Gods Love For The World

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(This talk was given on the 8th July 2001)

This evening the theme is on God's love for the world. I will be concentrating on God's love for His people, and how we can keep ourselves in His love.

If you read the bible, it's filled with the truth of God's love for us and His world around us. But, I wonder, if like me you let yourself wonder how God could ever love me. It's not that I really doubt that He loves me, I think it's more that I fail to keep myself in the knowledge and blessed assurance of His love for me.

I believe that the full revelation of God's love for us comes in part when we are born again. I bet that if you asked most Xians what they knew of God's love for them, they'd quote John 3:16 – "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life." In other words 'I know God loves me because He gave His Son to die for me.'

That's a great moment in our Xian lives, when we finally grasp that truth, we suddenly realise that God loved me even when I was lost, a stranger, a sinner. And He has proved His love for me by sacrificing His own Son for me.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

But, I believe that very few of us learn how to be kept in God's love. We all know something of our love toward God, but if you're anything like me, we don't often look for a revelation of God's love for us. I was asked to point to four different biblical passages that told of God's love for us, but I couldn't. Could you?

If you took a poll to find out what question was most asked about God by all the people of the world, it would be 'Why does God love mankind?' I suppose that when you look at the vastness of creation, it is easy to question, and hard to understand why one so powerful and boundless should love us. It's especially relevant as most of the time the world is in revolt against Him. Why does God so love the world? Why does God love us?

I believe that understanding the love of God for us is the secret to walking in faith and victory, and an overcoming life. I believe that lots of people become spiritually cold because they don't live in the fullness of God's love. They don't realise that the greatest weapon against the attacks of the enemy is to be totally convinced of God's love for them.

I want to share three things about God's love for us:

1. God loves His people with the very same love He has for Jesus, who sits at His right hand.

In John 17:24 Jesus says this in His prayer to His Father: "You gave me the glory because You loved me even before the world began!" Wow! Jesus was greatly loved before anything had been created. Before the planets, sun, moon, galaxy or stars came to be, before the earth was created Jesus was loved by the Father. Isn't that amazing?

In verses 21-23 we read "My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as You and I are one, Father – that just as You are in me and I am in You, so they will be in us, and the world will believe that You sent me. I have given them the glory You gave me, so that they may be one, as we are – I in them and You in me, all being perfected into one. Then the world will know that You sent me and will understand that You love them as much as You love me." In other words, what Jesus prayed was "Father I know You're going to love those I bring into my body, just the way You've loved me.

God has always loved both Jesus and us, because His love is as everlasting as He is. Jeremiah 31:3 reads 'Long ago the Lord said to Israel: "I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love."' In Psalm 22:9-10 David writes 'Yet You brought me safely from my mother's womb and led me to trust You when I was a nursing infant. I was thrust upon You at my birth. You have been my God from the moment I was born.' And in 139:16 'You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.'

God loved Jesus before the world began. In the same way, He loves us. Jesus didn't earn His father's love by dying on the cross, or by being obedient to His will, or even by loving His father. Nobody can earn God's love – not by anything, even anything Godly he or she does or has done. God didn't start to love us the day we repented and asked Jesus into our lives. He didn't suddenly start to love us when we began to do His will and obey His word. We were already loved, from eternity.

How long has God loved us? From when He existed – because God is love. It is His very nature. He loved us before the world began, whilst we were in our mothers' womb, whilst we were sinners. There is no beginning to His love for us and there is no end. I believe that God will only stop loving us when He stops loving His Son, Jesus, which I think is impossible. In John 13:1 we read: '….having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.'

The knowledge of God's love is there to be a comfort to us, to be our strength. It can set us free and keep us free. John adds this in his first letter 1 John 4:10,19, 'This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins…..We love each other as a result of His loving us first.

2. To keep ourselves in the love of God is to know, believe and keep trusting in His love, even in our struggles.

It's easy to be joyful and on a spiritual high when one's not being tried or tempted. But God wants us to keep ourselves in His love all the time – especially in our trials and temptations.

In 1 John 4:16, John puts very simply how we can keep ourselves in God's love: 'We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in Him. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.' I believe that God wants us to live each day knowing that God has always loved us, and always will.

If you're like me, I sort of jump around in God's love, according to my moods and emotional state of mind. I can feel safe in His love when I've been good and done things how He would have me do them, but, I become unsure of His love if I have failed Him in some way or have been tempted. But that's the time that He most wants me to trust in His love. I believe that God is saying that no matter what trial we face, we must never doubt His love for us. If we're actively trusting in His love, then we are living in the way He wants us to live. We need to remember that even through our greatest trials and temptations, God the eternal Father is still loving us.

I don't believe that that gives us carte blanche though. God won't turn a blind eye to our sins, He won't overlook them, but He will correct us His children in great love. Hebrews 12:6 says 'For the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes those He accepts as His children.'

3. The love of God is conveyed to us only through Jesus Christ.

In John 1:16 we read, 'And from His fullness we have all received.' According to John, all of God's love is in Jesus. How then have we received God's love? We've got it by being in Jesus.

But what's so important about knowing that we gained God's love through Jesus, how does that impact on our lives today?

I believe that knowing God's love is given to us through Jesus has everything to do with how we keep ourselves in His love. I don't believe it's enough to know that He loves me and will never stop loving me. I believe He wants His love to have an effect on me.

So, how does God's love impact on our lives? We can't look to the world for our example. It's true that a lot of Xians respond to God's love by using it as a licence to sin. They've convinced themselves that as God always loves them, unconditionally, He has to keep loving me despite my drinking, adultery, pleasure seeking. These people do despite to God's love.

No, we need to look to Jesus for our example. Jesus told us that God loves us the same way He loves Him. So, what sort of impact did God's love have on Jesus?

The fruit of the Father's love for Jesus was Jesus giving His body as a living sacrifice for others.

In 1 John 3:16 we read, 'We know what real love is because Christ gave up His life for us.' If we read on to the second part of this verse it goes on 'And so we also ought to give up our lives for our Xian brothers and sisters.' This I believe is the purpose of God's love in our lives. God's love should lead us to want to give up our own lives for others, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice.

I'd never thought about what it really meant to lay down my life for my brothers and sisters, have you? I don't believe we're talking about martyrdom, or becoming an organ donor or even to take the place of the condemned on death row. Jesus has already made that sacrifice.

I believe that we must die to this world, to self, pride and ambition. I believe we must resign ourselves ultimately to the will of God. We must kneel before God and ask Him to take it all from us. We must allow the blood of Christ to cleanse us. Because only by being cleansed can we then give our lives for our brothers and sisters. And more importantly, for those yet to come to know the Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

If we are fully persuaded that God is faithful to forgive us and restore us in His love, then we have the power to resist all temptation. We need to remember that He will be with us in all we face, and He'll love us all the way through it. We may often fall and fail Him, but remember, He's waiting there for us, with His love.

To finish then, a few things we need to remember:

1. God loves us because we are His creation. Psalm 22:9-10

2. God loves us the same as He loves Jesus. John 17:23

3. To keep ourselves in the love of God, even in our struggles. 1 John 4:16

4. The love of God comes to us only through Jesus. John 1:16

5. The fruit of the Father's love in Jesus was Him presenting Himself as a living sacrifice. 1 John 3:16

6. One reason God shows us His love in our weakness is to draw us back to Himself.

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit. We thank You that You have so much love for us. Help us to be more like You Jesus, so that as Your love grows in us, we may, through that love draw others to You. Help us also to remember that, even when we fail, or are tempted, You are there to restore us in Your everlasting and eternal love. Amen.

Next: Witness Lived Out (22nd July 2001)

Previous: Dealing With The Devil (24th June 2001)

By Mike Ogden