TV 1745 | The Love of God Part One

You know, I've had thoughts on my heart this week that, as with so many things we've heard many times, and there are so many truths that God wants us to know, but there's one thing that's the most important thing. And I think you know where I'm going with that, and that's love. Because the reality is, you know, we've said many times that what we're doing here could, as sadly happens in many cases, come down to a place where we have a set of beliefs, we have a set of practices, we have people that get to know each other and kind of sort of like each other, and maybe we cooperate in this and that, and it becomes a religion. And there's got to be something more than that. You know, how did Jesus say that people would know that we are His disciples? Because we love one another. Yeah, we love the brethren. We love one another. And that has got to come down to where that's the essence of everything. You know, even in the Old Testament, God made Himself known and the people knew His power. He gave them a whole lot of commandments, and there were so many things that they knew about God. But do you remember what the essence of the law was? If you break the whole law and all the commandments down, what does it come down to? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your neighbor is yourself. And I believe with all my heart that God wants us to get that in a deeper way because, again, if what we do here is just a matter of, well, this is how we do things, this is what we believe, we don't have anything. There's got to be a living reality in the midst of it. I praise God for the degree to which that's true. But there's always room for us to learn in a deeper way, and I am very conscious of that in my own heart, that God wants us to understand that it's not about getting it all right. It's a matter ... Well, that's involved, but why? Why did God do what He did?

Why are we here? What's His purpose? Where is He going with all of this? We know He's saving people, and He's going to be judging others who reject Him, but where is He going with this? And the ultimate answer has to do with the thing that is at the center of His nature. And one word defines God when it comes to His character, and that's love. And, of course, we don't really understand that very much. We think we do. But I'm persuaded more and more that there's so much that we just don't even hardly begin to scratch the surface of understanding. Because our love, what we call love here, is so infused, corrupted by human nature that it ultimately becomes about me. I love you because you please me in some way. You satisfy some natural desire that I have, and therefore I love you. And God's love is so utterly different than that, because, you know, we know that He loved us while we were yet sinners. You know, Paul said, I think that's in Romans 5, is it somewhere in there, that some people would even dare to die for a good man. You know, it happens in human life. I'll die for you because you're worthy. But the truth is, not one of us even begins to be worthy. He didn't wait for us to become good and then say, okay, He died for us while we were yet sinners. Now, I know everybody here has heard the doctrine of God's love. God so loved the world. And the problem is that it can become, in a practical sense in our lives, it can so easily become just a doctrine that we affirm. We believe it. Well, the Bible says it, and this, that, and the other, it just becomes an idea.

But I believe with all my heart that God longs to reveal Himself to us. How many of you really in your heart of hearts believe that God loves you? He's not waiting for something to happen for you to get better, to get worthy. He loves you. Now we occasionally sing this song, He Loves Me Like I Am, and that's true enough if you very carefully balance that with the reality that God loves us enough not to leave us that way. Because you've got religious people out there that thinks that love is the highest value, but they humanize it. I love you, I accept you just like you are. You don't really have to even change. I just love you so much. It's not like that at all. God sees my need as desperate as it is, and He's not put off by my need. His nature is to reach out with a heart that says, I have the power to do it, and it's not about me. I'm willing to sacrifice. There's another scripture. I looked up so many. Where do you stop? Because it's everywhere. There's constantly a going back to this truth that overrides every other thing. Praise God. This is how we know what love is in one place. How do we know? What is this love? He laid down His life for us. Think of who the Son of God was when He came to earth. Who He could have been by every human measure. Here's the Creator showing up.

I mean, and yet He was willing to just say, I place no value on anything that this world can offer me or that I can gain for myself out of this world and its system. What is most important to me is what I can do for people who don't even know about it, don't deserve it. Right now they don't even want it, but I'm willing to lay down my life. Praise God. Praise God. I mean, God help me. Where do you even go with this? It's just so full of ... The scripture is so full of it. We just don't even begin to know what it's really about. One thought that came to me was, we know that God wants us to love each other, right? Can you imagine if Jesus, if the Father sent Jesus, said, all right, I love Him. I love Him. I want you to go do something about it. He says, okay. What do you want me to do? Well, I want you to love Him. And imagine He was a little bit like us, and He says, okay, I'll love Him, but I won't have to like it. And He says, oh, by the way, remember what Isaiah said about you, you're going to be despised and rejected by men, men of sorrows acquainted with grief. You ready to go? Oh my, we're not much like Him, are we? And we could easily reduce what we believe down to just basic doctrines, and we've emphasized so many. The fact that God has to, in bringing us to Himself, He has to bring us to a conviction of our need. We've talked about these things many times recently. I have to know that I'm a sinner, that I can't possibly qualify myself.

Not only am I a sinner, but I can't do anything about it. And He wants me to be this kind of person, wants me to trust Him, and all of that. And then He has to show me that I have done it all, so there's nothing you can do, and human pride wants to fix it. I want to qualify myself. I struggle with the idea that God loves me anyway, to the point where He's sacrificially willing to do something about it. That just is a foreign concept to a human being. I mean, this is an overriding thought. Do you really believe, you personally, individually right now, and I'm not talking about working up a feeling, but do you believe in your heart of hearts that God, the one we've been singing about, loves you? You think maybe God wants us to have a deeper knowledge of that. You think we've got room to have a lot deeper knowledge than we do, because you can have all the doctrines right. You can get, yes, I'm a sinner. I know it. I come to a place where I acknowledge it. I acknowledge it, and I understand the principle of faith, and I've got to trust in him and not in myself. But the why that hangs over all of this, why would God do that? Why would he do such a thing? And that's this one thing, and that's the love that defines his very being. He would put aside every other consideration because of his love for you, and he wants to have a family that's just like him, and folks, we're not. I need a lot of help. I need something. Where do you even go with this? I'm going to start in 1 John chapter 4. There's so many scriptures that you could read, but verse 7, dear friends, let us love

one another. Why? For love comes from God. I'm sure glad of that. I mean, right there, I got a major answer. This is something that starts in him, and when he tells me to do something, he's not standing there saying, you get it straight, and then I'll think about loving you. It starts with him loving us in our totally unworthy, undeserving place, but he doesn't want it to stop there, and us just to become a, you know, a dead sea, as it were, all everything flowing in and nothing going out. He is looking to bring forth a family. How many times we've talked about that, but what kind of a family? This is a family that absolutely is an expression of his heart and his nature, all right? Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves, in this sense, I mean define love, not this human self-centered thing we call love. Everyone who loves has been born of God. You know, we've talked about being born of God is essential to overcoming. Well, it's essential to being able to love. I mean, if it's just me trying to make commandments, he tells me to love people, and this is how you're supposed to treat them and all of that, and have a new attitude, good luck with that. I can't find that in human nature, and you push enough buttons and you're going to get something different than love out of me, if that's all I'm depending on, and I'm guessing one or two of you are like that too, right? We need something else. But here's the thing, if God literally births his own life, is qualified by love, if he births that in us, and he comes to live, and we become literally his temple, he comes in, and not just his power and all of this stuff, thank God for all of that, but he comes in with his character. What a difference it makes in my serving him to actually know that I'm loved.

Does that make a difference to anybody? That makes all the difference, because he's not some mean boss in the sky trying to make me do stuff I just don't really want to do, and trying to be something I'm really not. He is coming in to transform me by coming in and living on the inside, and changing me and giving me the power to do something I can't do in myself, praise God. But obviously the fact that he tells us to love one another reminds me that I got choices to make in all of this. He wants, he's not just, I'm not a robot, is the word I was trying to reach for, where he just manufactures me as a loving person of some kind. This is not artificial intelligence. This is supposedly real intelligence. This is God wanting to make me a certain kind of person, and performing a miracle. Man, it takes a miracle for a human being to actually be able to express the kind of love that he's talking about in here. It's a miracle, thank God. That's available to anyone who opens their heart, but we've got to be willing, and we've got to cooperate in the process. And so that's why so much of every book of the New Testament is filled with references to love one another, and this is love is of God, and all of that, all right? Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. This is the heart of not a religion, but a relationship. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. Now I get that we've got a lot of room to grow, but there's a real change that happens down here. There's something that's real. And that's what God's heart is reaching out for. And He's not looking at people and saying, what's the matter with you, straighten up and I'll pay attention to you maybe. He's saying, I love you and I want you to surrender to that and let me come in and change you from the heart level out.

Praise God. This is how God showed His love among us. He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. Remember, He's described by Paul as the invisible God whom nobody will ever see. He's a spirit that inhabits eternity. No one has ever seen God, not with these eyes. But if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. Now that's something we pointed out before. Where is God going with this? Just that I want to shower you with my love and that's it. No, that's incomplete. There's more to it because in order for God's love and His nature to truly live within us, it means I've got to receive His love and just yield to it and believe in all that He has said and all that He has promised. Where's He going with this? He wants that love now as a stream to flow out from me to others and if it doesn't, it's what I have real. Think about that. That's a pretty good picture, isn't it? Now I realize we've got a lot of room to grow. It's not talking about perfection here, but it certainly is talking about direction. There is a fundamental change that happens when God pours His Spirit in my heart and I understand that He's not just a holy God I've got to be afraid of, but He's a God who loves me as a father and has given me His life and His promise and an eternal hope for the future. But I'm not the only one.

There are a whole lot of people in this world that He's reaching out to. We just talked about or just celebrated communion. God is remembering what He did for us, but it's a fellowship of those who know Him, whose life is defined by having bowed to His Word and His will and His provision and have done exactly what He said. We have eaten His flesh and drunk of His blood. We've partaken of the sacrifice and the virtue, what He accomplished there. That has become not just something we affirm out here, but it's coming into our heart. It has come into our hearts. Praise God. So His love is made complete and I see lots of room in me. Am I the only one? Lots of room in me for being more focused on other people. See that's what God's love is about. He's not focused on, look at all I can get out of this, I'm so wonderful. He is, but real love is focused, gets its greatest joy from serving somebody else and seeing them helped and blessed. We're not like that. We need a whole lot of work, but God's working. He's helping us. He's giving us that capacity, but I pray that God's love will be made more complete than it already has. Thank God, as I say, for everything that we've seen. A lot of people come in here and they recognize, hey, there's some people that actually love each other. Imagine that. I don't believe that it's just this natural attraction of people who are like one another. That's the reason we use the word like. If you like somebody, it's because you are alike. You share certain human characteristics and that draws you together.

We need to be drawn together by something a lot deeper than that because there are always going to be people around that don't fit your little clique. God wants us to have a free, open heart and a spirit. God's not building a clique. God's reaching into the garbage heaps of humanity. and pulling out people who could not possibly qualify, and he gets his greatest joy of what he's able to do to lift them up to a place and just love them and then watch them express that same nature to everybody else. Oh, God make that more real to me and to all of us, so we understand that he loves us. I'm not talking about trying to achieve a feeling or something like that. I mean, God can do that, but that's not what it's about. There needs to be a bedrock conviction where we know that God loves us. You know, I was thinking about this, and part of me would love to just have this overwhelming, you know, waves of glory flooding my soul, and then I know, okay, God loves me because I feel it. But all I have to do is look back, and I've got, you know, there are people here older than I am, but I got a pretty good ways to look, and I can look back in my life and see how many times God has shown mercy. He's directed my path when I didn't know the way to go, but I left it in his hands. He taught me how to surrender, and it's a whole lot easier to surrender to somebody that loves you than someone who's just a mean boss. I remember my dad, in his early days before he met my mother, was a preacher in North Georgia. I mean, he got to the point where he joined the army during Second World War as a chaplain and wound up in Boston and married my mother, and here I am. But anyway, before that, he was a preacher in North Georgia in some small churches, and he tells a story, or he told the story about talking to one man and about the demands, the gift of the gospel and the reality of it. He says, you know, I can trust somebody who died for me. I mean, that's the witness. That's what enables me to see him, not as somebody who just demands that I bow down, but somebody who's worthy. Praise God. Praise God that He is worthy. I can do that with joy and with freedom because I know that I'm bowing to somebody who absolutely loves me and has my best interest at heart, and that enables me to trust Him when it doesn't always feel good, when it doesn't look good, when I don't know the way, and I have to believe Him, and I have to trust Him. This overriding reality is that I know He loves me, and so I am going to trust Him still. And I can tell you, for young people particularly, you're just getting started,

I can look back when I didn't know the major issues of life. I didn't know how my life was going to go exactly, and it didn't go the way I planned. But I know exactly, I can tell you as a clear testimony, God is faithful, and He has shown me His mercy and His love beyond my imagining. Praise God. He has been faithful to me, and yet when I look back, I don't have to look back very far. When I look back and look inside, and I see so many shortcomings, I see needs, I see things He's working on, and yet that didn't stop Him from loving me and caring about me. Praise God. Don't you want to be like Him? Praise God. This has been the Midnight Cry broadcast. If you would like a DVD or CD of today's message in its entirety, please request it by program number. While it is not required, a donation of $10 for DVDs and $5 for CDs is suggested to help with expenses. Also for those who request it, we will send you our quarterly publication, The Midnight Cry, Messenger, free and postage paid. Send your requests to Midnight Cry Ministries, Post Office Box 685, Southern Pines, North Carolina, 28388. We invite you to join us again next week at the same time, and may God richly bless you until then. you