Sermon #13 Series: Who Is God?
Title: The Love Of God
Text: Romans 8:39
Reading:
Subject:
Date: Tuesday Evening - April 10, 1990
Tape #
Introduction:
My subject tonight is The Love Of God. I have chosen Romans
8:39 for my text because of the distinct manner in which Paul speaks of God’s
love in that verse. As you know, in Romans 8 the Apostle Paul is laying the
foundation for the believer’s confidence and assurance of faith. The basis of
our assurance, as it is setforth in this chapter is the purpose of God, the
providence of God, and the propitiatory sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Resting the weight of his immortal soul upon these solid pillars of faith, Paul
declares, “I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.”
Whenever we think about the love of
God we must begin here. The love of God is in Christ. We rejoice to know that “God is love.” Love is in God. Love
comes from God. Apart from God there is no love. But the love of God is
revealed, expressed, known, manifest, and found only in Christ. The Bible never
speaks of the love of God outside, or apart from Christ. Those who talk of the
love of God toward sinners apart from Christ, the Mediator between God and men,
speak in direct opposition to the Scriptures.
“The
Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works” (Psa.
145:9). Because of his goodness and tender mercy, God feeds the raven, clothes
the lily, and sustains the beasts of the field. He is kind even to the
thankless reprobate in this world (Lk. 6:35). His providence extends to all his
creatures. And he sends both sunshine and rain to the just and the unjust
(Matt. 5:45). But the love of God is in Christ. It is reserved for and given to
his elect in Christ.
Those who declare that God loves all
people alike, that he loves those who perish under his wrath in hell just as he
loves those who are the heirs of eternal life, reduce the love of God to a
fickle, helpless, frustrated passion. But that cannot be. God’s love is like
himself, from everlasting to everlasting, immutable and unchanging. “Nothing is
more absurd than to imagine that anyone beloved of God can eternally perish or
shall ever experience his everlasting vengeance” (A. W. Pink).
When Paul says, nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love
of God, which is in Christ,” the word “us”
refers to God’s elect, those sinners who are actually saved by his grace. When
false prophets declare that God loves everyone in the world, they speak
contrary to the Scriptures and give sinners a false hope, crying “peace, peace,” when there is no peace.
1. The Word of God plainly declares
that God does not love all people (Psa. 5:5; 11:6-7; John 3:36; Rom. 9:13)
·
Noah’s
Generation.
·
Sodomites.
·
Sons of Korah.
Note: The word “world” in John 3:16 is used to refer to God’s
elect among the Gentiles.
2. To tell sinners that God loves them regardless of their
relationship to Christ is either an assurance of salvation without Christ, or a
declaration that God is weak, mutable, helpless, and frustrated.
We cannot understand or appreciate the
love of God unless we begin here. The love of God is in Christ. As all the
grace, all the promises, and all the blessings of God are in Christ, so the
love of God is in Christ. As we were chosen of God in Christ (Eph. 1:4), as we
are accepted of God in Christ (Eph. 1:6), as our life is hid with God in Christ
(Col. 3:3), so we are loved of God in Christ.
Proposition:
Because the love of God toward us is “the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” our Head, our
Husband, our mediator, nothing can separate us from that love; for nothing can
separate us from Christ.
Nothing can be more profitable to our
souls than for us to meditate upon and spiritually contemplate “the love of God which is in Christ.” If
we are enabled to do so by the Spirit of God, as we are lifted outside of
ourselves and lifted above this world of care, our souls will be filled with
satisfaction in the love of God. To know and to believe the love which God has
toward us is both an earnest and a foretaste of heaven.
Divisions:
I want to lead your heart in meditating upon the love of
God. In doing so, I will just give you an outline for direction, and leave it
to you to fill in the spaces. May the Spirit of God be our Teacher.
1. Some characteristics of God’s love.
2. Some of the operations of God’s love.
3. One sure consequence of God’s love.
4. Our response to God’s love.
I. FIRST, I WANT US TO CONSIDER
SOME OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD’S LOVE, AS IT IS REVEALED TO US IN THE
SCRIPTURES.
Obviously, we must limit ourselves to a few outstanding
characteristics of God’s love, or we might be here a long, long time. I do not
pretend that we will exhaust this inexhaustible subject tonight. But here are
three things revealed in the Bible about “the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
A. The love of
God is free and unconditional.
In Hosea 14:4, the Lord God declares, “I will love them freely.” That simply means that God’s love toward
us is an unconditional, unqualified, unmerited, uncaused love. God does not love
his elect because of anything amiable and attractive in us. He says, “Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated,” and
that before either had done anything good or bad, “that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of
works, but of him that calleth” (Rom. 9:13, 11).
1. Our love to God is not the cause of
his love to us, but the response of our hearts to his love revealed in us (I
John 4:10, 19).
God loved us when we were lost and
ruined in sin, destitute of all grace, without the least particle of love
toward him or faith in him. While we were his enemies and alienated from him,
God loved us freely (Rom. 5:8, 10).
2. Not even the death of Christ is the
cause of God’s love for us.
Christ’s death is the cause of our
pardon and justification. Christ’s death is the cause of our redemption and
salvation. But our Lord’s death on our behalf is not the cause of God’s love
for us - It was the result of God’s love (John 3:160. God so loved us that he
gave his Son to die for us!
“Twas not to make Jehovah’s love
Toward the sinner flame,
That Jesus from His throne above,
A suffering man became.
Twas not the death which He endured,
Nor all the pangs he bore,
That God’s eternal love procured,
For God was love before.
He loved the world of His elect
With love surpassing thought;
Nor will His mercy ever neglect
The souls so dearly bought!
----John Kent
The
love of God is free and unconditional.
B.
The love of God is eternal.
As God’s love is without a cause, so it is without
beginning. “The love of God which is in
Christ” is not of yesterday. It did not begin I time. It bears the date of
eternity upon it. He declares, “I have
loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31).
Try to realize this, if you can - As
God the Father loved his Son from eternity, so he loved us from eternity. And
as God’s love is in Christ, God’s love for Christ and his love for us are the
same! (Read John 17:23). Only faith can grasp what I am saying. It is beyond
reason and emotion. God loves us in Christ. As God beholds his people in his
dear Son, he loves us as he loves his Son, delights in us as he delights in his
Son, and is pleased with us as he is pleased with his Son.
C.
And the love of God is immutable, irrevocable, and indestructible.
God’s love is not like man’s love. God’s love does not
change, ever, under any conditions. Having loved us, he will never call his
love back. And there is nothing we can do to destroy or even lessen “the love of God which is in Christ” (John
13:1).
We did nothing to attract God’s love
in the beginning. And we can do nothing to repel his love. God’s love is not
dependent upon or regulated by our faithfulness. God’s love is immutable (Mal.
3:6).
Illustration: Hosea and Gomer.
The Prodigal and his father.
God’s
love is (1) Free, (2) Eternal, (3) Immutable.
II. SECONDLY, LET’S REMEMBER SOME
OF THE OPERATIONS OF GOD’S LOVE.
All the acts of God for his people in time are expressions
of his love for us from everlasting. God’s acts of grace are the shedding
abroad of his love in our hearts.
A.
The very first act of God’s love, as it is revealed in the Bible, is election
and predestination (Eph. 1:3-6; II Thess. 2:13; Deut. 7:7-9).
No one believes in the love of God who
does not believe in election. No one can talk about the love of God in Bible
terms who does not talk about predestination.
B.
The love of God is revealed in the redemption of our souls by the death of our
Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:8; I John 4:10; 3:16).
We read the love of God in the
precious blood of Christ. We see the love of God revealed not in the
incarnation of Christ, not in the life of Christ, not in the example of Christ,
not in the doctrine of Christ, not even in the prayers of Christ, but only in
the blood of Christ. Had he done everything else and left this undone, had he
not poured out his life’s blood unto death for the atonement of our sins and
the redemption of our souls, we could never have known the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When God would show his power, he made
the world. When God would display his wisdom, he set his creation in the frame
of the vast universe which he had made. When God would manifest his greatness,
he made the heavens above and put angels, principalities, and powers there to
surround his throne. But when God would reveal his love he gave his Son to
suffer, bleed , and die to put away the sins of his people and bring in
everlasting righteousness!
No wonder that Paul, when realizing
this, cried, “God forbid that I should
glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is
crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). No wonder he made
this the constant theme of his preaching, saying, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and
him crucified” (I Cor. 2:2).
C.
The new birth, by which we have been born into the family and kingdom of God,
is the result of God’s love toward us from eternity.
·
Regeneration
(Ezek. 16:6-8).
·
Effectual
calling (Jer. 31:3).
·
Adoption (I
John 3:1).
D. And our
preservation in grace is the work of God’s love (John 13:1).
“Many
waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drawn it” (Song of Sol.
8:7). God’s love toward his elect is invincible and unquenchable. There is no
possibility that it will expire. The black waters of our sin cannot extinguish
it. And floods of our unbelief cannot drawn it.
With men, nothing is stronger than
death. But with God nothing is stronger than love. You can measure the strength
of God’s love when you can comprehend the obstacles his love has overcome.
·
Our fall could
not destroy it.
·
God’s justice
could not nullify it.
·
Even the death
of Christ could not prevent it.
·
Our sin,
death, corruption, and eternity could not withstand it.
·
Our
temptations cannot destroy it.
·
Our many falls
cannot cause God to withdraw his love.
III. THIRDLY, LET ME SHOW YOU ONE
SURE CONSEQUENCE OF GOD’S LOVE (Eph.
1:4-5).
All who are loved of God now, were
loved of God from eternity, and shall be loved of God forever. And the love of
God shall bring us home to heaven at last in the perfection of everlasting
glory. In the end, when all things are finished, when the sons of God are in
the Father’s heavenly kingdom and all the wicked are cast into hell, what will
be the difference between the saints in heaven and the wicked in hell?
·
Not our
goodness!
·
Not out
free-will!
·
Not our
baptism!
·
Not our
faithfulness!
·
Not our creed!
·
Not our
church!
But “the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!” Because he loved us God determined to
save us, chose us to be his own, predestinated us to be his sons, redeemed by
the precious blood of Christ, called us by his Spirit, keeps us by his grace,
and shall bring us to glory.
IV. WHAT IS OUR RESPONSE TO THE
LOVE OF GOD?
“We love him
because he first loved us!” (I
John 4:19). “Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another” (I John 4:11).
Application:
I want you to go home now, with your heart filled with this
one thought. Nothing “shall be able to
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
1.
God’s love for us is our incentive in all things.
·
Devotion to
him (I Cor. 6:19-20).
·
Giving (II
Cor. 8:9).
·
Brotherly
kindness (Eph. 4:32-5:1).
·
Our confidence
in him (Rom. 8:32).
2.
If you would know the love of God - Look to Christ!