THE SOVEREIGNTY AND SUPREMACY OF GOD’S LOVE

“God is love,” the Scripture declares, (1 John 4:16b). His love is witnessed throughout the Word and in the world. There is a sovereignty in His love as he distributes it to whomever and wherever He wills. There is a supremacy in His love as His love great and most gloriously harmonized with every other  attribute of a Holy God. Love is given by the Father, brought by the Son, and witnessed by the Spirit. Paul prays that the Lord will direct our hearts into the love of God in 2 Thessalonians 3:5a.

This is HIS LOVE EXTENDED.  The Lord directs our hearts into His love. Love is at God’s initiative. He is the fountain from which Divine love flows. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,” (John 3:16). 

Then consider HIS LOVE EXPOUNDED. Paul is proclaiming the possibility of entering into the love of God. It is the offer of the Gospel. The church is given the mission of proclaiming it. In our preaching and teaching there must be the exposition of the Scriptures as God’s love letter to us. 

We can then have HIS LOVE EXPERIENCED. Our heart is won by His heart, and we are directed into God’s love so that His heart becomes one with our heart.  John said, “We love Him because He first loved us,” (1 John 4:19). More than a theological truth, it is an experiential joy we can know—swimming in a boundless sea of God’s pure love—high as the heavens to lift us there, deep enough to reach the most depraved, wide enough to encompass all humanity, and long enough to span eternity. 

Thus, Paul prayed, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3‬:‭17‬-‭19‬‬)

This calls us to HIS LOVE EXPRESSED. The root of God’s love experienced leads to the fruit of God’s love expressed. The Holy Spirit takes the love of the Father given through the Son and enables us to bear the fruit of love, (Gal. 5:22). It is not something we work up in the energy of the flesh—that is impossible—but what God works in by the power of the Spirit. That is why Paul calls upon the Lord to direct us into God’s love. 

Then, we can fulfill God’s command to love Him with all our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We express this love to our fellow believers and even to our enemies!  This is the mark of the Christian, as our Lord declared, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another,” (John 13:35). 

My prayer for the people of God, as we gather this Lord’s Day, is that the Lord will direct our hearts into the love of God, and that we will exit intent to share that love with a world that desperately needs to see and hear it. 

GOD THE FATHER: The Lover of His Family

“O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:25-26)

Human fathers are not perfect fathers. Some are horrible—they may abandon their children; they may be mean and abusive.  Don’t let that color your view of God the Father, if that was your misfortune.  He is nothing like such wicked men.

A good father is one that loves us—it is heard in his words and seen in his works.  In this, the Heavenly Father is the ultimate.  He’s a good, good Father—the best. God our Father is perfect love.

Jesus speaks in this text of the intimate love relationship He had with His Father and that every believer is invited to experience.

There are two evidences of love I think of when I think of God the Father.

God loves us as OUR PROVIDER.

“Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matt.6:26)

If God feeds the fowls of the air, will He not feed His children?  If He clothes the flowers of the field, will He not clothe His children?  We need not worry.  Earthly fathers provide for their family—yet, they may be limited in what they can do.  Not so with God!

God loves us as OUR PROTECTOR.

“And he said: ‘The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; The God of my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, My stronghold and my refuge; My Savior, You save me from violence. I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies.’” (2 Sam.22:2-4)

David testifies to God’s protection. He had protected him when lions attacked the flock he shepherded.  God stood by him when he fought the giant Goliath.  When Saul chased him like a hound after a fox, all over the Judean wilderness, the Lord preserved David.  As King, leading his troops into battle after battle God shielded him.  God will take care of you! I know as a father I will do all I can to keep my family safe.  How much more the good and great Father in heaven who is both willing and able to do so!

EVERLASTING LOVE

The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”  (Jeremiah 31:3)

God’s love for His people is everlasting.  If there were ever a people who deserved to be forsaken, it would have been the nation of Israel.  Their rebellion was met with God’s discipline, but He reminds them in this thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah’s prophecy that though He disciplines them, He will not desert them.  They are covenant people, and God will be faithful to His promise, even when His children are not.  Christians in this dispensation are under the New Covenant, and the God of Israel is our God.  He cannot be other than loving to us for it is His immutable nature.

Some would say that such doctrine gives a license to sin, and they want you to believe God’s love is conditional—rooted in our changeable nature rather than in God’s unchanging one.  The reality is that His love will not let us go.  No matter what it takes to bring us back to Himself, God will exert that pressure.  He holds us in His hand and no one can extract us.  Should we seek to foolishly break His grasp, He squeezes ever tighter.  Picture a small child holding his father’s hands as they cross a busy street.  The little fellow may want to pull away—even cry that he is being restrained—but what kind of father would let him loose?  No, love squeezes tight.  If we love like this, how much greater is God’s everlasting love!

God speaks of how Israel received grace (v.2).  Grace is God’s unmerited favor.  It is given by the decree of God based solely on His nature and having nothing to do with any merit of ours.  We did not deserve grace when God gave it at the first and we cannot keep it because we deserve it at the last.  From start to finish, it is all of grace and all of God! 

God’s everlasting love means that it was set on us before the world was created.  Before there was a man or woman formed by God, He knew you and had purposed to love you.  In time, you who were chosen by Him from eternity, were regenerated by the Spirit—God’s love indwelling you and sealing you as His own.  When time shall be no more, His everlasting love remains and our love for Him will be perfected.

The consideration of God’s everlasting love is meant to lead to celebration (v.4-9).  Israel will go through some suffering yet.  They are a people—save for a remnant—still in unbelief.  That will change.  God’s love for them will prevail, and what a day of rejoicing that will be when God brings them home!  We may be sure that though God allows us to go through fiery trials, it is not evidence of His condemnation, but His compassion.  He is refining us—consuming the dross—so that only the pure gold remains.  At all times we can glory in His grace, and worship the Eternal God of everlasting love!  Imagine what it will be like when we reach heaven with all the redeemed of all the ages in an environment of infinite love!  That is the joy that awaits.  We can begin to experience a foretaste today by meditating upon the everlasting love of God.  The Lord our Shepherd will gather all straying sheep of His flock (v.10).  He is our Redeemer (v.11).  Praise His name!

RESPONDING TO LOVE

What shall I render to the LORD

For all His benefits toward me?  (Psalm 116:12)

This Old Testament truth finds its New Testament parallel in 1 John 5:19, “We love Him for He first loved us.”  Love given so abundantly by God, ought to be reciprocated by us.  Throughout this Psalm, we encounter that theme.

I love the LORD, because He has heard

My voice and my supplications. 

Because He has inclined His ear to me,

Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.  (v.1-2)

The sacred songwriter found himself in a desperate state (v.3), with no hope except in God—but He found God to be more than enough!  Crying out to Him, he received grace and mercy, dispatched to him from God (v.4-6).  Grace took one arm, mercy the other, and lifted him up, leading him out of his peril.  It was such bountiful blessing (v.7)!  Now, with his soul once troubled, finding rest, he reflects upon the goodness of God.

For You have delivered my soul from death,

My eyes from tears,

And my feet from falling.  (v.8)

God delivered his soul, dried his sobs, and directed his steps.  Faith had brought him the victory (v.9-11).  It wasn’t a lot of faith, but it was enough, for not the measure of faith, but the object of faith is the key.  In fact, when he felt men had abandoned him, he spoke hastily in the bitterness of his soul.  People do fail us.  They do not always stand by us.  God, however, can be utterly trusted.  He may not answer the prayer the way we expect or when we want, but His love directs Him to always do the best—even, when we don’t understand.

What shall I render to the LORD

For all His benefits toward me? 

 I will take up the cup of salvation,

And call upon the name of the LORD. 

 I will pay my vows to the LORD

Now in the presence of all His people.  (v.12-14)

This is how to respond to love: experience satisfaction in drinking deeply of God’s salvation; express supplication in calling continually on God’s name; exhibit service in willing work for God’s cause. 

When God delivers us from death, He extends our time on earth for His purposes.  Then, when life is over, He calls us to an even greater glory (v.15).  The deliverance from death will ultimately yield to the deliverance in death—to heaven, where His love will be known exponentially!  Until then, we will serve Him, worship Him, and gather with His people to sing of His love (v.16-19)!  Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine—and the best is yet to come!

How will you respond to the love of God today?

WHY WOULD A HOLY GOD LOVE US SO MUCH? OF ALL THE PEOPLE THAT YOU COULD PICK TO BE SO BLESSED TO BE ALLOWED TO SERVE YOU, WHY DID YOU PICK ME? HOW CAN WE, THE CREATED, WRAP OUR MINDS AROUND HOW TRULY GREAT AND LOVING THE CREATOR IS?

More from the series, "Every Bible Question You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask":

  

1)      WHY WOULD A HOLY GOD LOVE US SO MUCH?

If you’ve ever had a kid ask, “Why?” you may have answered, “Because…” and many would think that isn’t an answer.  In the case of the question, “Why would a Holy God love us so much?” it is absolutely an answer—and God gave it in His Word.  Look at this text:

“For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.  The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.  “Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face.” (Deuteronomy 7:6-10, emphasis added)

Why does He love us?  BECAUSE!  He chooses to do so based on His nature—He is love itself and immutable in His promises.  Since He has in sovereign grace (clearly we are undeserving) chosen the dregs of the earth and promised to deliver us—He will!  That way he gets all the glory!

Another question is akin to the last one:

2)       OF ALL THE PEOPLE THAT YOU COULD PICK TO BE SO BLESSED TO BE ALLOWED TO SERVE YOU, WHY DID YOU PICK ME?

Sheer grace!  There is no other explanation!  God didn’t choose us because He was compelled to—as though we can add anything to Him, the self-existent One.  Rather, in His infinite wisdom and glorious purposes, He chose us in Christ.  While we may not be able to explain it, we can embrace it and exult in it!

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!  ‎“For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?”  ‎“Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?”  ‎For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. (Rom.11:33-36)

Then there is this follow-up question:

3)       HOW CAN WE, THE CREATED, WRAP OUR MINDS AROUND HOW TRULY GREAT AND LOVING THE CREATOR IS?

Well, can you comprehend the incomprehensible and expect me to explain the inexplicable?  Can we measure the immeasurable or fathom the unfathomable?  How can we define that which is beyond our vocabulary?  If you can wrap your mind around the infinite, then it is no longer infinite and you would be omniscient, which you aren’t and cannot be or you would be God!

This is why we will need eternity and not be bore in an endless exploration of the matchless and boundless love of God—and all His attributes and being!  We will be ever-learning and growing in knowledge of God.  Each experience will bring delight and expand our capacity to know more—and we don’t wait for heaven to begin the quest.  Make this your prayer:

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.  ‎And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Eph.1:17-23)

And this:

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  ‎Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Eph.3:14-21)