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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
Jesus Christ the love of God(1) |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
1Jn 4:9-10 |
Date |
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Today, there are few unbelievers, not to mention those who go to church, who have not heard about Jesus Christ and the cross. However, as the love of God in them is beyond measure, there are only few who have realized the profoundness of His love.
The more we come to realize the love of God, the more are we impressed and give gratitude to God. So as one of the writers of Psalm confessed, "What is man that You care for him, the son of man that You think of him?"(Psalm 144:3), we can also confess the same from the bottom of our heart.
Now, to feel the unmeasurable love of God deeply in our hearts who didn’t spare even His one and only Son for man, the sinner, we will take into consideration the love of God that is shown to us through Jesus Christ.
1. God prepared His only begotten Son before time began and sent him to us as an atoning sacrifice
1 John 4:9-10 says that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. An atoning sacrifice here means a sacrifice for the peace between God and us.
Due to the sin of disobedience of Adam the first man, all human beings, as ’the wages of sin is death’(Rome 6:23), are destined to be servants of the enemy devil and go to hell forever. For God to make us children of the light and lead to the heavenly kingdom, the problem of sin had to be solved. So to solve the problem of sin between God and us, Jesus came to this world and shed his blood on the cross and died to become the atoning sacrifice. In other words, He saved us from sin with his blood and opened the road to salvation for those who believe it.
Why then does God love us so much?
It’s because God is our Creator, and the true Father who cultivates us on this earth. The God of love created the first man Adam in His own image and gave him the power to rule over all creatures(Genesis 1:28).
However, after a long time, Adam was deceived by the crafty serpent and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In result, his spirit died because he committed the sin of disobedience to God. Since then, Adam and his descendants couldn’t communicate with God and have been controlled by the enemy devil. As time went by, they came to be infected by sins and taste in the earth the tears, sorrow, pain, sickness and death.
Here is the profound providence of God. Adam the first man didn’t know the true love of God and disobeyed God. But those who are cultivated on earth experiencing all the kinds of sins and saved will reach the eternal kingdom of heaven where only happiness is and give gratitude to God and share the unchanging love with God.
Eventually, we will become the true children of God through His human cultivation.
Therefore, we can see that it is what our Father God did in His love to create man and send Jesus to this world whom He had prepared before time began as an atoning sacrifice.
2. As the Lord of glory, Jesus came down to this earth lowly and humbly
As the King of kings, the Lord of lords, Jesus didn’t either come down to this earth with nobility and majesty, nor was he born in a luxurious palace. He was born in a pen of animals and was laid in a manger from which the animals ate their food. Why was Jesus born like this, lowly and humbly?
As Ecclesiastes 3:18 says, "...God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals.", man who lost God’s image became more and more degenerated and no better than a beast. They trade in human beings publicly and even parents kill their children or children kill their parents.
Jesus was born of a pen of animals to redeem us the no-better-than-beast people and was laid in a manger from which the animals ate their food to become the true food. How great the love of God is!
3. Jesus became poor to deliver us from poverty
As Matthew 8:20 reads, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head", Jesus often slept in the field because there was no place to sleep in and went hungry because there was no food.
It was not because Jesus had no power. Jesus fed more than five thousand men heartily with five loaves of bread and two fish and picked up twelve basketful’s of broken pieces that were left over(the 4th chapter of Matthew). He changed water to wine(John 2:1-11). When Peter obeyed Jesus as he told him to put out the net into deep water, he caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break(Luke 5:4-6). Although Jesus had great power, he never used it for his own sake and lived a poor life. Why was that?
When God created man, he could eat heartily and live happily without sweating. But disobeying God’s command, he could eat only by painful toil and went through the way of poverty. Jesus came down to this earth and became poor to deliver us from this poverty(2 Corinthians 8:9).
No parents of great wealth would turn their faces away from their only son who suffers from poverty. But God the Lord of all creatures was just watching His only begotten Son even when he was hungry, thirsty, naked and had no rest. It was for our benefit. There is none but God who gave us this kind of perfect and devotional love.
4. Jesus healed all kinds of diseases and became friend with alienated people
As we cannot see God who is Spirit with our eyes, it is not easy for us to feel His love. That is why God let us see and be confirmed about His love through Jesus His beloved Son. This is shown more clearly through the ministry of Jesus.
When Jesus was tempted three times by the devil after fasting for forty days and forty nights in the wilderness before he started his ministry, he got over all the temptations with God’s words. This was that Jesus himself experienced our weakness and had pity on us even more to give us the strength to win(Hebrews 2:18).
After that, Jesus went around all over the country and preached the gospel of heaven.
He didn’t preach it to those who were wealthy, powerful or famous but to those who were poor, sick and alienated as well as those who were judged as sinners like tax collectors and prostitutes.
It was because Jesus already knew that the Gospel of grace of God wouldn’t come upon those of wealth, honor, power or knowledge on the Law, but to those of humble heart and are poor in heart like children.
Jesus didn’t only preach the gospel of heaven but also solved all kinds of problems of life(John 5:2-9, Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 10: 46-52, Luke 7:11-17). He also took care of sinners and oppressed people and went to the alienated people as tax collectors and sinners and made friends with them(Matthew 9:12).
As the love of God for sinful mankind is unconditional and endless, we cannot measure the depth and height and width of his love. So the more we know about God’s love, the more we are impressed and give gratitude to Him.
5. Jesus leads us to the way of life from death through the highest love
Jesus gave up the glory of heaven as God’s only begotten Son and came down to this earth. He showed us his love beyond death to the point of being crucified. What then was the highest point of his love?
It is that he revives sinners and leads them to the way of life from death. This complies with the final purpose of his coming down to this earth. As John 12:47 reads, "... For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.", Jesus came down to this world to complete the Law with love and thus save sinners.
If God judges us only with righteousness who became enemy of God and act in sin, there is no way for us to escape from the penalty of death. Even after we accept Jesus and try to live by God’s words, we sometimes stumble and even are often tempted. If God says to us, "You sinned’, how many will be saved?
But God wants all men to repent of their sins and live by the truth. He waits for long time with perseverance. This is why the Holy spirit keeps on knocking at the door of our heart and wants us to live by the truth.
God first forgave us the sinners and had mercy on us. He also gave His only begotten Son to be crucified. All those who believe in this will be free from the curse of the Law and be led to eternal life(John 3:16).
6. God’s love that we can feel from the parable of the lost son
We can realize well the love of God from the parable of the lost son in the 15th chapter of Luke.
How did the father meet his son who came back home after having squandered his wealth in wild living that he inherited from his father as his share? While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. And he said to his servants, "Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet" and he killed the fattened calf and had a feast. All this was because of the pleasure of finding his lost son as we can see from his saying, "For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."
This is the heart of God. As the father who was waiting for his lost son, God waits for the numerous souls who are wandering about in the world with burning heart.
When they come back to Him, the God of love doesn’t ask about their sins and receive them only with pleasure.
As the father cared for his son with unlimited forgiveness and love, God loves us to the end and covers our offenses and binds up our wounds.
Also Jesus showed God’s love through the parable of the shepherd who left the ninety-nine sheep in the open country and went after the lost one on the steep trails (Luke 15:4-7).
Dear brothers sisters
God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He is watching us with this love.
When we commit sin and go to the way of darkness, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express and the Lord in the heaven also falls on his knees and prays to God for us(Romans 8:26, 1 Timothy 2:5).
I pray that through this message, you will love God with all your heart, will, soul and life and enter The New Jerusalem, the holy city where the throne of God is. |
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