The
Christian Atheist, part 3
When
you believe in God but aren’t sure He loves you
Sunday,
September 29th, 2013-MRWC
Show video- “God loves you”
ILLUSTRATION- Remember this song… “Jesus
loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so, little ones to Him belong,
they are weak but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus
loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
Many
of us learnt this song when we were very small; probably in our Sunday school
classes. It underscores and highlights a very important truth: Jesus loves us!
Christian
Atheists have a hard time with this truth. Christian Atheists believe that God loves people; but they
don’t believe God could ever love them.
Christian
Atheists struggle with knowing the love of God personally:
Ø How
could God love someone who worries all of the time?
Ø How
could God love someone who swears all the time?
Ø How
could God love someone who steals, lies, gossips and hates other people?
Ø How
could God love someone who looks at porn, or love someone who drinks too much…
Christian
atheists struggle with the Love of God; more specifically does God truly love
them.
I would like to
suggest to you 2 examples that demonstrate God’s love for us, but before I do
that, I want to give you our key scripture verse and our key thought. Both of
these truths will hold our message together.
The key
scripture verse comes from 1 John 4:16b, and it says: “God is love” (NIV84)
Notice what John
didn’t say. He didn’t say God does love; although God does love.
John didn’t say
that God has love, although God certainly has love.
John is very
clear to tell us that God is love. It’s who He is; He is Love. It’s what
makes Him God: God
is love.
Go ahead and
write this down: “Love isn’t just what God does; love is who God is.”
Now look at 1
John 4 starting at verse 8: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is
love.
9 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.
10 This is love:
not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning
sacrifice for our sins.” (8-10, NIV84)
Because God is
love, He sent His one and Only Son to this earth to die the death that we were
supposed to die, and His love makes it possible for all people- especially
Christian Atheists—to know this God who is love.
When we were unable to love, He
first loved us, because God is love.
There is nothing
that you can do to make God love you anymore than He does at this moment, nor
is there anything that you can do that will make God love you less than He
currently does.
God is love. It’s who He is and
what He does.
Christian
Atheists need to understand that God loves them, not because of who they are,
or what they have done--or what they haven’t done--but because He is love.
This is how God
can love us when we think we are unlovable, because He is Love!
Let me share
with you one more Scripture verse that will hopefully reinforce this truth.
Paul wrote in Romans 5 that:
“When we were
utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.
7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright
person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is
especially good.
8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die
for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:6-8, NLT2)
God demonstrated
His love for the 7.13 billion people in the world by sending His Son, Jesus
Christ, to die for us. He did so, because God is love.
Dear friends,
let’s remember our key verse: “God is love” (1
John 4:16b, NIV84) and our key thought: “Love isn’t just what God does; love is who God is.”
If we grab hold
of both of these truths, they have the power to change our lives!
Because God is
love, we are on the receiving end of at least 2 benefits, the first being: God’s love covers our sins
1 Peter 4:8
says: “Above
all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” (NIV84)
When we
surrender our lives into the hands of God and ask Him to forgive us of our
sins, He does something incredible: He removes them from us.
He removes them,
as David wrote in Psalm 103: “as far as the east is from the west...” (103:12, NIV84)
God is love and
because He loves us He has removed our sins from us, so that they will never be
seen again.
God doesn’t
bring up our sins when we mess up, nor does God haunt us with memories of our
sin; when we come to Him with a truly repentant heart, He takes our sins and
removes them from us, never to be seen again.
God’s love
covers/cancels/blots out our transgressions and even though we’ve done countless
things wrong; He still loves us and His love makes it possible for us to come
to Jesus Christ and fix the relationship that is broken because of sin.
John reminded us
that: “If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and
purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1
John 1:9, NIV84)
God is love and
because love is who He is, He will cover—not overlook—but cover your sins with the
blood of Jesus.
Have you asked
God to cover your sins with the blood of Jesus? If you have then regardless of
what you think, you’re forgiven!
Jesus said: “If the Son sets you
free, you will be free indeed.” (John
8:36, NIV84)
If you’ve asked
Jesus to cleanse your heart from sin, He has forgiven you, and nothing you
could ever think can ever change this truth.
If you’ve never
asked Jesus to cleanse your heart from sin, He is waiting to forgive you. Nothing
you could ever think can ever change that truth!
Not only does
God’s love cover our sins, but God’s love makes us feel
significant!
Life has trained
many of us to think of love as temporary and conditional.
ILLUSTRATION- It’s like the story of a
young girl who gave her boyfriend a picture of herself in a frame.
On the back of
her picture, she wrote him a short note: “I
love you more than life itself. I am yours forever. Love always, Ashley.”
Her
unconditional commitment contained this postscript at the bottom: “P.S. if we ever break up, I want this picture back. It’s
the only one I have.” (Groeschel, 2010, 69-70)
God’s love is not temporary nor is it conditional.
God’s love is permanent and unchanging.
Jeremiah 31:3
describes it in this way: “Long ago the Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, my
people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to
myself.” (NLT2)
“While others
may love you today and abandon you tomorrow, God’s love never changes. And
because of that you will always be a valuable and significant individual.” (ibid)
Paul asks a
question in Romans 8:35: “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it
mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted,
or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?” (Romans
8:35, NLT2)
Without giving
us time to answer this question, he goes on to say: “No, despite all these things, overwhelming
victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
38 And I am
convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor
life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries
about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
39 No power in the
sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be
able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our
Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39, NLT2)
There is nothing
that could ever happen to you that would make God stop loving you.
He is madly in
love with you and to prove how much He loves you, He sent Jesus to find, redeem
and bring you back to God.
The book of
Titus reminds us that God: “saved us, not because of the righteous
things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving
us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:5, NLT2)
God says that you are significant! You are dearly loved! You are
prized among all that He has created and He is your Father and you are His
child and He loves you with an everlasting love.
So, how could God love a sinner such as I? Let me illustrate it in
this way
ILLUSTRATION- I
have a drawer in my office that holds things that are dear to my heart.
In this drawer, I have pictures that
my children have colored, cards they handcrafted for me and stories they’ve
written.
They gave these things to me, because
they love me.
What’s also in the drawer in my
office are letters… letters from Elizabeth Brown.
These were the letters that
Elizabeth wrote to me when we first started dating, and they are letters that
she wrote to me when I was working in Norton and she was in Woodstock, and they
are letters that she wrote to me when we were engaged to be married.
Each letter reveals a common tread.
This woman is madly in love with me, her Mega Man!
Whenever I’m having a bad day, all I
need to do is open this bottom drawer and look at and read the love letters
that my daughters—and my wife—have written me.
In God’s love letter to us, He
reminds us that He is Love. He reminds us that His love covers a multitude of
sins, and His love makes us feel significant.
Love isn’t just what God does; love is who God is.
It’s my prayer today that we would understand
that God is love, and no matter what we’ve done, He loves us more than we can
ever know.
This same love compells us to leave our
life of sin and follow after Him.
ILLUSTRATION- John
3:16 is probably one of, if not the most famous verse in the world.
There was a time that if you attended a
sporting event, you would see someone in the crowd holding up a “John 3:16”
sign…
It’s a very powerful verse, and it says: "For God so loved the world that he gave
his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have
eternal life.” (NIV84)
Some of us have memorized this verse and we can recite it backwards
and in our sleep.
What I would like for us to do, especially the Christian Atheists
among us is to replace the words: “the world” with our name…
It looks something like this: “For God so
loved NICK that he gave his one and only Son, that when NICK believes in him,
NICK shall not perish but have eternal life.”
“For God so loved MIKE that he gave his one
and only Son, that when MIKE believes in him, MIKE shall not perish but have
eternal life.”
I want to encourage all of us to take a second this afternoon, or on
Wednesday morning, to practice this word replacement therapy. It will remind us
of the Love God has for us.
As we allow the truth of God’s word to sink into our lives, we will
be changed by the God who is love.
As the band comes back to lead us in our last song, I pray that we
would let the truth of this song remind us of God’s love for us, because Love isn’t just
what God does; love is who God is.”
If you’ve never
received the Love of God, I would love to talk to you about this love and how
it can change your entire world.
If you struggle
with knowing whether God loves you and you would like to come up and have
someone pray with you, please feel the freedom to come and pray.
Love isn’t just
what God does; love is who God is.
No comments:
Post a Comment