Title: The God Who Loves Us Boldly
Today there are two questions that need to be answered, one of the questions we should all know the answer to, because every answer in this room is personal, we all have some personal testimony to this question.
The first question that I’d like to talk about is:
Why does God love his children?
I don’t wont to sound irreverent, but only heaven knows how much pain we’ve brought God. Why does and why should God tolerate us? God gives us breath; we breathe but do we thank Him? God gives us bodies beyond duplication, but do praise God? Seldom do we.
We complain about the weather. We bicker about our finances. We argue over who gets content and who gets the most spiritual talents. Not a second passes when someone, somewhere, doesn’t use God’s name in vain to curse a hammered thumb or a bad call by the umpire. (As if it was God’s fault.)
God fills the world with food, but we blame you God for hunger. God keeps the earth tilting and the Arctic’s from thawing, but we accuse God of unconcern. God gives us blue skies and we demand rain. God gives us rain and we demand blue skies. (As if we knew best anyway.) And some people say if you don’t show me your God, I’ll say you don’t exist. (As if our opinion matters.)
God has every single reason to abandon us. I sure would! I would wash my hands of the whole thing and start all over on Mars. But do you?
I see the answer in the rising of the sun.
I hear the answer in the crashing of the waves.
I feel it in the touch of a newborn’s skin.
God’s love never ceases.
How do we explain it?
Perhaps the answer is found in another question.
Moms:
Why do you love your children? For months the baby brought you pain. She occupied space that wasn’t hers and ate food she didn’t fix. Are you kidding no more is the baby born and it cries. Her face is wrinkled and her eyes are dim. Why does a mother love her baby? Because the baby is hers? Even more because the baby is her. Her blood. Her flesh. Her hope. Her legacy. The mother knows the baby is weak and helpless. The mother knows the baby didn’t ask to be brought into this world.
And God knows we didn’t either. We are His idea.
The Bible says in Genesis 1:27 “God created man in His own image.
We are incredibly, the body of Christ. And though we may not act like our Father, there is no greater truth than this:
We are His. He loves us. Undyingly. The Bible says, “Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ.”
Had God not said these words, I would be a fool to repeat them. But since He did I would be a fool not to believe Him. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ... but how difficult it is to embrace the truth.
The other question that I’d like to focus ties into the other one since God does love us, when storms in live hit we should turn to God, because He does love us and because he knows what’s best for us, in our lives.
When hurricanes strike, good sailors know to anchor deep, they know that they have to set a good foundation or they doomed. At times in your life storms do hit they do destroy some people lives just like hurricanes destroy people’s property. Storms in life are inevitable.
The point of this analogy is. What is your foundation? When storms hit in life which they have and which they will who or what do you turn to. Maybe you turn to drinking or drugs to get rid of the pain. Maybe you talk to somebody to ease your hurt.
Maybe it’s so terrible that you clinch your fist and cry out. God why me?
Maybe you crawl up on your bed sobbing not being able to understand what did I do to deserve this to happen to me. Or perhaps you laugh at problems saying that there no big deal their I can handle anything that comes my way.
You see when problems hit in life the one that is least used, and the one that is most helpful is turning to God.
Why?
Because no matter what the storm clouds of life may bring, God our Father and Friend knows what’s best for us, and the choice is ours to read His word, or to pray to him for advice the choice is ours, but turning to God is always, always the right choice.
Do you know how you can do this? It happened on a Friday a normal everyday Friday for most people, but it will be a day that will change some people’s lives forever. For the soul that is blackened with failure, that Friday holds forgiveness. For the soul that is lost this Friday means deliverance. And the soul looking into the tunnel of death, that Friday holds hope.
Maybe that wasn’t such a normal Friday after all. Because on this Friday God is on a cross. The creator of the universe is being executed. The soldiers take him to a place called Calvary. Their rough hands grab his and drive rusty, long, nails into the rough timber. Spit and blood are caked to his cheeks, and his lips are cracked and swollen. Thorns rip his scalp. And as they drop the cross into the hole in the ground his whole body is shaken, which cause the nails to rib though his skin. His lungs scream with pain. His legs cramp trying desperately to hold up his body weight so that he can get one breath of air. The nails continue to rip his wrists and his feet as he holds him self up to breathe. Every taunt nerve in His body threatens to snap. Yet, death is not ready.
And there is no one to save him for he is sacrificing himself. It is no normal Friday.
But, far worse than the breaking of his body is the shredding of his heart. His own countrymen clamored his death. His own disciple planted him with the kiss of betrayal. His own friends ran for cover when he was in trouble. And now his own Father is beginning to turn his back on him, leaving him alone with the nails in his hands and feet. The only comfort he has is death but that has not come yet.
Still there is one more thing that he has to go through which is far worse than the shredding of his body and his heart.
A witness can’t help but ask: What keeps you there? Do you have no thought of saving yourself? Nails don’t hold gods to trees. What makes you stay?
You see friends what makes him stay isn’t the nails at all. You see friends this thing that holds him to the cross is your sins and mine. He has to bear the sins of the world these sins are what put him there in the first place. The sins that he didn’t even commit. What it must have felt like to bear the sins of the world. Here on this cross is Jesus all man, all God. Here is someone that has never experienced that pain and loneliness that sin causes and now here he is alone on the cross bearing the sins of the world what that must have felt like. I can’t even begin to imagine. And neither can you.
After hearing what Jesus went through do your problems seem so big, or if your like me after hearing what Jesus went through are you a little bit more humbled. I pray that you are.
I pray that every time a problem in your life hits you’ll think of what Jesus went through and maybe just maybe your problem won’t seem so big.
God’s love is not human. His love is not what we would consider normal. His love sees you sin and loves you still. Does He approve your errors? No. Do you need to repent? Yes. And the first step and most important step in repenting is by accepting Jesus as your Savior.
So in closing I’d like you to remember some things
Number One: God loves you more than you ever know.
Number Two: God loves you unconditionally
Number Three: When problems in your life hit, let your foundation be strong, let your foundation be God.
