Tough Questions: Part 5 - Does God Love Me?
John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:8-10; Zephaniah 3:17
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
I know many have said it, but I want to say too, happy Mother's Day to all of you mamas out there, the biological moms, the spiritual moms, the bonus moms, whatever category you fit in, we're so glad you're here. And we are genuinely just grateful that you decided to take part of your weekend to come and worship. And I know that the Lord is glorified in that and he is honored in that decision. There's so many things we can do, especially on a holiday with brunch and family and all the celebrations. But I love that you chose to make this part of your Mother's Day celebration today. So thank you for doing that. We are wrapping up our tough questions series today. So we have one more question that we are going to ask, although I know there are many more we could have covered. But we first asked, why did God let it happen? That was the first question. Kind of also along with that ask, Like why do good or bad things happen to quote unquote good people? And why does God allow these bad things? If he's a good God, why does he allow them to happen? Then the next week we asked, what about hell? What is it? Where is it? How does it work? Why does God send people there? And then we asked, why didn't God answer my prayer? A lot of us have struggled with feeling like God didn't answer our prayers. We asked, where are you, God? Why didn't you answer this prayer? And then last week we asked, what about when God feels far away? Because sometimes it feels like he's distant. We know maybe intellectually that he's close, but it feels like he's far away. So God, why does it feel like you're far away? And what can we do about that?
So today our question that we're going to ask is, does God love me? But first we're going to pray real quick again. Jesus, thank you for this time. Thank you for the women in this room who serve as mothers and spiritual mothers to those around them. We thank you for the blessing that they are. God, I just pray for your word today, that it will be spoken through me, that it would be your words, not mine. Holy Spirit, be in this place. May your presence be felt. In Jesus' name, amen. John 3:16. “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.” The Bible says it right there. That God loved the world so much that he sent his son. So does God love us? It says he does. Happy Mother's Day. Enjoy the parfait. I'm just kidding. We'll get it. We'll go a little bit deeper. But yes, he does. It says that he does right here. But even though it is clearly in black and white, we still ask the question. We still struggle with the thought, does God love me? For some of us, this is a question we've wrestled with. I got question and wrestle mixed up. Okay, question we've wrestled with. Because we maybe understand intellectually that God loves us or that he loves the world. He loves humanity. He loves what he has created. But does He love me individually? Does he love me? Because a lot of us don't feel worthy. We don't feel worthy of God's love.
Maybe we've felt like we've done too much. We've sinned too much. We've gone too far. Maybe we've been away. We've pulled away from God for too long. Maybe we've been told too many negative things about ourselves. We've just been just taken down several pegs. We've been rejected by earthly authority figures or people we care about. And so we just, we genuinely wonder, does God love me? For other of us, we fall into a kind of a different group that we believe that he loves us. We never really maybe struggled with this question, but we can't really articulate why. We can't explain how we know. It's not something we really wonder. We just kind of accepted it and believed it. But if someone were to ask us how we knew, we couldn't explain how we know that God loves us. Well, thankfully for us, the answer to our question today will answer for both of those groups. If you struggled with it, you will be able to leave today. You will walk out of this room knowing for certain that God does love you. Spoiler alert, he does love you, but we'll get into it. He does love you, and you will know that. And then for those of us who haven't struggled with it, but can't really tell why, we are going to know why. We're going to have scripture to back it up. We're going to have a reason for it. We will know why he loves us. So if you're in the group that you just aren't really sure if God loves you, it's likely because you are using a wrong definition of love. Now there are so many definitions of love there are different types of love. I love tacos and I love my husband. But not in the same way and I just use the same word but I don't actually love them in the same way. And you know this you know if I said I love tacos you know it's not the same kind of love towards my husband. But we just have this one word for so there's lots of different types of love, but we're going to focus on two.
The first one is a love that loves because the object is valuable. It's a love that loves because the object is valuable. This is the most common type. We're really familiar with it. These are like things like clothes, shoes, maybe food, tech, things that we can have, that we can consume, things that are valuable to us. They add value to us. lots of things maybe like literally anything at home goods just anything that's that stuff's god value to me and so these this is a love but we love the thing because of its value or because of the value that it adds to our life that is one type of love but if you don't as a person feel valuable, you're going to naturally wonder if God loves you. If you don't feel like you have any value, maybe it's from sin, maybe it's from a lack of parental love, maybe a lack of self-esteem, whatever the reason why, if you feel that way and you don't feel worthy of God's love, you're going to struggle with this question. But there's another kind of love. This is a love in which the love gives value to the object. The love gives value to the object. Now, most of us are familiar with this way as well. It may be a little less common, but we're familiar with it. Probably most of us have had some sort of lovey, stuffy, blanket, stuffed animal, some sort of comfort item we had as a child. I brought mine. I dug this out of my trunk. I did wash it. This was my blue blanket. I have had it since I was baby. I don't remember when I got it because it's been so long. But I had it as a baby. And I used this thing probably longer than is socially acceptable. But I loved it. I slept with it every night. I sat on the couch and watched TV with it. I took it on trips with me. I loved this blanket. Now, this blanket has no monetary value. I don't think I could give this blanket away, let alone get any money for it. It is so raggedy and junky and old, but my love for it gave it value. It is valuable to me because I love it. I loved it so hard that it actually started falling apart. And when I was like 10, I think, 9 or 10, my grandma had to re-sew some patches on for me. And I remember thinking, but that's not the same. That's not my blanket. But then I finally realized a refurbished blanket is better than no blanket. So we went with it. But it was just, it's so raggedy. And you can still see the patches are coming off. There's holes in it. But I still loved it. And my love gave it value. This is God's love for us. We may be raggedy and broken and damaged and completely falling apart in need of repair. But his love gives us value. So we said that today's tough question is, does God love me? But I think the deeper question we're asking is, am I worthy of God's love? And the answer is no. We're not. You're not. I'm not. We are not worthy of God's love. But God doesn't love you because you're worthy. his love makes you worthy.
God's love is what makes you worthy. Romans 5 verse 8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were still sinners, not after we got our act together, not after we got cleaned up, while we were still sinners, before we ever could even think about receiving God's love and his salvation, Christ died for us. He loved us when we were, as a humanity, living in active rebellion against him. He still came and died for us. We were considered enemies of God before we received his salvation. Talk about being unworthy, being an enemy of God. But he loved us, that he demonstrated it for us by sending his son, and then he put his righteousness on us. His blood has covered us. So now that we have an accurate understanding of the type of love that we're actually talking about, Let's look closer at how we know that God loves us. We're in 1 John 4. This is kind of our verse for today. Starting in the second part of verse 8, it says, "God is love. 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. This is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” God is love. It is part of his character. It is who he is. The love here, the word love could be capitalized. It could be a proper noun because it is who he is. He is love. And because he is love, he loves completely, fully, purely, unconditionally. He cannot be anything besides who he is. He cannot go against his own character. He cannot do anything that is not in his nature. And so, therefore, since he is love and that's who he is, we know that he loves us wholly and completely. But we don't just have to read the text and understand it intellectually. He modeled it. He demonstrated. He acted out that love by sending Jesus to die for us and atone for our sins. That is the ultimate act of love. God wouldn't have sent his only son and Jesus would not have willingly gone to the cross if they didn't love us.
This verse here in 1 John is such a powerful verse and one that we can hold on to and remember when we are struggling to believe that God loves us. But it's actually even more powerful when we remember who wrote it. Who wrote 1 John? Who wrote it? John, it wasn't a trick question. It was John. It was John. Yeah. John, not the Baptist, it was John the Apostle or John the disciple. This was one of Jesus's 12, his buddies, his closest followers. He was one of the founders of the early church, became an apostle. He wrote the book, the Gospel of John, 1 and 2 and 3 John, and Revelation. He was even one of Jesus's closest inner circle, one of his closest three with John's brother James and the Apostle Peter. But before all of this before he was any of that John and his brother James had a bit of a reputation they were fishermen. I imagine they were brash fishermen you know what they say about sailors and I find it interesting that Jesus actually gave them a nickname when he was calling the disciples. We see it in Mark 3:17. It says, “James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, to them he gave the name Bonerges, which means sons of thunder. Sons of thunder.” Sounds like a Marvel character or maybe like a Greek god or something. Sons of thunder. It actually kind of sounds cool. I don't know if Jesus meant it to sound cool. I don't know that that's what he was going for. And we don't actually fully know why Jesus gave them this nickname, but Jesus had a reason for everything he did. And he knows what goes on in a man's heart. So for whatever reason, he felt it was appropriate to give them the nickname Sons of Thunder. It was likely for their thunder-like qualities, their passion, their anger, their impetuosity, their fervency, which to be honest, that served them well later on down the road. that passion, that fervency, served them well as they were persecuted with the early church. But he had a reason. He had a reason to give them this name.
We actually see an example of this in Luke 9. Jesus and his disciples were headed into Jerusalem. So they sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village. And the Samaritans and the Jews did not get along. But they sent a messenger ahead to ask if they could get things ready for Jesus and the disciples to come. And John and James did not like that. It says in Luke 9, when the disciples, James and John saw this, they asked, Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them? But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village. Jesus is like, whoa, slow down, sons of thunder. We're just gonna go to a different village. We don't need to smite them. We don't need to completely destroy them and call fire down. But they were ready to go to battle. And again, they were defending Jesus. I kind of think their heart was in the right place, but they were ready to rock. They were ready to throw down. John had a reputation of being thunderous. I imagine he was one who started fights and finished them. But then John started spending time with Jesus. Because Jesus loved John, John's identity started to change. Now, Jesus always loved John. Long before he was a disciple, long before he was a son of thunder, long before he was even born, Jesus loved John. And then once he started spending time with Jesus, John was able to see it. And he took on this new identity. John actually started calling himself by a different name. In the Gospel of John, we see three times where he called himself the beloved disciple or the disciple whom Jesus loved. He was no longer identifying as the son of thunder, but as the one Jesus loved.
That's how he chose to be identified. That's how he wanted to be remembered. No matter what has been said to you, no matter what names you've been called or identities that have been put on you, no matter what you've done, said, thought, you too are a child of God and you are the one Jesus loves. You are the one Jesus loves. The amazing thing about that is that Jesus or God didn't just sit up in heaven and shout down, Hey kid, I love you. Okay, bye. Good luck. He didn't stay distant. He came near. The Bible says that Jesus was Emmanuel, God with us. He came to earth to demonstrate, to show love in action. He doesn't love us because we're worthy. His love makes us worthy. And then by his love, our identity changes. That's how we know we are loved. Because when we encounter Jesus, we are changed. We are transformed. We are made new. We are given new identities. We're no longer identified by our sin, our brokenness, our trauma, our damage, our raggediness. We're identified as sons and daughters of the most high king. And in case you needed a little bit more proof, I have some. Perhaps you fall into a third group. We talked about two groups at the beginning, but maybe you fall into a third group that you believe that God loves you, but you're not sure if he actually likes you. Ever been there? You love someone, but you don't really like them right now. Maybe something they did or something they said, you're like, you are not my favorite person. Do we wonder that about God? Okay, God, you love me, you made me sure, but do you actually like me? I have some verses for you. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves you. He will take great delight in you. In his love, he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Psalm 18:19b says, "He rescued me because he delighted in me.” Psalm 149:4 says, "For the Lord takes delight in his people.” He delights in us. We are loved by a good father who also likes us. God is not going to delight in something he doesn't like. You don't rejoice with singing over something you don't like. His delight from these verses shows that he loves us and he likes us. He takes pleasure in his people, not because of anything we've done, but because he made us and we're his.
This week, our challenge for you is to meditate on the Zephaniah passage. Meditate on Zephaniah 3:17 every day on your card on the program. You can tear it off and mark that you're going to do that every day that you're going to meditate on this until you start believing it. Sometimes we just got to repeat it over and over. We got to preach scripture to ourselves. And the more we focus on the word and we meditate on scripture, the easier it will be for us to believe and to live like it. So I encourage you, commit to doing that this week. We can be confident that we are loved by God. My prayer for us is that we can be convinced of what Romans 8:38 says. “That neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You are loved deeply, wholly, completely, by a good God who made you, who gives you value, who makes you worthy by his love and who delights in you.
Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this truth. We thank you for these tough questions and the answers that your word has for them. May you use these answers and these questions to remind us of who you are, to grow our roots deeper, to make our faith stronger. God, you are so good and you are so faithful. You are not hiding from us. You are not distancing yourself from us. You want us to know you. You want us to have these answers. God, thank you for your love. Thank you that you like us, that you want a relationship with us. You are such a good, good father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.