with college students, Christian college students, at a large university, except these students were different.

They met in an underground safe house during the week. They called it the House of Despair. And they were struggling, tremendous struggles and difficulties with a life of faith in this world. And so the group was known for being abusive of alcohol, drugs, promiscuous sex and raw language.

That was the way the group was known. And so what happened with Jethani is he wanted to ask them a series of questions. And so he did. The first question he asked was, how many of you were raised in a Christian home? And virtually every kid there put their hand up. And then he asked him, how many of you attended a Bible centered church?

And they all put their hand up again. That was intriguing to him. And so he began to have discussions with him and questions. And he found something out that really alarmed him. Not one single student that he interviewed or talked to, not one ever said to him, even when he tried to lead them in questions, God loves me.

Not one. He writes this, then he says, I did not blame the students for this failure. Somewhere in their spiritual formation, they were taught either explicitly or implicitly that what mattered was not God's love for them, but how much they could accomplish for God.

That night, I finally understood why they called it the house of despair. He goes on in the book and said, we begin to doubt God's love for us two different ways. One, when we are the victims of evil. Whenever something terrible happens to us, it's catastrophic to us, we begin to doubt whether God really loves us or not. And then secondly, he says, when we are the agents of evil.

In other words, I've done something so terrible that God couldn't possibly love me anymore. It's interesting, though, when we think about the first one, God never promised us in the word of God that we would live a life untouched by evil. In fact, in the word of God, we're reminded over and over and over again that evil is pervasive. It's everywhere. It's all around us. And it will affect each and every one of us. The other thing is, in the word of God, we see over and over again that there's nothing you can do that could ever possibly separate you from the love of God.

Let me just give you examples. Adam and Eve. Now, you talk about somebody who did something that's kind of catastrophic.

This is it. They sinned. And that's why you sin. And that's why I sin. That's why we all sin. That's why everybody sins and always has an enormous consequence on the human race.

And God never stopped loving them. God shows up and says, Adam, where are you? I want the relationship. He tells Eve, look, I love you so much, I'm going to put a plan into play. What I'm going to do here is through your seed, I'm going to win you back to me. And we know that seed is Jesus Christ. Think of Noah. You know, a hundred years building the ark and he gets to have his whole family on board.

And when it's all done and they're finally delivered and everybody else is gone, Noah goes in a drunken stupor, completely naked in front of his family. But God kept loving him, honored everything that he said to him. Think of Moses. Moses, even before he got involved in ministry, murdered an Egyptian. And then at the end of his ministry, he got so upset with the way the people were. And if you read the Book of Numbers, you'll know why.

But he got so upset, he struck the rock, remember, with the stick. And there were consequences to his sin. But not to God's love. In fact, when Jesus Christ shows up on the Mount of Transfiguration, the two characters that show up with him are who? Moses and Elijah. Think of David.

A man described us after God's own heart. What kind of man was David? Well, he committed adultery.

But it's worse than you think. He not only committed the adultery, then David orchestrated the murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite. David went on even after he was king, and God said, don't take a census. And David said, I think I'll take it anyway. God never stopped loving David at all. Think of Peter.

You see, we think of that ourselves. Think of Peter. He denied the Lord to a servant girl three times. I don't know who he is. I have no idea who he is. I'll tell you the last time, the implication is he swore.

And I don't know who that blankly blank is. Remember, Jesus reconciled with him and asked Peter, do you love me, Peter? Because I love you.

You see, this is paramount to us as people living as sinners in a fallen world. God loves you. He always has. He does right now.

He always will. This is so important to God because it changes everything about your life when you finally are convinced that that's true for you. Open your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8 and verse 35. Verses 35 to 39 to me might be the greatest verses ever put together in the Bible. If you really think about these verses, at least for me, it gives me goosebumps.

These verses imply something so amazing, so astounding, so wonderful that I can bank my life on these verses. It's an interesting thing. This is an infomercial. This is a sales demonstration.

That's what he's doing. Remember way back when and they had, this is a while for you, but they had Krazy Glue come out. You remember that? And they had a guy and they put a dab of glue on a construction helmet. And then the guy hung from a beam. They just hung the guy from a beam with a dab of glue. And the idea was this glue, and by the way, I've used that since then.

I don't think, I think there was a big magnet in the helmet and that's why it was hanging there. But the truth, the idea was a little drop of this stuff and the only place that stuff works like that, by the way, is if you get it in your fingers, you don't. But the whole idea was it makes all the difference in the world if you just use this. That's what Paul is saying here.

This will make all the difference in your life. God loves you. He always has, He always will. There are no conditions to God's love whatsoever.

It's an amazing thing. Your goodness can't win God's love. Your badness can't lose God's love. All you can do, though, is resist God's love.

It is a fact. And so he says, who will separate us from the love of Christ? What a tremendous question. Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

In fact, that is so important to him. Notice verse 39 when he says, Nor height nor depth nor any created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can separate us.

Nothing. Not sin, not adultery, not murder, not denying, not anything. In fact, he's going to say it's way bigger than that. It's way bigger than that because of the greatness of God's love for us.

Nothing can separate it. This might be the very best message in the entire word of God. He doesn't say that we have to sort of hang on to God's love so that he'll keep on hanging on to us. He said it doesn't matter. It doesn't say that God's love depends on how much I love him back.

He said that won't matter at all. He's going to love you the same way. You don't earn it.

You don't maintain it. You don't deserve it. But he loves you perfectly and permanently. It reminds me of the verse that Paul wrote to Timothy when he said, if we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. These are extraordinary words. And the reason Paul writes them is he knows us.

Paul knows what we're like. Be honest. Are you skeptical of love? You might be.

Lots of people are. Why? People stop loving. You might have people in your life that stop loving you. Happens every day. I mean, people take and they write their marriage vows on vanishing ink.

It's gone. You find that. Friends walk away. Your children become irreconcilable. We know on the human level that no matter what people say, how unconditional it is, there's a condition by which they often stop loving us. So we translate that into the kingdom of God and we say, God, I know you'll stop loving me if. And Paul says there is no if.

There's nothing like that at all. He said even the depths of your suffering won't change God's love for you at all. See, he gets it. He knows what we're like.

And be honest. If you have really suffered in this life, had the thought ever crossed your mind, God, why don't you love me? Why do I have to suffer like this?

Other people aren't suffering like this. Why do you not love me as much as you could? Paul says don't ever get that thought in your mind. He says who will separate us from the love of Christ? Then he gives seven things, seven words. He said will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or the sword? Will any of those things stop us?

Absolutely not. The reason Paul picks those seven words is they all describe Paul. See, Paul said I'm an expert on these.

I've been through all these and a lot more. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 11 and on, we find out about the Apostle Paul that he had five beatings of 39 lashes. The idea was that 40 lashes would kill you if he was beaten five times 39. Three times he was beaten by rods. He was imprisoned frequently.

He uses the word tumult to describe a lot of his life. He did hard labor. He had sleeplessness, dishonor, lies and deceit said about him. He lived in poverty. He was stoned and left for dead. He was shipwrecked three times, robbers, persecution. He was bitten by a poisonous snake. He had thirst and cold and hunger. And ten years from the time he wrote these words, the sword takes his life and beheads him. Paul knows what he's talking about.

You want to talk about somebody who understands suffering. Paul knows that. And Paul says as clearly as he can possibly say it, nothing separated me from the love of Christ.

None of this ever separated me at all. He then goes on and he takes the next verse. He said just as it is written. He said, for your sake we are being put to death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. You wonder, wow, he got an Old Testament verse and just stuck it in there.

And it is interesting. Paul said, look, if you want a reason why I'm suffering so much, it's because of the cause of Christ. However, Paul is very particular about what verse he uses here. He's quoting Psalm 44. But he doesn't tell you any of the other verses because he doesn't want to. The other verses speak a lot to our weakness.

This speaks to the fact of why we may suffer. Hold your place here and go back to Psalm 44 with me for a moment. Psalm 44. And I want you to see the way the people acted then because it's exactly the way you and I are very capable of acting. First three verses sort of give us the setting.

The psalmist writes this, Oh God, we have heard with our ears. Our fathers have told us the work that you did in their days. In the days of old, you, he said with your hand, drove out the nations and then you planted them. You afflicted the peoples and then you spread them abroad. He said, for by their own sword, they did not possess the land. And he said in their own arm did not save them.

But your right hand and your arm and the light of your presence, for you favored them. Now, this is kind of funny. They're suffering.

They're really getting the daylight speed out of them by a foreign enemy. So they say, Hey God, wait, I have a question. In the days of old, didn't you take care of us? In the days of old, didn't Israel come into the land and you drove all the people out? Didn't you fight for them?

Isn't that the way it used to be? Notice, they're suffering and they're wondering, why are we suffering when other people are not? You see, the implication to what our text is, is simply this, God, it seems to me like you used to love those people, but you don't love us anymore because that's not happening to us at all. Now, pick up verse 22 and in verse 22 it says, But for your sake we are killed all day long.

We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. That's what Paul quoted. Just that verse. Paul quotes that verse. We're dying for our favor. But watch what happens after the verse.

Paul doesn't quote this part. He says, Arouse yourself. Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake, do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our affliction and our oppression? For our soul has sunk down into the dust.

Our body cleaves to the earth. Rise up, be our help. Redeem us for the sake of your loving kindness.

Wow. God, are you asleep? You see, shouldn't you do something for us out of your love? Your loving kindness, your hesed? Shouldn't you take care of us?

Now, let's be honest. If you've really suffered, have you had those thoughts? Why me? Why do I have to go through this?

Other people haven't had to go through this. God, is there something about me? You don't love me anymore? Why am I in so much pain? How did I get picked for this?

Where are you, by the way? Are you sleeping? It's almost blasphemy what they say. But the whole idea of it is, see, somehow when we are suffering enough, we feel as though God's not loving us. That's what Paul's writing about in Romans 8. He goes, that's never going to be the case.

Not ever. Now, let's go back to Romans 8. Because after he does this, he then says in verse 37, but in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. Wow. That's a great verse.

But for some of us, it doesn't help. You see, I read the end of the book. I say this all the time. I did. I read the end. We win. See, that's the great thing about being a Christian.

Read the end of the book. We win. Ultimately, we win. Each and every one of us win.

You see, that's a wonderful thing. We're more than conquerors. We win.

Yes, I know, I know. But I don't want to win then. I want to win now, right now. This is when I want to win. I want to win today. I want to win tomorrow. That's when I want to win. You see, he says, look, you have to have this perspective.

I think you understand this. If this offends you, I'm sorry the truth does. But barring the coming back of the Lord and the rapture of the church, we're all going to die. Every single one of us, we're dying. Something out there is going to kill all of us. Our bodies are going to die.

And you know what? That's okay. You see, that's okay. Because I tell you what won't die.

God's love for you and his love for me. That's never going to happen. You see, that's a completely different kind of thing. Paul's going to go into this right now. Verse 38, I am convinced.

Don't miss those words. I am convinced. Here's the question for you.

Are you? See, Paul says I'm convinced. My experience with you over all these years, many of you are not. You're just not convinced. Paul says I am convinced.

What? God's love matters. You see, he's always loved me. He always will. I get that. I'm convinced of it. Then Paul breaks down into five different comparisons.

If you go back to, some of you had English grammar, most of you won't remember. These are called merisms. A merism is when you take extreme things and you go from this to this and it implies everything in between. That's what he's going to do. He's going to do five merisms. It's a cover. You know what he wants to cover in these? Everything. When he's done, there's not a hypothetical situation you can insert and say, wait, wait, I have a question.

What about this? God loves you. He always has and he always will. We know merisms. If I'm going to say someone's an expert on a subject, I say he knows this subject from A to what? To Z.

And you know that I know that he knows the subject. There are merisms in scripture. Take the psalmist said, God will forgive our sins and place them as far as the east is from. Yeah, how far is that?

You see, how far is the east from the west? You see, that's a merism. It means there's the conditions. There are no conditions. It covers everything. So he's going to do five merisms here.

Here's the first one. He said, God is going to love you. He said, no matter what, nothing can change that, not the crisis of death nor the calamities of life. The first thing he said, I am convinced that neither death nor life.

Now, stop and think about that for a moment. I am convinced, he said, that death and life. Now, tell me all the other things that can occur outside of death and life.

That's all you have, right? You have death, you have life. He said, yeah, I'm convinced that nothing in death and nothing in life can change this.

I'm convinced this to be true. It's an amazing statement. He understands death. He starts with death. Is there anything worse for us? I think the hardest thing about being a pastor is watching what death does to people, the heartbreak. It's rough. And especially if somebody dies from our point of view out of time. They die young.

They die in a tragic way. It's heartbreaking to watch people. Death is an amazing thing when you think about it from that point of view. It's absolute. It's uncompromising.

It's the great and final separator. When someone dies, they're dead. That's a terrible thing, isn't it? It's hard for us to deal with that. But God says, that doesn't separate my love at all. Not in any way. That's why the scriptures, by the way, it says in a certain thing, you never die. He said, you just sleep. The psalmist said, even though I go through the valley of the shadow of death, God says no. Death will never separate you and me.

Not ever. 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.

At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

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 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. We'll be right back.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-06-07 01:00:46 / 2023-06-07 01:10:50 / 10

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