Well, good morning. It's good
to see you all this morning. If you would open your Bibles
with me to Ephesians chapter three. Ephesians three, before
we begin, let's bow before our Lord together in prayer. Our father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverend is your matchless name. And Father, we dare only
approach your throne in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, pleading
his obedience as our only righteousness, pleading his blood as the only
way our sin could be paid for and cleansed. And Father, we
come carefully and reverently, and we come thankfully. Oh, how
we thank you for a Savior who saves his people from all of
their sins. He cannot fail to save every
one of the objects of his affection. And Father, we're thankful. Thankful
for your mercy, your grace, your love. We're thankful for your
power, your holiness, and your justice. And Father, I beg of
you this morning that you would enable us by thy spirit to worship
thee in spirit and in truth. Father, be with the preaching
of your word. Be with the hearing of your word.
Father, make this a special hour of worship, we pray, that you
might enable us to truly hear and enter into the things of
our Lord Jesus Christ that we hear, and Father, cause them
to thrill our hearts, cause them to draw us to Christ our Savior,
trust him and love him more fully. Father, I thank you for this
congregation of believers that you've called together, and Father,
I pray you would bless each home that you bless each home with
your presence, with your mercy and your grace. We especially
pray for our new home, for Ethan and Madison, that you would bless
them richly as they begin their life together. Father, we pray
for those of your people who are sick and hurting and need
you especially. There's so many right now. Those
we know of and those that we don't, but Father, you know.
We pray that you'd heal, that you'd comfort, that you'd give
a special portion of your presence to comfort the hearts of your
people until you see fit to lead them out. All these things we
ask in that name which is above every name, the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ. It's for his glory and his sake
we pray, amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
The Immeasurable Love of God. Our lesson begins in verse 17
of Ephesians chapter three, that Christ may dwell in your hearts
by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be
able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length
and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which
passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness
of God. Now I touched on these verses last week, but I wanted
to come back and spend a little more time on the subject of these
three verses, the immeasurable love of God. As I began preparing
an outline for this, I thought, now how can I talk about the
love of God in just 30 minutes? And I knew right from the get-go,
I can't. But I hope I can talk about the
love of God for 30 minutes. And then in 30 minutes, maybe
we can be taught something of the vastness of God's love for
his people. And I pray it'll comfort our
hearts. It'll cause us to find assurance because of God's immeasurable
eternal love for his people. You know, I told myself this,
you don't have to be able to exhaust the subject for people
to stand in awe of it. And the illustration I use is
the ocean. I'm in awe of the ocean. Aren't
you? I'm just in awe of it. I don't
have to be able to see the length and the breadth and the depth
of that thing all at one time to stand in awe of it. The part
I can see makes me stand in awe of it. And the same thing is
true of God's love. We can't see the totality of
it all at once, but we sure can stand amazed in it, can't we?
I think a good place to start, we talk about God's love is God. God is love. That's his essential
character. I know that's true because the
word God says so, not because I read it on a bumper sticker,
because the word of God says so. 1 John 4, 8, John said, God
is love. He is love. Now, that does not
mean that God is only love, that the only what we call emotion
that God has is love. False religion takes that statement,
God is love, and they say, well, that means God loves everyone.
Well, the word of God is plain, that's not so. You ever wanna
know what one verse of scripture means? You have to compare it
to other verses of scripture, don't you? The word of God is
plain. Jacob have I loved? Jacob. And Esau have I hated? Psalm
five, verse five says, God hates the workers of iniquity. Now
here's something that makes God's love for sinners so amazing.
God is love. And God also hates. You know,
every son of Adam, by who we are and what we do, we deserve
for God to hate us, don't we? Because all of our works are
sinful works. But God in his mercy has chosen
to love somebody. God's chosen to love sinners. Now God hates the workers of
iniquity. And God loves sinners. Both of
those statements are equally true. Isn't that amazing? That's God's love. That makes
me want to be taught more about God's love, doesn't you? Now,
God loves somebody. Scripture's playing on that.
God loves somebody. I want to know, how can God love me and
you? How can he love sinners like
me and you? I'm gonna give you four points
on God's love, and I pray it'll, I know it will encourage God's
people, and I pray it'll reveal something of who God is to us. Here's the first point. God's
love is not unconditional. God's love is conditional. You
know, we tell someone, I've told my wife this, I love you unconditionally. That means I love you so matter
what. When we say it, this is what
we mean. I love you so much, no matter what you do in the
future, I'm gonna love you anyway. That's unconditional love. That's
not God's love. God's love is not unconditional.
God does not love people who are full of sin and iniquity.
He hates the workers of iniquity. A holy God can never love someone
in their sin, regardless of the sin that they commit. God's love
is conditional. It's conditional on us being
what God loves, being holy and righteous. Now here's a comforting
truth. God's love is conditional. And
that love is conditioned entirely upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
not conditioned on one thing that you do. It's conditioned
entirely on the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son. Now I know this for
sure. The Father loves the Son. I don't
have to doubt that one bit. The Father loves the Son. In
John 3, verse 35, the Savior told us so. The Father loved
the Son and has given all things into his hand. So the Father
loves the Son. And he loves his people. If God's
gonna love you and me, it's got to be in Christ. It's got to
be in Christ. Now the Lord Jesus Christ, he's
a man. He's a real man. And he's also
God. He's the son of God. And since
he's God, he has the nature of God. So by his nature, by his
character, he is what God loves. He's holy and righteous. And
God loves his people. in Christ, in Christ and because
of Christ. Christ came, you know why he
came? To make his people what God loves. He came to make his sinful people
holy and righteous. Hebrews 1 verse 9 says, God loves
righteousness. Well, you and I aren't that,
are we? So Christ came to make his people the righteousness
of God in him. See, God's love is conditioned
for his people. It's conditioned on the righteousness
of Christ. It's all conditioned on Christ.
The Savior came into flesh. He had to become a man so he
could be our representative. He had to be flesh and blood.
He had to have a human soul. He had to be just like you and
me. So that when he obeyed the law and he established righteousness,
he could do it as our representative. just like Adam was our representative.
He was a man just like you and me. We were in him when he did
what he did. We became sinners when Adam sinned,
because we were in him doing what he did. Well, in the same
way, when Christ, the representative of his people, obeyed the law,
all his people obeyed it too, because they were in him. That's
how they were made righteous. But we still have this problem
of our sin, don't we? Christ took the sin of his people
away from them and he made it his. He was made sin for his
people and he suffered and he died. Put that sin away. And the sacrifice of Christ is
so complete, it's so perfect that he made the sin of his elect
not to exist. All that sin that was laid on
Christ no longer exists because his precious blood put it away. Now there's no sin left in God's
elect, none whatsoever. So God's not angry with them.
See, he loves them and his love is conditioned on what Christ
did for him in it. He made them righteous. See,
the father chose a people and he put those people in Christ
before he created anything. And that's the only way that
the father has ever seen his people. He's never seen them
separated from Christ. He's never seen them outside
of Christ. So now, I mean, sometimes we think this. Well, I'm in Christ,
and the Father just puts up with me because I'm in Christ. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but
my daughters aren't here, so I'm gonna say it. When they were
growing up, this just between you and me, they had boyfriends. and I put up with them for my
daughter's sake. All you fathers know exactly
what I'm talking about. That's not the father's love for his
people. He doesn't just put up with us
for Christ's sake. He loves his people for Christ's
sake. He loves them because the Savior
made his people to be what he is. Now that's love. And Christ's sacrifice did not
change the father. I mean, we talk about Christ
took the sin of his people and took it into his own body upon
the tree and he put their sin away and now God's not angry
anymore. And that's true. But when we
say it like that, a person could mistakenly think the sacrifice
of Christ changed the father. He was angry, now he's not, right? But that's not God's love. God's
love is eternal, it never changes. So what happened at the cross
did not change the Father's love for anybody. Do you know why
Christ came? Why he came incarnate, why he
went to the cross to suffer and die? It wasn't to make God love
anybody. Christ came and he went to the
cross because God already loved his people. The father already
loved them. John said, herein is love. Now
you want to know what love is? He said, here it is. Not that
we love God, but that God loved us. And here's the proof of God's
love for us. He sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sin. He sent the savior to suffer
and die for his people because he already loved those people.
The son came and was sacrificed for the sin of his people because
he already loved them. and he must make them the righteousness
of God in him so they could be joined to him forever. Now look
over at John chapter 17. I want you to get a hold of this.
I want you to see this. This is such an amazing statement.
I want you to see it for yourself. For time's sake, I'll quote a
lot of these scriptures, but I want you to see a few of them,
because this is so amazing. You just, you got to see it for
yourself. The father loves his people just exactly like he loves
his son. John 17, verse 23. 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, and hast loved
them as thou hast loved me. How does the father love the
son? Human language can't express
it, can it? If you trust Christ, that's how the father loves you.
Now you think of that. See, God only loves his people
because his love is conditional and it's all conditioned upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm glad it's not conditioned
on me, aren't you? This is good news. The Father's love is all
conditioned on his perfect son. All right, here's the second
thing. God's love accomplishes something. It accomplishes something. God's
love accomplishes salvation for every single object of God's
love. It saves every one of them. Now
people talk about the love of God. And I would say this to those
who believe God loves everyone, Christ died for everyone. Don't
try to comfort my heart by talking to me about a God who loves everybody. He loves everybody. He sent his
son to die for everybody. And all I've got to do is accept
him. That's all I've got to do. If
I just accept him, then I'll be saved. And if I don't, unfortunately,
I'll be damned. And isn't that a shame? You rejected
God's love and he's gonna damn you. I mean, he loves you, but
he's gonna damn you. Now, if God loves everyone, and
he still sends some men to hell, then God's love is powerless.
God's love is meaningless and it's powerless to comfort my
heart. There's just no comfort for my soul in that kind of love. Because if it's conditioned on
me doing something, I promise you, I'm gonna mess it up and
I'll lose it. Now God's love means that God
will save everybody that he loves. Look back at Ephesians chapter
two, verse four. Paul's been talking about our
sinful nature, and he says, oh, but God, who's 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. God saved his people by grace
because he loves them, and every last one of them shall be saved,
and they shall appear with Christ in glory. The father sent the son to be
the propitiation, the covering, the sin covering, the sacrifice
for the sin of his elect. And that propitiation took a
sacrifice that is a slaughter, a slaughter. Now the father,
he did not slaughter his son in vain. God's holy, he's just,
he didn't slaughter his son. in vain. He didn't slaughter
his son for someone and punish Christ for your sins and then
send you to hell too. That's punishing two people for
the same sin. That's unholy and it's unjust.
The father did not slaughter his precious son in vain. You all know how you love your
children. The father loves the son. Do you think he would allow
one drop of his precious blood to be wasted? Not on your life. Oh, if Christ died for you. That means the father loves you.
He sent his son to be the propitiation for your sin because he loved
you. If he loves you, then nothing is going to stop him from saving
your soul. Nothing, because he's God Almighty. What can stand
in his way? What can what could resist the
love of God? You think about the breadth of
God's love. God's love is so wide that God saves any sinner,
no matter how vile they are. God's love is so wide, He saves
any sinner as long as they come to Him in Christ. Now that's
narrow, but it's also pretty broad, isn't it? God will save
any sinner who comes to Him one way, in Christ. There's no sinner
so vile that God won't save them if they come to Him in Christ.
And you think about the lengths that God went to to save his
people. In order to save his people, the son of God, God himself,
had to become a man. Had to be made like his creatures,
creatures of the dust. And then the father, I mean,
how he loves his son. He spoke audibly from heaven
to say how pleased he was with his son. Yet the father, in order
to save the people that he loves, slaughtered his son. Christ suffered
as no man has ever suffered before or since, body and soul. And
the Savior willingly humbled himself to appear in human flesh.
He willingly gave up his glory as the prince, the light of glory
to become a man. He gave that up willingly. He
suffered that humiliation willingly. He willingly was made sin for
his people. He willingly gave his back to
the smiters. He gave his cheeks to those who
pluck out his beard. He made his soul an offering
for sin before his father. He did that willingly. You know
why? Because he loves his people.
All the lengths that God would go to save his people and make
them righteous is because he loves them. And think about the
depths of God's love. I just think about the depths
of where God came to save me. He became what I am so that he
could save me. Oh, the depths that his mighty
arm had to reach the bottom of the barrel in order to find me
and save me and pull me from the dung heap and set me at his
table. Oh, the depths that he went to.
Now, if God loves somebody, With that love, that immeasurable
love, there's no doubt about it. God will save them. That love will not go wasted. Here's the third thing. God's
love is immutable. And immutable is just a great
big religious word that means God's love cannot change. It
never changes. Now if God's love never changes,
That means there's nothing that you can do to make God love you
more. I'm gonna let that sink in. There's
nothing you can do to make God love you more than He already
loves you. Because His love can't change. If you could do something
to make God love you more, well, His love could be here and then
He'd go up to here, couldn't it? But His love doesn't change. It's
always perfect. And if God loves you, you can't
do anything to make God love you less. Now, we'll do something
and we'll be ashamed of it. We'll hate ourselves for it.
But if God loves you, you can't do anything to make God love
you less. And if God loves you that way,
you don't want, I mean, I say that, you say, well, shoot, that's
a license to sin. Not if you love God, it doesn't. If God loves you that you don't
want to do something against his will. You don't want to sin
against him. You will, but you don't want to. God's love is
immutable. So if God loves you, you will
never hear him say, depart from me. I don't love you. I don't
know. Never, never. And here's the
fourth thing. God's love. is eternal. It has to be eternal. If his
love is immutable, it can't change. It has to be eternal, doesn't
it? If God loves you now, he's always loved you. He loved you
before he created anything. When only the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit existed. Even then, he loved his people.
And I'm telling you now, that means something. That love is
gonna accomplish something. Malachi wrote this, Malachi 3,
verse 6. I am the Lord, I change not. See, God didn't hate a people
and then choose to love a people in eternity and chose to say,
and then he said, okay, I'm gonna start loving these people. No,
he's always loved those people, always. And here's the ramifications
of that. I've loved you with everlasting
love, I change not. Therefore, because of that love,
you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Jeremiah wrote, Jeremiah 31 verse
three. The Lord hath appeared of old
unto me saying, yea, I've loved thee with an everlasting love.
An eternal love which doesn't have a beginning or an ending.
Now that has ramifications. Therefore, the Lord said, with
loving kindness, because of my love for you, I drew you to me. Now Paul says in our text, I
want you to be able to comprehend the love of Christ. That word
comprehend means to lay hold of as your own. I want us by
God's grace, every one of us here this morning, to be able
to comprehend God's love, to lay hold of God's love for ourselves,
to lay hold of this comfort and assurance that's found in God's
love that all of salvation from its beginning to its ultimate
completion and glory. All of it is all based upon God's
love for his people. All of it. And if our salvation
is based on the immutable, eternal love of God, it can't fail, can
it? Can't fail. Now I know this. God elected a people unto salvation
before he created anything. He elected a people, he knew
who they'd be, he knew their sin, he knew what they'd be,
but the Lord chose to save those people, and you know why? It's
because he loved them. God said in Deuteronomy 4, verse
37, because I love thy fathers, therefore, he chose their seed
after me. God chose the people because
he loved them. And God's love is the cause of
our salvation. of all redemption, God's love
is the cause of it. I do want you to turn to this
one, John 3. John 3. You can't spend 30 minutes talking about
God's love without reading John 3.16, can you? 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. Now
John 3.16 is not the gospel. There's no gospel in John 3.16.
It's the cause of the gospel. It's the cause. God's love is
the cause of the gospel. The gospel, the reason for redemption
is found in verse 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting
life. See, it's love that moved Christ
to be lifted up for His people, to suffer and die on the cross
for His people. John wrote this, 1 John 3, verse
16. Hereby we perceive the love of
God. Here's how you perceive the love of God. How do I know
for sure God loves me? because he laid down his life
for us. He put his love into action.
Love acts, doesn't it, Dan? Love acts. He put his love into
action by laying down his life for his people. God chose a people. He redeemed those people with
the sacrifice of his son. He drew those people to himself
with his loving kindness. And you know the reason God continues
to carry his little lambs to bear our burdens all the way
through life till we get to glory. You know why he continues to
carry his little lambs? Because he loves them. He loves
them. Isaiah 63, verse nine. In all
their affliction, he was afflicted. An angel of his presence saved
them. In his love and his pity, he redeemed them. And he bared
them and carried them all the days of old. He carries his people
every step of the way because he loved them. And he'll do the
same thing for you today. He does the same thing for his
people today. Don't ever worry, God's finally
gonna get tired of me and put me down. No, no, no, no. He'll carry his people. See, it's God's love that gives
sinners a good hope. I tell you this all the time,
the word hope, as it's used throughout the New Testament, means expectation. Sinners have an expectation of
salvation. An expectation, God won't put
me down. An expectation, God won't cast
me off. An expectation, he's gonna glorify
me together with Christ. And that expectation is wholly
based upon God's love for his people. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse
16. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself,
and God even our Father, which hath loved us. And because he's
loved us, he hath given us everlasting consolation and a good hope through
grace. Now you let that comfort your
hearts and establish you in every good word and word. You and I were born sons
of Adam. How could we ever be the sons
and daughters of God Almighty? It's because of God's love for
his people. John said, 1 John 3, verse one, behold, what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us. Hey, John said, you
behold this. You get ahold, this is something
glorious. The manner of love that God hath bestowed upon us
that we should be called the sons of God. Oh, you know why
God calls his people the sons of God? Because they are. He
made him that way. He adopted him into his family,
didn't he? We looked at it last week. He adopted him and he birthed
him into his family. He did both. Now look at Romans
chapter eight. This will be the last scripture
we look at. Romans chapter eight. Now this just states the reasons
is God's love can't change. God's love is unaffected by earthly
circumstances. You know, our feeling of love
and our emotions Woo, they change with earthly circumstances, don't
they? Not God's love. Romans 8, verse 35. Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril,
or sword? As it's written, for thy sake
we're killed all the day long. We're accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we're more than conquerors
through Him. through him that loved us. For
I'm persuaded, I'm confident of this, Paul says, that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature. That about covers it, doesn't
it? None of those things shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in. which is conditioned upon Christ
Jesus our Lord. His love is not affected by our
earthly circumstances. And when this life is over, God's
love is gonna be the theme of the song in heaven. Revelation
1 verse 5 says, unto him that loved us and washed us from our
sins in his own blood. Now you may as well start learning
that chorus now because that's what they're gonna be singing
in glory. Unto him that loved us. And because he loved us,
he washed us in his own blood. See, God's love was before creation. I can't say it began before creation,
it didn't have a beginning. God's love was before creation.
God's love will endure all through human time. And God's love will
be the theme of heaven. Now that's a comprehensive, immeasurable
love. that covers everything a sinner
needs, because every need a sinner could have. And I pray that the
Lord will enable us to apprehend it, to lay hold upon that for
our comfort and assurance. All right, the Lord bless you.