So Rich and Free

 

Last week I spoke about the three things that are impossible for anyone who wants to walk with Jesus: It is impossible to fail in such a relationship. It is impossible to be or remain lost. It is impossible to be unproductive in our service to Him.

 

These things are impossible because our supernatural and utterly sovereign God ensures such things are impossible for any and each of His children who, through their faith in Him, have been adopted into His eternal and Holy Family.

 

Which now brings us to our text for today as it relates to last week’s message. Here is John 16:27 “The Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me and have believed I came from God.” (John 16:27)

 

The Almighty, Holy, immutable Creator of the universe and all things in it – including you and me whom He knit together in our mother’s womb – this magnificent, magnanimous, most gracious, and merciful God Himself loves YOU (think of it in the singular and personal). This love for you and all men and women is the predominant theme of the entire Bible, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last verse of the last chapter of the last book of the Bible.

 

His love for you and me most obviously evidenced itself on Calvary, but that same love continues unabated, undiluted, and unchanged from even before our conception and to this very moment.

 

Have you ever been passionately loved by someone? If you have, then you also have, in the very most superficial way, an understanding of God's passionate love for YOU. And even if you have never been loved passionately by another, then consider all of the daydreams you’ve had of being so loved as you’ve read love stories played out in novels or watched them on the television screen.

 

Listen! Jesus even tells us that the Father’s love for you and me is to the SAME degree of love that the Father has for Jesus. Listen to this infallible text from the Lord’s so-called ‘High Priestly Prayer’:

 

John 17:22-23 “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

 

How much more intimate and passionate can the Father’s love for YOU and me get to be?

 

But some might say – perhaps even some here might say – If the Father loves me so much, then why is my life the way it is? And what about all the terrible things that have happened to me in my life? What kind of love is that?

 

Well, I certainly cannot know the answer to questions like that. No one can know the answer to those questions. But we CAN remind ourselves to look at the One whom the Father so passionately loved – and yet sent Him to a cruel and torturous death. And what did that One say as He was dying? You know what He said. He cried out: “Into Your hands I commit my spirit.”

 

Listen also to what the great and greatly beloved apostle Paul wrote after suffering so much for the sake of Christ: (2 Corinthians 1:8-9): “For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.”

 

And what of the so-called ‘Heroes of Faith’? we read of in Hebrews 11 – heroes who suffered unspeakable trials but yet died with God's praises on their lips?

 

Listen: If they kept keeping on with the lover of their souls – even when they didn’t understand the ‘whys’ of it all – if THEY kept on keeping on – then so can you. And so can I.

 

They all knew AND they each believed, even as WE must know and must believe that “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us . . .. [And] Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:18, 35-39)

 

So, how can we respond to that kind of love? How OUGHT we to that kind of love? Well, we all know the answer to that question, and the answer is summarized in one word: Obedience. But because of our sin NATURE, no one in and of themselves has it in themselves to fully obey their Father in heaven. Our hearts remain deceitful – so much so that we can so easily hide from ourselves even our most egregious sins. That is why our response of obedience can ONLY be accomplished through a power outside ourselves because within ourselves we are too engaged in doing life ‘My Way.”

 

And it is because I know my sin nature always gets in my way when I try to obey, I like to pray something like this from Psalm 119:33-35a: “Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I shall observe it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law and keep it with all my heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments . . . .”

 

In other words, “Father, I ask you to MAKE ME want to give you my whole heart. Only YOU can break through to my pride and self-serving spirit.”

 

As I reflected on this point during the week, I thought of some lyrics of a song by Shannon Adduci: Give me a whole heart/To fully love you. Give me an undivided heart/Totally free. I ask you to heal my broken places/The lingering wound your love replaces/Bind every part. Give me a whole heart. 

Lord, help me to see/Your abundant love for me. Help me to rise/So I can soar on eagles' wings. Oh Lord, help me to go/Where I've never gone before. Give me a whole heart.

 

That’d make a good prayer, wouldn’t it?

 

Now let’s move on to the next part of this text in John 16: “The Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me.”



“Because you have loved me.”

So, do you love Jesus? Sure, you do – to one degree or another. And so do I – to one degree or another. Truth is, we do not yet love Him as we ought. We all know in our heart of hearts that we fall short of the kind of love He looks for in us. But here is some good news about that sad reality: Jesus is happy to get from us what we can now give to Him, if we are also willing to be willing to have Him draw us even closer to Himself.

 

Need an example? Here it is from the end of John’s gospel. I’ve shared this with some of you before, and it is so very valuable that I share it again. The New Testament writers used two words for “love” – phileo and agape. Phileo carries the idea of tender affection. Agape is often used to describe God's unconditional, merciful, and enduring love – the kind of love He commands us to have for Him and for others.

In the 21^st chapter of John’s gospel, John records this conversation between Jesus and Peter: "Simon, son of John, do you love (agape) me more than these?” He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love (phileo) you.” He said to him, "Feed my lambs.” He then said to him a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love (agape) me?” He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love (phileo) you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love (phileo) me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, "Do you love (phileo) me?” and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love (phileo) you.” (Jesus) said to him, "Feed my sheep.”

A modern version of the conversation might sound something like this:

“Peter, do you love me with all your heart?”
“Lord, I have great affection for you.”
“Peter, feed My lambs.”
“Peter, do you really, really love me?”
“Lord, I think you are wonderful.”
“Peter, tend My sheep.”
“Peter, do you have great affection for me?”
“Lord, you know I do.”
“Feed My sheep.”

 

Two things catch my attention in this exchange between the Lord and Peter, as I hope they also catch YOUR attention.

 

First, Peter must have felt miserable about his thrice denial of his best friend and Lord. But then I noticed how the Savior tried to help Peter move beyond his guilt. When Peter wouldn't say – couldn’t say – he passionately, fully, completely loved Jesus, the Lord came down to his level: “Okay, my friend. Do you have affection for me?”

And second – and this is equally important – after each agape/phileo exchange, the Lord’s charge to Peter was the same: “Take care of My sheep.” In other words, “Peter, I know you feel guilty, but your repentance restored our relationship. Your sorrow and guilt are unnecessary. Don’t let them keep you from your task to tend My flock."

How like the merciful Christ to call each of us out of our sorrow and self-recrimination AND our inability to fully love Him as we want to love Him. But Jesus knows our hearts. He knows our weaknesses of the flesh. But He seems, from this example, to be content for the moment with our ‘phileo’ affection. He knows that if we give Him THAT, then a maturing agape love will always follow. 

 

So, Christian, will you give Him your ‘phileo’ affection?

 

Now let’s return to our verse: “The Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me and have believed I came from God.”  Now look at that last clause: “You have believed that I came forth from God.”

 

Listen. Don’t think for a moment that it’s easy to believe Jesus came forth from God in the way He actually DID come forth from God. Belief in the miracle of the incarnation flies in the face of human reasonings. It is much easier and much more palatable to the human psyche to choose to believe as LDS Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, most Jews, and others who want to believe Jesus was merely a created being and not Almighty Jehovah God Himself incarnate in human flesh.

 

And why is it so difficult for many people to believe in the miracles of the incarnation? Scripture tells us it is NOT for intellectual reasons. It is for moral reasons. We can’t turn there now, but Jesus tells us in John 3:19-21 that people love darkness rather than light. THAT’S why people don’t come to Him, because if we acknowledge that Jesus is God Almighty in the flesh, then such an acknowledgment would require a change in how we live life – to live it HIS way or to live it OUR way. And THAT is always a moral choice.

 

As CS Lewis wrote: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

It takes WORK – the work of our total mind, conscience, and fleshly nature to accept the Biblical version of Jesus. It’s work because not only do we not want to walk in His light, but also because our fleshly minds recoil at supernatural events such as the incarnation.

 

It also takes work to believe Jesus is who He said He is because such a belief means our salvation cannot be earned. Salvation is nothing else than a divine GIFT, a gift we must receive with thanksgiving.

 

Think how often our humanness tries to earn points with God. Why do so many pray and fast and tithe and attend church and do good works? Is it because, as Jesus pointed out in the Sermon on the Mount, is it to impress others? Or is it to placate our own conscience? Or do we do those things out of love for, and obedience to, Jesus?

Let me remind all of us what God tells us throughout Scripture: Going to church does not save us. It’s WHY we go to church that saves us if we do so out of love for Jesus. We do so because we want to please Him and obey Him. Likewise, receiving Holy Communion saves no one unless we receive communion out of our love for Jesus. If we receive Holy Communion because we want to please Him and obey Him. And giving to the poor – and even being baptized – saves no one unless we do so out of love for Jesus and a desire to please and obey Him.

 

Our life and lifestyle FOCUS must be always about Jesus. Anything less is of the flesh, and those who live in the flesh cannot please God (see Romans 8:6-8).

 

The human heart is perfectly comfortable with its self-deception. Only the Holy Spirit can deliver us from its clutches. That’s because we want to feel like we are doing something to earn our place in heaven. And that’s the rock of stumbling of which Jesus and all the New Testament writers spoke so often.

 

Let me say it once more for emphasis: There is absolutely NOTHING anyone can do to earn salvation. It is entirely a gift that must be received by faith – faith in what God has told us about sin, righteousness, and judgment.

So, I need to close this message for the sake of time. I will do so with a quick reminder of all that I have said today.

 

First: The Father Himself loves YOU. And even though your life and mine may have taken some disastrous and painful turns – let’s be careful to not call God – even in the darkest corners of our thoughts – let’s be careful to not call God a liar when He tells us He loves us.

 

Second: He loves us because we love His Son. And although our love for Jesus may not be as deep or intimate or obedient as we would like it to be, we must know that if we give Him our hearts as best as our humanity is able to give Him our hearts – know that Jesus is okay with our ‘phileo’ offer. He knows ‘agape’ will follow.

 

And finally, BECAUSE we believe the infallibility, inerrancy, and full inspiration of the Scriptures, we therefore believe Jesus is Jehovah God incarnate AND we believe He has come forth from God to be our substitutionary atonement. He came forth from God to take on Himself the full, perfect, and complete penalty our sins deserve.

 

Now to Him whom we know as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – thank you, Lord, for saving our souls. Thank you, Lord, for making us whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to us Your great salvation, so rich and free.