Romans 5:1-8

Romans 5 1 through 8. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing their tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. for when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly for scarcely for a righteous man will one die yet para venture for a good man some would even dare to die but God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. is sacred and holy word this morning. The Bible declares that God is love in 1 John 4.8. But there are so many false ideas that are circulated about the love of God today. Divine love is commonly portrayed as if it were like a human, emotion. The popular teaching is that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Supposedly, the loving heart of God longs to see all people saved, and we hear frequently for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. We’re told that God is saddened, even brokenhearted when sinners refused to come to Christ for salvation and are cast into hell. However, your thinking about God’s love cannot be taken from human ideas, but it must be taken from the scriptures. And the scriptures give us something quite different about the love of God than the popular view. To know God’s love’s most wonderful thing in the world, if properly understood. So let us consider the characteristic of divine love this morning. Now, let me begin with this thought. The love of God is holy. The love of God is holy. Now, I want you to turn with me to 1.1 John for 8, which contains that verse that I quoted to you earlier, 1 John 4 and verse 8. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. Is that all he is? Look with me at chapter 1 of 1 John and verse 5. This then is the message, which we’ve heard of Him, and declare unto you that God, God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. God’s love is not regulated by impulse, passion, or sentiment, but by principle. And I say that because just as God’s grace reigns through righteousness, not at the expense of it. So his love never conflicts with His holiness. We have to keep that. that in mind, lest we miss what the scripture says about the holiness of God’s love. In fact, if you read 1 John very carefully, you’ll notice that John states God is light. He is holy before he states that God is love. It is perverse to take one line from John’s epistle and ignore the other. altogether. Don’t we have to take both of them? Together? God’s love is not some feminine softness which causes him to forego, condemning, or punishing the disobedient, as though God were saying to himself, oh, I can’t do such a thing to that poor creature. He deserves to be punished, but my love overrides my justice. like an indulgent parent. Is that how God is? God is light. There’s purity to. There’s holiness to. There’s holiness to. And in him is no darkness at all, the Bible says. No perversity, no unrighteousness. And John’s point here is that only those who walk in the light seeking to be like God in holiness and righteousness, enjoy fellowship with God and forgiveness of sins. The writer of Hebrews says, For whom the Lord loveth, he chastenedeth, and scourgeth every son that he received. Now this entails us here that God’s love is stern at times. He loves those he chasens, but he does chasten him, does he not? He threatens, he rebukes, he disciplines those whom he loves. God’s love and holiness are so balanced that while he shows grace in dealing with his children, he nevertheless chases them, chasens them for their sin. We know the story of David quite well and his sin with Bashiba and so forth, but remember Nathan told him that the child is going to die and the sword is not going to pass from your house. Even though God has forgiven him, there was a chastening that took place. So we find here the love of God is holy. The second thing I want to mention is this. The love of God is uninfluenced. It’s uninfluenced. Look with me at Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 7 and 8. The scripture says, The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people, but because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, have the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of Bonman from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. It’s staggering. when we think about God loving sinners, God loves fallen men who have become unlovely and perhaps we might even say unlovable. There was nothing whatsoever in you and I that drew God’s love towards us that called it forth. What could God find to love in corrupt the prey of sinners? There’s none good, no, not one. Now, when we think about love among human beings, usually there’s something we appreciate about the person that we love. Maybe it’s their beauty, maybe their intelligence, maybe their personality, maybe their strength, maybe their charisma, maybe their leadership ability or something of this nature. With God, we don’t have any of this. God loves you and I, as believe, or simply because he has chosen to love us. There’s no reason, but the good pleasure of his own will. In dealing with Israel, God says his love for them was not prompted by anything within them. He just decided to love them. We love him because he first loved us, is what first John 419 indicates. God, did not love you because you loved him? No, merely because he decided he would love us. C.H. Spurgeon said that one day he was walking through his garden, and he saw a dog that was dirty and scurvyed, he said. Having a stick at hand, he threw it at the dog and yelled, go home. The dog turned around, picked up the stick with its mouth, and brought it and laid it at Spurgeon’s feet. all the while wagging and stale. The dog expected some type of positive reinforcement like good dog. Spurgeon felt ashamed at what he had done and told the dog that he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted it and come any time he wanted to walk in his guard. Friends, no matter how hostile you have been toward God, his love toward you, melts your heart. It overcomes all adversity. It wins you over. It brings you over. It brings you to salvation. It’s a very positive, powerful effect that it has on us. And we should always keep that in mind. Thirdly, we see the love of God is everlasting. Jeremiah 31.3 says, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness, have I drawn thee? And if you would, look with me at Romans chapter 8 and verse 32 through 39, which Russell has previously read. This is certainly a very valuable passage of scripture for us to ponder and think about. It has so much blood. blessing associated with it. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifyeth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Ye, rather that is risen again. Who is even at the right hand of God? Who also makeeth interfaith. session for us. 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 is written for thy sake, we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded 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 shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. God himself is eternal, and God is love. And that implies to us that God’s love is eternal as well. God Himself had no beginning. His love had none either. Granted this concept far transcends our ability to comprehend in many ways. Nevertheless, it is a wonder of God’s love that we shouldn’t overlook. The great and holy God loved his people before the heavens and the earth were created. And God himself is unchanging. So his love toward his people is unchanging. Throughout all eternity, he will love us. Not only did God love you before you were created in this world, before you were born, but he will always love you. You can’t be separated from the love of God. And that is quite a statement. He gives you a whole list of things that you might think could separate you. None of them can separate you. The very night in which all the disciples would forsake the Lord and flee away, the very night when Peter would curse and deny even knowing the Lord, we read these words having love, his own, which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. Yes, even with all those faults and all those problems. God’s love is strong as death, and many waters cannot quench it as Song of Solomon 8, 6, and 7 indicates. You take that scoundrel Jacob as a prime example of this. I mean, he steals his brother’s birthright. He lies to his father and deceives him. He eventually outwits and bamboozles his uncle Laban, who gave him a run for his money, as we see from Scripture. And yet, the one thread that keeps popping up in his life is that God loved him and was working in his life. Wouldn’t let him be cheated by Laban. protected him in every way possible. God graciously blessed him. Now God’s love often met chastening Jacob, and eventually this schemer was changed and he learned to trust in the Lord and on his own schemes and his own plans. The love of God is everlasting. The love of God is sovereign. look with me at Romans 9 and verse 13 just across the page as it is written Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated this should be self-evident if God is sovereign his love must be sovereign too because God is God he does as he pleases years ago I was doing a Bible study on Wednesday afternoon and I was doing this at the gym that I was attending at the time and we had people that were coming to the Bible study that really never sat under gospel preaching before. I had no clue. A lot of them were Roman Catholic, in fact. And I’ll never forget, I thought teaching through John would be a good gospel to do because if you want to know the way of salvation it’s found in John’s gospel very clearly. So I’m teaching through and I got the chapter 3 and verse 16 and I read the passage God so loved the world and so forth. And I said what does this mean? And I got the typical response that most people would give. God loves everybody. I said, okay, now I’m going to show you several other scriptures and I’m not even going to comment on them. And when we’re done looking them up, I want you to tell me what it means and how it coincides with this John 316. And so I told them about it and we went through the scriptures on this subject and it was mind boggling We read, for example, Psalm 55, thou hateest all workers of iniquity. Psalm 115, the wicked and him that loveeth violence, his soul hated. All their wickedness is in Gilgale, for there I hated them. Jacob, have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now, I’ll never forget, the Roman Catholic guy who really didn’t know anything about the Bible, and this is the first time I think he really confronted with something like this. He looked at me with this shocked look on his face and he said, God doesn’t love everybody. Yeah. God is sovereign. Of course, I had to go on and explain the word world there in that passage is speaking with regard to the Gentiles. Not only does God love Jews, but he loves Gentiles as well and had planned their salvation. You remember when Solomon was born you read that the Lord loved him, 2 Samuel 1224. And in order to convey this to David and Bashsheba, God sent the prophet Nathan to convey it. And he called, God says this, he called his Solomon’s name Jedediah, beloved of the Lord, 2nd Samuel 12th. 25. If God loves everyone, why make such an issue of this matter? Why give him the special name Jedediah? Why bother to send a prophet to make this special announcement? If God’s love is bestowed upon all mankind, then this whole episode that’s recorded would be nonsense. Why say he loves Solomon when he loves everybody? But if God’s love is sovereign and special, then the passage takes on some true significance for us. And I think that’s what we should see. We talk about God’s love being sovereign. There was no more reason why Jacob should be the object of God’s love than there was in Esau. Both had the same parents. They were twins in the womb together. And yet God’s love the one and hated the other because it pleased him to do so. So it’s a foolish mistake to think that God loves everyone. The Bible teaches no such thing. Now you might cry out, well, that’s unfair. I remind you, God is sorry, and you don’t have to love anybody. That he loves some should be something that causes us to rejoice. He might easily have just created human beings and after the fall just let us all go into eternal punishment. So God’s love is sovereign. God’s love is efficacious. When you think about it, since they tell us that God loves everyone, then God’s love must be powerless. Because the vast majority of people who hear about God’s love in the gospel of Christ, don’t believe. They’re still in their sins. And hopelessly doomed. But again, I turned to Romans 832. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all as the people of God. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? What did he give us? Don’t we see from verse 29? conformity to the image of Christ. Verse 30, calling to salvation by the Holy Spirit. Verse 30, justification before God. Verse 30, glorification. Verse 34, Christ intercession as high priest for us. Verse 37 to 39. Victory over tribulation. persecution, distress, death, and so forth. And verse 39, also eternal security. Nothing shall separate us from the love of God. Now you’ll notice how he ends this phrase. It’s the love of God, which is in Christ, Jesus, our Lord. There’s no love outside of Jesus Christ, unless we are chosen in Christ. the love of God does not rest upon us. But being in Christ, the love of God cannot be taken away from us. It’s preserved as we are. And so God’s love is efficacious. Let me close with two brief thoughts. And the first is this. God’s love provides a means of hope for you in times of affliction. When we think about Christ, we’re told that he is the beloved son. He’s beloved of his father, right? And yet that did not exempt him from poverty and disgrace and persecution. He hungered and he thirsted. It was not incompatible with God’s love for Christ to be spit upon and struck and crucified. This being true, you should not call into question God’s love towards you when you face difficult times and that are painful afflictions and trials in your life. It’s not an indication that God loves you if you have a smooth life without any problems in it. God did not enrich Christ when he was here on earth with earthly riches. He didn’t deem that necessary. He didn’t even have any place to lay his head. But you know what he did do? He gave Christ the Spirit without measure, the Bible says, in John 334. You need to learn that the spiritual blessings are the primary gifts of God toward his people, of his love toward his people. The second thing is this. If all we have studied about God’s love is true. Ask yourself these questions. Why are you so distrustful of God, fearful, fearful, and depressed? You possess the greatest blessing imaginable. Why do I ever allow myself to grow cold and indifferent? You enjoy a covenant relationship with the Lord and he loves us. And therefore, we should appreciate and value that love that he has toward us. Why do I allow my loyalties to be divided so that God doesn’t have all my heart? My friends, God’s love toward you ought to draw on out your heart and your love toward Him. We love. him because he first loved us. And lastly, could an observer learn from the quality and degree of love you show others, maybe your mate, maybe your family, members, maybe neighbors, or the church, could they learn anything about Christ’s love from that? Are we not being conformed to Christ’s image? should we not, therefore, reflect what Christ reflected in his life in this regard? Well, let’s close with the word of prayer.