Authentic, Radical Love
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What is the OBJECTIVE of this Sermon? To show that we don’t understand what love is until we understand the love of God.
What is the DESIRED RESPONSE for this Sermon? That people would understand the love that Jesus has for them and turn their lives over to him. That they would love like He loves.
BUILD TENSION
Me - Counterfeit Loves - give examples, “I love pizza!” “No you don’t! You may be infatuated, but you do not love it!”
We - If we are going to be honest, we do this all the time! We love this and we love that. But did you know that if your love is based on getting something in return - it’s not really love?
God - God’s love, is really love.
God’s love is an authentic love.
God’s love is a genuine love.
and so, God’s love is, from our perspective, a radical love.
We can learn a lot about true love from God.
In fact the bible says that the only reason we are able to love in the way He loves is because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).
19 We love because he first loved us.
God’s love is unlike anything we could ever come up with on our own.
And so, Paul want us to see what God’s love is all about...
Bottom Line - Authentic Love is Radical Love
Here is what I mean...
Love is SUBJECTIVE. But God makes love OBJECTIVE
How?
The subjectivity of love is clearly objective in the cross of Christ.
The cross of Christ is God’s authentic love on radical display.
Christ’s death on the cross solved our biggest problem - God’s wrath against us.
The one who had the biggest problem with us offered the best solution! And it is all rooted in his love for you...
There are three ways in which the Apostle Paul sees this AUTHENTIC, RADICAL love in Romans 5:6-8...
1. Authentic, Radical Love is Necessary (vs. 6)
Why is this kind of love necessary? Take a look at what Paul says in verse 6...
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
Did you see them?
There are three reasons in verse 6 why this Authentic, Radical Love is Necessary...
Necessary because we are WEAK
Weak = Helpless, lacking moral strength
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
We do not have the spiritual wherewithal to even pursue the Father without His help...
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
We are spiritually helpless, folks.
Have you heard about the man Jesus healed...
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.
This guy was waiting around for 38 years to be the first one in the mystical pool to be healed. Didn’t work. He tried on his own. He tried to get the help of others. Nothing worked until Jesus came along.
It was through the strength of the Lord that this man was able to pick up his bed and walk. 38 year on his own proved he couldn’t heal himself. He needed something more. Jesus was that something more.
That man was weak physically, you are weak spiritually. You cannot heal yourself spiritually. God must and can do this. You must believe he can.
He didn’t wait for us to get better. “While we were still weak”
He made provision while we needed it!
Jesus’ love is Necessary because we are weak!
Necessary because it is perfectly TIMED
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
Some of our founding father in this country were Deists. a Deist believes that God created this world and then stepped away to let life simply play out. They believe that God isn’t intimately involved. The Bible on the other hand teaches that our God not only created all there is, but is intimately involved in every aspect of His creation.
His love compels Him to be involved to ensure His plan comes to fruition.
Time = crucial point or place
4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
God’s plan to send Jesus was not an afterthought or a Plan “B”. God sent His Son at exactly the right time in history to be the sacrifice for our sin...
The world was prepared spiritually, economically, linguistically, politically, philosophically and geographically for the coming of Jesus and the spread of the gospel.” - unknown
God’s timing is perfect because God’s love is perfect!
Necessary because we are UNGODLY
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
If you understand these words, they are some of the most beautiful words in the Scriptures - “Christ died for the ungodly.”
Christ - the anointed one, the King, the Messiah!
Died - was brutally killed on the cross by Roman soldiers because the Jewish leadership refused to bow the knee to their Messiah (King). Yet it was all part of God’s plan of redemption - “God was pleased to crush Him.” (Isaiah 53:10)
For - “in the place of”
Ungodly - a people who reject Him as their Lord and King. A people who live and worship self rather than the Lord. A people who refuse to bow their knee to their Creator!
Christ didn’t die for nice people, he died for those who were his enemies (Romans 5:10) He died for you - who have sinned against Him over and over. Now that’s authentic, radical love!
MSB quote - “God’s supreme act of love came when we were at our most undesirable. John MacArthur Jr., ed., The MacArthur Study Bible, electronic ed. (Nashville, TN: Word Pub., 1997), 1701.
NIVAC quote - “Sending his Son to die for people who refused to worship him (the basic connotation of “ungodly”) reveals the magnitude of God’s love for us. - Douglas J. Moo, Romans, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 172.
By the way - God does for us what he asks us to do for others.
46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
The Love of God is Necessary for your Salvation. It is the motivation behind His rescue plan for mankind.
“As long as you and I understand salvation as checking off a box to get to God, we will find ourselves in the meaningless sea of world religions that actually condemn the human race by exalting our supposed ability to get to God. On the other hand, when you and I realize that we are morally evil, dead in sin and deserving of God's wrath with no way out on our own, we begin to discover our desperation for Christ.”
― David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream
Illustrate - ???
Apply - I wonder if you have come to the place to see how much you need the love of God. That it isn’t simply a warm platitude “God loves you”, but instead His love for you is Necessary for your eternal life! If God did not love you, you would have a one way ticket to Hell for all of eternity. But because He loves you, Christ, the Son of God died in your place to redeem you!
Do you believe this? That’s all God requires from you in order to begin a relationship with Him. Belief / Faith in Jesus Christ and what He accomplished through His death, burial, and resurrection.
Do you believe in God’s Authentic, Radical Love?
Review - Authentic Love is Radical Love
Authentic, Radical Love is Necessary
2. Authentic, Radical Love is Unexpected (vs. 7)
This is why I call it radical...
God’s love is truly UNEXPECTED in a couple of different ways.
Look at verse 7...
7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—
first notice that Authentic, Radical love is...
Unexpected because our lives are more precious to US than to OTHERS -
Paul understands our hearts. He understands that we would really hesitate to give our lives to a known pedophile or an axe murderer. In fact, we would hesitate giving our lives for someone that was righteous. That is what he says. Listen to how the NLT puts it...
7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good.
Righteous/Upright = one who follows the rules
Good - kind and benevolent
To die for someone is the highest expression of human love - BKC
So, we probably won’t die for the rule follower, but we might die for that super kind and gracious person.
This is Paul’s point - We are more concerned for ourselves than for others.
We are selfish and self focused as a general rule. And, ironically, we are neither “righteous nor good”
God, on the other hand, loves like no other.
He, in the person of Christ, willingly died for the most evil among us which includes us!
Dr. Moo sums it up well.
Romans We Hope Because God Loves Us in Christ (5:5–8)
Rarely will a person give his or her life for someone they merely respect; but occasionally a person dies for the sake of someone they love—a soldier for his buddies, a parent for her children. The awesome quality of God’s love for us is seen in that Christ died for us while we were “still sinners”—hating God, in rebellion against him (v. 8).
This is unexpected!
Do you remember Jeffery Dahmer?
His book tells the disturbing yet redemptive story of how, by God's grace, an atheist, pedophile, and mass murderer repented and believed in Jesus Christ. Roy Ratcliff—the erstwhile preacher-turned-prison-minister who baptized Jeffrey Dahmer—discovered through him this deep sense of grace that flies in the face of our compunction to condemn, voiced by one college professor who said, "If Dahmer's in heaven, I don't want to be there."
Ratcliff says he became convinced of Dahmer's sincerity during seven months of prison visits. "I feel very, very bad about the crimes I've committed," Dahmer told Ratcliff. "In fact, I think I should have been put to death by the state for what I did." A fellow inmate killed Dahmer in 1994.
Ratcliff called Dahmer by his first name, Jeff. "He became a real person to me, so I referred to him the same way I would anyone I knew personally," Ratcliff said. "He was ready to die. I was the one who was unprepared."
Folks - remember not to think more highly of yourself than you ought - we are Jeffery Dahmer, we are Hitler, we are sinners who are lost in need of rescue!
Let me say it this way, if you think you deserve to be saved and go to heaven, you are not saved and will not go to heaven.
Salvation is for those who are lost and know it.
Salvation is for those who know they need rescue
That’s why God’s love is so unexpected - the Pharisee and the tax collector.
9 Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: 10 “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! 12 I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ 14 I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
God’s love is unexpected because our lives are more precious to US than to OTHERS...
Unexpected because Jesus’s mission was to die - even for the worst among us!
7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—
Yes, Jesus was born to die. Christmas is a celebration of God becoming a man and living among us. For what purpose? To die!
The entire Old Testament sacrificial system was a grandiose, grotesque picture of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice of Him hanging on a cross
This is perhaps the most unexpected thing about the life of Christ and salvation. Jesus had to die so you could live.
Yes, the sinless God/man willingly offered himself up as the atoning payment for your sin debt against God.
Who would ever expect that?
In other religions, you have to sacrifice something to appease God.
In Biblical Christianity, God sacrifices his own Son to appease His own wrath! Wow!
God solved his problem with you - without you! He did it all on His own!
Why? Because HE LOVES YOU!
Illustrate - “You have to stand before God, convicted and condemned, with the rope around your neck, so that you will weep for joy when God, at the right time sends Christ into your life as Savior.” - Spurgeon
Apply - Do you believe this? God has done everything he can to save you. You must choose to believe and follow. Will you?
Review - Authentic Love is Radical Love
Authentic, Radical Love is Necessary
Authentic, Radical Love is Unexpected
3. Authentic, Radical Love is Personal (vs. 8)
How is this so? Let’s take a look at verse 8...
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God shows (demonstrates, PROVES) his (personal) love for us...
God is personally vested in your redemption. He wants you to be his!
Listen to these other verses that prove this to be true! Listen to the personal pronouns...
32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
He has a personal love for you!
“The work of Jesus on the cross for us is God’s ultimate proof of His love for you. He make give additional proof, but He can give no greater proof. If the cross is the ultimate demonstration of God’s love, it is also the ultimate demonstration of man’s hatred. It also proves that the height of man’s hatred can’t defeat the height of God’s love.” - unknown
How does He prove it?
He didn’t wait for us to become righteous (impossible), He gave his life before we were righteous - so we could become righteous.
The death of Christ on the cross cannot be overestimated. Its significance cannot be over celebrated. God’s plan to redeem you was set forth before God created one thing. You are precious to Him “and He isn’t willing that you should perish, but instead desires for you to come to repentance.”
Jesus didn’t waver in His mission to save you from an eternity in Hell.
Over and over he reminded his disciples that he, the Son of Man must be killed and then raised on the third day so they could be redeemed.
That wasn’t just for them, but for you as well if you repent of your sin and place your faith in Christ alone for your eternal salvation - aka Heaven.
This is love!
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 the Son, Jesus Christ, left the comforts of Heaven to become a human and live in squalor for 33 years only to be hoisted on a cross to die a criminal’s death. All for the purpose of your salvation.
This is authentic, radical love!
Illustrate - There is a marvelous story told about a four-year old child who awoke one night frightened, convinced that in the darkness around her there were all kinds of spooks and monsters. Alone, she ran to her parents’ bedroom. Her mother calmed her down, and taking her by the hand, led her back to her own room, where she put on a light and reassured the child with these words: “You needn’t be afraid, you are no alone here. God is in the room with you.” The child replied: “I know that God is here, but I need someone in this room who has some skin.” - Pg. 148 in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship
Ladies and gentlemen, you have someone that put himself in our skin - Jesus!
And the God who personally knit you together in your mother’s womb wants to personally save you and give you new live in Him!
Apply - Again, I ask you the question, do you believe this? Do you have SAVING Faith in Christ.
Love is personal. By its very nature it has to be.
Review - Authentic Love is Radical Love
Authentic, Radical Love is Necessary
Authentic, Radical Love is Unexpected
Authentic, Radical Love is Personal
You - First, please see that while you were still unsaved, unregenerate, unbelieving, and lost, God showed off His love for you!
Second, you are only able to love because God first loved you.
We - How do you think a church that knows she is loved by God should behave? What kind of culture should be apparent in her?
One in a way that honors the one who died for them...
Holy - David Platt quote on Goodreads...“We will not wish we had made more money, acquired more stuff, lived more comfortably, taken more vacations, watched more television, pursued greater retirement, or been more successful in the eyes of this world. Instead, we will wish we had given more of ourselves to living for the day when every nation, tribe, people, and language will bow around the throne and sing the praises of the Savior who delights in radical obedience and the God who deserves eternal worship.”
― David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream
Happy - Full of Joy! You are Saved! “Let us leave sadness to the devil and his angels. As for us, what can we be but rejoicing and glad?” - Francis of Assisi
“Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigour, and vehemence…I am capable of.” - Jonathan Edwards at 19 years of age.
Helpful - Serve, serve, serve God and others.
The bottom line?
God loves you with an AUTHENTIC, RADICAL LOVE.
There may be no one else in your life that loves you. But God does - in a depth no one else can.
Perhaps you should rest in His love today?
Connection Group Reflection Questions
1. What do these verses teach me about our character?
2. What do these verses teach me about God and his character?
3. Because these words are from God, they are TRUTH! What truth is he asking me to believe?
4. What do I need to do to obey him?
5. With whom can I share these truths?