Manner Of Love

WHAT MANNER OF LOVE

I JOHN 3:1A  “HOW GREAT IS THE LOVE OF THE FATHER HAS LAVISHED ON US, THAT WE SHOULD BE CALLED CHILDREN OF GOD!”

INTRODUCTION

          ABOUT 3 MONTHS AGO, I WAS ASKED TO FILL IN FOR MY SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER BY TEACHING THE LESSON FOR A SUNDAY IN WHICH HE COULD NOT BE PRESENT.  THE PASSAGE OF SCRIPTURE THAT I TAUGHT WAS FOUND IN I JOHN 3:1—10.  THE FIRST VERSE OF THIS PASSAGE HIT ME LIKE A “TON OF BRICKS”.  I HAVE KEPT THE FIRST SENTENCE OF THIS VERSE IN MY MIND AND BEFORE ME EVER SINCE.  IT HAS BECOME A VERSE OF WONDER AND AMAZEMENT TO ME.  I AM STILL STANDING IN AWE TO THINK THAT GOD, THE ALMIGHTY GOD, THE HOLY CREATOR, COULD LOVE YOU AND ME SO MUCH THAT HE WOULD HAVE DONE AND HAS DONE WHATEVER IT TOOK TO PROVIDE THE WAY FOR YOU AND ME TO BE CALLED THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

                                JOHN PIPER RELATES THE FOLLOW STORY: 

Suppose you are a little boy playing in your village in Rwanda.  And suddenly you hear screams and running.  And you turn to look for a familiar face and all  you see is angry, shouting men, running towards you with machetes.  You run as fast as you can and hide under a basket that your mother wove.  And when you come out, everyone is gone or dead.  Your mother is dead.  Your father is dead.  Your brothers and sisters are dead. 

          You sob yourself  to sleep on the body of your mother as the sun goes down.  You wake up to realize that you are not only terrified that the enemy might come back, but that you are very thirsty and hungry.  And it hits you that there is no one to take care of you or save you from the enemies or from the wild animals or sickness.  You are utterly alone.  You find some bananas in a house and eat them.  And another day passes.  You don’t have any idea what to do.  And you begin to think you will just die.

          Then you hear a sound and turn to see a tall man standing in the dirt square.  He calls out to you and in your own language and says “Don’t be afraid.  I want to help you.”  You want to run, but there is no place to run, and nobody to run to.  He comes over to you and pulls some bread out of his pouch and gives you some.  You eat it.  And then he gives you some water from his waterskin.

          He says, “I tried to stop them.”  And you notice the lacerations on his arms and head.  He says, “If you come with me, I’ll take care of you.  I’m sorry about your mother and father.  I’ll help you bury them.”  As you work together to bury the dead, you begin to talk to him.   And you learn that he belongs to the tribe that slaughtered your village and family.  You also learn that he and his little son were in the tribal meeting when the band decided to raid your village.  They disagreed with the raid, and put themselves between their fellow kinsman and your village.  As a result the band of raiders killed the man’s son as he tried to protect your village.  And suddenly you feel an overwhelming sense that this man loves you.  It cost him his son to try to save you.

          Not only that, it gradually comes out that your village has made horrible raids on his relatives in years past, and that your own father was an arch enemy of this very man and had tried several times to kill him.  At first that makes you very afraid.  But then you realize, that this man is trying to save you in spite of all this animosity between your tribes and families.  And your sense of being loved becomes stronger.  Hope starts to rise in your broken heart, that maybe there would be beyond the loss of your mother and father and brothers and sisters.

          You agree to go with the man.  And over the next several months you learn the almost unbelievable truth that this man has a university education from Oxford; that he is a very wealthy business man with homes in Burundi and London, and a sheep farm in Yorkshire, north of Leeds.  You don’t understand it all, but over time you learn that that not only has he rescued you from death, but he is supplying all your needs beyond what you could have imagined.  He takes you into his home in Burundi and you take long vacations with him to London and the sheep farm.  And with every new lavish gift you feel more and more loved.  He rescued you; it cost him his son’s life in the process.  You were part of a tribe that hated him and his father.  And now, as the years go by, you become old enough to understand that, on top of all this, he has taken care of all the affairs for you to be his legal son.  And you learn that he has signed over to you all his wealth as an inheritance.

          More than a rescue.

          I think this is the kind of serious thinking that lay behind John’s words in I John 3:1: 

See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God.

WHAT TYPE OF LOVE?  LET’S LOOK AT SOME EXAMPLES OF GOD’S LOVE.

I.                   GOD CAME TO EARTH

THE APOSTLE PAUL WROTE TO THE PHILIPPIAN CHURCH

          “WHO (REFERRING TO CHRIST JESUS),

          BEING IN VERY NATURE GOD,

          DID NOT CONSIDER EQUALITY WITH GOD

SOMETHING TO BE GRASPED

(HELD ONTO AT ALL COST),

          BUT MADE HIMSELF NOTHING,

          TAKING THE VERY NATURE OF A SERVANT,

          BEING MADE IN HUMAN LIKENESS.”

          PHILIPPIANS 2:6-7

A.     JESUS CHRIST—SECOND PERSON OF THE TRIUNE GOD

1.     WHOLLY GOD

2.     WITH ALL

A.   THE CHARACTERISTICS

B.   THE VIRTURES

OF GOD

B.THIS JESUS CHRIST BECAME MAN

             MATTHEW 1:18—24 (TURN TO THE PASSAGE AND READ)

             LUKE 2:1—7 (TURN TO THE PASSAGE AND READ)

                   ((((EXPLAIN IN OWN WORDS)

          C.  WHY DID GOD-JESUS CHRIST

1.     GIVE UP

A.   THE SPLENDOR OF HEAVEN

B.   TO BECOME A HUMAN BEING

2.     JESUS, HIMSELF, EXPALINED IT THIS WAY: 

JN. 3:16-17

“FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD

(THAT’S YOU AND ME) THAT HE

GAVE HIS ONE AND ONLY SON,

THAT WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM

SHALL NOT PERISH BUT HAVE

ETERNAL LIFE.  FOR GOD DID NOT

SEND HIS SON INTO THE WORLD

TO CONDEMN THE WORLD,

BUT TO SAVE THE WORLD

THROUGH HIM”

II.                THE SECOND EPISODE—AT THE END OF JESUS CHRIST’S LIFE

AGAIN REFERRING THE PAUL’S LETTER THE PHILIPIANS

“AND BEING FOUND IN APPEARANCE AS A MAN,

HE HUMBLED HIMSELF

AND BECAME OBEDIENT TO DEATH—

EVEN DEATH ON A CROSS!”  V. 8

A.     GOD IN THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST ALLOWED HIMSELF TO BE PUT TO DEATH ON A CRUEL CROSS

1.     REMEMBER, JESUS

A.   HAD ALL THE POWER OF THE UNIVERSE AT HIS DISPOSAL

B.   COULD HAVE CALLED THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN

TO SAVE HIM FROM THE CROSS

C.   COULD HAVE SPOKEN AND THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO AND INCLUDING HIS DEATH WOULD BE STOPPED.

2.     THIS DEATH WAS VERY CRUEL—JESUS

A.   HAD BEEN KEPT UP ALL NIGHT

(IN FACT THE NIGHT BEFORE HE HAD PRAYED

WITH SUCH INTENSITY THAT SWEAT DROPS

OF BLOOD FORMED ON HIS BROW)

B.   HAD BEEN TRIED ILLEAGALY BY THE SANHEDREN COUNCIL

C.   HE HAD

1.     HAD BEEN MOCKED

2.     HAD BEEN SPAT UPON

3.     HAD BEEN HIT

4.     HAD BEEN PUSHED AROUND

UNTIL THE FLESH ON HIS BACK HUNG BY THREADS

3.     THEN, HE WAS

A.   MADE TO CARRY HIS OWN CROSS TOWARDS THE HILL WHICH WE CALL CALVARY TODAY

B.   SO PHYSICALLY TIRED THAT HE STUMPLED ON THE WAY AND SOMEONE ELSE TOOK THE CROSS THE REST OF THE WAY FOR HIM

C.   NAILED TO THE CROSS

1.     NOT STRAPPED TO THE CROSS

2.     NAILED AT HIS HANDS AND FEET

D.   AS HE HUNG ON THIS CROSS, HE HAD TO  PUSH UP BY HIS FEET EVEN TO GET A BREATH OF AIR INTO HIS LUNGS BECAUSE OF THE WEIGHT OF HIS BODY WOULD NOT ALLOW HIM TO BREATHE NATURALLY

B.     WHY?  LOVE!!!!!!

III.             BECAUSE OF THIS LOVE, GOD NOW CALLS THOSE WHO BELIEVE AND HAVE FAITH IN HIM, THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

WITH ALL ITS PRIVILEGES

WITH ALL ITS PROMISES

WITH ALL ITS RESPONSIBILITIES

WITH ALL ITS COMING INHERITANCE