How God Reveals His Love for You.
Next on Leading the Way Audio with Dr. Michael Yusa. But the scripture from cover to cover tells us. That his love. Is based.
Nothing. On you being a nice guy. Or a sweet lady. Not on you being a good boy or a good girl. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You missed the point. But his love for us is based. on our unworthiness. His love is based on his sovereignty. God chose to love you.
Welcome to Leading the Way, featuring pastor and the author of more than 50 books, Dr. Michael Yusuf. For more than 35 years, God has used Dr. Youssef and Leading the Way ministry teams to share the truth of God's word. Take a moment to visit ltw.org.
You can learn more, and you can join Dr. Youssef in this powerful mission. That's L T W. Yeah. Today, a face-to-face look at the love of God.
You cannot earn it. Or increase it. But today as you listen, you'll come to better understand and appreciate it.
So join me in listening as Dr. Michael Youssef begins this life-changing teaching. I think most people would like to think of God as a big teddy bear. You just uh hug him when you feel like it. Then you put him down and you move on with your life and then you kind of, if you feel like it, you go back and you give him another hug.
And makes you feel good, and then you move on. And so forth. I think Any Believer in Jesus Christ. We'll have to affirm. The following.
That God does not make us jump through hoops. in order to receive his love. that He does not make us earn His love. He loves us. Before we ever get our act together.
This is all true. But the love of God is far, far, far, far more than all of that. By now I know some of you are saying What in the world is Michael going with this? What is he saying here?
Well, first, Let me tell you what is absolutely true. What is absolutely true is this: that God's love. does not depend on what we do. That much is true. God's love is not conditional.
on our doing anything. But God's love is conditional nonetheless. You say conditional on what? conditional on what Christ did on the cross. It is conditional on the priceless sacrifice.
of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is conditional on the incomprehensible cost to God the Father. when he gave his only son. We need to say that God's love is conditional. Conditional on the sacrifice of his son.
Conditional on our acceptance of the sacrifice of his Son, conditional on our being cognizant of the enormous price. That was paid on the cross for you and for me. Listen, salvation might be free, but it was not cheap. And that's the difference. That's the difference.
I want you to turn with me to that prayer of Paul in Ephesians chapter 3. beginning at verse 18. Ephesians 3. 18 and 19. Here's the prayer.
The prayer that you My have power. Of course, supernatural power, not power that comes from trying hard. That you may have power together with all the saints. To grasp How wide? And long.
And high. And deep is the love of Christ. And to know. This love that surpasses knowledge, that you might be filled to the measure of all fullness. of God.
In many ways, Paul's prayer. In Ephesians 3, 18 and 19. Is a prayer. that they and us would come to know the unknowable. That we would get to the bottom of the bottomless.
that we would plumb the depths of the unfathomable. And you say, what is this double talk? How can he pray for them to have the supernatural power to be able to comprehend what is incomprehensible? What is Paul praying? Here's what he's praying.
Listen carefully. He is praying that you and I may enter into the knowledge of God's love. that we day by day deeply enter into Further comprehension. of how incredible this love is. You say How can we comprehend the infinity of the love of God?
Well, the truth is. We can't fully. In fact, we're going to be spending eternity. You're going to be spending, I'm going to be spending our forever in heaven just comprehending. What it means for the Son of God to be separated from the Father and hang on the cross so that we can be set free.
You see, we're going to spend eternity just trying to comprehend the enormity of the God of very God hanging on a cross like a criminal. It is so beyond our ability, my ability, to put it in a message today. But nonetheless, because of the limitation of time, I want you to focus with me on three things. I want you to focus on the immensity. Of the cost.
of God's love. Secondly, I want you to focus with me on the impediment. of the recipient. of God's love. And thirdly, I want you to focus on the immeasurability.
of the blessing of God's love. The enormity. of the cost. I told you. Salvation is free.
But it wasn't cheap. It cost God everything, it cost his son. It cost him everything. And I began my statement with that kind of shock in order to shock you, in order to get you to focus, in order to get you to think with me about the cost of the love of God. Sure, it is unconditional to us, but it was conditional to God, you see.
God had to pay the price. God did not give us something for nothing. He gave us something that cost him everything. I want you to hear me right. for somebody to take a punch in the face for you.
is very different from somebody who would take a bullet. And they're hard for you. For someone to sacrifice an hour or two or a day or two for you is different from somebody who would sacrifice his future for you. And for a human being One might die. It's very difficult.
It's nearly impossible. But even if it happens, as we will see later what Paul tells us. But don't forget that this is the perfect, holy, righteous God, sinless. whose life is of infinite value. Not only got up on that cross and died for you, but bore your sins and mine.
For you. For the God who is the maker of the universe, the owner of the universe. To die. In order to pay the wages of your sins and mine. is of immense value.
It's incomprehensible. I read not so long ago about a couple who were sitting with a pastor who'd gone for counseling and And then the conversation heated up and the husband Said to the wife, He said, Have I not given you A beautiful new home? Have I not given you a beautiful new car? Have I not given you beautiful new clothes? Have I not given you?
Have I not given you? And then when he calmed down. The wife said, That much is true. You have given me Everything. But yourself.
God in Jesus Christ gave himself up. No wonder the Apostle Paul in Galatians 2.20 would say, the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. The immensity. Of the cost. of the love of God.
Secondly, the impediment of the recipients. of God's love. You see, most of us would be willing to sacrifice for our family members. We'd be willing to sacrifice for friends. I think it'll be a natural thing.
When you see a friend in need, you're willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to help the friend. Most of us. are more than willing to sacrifice in order to repay someone who's done us a great favor in the past. But I wonder how many of us would be willing to sacrifice for the sake of someone who killed our child. But you see, when God showed His love for us.
We were unlovable. We were undeserving. We were at enmity with God. We were indifferent to God. We were ashamed of God.
And that is why the word of God said in Romans chapter 5, it says. While we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely would anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrated His love toward us in this: while we were sinners, Christ died for us. You see the depth of God's love.
can only be contrasted. to the impediment of the recipient. of the gift of his love. I know. That human pride and arrogance wants us to see that there's something intrinsically good in us that made us worthy of the Son of God to die for us.
But it is not so. It is not so. Do you know why? Many Christians today. and not humbling themselves before God.
Do you know why so many Christians today are full of themselves? That so many Christians today are full of their own accomplishments and their own achievements, who they are, where they live, what they do. The reason for that, my beloved friends, is because they do not comprehend the unworthiness. In the light of love of God. But the scripture from cover to cover.
Tells us That his love is based Not On you being a nice guy, Or a sweet lady. Not on you being a good boy or a good girl. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You missed the point. You miss the point altogether.
But his love for us. is based on our unworthiness. His love is based on his sovereignty. Because he is God, and therefore he is not under obligation to anyone. He is free to love whomever he wants to love.
And only when you truly begin to comprehend this. Will you become overwhelmed with the love of God? We become so overwhelmed with the generosity of the love of God. God chose to love Me? God chose to love you.
When the people of Israel become so full of themselves when they got into the wilderness. And they saw God provided for them supernaturally across the Red Sea. provided manna from heaven Gave them water out of the desert, out of the rock. They've got to the point of thinking of themselves, we must be really super duper people. We must be really special.
There is something intrinsically good in us.
So read about it and you'll see what I mean. That made God do this for us. Listen to what Moses said to them. in Deuteronomy chapter 7. Verse seven You see.
God doesn't bless us because of who we are. He blessed us because who he is. Here's what he said. The Lord did not set his affection on you and chose you because you were more numerous than other people, for you were the fewest of all people, but it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers. It's the sovereign love of God.
that I don't deserve. and none of us deserve. And if you ever think you deserve the love of God, you have never experienced salvation. I pray to God you will do that today. If you listen to somebody who tells you that you're worthy of the love of God, I can tell you right now, that person.
is denying the very sovereignty of God. the very prerogative of God. of who God is. Let me tell you something of uttermost importance. If you've forgotten everything I've told you, I don't want you to figure what I'm going to tell you.
The depths of your love for God. is in proportion. to the depths of your comprehension. of his sovereign love for you. I'm going to repeat it now.
The depth of your love for God. Is in proportion to the depth of your comprehension of his love for you. You see the immensity of the cost. of the love of God. the impediment of the recipient of the love of God.
But thirdly, the immeasurability of the blessing of the love of God. In 1 John chapter 3, verse 1, Says this. Here's what the Word of God said. See how great a love The Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called. Children of God.
What is God saying here? Listen, you can spend the rest of your Christian life unpack this verse, this sentence, and you would do justice to it. What is he saying? Here's what he's saying. He's saying that his love for us went beyond rescuing us from sin and death.
He is saying that his love for us went beyond sacrificing himself to bear our sin on the cross. That His love for us went beyond forgiving of our sins. That His love for us went beyond clemency. of his former enemy. You say, how come?
Because He could have sacrificed. And he could have forgiven us. He could have rescued us. He could have redeemed us. And there stopped.
And that would have been wonderful. would have been marvelous, would have been great. But no, no, no, no. He didn't stop there. He went much, much, much further.
than all of this. His love to took us into the family. and called us his children. You know, I sat down this weekend And as I try to do every week, and and uh this time I really was trying I allowed the love of God to just overwhelm me, to fill me to overflowing, and I got overwhelmed. And then I began to think of.
Of some human analogy that I can use so I can make this understandable, that I can make it comprehensible to you. And I really have. I worked very, very hard. And I try every time I try to think of an analogy, an illustration, just to take the point home. But you know what?
I came to the conclusion that I couldn't. I couldn't There is no human analogy that would illustrate the immeasurability of the blessing of the love of God. The image of finding a helpless, homeless child and taking him home does not begin to illustrate it, does not begin to explain it. Even adoption of a child and giving the child the rights and the privileges of the family does not begin to explain the love of God. Do you know why?
Do you know why? Because God does something that a human parent could never accomplish. And that is to impart something of himself in you and in me.
So that we can take on the family resemblance. Listen to 1 John 3.9. No one who is born of God practices sin. Literally habitually practice sin. Because its seed abides in him.
And he cannot go on practicing sin because he is born of God. By this we know the children of God. You want another child of God? See somebody who hates sin. And as soon as he or she sins, he's over there to the farthest throne.
Ask you for forgiveness. That's what this verse is saying. Because when you come to Jesus Christ, He doesn't only just forgive you. He doesn't only just redeem you. He doesn't only just assure you of heaven.
But he adopts you. But he doesn't only adopt you, he changes your nature. He gives you his nature. Little girl. Sat Across from her daddy, wearing braces.
On her legs. And tears were streaming down her face. The physiotherapist had just finished Working with her. And the pain would just Too much for her. And saw through tears She says to her daddy, Daddy.
Don't you love me? Just the way I am. And the father gets up and he hugs his little girl and he said, Yes, honey. I love you the way you are. But I love you too much to let you stay that way.
Beloved, I want you to listen to me. We have so much cheap grace and cheap Christianity being preached in the churches today. And there are many people in the churches today who will find themselves in eternity without Christ. Because They've never been told the truth. God loves his children.
Too much. to just forgive them. and let them go in their happy, merry way. God loves us enough to impart His divine nature upon us so that we can say no to sin. Regardless of the pain to the flesh, regardless of the pain to the old nature.
And regardless of the pain, of isolation and rejection by the world. He loves us too much. to let us live. For self. He loves us too much.
Is the love of God unconditional? To you it is. But not to God. It cost him Everything. and the condition.
is that you come to him. Through his son. You can't come to him. Based on your bitworks. How hard you try.
Because all of your good works won't get you there. All your philanthropy will not get you there. All of your efforts won't get you there. And the condition is, he's asking you. And he placed is that you come to him and receive The love of his son.
Conditional And Jesus's. Bearing. All of the cost. Conditional. on you accepting True art thou unworthy.
His free gift of grace. And if you've never done that, The Bible said today is the day of salvation. You can come. An experience this overwhelming Incomprehensible. Love of God.
Shall we pray? There is not a moment. Ever since that day in 1964, that I would not allow myself to be overwhelmed afresh. of the incredible love of God. The costly love.
For him. And my unworthiness. without being overwhelmed. And I will until I see him face to face. Nothing will change that.
For there's nothing in me. They would make me lovable. But he loved me none the less. He loves you. And it is out of love that He wants you to hear about His love.
Father, God. Our human pride, our selfishness, our arrogance I always want to think that there's something in us. But Lord is of grace. Pure grace. We couldn't do even 1%.
And you do 99, you had to do all the 100%. And for that, I thank you. I praise you. I glorify you today. In Jesus' name.
Amen. Thank you for making time today to listen to Dr. Michael Yusa. and leading the way. And if you missed any portion of this message, or if you want to listen to content from Dr.
Youssef, the place to start is ltw.org. Stream Dr. Youssef's content. Get information about various podcasts. And of course, learn how you can connect with even more content and resources in the Leading the Way app.
Now, as you probably know, Dr. Youssef is more than a pastor and an international Bible teacher. he has dedicated his life to passionately sharing the Gospel with those who've never heard, also to equipping believers to serve God, to reach their communities with the Gospel message. And one vital part of his outreach is through books that he's written. He's penned more than fifty books, and his newest release in fact, it was just released a few months ago, is God's Final Call.
In it, Doctor Youssef helps you hear the words of Jesus in Revelation in fresh ways. You'll experience the comfort and encouragement that Jesus spoke to the churches in Revelation. And you'll see how these words are compelling and relevant for Christ's followers to day. a challenge to run the race of faith without compromise. You'll definitely want God's Final Call on your list to read and share this summer.
It's so relevant to what Christians are facing in culture to day, so be sure to order your copy right now of God's Final Call Go to ltw.org. Hey, you can also read more about the engaging content and more at the website. That address again is ltw.org. or call us at 866-626-4356. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr.
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