Scripture Reading: Romans 5:6-11
“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” — Romans 5:8
It is easy to love people who love us. That is the way we normally understand love. It is a give-and-take relationship. Someone loves us, and we love them in return. Someone is kind to us, and we are kind to them. Someone makes us happy, and we naturally want to make them happy.
But when we come to the Christian faith, we discover something very different about the love of God. God calls us to love in a different way—not simply those who love us, but even those who hurt us, oppose us, and sometimes become our enemies. Jesus demonstrated this kind of love even from the cross. While people were hurting Him, He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
That is the kind of love God wants us to share with the world. We are called to love others unconditionally, not because they have earned our love or because we expect something in return, but because God first loved us that way. God loved us unconditionally while we were still sinners.
In the 1990s, a book called I Love You to Death told the story of a husband and wife in Pennsylvania. Tony was a pizza-store owner, and his wife, Francis, worked with him in the business. After twenty-three years of marriage and working together, something went terribly wrong in their relationship.
Francis eventually hired someone to kill Tony. The first attempts failed. Then she hired two teenagers from a local high school and paid them to kill him. Tony had no idea what was happening behind the scenes.
Eventually, the teenagers were caught, and the truth came out. They revealed that Tony's own wife had hired them. Francis was arrested. Tony was shocked. Imagine discovering that the person you had lived with and loved for more than twenty years had actually arranged for your death.
Yet what happened afterward was astonishing. While Tony was still in the hospital, he made arrangements to get bail for his wife. Even after she was sentenced to prison, he continued to support her in various ways and worked toward getting her released early.
How many of us could do that? Especially after discovering that the person closest to us had tried to have us killed—not once, but repeatedly?
Yet somehow, Tony and Francis eventually went through counseling. They apologized to one another, and they were able to build a new life together.
That story gives us at least a glimpse of something about God's love. When someone is at their worst, it is difficult to love them. But that is exactly where God's love reaches us. When Francis was at the worst point of her life, she discovered that the husband she had hurt so deeply was still willing to love her.
That is the kind of love God wants us to understand and share with others. It is easy to talk about, but it is very difficult to practice. It is difficult to pray for people who hurt us. It is difficult to love people who are against us. But that is what God did for us.
The love of Tony and Francis made possible a new life that was better than what either of them had before. What a powerful message that gives us about love. Love has the power to conquer forces that nothing else can conquer.
Many times, people think power can change the world. Leaders and nations have often believed that they can change people through strength, force, or even war. But history has shown us that force alone cannot change the human heart. You may defeat someone, but you cannot necessarily change their heart. You may destroy an enemy, but hatred can return in another form.
But when Jesus Christ loves a person, and when we love others with the love of Christ, that love can change a life from the inside out. That is the power that can truly change our world. Only through love can we change this world, and that is God's unconditional love.
Paul tells us, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
There are many things in life that we can live without. We can live without money. We can live without fame and success. We can live without recognition. But there is something deep inside every human heart that we cannot live without. We long to be loved.
Every human being has this longing to know that somebody cares. One of the most disappointing and painful experiences in life is to feel that you are alone in this world and that nobody cares about you. Sometimes life can make us feel that way.
But that is the beauty of God's love. Even when it seems that the whole world is against you, there is a God who loves you, cares for you, and remembers you every moment of your life. We want to know that somebody cares about us. We want to know that somebody will stand beside us when life becomes difficult. We want to know that somebody will still love us when the people around us fail.
It is easy to love someone when everything is going well. It is easy to love someone when they make us happy. It is easy to love someone when they agree with us and meet our expectations. But what happens when none of those things happen? How can we love then?
God loved us when we were difficult to love. God's love is different. It is not based on our performance. It is not based on our goodness or our actions. It is not based on our worthiness. It is based on God's grace and unconditional love.
I want us to think about four words today: Loved at our worst. Not loved only when we were at our best. Not loved only after we cleaned ourselves up. Not loved only after we stopped making mistakes. God loves us when we are at our worst.
He loved us when we were still sinners. That does not mean that sin is acceptable or that we should continue in sin. We are human beings living in a sinful world, and we make mistakes. We are weak and prone to sin. But God knows us. He knows our weaknesses. He knows our failures. And even knowing our condition, He continues to sustain us with His grace and love us with His faithfulness.
God did not discover our sin after He started loving us. He knew. He knew before He loved us. The Bible tells us that He loved us first. We did not love Him first. God loved us first.
Therefore, His love is not based on our merits or good deeds. It is based on His grace and mercy. We were sinners. We were powerless. We were ungodly. We could not save ourselves.
God could have discarded us and disregarded His creation. But He chose another way. He came to us. He became human. He came into this world, lived among us, suffered among us, and died for us. He did all of this not because we had earned it, but because of His unconditional love.
Think about someone who is drowning. A person who is drowning does not need someone standing on the shore giving them a lecture about the Ten Commandments or handing them a list of instructions. They need someone to jump into the water and rescue them.
That is what Christ did. He came to rescue us.
Grace does not mean that sin does not matter. God deals with our sin through Jesus Christ. Christ took upon Himself the sins of the world and sacrificed Himself on the cross of Calvary. Through His death and resurrection, we are justified.
The cross is God's demonstration of love. The cross was once a symbol of shame and torture, but because of Christ, it became a symbol of God's unconditional love for the world. The cross stands in the middle of history as a declaration of God's redemption.
Many times we tell people, “I love you.” We tell our husbands, our wives, and our children that we love them. But God's love is more than words. God demonstrated His love through action.
Love is not simply a noun. Love is also a verb. Love must be lived. Love must be demonstrated. So let us not keep love as a noun forever. Let us put love into practice.
God sent His Son into this world. Jesus lived among us. He served the poor. He healed the sick. He welcomed rejected people. And what did the world give Him in return? He was mocked. He was beaten. He was crucified.
Yet none of those things could stop Him from loving the people He came to save. He went to the cross with a full and unconditional love for the people He came to redeem.
The cross is God's declaration to the world: This is how much I love you.
Whenever we go through situations and wonder, “Does God really care about me?” look at the cross. When you wonder, “Has God forgotten me?” look at the cross. When you ask, “Can God forgive someone like me because of what I have done?” look at the cross.
Yes. Look at the cross. That is what God did for us.
God's love is greater than our failures, our sins, and our weaknesses. God knows our words. He knows our thoughts. He knows our lives from the inside out, and He still loves us.
There is something deeply comforting about being loved by someone who knows everything about you. People may love us without knowing everything about us. Human beings see only parts of our lives. But God sees the whole picture. He knows exactly who we are. And still, He loves us unconditionally.
We see this clearly in the story of the prodigal son. The son left his father's house, took his inheritance, and wasted it. When he finally came to his senses, he returned home.
The father did not stand at the door and ask, “Where did you go? How did you spend my money? Give me a list of everything you did.” He did not demand an accounting before he would love his son again. He welcomed him.
The son came home thinking that perhaps he could become a servant. He believed that he had lost his place as a son. But the father said, in effect, “You are still my son.” His circumstances did not change that relationship.
The father gave him a robe. He put a ring on his finger. He put sandals on his feet. He called for a celebration.
That is what God's grace looks like. That is what heaven looks like when those who were lost are found, when those who were broken are restored, and when sinners are redeemed through Jesus Christ.
God's love does not approve our sin. It rescues us from sin. God's love does not make sin acceptable. God's love makes forgiveness possible.
God forgives beyond measure. Even when we are sinners, God still loves us.
Our worst moments do not have to be our final moments. There is always hope beyond our sins. There is hope beyond our failures. There is hope beyond the miserable circumstances in which we sometimes find ourselves.
The Bible gives us many examples. David fell from grace and sinned against God and against his own people, but God gave him another chance. Peter denied Jesus, yet Jesus restored him. Thomas doubted, yet he was restored. The disciples who had failed became witnesses for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The love of Christ can change everything. There is no situation that is too bad for God to redeem. There is no sinner too bad for God to save.
That is the message of God's love.
And as people who have received this love, we are called to go out and love others with the same unconditional love. Let us give the love of Jesus to other people—even when they don't like us.
Let us love not because people have earned our love, but because God loved us when we had not earned His.
Let us remember those four words: Loved at our worst.
That is the gospel. That is grace. That is the love of God demonstrated through Jesus Christ.
May the good Lord bless us with these words as we go from this place to be His witnesses for His kingdom in this world.
Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment