The dead shall hear the voice
of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. Look here with
me in John's Gospel, Chapter 3. I want to use John 3.16 as my
text today. And this is our Lord Jesus Christ
speaking. 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." You know this football
player that everybody gets in an uproar with because he pushed
John 3.16 under his eyes? But it has caused a lot of people
to look at that verse, a lot of people to discuss it. But
I want to talk about the true love of Christ today, the true
love of Christ. And let me say this at the outset,
there is nothing in nature, nothing in nature which illustrates Christ's
love. Absolutely nothing. Any illustration
you can think of falls far short of the love that Christ has.
There's nothing in human history, no love story you can tell, that's
ever been told, that can illustrate or exemplify the love that Christ
has for His people. There's no experience that anybody
can go through in this world. that sets forth the love that
Christ has for His people. I know that preachers have said,
you know, that God can't be ever worse, so that's why He created
mothers. But love, love is a very, very
elusive thing. And true love, true love, everybody
talks about true love, my one true love. Well, I'll tell you
this, we were Christ. We are Christ's one true love.
God's people are. And there's nothing, I know you
mothers love your children, nothing you wouldn't do for them. But
that don't even come close to talking about the love that Christ
has for His people. We love our wives, or how we
love them, and don't want to lose them. But that comes, don't
even come close to talking about the love that Christ has for
His people. Wives that love their husbands and hurt and grieve
when they're gone, that doesn't come close. Don't even come close
to talking about the love that Christ has for His people. Nothing
in this world can come close to it. You know, and I guess
the closest, the most Honest, pure love in this world is the
love that a mother has for her children. They do just about
anything. You know, they'll wade into fire,
jump into rivers. But let me show you this in Isaiah
49. Now, this falls so far short, Isaiah 49, that the love that
a mother has for her own children falls so far short. Not even
nothing in this world, nothing in history, nothing in nature.
and come close to illustrating, exemplifying the love that Christ
has. Look what it says here in Isaiah
49 and verse 15. Can a woman forget her sucking
child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her
womb? Yea, yea, they may forget. Yet
will I not forget Thee? I'll never forget You. Why won't
You forget us, Lord? Because I've craven You upon
the palms of my hands. Thy walls, everything about You,
is continually around me. I've got to see everything there
is about You. And how many times has that happened
down through the centuries? And I know this about love. Multitudes
upon multitudes, you could not possibly count the people that's
been deceived by what they thought was love. Been deceived by it. They think, oh, I love this,
and then I thought that loved me, and then the next thing you
know, a year or two down the road, the love's gone. It's gone. But I know this also, that God
has blessed an innumerable among a bunch of people on this earth.
that have been blessed to enjoy some love in this world. Some
love from other people. And the love that God, if we
love one another, if I love my children, if I love my wife,
it's a gift of God. I'm telling you, our nature,
now you listen to me, our nature is to love ourselves. Men are
lovers of their own selves. And so if we've been blessed
of God, to love somebody and for somebody to love us, that
is a blessing from God. That's a blessing from God. And
all the peace and the assurance and the confidence that rests,
that goes and rests, that goes with loving and being loved.
And there's been a lot of people hurt for the lack of it. A lot
of children have been hurt because of the lack of a mother's love,
of the father's love. A lot of People have been hurt. I remember
a young woman told me one time, and it just hurt me so much.
She said she had never been told that by anybody she was loved. That's sad, ain't it? My mother-in-law,
she'd been gone now, she'd be 12 years next month, 13 years
next month. She would never, ever hang up
the phone without saying, I love you. Never. If she called you
on the phone, she'd always hang up and say, I love you. And my
grandsons, my two grandsons, every time they hang up, say,
Papi, I love you. Every time. Now, that's a blessed
thing to have that kind of love. It's a blessed thing, ain't it,
James? But I tell you, it's more blessed if God enables you to
love somebody more than you love yourself. that all of those things
do not compare with the love that Christ has for us. And that's
what he says there in verse sixteen, for God so loved. God so loved. God so loved. That's it right
there. Floyd used to say the emphasis
in John 3, sixteen is the word so, that it's inexpressible. You can't plumb it. You can't
come to the depths of it. So, God so so loved. How much did He love him? How
can you express, how do you find out how much that He gave? He
gave. He gave. What did He give? Who
did He give? He gave His only begotten Son. Why did He give Him? That whosoever... Now, if that were to have said,
if any god that believes that, That may have included a lot
of dogs and not included me. If you push somebody, but when
he says, whosoever, I say, I'm one of them fellows. I'm one
of them whosoevers that believeth. Believe what? On Him. What's
going to happen to them? They're going to have everlasting
life. And guess what else? They'll never perish. You know, here's a love that
can't be defined. This love of Christ. And why
can't it? Because of who it is that loves
us. And who it is that He loves. And why that He loves us. I want
to say a few things about the love of God today. This true,
glorious, blessed love. And this is the first thing I
want to say about it. God's love that He expresses
towards us is true because it's eternal. He loved us before we
ever existed, before Adam was ever put on the face of the earth.
This is how we can know how genuine, how true, how wonderful it is,
because He loved us before you and I ever had any existence.
Is that not right? I'll show you that. You keep
John, and look over with me at Jeremiah. You've got Isaiah,
then you have Jeremiah. Look at Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah
31, and verse 3 with me. You see, God's love is eternal. Our love has a starting place.
I can remember with my love, you know, our love, there's a
time that we fall in love. There's a time that our love
begins. When a child's born, when we
find out that we're going to have a child, that love starts
then for that child. When we see somebody we want
to marry, we fall in love with them. Our love has a starting
place. It has a time that it comes into
existence. But the love that God has for
His people, it has no starting place. It has no place that He
didn't fall in love with us. And look what He said here in
Jeremiah 31.3. The Lord hath appeared of old
unto me. Same. This is what God said to
me. Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. And since
I loved you with this everlasting love, he says, therefore with
lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Now, if you look there in the
margin, that drawn thee, that lovingkindness says, have I extended
lovingkindness unto thee? I extended it unto you. When
did God start loving me? When I was born? Before I ever
was, I've loved you with an everlasting love. But God, who is rich in
mercy, for the great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in trespasses and sins, quickened us together with Christ.
And beloved, God's love and Christ's love towards us has no beginning
and no ending. And bless His name for that.
Since it didn't have to find anything in me, And it has no
ending to it. That means, beloved, that I'll
always, if God loved me from eternity, He'll love me all the
way through eternity. Is that not right? And I'll tell
you what, beloved, it was born, this love was born in the heart
of God, in God's heart. And the consequences of His love
toward us is that He gave. The consequences, the fruit of
this love, the effects of this love is that He gave. He gave. What did He give? God gave the
Son of His Lord. He gave His only blessed Son.
The Son who delighted in Him from all eternity. The Son, beloved,
that was in His bosom. And since God loved us with an
everlasting love, nothing shall be able to ever separate us from
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Now you've got
John 3.16. Now look over in John 17.23.
Let me show you about the love of God. How God expressed this
love toward us. John 17, look in verse 23. Look what our Lord Jesus Christ,
you hear in John 17, talking about God's love expressed because
it's eternal. That's why it's so true. That's
why it's so genuine. Christ's true love. I in them
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. and that
the world may know that thou hast sent me," now watch this,
"...and hast loved him as thou hast loved me." Now how long
do you reckon God loved his son? How much do you reckon God loves
his son? He said, I want you to know that
that's exactly the way you love him. Like I told you, you can't
describe it in human terms. Alright, let me go back over
here and I'll tell you something else about His love that makes
the Christ's love towards us so glorious. His love towards
us is free. Now what do I mean by that? I
mean there's no price tag to it. And if there was, you couldn't
pay it. You couldn't pay it. Hosea 14.4
says, I will love them freely. We're justified freely by the
grace of God. Now, when we're talking about
free, that's exactly what we mean. There's no price tag on
it. And this is a stumbling block to a multitude of people in this
world. It's because while they stumble
over the Lord Jesus Christ, they feel like they have to earn his
love, have to earn his merit, have to earn his blessing. But
beloved, there's no way in the world you could ever earn or
merit anything from God Himself and the love of God. What could
you do to cause God to love you? What could you possibly do? And
I'll tell you, here we have a problem with this, and this is the thing
about it. We have problems with this because
this is the way we are by nature. That when we do good, we feel
good. When we do bad, we feel bad.
And we spent years of our lives trying to make peace with God,
trying to get God to love us, trying to merit some blessing
from God. By doing so, if I pray enough,
God will bless me and God will give me something. But, Beloved,
if He loves us, He loves us because He would do it. What could He
find in me? What could He find in you to
make Him to love you? What could He see in you or me
to say, I'm going to love Him? I was shaken in iniquity. I was
conceived in sin. I started lying from my mother's
womb. I grew up to be a God-hater,
a Christ-rejecter. Took the Lord's name in vain
more times than I could possibly count. And while I was like this,
God loved me, and He loves me now, and He loves me freely.
I've never, ever said or done anything to cause God to love
me. I've done 10,000 times, 10,000
things that, well, if He doesn't love me freely, then I'm going
to stop loving Him. But it can't be done. Riley,
be still. And, oh beloved, we have problems
with this. When we feel good, when we do
good, we feel good. We feel like we're doing our
duty. But bless God for His free love, for His free grace, and
everything we have, we have freely received. And let me tell you
something. The whole premise of today's
preaching, today's religion, is to make people feel guilty
that they're not doing enough. Not doing enough. Now, I could
have took this same message, and made you feel guilty, and
turned it around and said, how much do you love the Lord? And I could have started preaching
on how much we ought to love Christ. And how pure our love
ought to be, and how dedicated we ought to be, and how committed
we ought to be. And I could have done that and turned it on you. But that wouldn't have made us
love Him anymore. It wouldn't have made Him love us anymore. He
loves us freely. And let me tell you something
else about His love that makes us so glorious. It's His love
that's faultless. Now, what do I mean by that?
That it's not demanding on our part. Now, we're not that way
in this world. I don't care how much we love
somebody. Our love is not faultless. I mean, you know, we can get
upset with one another. We find fault with one another.
But you cannot find fault with the love of God in Christ. You
cannot do it. You see, it's love itself that
came and won our hearts to Him. His love came and won us to Himself. He won our heart. He won our
affection. He wins our obedience by love.
Faith works by what? By love. And you see, His love
is faultless. And you know, and what I mean
by that is, is that you can find, Mary can find fault with my love,
and she can find fine fault with hers. We're not perfect. Our
love toward her, being one of us, is not perfect. But His love
is. You can't fault it. And when
our Master, when our Lord Jesus Christ chastens us, and He will
chasten us, there's no fault about it. There's no complaint
about it. We used to get angry, especially when we was young.
We'd get angry, and we'd whip our children when we was young.
And as we get older, we realize that there's different ways of
chastening children, to discipline them. That all you got to do
is just, if you start saying them right, you just say the
word. You say, you can't go here, you can't do that. You don't
have the right handle. And you discipline them and instruct
them and say, this is not good for you and this is what I want.
Well, God does us that way. He chastens us. What father chastens
not his son whom he loves? And if he chastens not, then
they don't want him. And God chastens us. He scourges
us. And he does it in such a way
that we can't find any fault, we can't complain about it. And
there's one thing that I love about it. He does it to us individually,
and nobody knows that the other one's getting a chastisement.
Nobody else knows that they're getting scorched. Now, when you
rip one of your children, everybody in the house knows it. But when
God rips us and chastens us, nobody else knows it. Nobody
else knows what's going on. And He never chastens us in anger. And He loves us so much, this
is what I'm saying, He loves us so much that He says, I'm
going to conform you to the image of My Son. And whatever it takes,
and He decreed from eternity what it would take to conform
us to the image of His Son. And everything it takes to do
that, He's going to keep on doing it until one day we wake up just
like His Son. Isn't that right? I never will
forget years and years and years ago, I went down to North Carolina,
and my grandmother had died, and I walked in the living room,
and when I walked in that living room down there, everybody in
that room says, boy, it's just like your dad walked into this
room, they said. They said, it's just like your
dad walked into this room. Because my dad looked so much
like, just like he walked, but listen, One of these days I'm
going to walk into glory and God say, there he is, I've seen you to my son. Oh my, search the love of Christ,
examine it, and you can't fault it. And people find fault with
God's love because if something goes wrong in their life, they
want to say, well, if God loved me, he wouldn't let this happen.
If God loved me, he wouldn't let that happen. Well, listen,
beloved, God loves your son. You know what he did to him,
don't you? And you know why he did it to him? Because he loved
us so much. And why did Christ voluntarily
go to that cross and bow his hands in his own body on the
tree. As Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness, even
so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And, beloved, as Christ lifted
up on that cross, why was He lifted up? Because He loved us,
and He gave Himself, God gave Him, and He gave Himself to the
smiters. He gave His back to the smiters,
His cheek to those who plucked off His beard. He gave Himself
up to His Father's wrath and justice. Oh, my, that's why,
beloved. Oh, bless His holy name. And
let me tell you something else about this love that's so precious,
so pure, is that His love is discriminating. His love is discriminating. Now, you know, man, oh, people
make so much about discrimination. Oh, you can't discriminate this,
you can't discriminate that. Everybody's trying to get it
right. But let me tell you something, God is not discriminating in
His love. You know, not like people think
discrimination is. We call opportunity employers.
If they're too old, you can't fire them for that.
If they're too young, you can't fire them for that. You can't
do anything, you know, everybody's got their little ditch. Well,
listen, when we talk about discrimination, God discriminates in His love.
Not like men think of discrimination. I've heard this all my life.
God's no respective person. When we start talking about His
electing grace and He loving His people, they say, boy, I'll
tell you what, God's a respective person. He's no respective person.
And you look over in Romans 9 with me in chapter, verse 11, and
I'll show you exactly what I mean here. And I'll explain this to
you. As Old Scott said, I'll explain
it to you. You know, God is no respecter of persons. He don't
care what your color is. He has no care what color you
are. You can be a Chinese, you can
be black, you can be white, you can be yellow, you can be...
He don't care what color you are. He don't care what age you
are. He does not care how old you
are, how young you are. Your age has absolutely nothing
to do with it. He don't care what sex you are,
male, female, he don't care. That has absolutely nothing to
do with it. And I'll tell you something else,
he don't care about your abilities. You ain't going to have to fill
out, what do they call those things? I got one the other day.
Application. You ain't going to have to fill
no application out. You know, when you, if you want
to, no, you don't have to fill out, well, I meet these requirements.
Got no application to fill out. No, he don't care about your
abilities. In fact, he lets you understand you ain't got any
abilities. Nicodemus said, how can a man
be born when he's old? Our Lord says you can't see the
kingdom of God. You're so blind you can't see
Christ before you. You're so blind you can't see
His kingdom. You're so blind you can't see
His power. You're so blind that you say,
allow me to look a second time into my mother's womb. That's
as blind as you are. And you race? Race don't have
nothing to do with it. And you creed, oh boy, I've got
all my eyes dotted, all my teeth crossed. Ah, listen, I believe
in the 49, you know, the Westminster Confession, and we're the reformed
freedomists, and we got to Heidelberg, and we got this confession. Listen,
the creed doesn't matter. None of these things move him.
Look what he said here in Romans 9, talking about the love of
God and the love of Christ not discriminating. Look what he
says in verse 11, for the children being not yet born. neither having
done any good or evil." They hadn't done anything right, they
hadn't done anything wrong yet. "...that the purpose of God,
according to election, might stand not of works, but of him
that calleth. It was said unto her, The elder
shall serve the younger," now listen to it, "...as it is written,
Jacob hath a loved, but Esau hath a hated." And the first
thing people say is, that ain't fair! Paul says, what shall we
save him? Is there an unrighteousness with
God? God forbid. For he says to Moses, I'll have
mercy on him, I'll have mercy. I don't care who you are. If I will to have mercy on you,
you're going to have mercy. If I will to have compassion
on you, I'm going to have compassion on you. I don't care who you
are. I don't care where you are. I don't care what country, creed,
color, race, sex, nothing of that moves me. I'll do it because
I'll do it. Ain't that right? And I'll tell you what, let me
tell you something about his life. In this way, his love is
towards the helpless. His love is towards the hopeless.
His love is towards the sick and the diseased, the corrupt.
And he calls them worms. He said, Oh, Jacob thou worm.
Do you mean Jacob the worm? God said I love you? Oh thou
worm Jacob, I've loved you! How long have you loved this
worm Jacob? From everlasting to everlasting? Wretches! Dogs! Sinners! When we without strength in due
time, Christ died for who? The ungodly! And God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet white sinners, Christ died for
us. Oh my. Let me tell you something,
beloved. It's like Hosea's wife, Gomer.
I need to preach on that here. I haven't preached on it in years
and years. But Hosea, God says, you go and you take a wife. Took Gomer to be his wife. Well,
Gomer, Started going up and she became a hermit. She started
going with this man for a while and go with that man for a while.
Live with this fella for a while. And all the time she was doing
that. Hosea would take and sit outside her door. He'd take some
food and sit outside her door. Take some wine and sit outside
her door. Then she'd get up in the morning and say, look what
my lover's left me. And it was Hosea doing it all the time.
And she got old, and she got decorated, and she got used up.
And they put her on the auction block. Go sell her. What do you take for this old
woman here? This old harlot? This woman? Hosea said, I'll take her. I
want her. She's mine. And guess what? I'm going to love her freely.
And he took her home with him. That's what Christ did for us.
Old and used and played the harp in all the days of our lives.
And all the time we was doing that, God sent our food by our
door. God sent our drink by our door.
And we said, we did this. And our lover done this. The
world done this. But God said, I did it. Oh, my. It's like that Samaritan
woman at the well. Go call your husband. I don't
have a husband. What? Oh, she said, you know, you told
the truth. She said, you've had five of
them. You've had five of them. And
the one you wish right now, he's not yours. She said, oh, Lord. Oh, Lord, you know me. How did
you know that? You're a prophet?" And she throwed
her water pot and went running telling everybody, come see a
man. Come see a man. Oh, beloved. Ah, Bartimaeus,
blind and poor and begging. Bartimaeus, the master calls
you. He calls you. Throw away that old garment.
Throw away that old rag. What do you want from me? I want
to see. I want to see. I want to see. Do you want to
see? No. In fact, it's because of His
love for sinners that He makes them know what they are. It's when His love is manifested,
that's when we find out what we are. That's when we find out
what we are. Let me tell you this real quickly. His love is faithful. Faithful. Unchanging. He said in Malachi
3.6, I am the Lord, and I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob,
you're not consumed. You see, you and I, we're faithful
sometimes to those who are faithful to us. We love those who love us, for
those we love. And I'm going to say something
right here, and I believe this with all my heart, talking about
love. Suppose you had a spouse, and that spouse was unfaithful
to you. And you're a believer. You're
a believer. And they came back to you. And
they said, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. If you have
the love of Christ in your heart, and you know God, You'll do it,
and you'll do it with joy, and you'll do it with thanksgiving,
and you won't hold it against them. I believe that with all
my heart. This idea that believers can
go out here and get divorced, and one of them attend another
church, and one attend a church here and there. No, no, no, no.
There's nothing. Nothing. Shallest be able to separate
a husband and a wife, if the man knows Christ, unless they
just decide, I don't want to live with you anymore. I believe
that. I believe that. Don't you all
believe that? That's what we're talking about, faithful, unchanging
love. Our Lord didn't say, set a condition
on how you're forgiven. How many times? I mean, you talked
about that the other day. Forgive. How often? You asked
if I called a priest last Sunday morning. Anybody here need forgiveness? How often should I forgive, Lord?
Seventy times seven. Every time you think you've forgiven
up, seven more times. How many more? Seven more times. You know, our Lord forgives us.
In fact, He don't even hold anything against us, period. He doesn't
forgive us of everything. This love is so faithful. Our
Master, when our mothers and fathers forsake us, And they
do. My mother and father both forsook
me when I was just a little boy. When I was just a little bitty fella.
Forsook me and my older brother. I went for years when I was a
little bitty fella, never saw my daddy. But the Lord, because I tell
you, He takes a son. He says, they'll forsake you,
but I'll never forsake you. I'll take you. You don't care
where you go. I don't care what you do. I'm
going to love you with an everlasting love, and I won't forsake you.
Let your mother go. I'll be your mama. Let your father
go. I'll be your father. Let your
wife go. I'll be your wife. Let your husband
go. I'll be your husband. That's
what he's talking about, faithful. Oh, beloved, that's why he says,
what shall separate us? Who? Shall tribulation, persecution,
famine, naked, feral, sore? No! We're persuaded that neither
life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers
of things today or things tomorrow shall separate us from the love
of God that God gave us in Christ His blessed Son. Let me tell you something. You
search God's Word and find me one place where God ever quit
loving one of His children. You find me in the history of
the church where God ever quit loving one of His children. Huh? In fact, You find where
he ever failed to be faithful to one of them. He'd been faithful. Faithful
to love them. Faithful to keep them. Faithful
to observe them. Faithful to teach them. Faithful
to save them. Faithful to keep them. And if
there was, you look at the Scriptures, if there was people that deserved,
and that's why I say, that's why this business of the love
of God, if anybody needed help, Deserved to be not loved. When
Abraham went down into Egypt, he said, please don't tell them
you're my wife, because they'll take you away from me and kill
me. I don't care if they have you, as long as I don't get hurt. When Lot took his family and
moved into Sodom, God could have cut him off right there and said,
I'm going to let you go with the rest of the Sodomites. When
Simon Peter, stood and bragged and boasted and said, I'll go
with you to prison, I'll even go with you to death. And our
Lord looked at him and said it in the sweetest, kindest tone. He said, Simon. And I'm sure
he spoke in the sweetest, kindest words, Simon, before the rooster
crows in the morning. You'll deny me three times. Three times. And didn't you know
what he said after his resurrection? He said, you go tell Simon and the brethren. This is Simon
Peter. He said, you go tell Simon Peter.
Told Mary to tell him. You go tell Simon Peter and the
brethren that I'll go before them and meet them in Galilee.
I want Peter especially to know. Oh, I want Peter to know, and
oh, and how many times has he said, I want Donnie to know,
I want you to know that I love him. And that I, you know, I hold
nothing against you. And bless God, let me tell you
this, bless God that our love towards Him doesn't affect His
love towards us. Ain't you grateful for that?
People talk about unconditional love all the time. You know, you've got to love
unconditionally. We don't know nothing about unconditional love.
We do not know nothing about that. I'm telling you, we don't.
We do not. I mean, I love my children because
they're mine, conditioned on them being mine. I don't love
yours as much as I love mine. We do not know nothing about
unconditional love. But God's love towards us is
absolutely unconditional. He has no conditions on it. He
will not leave us, He will not fail us, He will not forsake
us, He will not stop. His love does not depend on us
in any way, shape, form, or fashion. If you sin, does that make Him
quit loving us? If you do something good, does
that make Him love us more? No, His love is constant, continual,
always the same. Our love's here, younger, down,
and round, and over and out, and this and that, it doesn't
work at all. But His love is not that way."
Hmm. Bless His holy name. If there
was a reason to quit loving somebody, He'd have quit loving me years
and years and years ago. But oh, and I'll tell you something else
about His love. It's fruitful. What I mean by that, I mean it's
a spectrum. Now, we have children. We have children that we love,
and we would do anything in this sun to change them. To change
them. Change them from the life they're
living. Change them from the things they're doing. Change
them and make them love us more, and want to come around and see
us more, and have a more family, close family relationship. And
yet, no matter how much we love them, we can't change them. And
we cannot make anybody love us. We can't make our children stop
doing this self-destructive thing you're doing. I love you. Please don't do that. And they
do it anyway. And sometimes because of our
love for someone, we want to do something for them and we're
unable to do it. When Briley was sick, oh, the
love that you all have for Briley. What could you do but just sit
there? and pray, God have mercy. Don't let us, if you please,
don't lose this baby. We're absolutely helpless when
it comes to making our love faithful and factual and fruitful. You
can beg a woman, don't leave me. She leaves anyway. Beg a
husband, don't leave me, but they leave anyway. Don't go out
there and do that, but they go anyway. Don't take young drugs,
but they take them anyway. Those are all mine. And oh, there's
so much that we're unable to do for people that we love. But
beloved God's not that way. When He intends to love us, you
know what He's going to do? He's going to get in our hearts,
and He's going to stir, and He's going to stir, and He's going
to stir. And you know what He's going to do? He says, I'm going
to make you love me. Why do we love Him? Because He first loved
us. He refused to let His love be
in vain. And you know what he did to win
us to himself? Look over in Luke chapter 15.
Let me show you this real quick. You know, look what his love
endured to win us. His love endured coming into
this world. His love endured him emptying
himself. His love endured the contradiction
of sinners to himself. But look what it says here. Luke
15. Then drew near unto him all the
publicans and sinners for to hear him. Oh, look what kind
of crowd come around. Publicans and sinners. People
like us. People like us. And the Pharisees and the scribes,
they murmured, say, this man receives the sinners, and he's
not only that, but he eats with them. We're saying he's eating with
sinners today. Said, what's in us today? Is
he set to eat with you? And look what happens now. And
he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having
a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety
and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost?
And when he hath found it, he calls together his friends and
his neighbors, saying, Unto them rejoice with me, for I have found
my sheep, which was lost. And Beloved, where does he go
looking for him? He says he went into the wilderness. He went
into a far country. He had to come where we are.
He had to take flesh to himself, human nature to himself. And
he come into this world, and he walked among us, lived among
us, and became one with us, and even so much so that he blasted
in his own body on that tree. And beloved, there was a lost
sheep. He said, I'm going to go out wherever they are, and
I'm going to get them. And then when he brings them
in, and that's why whenever somebody confesses faith in Christ, we
all begin to rejoice and weep and have great, because why?
Christ our Lord says, look here, I brought one more sheep home. Lord bless you, Lord. We praise
you for bringing another sheep into the fold. Oh, maybe somebody
will do that here real soon. And let me show you, beloved.
Let me show you the history. And I tell you, I'm taking too
long, but I can't help myself. Oh, thank God for the love of
God. God so loves. True love. Genuine love. And oh, look what
His love for life has caused Him to do. Here in John 11 and
verse 3. Now, our Lord was way... He was over... Way, way long
from Bethany, Lazarus got sick. And it says there in verse 3,
Therefore his sister sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold," or
watch this, "'He whom thou lovest is sick.' They knew he loved
Lazarus. He whom you love, he's sick. And look what happens here. In
verse 32, Then when Mary was come, where Jesus was, and saw
him, Christ came back over to Bethany, saying unto him, Lord,
if you had been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore
saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with
her, he groaned in the Spirit, and was troubled. And they said
unto them, Where have you laid him? And they said, Lord, come
and see. Then look in verse thirty-five.
Jesus wept. Then look at the next verse.
Then said the Jews, Behold, how he loved him. And beloved, look
what happens down there in verse forty-three. And when he had
thus said with When he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud
voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth."
And, beloved, that's what the love of Christ does. When He
loves one of His, even death cannot bar Him from coming and
expressing that love. Now, death can't keep Him from
loving you. If it did, He would have loved any of us. But death
couldn't even keep Him from loving. And, oh, beloved, I tell you
what, He doesn't knock at our heart's door like that right
there. He comes in, He kicks the door open, and He ascends
the throne of the heart and sets down. And because of the dead,
hear the voice of their beloved, and they come out of there. And
His love is so powerful and so effectual that it will bring
us to His eternal glory and power, and we'll then spend forever
with Him. For in the ages to come, He's going to show us the
exceeding riches of His kindness and grace towards us. And then
back over in our text, John 3, and I'll be done. Oh, look what it says there,
John 3, verse 16. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son. Gave His only begotten Son. His
love was sacrificial. so sacrificial. He said He gave. He gave. God gave. And then our
Lord Jesus Christ gave. He emptied Himself. We can't
really grasp the sacrifice that our Lord made. We can't grasp
the humiliation that He endured, the shame that He was subjected
to. But I thank God I don't have
to grasp I don't have to understand it fully, but I do know what
I do understand of it and what I do believe of it. I'm thankful
for it because it makes my heart leap for joy that our Lord Jesus
Christ in creation made a greater love for Him that He loved me
so that He gave Himself. And, beloved, we know to some
degree how much God must have loved sinners. that He gave His
only Son. We know how much our Lord must
have loved us, because look at the price He paid. He gave Himself. He gave Himself. He gave Himself. There was a princess Anne in
England. She had a daughter, a four-year-old
daughter. Back in the dark ages, The plague
hit Europe, multitudes dying, multitudes, multitudes, millions
dying. Her little four-year-old girl,
she's the princess now. Her mother's the queen, her father's
the king. She's got a four-year-old baby, and the baby's got the
plague. And those physicians told her,
says, whatever you do, She sat with her, cared for her, washed
her, loved her, devoted to her, committed to her. She'd wipe
her brow and said, whatever you do, don't you kiss that child,
don't you get close to her lips, because it'll, the plague will
kill you. That little baby lay there dying,
going to die, mouth dry. Weak. And she began to whisper, Mother, oh, Mother, kiss me. Mother, please kiss me. Now,
what do you think that woman's going to do? She reached down there, got
that baby's hand in her hand, kissed her, began to kiss her.
knowing that it was her own death that she had died to. Well, that's
what our Lord Jesus Christ did to us. He took us into His arms
and kissed us. And by kissing us, He had to
die. Took all of our plague, all of
our corruption, all of our filthiness, all of our death, and took it
to Himself. And He died, and now we live. His kiss healed us, and Him kissing
us caused His death. God so loved. Now, I believe
that's true love, genuine love, blessed love, don't you? Our blessed, gracious God in
heaven, how wondrously, wondrously, wondrously blessed you are. My
father, our hearts, our hearts is overwhelmed with you today
for the truths that we dealt for the blessed love of God. Oh, thank you for it. And I pray
that your love would be manifested in us, and our love for you would
be manifested and expressed. And, O Lord, create in us a greater
love for you, greater love for one another, because you said
by this that all men know that you are my disciples. Because
you'll have love one toward another. And let us not love in word only,
but in deed and in truth. So Father, thank you. Lord, save
you people. Oh God, may this message, may
it bring forth fruit to your glory. Is this the time that
some dead soul, some dead one whom you loved, heard your voice
today and they lived? that they live today, I pray
so in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.