Outline.
1. A Love So Great
2. A Love So Generous
3. A Love So Gracious
Remarks.
1. In our lesson today we will be discussing, a love so amazing. It is described by some as a love indescribable, incomprehensive and that pass finding out. It is a love that is “so great, so generous and so gracious” one is unable to believe such could be true. Paul defines it saying: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love. May be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and the length, and the depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth all knowledge, that you made be filled with the fullness of God,” Ephesians 3:17-19.
2. First of all, the apostle John describes Christ’s offering as “a love so great,” John 15:13-14. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you.” Jesus describes a love that passeth all understanding. That a man should lay down his life for his friends. He’s a friend that stickiest closer than a brother. O’ what a friend – we have in Jesus!
3. Secondly, we will discuss God’s gift of His Son as “a love so generous,” John 3:16. “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.” What an amazing love – that God has given all he had, not for the righteous alone - but the entire world. Who can understand such a love? A love of great magnitude!
4. Lastly, we will notice “a love so gracious,” Titus 3:4-7. “But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior, toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he has shed forth on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord; that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” This is going to be one of my topical sermons. We will not discuss the scripture read to your hearing. Please turn to John 15, and let’s begin our discussion of a “love so great.” Notice verse number 12.
I A LOVE SO GREAT
A. This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. Notice John 15:12-17.
1. Jesus commandment on love. John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have love one to another.” Why has our message gone unheard, brethren beloved in the Lord? We have become a church that no longer exhibits the Lord’s commandment here – “love each other – as I love you!”
2. The sign of discipleship? The real test of fellowship is not just attending each other’s functions. But being able to lay down all the ill feelings, hurt and personal attacks that once divided us, for His love sake; that we might be one in Christ. Don’t tell the world we are one in Christ – show them. Isn’t Jesus and the Father one? John 10:30. Does our heaven Father and the Lord Jesus desire us to be one? Even as they are one?
B. Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends.
1. Notice a love so great! That a man lay down his life for his friends. Can we lay down our arms for each other? Notice the love Christ has challenged us to achieve – that we lay down our lives for each other. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren,” 1 John 3:16. The Lord laid down his life for us. Can we lie down are arms for each other?
Illustrate: Boyfriend’s greatest love. Lay down my life, swim the widest ocean, climb the highest mountain – and I’ll see you tomorrow if it doesn’t rain!
2. Would Christ be pleased by what he sees in this City? A broken and splintered church? Can a parent be pleased with a broken and divided family?
3. I think of our young men and women in uniform – when I hear our Lord say He will – “lay down his life for his friends.” Many have done just that! “All have given some – some have given all.” Some have returned home to a divided government – for which they willingly hazarded their lives, to defend. Only to see a congress, its court and its White House divided and splintered. Total dysfunction! I can feel their hurt, especially for those who lost close friends in battle; those that, laid down their life for this country. In order to “support and defend the constitution of the United States.”
4. I think of the hurt of many parents – that sit and gaze at the picture of their love ones - their son or daughter maybe in uniform or standing next to another soldier with pride and honor; while serving this country. Only to learn that their government placed their child in “harm’s way” due to an unholy alliance for profit; and on false testimony to this nation regarding an enemy’s possession of WMDs. All which later was proven to be a lie – an all-out fabrication - only to wage war on a weaker nation for oil. For this injustice many of our elected official stand today with hands dripping with the blood from these honorable men and women. And God says: “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord – I will recompense.” They shall not go unpunished! Illustrate: An ungrateful nation – and congress!
5. Now I ask you, do you feel rage and hurt for the injustices, I just stated? If so, how can you not be troubled by the divisions and party spirits that exist between these two splintered and broken congregations? Surely we would want to do whatever is right to heal this ill. We would want to mend the body. Notice again what the Lord says.
C. Ye are my friends. “If ye do whatsoever I command you.” You are my friends if ye love one another, as I have loved you. Remember Jesus, “if ye love me, keep my commandments,” John 14:15. And the Apostle John: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous,” 1 John 5:3. Will we be a friend to Jesus? By being a friend to each other – and Disciples of Christ?
D. No longer servants. “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you,” John 15:15. Now brother’s beloved in the Lord, we have heard all that the Lord has said regarding true fellowship and unity of the body. I trust we will find reason and courage to do the will of the Lord.
1. Some may find fault. They will judge a member unrighteous for frivolous reasons. Remember Jesus: “Judge not, that ye be not judge. For what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam (telephone pole) that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold a beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye,” Matthew 7:1-5.
2. Elymas the sorcerer – withstood Paul seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. He replied: “O full of subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt that not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?” Acts 13:8-10.
3. Are there any among us, who would pervert the right ways of the Lord? Notice Solomon: “The way of the Lord is strength to the upright: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity,” Proverbs 10:29.
E. I have chosen you. Jesus said: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another,” John 15:16-17.
1. Jesus said: “I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” Brethren, where is our fruits?
2. Let us strive to bring unity and many souls unto the Lord. Illustrate: I have much people in this city, Acts 18:9-11.
3. Solomon. “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise,” Proverbs 11:30. See also James 5:19-20; and Daniel 12:3.
II A LOVE SO GENEROUS
A. “God so loved the world. “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,” John 3:16. In this we have a love so generous - that includes the whole world. God’s love is given to the worst sinner; as well as to those who worketh righteousness – like Cornelius and his household, Acts 10:1ff. God grants His love to all mankind.
1. Recall the apostle Paul. “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, who counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; who was before a blasphemer, any persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief…This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief,” 1 Timothy 1:12-16.
2. This is good and acceptable. “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who would have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time,” 1 Timothy 2:3-6.
3. God gave Christ for all – that none should be lost, but have eternal life. Jesus: “Son of man has come to seek and save the lost…” Luke 19:10. “I have come that ye might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,” John 10:10.
4. We were at our worst when Christ died for us, Romans 5:6-8. While we were unrighteous; sinners and enemies to God – Christ died for us. Love so generous – love so amazing.
B. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. How did he die for us? Lifted upon a tree. Just as Moses “lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up…,”John 3:14-16. Illustrate: Moses and the Serpent, Numbers 21:4-9.
1. The people spake against God and Moses, near the land of Edom.
2. The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people...much people of Israel died.
3. They came to Moses, saying “we have sinned against the Lord, and against thee.” Watch out to whom you speak against – when they are doing the will of God.
4. The people said: “Pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.”
5. “And Moses prayed for the people.”
6. The Lord’s answer was – “make thee a fiery serpent – put upon a pole.”
7. “When he that looketh upon it, – shall live.”
8. Jesus was so lifted up on a tree. Jesus said: “When ye have lifted up the Son of man, ye shall know that I am he…,” John 8:28. “And, I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me,” John 12:32-33. Paul said: “cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree,” Galatians 3:13. He became a curse – that we might be blessed. Illustrate: The twilight of two worlds.
C. God sent not his Son.” God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world; but the world through him might be saved.”
D. He that believeth. “He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already; because he had not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
E. And this is condemnation. “And this is condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds might be manifest, that they are wrought in God,” John 3:17-21. Recall the Lord said: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life,” John 8:12. All must come to Him that they might have life!
III A LOVE SO GRACIOUS
A. The grace of God hath appeared. “But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior, toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.” This is Paul firm stand in the Ephesian letter, Ephesians 2:4-5; 8-9. How did he do it? Notice:
1. “By the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost; through the process of the “new birth,” John 3:3-5. Our lesson on the ‘New Birth.’
2. Which he has shed forth on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord.
3. That being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life,” Titus 3:4-7. See Titus 1:1-3; Romans 5:1-2.
4. Here is a love so gracious – that we might be made heirs of eternal life. These verses point out how Jesus saves us by his grace. I would caution however; that being saved by grace through faith – does not mean salvation without obedience. “But they all have not obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah saith, Lord…,” Romans 10:16, 1:5, 16; 16:25-26.
B. Paul had great concern for the Galatian Church. These saints had embraced the gospel of Christ through the preaching of Paul.
1. But now had been removed from the simplicity of the gospel.
2. He states: “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another (Gr: heteros, an altered form of; a different kind of the) gospel: (there can be different kinds – perversion of the gospel)
3. Which is not another (Gr: allos, not another, same kind; form and quality); but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert (Gr: metastrempo, a transmuted or corrupted version of) the gospel of Christ,” Galatians 1:6-7.
a. Like the message preached by the Judaizers who claim they had been sent with a heteros – a different version of the gospel - from the church in Jerusalem.
b. For which the council wrote: “For as much as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment,” Acts 15:24. This altered form of the gospel did not come from “heaven” but from men!
C. Though we or an angel. “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I…, If any man preach any other gospel unto …, let him be accursed, For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ,” Galatians 1:8-10.
D. But I certify. “But I certify you, brethren that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ,” Galatians 1:11-12. Have you obeyed the certified gospel? It alone has the seal of heaven – and originated in the dispensation of grace.
E. The dispensation of grace. We must consider Paul’s letter to the Ephesians to fully understand how he had obtain this revelation. He says: “For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles: If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:
1. How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery;
2. (As I wrote afore in few words, -- by inspiration;
3. Whereby, when ye read, -- by examination; some allege today – that (Lord gave them a message! – really?) You better get your lesson, for its not coming without sincere study and examination of the word of God.
4. Ye may understand my (Paul’s) knowledge in the mystery of Christ), - by illumination; (not one’s own knowledge); but the same mystery of Christ;
5. Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; (not to preachers of this generation – but in the dispensation of grace
6. That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel,” Ephesians 3:1-6.
CONCLUSION
A. Outline.
1. A Love So Great
2. A Love So Generous
3. A Love So Gracious
B. Summarize main points.
1. First of all, the apostle John described Christ as “a love so great,” John 15:13-14. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you.” Jesus describes a love that passeth all understanding. That a man should lay down his life for his friends. He’s a friend that stickiest closer than a brother. O’ what a friend we have in Jesus!
2. Secondly, we discussed “a love so generous,” John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” What an amazing love – that God has given all he had, not for the righteous alone - but the entire world.
3. Lastly, we noticed “a love so gracious,” Titus 3:4-7. “But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior, toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he has shipped forth on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord; that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
C. Invitation. H.B.R.C.B.
D. Exhortation. “With many other words did he testify and exhort, saying: save yourselves from this untoward generation.”
E. Motivation. We love you here at this congregation of God’s people, and want the best for your life and your family. We invite you now to come and respond to the love of God and the death of his Son. What you do today will have lasting benefits for you, and perhaps for those whom you love, whether they be family or friends.
