A God of Love

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, September 30th. Did you know that God's attitude toward His followers is never conditioned by behavior? Let's continue the Ways of God series with a reminder that our Heavenly Father was, is, and always will be a God of love. God has many attributes that characterize Him. For example, He's a God of justice, mercy, holiness, righteousness, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, wisdom. He is eternal, and we can just go on and on and on of these awesome characteristics of God. And the truth is, when you begin to understand what He's like, who He is, and the fact that He loves us just the way we are, something will begin to happen in our life.

Because you see, that's who He is. He's a God of love. All true, genuine love originates from Him. And the one thing the heart of man needs to understand is that God who created us loves us.

And since He doesn't change, His love doesn't change. So, I want you to look at these couple of verses here in First John chapter four. He says in verse seven, Beloved, 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, revealed in us. That is, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we may live through Him because of His death at Calvary. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the sacrifice for our sins. Now, I want you to think about this for a moment. When you understand what the love of God is all about, you get a whole different perspective about why He loves you, how He loves you, how long He's going to love you, how long He's loved you, and what all that means to you personally.

So, let's think about it for a moment. How would you describe this kind of love? What kind of love does God have for us? Well, God's love is like this. God's love is His unselfish giving of Himself to us, His selfless giving of Himself to us in order to bring about good and blessing in our life. In spite of the fact that we are very unlovely at times and all the time very undeserving.

Think about it. It's His selfless giving of Himself to you and me in order to bring about goodness and blessing in our life in spite of the fact we are undeserving and in spite of the fact that we are very unlovely, that we don't act like we ought to act. And you see, there's something about this love that I want us to consider in just a moment. But I want you to see that His love is always reaching out to do something for us. It's His selfless giving of Himself. So, think about His love for a moment.

First of all, it's very perfect. You can't add anything to His love and improve on it. Now, all of us love people and we love somebody who loves us or maybe they don't love us. But we can improve on our love. We can make it a little deeper, a little more genuine. We can be more self-giving and so forth. But God's love's absolutely perfect.

There's no way to improve on it. His love is a gift because, you see, He loves us, not that we've loved Him. Our love is always a response to His love.

And so, it's a gift. Not only that, it never changes. Whatever it was, it is.

Whatever it is, it'll always be. Which says, you cannot do anything to cause God to stop loving you. You say, but God is holy.

Yes. How could God who is holy love somebody like myself? Well, listen to what the Bible says.

Jesus said, the Father didn't send Him into the world to condemn the world, but through Him that the world might be saved. God didn't start loving you and me when we got straightened out. It was His love for us that motivated us to want to get straightened out, as we would say, to want to be saved, to want to have the right relationship with Him. You and I can take no credit whatsoever for our love for God, for the simple reason it all came from Him to begin with. His love for us is based only on what is within Him, perfect, eternal, unconditional love. If it's ever based on anything within you and me, we'll never know whether we're loved or whether we're not loved.

So our life will be up and down. So what I want to do is I want to take you through some conversations that Jesus had with different people, some interviews, so to speak, that He had. I want you to listen to the kind of person each one of these is. I want you to watch the kind of response that Jesus had to every single one of them, because He hasn't changed. So let's begin. What I want to do is I want to take different characters and I want to characterize them so that all of us will fall into one of these categories before it's all over. And I want to begin with the apostle Peter before he was an apostle.

So let's look at him for a moment. You could start in the fourth chapter of Matthew or later, but think about it for a moment. Jesus chose Peter to be one of His apostles, one of His disciples, one of His followers. Jesus had to keep His hands on Peter all the time, because Peter was always stepping out front. And you remember one occasion, Jesus said, Now here's what's going to happen to me. I'm going to be crucified and so forth. And Peter said, Forget it.

That's not going to happen to you. In fact, he was so strong, Jesus had to say to him, Peter, you're acting like the devil. And then of course, if you look at how Peter operated, when they got in the garden, he loved Jesus.

He was a faithful, devoted follower of Jesus. What did he do? He pulled the sword and went to war. And he didn't start with just switching the blade. What he did is he started, he intended to cut his head off. He missed and got his ear. Because he intended to win the battle. The same Peter, hours later, walks up to this fire and this young girl said, I think I've seen you with Him.

I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know this guy. He denied Jesus in one of the most important moments in Jesus' life. Peter's life was like probably a lot of us, up and down.

One thing about him was, it appeared that he would be absolutely devoted and loyal to the bitter end, but he wasn't. And I know that Peter accepted the Lord Jesus' forgiveness. But do you ever think he forgot it?

Never. He could never have forgotten that. So, here's a man that Jesus loved, and there's a phrase in the Scripture that says, And Jesus turned and looked upon Peter, and Peter remembered. This is right after all that happened. The cock crew, he denied him. Did he cease to love him?

No. And one of the phrases I think about, and sometimes I can hardly keep from weeping over it, when they were coming to the tomb and the angels were saying, Go tell His disciples. And they said specifically, And tell Peter. Jesus loved him.

Never stopped loving him, no matter what. Well, there's somebody else I want you to notice here. And if you'll notice in the seventeenth chapter of Luke, what happens.

Here he meets a group of guys, there are ten of them. And these would be the kind of people that we'd put in the category of total outcasts. In other words, nobody wants to be around them because leprosy was a feared disease.

It was totally incurable. So, the reason they were together is they didn't have anybody else. And so, here they come. And Jesus sees them.

And what does He do? He heals them. Have you ever felt like being an outcast? Have you ever felt like that nobody cared, that nobody loved you, that no matter what you did, they just weren't interested in you? Listen, Jesus healed, Jesus loved, Jesus transformed the lives of people no matter whatever other people thought about them. He transformed their life.

There's no such thing as an outcast of Jesus. No matter where you live, your language, your race, your color, your belief system, nobody is beyond His love no matter who you are. All He wants you to do is to respond to Him. All He wants you to do is to accept His love. When you accept the love of Jesus Christ, your life's going to be transformed.

What does that require? It requires that you accept Him for who He is. That He's the Son of God whom the Father sent into this world to die on the cross, shed His blood, and the moment you will confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died for your sins and you're accepting Him as your personal Savior, life changes. He didn't come into the world, He says, to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. That's not, in Romans, Paul said in the eighth chapter, therefore there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus said, I didn't come to condemn. I came to love and to transform and to make your life new. To help you understand what your potential is and what your possibilities are and what God can do with you if you'll just let Him do it. What grieves the heart of God is this. That we want to do it our way.

We put ourselves in some category we don't think God loves us, we don't think anybody else does, or we think we can turn the world upside down. The truth is we can't. You see, until you experience the love of Jesus in your life, you will never be satisfied.

It's totally impossible. You say, well, I'm satisfied. You are? Let's get real honest. If you begin to be honest about your life, I've met very, very wealthy, very, very poor, very, very sick, very, very well, very, very famous, very, very nobody. And you know what? I've never met a person, if you talk to them a few minutes, without Jesus Christ, that you cannot sense the turmoil in their life because there is no peace without God.

Well, let's think about somebody else. For example, when Jesus met different people, He talked to them in different ways. I want you to turn to the eighth chapter of John. And this is a very precious passage in the Bible. The eighth chapter of John, Scripture says that Jesus up in the Mount of Olives and He came down and early in the morning He came again to the temple and all the people were coming to Him.

And He sat down and began to teach them. So, here He is having sort of a worship service, a Bible study in the temple. And all of a sudden, these Pharisees coming down, making a lot of noise and disturbing the whole service. And they just throw this woman down on the floor and they said, Teacher, Rabbi, prophet, this woman was caught in the very act of sexual sin.

She's an adulteress. Now, what do you say that the law of Moses says? What do you say? We know what the law of Moses says, stone her to death.

What do you say? This is a dramatic moment in the life of Jesus. This woman's guilty, no question. Her accusers got all the proof, they saw it. All these people standing around watching and listening to what Jesus is going to do, what He's going to say.

The law of Moses says, stone her to death. So, Jesus listens to all the people who are accusing her. And so, with that in mind, of course, He was able to see through what the issue was.

The issue, they weren't concerned about keeping the law. They were trying to trick Jesus to see what He would say. And here's the awesome wisdom of the Son of God. Scripture says that while they were doing this, Jesus just stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.

But you, they just ignored that and they think, what's He doing? And they persisted in asking Him. So, He stood up and said to them, can't you imagine these words were like an arrow? They were like arrows. He said, which one of you is not guilty of sin?

Whew! And so, what happens? Again, He stooped down and wrote on the ground. And while they, when they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones. Listen to what Jesus said. What an awesome Son of God.

Listen to this. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?

She said, No one, Lord. Jesus said, I do not condemn you either. Go, and from now on, sin no more.

Listen to me. I don't know what you've done, where you've sinned, what it's been. You may be a prostitute.

You may have been hooked somehow on some kind of a sexual sin. You feel dirty, unloved, and the last thing you could believe that God can love you. And besides that, the reason you don't like to hear sermons is because no matter what they're about, they make you feel guilty. So, in your mind, you have a right to believe that God could never love you because you're in this business, for example.

But I want to tell you what we said in the very beginning. The very character and the attributes of Jesus is that He never changes. Jesus said to this woman, watch this, the proof is there and He knows it's there. And He said to her, I don't condemn you. Looking at her and her condition, I don't condemn you. He also knew that something had happened in her heart because she said, No, Lord.

She sensed the love and the forgiveness in the heart of Jesus. And He said, Neither do I condemn you. Well, does that mean that if you're living in some form of sexual sin, that it's okay? No, it doesn't. Does it mean that Jesus, it's okay with Him? No, it doesn't mean that.

It simply means this. Even in your weakness, your frailty, or your determination, or your anger, and your bitterness, and your hostility toward men or women. He loves you just the same.

Does that mean you should continue doing what you're doing? No, He said, Go and sin no more. What I want you to see is this, that Jesus loves you just the way you are. But He sees what you can be. And the possibilities in your life, the goal of His love is not to approve of sin, the goal of His love is to transform us, deliver us, and set us free from a lifestyle of bondage. Any person living in sexual sin is living in bondage. And the truth is, I don't know what you may say publicly, but I do know this. You want to be free. You think you can't be. Jesus can set you free.

Because He loves you and He has the power to do it. I'll just take one other guy that Jesus did not meet like He has all these others. His name was Saul of Tarsus. And when you first meet Him, really, is in that eighth chapter of Acts.

And you might want to turn there for just a moment and listen to what's happening. Gospels being preached, lives are being saved, and Stephen preached this awesome sermon. And in the sermon, he told the truth about Jesus' crucifixion and laid the guilt where it belonged. Well, what they did is they took Him out and stoned Him to death. And the Scripture says in verse sixty of the seventh chapter, then falling on His knees, He cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

Listen to that. Having said this, He fell asleep, for He died. Look in chapter eight, verse one. Saul was in hearty agreement with putting Him to death. And on that day, a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea, Samaria, and they, except the apostles. Some devout men buried Stephen and made a loud lamentation over him.

But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women. He would put them in prison. You may be a persecutor. You may have persecuted Christians. You say, well, how could Jesus forgive me when I persecuted His own? He can. How could Jesus love me when I've hated Christians and hated the church and hated things that you folks call godly?

He can, and He will if you'll let Him. What I want you to see is this. You can put every single category in which all of us stand.

And you know what? You can't even come up with a category of people that Jesus doesn't love. No matter where you go or who's involved, He loves you no matter who you are.

Now listen carefully. Why would you want to live out the rest of your life and never discover your possibilities, your potential, and how God can use you? He can take you out of prison and make you something awesome. He can take you out of that little old lonely apartment and make your life begin to count and to be fruitful.

No matter who you are and where you are, the message is simply this. God loves you just the way you are. And He's just waiting for you to let Him make you the person He sees you can be. And I'm simply saying to you that no matter who you are and where you are, which one of these categories you fall into, today you're loved by the Son of God. And He's waiting for you to say, yes, Lord, and turn your life over to Him and then watch Him work in your life in the most awesome way. Thank you for listening to A God of Love. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.