Randall Caselman
Bella Vista Church of Christ
December 16, 2001 AM
See How Great A Love
Reading -1 John 3.1-3 & John 3.16-21
Our Sunday morning lessons during December are focused on the love... mercy and grace of God... Demonstrated in the coming of Jesus into this world... to purchase our salvation.
You see... Love is central to God's nature!... Scripture tells us that God is love. Here is the good news. God has chosen mankind... US... As the object of His amazing love! For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son... Whoever believes in Him shall not perish... But have eternal life.
Indeed... God's love for us is Incredible... Incomprehensible... Remarkable!
When John considered the marvel of God's love for us... He couldn't help feeling a sense of awe and astonishment!... See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us... Behold, what manner of love-- That we should be called children... sons of God. Church... Isn't it amazing after all we've done...
-All our sin...
-All our rebellion...
-All our ingratitude...
-All our disobedience...
That God still wants to love us... claim us... forgive... and save us... As His own children?
Indeed... It is beyond our comprehension!!... We can only marvel at His capacity to love.
Secondly... We also marvel at the way in which God demonstrated His love. Think of it... God becoming man... Creator dying for the created.
God so loved the world that He gave His one and only... His only begotten son... In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and was God... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among men... Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!
God in heaven... Becomes the flesh in a womb... Incredible!! He who is larger than the universe... Become an embryo. The omnipotent creator is born of a teenage Jewish maiden.
God is wrapped in swaddling cloth. Spirit becomes flesh... Making Himself vulnerable to human weakness and pain. INCREDIBLE!!... INCOMPREHENSIBLE!!... REMARKABLE LOVE!!
OK... From Scripture... Let's see what we can learn... Let's catch a glimpse of His love. First and foremost... God loves us unconditionally.
As I read from Romans six... Listen for the words listed there in your worship handout... You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless... Helpless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
These verses tell us that God loves the unlovable!... unlovable because... We are powerless to save ourselves. At just the right time... While we were HELPLESS... POWERLESS... Christ died for us.
The Greek means... Without strength... The original word means weak... feeble... infirm.
- It describes a person whose body is diseased...
- One whose health is compromised...
- One who is dying.
I hope each of us agree this morning that we are helpless to save ourselves... We are powerless.
Secondly... We are Ungodly.
This word in the Greek refers to a person who has no reverence or respect for God.
- One who speaks of God with contempt...
- One who insults God
- One who laughs in His face.
Thirdly ... We are unlovable because we are sinners.
Scripture tells us that sin is a transgression of God's law... It is knowing right and doing wrong.
- The primary element in sin is rebellion...
- Sin is indifference to God and His blessing toward us.
- It is a deliberate rejection of God...
- A disregard or disobedience to His commands...
The original word suggests... Not just one who slips through weakness... But one devoted to sin... One who loves sin and is devoted to this kind of lifestyle... One who willingly... Deliberately does that which He or she knows to be wrong... and evil.
Number four... We are unlovable because we are enemies of God.
Thayer says the word here means one who is odious... hateful... hostile... toward God. The Bible describes some as God Haters... Others are enemies because they are indifferent... Or because they refuse to work in His kingdom... And yet God loves us!
God did not say... Get your life cleaned up and straightened out and then I'll love you. In effect... He said... I will love you even in your wretchedness. He loved us when there was nothing lovely about us!... While we were aliens and unlovable.
INCREDIBLE!!... INCOMPREHENSIBLE!!... REMARKABLE LOVE!!
We also need to note this morning that God's love is a free gift.
Church... Do we understand that God doesn't love us for something we have done... But He loves us just because we need His love. What motive!!... What love!!... What grace!!
- We love pumpkin pie, because it tastes good.
- We love the opposite sex because they are attractive to us.
- We love country because of its freedoms, privileges, blessings.
- We love mother for what she has done for us.
But God loves for another reason... He loves us because we need His love... We must have it... We can't live... Or be saved without it.
We must know this morning that there is nothing we have done... or ever could do that would merit God's love... We can't place God in our debt.
Listen to me folk... LIFE... AND SALVATION are both ours to enjoy because of God's amazing grace.
- Grace is unmerited favor.
- Grace is God's initiative on our behalf... Something He did for us that we could not do for ourselves.
- Grace is God's Riches At Christ's Expense.
- Grace is His free gift of forgiveness and salvation through the coming of Jesus.
Listen to these scriptures about His love and grace... For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men... This is how God showed his love to us... He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love... Not that we loved God,... But that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins... For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God... Not by works, so that no one can boast.
God's motive for coming into the world to forgive and save us is because we need it... Folk... This is PURE LOVE... This is grace.
O listen to our wondrous story:
Counted once among the lost,
Jesus came from Heaven's glory,
Saving us at awful cost.
You see... The price of the gift is always directly proportional to the love of the giver. This is God's law of giving... The greater the love... The greater the gift. The gift is equivalent to the love. So... Jesus is a true measure of God's love for us.
Sometimes... We excuse our gift giving by saying... Well, it didn't cost much... But it is the thought that counts... No it's not... Don't say that to anybody. God didn't say that to us... Aren't we glad? Thank God... That He didn't make such a flimsy excuse! Cheap gifts are a demonstration of cheap love... Precious gifts are a demonstration of precious love.
When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
Praise God for His INCREDIBLE!!... INCOMPREHENSIBLE!... REMARKABLE!! GIFT... Amen?... Amen!!
Then thirdly... We catch a glimpse of His love in that it is forever. God loves us with a love that refuses to give up.
Listen to Romans 8... For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 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.
Paul affirms that...
- No matter how low into sin we may drop...
- No matter how degenerate we may become...
- No matter how far we wander from God...
- No matter how ugly the sin...
- No matter how long the estrangement...
We cannot kill... Or decrease His love for us!
History itself tells us that God's love does not gives up!
- God created Adam & Eve... Placed them in a garden paradise so He could have fellowship with them... They sinned... But God determined to bring Jesus to reconcile His creation back to Himself.
- In the time of Noah... All the world was lost in sin... In His agony and brokenness God determined to wash the earth clean with a great flood. But even then He did not give up!... Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
- An incredible chain of events began that reaches all through the Bible and continues to this present moment... God kept reaching out to man in love, but man repeatedly turned away!
At last God sent His only-begotten Son as the ultimate expression of His love. And men responded by nailing Him in ignorance and anger to a cross!... What would God do now? Surely... He would just wash His hands of man and turn away?-- But He didn't... But He didn't.
INCREDIBLE!!... INCOMPREHENSIBLE!!... REMARKABLE LOVE!!
Well... So what?... What does this remarkable love mean to us this morning?
First... His coming deals with our past... It forgives us all our sins. He come to redeems us, to atone for our wrongs. Jesus came to pay the price for our mistakes. Jesus came to purchase our pardon.
- Twice in First Corinthians Paul says... We are not our own... We have been bought with a price.
- Peter says... We were not bought with perishable things such as silver or gold... But with the precious blood of Christ.
Under the Law of Moses sins could be rolled forward one year at a time. But the Hebrews writer tells us that... At the end of that year... Their sins were remembered again... Dealt with again by another sacrifice. They were rolling their sins forward
- Until the time of His coming
- Until the incarnation.
That time when God would come into the world...and die... as an atonement for the sins of all. You see... His blood flowed from the cross to Adam... and from the cross to us... To all who will step into its life giving flow.
What a concept!... In Him we have redemption through his blood... The forgiveness of sins... In accordance with the riches of God's grace.
INCREDIBLE!!... UNIMAGINABLE!!... INCOMPREHENSIBLE!! REMARKABLE LOVE!!
Secondly... His coming deals with our present... It brings peace.
Isaiah says... For to us a child is born... A son is given... And the government will be on his shoulders... He will be called Wonderful Counselor... Mighty God... Everlasting Father... Prince of Peace.
- His coming allows us PEACE WITH GOD... Through the forgiveness of sins... Not just one time in the act of New Testament baptism... But continually as we walk in the light... And as we continue to acknowledge them before God.
- His coming affords peace with others. In the time of Jesus it was peace between Jews and Gentiles. Today it is peace with anybody... anywhere.
You see church... If we all individually... As families... As churches... As nations would live by the principles that Jesus came and taught... We would have absolute peace in our world.
The failure is not in His coming... In His teaching... But in our adherence to His principles. May God help us to start this Christmas season to celebrate His coming daily... By the way we treat one another... friends and enemies alike... Amen?... Amen!!
- His coming also brings peace within ourselves... Because we are forgiven... There is no guilt.
Isn't it great?... INCREDIBLE!!... INCOMPREHENSIBLE!!... REMARKABLE LOVE!!!
Number three... His coming guarantees us a future... The hope of Heaven
In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am... I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me... Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away... And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
INCREDIBLE!!... NIMAGINABLE!!...INCOMPREHENSIBLE!!... REMARKABLE LOVE!!
INDEED!!!... WHAT A GREAT LOVE!!
The question is... How will we respond to it... What does His coming demand of us?
Our Reading says that His coming demands our faith... 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. Jesus said... You must believe I am He or you will die in your sins.
The Hebrews writer says... Without faith it is impossible to please Him... But we must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
- Faith is acknowledgment that Jesus is who He says He is... The Son of God.
- Faith is a trust and confidence in Him and His promises to the extent we will obey His
commands in order to receive the promised reward.
- Faith is a willingness to confess His name... Acknowledge His Deity before men.
- Faith is a willingness to change our lives... To repent of our sins and follow His teachings.
- Faith is a submission to New Testament baptism... An enactment of His death, burial and resurrection.
The Bible says... We are all children of God by faith... For as many as have been baptized into Christ... Have put on Christ... Have been clothed with Christ.
Folk... Let us not try to rewrite it... Explain it away... But just accept it and by faith obey it.
Well... How has this lesson spoken to you?...
Is there something you need to do to respond to the INCREDIBLE... INCOMPREHENSIBLE... REMARKABLE LOVE of God?
Come to Jesus as we stand and sing together.
