The Gospel: You Are Loved

Would you join me as I read the scripture passage for this morning?

Found in the first epistle of John, first John chapter three, verses one to three, and you can find that in your uh Pew Bible, the Bible located right there in front of you on that shelf on page uh 1022.

And if you don't have a Bible with you, there should um the one that you're holding, that Pew Bible, I'd encourage you, um, if you don't own a Bible, please take that one with you following the service.

It is so uh important to have a copy of God's word that you can read and study on your own to grow, to learn more about uh about Christ and about the gospel, and so please take that with you following uh the service this morning.

First John chapter 3, verses 1 to 3.

1 John 3:1–3

See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God, and so we are.

The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is, and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Join me as I lead us in prayer.

Father God, as we gather this morning to worship you, Lord, we uh come with uh all of our struggles, our our sins, our baggage, our backgrounds.

And so often we come to you with uh misperceptions and wounded hearts.

And we don't see at a deep level uh the reality of who you are and your great love for us.

And so, Father, I pray this morning as we uh talk of the work of your Son Jesus, that the Holy Spirit will take the word and apply it deeply in our hearts and our minds that we might have eyes to see, and that you might thaw frozen hearts, soften hardened hearts, and that we might leave with a greater understanding of your great love for us and how you see us as your children.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

I told you last week what I learned in 2013.

I told you that what God had been teaching me last year was the gospel.

And I'd encourage you, if you weren't here last week, a lot of what I said uh last week, what I'm saying this week, is building on it.

So I do want to encourage you, if you weren't here last week, uh, to listen to the message online.

Uh and uh there's important truths there that underline underlie uh much of what I'm going to say today.

And so uh please avail yourself to that.

It's online, or if you don't have access, you can get a copy at the front desk and uh and encourage you to do that.

Uh last week we talked about the gospel and forgiveness of sins.

And this morning I want to talk about the gospel and the fact that you are loved.

I love my dad.

So the things I'm going to say, I don't want you to think that I don't.

But my dad just wasn't there for me.

He worked all the time, he took no interest in me when he was home.

And I could give all of the reasons and all of the explanations and all of the rationalizations why.

But the fact remains he just wasn't there for me.

I grew up with an ache in my heart that wasn't filled by my earthly father.

He wasn't there to watch me grow up.

He was in the house, but he was always gone, and when he was there, he was emotionally absent, and it hurt.

In my mind, my dad was distant, aloof, disinterested, and distracted.

In my heart, I felt like my dad didn't care for me, and certainly he didn't delight in me.

Okay, I know that's heavy, but it's true.

Well, how about you?

Maybe you had a great earthly father, and if you did and you do, praise God for that.

He wasn't a perfect father, but he was a good father, and that's a cause for rejoicing.

But maybe your father was absent like mine.

Maybe he was there in one sense, but in another sense he was gone.

Or maybe your father abandoned the family and you didn't grow up with the dad in your house.

It might have seemed like he didn't even care about you.

Or even worse, maybe your dad was abusive verbally, physically, or maybe even sexually.

Well, how has my relationship with my dad wrongly influenced how I view my heavenly father?

And you see, this is something that God is still working in my heart.

Jesus, I get.

I can relate to Jesus.

I read the Bible, I read the New Testament, I see his love, his compassion, his grace, his mercy, but the Father seems distant, disinterested, aloof?

Do I view my heavenly father as one who loves and cherishes me?

Do I believe that my heavenly father delights in me?

Do I think that I'm the object of his affection?

Do I feel like I am his treasured possession and the showcase of his grace?

Do I think that my heavenly father is intensely interested in me?

Do I believe that my father always responds to me in love?

No, I did well in school.

Went to Bible college, went to seminary, read a few books, read through the Bible numerous times.

I could have taken a doctrinal questionnaire and scored 100% on it.

If you said, Does God the Father love you?

I would have said yes.

But if you would have asked me in your heart of hearts, do you know that?

The answer was no.

I knew it all in my head, but it wasn't a settled reality in my heart.

Jonathan Edwards gives this analogy.

He says, it's the difference between knowing that honey is sweet and tasting the sweetness of honey.

And did I know the sweetness of my father's love for me?

So, what does the gospel reveal to us about the love of the Father?

First of all, in this verse, uh we see in this passage in 1 John chapter 3, verse 1, the lavish love of the Father.

1 John 3:1

I usually use the ESV, but I love how the NIV translates this verse.

I think it catches a sense of the awe and wonder of what John is trying to convey here.

This is what it says in the NIV, and listen to the words that it uses.

It says, see what great love the Father has lavished on us.

That we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.

The Puritan John Owen said this over 450 years ago, and I think it's true today, and I know it's true in my life.

Says, notice how even Christians tend to look at the Father with anxious, doubtful thoughts.

What fears, what questionings are there of his good will and kindness.

At the best, many think there is no sweetness at all in him towards us, but what is purchased at the high price of the blood of Jesus.

We Christians get it backwards.

The cross does not cause God to love us.

We think that sometimes.

But what the Bible says is that the cross demonstrates the love the Father already has towards us.

The cross provides the way for us to experience the love of our Father.

Don't believe me?

Just think of a couple verses.

Think of the verse that I just read during our communion.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

For God, the Father, loved.

God was motivated out of love to send his son to pay the penalty for sin.

Oftentimes, and I think even in my own heart, if I were to describe it, I think oftentimes my view of God and in the triune God is that God the Father is perhaps a bit irritated or miffed at me, and that and that Jesus is there running interference.

Romans 5, 8.

But God showed his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God demonstrated, God the Father demonstrated his love in Christ dying for us.

The Bible tells us that God chose to place his love on us by his sovereign choice.

He loves you because he determined to love you.

Think about what it says of the nation of Israel and God's choosing of Israel over the other nations to be the conduit of his purpose.

This is what God says to the nation of Israel about why he chose them and adopted them as his son.

He says, For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.

The Lord your God has not chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

Let me read that again.

The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the people who are on the face of the earth.

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord your God set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.

But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

He tells them that he chose them because he loved them.

He loved them because he loved them.

It wasn't anything within them, their greatness or their goodness or their potential.

It was the love of the Father Himself that moved in them.

Now think of us individually.

Individually as believers, what does the Bible say about God's working in our lives?

The Bible tells us that God's choice of us is not based on our background, not based on our abilities, and not based on our potential.

Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 for a moment.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

I want you to look at a few of these passages, not all of them, but some of the longer ones.

1 Corinthians chapter 1, beginning in verse 26.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

Look at what Paul writes here.

1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 26.

1 Corinthians 1:26

For consider your calling, brothers.

Consider how God worked in your life to bring you to faith in him.

Not many of you were wise according to the worldly according to worldly standards.

Not many were powerful.

Not many were of noble birth.

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.

So that no human being might boast in the presence of God, and because of him, because of God the Father, you are in Christ Jesus.

God chose you, the Bible says, according to his purpose.

Look in Ephesians chapter one.

Turn a couple books over.

Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Beginning in verse 3.

It says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

That we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to the purpose which with he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

This passage tells us that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that it was according to the purpose of his will, according to the riches of his grace.

Again it says, according to his purpose, according to the purpose of him who works all things, according to the counsel of his will, to the praise of his glory.

We find here that we are here because of God's purpose, that we are here because of God's glory.

We are here by grace alone.

That it was by grace you have been saved through faith, Paul will say in chapter two, and that not of yourselves.

It's a gift of God, not as a result of work, so that no one should boast.

See, here's the beauty in this.

With all of your sin, struggle, background, failure, and future sins, God worked in your life because he determined to have a relationship with you.

God knew it all and chose to have a relationship with you.

There is nothing in your life that God does not know about.

And he chose to move in your life.

He chose to have a relationship with you.

He guided the circumstances in your life to move you towards Himself.

He brought people into your life to share the gospel with you.

The Holy Spirit was working in your heart, preparing you to hear the gospel.

Long before you accepted Christ, God was at work in your life.

He opened your eyes to your desperate need and to the beauty of the gospel.

He is the one who reached down and awakened you so that you would freely choose Him.

Why?

Well, the Bible tells us because He chose to love you.

He chose to love you.

You are not here by accident or random circumstances.

It's not because you were lovely, because the Bible says that you were a rebellious sinner, but it is because of his grace.

Well, how do we see the Father's love?

How do we see, how do we know that the Father loves us?

How uh we we struggle with understanding the love of the Father.

How do we see the Father's love?

Well, the Bible tells us the Father's love is revealed in the Son.

I mentioned where I was, that Jesus I get, but it's so hard for me to believe that the Father loves me.

Now, when I look to the Bible and I look at Jesus, I see a heart of compassion.

Jesus opened the eyes of the blind.

Jesus touched the untouchable, the lepers that were unclean, who had lived in isolation and abject shame, that no one would look upon with love, and no one would approach, no one would touch.

And Jesus, before he healed them, reached out and touched the untouchable.

Jesus had compassion on people.

He looked at the people and he said they were like sheep without a shepherd, and his heart was moved for them with compassion.

He allowed the unclean woman who had had an issue of blood touch his garments, even though she was unclean.

He went to the house of tax collectors and sinners.

He was indiscriminate in his love.

He didn't choose just to go to the wealthy and the prominent.

In fact, you find him in the pages of the New Testament going to the bruised, the battered, the broken, the outcast, the rejected, the discarded, the forgotten.

Of Jesus, it was said, a bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench.

There was a tenderness and a gentleness to Jesus.

Jesus was kind, compassionate, gracious, merciful, and loving.

But what the Bible says is this Jesus came to reveal to us who the Heavenly Father is.

For some reason I never made the connection in my heart that when I look at Jesus, I see the heart of my heavenly Father.

Jesus came to reveal who the Father is.

This is what the Bible says.

Paraphrasing from John Owens, he noted that apart from Jesus, generally we see God the Father primarily as creator and judge.

But in John chapter 1, verse 18, it says, No one has seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

John 1:18

Jesus has made the Father known.

In John 5, 19, Jesus says, Truly, truly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees his Father doing.

Everything that Jesus did was a reflection of what our Heavenly Father does.

For whatever the Father does, Jesus says, the Son does likewise.

If you remember the story in the upper room in the Gospel of John in chapter 14, Jesus there is talking to them right before he was to be crucified.

And he's talking to them.

And Philip there, after Jesus says, He is the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but by him.

Philip responds.

Jesus says, if you have known me, you would have known the Father.

From now on, you do know him and have seen him.

And then Philip answers, and this is what Philip says, and maybe we in our hearts feel the same way.

Lord, show us the Father.

And that is enough.

And Jesus said to him, Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say, show us the Father?

In the next verse, verse 10 of John 14, he adds, Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his work.

The work of Jesus was the work of our loving Father being demonstrated through Christ.

In Hebrews chapter 1, verse 2, we're told that it's the Father who speaks through Jesus.

Hebrews 1:2

In Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3, it adds, He is the radiance of the glory of God.

Hebrews 1:3

Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature.

So if you want to know the nature of your heavenly Father, if you want to get an understanding of who your Father is, Jesus is the exact representation or imprint of the Father's nature.

When you look at Jesus, you see the heart of your Father.

Matthew chapter 11, verse 27, Jesus tells us, no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Matthew 11:27

Jesus came to reveal the Father.

If you want to know what your heavenly Father looks like, look at Jesus.

Don't look primarily at your earthly father.

Don't even look at yourself if you're a father.

If you want to know what your heavenly father is like, look at his son.

Look at Jesus.

Don't project onto your heavenly father the flaws and shortcomings that your earthly father had.

At best, in the best situations, with the best of earthly fathers, he is but a dim reflection of the Father, of your heavenly father.

And at worst, your earthly father is the opposite of your true father.

Well, how does the Father lavish his love on us?

What does the passage in John tell us?

The passage tells us that we are his children, that we are in Christ, having believed that Christ died for our sins and placing our faith in Christ, that we are the children of God, and as his children through Christ, that you and I are the objects of his affection.

That he has lavished his love on us.

That your heavenly Father has lavished his love on you.

So what is our Father like?

What is our Heavenly Father like?

And maybe we need to hear this and dispel the images that we have and we've wrongly projected upon our Heavenly Father the flaws and sins of our earthly Father.

Or maybe just for whatever reason we have had a wrong perception of who our Father is.

But what does the Bible say about our Heavenly Father?

What is our Father like?

He knows you intimately.

Jesus says, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father.

But even the hairs on your head are all numbered.

Your heavenly Father knows you intimately.

He knows you deeply.

He knows every sin, every struggle, every pain, every tear, every shortcoming, every joy, every mistake.

He knows everything you've ever done.

He knows everything you will ever do.

And he loves you.

He knows you intimately.

He knows you fully.

Your Father knows your needs.

Jesus said in Matthew 6, 31 and 32, therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?

For the Gentiles seek after all these things.

Those who don't know God seek after all these things and worry about all these things and are weighed down by all of these things and are consumed by all of these things.

And your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

Your Father knows what you need.

He knows every need that you have.

He's not distracted, he's not disinterested, he's not uninterested, he's not aloof.

He knows what you need.

More than that, you are remembered by God.

Again, in a parallel passage, Jesus says in Luke 12, are not five sparrows sold for a penny?

And not one of them is forgotten before God.

Fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows.

God never forgets his children.

You are never out of the mind of your heavenly father for one second ever.

Your father thinks of you.

He loves you.

You're remembered by God.

You are never forgotten.

Your father remembers you.

He will withhold nothing good from you.

In Romans chapter 8, verse 32, it says, He who did not spare his own son, God, who loved us so much, gave us the ultimate gift in Jesus for our salvation, for his glory, for our good.

Romans 8:32

He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

He will not withhold anything good from us.

He will graciously give us all things for his glory and our good and our relationship with him.

God always responds, the Father always responds to you out of love.

I talked about this last time, that his wrath has been turned towards his son, and that all who are in his son are forgiven completely and fully.

There is not one drop of the cup of wrath left for you.

But even his discipline is motivated out of love for you.

There is no response in your life that is not a response of love by your heavenly Father.

I'll talk about this more at another time, but let me just mention it here.

It says in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 6, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastises every son whom he receives.

Hebrews 12:6

There is nothing that God does punitively, wrathfully, to punish you.

Everything that God brings in your life, even the discipline and the difficulties, are an expression of his love to either bring you back to him or to grow you in him or to use you for him for a purpose.

And it's motivated out of love.

This is why the Bible says that we can call him Abba Father.

The word Abba is almost scandalous when we think about it.

It's hard to find an English equivalent.

The closest, and it falls so short because of the superficiality of it.

But the closest English equivalent would probably be daddy.

It was a word of reverence and respect, but it was a word of tenderness and intimacy.

Abba, Father.

So what does the Father think of me?

Well, we saw this morning, he says, 1 John chapter 3, verse 1, I'm the object of his affection, that he lavishes his love on me.

1 John 3:1

The Bible says that God delights over me.

In Zephaniah chapter 3, verse 17, it says, The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.

Zephaniah 3:17

He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you by his love, he will exult over you with loud singing.

This is the disposition of the heart of the Father towards his forgiven people.

And this reflects the disposition of the Father towards you.

The Father sings over you, the Father rejoices over you with gladness.

It's as if when the Father sees you, it is like a lover who sees his beloved, and the moment his eyes fall upon the object of his affection, his face lights up, and there is a joy in his heart that escapes in a song of loud singing from his lips.

And when God sees you, he rejoices, he breaks into song.

Because he loves you.

He loves you to the degree that he loves Jesus.

Let that sink in for a moment.

He loves you like he loves Jesus.

In coming to Christ, you have been forgiven for all of your sins.

You have been clothed with the righteousness of Christ.

You are in Christ.

You have been adopted into his family.

You have become joint heirs with Christ.

And in Christ, God's love for you is perfect and complete.

The love that he has for the Father becomes directed towards you because you are in Christ.

You are a treasured possession.

His loving eye is always on you and always on me.

Jesus died on the cross to provide the way so that we can be loved by the Father.

Jesus was separated from the Father so that you could be embraced by the Father.

Jesus suffered wrath so that you could receive forgiveness and righteousness.

Jesus was despised so that you could be cherished by the Father.

Jesus endured the shame of the cross so that we could be honored by the Father, to forever be a showcase, a display of his grace.

Jesus was rejected so that you could be accepted and never turned away.

And that there is nothing on heaven and earth that can separate you from the love of your Father, not death or life, or angels, or principalities, or powers, or things present.

Nothing can separate you from the love of your Father in Christ Jesus.

You are loved.

That is the heart of your Heavenly Father.

Your Heavenly Father loves you very much.

He not only likes you, He delights in you and rejoices over you with gladness.

You are the object of His affection and he lavishes His love over you.

He never responds to you in any way other than love in all of His working and actions towards you.

That you are His treasured possession.

You are the treasured possession of the Father purchased by the blood of His dear Son.

Ultimately, God doesn't see you in light of your sin, your failures, your mistakes, or your struggles.

He sees you in Christ and He loves you like He loves Jesus.

That is who your Father is.

Your Father loves you very much.

Your Father delights in you.

And he wants you to know, to taste and see that your Heavenly Father is good.

You are loved by your Father.

Let's pray.

Father God, dispel from us the false thinking or impressions or understanding or attitudes of our heart that are not in line with who you are.

Lord, for some of us we have and we carry the wounds and the pains and the and the hurts of an earthly father that did not even strive to live up to that calling.

And for some, even the best of fathers falls short, and and we need to look past our earthly fathers, to look to Jesus, to see who you are, to see who your heart is towards us, your children.

And for all who call upon the name of the Lord, that you will be their father, like you are ours.

And so I pray for each one of us that we might know you, that we might know your love for us, that you lavish upon us.

Lord, we do not want to just know merely in our heads the sweetness of your love.

We want to taste it and experience it.

And know that you are good.

May your Holy Spirit do your work in our hearts this day, we pray in Christ's name.

Amen.