The Love of God

Can be dismissed for Children's Church at this time. And if you take your bibles and turn to Romans chapter five. Romans chapter five, and we're going to read verses six down to verse nine. Okay? Romans five verses six through nine.

For when we were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet peradventure for a good man, some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. Let's go to the prayer to prayer once more. Lord, thank you for your word today and the reminder of your love and the way that you made for us that we might be saved. When as yet we were sinners, vile sinners. You took our place.

You paid our price. And Lord, you did it because of your love for us. We do not fully understand that love, but indeed we are extremely grateful. And pray each day that we might be able to understand it more and become more like our savior. We pray, Lord, today that you would be magnified in this service, and that if there be one here that is yet to receive Christ as the Lord and savior of their life, that today might be their day of salvation.

In Jesus name, we do pray. Amen. You all know that song Jesus loves me? Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so, little ones to him belong.

They are weak, but he is strong. Yes. Jesus loves me. Yes. Jesus loves me.

Yes. Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. We teach that to our kids when they're little, and it's a very good song. One that we relegate to a children's song that we should not.

It is a hymn. It is in our hymn book. And every now and then, we need to sing it together. However, having said that, we believe that Jesus loves us not just because Jesus told us. We believe Jesus loves us because of what Jesus did for us and what he is doing for us.

And we we read about all of that in our Bible. So that's true. The Bible tells us so because the Bible tells us what Jesus did out of his great love wherewith he loved us. In this passage in Romans chapter five, it starts out reminding us of where we were when Christ died, when Christ redeemed us. Our plight, because that's part of the story, was how how hopeless our plight was and how Jesus changed all of that because of his love.

For when we were yet without what? Strength. Strength. Now, it's not talking about physical strength. It's talking about spiritual strength.

Before we came to Christ, we were helpless, without strength, weak, sickly in our heart. Reminds me of a a little baby that it can't feed itself. It can't change itself. It can't clean itself. It can't can't go anywhere by itself.

It just lays there and cries and waits for you to bring in its bottle and change its diaper and take it from one place to another. It's completely what? Helpless. It depends entirely upon another. And we were helpless in sin.

Nothing we could do. We could lay there and kick our feet and scream and holler and there's nothing we could do to change who we were, where we were going. We were we were helpless to do anything about the problem we had to fix it. We cannot do anything about our sin. Before you came to Christ, maybe you thought, well, I'll just quit sinning.

Have you tried that? Quit sinning. Yeah. Don't work, does it? Doesn't work.

Well, I'll I'll I'll just wake up tomorrow and I'll be a different person. You know, just all of a sudden, I'll I'll I'll grow a conscience and I'll become responsible. It doesn't happen like that. It doesn't just happen out of the blue, out of I know when I was younger, I thought, well, I graduate from high school. When I graduate from high school, I'll be I'll be a different person.

I'll I'll be a responsible adult. I woke up after I graduated the next day, and I was still the same person I was the day before. Same thing with college. Thought after college, I thought, well, when I get married, I'll be a different person. Sadly for my wife, I was still the same person after I got married that I was before.

It says here we were without strength. We were helpless to do anything about it. Thus, we needed help. We needed help. We needed to be fixed and we couldn't fix ourselves.

We were hopeless, the Bible tells us. Helpless and hopeless. Ephesians two twelve, that at the time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having what? No hope without God in the world. No hope without who?

Without God. There's no hope without God. You have no hope, no no promise that tomorrow is going to be better without God. No strength to do anything about it. The Bible says in Hebrews 11, without faith, it is what?

Impossible to please him. You are without hope in getting things right, without hope in changing your eternity, without God. It is impossible to please God without faith. It has been tried many different ways at many different times, all kinds of different religions trying to fix the human problem. All kinds of religions coming up with all kinds of rules and regulations to follow to try to to change the human nature, to make it something other than what it is.

To somehow please God and earn our place in heaven, Bible clearly tells us that's not possible. For by grace, that is God giving you something that you didn't earn, or by grace are you saved through faith? And that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of what? Not of works, lest any man should boast. Have you ever wanted something so bad that you knew you could never have it?

You ever wanted to do something so bad but you knew you could never do it? There was absolutely no what? No hope. We live in a world full of people that have no hope. Now there is hope, but that hope is in who?

That hope is in Jesus. And they're looking in a bottle for hope, and they're not going to find it. And they're looking in for a list of rules for hope, and they're not going to find it. They're looking for a relationship with somebody on this earth, not in heaven, for hope, and they're not going to find it. There's only one person in who we can find eternal hope, lasting hope, life changing hope.

Hope for victory over our sin nature and a home in heaven and that's Jesus Christ. Helpless, hopeless, unclean. Isaiah sixty four six. But we are as all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses, all our good works, all our efforts are as what? Filthy rags.

We all do fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. I remember when I was a kid and I would help my dad change the oil in the car and he always had me get a rag to give him when he turned the filter off and then he loosened the plug. Before you could get your hand out of the way, you always got some nasty, grimy oil. And he would grab that rag and he would wipe off his hands. And then he hand it back to me.

It's like, oh, gross. And can you imagine having that nasty, slimy, gritty, oily rag and then looking up and seeing, oh, man, the the passenger side window on the car, it is just dirty. Well, you know, I got a rag in my hand. So I'm just gonna take this here rag and I'm gonna wash it off. And you wipe it and it's like, oh, oh, that didn't work.

So you wipe it again and, oh, that didn't work. And you wipe it again and you just continue to make a bigger what? A mess because you just you just you put more oil on and you just scoot it around and and it doesn't doesn't come clean because the rag is what? Filthy. And before you can clean or do anything that is worthwhile with that rag, that rag must be what?

Cleansed. It must be washed. It must be made clean before it is useful for anything. Spiritually, we're like that rag. And until we come to Jesus Christ for the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus, our rag is dirty.

And we can do all sorts of good things, but you know when God looks at that window, he just goes, oh. You can't please him until you get the rag cleaned, and it's only through the blood of Jesus Christ. In Jesus' day, there were those called lepers. Today, that disease is called by a different name, and there are antibiotics that can treat that disease. But in Jesus' day, it was an untreatable illness.

It began with just a small patch of skin infection, and then it grew and it grew and it grew into huge into huge sores that would bleed and ooze. And and it was contagious so that if you rubbed up against somebody that had leprosy, well, you might come down with it yourself. And so because it was incurable in Jesus' day and eventually you would die from it, The lepers were cast out of society. They were put in in leper colonies. If they if they came into town or anywhere near people, they had to holler before them unclean, unclean, unclean.

Their plight was very sad. They were helpless against this disease. They were hopeless that there was any remedy, and they were unclean. And there was nothing they could do to fix it. They were my fourth point, they were as dead men walking.

And so are we apart from Christ. In Ephesians chapter two you wanna hold your place in Romans and turn to Ephesians two, Just a few pages over. Not far. Ephesians two verse one, it says, and you hath he quickened who were, what, dead in trespasses and in sins. Wherein in time past, you walked according to the course of this world.

In other words, you were just like a horse being led by the nose. According to the prince and power of the air, that would be Satan, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation, our lifestyle in times past and the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature the children of wrath even as others. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace are you saved. The phrase up there in verse one, hath he quickened, is actually taken from verse five.

If you've got a King James version, you'll see it's in italics. The translators took it from verse five and put it up there so you'd understand the context of where we were going. But in actuality, it should read, and you were dead and trespasses and incense. That's who we were. And we get down to verse five, we find out that there is a remedy.

There is life. Who is life? Jesus is life. He is the light and he is the life. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

He is the only one who can give life. He is the giver of life. He is the creator of life, and he is the only one who can raise a lost sinner from the depths of their sin and redeem them. In respect to our physical life, today we are dying. We're not a lot different from those lepers in that it's just amount of a matter of time because sin brings what?

Death. And as God told Adam in the Garden of Eden, in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely what? Die. But it's not talking here so much about your physical problem. It's talking about your spiritual problem.

We are dead. The word dead there, there's two often used Greek words in the Bible for death. One is thanatos and one is necros. The word thanatos emphasizes separation. Death brings separation.

Death of relationship, that means that you've been separated. Death to a partnership. Death to physical death where our body is separated from our soul. Death brings separation. This word is necros.

It's not thanatos, it's necro. It emphasizes the fact that there is a dead body and that dead body lies completely what? Lifeless. Lifeless and unresponsive. Unable to do anything to please who?

To please God. In sin, we were lifeless. We were unresponsive, unable to do anything. We were separated from God by our sin, but we were unresponsive to him. So if you come up to a dead body and you tell the body to do something, say, hey, would you stand up?

Hey, would you do this for me? Hey, would you do it? It just lays there. It doesn't do anything because it is what? Dead.

There is no life. Thus, there is no response. It doesn't hear. It doesn't see. It cannot accomplish anything.

And without Christ, spiritually, man is very much what? Dead and unresponsive and incapable of doing anything to please God. Without faith, it is impossible to what? To please God. But in Christ, that all changes because Jesus who rose again from the dead brings life to those who trust in him.

Eternal life doesn't just mean that you live forever. For the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is what? Eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Eternal life doesn't just mean that you go to heaven to live with God forever. Eternal life is something you get the moment you trust Christ as savior, and he gives you divine life, and he makes you alive in Christ.

But without God, that body is just still what? Still dead. Still laying there. In respect to eternity, we are under the condemnation of eternal death without Christ. The whole of humanity without Christ is under the just condemnation of the lake of fire.

For death and hell were cast into the, what, the lake of fire. This is the second death. Revelation 20. Praise God. There is the next verse.

It says, those whose names were not written in the what? The book of life was cast in the lake of fire. What does that tell me? That tells me that there are gonna be those who are not cast in the lake of fire because their names are written in the what? In the book of life.

And that makes all the difference. That makes all the difference. What was our plight? Helpless, hopeless, unclean, dead. Just waiting.

For who? For Jesus. God's act of love. For that's what Jesus is. He is God's act of love.

Second Corinthians nine fifteen, thanks be unto God for his, what, unspeakable gift. Could we rethink the earthen fill where the skies of parchment made, where every stalk on earth a quill, and every man ascribed by trade to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the hole that stretched from sky to sky. God's unspeakable, undescribable, unfathomable gift for us? Why did God just not start over when Adam and Eve sinned? Why did he just not destroy all of you?

Why did he save Noah and his family? Why did he send his son? Because for some reason, these creatures he created in his image, he loves so much that he wasn't willing just to throw us away and start over. He stuck with us because he loves us. And he doesn't just tell us he loves us.

He showed us he loved us when he sent his son to die for filthy, wretched, helpless, hopeless dead people to give us life and an eternity with him. Despite our condition, Christ died on our behalf. As the writer of Romans points out, for a righteous person, a a perfect person, a a a great religious leader, some might dare to die. For your for your relative that you love that is special to you, you might die. For a for a good person who, you know, they're they're worthy, you might someone might die.

But Christ died for us when we were unpalatable. He died for us when we were unclean and filthy. The convict, the killer, the pervert, no one would die for them. But those are all terms that describe what? Sinners.

Sinners. And we were sinners. And we were as an unclean thing. We were not worthy, and yet God loved us so much he sent his son. Jesus died for us.

He didn't wait for us to come to him. He came to us. He didn't wait for us to clean up our act. He gave himself to take the punishment for us, and then he offered, I'll change you if you'll just accept me and what I did for you. First Peter three eighteen, for Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust.

That's Christ for me. That he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened or made alive again by the spirit. There was no hope for me and no hope for you. But then came Jesus, but for the love of God. Isaiah fifty three five and six, but he, that is Christ, was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes, we are healed as all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him, that is on Jesus, the iniquity of us all. He sent his son from the glories of heaven to the dusty streets of Jerusalem to live among creatures that reviled him, that had rebelled against him, and to allow them to beat him and say, prophesy who hit you, and allow them to plant a a crown of thorns into his head, to take a whip and tear the skin from his body piece by piece by piece. And then, as though that were not enough, to drive nails through his hands and feet and nail him on a cross on a street where many people would pass by and see him hanging there, helpless, hopeless, unclean, and then dead.

It should have been who? It should have been us, but it was Jesus who took the wrath of our sins upon himself, unbelievable love, but yet you can believe it. He proved his love by his actions. He followed up his I love you with his death on the cross for us. To save our soul, yes, and to teach us what love really looks like.

It doesn't look like a rom com. It does not look or sound like what you hear in today's music. It looks like Jesus hanging on a cross. As he died for us and as he demonstrated his love for us, he asked us that we would do the what? That we would do the same.

That we would love him with all of our heart, that we would love our neighbor as ourself, that we let all others know that we are Christians by our what? Love for one another. Love toward our spouse. The Bible says Paul said, husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the what? The church and gave himself for it.

How does that look? It looks like a husband helping his wife, doing unexpected things, putting himself out for her sake, changing his schedule, doing something she likes, providing and uplifting her, leading her in the way of the Lord. That's what it looks like because love must be demonstrated and not just what? Said. There is many a husband that says, I love you to his wife and then turns around and does the what?

And does the opposite. Love toward your parents or children. What does that look like? Well, it looks like my dad working working for thirty years at General Electric taking one wire and putting it around a screw and tightening the screw down and taking another wire and turn for thirty years so that I and my brother and my mom could have food on the table and transportation so that I could go and my brother to a Christian school and we could go to a Christian college. He didn't love being a wireman.

I don't know that he hated it, but it wasn't his dream. Someday, I'm gonna grow up and be a wireman. No. His dream was to be a father. And that's what love looks like.

That's what love looks like. Towards your church family, being faithful, being kind, being sensitive, serving one another. It's one church member taking another to get treatments that they need or someone taking food to a church member who just came through surgery. That's what it looks like, being there. And most of all, towards who?

Towards God. Stand up for him and his word. Say no to sin. Say yes to doing something for him out of your comfort zone. Give more of your time, your talents, your provision in his service.

Spend more time on your knees in prayer and in his word. Give what he asks. Do what he says. Show him that you love him. And it's just not something you say in a song.

Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus. It's a good song to sing. It's a little bit harder to practice, but loving God means more than just singing a song. That's what David did when he decided to take on Goliath.

He walked up to that giant. He said, I do this that all this assembly shall know that the God you curse is real, and he's powerful. That there is a God, a real God in Israel. That's what Ruth demonstrated when she said to Naomi, entreat me not to leave thee or return from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will go.

Where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God. Where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me and more also if ought but death part thee from me. It wasn't just in the words Ruth said to Naomi.

It was in the actions because Orpah, she went back. But but Ruth, she stuck it out with her mother-in-law. It is Philip Bliss who wrote several of our songs in our hymn book, who is on his way to Chicago to lead singing for DL Moody when the train trestle they were going over collapsed, he got out of the train car but by himself. You see, but he wasn't by himself, you see. His wife was traveling with him.

What did he do? Well, he went back in. And you see, trains wreck, they often catch on what? Fire. He went back in to save his wife, and when he couldn't save his wife, you know what he did?

He stayed with his wife. That's love. Do we truly love our Lord and others? Are they just nice words to say? Are we becoming more like our savior?

We allow our selfishness to get in the way. We're often quick to tell others we love them, but do our actions demonstrate that we love ourselves more? Not Jesus. He loved us all the way to the cross. As he hung there, he said, father, forgive them for they know not what they do, and his mercies are new every morning.

There's a verse, just a short verse in John chapter four. First John four, it says, we love him because he, what? He first loved us. A teacher and theologian by the name of Adam Clark. I found this in his commentary.

I don't often quote other people, but this stuck with me. He wrote, this is the foundation of our love for God. We love him because we find that he has loved us. We find he loved me. He died for me.

I when we find that he loves us, then we love him. We love him from a sense of obligation and gratitude, out of gratitude for what he has done. Out of love, we in turn choose to what? Love him. We love him from the influence of his own love.

From his love shed abroad in our hearts, our love to him proceeds. It is the seed whence our love springs. Is the love of God. We love him because he first loved us, because we find that he has loved us out of a sense of obligation and gratitude, and because he has put his love where? Here.

Thus, the verse might be rendered, let us love him because he first loved us. How about it, Christian? How is your love for Christ? Crowded out by other loves and allegiances. He should be.

He must be first in our heart. What is it that God desires most? What is the greatest commandment? That thou shall go to Church five times a week? That thou shall put put at least $10 in the offering plate?

No. That thou shall what? Love the Lord with all your heart and soul and strength. That is the greatest commandment. And that is God God deserves and desires not only our love for him, but that we show that same love to others.

What do our actions reveal? Do we need to repent and return to our first love as did the church at Ephesus? Maybe you're here today and you've never received Christ's gift of love. You don't understand this love of which we speak. Well, let me tell you, you need it and you need him.

For without him, you're lost but in him, you're found. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I'll see. If you'll come to Christ at his invitation today, he'll save your soul. He'll open your eyes.

He'll change your life. Let's pray. Dear heavenly father, thank you for your love. The love of God, the unspeakable gift, your son for us. Lord, I pray that that might sink a little deeper into our heart today.

And Lord, it might result in actions that demonstrate attitude of love toward our God and toward our fellow man, and particularly to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, may your love be seen in us this week. May we look for opportunities to demonstrate it to our spouse, our children, our parents, our church family, our neighbors, our God. And, Lord, forgive us if we have allowed it to grow cold, crowded out by other things. Lord, help us to grow in our love for you.

And may we love you more today and tomorrow than we ever have, and may it be seen in us. And Lord, if there's one here that's yet to trust Christ, I pray as we give this hymn of invitation that they would respond and come and receive your love. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.