Jesus Loves Me - Supernatural Love, Part 1

You've heard me say that love is giving another person what they need the most when they deserve the least at great personal cost. And you have to know that kind of love is hard to come by. If you've been hurt, broken, or long for that kind of love, please stay with us today.

God has a word for you. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. We're so grateful you've joined us as we continue our new series, Jesus Loves Me, Essentials of the Christian Faith, taught by our guest teacher, John Dickerson. Today's message is about the personal love of God that will never let us down or hurt us. And if you'd like some additional insight into this foundational topic, keep listening after the teaching as John and Chip dive a little deeper.

You won't want to miss what they'll share. Here now is John with his talk, Supernatural Love. So when I was in elementary school, I loved passing notes. I went to a really strict private school. So whenever our teacher would turn her back to us by writing on the chalkboard, we would pass notes across the aisles. And I remember around fourth or fifth grade that our notes started turning into love notes. And I remember specifically a day in fourth grade when I wrote this note, and maybe it's a note that you've received or a note that you've written. And on the note, I wrote, Dear Stacey, do you love me?

Please check one box. Yes or no. And you know, I folded it up neatly and passed it through the class post office system. It slowly made its way across the room. And I watched in eager anticipation as Stacey opened the notes. And I tried to discern in her eyes from the other side of the room, you know, is she checking yes? Or is she checking no? And she turned and smiled at me. So I thought, I think she's checking yes. Stacey did check yes.

It was a great day in my fourth grade career. Here's a more serious question I want to ask you. If you could slip a note like this onto God's desk, what do you think he would check? And I asked not in the churchy sense or not the answer you'd give to other people, but really very privately just between you and yourself or between you and God. Do you think he would check yes? Or is there part of you that maybe worries and wonders suspects that maybe he would check no? I mean, do you really, in your private, quiet places of your inner person, do you think God is fond of you? Do you think God likes you? Do you think he cares about you? Do you think he would say, yeah, I love her.

Yeah, I like him. Yeah, I want the best for her. I think from fourth grade on, whether we realize it or not, we're going through life and we're kind of putting these feelers out to discover if we are loved.

But not just in the romantic sense. What we want to know is like, are we valued? Am I wanted? Am I secure? And so I think through our accomplishments and our careers and our possessions and our relationships, what we're doing is we're looking to the people and the things that we value and we're kind of looking them to say, Stacy, do you love me?

Do you like me? And we keep saying this throughout life to maybe an authority figure that we look up to or people in the industry that we look up to or people in our relationships. And really what we're doing is we're hunting for affirmation and for self-value and for security.

And as we're doing this, here comes a question. You know, how can you really know if someone loves you? These people that you're building relationships with and investing in, how can you really know if someone loves you? I mean, beyond passing them a note and they check a box, but in real life, doesn't it get a little more complicated? And so how can you really know, you know, in a world where maybe your parents have gone through a divorce and there's a custody battle and it's like both of them will say anything to tell you that they love you, but you start to realize like it's really about controlling, about having me as a pawn in their little fight with each other.

Or you have an employer or advertisers, right? It's like they'll tell you anything you want to hear because they actually just want to get something from you. And the longer you live life, the more you start to realize like, okay, it's not as simple as someone checking a box. Like how do I actually know if someone actually loves me? So I've been married for about nine years to my wife, Mel is her name.

And Mel and I were talking this last week about this question. We were kind of thinking like, you know, in real life, how do you actually know if someone actually loves you? And here's a conclusion that we came to as we thought through a lot of our different life experiences. We concluded that love proves itself in actions. Would you agree, at least to some extent, love proves itself in actions?

We've all seen this in our lives. And in fact, it kind of came up as I was asking Mel, you know, in our nine years of marriage, what are the times, what are the things I have done or said that really to you communicate love? And I was really surprised by some of her answers because some of them were things that I would never have thought of.

And one of them was this. She said, John, when I have the flu, when I have the flu and I'm throwing up and I'm sorry if this is disgusting to you guys, okay, this was her answer. When you come and you put your hand in my hair and you rub my back, that to me, that's a moment where I know that you love me. And here's the thing, this is why that communicates love to her because there's not really many other people in the world that I would do that for.

What is it about that? It's self-sacrifice, right? It's willing to get your own hands dirty or be uncomfortable because you love another person more than you love your own comfort. And it's, you know, real love, it shows up in the dirty and in the yucky and in just the real life stuff. And I wonder, do you think that God loves you like that?

Maybe because I stand up here and sometimes they put the word pastor in front of my name. You might think that I never doubt if God loves me, but I have lots of days that I do, especially when I've made a mistake. You know, if I've just done something stupid or specifically if I know like something was wrong, I knew something was wrong, I knew not to do it and I did it anyways. Afterwards, it's like, man, I know on paper God loves me, but is he going to give up on me at some point?

Is he going to get tired of putting up with me? You know, another time that I doubt if God really loves me is when I'm experiencing pain. And this happened actually this last week. I have this really rare medical condition called a hemiplegic episode and thankfully I don't get them very often. In fact, I hadn't had one in a year, but I had one this last week and thankfully it was not a very bad one, but when I get them, I get the symptoms of a stroke.

I lose my ability to speak and half my body will go kind of paralyzed and have some pain and other things. And as I was having this one this last week, whenever these things start, I have these really candid conversations with God. And within it, I was, you know, I was really stressed out at the time. And I remember telling God, you know, God, I feel like all these different people want different parts of me and I need to be something as a husband.

I need to be something as a dad and I need to be something in my workplace and I need to be something as a writer. And I remember just telling God, like, I don't think I can be what all these people want me to be. And in the moment, just as clear as you're hearing me now, I heard God say to me, you are who I want you to be.

Just relax. And what I want to talk about with you today is having a love relationship with God where you know that He is with you in your suffering. You know that He's with you if you get laid off at work. You know that He's with you in the difficulties of life. I want to talk to you today about a love relationship with God that very much like a marriage, it has a sort of very formal beginning date that it's like that's the date that me and God committed to each other.

But just like a really healthy marriage, it doesn't end there, it begins there. And you experience the love of God on a daily basis in all the ups and downs of life. Would you like to know about a relationship with God like that?

Well, we're going to learn about it in the book of Romans, chapter five. This is a book of the Bible, and it's a book that really summarizes for us God's love for us. And when you first read this verse, you might think, what does this verse even mean, okay? I've read this verse a bunch of times, and as a former newspaper reporter and writer, I tend to think, God, this is kind of a wordy verse.

But let me read it for you, and then I'll explain what it means, okay? Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. What's God talking about here? Well, God's talking about this idea that we all kind of agreed on it to some degree that love proves itself in actions. Love proves itself in actions, actions over time, and the more self-sacrificing the action is, the more sincere the love is. What is the biggest self-sacrificing action that you could make for someone you love? Well, Jesus answered that in John 15, verse 13. He said, greater love has no one than this, that a person would lay down their life for their friends.

So very specifically right now, I want to ask you a question. Who in your life would you be willing to die for? It's probably not a long list, but are there some people in your life that you'd be willing to die for?

Maybe you're in a place and you're everything, no, not really. But I would guess there's probably some husbands in this room or some boyfriends who, if someone came in and they were going to take the life of your girlfriend or your wife, you would step in the way, you would intervene, and you would give your life. And you probably wouldn't do that for just anyone, but you love her so much that you would willingly lay down your life for her.

I bet in this room, I bet there's some moms who you love your kids so much that if it were a life or death situation, you would step in the way and you would sacrifice your own life because that's how much you love that child. The point of this verse is to get us thinking about that. To get us thinking that, yeah, you know, even a really good person, you're probably not going to give your life for them unless you really, really love them. And with that in mind, God tells you this about how he feels about you in verse 8, we're told this, but God demonstrates his love for us in this way. Is God going to demonstrate his love just by checking a box, by saying some words?

No, he's going to prove his love with actions. While we were still sinners, and we'll explain what this means, but the idea is while we had our backs turned to God, while we were in a posture that's kind of like, you know, no thanks God, don't want your help, don't need your help, while we were turned away from him, Christ died for us. Christ died to rescue us. Now, we're in part three of this series called Jesus Loves Me, and we're using the kids' song, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

We're using it as kind of a memory tool that we can carry this with us throughout life. And if you're on an airplane with a coworker, or if you're tucking your kids into bed at night, and someone asks you, who's Jesus? What's he about? You can say the words to this little song.

Well, here's what it's all about. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And the meaning is in the words. And we learned that Jesus is not just a good teacher or a prophet, and he's not one God among many gods. We learned that Jesus is the one true God. And the reason Jesus had to be the one true God is that he was the Messiah. And in fact, we learned that this word Christ is not Jesus' last name. There was a point in my life where that was new information. I was like, whoa, I always thought Christ was Jesus' last name, right?

Jesus Christ. But no, this word Christ is actually an ancient word for Messiah. And it's this ancient word for this prediction that God would come down among humanity to rescue humanity. Who is Jesus? He's the one true God, the Christ. What do we mean when we say the one true God loves me? What do we mean when we say he loves me?

And here's what we mean according to the word of God. Jesus died to prove he loves you. Jesus died to prove he loves you. He didn't just say it.

He didn't just check a box. He proved it in actions, in a very well-documented public execution when he was crucified on a cross on a real day in history. And he went to that cross willingly so that he could reconnect you to your creator. So if you're tracking in the series and you're like, okay, I get why Christianity matters. I get that Jesus is the one true God.

Now I understand what you're saying, but here's kind of a normal question. Why is this even necessary? You know, if God is smart and he's in control and he made everything, like why did he let things spin so out of control that he would have to self-sacrifice like this to restore us? And so to answer that question, I want to give you a really a summary of the whole Bible in just a few minutes.

And here's where it starts. It starts with God's desire. Here's God's desire for you. God desires for you to be in the very presence of God. This is kind of like the idea of God has his arm around you and this is what you were created to experience and enjoy. Part of being in God's presence is that there is no death.

There's immortality or sometimes we call it eternal life. Part of being in God's presence is that there's no scarcity or shortage of is there gonna be enough food to go around? Part of being in God's presence is that God is the source of love. And so this longing that we have, this hunt that we're on our entire lives to be affirmed by our creator when we're in his presence, all those tensions are resolved. This is what God created us for. And God starts his love letter to us, the Bible, by telling us this repeatedly right at the beginning.

Here's one example from the book of Genesis. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God and blessed them. As a human being, you're different from the animal world. You're different from the rest of creation. You have a soul, a spiritual part of you that will outlive your body and your soul is made in the likeness or in the image of God.

What does that mean? Well, it means that you have a capacity to create and it also means that you have a free will. A free will is this spiritual and moral part of you that you can choose God or you can choose away from God. And the idea of it being free is that it's yours.

No one else can make the choice for you. So when God created all of creation, he makes this sort of crown jewel of creation, humanity will be in my image. They will create like I create and they will have spiritual capacity. They will be eternal beings and they will have a free will. They can choose my ways and my presence or if they choose, they can reject my ways and my presence. And this is the next step in the story of God and humanity.

This is the bad news that there was a catastrophic divorce. There's a catastrophic divorce between humanity and God, a great chasm, an earthquake in the fabric of the universe when our spiritual ancestors with their free wills chose having known God and his presence to say, we would like to know what evil is like. And God had told them in my presence, you won't know evil. Here's kind of the door if you want to go through it, but if you do, it will bring death.

It will bring destruction. And having created us with a free will, they chose that. And just like when you're a kid and your parents have a divorce, you don't get to have a say in whether or not they divorce. And you have been born into a world that is divorced away from God because of the choices of our spiritual ancestors. And so what do we experience? Mortality that will die. We experience that we're broken away from God and whether we realize it or not, we spend our whole lives hunting, trying to restore that relationship. And we spend our lives unresolved, emotionally and spiritually, we're unresolved. In Romans 3 verse 23, God says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All of humanity is on this side broken away from God and fall short of the glory of God. In other words, this is like a Grand Canyon chasm. You can't like, you know, give enough money to a church or go on enough mission trip.

You can't earn your way over here. So this is bad news, right? If the story ended here, it would be depressing.

Here's the good news. When God looked down and saw humanity in this position, he didn't just leave us there. He decided that he himself would intervene. And this is why the Christ, the Messiah, Jesus, had to be human and God at the same time, because you see, he came to perform God's rescue. You've been listening to the first part of our guest teacher, Jon Dickerson's message, Supernatural Love from his series, Jesus Loves Me.

Chip and Jon will join us shortly to share some additional thoughts on what we've heard. Let me ask you, do you know the core beliefs of Christianity? Forget what churches, denominations or notable pastors say for a second. What do God and his word actually state are the essential truths of the Christian faith? Well, in this 10-part study, author and pastor Jon Dickerson will help us discover what those are. By using the simple children's song, Jesus Loves Me, Jon reveals what these lyrics tell us about God, his love for us and the reliability of the Bible.

So whether you're a new believer looking for guidance or you've been a Christian your whole life and need a refresher, this series will encourage you. Learn more about Jon's teaching or his helpful resources by visiting livingontheedge.org. In fact, Chip's joined me in studio now to talk a little more about the specific tools Jon has that go along with the series.

Chip? Thanks Dave. Before I come back with some specific application to today's message, I just want to share something that I think will be helpful. I go to a church that's just filled with young people, and then we've invited them to come to our home. And they're in their 20s, maybe a couple in the early 30s, and we talk about all kind of things. And what I realized early on was they have all these big questions about life and relationships and decisions, but they don't know the basics of what it really means to be a Christian. I mean, what's it mean when we say Jesus loves me or that I believe in the Bible or what are the major key doctrines? And so what I'm very excited about is my friend Jon Dickerson has developed a small group resource, and he used that famous little song, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And he breaks it apart phrase by phrase by phrase and has developed this really neat small group experience where people learn the basics but learn how those basics actually operate in today's world.

And if you don't know that, you can sort of have this intellectual belief of, yes, I believe in Jesus and, you know, I read a few devotionals, but you'll never learn to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and see your life change from the inside out unless you know the basic doctrines and then how they actually apply. So Dave, maybe you could take a minute and let people know how they can get this small group resource. And as we start a new year, let me encourage you, grab it, do it, and then pass it on.

Thanks, Chip. To sign up for this online small group resource, go to livingontheedge.org. This engaging study will deepen your understanding of the Christian faith and give you the tools to encourage others to follow Jesus. And during this series, we've bundled the small group study and Jon's book, Jesus Loves Me, together at a special discounted price. To take advantage, visit livingontheedge.org.

App listeners tap special offers. Well, with that, here's Chip and Jon with a few final words. Thanks so much, Dave.

And Jon, again, I really appreciate you joining me again today in studio. You did something that I think is so essential in our day. You hit head on this issue of the chaos, the difficulty, the disappointment. The world isn't as God wants it to be, but it's certainly not the way we want it with some of the evil and disasters and things that are happening. And then you connected the theology of a broken world with what Jesus actually did. Could you speak right now to that person whose life isn't working, who's really struggling, who maybe is angry at God and just, you know, how could you let this happen? I think you shared it theologically, but could you take a moment if you were sitting across from someone who's gone through a devastating time like so many today and just talk to them about how does Jesus love show up in your world when things like this happen?

Chip, what a great question. It is so hard when we're going through suffering, when we're going through difficulty. And I want to encourage the person listening right now, I want you to know that God sees you and he sees what you're going through. I also want to encourage you with this, that what you do with your pain might be the most important choice you make in your life.

And really it's a one of two choices kind of thing. You either turn to God with your pain or you turn away from him because of your pain. Now Satan is real and the evil that you're experiencing, that's proof that Satan would love nothing more than for you and your pain to fall for the lie that God is against you, that God's not good.

The reality is that your pain, if you trace it back, goes all the way back to that Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and Satan is the reason that pain is in your life. God wants to help. God wants to rescue.

God wants to redeem. And I know you might not feel that. I know it might seem impossible, but I want to just encourage you with this choice. Turn toward God in your pain. Turn to him. Choose to believe that he's for you, that he wants to heal, that he wants to redeem. Give God your pain. You know, scripture promises you this. God says that he is near to the broken hearted. God's near to you right now. Scripture says that he upholds those who are crushed in spirit. And I just want to encourage you, turn to Jesus. Believe in him as the one who can carry you through this, who can bring good from it.

And if you've trusted in him to be your savior, who will ultimately deliver you out of it into a place of eternal joy and eternal life, heaven's a real place. We'll eat there. We'll celebrate.

We'll have an incredible time. And in this world, we will have suffering, he said, but take heart. I've overcome the world. So keep believing. Keep turning to Jesus. Thanks, John. And if you're in a painful season right now, we'd love to pray for you.

We honestly care about what's going on in your life. So call us now at 888-333-8255 and a team member would be happy to pray for you. That's 888-333-6003. Or if it's easier, email us at chip at LivingontheEdge.org. That's chip at LivingontheEdge.org. We'll join us next time as our guest teacher, John Dickerson, continues his new series, Jesus Loves Me. Until then, I'm Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.