The Awesome Love of God
During Sermon Hour at the Westville campus, we have been working steadily through the Gospel of John. Each time I read through John’s gospel account, I find myself more in awe of the God who knows and loves me—especially that God loves me even though he knows me! See, I know the thoughts that I have that I would never share with anyone else…and God knows those, too. And he still loves me. For someone who struggles with needing acceptance, God is too good to be true. But he is true. And he is good. And he loves me. He loves you. Jeremiah 31:3 says that God has loved us with an everlasting love.
God is love
As we consider this idea of an everlasting love, we must consider who God is. 1 John 4:8 and 16 tell us that God is love. The defining characteristic of God is love. This love is everlasting and eternal because God is eternal. Before creation, God existed in love—the Father, the Son, the Spirit existed in perfect love. This tri-unity (trinity) of God allows for perfect love to be expressed apart from anyone or anything else. The narrative of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 tells us an amazing story…We were created to be in relationship with God and each other! In God’s good plan, we were designed by God to live and love. Humans need relationships. We crave connection with others. However, love cannot be forced or coerced. It must be freely given, and it must be freely chosen. And so, God gave the first people a choice. Would they love and trust Him? Or would they choose their own way?
The great cost of sin
The evidence of Adam’s decision is all around us today. We live in a world that is broken, among people who are separated from their Creator by their sin and rebellion. Paul writes: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…” (Rom 5:12) All of us, by our own sins against God, are guilty and subject to death—God had warned Adam: “…‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” (Gen 2:16-17) The great cost of sin is death. And the Old Testament makes clear—through the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms—only a perfect, sinless sacrifice can cover, or atone, for sin. But the blood of bulls and goats could never take away the guilt of sin (Heb 10:4), nor can it reconcile us to God. Keeping the law cannot make us right with God…it can only demonstrate how guilty we are before a holy God. We have no way of having our relationship with God restored—our good works and efforts to reach God are stained by our very nature. (Is 64:6; Rom 3:20) Instead, God must act to make a way of reconciliation.
Love in the flesh
John opens his gospel with a statement that echoes Genesis 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (Jn 1:1-4) He then writes: “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men… No one has ever seen God; God, the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” (Jn 1:14, 18)
Necessary, not pleasant
Here we find the fullest expression of God’s great love for us. Love does not do what is nice. Love does what is necessary. And it was necessary for the Son of God to humble himself and take on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of sinful men. The Son is obedient to death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:5-8) Jesus, God the Son in human flesh—fully God and fully man—does what is necessary to make a way of restoration and reconciliation between God and man. Animal sacrifices could never take away the stain of sin. They could never change our nature. They could never move us from death to life. But God, through the Son, made a way for us to be reborn. In his death on the cross, the righteous judgment on sin is displayed, and the free gift of eternal life is made available to all who turn from unbelief and believe in Jesus as the only way to God.
Our Response
“Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor 6:2b) My hope and prayer is that you will realize and respond appropriately to the great and awesome love of God. That you and I might proclaim with the Apostle Paul: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Because one day, Jesus is coming back…not as a servant, but as a King. The righteous King who will redeem and restore all creation. And those who believe in him will spend eternity in a kingdom of unending love and joy. But those who reject him will spend eternity outside the kingdom, separated from the love and joy of God and his people—never again to know the grace of God.
