He Loved Us Then, He'll Love Us Now

God’s love is hard to describe. It is vast and deep and wide. We humans have difficulty understanding it. So we are left to draw on earthly examples.

There was a very unusual military funeral in California in December of 2013. Sgt. First Class Joseph Gantt, who fought in both World War II and the Korean War, was laid to rest.

He had been captured in Korea in 1950 and died the following year. But his body was not returned for many years, and his death was never confirmed by the North Koreans.

His wife, Clara, waited for decades for her husband to come back. She regularly went to meetings with government officials seeking information about what had happened.

Clara even bought a house and had it professionally landscaped so all Joseph would have to do when he came home was go fishing.

She was ninety-four years old when his remains were finally brought home for a military funeral with full honors. It wasn’t the homecoming she dreamed of, but she finally knew his fate.

Clara told a reporter who interviewed her, “He told me if anything happened to him, he wanted me to remarry. And I told him ‘No, no.’ Here I am, still his wife, and I’m going to remain his wife until the day the Lord calls me home.”

We hear about Clara and marvel at such a commitment full of hope. And yet, Clara’s devotion is nothing compared to God’s love towards us who believe.

Let us first consider...

God’s love is serving in its presentation.

This verse tells an incredible story of the gospel. God, being perfect in His moral constitution, and the author of the definitions of right and wrong, reaches out to a lost and dying humanity that has rebelled against His perfect character.

But God chose to love and to serve. This morning, we look at our last installment on the study of Christ’s character and consider the picture of God’s service to humankind has no greater presentation than when Jesus washed His disciples’ feet.

The scene is in the upper room. Only John’s gospel records this event. We are told of the preamble to this event in John 13:1:

John 13:1–4 (ESV)

1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.

Who typically washed the feet of others in first century Palestine? A servant. One who was employed by the homeowner; one paying off a debt. He is the one that was called upon to perform the act of hospitality and wash the visitors feet.

And why did Jesus do this? He did it out of love. One commentator states:

“Great emphasis is placed in chs. 13-17 on Christ’s love. This love is illustrated in the moving scene of the foot-washing in which the Son of God does not disdain performing the most menial tasks of a servant.” (New Geneva Study Bible, 1689)

You and I might find it difficult to fully understand what’s occurring here. We do not have servants. But one of the basic tasks of a house-servant was to wash the feet of the master and his guests.

And in a pedestrian society, where the dirtiest part of your body was your feet, we can imagine the smell and the filth associated with foot-washing.

Nevertheless, Jesus, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, unashamedly did this.

It is almost the first of His great acts of love right before His death. Jesus, doing the work of a servant, took His disciples by surprise; so much that Peter forbid it at first.

Philippians 2:7–8 ESV

7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

He emptied Himself (of His glory) and took the form of a bondservant. But he did not stop there. Jesus continued to empty Himself of His glory.

God’s love is further accentuated by Jesus sacrifice.

Consider God’s love in light of Romans 5:8

Romans 5:8 ESV

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Dane Ortlund, in his book, Gentle and Lowly, states:

“It is one thing to believe that God has put away and forgiven all our old failures that occurred before new birth. That is a wonder of mercy, unspeakably rich; It’s another thing to believe that God continues, just as freely, to put away all our present failures to occur after new birth. Perhaps, as believers today, we know God loves us. …whatever we say we believe on paper-many of us tend to believe it is a love infected with disappointment. He loves us, but it’s a flustered love. We do not know His truest heart.” (Gentle and Lowly, 189-190).

But Romans 5 tells a different picture. In this passage, we are told of our truest condition, and God’s truest love three times. Notice the dichotomy, the irony, even the paradoxes listed beside each other.

Consider the following:

Romans 5:6 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”

Romans 5:8 “...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And Romans 5:10: “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

Such things are hard to grasp. We must accept the Scriptures as infinitely more wise than our limited minds.

To consider Paul’s life, how could one, who out of zeal for God, held the coats of those that stoned Stephen to death (Acts 7:54-60); or went through incredible effort to jail Christians and persecute the church (Acts 8:3), suddenly, become one of Jesus’ most devoted followers- or as some say, his most devoted follower? The reason is the vast love of God that showed up in his life (1 Corinthians 15:8).

And he prayed for the church in Ephesus that they might know the unknowable. Ephesians 3:14-19

Ephesians 3:14–19 (ESV)

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

that particular, purposeful, transformative love of God that turns lives around;

the one that doesn’t leave you where you are, but moves you to a better place spiritually, relationally and personally.

A verse of a hymn that we sing illustrates such love in the act of regeneration. “And Can It Be,” by Charles Wesley.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound in sin and nature's night; Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth and followed Thee.

Amazing love! how can it be That Thou, my God, should die for me!

The world desperately needs the love of God shown through your life and the crucifixion of Jesus.

All you have to do is consult your news outlet or pick up a newspaper and see that our world is in a miss. Just a scan of local headlines tells us that this world desperately needs what only Jesus Christ can provide.

“Man in custody after Wildwood shooting that left innocent bystander seriously injured.”

“‘Nearly all’ AT&T cell customers’ call and text records exposed in massive breach.”

“Parent left toddler sleeping in his vehicle in front of the family driveway while going inside, only to return 30-60 minutes later and find the 2-year-old girl unresponsive, later pronounced dead.”

And, “Man to spend decades behind bars for ‘senseless’ murder of Delaware father.”

There is a lot of heartache, disappointment and dishonesty in our world today. And yet, God, in His infinite grace, has provided a way that you could be loved and transformed while such things carry on around us.

It is at times like these that the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi is appropriate.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Conclusion

When the California gold fever broke out, a man went there, leaving his wife in New England with his boy. As soon as he got on and was successful he was to send for them. It was a long time before he succeeded, but at last he got money enough to send for them.

The wife’s heart leaped for joy. She took her boy to New York, got on board a Pacific steamer, and sailed away to San Francisco.

They had not been long at sea before the cry of “Fire! fire!” rang through the ship, and rapidly it gained on them. There was a powder magazine on board, and the captain knew the moment the fire reached the powder, every man, woman, and child must perish.

They got out the life-boats, but they were too small! In a minute they were overcrowded. The last one was just pushing away, when the mother pled with them to take her and her boy. “No,” they said, “we have got as many as we can hold.”

She entreated them so earnestly, that at last they said they would take one more. Do you think she leaped into that boat and left her boy to die? No! She seized her boy, gave him one last hug, kissed him, and dropped him over into the boat. “My boy,” she said, “if you live to see your father, tell him that I died in your place.”

That is a faint picture of what Christ has done for us. He laid down his life for us. He died that we might live.