Knowing God's Love

Intro

“God, I think I’m doing a better job taking care of Your children than You are of mine.”

A quote from one of the author’s friends whose child was going through a difficult spiritual time.

After saying this, he immediately repented.

Author’s own child went through a series of difficult experiences, and he felt the same way.

“God, I wouldn’t treat my child the way You are treating he.”

He was also convicted of this thought and immediately repented.

It seems the more we come to believe in and accept the sovereignty of God the more we are tempted to question His love.

If God is in total control of all that happens to me and can do something about it, then why doesn’t He?

Rabbi Kushner chose to believe in a loving God who wasn’t sovereign.

Sometimes we are tempted to believe in a sovereign God who doesn’t love us. Satan will even have us believe God is in heaven having a great time watching us struggle through our adversity.

You would be hard pressed to find a page in scripture where the goodness of God and the sovereignty of God are not referenced or mentioned.

The Bible is filled with examples of both.

Philip Hughes - “That he cares not is just as unthinkable as that he can not.

(ESV)

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

e. John says in this scripture that God is love.

(ESV)

Walking in the Light

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

f. In this scripture, John says God is light or holy.

i. These two scriptures sum up the characteristics of God which we learn in the Bible.

ii. Just as God is holy - and it is impossible for Him to be anything else, God is also good - and it is equally impossible for Him to be anything but.

g. God is love. He shows us goodness and mercy. He even says in that He doesn’t take pleasure “in the death of the wicked,” when He plays the role of judge.

h. When we are in the midst of storms in our life, we will be tempted to question the goodness of God. Satan will use these opportunities to make us question this. It will come in the faintest of whispers making us doubt.

i. We can’t keep from being tempted, but if we truly trust God, we won’t let these temptations lodge in our brain and take up residence.

j. In the two incidents previously mentioned, these men questioned the goodness of God. They put their love for their children above God’s love and kindness for them.

k. Job, who sets the example for us in adversity and trusting God, even came to the point where he questioned God’s goodness.

l. Tonight we’ll take a look at how we can take a stand in our own doubts and Satan’s temptations he will send our way when we question the goodness of God.

II. God’s Love at Calvary

A. The most convincing evidence we have of God’s love is allowing His Son to die for our sins.

(ESV)

9 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. 10 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 showed His love for us by allowing His Son to pay the price for our sins.

All the trials we face cannot measure up to the worst thing which could happen to us if we faced separation from God.

God showed His love for us by meeting our greatest need.

There is no other need that can even come close to meeting the need of the sacrifice that was made for us at Calvary.

‘One of the essential characteristics of love is the element of self-sacrifice, and this was demonstrated for us to its ultimate in God’s love at Cavlary.’

Consider our condition

miserable and wretched (ESV)

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

This thought is hard for us if we grew up in a Christian environment.

Paul describes us as spiritually dead. “How dead is dead?

No matter how upright or uptight a lifestyle we lived or live, we are spiritually dead to God without the sacrifice that was made for us at Calvary.

The sacrifice which God and His Son made for us out of the love, goodness, and mercy they showed and show toward us.

In our unsaved state, we also have followed Satan and his direction at times.

Perhaps not consciously, but we have been guilty of it.

Paul goes through a list of things we did that showed we were enemies of God while we were unsaved.

While we were enemies of God, He and His Son still paid the price for our sins.

We’ve spent so much time talking about this to number one, show the depth of God’s love for us.

The second is to remember who we were to God before salvation.

God loved us when we were totally unworthy.

Anytime we doubt God’s love for us and His goodness, we need to return to the cross.

We should reason, “If God loved me enough to give His Son to die for me when I was His enemy, surely He loves me enough to care for me now that I am His Child.”

When we are in the midst of the storm, we must reason. We mus think our way through it and realize the sovereignty, wisdom, and love that God has for us which is revealed through Scripture.

Emotions will make us react. Reasoning will help us work our way through it and allow us to realize we are still loved by the One who created us.

It may seem cold to say to reason during a time of heartache and despair, but Paul even reasoned in Romans that if God loved us enough to give the greatest gift through the death of His Son on the cross, then why would He hold back lesser blessings.

God’s Family of Love

By trusting Christ as our Savior, we have been brought into the family of God.

We have been adopted through Christ.

In the Jewish household, slaves were not to address the father of the household as Abba. That title was only to be used by the children.

Paul’s use of this word shows the familial relationship with have with God.

Because of this relationship, He loves us as a father loves his children.

Psalm 103:11 ESV

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

(ESV)

(ESV)

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

e. Just as God’s wisdom can’t be measured, neither can His love for us. How high are the heavens?

God’s Love in Christ

This love that we cannot measure is given to us because of who we are in Christ. Not because of who or what we are on our own.

There are several instances in scripture where our relationship with Christ is compared to organic things.

the vine and the branches

the head and the body.

we are spiritually related to Christ in this way.

God’s love for us cannot waver because of who we are to Him in Christ.

Just as His love can’t change for His Son, so His love can’t change for us.

We continually to try to find something within ourselves that says we had some redeeming quality what would cause God to love us.

this usually ends up in discouragement.

remember, we were spiritually dead. What do you do with dead things

we usually find reasons why God shouldn’t love us

This searching in unbiblical.

God doesn’t look for a reason to love us. Once again, He loves us because of who we are in Christ.

When Satan is hitting you with all sorts of attacks, or the storm winds are howling around you remember this, “God’s love to us cannot fail anymore than His love to Christ can fail.

God’s Sovereign Love

In the previous chapters, we looked a lot at the sovereignty of God and how it is expressed mainly through His glory.

Because you and I are in Christ His glory and our good are linked together.

Whatever is for His glory is also for our good. And whatever is for our good is for His glory.

(ESV)

22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Christ reigns over the universe for the benefit of His body, the church.

God’s sovereignty rules over it all.

Since we are the body of Christ and He is the head, He exericises His sovereignty on our behalf

William Hendrickson - “ since he is so intimately and indissolubly united with [the church] and loves it with such profound, boundless, and steadfast love.”

He governs the universe

WH - “It is the closeness of the bond, the unfathomable character of the love between Christ and his church that is stressed by the head-body symbolism.....Since the church is Christ’s body, with which he is organically united, he loves it so much that in its interest he exercises his infinite power in causing the entire universe with all that is in it to co-operate, whether willingly or unwillingly.

Because of who we are in Christ, we can know that His sovereignty is excersied on our behalf.

This doesn’t mean we won’t face trials.

It does mean that when we face them that God is using them for our good in His wisdom and love. (difficult to see at times)

(ESV)

10 Behold, the Lord God comes with might,

and his arm rules for him;

behold, his reward is with him,

and his recompense before him.

11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms;

he will carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead those that are with young.

In these verses, you see the mighty power of God, but then the gentleness of a shepherd holding his flock close.

This shows how these are united for the good of His people, His family.

3. Alexander Carson - “God’s sovereignty is always to his people in wisdom and in love. This is the difference between sovereignty in God and sovereignty in man. We dread the sovereignty of man, because we have not security of its being exercised in mercy, or even justice; we rejoice in the sovereignty of God, because we are sure it is always exercised for the good of his people.”

(ESV)

11 I have stored up your word in my heart,

that I might not sin against you.

If we are going to trust God’s love and refute the attacks which Satan will have against us when we are facing adversity, we must not only claim this verse, but practice it. It is only with the knowledge and promise of God’s Word in the midst of all this, we will be able to say, It Is Well.

The Story behind, It Is Well With My Soul

In the 1899s Horatio G. Spafford was known as one of Chicago’s most successful lawyers and businessmen. Through the years his investments in real estate along the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago had paid off handsomely. In 1871 Mr. Spafford wrote to some of his friends that he felt that he was “sitting on top of the world.” He had a loving wife, four beautiful daughters, a profitable business empire, and a successful law practice. Who would have thought that the action of a single farm animal could change all of that? That is exactly what happened on a night when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern in her barn. This triggered the great Chicago fire. In just a few hours Spafford’s wealth was burned to ashes. He told his friends that all he had left of his business empire was his university diploma. Although Spafford was devastated by all of this, his financial fall affected his wife hardest of all. Her doctor suggested that a vacation might help her. Spafford arranged for an extended family trip to Europe. Just prior to the scheduled departure, Spafford received a phone call about a pressing business matter in Chicago. He told his family to go ahead and that he would join them later. Somehow in the middle of the ocean the Ville De Havre strayed into the path of a British ship. Both were traveling at full speed. In twelve minutes 226 people lost their lives. Seven days after the accident, when the survivors landed at Cardiff, Wales, Spafford received a two-word telegram from his wife — “Saved. . .alone.” Spafford booked the first ship bound for England. As he was sitting out on the deck, the ship’s captain approached him and said, “Mr. Spafford, we are approaching the spot where your daughters now rest.” Instead of being grief-stricken as he had thought he would be, Spafford said that a peace came over him as he remembered the words of his friend, Dwight L. Moody. Moody had told him, “One of these days you are going to read that D. L. Moody of East Northfield is dead. Don’t you believe a word of that; I’ll be more alive then than I am now.” Spafford said that he felt the girls’ spirit around him.  Rather than cry, he smiled. Rushing to his cabin, Spafford picked up pen and paper and jotted down the words that were suddenly on his heart:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea-billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul. When the Spaffords returned to Chicago they were surrounded by friends and family. One of those friends who came by to help comfort the Spaffords was Phillip Bliss, a vocalist and songwriter. As Bliss listened to Spafford’s poem he was deeply moved. At his home Bliss composed music for the poem, creating a song he called “It Is Well with My Soul.” Within weeks he was singing the new hymn at Moody’s crusades.