God's Great Love
Notes
Transcript
I remember singing the song, Jesus love is so high, you can’t get over it. So low you can’t get under it. So wide you can’t get around it.
To consider the level of love that God has for it or to put an amount to measure it if very difficult because His love has no limits.
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
In Southern Texas, several hundred feet below the ground there is a cavern, this cavern is known as the Edwards Aquifer. It is 175 miles in length. The layout of the cavern is known as a well as the fact that the water is pure and fresh. It irrigates farms and waters lawns, fills pools and quenches thirst.
The thing about this aquifer is that they do not know the depth of it. The depth of the cavern is a mystery. Number of gallons? Unmeasured.
No one knows the amount of water the aquifer contains.
Meteorologists have regular updates on the aquiferleve which gives the impression that the amount of water is calculated but the truth is no one knows how much water there is down there. The measuring is done purely by estimating. The exact quantity no one knows. It is remarkable. It is used people, people depend on it, and would perish without it but measure it? They can’t.
I wanted to tell you this story to let you know about another unmeasured pool. It is not a pool of water but it is a pool of love. It is pure and fresh, one loosens thethirsty throat and softens the crusty heart. If you ever had the opportunity to see a life immersed in the love of God you would see if emerge, cleansed and changed. We know the impact of God’s love.
But the volume of God’s love? No one has ever measured it.
Who has been to the depths of God’s love? Only God has.
He invites us to see the size of His love. Which takes us to the winding path outside of Jerusalem. Follow the dots of bloody dirt until you see the hill. Before looking up pause and you can hear the whisper “This is how much I ove you”.
Whip-ripped muscles drape his back. Blood rivets over His face. His eyes and lips are swollen shut. Pain rages at wildfire intensity. As he sinks to relieve theagony of his legs, his airways closes. At the edge of suffocation, he shoeves pierced muscles against the spike and inches up the cross. He does this for hours. Painfully up and down until His strength and our doubts are gone.
Three important points come to mind when I read John 3:16-17:
Does God love you?
Does God care about you?
What does God do with us?
First let’s look at this:
Does God Love You?
Does God Love You?
For God so loved the world 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.
God the Son died for you.
Who could have imagined such a gift?
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Illustration:
At the time Martin Luther was having his Bible printed in Germany, a printer’s daughter encountered God’s love. No on had told her about Jesus. Toward God she felt no emotion but fear. One day she gathered pieces of fallen scripture from the floor. On one paper she found words,
“For God so loved the world, that He gave...”
The rest of the verse had not yet been printed. Still, what she saw was enough to move her. The thought that God would give anything moved her from fear to JOY!
Her mother notied a change in her attitude. When asked the cause of her happiness, the daughter produced the crumpled piece of partial verse from her pocket. The mother read it and asked, “What did He give?”
The young girl was perplexed by the question and then answered, “I don’t know. But if He loved us well enough to give us anything, we should not be afraid of Him”.
God gave Himself. God the Son loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
The holiness of God demands a sinless sacrifice, and the only sinless sacrifice was God the Son. And since God’s love never fails to pay the price, He did. God loves you with an unfailing love.
Yes God loves you.
He loved you enough to due for you.
He made a way for you!
Does God care about you?
Does God care about you?
Illustration:
The second daughter of Queen Victoria was Princess Alice. Her young son was infected with a horrible affliction known as diptheria. Doctors quarantined the boy and told the mother to stay away.
But she couldn’t. One day she overheard him whisper to the nurse, “Why does my mother kidd me anymore?” The words melted her heart. She ran to her son and smothered him with kisses. Within a few days, she was buried.
What would drive a mother to do such a thing?
What would lead God to do something greater?
LOVE!!!
Trace the greatest action of God to the greatest attribute of God - His love.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
God’s priority is His glory. He occupies center stage. He is the message. Our Father rescues us.
Why? You are valuable! You are important!
In the calm of the noontide, in sorrow’s lone hour,
In times when temptation casts o’er me its pow’r;
In the tempests of life, on its wide, heaving sea,
Thou blest “Rock of Ages,” I’m hiding in Thee.
How oft in the conflict, when pressed by the foe,I have fled to my Refuge and breathed out my woe;
How often, when trials like sea billows roll,
Have I hidden in Thee, O Thou Rock of my soul.
What does God do with us?
What does God do with us?
illustration:
There was once an oil field mechanic who never met a car he could not fix. Forget golf and tennis, his toys were sockets and wrenches. He loved to see wrecked engines.
Once while driving to visit his sister in New Mexico, the car blew a rod. Most men would have groaned all the way to the service station. But not this guy.
He called a tow truck and grinned the rest of the ride. Forget the coffee and cookkies and hand him the manifold. This man with a V-8 engine was the same thing as a General with a Platoon - he made it work.
The thing is this man had a son. Some may think this man’s son would be just like his dad and have the same love of fixinf cars. But that was not the case. The son did not know where the engine was. He confused the spare tire with the fan belt. He was not gifted with car repair.
What does this skilled mechanic do with a son who is anything but?
Let me ask you this question: What does God do with us?
Under His care the universe runs like a Rolex. But His children? Most of us have trouble balancing a checkbook. So what does He do?
Remember the mechanic and his son?
That man although his boy did not know much about cars still gave him jobs to do - holding wrenches, scrubbing spark plugs. And he knew his son’s limits. Never once did he tell his boy to tear apart a transmission.
For one thing he liked his transmission. For another he loved his son. He loved him too much to give him too much.
So does God. He knows our limitations. He is well aware of your weaknesses. You can no more die for your own sins than you can solve world hunger. And according to God that’s ok. God loves you too much to say it is all about you. We’ve peaked under the blood and don’t know what it takes to run the worldm and wise we are who leave the work in His hands.
To say “IT’s not about you” is not to say you are not love. It is because God loves you that it is not about you. This is the kind of love it is. “It is too wonderful to measure”.
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
The Prodigal son thought he could not go home. He thought his father did not love or care about him. His father welcomed him back with open arms.
This is what it is to be loved by God. How measureless and strong!
But though we cannot measure it, may I urge you to trust it?
Some of you listening to me this morning are so very hungry for such love. Those who should have love you and they did not. Those who have loved you would not. You were left at the hospital, left at the altar, left with a broken heart, left with the question, “Does anyone love me?”
Please listen to Heaven’s answer.
Think about Him on the cross and hear God assure you by His resposne “I do”.
Someday someone will likely find out how deep the South Texas Aquifer is. They will find out its limits. Will someone say the same for God’s love?
Not a chance
When it comes to water, we will find limit. But when it comes to God’s love, we never will.
Sing: He knew me yet He loved me or If that isn’t love.