When someone says “God loves you”, what does that mean to you? What do you think it means to LOVE someone?
Some dictionary definitions I found for “love” are:
· To have a great affection or liking for (“She loves her boss and works hard for him”; “I love French food”)
· Get pleasure from (“I love cooking”)
· Be enamoured (infatuated) with (“I love Angelina”)
· Be devoted to (“he loves his work”)
Easter is a time we remember that Jesus was crucified for us. John’ gospel records how Jesus agonized over his impending crucifixion, sweating blood, even asking if there was not another way. But he went. So a good question to ask is:
“What drove Jesus to the cross?”
What drove him to endure the most shocking injustice and abuse, the most agonizing physical, emotional and spiritual pain imaginable?
John 3:16 and 17 give us insight:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
What drove Jesus to the cross?
Love. “God so loved the world that…”
Clearly this love is greater than my “dictionary love”! Clearly it is greater than our “human love”… our puny, fickle, selfish love…
GOD’s love is clearly much bigger!
So what is God’s love like? What is it about his love that makes it so amazing?
Here are a few things:
1. GOD’s love is not based on our PERFORMANCE
Listen to Matthew 23:23-37
33 "You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.
37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,
but you were not willing.
Our human love can be so fickle! We can “fall in and out of love” with one another so easily! When someone makes us happy, we think we love them. Then they offend us and we no longer love them!
Friends, this is NOT like God’s love! His love is NOT fickle! This text is a dramatic picture of his love. The Jews are evidently at their lowest place ever; they cannot even recognize their Messiah… they are like vicious snakes… they are headed for hell… they are prophet-killers… they are rightfully receiving the most scathing, brutal rebuke ever given to Israel!
After a rebuke like this, one would have expected Jesus to call down fire from heaven to consume them… or at least, storm off in disgust, shaking the dust off his feet!
But as Jesus looks at these depraved people, LOVE wells up in his heart! He wants to gather them to himself! He wants to embrace them! He wants to protect them!
This is GOD-love! This love looks fully in the face of our ugliest sins… it recognizes the depravity of our hearts… and it LOVES!
Some people feel unable to come to God because they have done so many bad things. They cannot imagine God loving them after all they have done… or after all they are doing. If you struggle with such doubts, read and re-read this piece of Scripture… put yourself in this picture.
Maybe you are a snake! Maybe you are headed for hell! Maybe you are opposed to God! Maybe you are a candidate for a scathing rebuke from God!
Maybe you are all those things – like the Jews Jesus was speaking to…
Then know this: Jesus longs to gather you to himself, to rescue you from the mess you’re in, to embrace you, to make you a child of God!!!
God’s love does not depend on your performance. It is far greater than your ugliest sin.
Consider Romans 5:6-8
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God’s love is definitely NOT performance-based! It loves IN SPITE OF us.
2. God’s love reaches EVERYWHERE
Listen to Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Have you ever felt that you are just too far away from God for his love to reach you? Have you ever felt disqualified from God’s love by your past? Or by your present? By your religious background? Or by some evil influence?
Paul makes it clear to us: NOTHING can separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ! NOTHING!!!
God’s love reaches everywhere! It reaches YOU!
3. God’s love TRANSFORMS us
Ephesians 3:14-19
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
God’s love is so much greater that ours that Paul says it “surpasses knowledge” – it is too big to comprehend. Yet we can know it experientially! And when we “know this love that surpasses knowledge” we are filled up with “fullness of God”! This speaks of something of the life of God being poured into us – and this is what transforms us!
Maybe you have become frustrated, even disillusioned, with your attempts to “be good”, or to “be better”, to “grow in godliness”.
Maybe it’s because you have been running on the wrong fuel!!! Human effort does not have the transforming power that the love of God does!! The fuel of human effort burns out quickly – like cheap charcoal J – and we “run out of fuel” in our attempts to be what God has made us to be.
But when we run on the fuel of the love of God, we are running on an inexhaustible fuel!!
When we are gripped by the love of God – when we have grasped something of the enormity of God’s love for us – something changes inside of us.
We realize that we are “God’s beloved”. We realize that God is 100% for us. So we begin to “love him back”. We want to please our incredible Father! We want to hear his directions, we want to learn his ways and live his way – because we know it is all from our Heavenly Father who loves us with a love that is greater than our highest thought on love!!
Paul prayed passionately that the church would come to know this awesome, magnificent, indescribable love – because it transforms us, making us more and more like our Heavenly Father! I too pray that we will “get it”! And be transformed by it!!
Lastly,
4. God’s love is sacrificial
John 15:13 records these words of Jesus:
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
There is no greater picture of sacrificial love than the cross of Christ. Some children spread their arms out wide and say “I love you this much”… Jesus stretched his hands out on the cross – and he says to you and I “I love you this much!” It is an “I love you with everything I am” love. It is not a taking love, or a withholding love, but a completely giving love.
Our obvious response to this sacrificial love is awe – that God who made the universe loves us so much that he made a personal sacrifice for us – the greatest sacrifice ever made – for us! Wow! He loves us that much!!
Another response is trust – if God is prepared to sacrifice personally for us like that, he is definitely FOR us! He’s not “out to take from us” – as if we, his creation, could have something he needs! So we can trust him with our lives. And we can trust him with our obedience, knowing that he is absolutely FOR us!
A similar response is confidence – if God is for us, who can be against us! Remember Romans 8:31-32:
31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
This Easter, let’s appreciate God’s love anew. There is more to discover of his love – it is so MASSIVE! Let’s take time out to consider the cross of Christ… and the love of God that got him there.
Let’s run to him, knowing that his love is not earned or deserved – it is simply given. His love is a “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” love!
Let’s reach out to him, knowing that his love transcends all barriers. Hs love is a “nothing can separate us” love!
Let’s trust fully in his love – it is the greatest love ever – a “laid down his life for us” love!
Let’s pray for a greater revelation of his love – that we can experience this “fullness” that Scripture speaks of.
What a love! There is no greater!!!
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