Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I don’t always feel lovable.

In fact, there is a lot of the time I don’t feel very lovable.

I would guess that most of us feel this way at least on occasion.

This manifests in a number of ways…it affects how we feel not only about ourselves but others and the world around us.

Health insurer Cigna's 2018 U.S. Loneliness Index found that 46 percent of Americans report feeling lonely sometimes or always, and 47 percent report feeling left out sometimes or always.

A little less, 43 percent, report feeling isolated from others, and the same number report feeling they lack companionship and their relationships lack meaning.

We are all relational creatures in need of love and companionship.

The greatest love we long for is the love of God.

The greatest companionship we long for is companionship with God.

That is the deepest longing in the human heart regardless of whether or not we have identified it as such just yet.

And here is the truth…God loves you…God loves each and every person who has ever existed and He loves even now each and every person who will ever exist.

Scripture is very clear on the subject.

Two well known verses paint this picture vividly… and

We know from our time spent in the Book of John over the past several years that anytime the apostle uses the term “world” he is referencing the entirety of lost humanity.

God loved the entire world…those who were righteous and searching for God’s salvation and those completely void of any contact with the truth of who He was or where their salvation lie.

And this love was not even contingent upon time or place…it was not contingent upon us and our loveliness…not contingent upon our acts of righteousness at all.

While we were unborn, lost and as far away from God as comprehensible to our finite mind…God still loved us and showed as much by sending His Son into the world to save us.

So we may feel unlovable but we are never unloved.

God loves us with a totality incomprehensible to our mind.

We can never understand the depth, height, width or breadth of the love of God…it is bigger than we can understand.

God’s love, makes clear, is never determined by our deserving of it.

He loves us on our good days and our bad days…He simply chose to love us because He is love and good…He is holy and perfect…in His perfect nature and character He is capable of loving even us and He does so with complete perfection.

So we are loved perfectly and always...

Before we move on we need to understand the greatest demonstration of God’s love for us began in the manger…when His Son stepped out of heaven into our world.

This is the great celebration of Christmas…the first physical images of the love of God expressed to us in His Son.

So how does this change you this morning?

The

Most of you know my very favorite verse in all of the Bible is but perhaps my second favorite verse in the Bible is

Paradox — a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.

seems such an obvious statement so as to be absurd…who goes to anyone they do not already believe to exist?

Yet there are a lot of folks who come to God with no belief or a poor belief in Him.

A real relationship with God is only had by those who have a genuine faith…the beginning and the continued

Without faith we can never be pleasing to God.

We have to believe He exists and rewards those who seek Him…we have to believe He exists, loves us, has saved us and receive by faith that work on our own behalf or we remain lost.

But there is a second application of this verse for the believer…we have to have faith that we will be rewarded in our seeking.

We desire to be loved…we have to have faith that we are loved or we will never receive the benefits of our relationship with the God who is love.

Too often we are that person who feels unlovable…we refuse to believe anyone can truly love us much less God who knows everything about us!

This lack of belief is just where Satan wants to keep us.

He wants to keep us in the place where we feel and believe we are unloved so we miss the reality and all the ways the truth can change us.

If you believe yourself unloved you will be lonely, depressed and lifeless.

You will be a shell of who you were meant to be in Christ.

You will always be searching, striving and longing for what has already been done for you and made available to you by faith in Christ.

The saddest believer in all of the world is the one who seeks after God but never believes God will respond to their pursuit of Him with love and a relationship with Him.

Here is found all of those people who believe themselves to be under the burden of a task master god who can never really be pleased with them…regardless their continued effort.

For these folks love, acceptance, relationship has always been something to be worked for and maintained by careful effort.

These are those who cannot allow for anyone or anything else to be in control…they must earn what they have or never have it at all.

When we doubt the love of God we embrace legalism and self in an attempt to assure ourselves of garnering it.

Charisma magazine printed an article sometime ago on the Eight Signs of a Legalistic spirit: lack of true joy, no real victory over sin, unhealthy performance orientation (feel they must earn God’s love by reading the Bible, praying and performing other religious tasks.), a critical unloving attitude toward others, Obsessive focus on outward standards of dress or behavior, bondage to religious tradition, sectarian attitude toward other Christians, little or no assurance of salvation.

Do you believe God will reward your seeking?

Do you believe He will reward your faith in Him with forgiveness and a relationship with Him?

Or do you believe God will reward your work for Him…your work to garner relationship with Him.

Jesus came to save sinners…the Apostle Paul said he was the chief among all sinners!

Yet, God rewarded His seeking and His faith in Christ for His salvation and relationship with Him.

God saves all sinners who will believe He loves them and place faith in Him for their salvation from sin and death.

The question this morning is simply this…do you believe you are genuinely and unconditionally loved because of the grace and mercy of God and His perfect capacity to love?

Conclusions

The little girl came in tears to her mother.

"God doesn't love me," she sobbed.

"Of course, God loves you," the mother declared.

"How did you ever come to get such an idea?" "No," the child persisted, "He doesn't love me.

I know—I tried Him with a daisy."

Some are trying God with a daisy…daily doubting, testing and striving for a love which is given to those who have faith.

"Of course, God loves you," the mother declared.

"How did you ever come to get such an idea?"

Stop doubting God’s love for you.

He really does love you.

Don’t ever doubt the character and tenacity of the one who sent His son as a demonstration of His love for you.

God loves every single one of us.

Each of us…including you.

There is nothing you can do to earn it and there is nothing you can do to ever separate yourself from it.

God loves us all.

"No," the child persisted, "He doesn't love me.

I know—I tried Him with a daisy."

How is God’s love for you changing you?

Does it cause you to enjoy your relationship with Him as it should?

Does it make you confident?

Hopeful, joyful, assured?

Can you let go of striving?

Can you have faith and reap the benefits of God’s love?

It is as simple as this…believe…really believe deep in your soul that God truly loves you…genuinely, completely, eternally and unconditionally…He loves you…and it will change everything about your life.

Because of this love He wants you to place faith in Him for salvation from sin and a relationship with Him.

God so loved us that He didn’t leave us as He found us.

He came to earth in order to save us.

Will you believe you are loved like this? Really believe?

have faith?

Faith changes us?

Has your faith in God’s love for you…changed you?