The Love of God

One of my goals as your pastor is to help you to go deeper into the Gospel so that by understanding it well you will be able to live well. As a result, I’ve been speaking to you about various topics related to a deeper grasp of the Gospel. Today, I will continue that. I’m going to talk to you about the love of God, that is, the love that God has for you. Gaining a more mature understanding of this key teaching of the Scriptures will most certainly result in a deeper understanding of the Gospel. The choice of the topic is appropriate because though there is much talk these days about how God loves, for far too many there isn’t the depth of understanding that is called for. And that always results in problems.

A classic text expressing the love of God is found in something Paul wrote. Listen.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35–39

This is a remarkable passage. I can’t imagine a clearer statement of God’s love in Christ for you, His people. So, let’s take a look at it.

The place to begin, as usual, is a definition.

So, what is love? According to the popular notion in our culture, love is a feeling. One person feels love for another, and it feels good. However, because it is a feeling, it comes and it goes. So, two people fall in love. The feeling is there. A relationship is created. But then, one or the other of those two, or even both of them, fall out of love. The feeling is gone. The relationship is dissolved. And off they go to fall in love with someone else and start the whole cycle all over again.

Try to imagine what life would be like with that as the foundation of your intimate relationships, a fleeting feeling. It only makes sense for people to avoid marriage. After all, once you’re married it’s a little more difficult, a little messier, to dissolve the relationship once you fall out of love.

But everything changes when you see that love is not a feeling. Love is a commitment. It is a commitment to another person to see to it that that person flourishes. That will look like one thing when it’s loving the brethren and another thing when it’s loving your spouse. The nature of the commitment differs. But it’s still a commitment.

Those are some basics about what love is about.

Now, let’s consider some pushback against what I’ve just told you.

First, there are those who react to this definition of love because it sounds so emotionless. But really, how can that be? A husband’s love for his wife, his commitment to her, includes his commitment to relate to her emotionally, to respond to her emotionally. Loving another person, spouse or otherwise, includes an emotional attachment of some sort. The idea of commitment is not some stoic concept. Love as a commitment includes the emotions.

Then, there’s this. How do I know that this definition is accurate? How do I know that love is not just a feeling that comes and goes? And the answer is obvious. It’s because of the nature of God’s love. Try to plug into what Paul wrote about love the idea that it is a passing feeling, something that just might fade away. Does it even come close to working? Absolutely not! God’s love for you is not just some feeling that comes and goes. It’s a commitment to you that is unshakeable.

But is there no commitment when it comes to our culture’s understanding of love? Yes, there is a sense of commitment. So, those with this culture’s understanding of love may say to one another, ‘I am committed to you because I love you’. A clear statement of commitment. But what happens once the feeling of love is gone, once the reason for the commitment is gone? That commitment also fades away. Real love is different. God says to you, ‘I love you because I am committed to you’. And once God has committed Himself, what can change His mind?

God’s love is so very different from our culture’s counterfeit. And there is great comfort here. To know that you are loved, really loved, loved in the way that God loves, provides what nothing else can. The person who knows this is ready for life. This is the love of God.

We’ve established a definition and we’ve dealt with some pushback. It’s here’s that a problem too often pops up. Many stop here. The nature of love has been explained. Paul’s rousing language is presented. Love is made certain. What else is needed? Well, plenty more is needed. And I fear that there are too many who are not being helped to understand that more.

This is where it helps to be a curious person. Curious people notice things. A key to being able to meditate well on the Scriptures is being curious. And that’s because being curious leads to asking questions. Asking questions leads to getting answers, gaining insight, growing in wisdom. All of that, in turn, leads to understanding God better. And that leads to wonder, being amazed at who God is and what He does, things like how He loves. That all starts with being curious.

So, being a curious person, I’m not going to stop here. I’m going to ask some questions of this idea of love. I’m going to do this so that you will be completely assured of God’s love for you, completely assured and amazed.

So, here’s the first question. If God loves us like this, why is life so hard?

Few people ask this kind of question in some abstract, theoretical way. It’s the kind of question that pops up when life gets hard. Now, there are those for whom the question no longer pops up. They used to ask the question, but they never got a satisfying answer. So, they quit asking the question and plod on with life as best they can. But then, there are those who do ask the question or at least feel the point of the question. ‘If God loves me, why is my life so hard?’

How shall we answer this question?

The first thing to notice is that there’s a problem with the question. Do you see it? What does the question assume? It assumes that God’s love for me will result in my life not being hard. This is a widespread assumption, especially in our culture. How often do people say something like, ‘If God really loves me, why did this terrible thing happen to me?’ And that ties in with another cultural assumption about the good life. The good life is supposed to be a relatively comfortable life. There is no room for hard things there.

Ask some kids in college what their plans for life are. They will tell you that after school there will be a professional job that pays well enough to enjoy life. That’s the goal: to enjoy life. Having big problems confront you, facing hard things, that’s not part of their plan.

But it’s part of God’s plan for His saints.

Did you notice that in the midst of Paul’s praise of God’s unstoppable love there’s a quote from a Psalm? What’s it doing there?

Listen again to how Paul starts his description of God’s love.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

Paul raises his question and then adds a series of threats, things that just might separate us from God’s love: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword. Quite a list.

Paul also answers his question about the possibility of being separated from God’s love by any of these threats.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

However, between Paul’s question and his answer there is this.

As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

What’s that doing there? Why did Paul include it in this dramatic praise of God’s love for His saints? And that, by the way, is the kind of question that a curious person will ask.

It’s there because those threats - tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword - are not just some hypothetical possibilities. No, these are the kinds of things that actually happen to God’s saints.

This list of possibilities is not out of the blue. Listen to what Paul wrote just a few sentences earlier.

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs - heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him… Romans 8:16–17

God doesn’t promise His love to you so that you can feel coddled, tucked away in some safe space. You are loved so that you can fight. That list of threats, a sampling of threats, is real. It’s how the world reacts to the Gospel. And that’s why it’s so important to know that God loves you. He loves you in the midst of the battle. And clinging to the certainty of His unstoppable love is what will keep you fighting.

As Christians we fight to enjoy the good life. But the good life has nothing to do with the American Dream. It’s about the age to come. And we will need to fight against the world, the flesh and the devil to get there. Confidence in God, in His love, in His commitment to us for our good - it is holding firmly to such things that will ensure that we will arrive in our Promised Land.

So, when a Christian is attacked what is he to tell himself in response? Too often, Christians just complain about how hard life is. But what the Christian should say to himself is something like this. ‘This is hard and I don’t like it. But I know that my God loves me. He is fully committed to me. So, I know that He will take care of me and use even this for good.’ It’s telling yourself that sort of thing - and believing it - that keeps a Christian going even in the face of the hard things of life.

So, let me pull this together. Here’s our question again. If God loves me like this - in the way that Paul has described - why is my life so hard? And here’s the answer. It’s because God loves you that your life is so hard. It’s because of His love that you find yourself in His Church and, as a result, battling against the world, the flesh and the devil. It is His love that took you from Satan’s rebellious army and put you into His own army so that you could fight that battle for Him. And it is His love that will make sure that you will win this war, that you will be more than a conqueror.

Now, that was one question to ask of our text. Here’s another. If God loves His people in this way then how is it that there are those who fall away from the faith? Now, that is not a question to deal with in mere theoretical terms. That’s when we tell ourselves something like, ‘Well, they weren’t real Christians’, or some such thing. Who cares about that? The real question behind the question is this. Is it possible that I might fall away? Does this promise of God’s love really mean anything if that could happen to me? Now, that’s something worth considering.

There are those who ignore the question because they tell themselves that they could never fall away. To such a person I would simply ask, ‘Have you never known someone who was a solid Christian, a Christian as solid as you - maybe more solid - who then abandoned the faith?’ I have. I knew a man who was a pastor who was powerfully used by God in the conversion and strengthening of many saints, a man who suffered persecution for the faith, a man who was confronted face-to-face by two men who were sent to kill him and did not flinch, but rather was the means of their conversions, a man who had to flee his homeland because of those threats on his life. I met him in seminary where he was getting more training in the hope of returning to his homeland to continue God’s work. I later discovered that he had turned away from it all, and I was shocked.

It is foolish presumption to ignore the question. We all should ask, ‘Does this promise of God’s love really mean anything if I could fall away?’ This is merely taking the promise seriously.

This is where I need to remind you that every promise of God is conditional. There is always some condition that you have to meet for any promise of God to be made yours. But the condition to this and every promise is not some huge, near impossible thing you have to do. The condition is faith. You have to believe God.

I want to be clear about how this is nothing like the popular concept of believing. The world has counterfeited not only the Christian word ‘love’ but also the Christian word ‘believe’. When someone believes God, it’s not just some feeling. It’s not even some mental agreement with something God has said. It’s hearing what God says, acknowledging that it is true and acting accordingly. Believing God means putting into action whatever He has told you. You act on what you believe.

Here, God promises His love. But remember that He promises this love so that you can fight. So, believing this promise of God when you are confronted by some hard aspect of life will show by your telling yourself, ‘This is hard and I don’t like it. But I know that my God loves me. He is fully committed to me. So, I know that He will use even this for good.’ You remind yourself of this and then you fight. Faith is taking what God has said, acknowledging that it is true and then putting it into action.

God’s promises are conditional. But He will most certainly keep His promises for all who believe Him.

Now, it needs to be said that we all falter in this. We all blow it. We act in some way that reveals that we aren’t believing God in that moment. We doubt that He loves us, and our actions show it. So, for just one example, how else can we understand those times of being anxious? We don’t believe God’s promise to love us. In times like that, and others, we sin.

Let me tell you again about my morning prayers. Here is the beginning of one of the prayers that I offer to God each day.

Lord God, Almighty and Everlasting Father, You have brought me in safety to this new day for which I give You thanks. Preserve me by Your mighty power that I may not fall into sin or be overcome by adversity.

I pray that, day after day, because I know that I could fall into sin. I pray that, day after day, because I know that I could be overcome by adversity to the point of giving up. I pray that prayer because I know that I can fall away from the faith. Now, let me be clear. Do I doubt that I am a Christian? No, not at all. I am sure that God is my Father, Jesus is my older Brother and the Spirit walks with me every step of the way. But on the other hand, do I think that I could be deceived by my sin to the destruction of my soul? Could I do what my seminary friend did? Absolutely! There are too many warnings about falling away in Scripture for me to think otherwise. That’s why I pray that prayer, again and again. And just to be clear, I say all of this as a thoroughly convinced, five-point Calvinist.

So, what does believing God look like? Here’s another perspective on that question. It is acknowledging your dreadful weakness and calling out to the Father for the safety of His grace. It is repenting of your sin as soon as the Spirit points it out to you. At the heart of believing God is repentance and faith.

This, by the way, is what the perseverance of the saints looks like. It is not some passive thing. It is very active. And that is one way that sheep are distinguished from goats.

It is when you are working at believing God by repentance and faith that you can know, really know, that God loves you and that nothing, absolutely nothing, can make Him stop loving you. The Spirit will see you believing in this way and will respond by making sure that you are convinced of His love of you. And armed with that certainty you will fight and conquer to the glory of God.

Last question. So, what are you to do with all of this? Well, for one thing, you can think of more questions to ask of our text. There are plenty more. Here’s one that I decided to leave out. What do you do when it feels like God has deserted you? Read the Psalms. There are plenty of them where the author feels abandoned by God. What does that say about God’s unstoppable love? It’s a good question to pursue and answer. And there are others. Be curious.

But besides that, here’s what you are to do. Believe the Gospel. Believe the part of the Gospel about the astounding love of God. Believe the part of the Gospel about the grace of God that will keep you safe. Believe the part of the Gospel about how you still so foolishly sin. Believe the part of the Gospel about the need for sincere repentance and a renewed faith. Believe the Gospel, be convinced of the love of God and fight.