Does God love everybody?

My first week of camp this summer was staff training for Fresh Start. Another pastor and I partner in this training. I drove to his house in Grand Blanc and then we travelled to camp together. We were talking through our sermon series a bit and I told him I was ended this series with “does God love everybody?”

He said, “Tell me about that, does God love everybody?”

I said to him, “God loves all people, but he doesn’t love all people the same way.” From there, we talked about that for 30 minutes or so because we had a couple hours to kill.

My aim is to show you why I believe the Bible teaches that, but many Americans would disagree with me. Maybe you would disagree with me.

According to a 2018 PewResearch study, 75% of American adults believe that God (or some higher power) loves all people regardless of their faults.

Let’s break that down a bit:

Women - 82%

Men - 72%

65+ generation - 83%

30’s & 40’s - 72%

Those with a college degree - 70%

Those with no religion - 50%

If so many take this position, how is it possible to know if God loves everybody?

Can we be certain that God loves everybody through creation or nature? Certainly, nature is beautiful and carefully designed by the Lord. We have plenty of oxygen, water, food and sunlight. We have the ability to dream, imagine and create. We have communication skills. Romans 1:19 says, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.”

But, sometimes nature can be confusing. Countries drop missiles on each other. Brutality and suffering exist in our world. Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters take out entire communities. It wasn’t that many years ago that a sickness took the lives of millions of people. Some of my personal buttons. Why do children get cancer? Why do some suffer through infertility and miscarriages, while others don’t? Why do abusive people have children when responsible people continue to wait?

Creation is simultaneously beautiful and broken. Romans 1:19 is correct; what can be known about God has been revealed. However, some have viewed nature or science and mistakenly accepted a higher power without knowing Jesus. This acceptance isn’t a modern view or an American view, it’s a human view.

Acts 17:22–27 - “So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,”

The world has plenty of religious people that don’t know Jesus. The world has plenty of people who claim to know Jesus, but do not.

People in our church use these phrases - my journey and my search. Look at verse 26-27. We were placed on earth to seek the Lord, walk toward, and dwell with him. If your journey or search allows room for something different, you missed why you’re on the earth. God is in charge. We are not!

Can we be certain that God loves everybody because we make assumptions about God? It is not always safe to trust our assumptions about humans, let alone God. Assumptions are often based on our preferences, our feelings, our ideas, our tastes, and so on. We know assumptions can help us get in trouble with our spouse, our children, our parents, our co-workers, our friends. It’s not safe to make assumptions about God either.

If we want to be certain about God’s love, we need to know God.

God’s love is distinctive. 2 Chronicles 6:14 - “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven or on earth, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart,”

God’s love is dependable. Lamentations 3:22–23 - “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

God’s love is defining. 1 John 4:8 “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

NOT God has love. God IS love. Love is his essence, his character. Love isn’t a switch that God turns on and off based on our performance.

God’s love is eternal. John 17:24–26 - “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.””

God didn’t need to create humans to display love. He wasn’t lonely. The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit have been displaying toward each other throughout all eternity.

God’s love is delightful. If God didn’t need humans to fill a gap in his life, then he created us to share himself with us. That makes God’s love life-giving and joyful. He created us so he could love us.

Genesis 3 messed the whole thing up. Adam and Eve eating that piece of food changed how humans accept or reject God’s love. It changed how we doubt or trust God’s love. It changed how we are convinced that God’s love is free or earned.

God’s love is for sinners. 1 John 4:9–10 - “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

God loves sinners when nobody asked for it and when nobody would have been grateful to have it. God’s love extends forgiveness for those who will call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Sadly, for the many who reject Jesus Christ, God’s love becomes one-sided. Those who reject Christ will never experience the fullness of God’s love.

God’s love is special for God’s people. Genesis 12:1–3 - “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

After Abraham, there was Isaac. After Isaac, there was Jacob and Esau. We read in Romans 9:13 how the Lord loved Jacob, but not Esau. Jacob had twelve sons and eventually moved to Egypt and became the nation of Israel. The choosing of Abraham followed the generations. Deuteronomy 10:15 “Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.”

There is a special love unavailable to those the Lord has not chosen. What about you and me? We aren’t Jews. Do we have the same special love as God’s people? Ephesians 1 says we do. Ephesians 1:3–6 - “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”

Paul uses God’s love for his people as a demonstration of marital love. Men know mothers, sisters, aunts, co-workers, ladies at church ~ none of them are given the same love as a man gives his wife. The same is true for women. I met Bridget on October 30, 1995. It was a Monday morning. She was wearing a dress and a white sweater. She hair touched her lower back. There was a radiant glow about her. When I saw her walk into that room, I said, “I’m going to marry that girl.” Then came introductions, friendship and the dating process.

God has a special love for his people because he made a choice without a dating process. Trust me, I did not deserve Bridget to give me the time of day and Israel didn’t deserve God to set his love on them, but he made a choice.

God loves his people because they are his people. God set his love on you because he loves you.

Let’s end with 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

At the cross, Jesus was clothed with our sin. At salvation and every day after, we are clothed with his righteousness.

Jesus took what I deserve and gave me what he deserves. I wonder how many Christians have hung their righteousness outfit in the closet waiting for their funeral so they can finally wear it.

Maybe the more appropriate question is Do we love everybody? If we are daily clothed with righteousness, if we are daily filled with the Holy Spirit, loving everybody the way Jesus loves me should become easier.