back to index2016-05-29 Who, When, How, Why of God's Love
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that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 00:00:07.000 |
We pray, Father God, that your grace would be sufficient 00:00:28.680 |
you'll find that those three virtues are scattered 00:00:48.000 |
But in the end, scripture says in 1 Corinthians 13, 00:01:08.960 |
Considering that our whole connection with God, 00:01:33.000 |
I would think that they would all equally be important. 00:01:37.960 |
But why does he identify love above the other two? 00:02:15.240 |
in 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, 00:02:18.280 |
So the greatest purpose of salvation is to love. 00:02:27.440 |
those of you guys who know the book of Ephesians, 00:02:31.560 |
You have the indicatives and the imperatives. 00:02:33.600 |
The first three chapters are about what salvation is, 00:02:39.360 |
And then starting from chapter four through six, 00:02:56.320 |
"My prayer is that Christ may dwell in your hearts 00:03:06.440 |
what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 00:03:11.680 |
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." 00:03:17.360 |
and just highlight what he says at the end of that. 00:03:21.640 |
He says, "To be filled with the fullness of God, 00:03:37.440 |
we need to be able to grasp the love of Christ. 00:03:43.300 |
that the very identifying mark of a Christian, 00:03:49.600 |
God is holy, so therefore we ought to be holy. 00:04:22.280 |
you know, is God really speaking through you? 00:04:41.640 |
What causes us to continue to do what we do is love. 00:04:47.400 |
is so that we may experience more of this love. 00:04:58.400 |
is through the text that we're reading right now. 00:05:00.900 |
Which in starting from verse five through verse 11, 00:05:20.040 |
and then we'll briefly talk about why he loved us. 00:05:26.320 |
I believe, that starts it off is who loves us. 00:05:46.320 |
when we are loved, and we feel loved, we change. 00:05:57.120 |
Again, there's no exposition of who God is in this text, 00:06:00.240 |
but again, in order for us to fully appreciate 00:06:20.240 |
the main theme is Deuteronomy 6, five, right? 00:06:58.840 |
it says, "The heavens declare the glory of God, 00:07:10.180 |
"Their measuring line goes out through all the earth, 00:07:19.200 |
hundreds of verses that would fit that same category, 00:07:26.140 |
The God who is about to expound his love toward us 00:07:34.360 |
You know, we sometimes get short-sighted, again, 00:07:43.580 |
and you know, say, "Oh my God, that affects us. 00:07:46.320 |
"It affects us for a week, you know, a month." 00:08:11.040 |
It is a calling of Isaiah into his prophetic ministry. 00:08:24.520 |
Typically, we kind of focus on the holy, holy, holy aspect 00:08:39.180 |
the historical environment behind where this happens 00:08:44.920 |
King Uzziah, was he a good king or a bad king? 00:08:50.160 |
Those of you who are studying with us in Isaiah, 00:09:09.800 |
There was exactly, it was about eight of them. 00:09:11.400 |
King Uzziah was actually one of the very few good kings 00:09:28.960 |
During his reign, God blesses the nation of Israel. 00:09:47.400 |
and then he dies, and then the throne is empty. 00:09:53.120 |
to basically tell Isaiah and the nation of Israel, 00:09:59.940 |
Uzziah might have died, and the throne may be empty, 00:10:03.760 |
but the God of gods and the king of kings is still here. 00:10:08.100 |
And that is the vision that he gives to Isaiah, 00:10:11.960 |
basically telling Isaiah, "Everything is good. 00:10:22.500 |
"and the train of his robe filled with the temple. 00:10:24.680 |
"Above him stood seraphims, each with six wings, 00:10:27.120 |
"with two covered his face, with two he covered his feet, 00:10:38.740 |
Before Isaiah was commissioned to go represent God, 00:10:43.700 |
he needed to first and foremost recognize who God is. 00:10:47.260 |
And that the God that he's going to represent, 00:10:50.420 |
the God who has called him to speak on his behalf, 00:10:58.500 |
So for us to understand justification by faith, 00:11:03.620 |
we need to first and foremost understand who it is 00:11:09.420 |
Right now, the political environment that we hear 00:11:14.180 |
all the time is they're afraid that North Korea 00:11:18.380 |
And every time there's uranium or something going on, 00:11:23.140 |
Now, I want you to see it from North Korean perspective. 00:11:30.420 |
I want you to hear this from North Korean perspective. 00:11:33.480 |
America, you have nuclear bombs, why can't we have any? 00:11:38.380 |
I mean, if you're a child playing in the playground, 00:11:44.940 |
and one kid has a stick and the other kid wants a stick, 00:11:50.980 |
Well, the other kid's like, "You got a stick? 00:11:58.780 |
North Korea should have nuclear bombs, right? 00:12:03.820 |
The reason why everybody is concerned about North Korea 00:12:07.060 |
having nuclear bombs is because nuclear bomb, 00:12:09.300 |
the power that it has, in the hands of an unstable 00:12:13.180 |
government that is willing to destroy maybe even the world. 00:12:21.220 |
Imagine if you never knew anything about the gospel. 00:12:28.500 |
you never heard about him being crucified for us, 00:12:38.180 |
whose very reason why you are even breathing today, 00:12:41.900 |
why the earth is rotating at a consistent speed, 00:12:44.900 |
why we don't burn out and we don't freeze to death, 00:12:47.440 |
that all that power is in this being's hands, 00:12:52.020 |
And that not only is he real, he is omniscient. 00:12:56.460 |
And he knows all your deeds, he knows all your thoughts. 00:13:00.660 |
Would your first response be, thank God you exist. 00:13:10.940 |
Your first response would be probably terror. 00:13:15.160 |
Because you're gonna be combing through everything 00:13:24.860 |
every corner that you cut, every lie that you've told, 00:13:28.300 |
everything that you've watched on the internet, 00:13:31.540 |
everything that we've done that we've been trying 00:13:33.380 |
so hard to hide and ashamed to tell other people 00:13:36.140 |
to know that this powerful God who could squash me 00:13:39.100 |
knows all of this stuff, would fill us with terror. 00:13:46.460 |
of who you and I are, 'cause we have no power 00:13:57.740 |
'Cause these nuclear bombs, they're just bombs. 00:14:11.380 |
or sometimes we've been in the church so long, 00:14:23.140 |
that in and of itself should be a source of celebration. 00:14:39.540 |
and to come before him, thanking him every day 00:15:07.020 |
Verse eight, while we were weak, in verse six. 00:15:12.300 |
Verse 10, while we were still enemies of God. 00:15:15.200 |
While we were still weak, while we were still sinners, 00:15:20.660 |
You know the difference between a love relationship 00:15:24.380 |
while you're dating, in the beginning stages, 00:15:36.980 |
And anybody who says otherwise, you're lying. 00:15:39.860 |
He's like, no, no, no, I love my girlfriend despite. 00:15:45.700 |
Nobody practices despite love in the beginning. 00:15:48.960 |
We all love, it's like, why, why do you like him? 00:15:54.780 |
Right, that's the kind of girl I like, right? 00:16:35.660 |
so don't turn around and look to see who I'm talking about. 00:16:38.060 |
I know a guy who broke up with his girlfriend. 00:16:47.860 |
She came out of the pool, and he took a picture, 00:16:55.820 |
It just ate him up, and he just couldn't let it go. 00:16:58.980 |
And we were all like, what is wrong with you, right? 00:17:09.680 |
the Madonna hair back at the time that they had, 00:17:40.580 |
But a love relationship that grows and matures, 00:17:51.560 |
despite all the things that we try so hard to hide. 00:17:54.620 |
And again, Esther and I have been married for 24 years, 00:17:59.780 |
everybody begins by trying to hide your weaknesses, right? 00:18:35.500 |
Despite the fact that I know all your weaknesses, 00:18:39.420 |
and I know all the things that you try to hide from me, 00:18:41.340 |
and all the times that you've disappointed me, 00:18:43.640 |
all the bad temper, and all the stuff that I've seen. 00:18:56.640 |
seen all the ugliness, and they're committed. 00:19:01.740 |
there's a, again, especially when you're dating, 00:19:10.880 |
if you go in the water and take a bad picture, 00:19:21.300 |
we have this kind of security like we're dating God. 00:19:31.900 |
is gonna be severed, and we're always anxious. 00:19:43.240 |
The word weak in Greek literally means without power. 00:20:01.900 |
"Then you also can do good who are accustomed to do evil." 00:20:09.660 |
for you to simply say, "I'm gonna be good now." 00:20:12.980 |
He said, "That's no different than a leopard saying, 00:20:19.220 |
Jeremiah 2, 22, "Though you wash yourself with lye 00:20:28.380 |
There's nothing that you could have possibly done. 00:20:46.460 |
He didn't look at the people with the most potential. 00:21:00.340 |
The word sinner, basically, in the Greek word, 00:21:03.060 |
hamartion, the most basic word that is used for hamartion. 00:21:13.480 |
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 00:21:22.200 |
He said, "While we were rebelling against God." 00:21:48.480 |
but he said, "We were actually enemies of God." 00:21:51.400 |
In Ephesians 2, 3, "Among whom we all once lived 00:21:54.160 |
"in passion of our flesh, carrying out the desires 00:21:56.400 |
"of the body and the mind, and were by nature 00:22:12.920 |
telling me about his testimony that stuck with me 00:22:25.480 |
And so I asked him, one day we were having lunch, 00:22:35.760 |
And he said, and I remember very specifically, 00:22:37.760 |
he said, "For 35 years, people have been trying 00:22:42.920 |
And I remember, again, Tanya and Valerie praying for them, 00:22:45.520 |
and I remember spending so much time talking about, 00:22:56.220 |
Even though we've been praying, we believe in a mighty God, 00:23:11.840 |
"and it came to a point where he started to be convinced 00:23:20.520 |
I just give the Bible to people then, you know? 00:23:23.980 |
"What did you read in the Bible that caused you 00:23:32.320 |
"when Jesus told his disciples to love your enemies." 00:23:35.700 |
I said, "You know, we hear that all the time. 00:23:39.720 |
"you've heard that Bible study lesson all the time." 00:23:42.680 |
But again, as a person who was outside the church, 00:23:45.960 |
and when he was reading that for the first time, 00:23:48.200 |
he said, "This is not a love that human beings practice. 00:24:06.820 |
and then that's what he said caused him to come to Christ. 00:24:38.800 |
Only God could demand that from his followers, 00:24:46.280 |
because that's exactly what he was about to do. 00:24:56.800 |
Imagine how Romans, how Paul describes mankind. 00:25:10.640 |
that you're gonna accomplish right here in this room, okay? 00:25:33.120 |
Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. 00:25:59.100 |
therefore, what would you expect to come after that? 00:26:10.500 |
No, what we would write, if this was an assignment, 00:26:15.940 |
We found the manuscript, we found the book of Romans, 00:26:22.460 |
and it describes that this is the state of mankind. 00:26:26.420 |
We would say, therefore, what would naturally follow this, 00:26:29.980 |
therefore, God was angry and burned with his jealousy, 00:26:39.380 |
that no matter how much he was patient with them, 00:26:55.780 |
We wouldn't expect, therefore, he died for us. 00:27:05.460 |
That at just the right time, he says in verse 6, 00:27:19.780 |
There was a road that led to every part of the world 00:27:26.460 |
and yeah all of these things definitely contributed 00:27:44.900 |
when he says that he loved us despite, right? 00:27:51.620 |
despite the fact that we were enemies of God, 00:28:09.860 |
to possibly think that we can save ourselves, 00:28:29.700 |
and if you jump in and try to grab them at that time, 00:28:39.420 |
you wait until they've exhausted their energy, 00:28:41.980 |
and they look like they're going to pass out. 00:29:13.960 |
when you get this glow stick when you're young, 00:29:32.060 |
Just like even when you want to go see the star, 00:29:50.240 |
when we were in our sins as darkest as dark could be, 00:30:01.240 |
it was the right time because it was God-ordained. 00:30:14.140 |
that he's been waiting for this appointed time, 00:30:19.340 |
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 00:30:23.180 |
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. 00:30:30.940 |
that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, 00:30:33.580 |
he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ 00:31:37.700 |
everything that we try so hard to hide from him 00:32:03.760 |
you know, nobody is flipping through a magazine right now, 00:32:14.520 |
You know, we're all doing a great job, right? 00:32:33.040 |
And it's not that you want to be a hypocrite, 00:32:34.520 |
it's just there's things that you're wrestling with. 00:32:51.880 |
because of the things that you are guilty of. 00:33:06.840 |
And He basically took people who have potential, 00:33:16.040 |
Because He knew we had no other way of salvation, 00:33:47.080 |
is if He decided to practice agape love with us. 00:34:09.080 |
that I'm trying so hard to hide from other people." 00:34:13.920 |
The real punchline, the crescendo of His love, 00:34:22.360 |
The fact that He loved us despite who we were, 00:34:26.120 |
that in and of itself should stop us at its tracks. 00:34:28.680 |
But the real punchline in this is the third part, 00:34:44.600 |
Verse 8, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, 00:34:46.920 |
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." 00:34:53.360 |
we were reconciled by God by the death of His Son." 00:35:03.320 |
He would send the most precious thing that He has, 00:35:10.400 |
"God demonstrates, He reveals His love toward us, 00:35:21.160 |
See, He qualifies that, before that, in verse 7, 00:35:24.480 |
He said, "For one would scarcely die for a righteous person, 00:35:34.880 |
and what the Holy Spirit is telling us this morning, 00:35:38.440 |
is that in human practice, and what you and I understand, 00:35:42.160 |
that every once in a while, you may hear of a hero 00:35:50.200 |
Like, he gets a Purple Heart, and the family gets compensation. 00:36:03.520 |
these are my friends, and I would take a bullet, 00:36:05.680 |
I would die for them, and he actually does it. 00:36:42.520 |
You throw a bomb, and you're captured in an Al-Qaeda prison, 00:36:58.000 |
When's the last time you heard somebody jumped on a bomb 00:37:05.200 |
Possibly, that the closest that you and I could possibly imagine 00:37:22.160 |
somebody would be brave enough, honorable enough, 00:37:39.960 |
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." 00:37:49.040 |
The word "so" basically means "demonstrates." 00:38:07.160 |
Justification by faith is an expression of his love. 00:38:14.000 |
It is not just, "We're going to erase your sins." 00:38:20.980 |
When he said, "It's time for you to glorify your Son, 00:38:27.860 |
To glorify something is to put it on pedestal, 00:38:32.000 |
And what is the greatest thing that you'd want to see? 00:38:39.600 |
It is the love that you and I could not possibly imagine. 00:38:48.920 |
And he said, "It's that love that was put on a pedestal 00:38:51.680 |
on the cross, so that you and I can see this love 00:39:17.920 |
and Donald Trump is quoted almost every other day, 00:39:53.480 |
And obviously all the theologians jumped at him. 00:39:57.480 |
The purpose of that text is actually for restraint. 00:40:02.960 |
because our natural tendency is that if you hurt me, 00:40:17.040 |
You smash my car in, I smash your car and your house. 00:40:28.680 |
So what God was restricting them of is vengeance, 00:40:47.040 |
Justice is basically getting what you deserve. 00:41:00.800 |
and the police doesn't come and punish the other person, 00:41:22.520 |
I mean, you go into that nation, and you say, 00:41:24.880 |
"I think Kim Jong-un is a little overweight." 00:41:44.760 |
Imagine if God of the universe practiced justice with us, 00:41:54.080 |
You wouldn't even understand what I'm saying. 00:42:08.120 |
The fact that you even understand what I'm saying 00:42:26.120 |
So, the whole world is under the mercy of God. 00:43:27.120 |
even in the context of possibly losing his life, 00:43:33.120 |
to preach the Gospel in the midst of suffering, 00:43:41.120 |
When a man or a woman is gripped by the love of Christ, 00:44:03.120 |
Some of you guys don't take a shower every day. 00:44:07.120 |
A lot of things that you did that was very strange. 00:44:16.120 |
I've known a lot of you guys for a long time. 00:44:20.120 |
Like you were a different person for a period. 00:44:26.120 |
Love makes us do things that you wouldn't normally do. 00:44:30.120 |
It gives you energy that you didn't have before. 00:45:18.120 |
that you've done so well to hide from other people. 00:45:36.120 |
He said, "Therefore, the only way I can save you 00:45:44.120 |
Did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 00:46:01.120 |
"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, 00:46:15.120 |
That you're afraid that if you don't put your best, 00:46:41.120 |
while we were sinners, while we were enemies.