Let's go back to the Gospel of
John tonight, John chapter 17. And I want to read some amazing
words toward the end of our Lord's high priestly prayer here in
John chapter 17. And I'll begin in verse 23 and
read to the end. of our Lord's intercession, John
17, 23. I in thee and thou in me, that they may
be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou
hast sent me and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father,
I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where
I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given
me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world
hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known
that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them
thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou
hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. Quite amazing to me the words
especially of these last few verses concerning the love that
God has for his children. Our savior tells us that the
father loves his people even as he loves his only begotten
son. That is more than I could ever
comprehend. According to verse 24, we read
that this love that God has for us, that is equal to the love
that he has for his son, it preceded time. Because he tells us it
was from before the foundation of the world. And in verse 26,
our Lord prayed again that the same love with which he loved
the Son, the same love that the Father loved the Son, would be
in his people, his chosen ones, his elect. I read these verses,
and I reread these verses, And I was in awe of such a glorious
God who loves us to the same degree that he loves his only
begotten son. And he has loved us always from
before the foundation of the world. And therefore, arrived at a title
for this message. I'm calling this Love Beyond
Description. It is utterly astounding to me
that God would love me to the same degree that he loves the
Lord Jesus Christ. I can't get over that. Can't hardly get past it. And that God would love me from
before the foundation of this world. Which is another way of saying
He's always loved me. You see, the love that God has
for his children is as eternal as God himself is. That's another
thing I can't comprehend. Because my poor brain can only
kind of operate upon the basis of something having a beginning
and having an ending. I can sorta, kinda, grasp that. But to think that God had his
heart affection and who could ever measure that? To think that
his affection was on me and you and all of his people individually for as long as he's been God,
which is forever. That is love beyond description. What a soft, comforting pillow
this truth is to my soul. What a comfort to our poor aching
hearts. What a theme for daily meditation. What a reason for adoration and
praise and worship. We're often tempted. We're often
tried. We're misunderstood by the world,
especially the religious world. We may be the objects of ridicule
by those who are ignorant of the gospel of grace. People of
false religion may belittle us. Talk about how small we are in
number. But to know that the God of heaven
and earth loves us. And that he loves us to the same
degree that he loves his only begotten son and that he has
always loved us, it soothes the drooping spirit. There are several statements
made in the New Testament that identify God and set forth his
character. I'll just give them briefly to
you. There's seven. God is a spirit. John 4 says
that. Our God is immaterial. He is immortal. He is invisible. He is omnipresent. And he is
indivisible. Secondly, The Lord our God is
one Lord. The Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit, the divine trinity, are one in essence, one in will,
one in power, one in unity, and one in glory. And though each has his own realm,
I guess I'll call it, in the salvation of sinners, that is,
we generally attribute our salvation to the Father's choice, to the
Son's work of redemption, and to the Spirit's regenerating
and preserving work, Yet they're one in the salvation
of God's people. Secondly, or thirdly, God is
light. I said first, God is spirit.
God is one Lord. Thirdly, God is light and in
him is no darkness at all. Darkness in the Bible frequently
means evil, error, ignorance, death. Our God, Jehovah, he is
the very sum of all holiness, goodness, truth, knowledge, and
life. Number four, God is faithful. God is faithful. It is impossible
for God to lie. He cannot be unfaithful to either
his promises or to his threats. He is therefore absolutely trustworthy. and he's always faithful in whatever
he says. He can't lie. Number five, God
is consuming fire. Hebrews 12, 29 says that, by
the way. And when it says God's consuming
fire, I believe that means that God is jealous. God is jealous. He's jealous
for His glory. He said, I am the Lord. That
is my name. He said, my glory. I'm not going
to give to another. You're not going to get any of
God's glory. He don't share His glory, that
glory that is due to Him. He's jealous of His glory. He's jealous of the reverence
of men and women and young people. He's jealous of worship. So often
in the Psalms we read, come let us worship our Lord. And then number six, the Lord
is gracious. First Peter 2.3. The Lord is
gracious. He doesn't just show grace, He
is gracious. That's his character. He is gracious. He's saving. He's the saving
God. He's the merciful God. He's the
God who is more than sufficient for all of our spiritual needs,
physical needs, and everlasting needs. And then number seven,
in 1 John 4, 8, and also verse 16, God is love. He is love. It's his very character. Let me dwell on that for just
a little while. And I know it's easy to say God
is love. I mean, those are all single
syllable words. God is love. But believe me,
we're in deep water here. This is love that is, it super
abounds over our sins. It's a love that is always flowing
from the very throne of God And it's really the very foundation
or I should say the basis or the origin is the best word.
It's the origin of our salvation, this love of God. I'll give you
just a few things here. Number one, this love of God
is unmerited and it is uncaused. It is unmerited and it is uncaused. There was nothing in us to draw
forth any divine affection. There was not in the beginning
and there is not now anything that would be attractive in us
to earn or be worthy of the love of God. You see, it's unlike
the love that a man has for a woman or a woman has for a man. I met
Nancy many years ago. She had qualities about her that
were attractive to me. And she still does. I saw in her a beauty, not only
physically, but the more I got to know her, she was beautiful
on the inside. But there wasn't anything beautiful
about us. And really, in and of ourselves
right now, there still isn't. That's why, you see, this love
that God has for us, it had to be uncaused by us and unmerited
by us. This love of God is absolutely
free. Free. Isn't dependent, it wasn't
dependent upon anything concerning us. One writer said, and it's an
interesting way to put this, he said the love of God toward
us was spontaneous. That is, he loved us notwithstanding anything
in us or anything that we would do. He just loved us because
he would. He willed to love us and His
will is everlasting now. His will is eternal. And His love is uncaused. And this ought to be said and
this must be said that God loved us forever in Christ Jesus. Now God has no love for anybody
outside of His Son. You've got to know that. That
needs to be established. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
1. And I'll say this about the love
of God that is unmerited and uncaused. The reason that God
loves you And the reason that God loves me, the reason is to
be found only in himself. It can't be found in you. And
it can't be found in me. Look at Ephesians 1 verses 3
and 4 and 5. be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places, here's the key, in Christ, according as He hath chosen us
in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him, in love, in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the
praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted,
or he has graced us, he has graced us in the beloved. Does God love His people? Yes. He loves us as He loves His only
begotten Son. He has loved us from before the
foundation of the world. He has loved us eternally, and
this love is always tied to the surety of His people, the Lord
Jesus Christ. You cannot divorce God's love
for his people from his son. He loves us in Christ. He accepted
us in Christ. You see there in verse six, to
the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath accepted,
he made us or graced us, accepted in the beloved. We've always
been accepted in the beloved in Christ. And as he loved his
son, from old eternity to that same degree, and no less, God
has loved us. And you might could just put
it this way, love's behind it all. Trace our salvation, our redemption,
our justification, our sanctification, trace all of it to the heart
of God. who loved us with a love beyond
description. It was said to Israel, a type
of the church. In the book of Deuteronomy, the
Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you because you
were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest
of the people, but because the Lord loved you. That's it, because
the Lord loved you. Deuteronomy 7 and 8 says that. And Deuteronomy 10, 15 says,
only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and
he chose their seed after them, even you above all people as
it is to this day. The love of God, therefore, is
the fountain of sovereign, predestinating grace. and to speak against God's predestination
or to speak against God's election of some people unto salvation
is really to speak against the very heart and love of God for
His own. For you see, God said in Hosea
chapter 14 in verse four, I will love them freely without a cause
in them. He said, I don't know why or
how God could ever love me. Well, you can stop looking. There's
no reason within you. You're looking in vain. You ain't
going to find it. Well, Jim, why would he love
me? Because he willed to love you. And he loves you to the same
degree he loves his son. Here's the second thing I want
to say to you. about the love of God. The love of God is everlasting
without beginning and without end. It is as eternal as he is. You see, all the decrees of God
are like himself, forever. And that's, we can't wrap our
minds around that, I recognize that. before the heavens and
the earth were called into existence, before the angels sang their
very first song of praise to our God for his creative glory,
the elect of God were already the beloved of the Lord. You see, there are in this world,
there have been since the beginning, Since Cain, there have been people
that God has hated. That's just a fact. Psalm 55
says, thou hatest all workers of iniquity. We know it says in Malachi, and
again in the book of Romans chapter nine, God says, Jacob have I
loved, Esau have I hated. God's word's not mine. And his hatred of some is as
eternal as his love is for others. And I would venture to say this,
we don't deserve his love as we consider our own sinfulness. We deserve to be hated. We deserve to be bypassed with
his grace. There's not one of us who could
ever say, you know, I'm worthy. I'm worthy of the blood of Christ
Jesus. I'm worthy of the righteousness
of the Son of God. I'm worthy of forgiveness. I'm
worthy of an inheritance that's incorruptible and undefiled,
that fadeth not away. I'm worthy of the love of God.
No, we're not. Our worthiness is always, it
is always in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how we're fit for glory,
because we're worthy in Him. The Lord said to Jeremiah, he
said, Jeremiah wrote, he said, the Lord hath appeared of old
unto me saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. You say, I don't know why the
Lord drew me to himself. You see, this matter of salvation,
it's not a decision we make. It's a drawing of sinners to
Christ. It's the effectual grace of God.
Effectual means it gets the job done. This is that fetching grace
such as David exhibited in giving instructions to bring Mephibosheth
to him. It's fetching grace. God came
after us. You didn't go after Him. He came
after you. And He came after you through
the preaching of the gospel of the grace of God to sinners through
the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. And though
that message may have been preached to you many times, it came to
you in power and in the assurance of the Holy Ghost. And the Lord
drew you unto himself because he loved you. That's all, because he loved
you. And as God's love for his people
had no beginning, it will have no end. Here's the third thing. This
love of God is effectual and it is powerful. It always brings results. I'll say first of all, God's
love is sovereign. Romans 9 says, so then it is
not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy. For the scripture saith to Pharaoh,
even for this same purpose, if I raise thee up, that I might
show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout
all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. And he
certainly hardened the heart of Pharaoh. But he softened the hearts of
the Israelites. God's love is sovereign. What does that word sovereign
mean? Well, the root word is reign. God reigns, he reigns
in creation, sure. He made everything according
to his own will and design. He reigns in providence. He does
his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth. King Nebuchadnezzar said that. And he also reigns
in grace. If you are a believer, if you
have seen yourself as a lost sinner, helpless before God, and you
have fled for refuge to the only Savior of sinners, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is our strong tower. He's the shelter in the time
of storm. You've fled to Him, you've run
to Him, you've run to Him saying, I need the crucified, buried,
risen again Savior. I need this one who's been exalted. I need this one who did business
with God on the behalf of guilty sinners. I need Him, I rest in
Him. Well, I'll tell you why you rest
in Him, why you've seen your need of Him. because of God's
sovereign love of you. I'll tell you something else
about God's love. It's not only sovereign, but
it's sacrificial. Hereby perceive we the love of
God because he laid down his life for us. It's sacrificial. And I'll say again, does God
love every man who's ever walked the face of this earth? No, he
doesn't. It is not true that the people
who are in hell were once loved of God and now they're hated. That is not true. God is faithful. He is himself changeless. If he loves you, he's always
loved you, never had a beginning, never gonna have an end. On the
other hand, if God hates you and you have no way to know that. If God has bypassed you with
his sovereign grace and you have no way to know that, not to get
into eternity. If God has been pleased to withhold
from you the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's
His business, but you can't know that now. And I say to everybody
who is living and breathing and still able to think, there's
still hope for you. God said, my arm's not shortened
that I can't save. And I promise you, any sinner
who flees to the crucified Redeemer, whoever lives to make intercession
for us, anybody who looks to Him, who comes to Him, God will
receive. But if you look to Him and you
come to Him, it's because He's drawing you. And don't you ever
entertain the thought that somehow or another, this whole thing
is dependent upon you. You better be thankful that it's
never depended upon you. It's all of God and it's all
in Christ. You see, God's love is sacrificial. Our Lord Jesus, he laid down
his life as sheep. I tell you, our redemption, our
salvation came at great price. It cost the Savior his very life. It cost him something that had
never happened before and will never happen again. It cost him
separation from the Father. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? And the answer comes back in
Psalm 22, verse three. Thou art holy. All the sins of all of God's
people were made to meet, all of the iniquities were made to
meet upon the head of our great scapegoat. And God turned his back on his
only begotten son and poured out him, poured out upon his
holy soul wrath, wrath. And our Lord Jesus Christ drank
that bitter cup down to its He drained it dry. There is therefore
now no condemnation, no wrath, no judgment, no punishment, no
vengeance of God against sin. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus. How long we been in him? He said,
well, ever since I believed. Oh, you got to go back a lot
further than that. Go back to old eternity. That's
how long we've been in him. And we're made to know that we're
in him when we're converted. Saved by his grace. I tell you,
God's love's sacrificial. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. Tell you something else
about God's love, it's sovereign, it's sacrificial, it's saving. Zephaniah 3.17 says, the Lord
thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save. He can't save somebody. He will
rejoice over thee with joy. He will rest in his love. He will joy over thee with singing. God's love is saving. Everybody he loves. Really, we
were saved before the world began in the will and purpose of God. We were saved when Christ died
for us. Salvation becomes real to us when the Spirit of God
draws us to Christ. I'll tell you something else,
God's love is steadfast. It's a good thing our salvation
is dependent upon the love of God to us in Christ, because
that never changes. And it's a good thing that it
doesn't depend upon us. and our love, because our love
runs cold and hot. And I suspect more times cold
rather than hot. His is always the same. The love of God in Christ is
dependable. You can depend upon him. You
can't depend upon, you can't depend upon yourself. You can't
depend upon anybody, really. Well, all failure lets you down. Don't intend to, but hey, we're
just weaklings. We're just sinners like you are.
Don't put too much confidence in us. Better trust in the Lord
than put confidence in me, and it's what Solomon said. And I'll
tell you this about God's love. It's not only sovereign, sacrificial,
saving, and steadfast, it's for sinners. It's for sinners. God commendeth his love to us
in that while we were yet sinners, sinners Christ died for us. And God's love is successful. A dear friend of mine passed
away several years ago. I preached his funeral. He and I talked just about every
day until Parkinson's robbed him of his strength and of his
voice and reduced him to just skin
and bones. But he gave me this definition
of love. I asked him, he gave me a set
of books and I asked him to write down his definition of love.
I thought it was so good. He said this, this is a quote
from J.D. Butler. He said, love is a living principle
which finds its satisfaction and fulfillment in bestowing
the best it can on the objects of its affection. And he said,
that love cannot be happy except to the extent that it can satisfy
that desire or ambition. And I'll read it again. I put
that in the bulletin before, but it's so good. He said, love
is a living principle. which finds its satisfaction
and fulfillment in bestowing the best it can on the objects
of its affection and cannot be happy except to the extent that
it can satisfy that desire or ambition. Well, let me tell you something.
That's a good definition of God's love. Because it could not be satisfied. until he had bestowed that love
upon all the objects of his affection. The scripture says here in his
love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his
son to be the propitiation for our sins. You cannot separate
the love of God from the grace of God. Can you? You can't separate
the love of God from the grace of God. You can't separate the
love of God from the Son of God. You can't separate the love of
God from the Father or from the Son or from the Holy Spirit. Wherever God loves, He always
shows grace. And I'll tell you this, the love
of God is infinite. It cannot be measured. It cannot
be calculated and it cannot be comprehended. The love of God is simply beyond
the possibility of human understanding. Susanna sang a few weeks ago,
could we with ink the ocean fill? Or were the sky of parchment
made? Were every stalk on earth a quill,
and every man a scribe, a scribe by trade. A hymn writer said to write the
love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the
scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky. Paul wrote of the love of Christ
in Ephesians 3.19, and he says, it passeth knowledge. It's too deep for you to know.
It's too high for us to know. In Ephesians 2, after Paul in the
first four verses wrote about our depravity and our sinfulness,
he said, but God, but God who is rich in mercy for his great
love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened us together with Christ by grace, you're saved. And the love of God is unchangeable. As with the Lord, so is his love. There's no variableness, neither
shadow of turning. God's love for his own cannot
be increased. He can't love you any more than
he's always loved you, and he certainly cannot love you less. His love is not influenced to
any degree by what you say, do, or think. His love for you doesn't change. You see, God loved David when
he was writing Psalm 23 by the divine inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. God loved David with all of his
heart. And God loved David when he was laying in the arms of
Bathsheba. When he issued the order for
Bathsheba's husband to be left out on the firing line, as it
were, and notice was given to the rest of the soldiers, you
guys retreat. Leave him out there to die. Did
you know God loved David just as much on the one occasion as
he did on the other occasion? So I have a hard time believing
that. Well, then you don't have a grasp
of any sort upon the love of God then. It isn't dependent
upon what you do. You see, the continuation of
the love of God is only dependent upon God, who cannot change. Now, I would not say that while
the love of God for David, when he was in the arms of David,
in the arms of Bathsheba, that I know the love didn't change,
but the fellowship was broken. There's no question about that.
And I would never excuse any misbehavior of any child of God. And we're certainly not saying
it doesn't matter what you do or how you live, God will continue
to love you. It does matter what you do and
how you live, but for the children of God, that has no bearing whatsoever
on God's love for you. None at all. And I know some people, and maybe
some who are listening to this message say, well, you're just
giving Christians a license to sin. Well, you know that's crazy
talk. We don't want to sin, but we
do. And beware of categorizing sin
to make one more serious than another. I know some sins have
greater consequences, but there are no little sins compared with
big sins. Some sins have greater consequences
than others, and David's did. But still, God's love for him Never changed. And I say that to say this. Don't get discouraged when, you
know, you think evil thoughts or say things
you shouldn't say or you do things you know you shouldn't have done.
Don't get discouraged. Don't get down on yourself. Thank God that He forgives you
through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are always in
a state of being forgiven by God. He never holds any sin against
His people. You preach like that, people
go out, their licentiousness will just abound. No, it won't. No, it won't. Because the people
of God We seek to honor Him and please Him. We confess our sins
to Him knowing He's just and faithful to forgive us our sins
and cleanse us from all iniquity because of the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. God loves us just the same. There's no fluctuation in His
love. And I'm so thankful for that.
Well, I hope it'll help you a little bit on your pilgrimage toward
eternity. Let's turn to number two.