©2004 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

05/09/04

Being Loved By God Pt. 3

5/9/04 Being Loved By God Pt. 3

During the few minutes we have together this morning

I want to use the time I have

to set the stage for what we will then get into next week.

I want us to pick up our study this morning

where we left off last week,

and just a few words of review may help get our minds back on track.

For the past several months

I have been sharing with you

some of my life’s greatest surprises,

areas of my Christian life

that I now see so differently

from what I had believed or anticipated

during the early days of my life in the family of God.

We’ve looked at a number of them along the way,

and most recently

I have been sharing with you my surprises

about what it really means to be loved by God.

During the past two weeks

we’ve spent most of our time

looking at what, for me, was the greatest hurtle in this whole process,

that of coming to the realization

that my discovery of God’s personal love for me

is not simply one aspect of the Christian life,

it is, in fact, the central theme,

the heart,

the primary work the Spirit of God is seeking to accomplish within each of us.

To the degree that we grow

in a correct understanding

of the true nature of the love of our Lord for us,

to that degree

every other aspect of our walk with the King will fall into place.

To the degree that we aim at any other goal,

to that degree we will meet with frustration,

and confusion in our Christian lives.

And then last week

we spent most of our time

looking at two statements

in which God reveals to us how our love for God grows within us,

and how that love will impact our practical living.

The first statement came from I John 4:19 where John writes,

We love him, because he first loved us.

He’s telling us

that, once we come to Christ

and He has accomplished within us

that recreative work in which He places a new heart within,

once that work is accomplished within us,

whenever we correctly see our God

we will respond by loving Him.

Just as it is a child’s nature to respond in love

to the love shown to him by his parents,

so it is the child of God’s nature

to respond in love to our God

whenever we see Him and the true nature of His love correctly.

Which means, of course,

that the only things

that have the power to prevent the Christian from entering into a deep love union with our God

are those things that have the power

to blind us to the true nature of His love for us.

And I really do have to repeat what I just said

with the hope that you don’t loose it

in the flood of words that you’ll hear pouring out of me this morning.

The only things

that have the power to prevent the Christian from entering into a deep love union with our God

are those things that have the power

to blind us to the true nature of His love for us.

And just so I’ve done what I can

to make certain you’ve heard what I’m saying,

let me state it the other way around.

If your spirit is in submission to Him,

and if, this instant, you could see Him exactly as He is,

if you knew His thoughts about you,

and His heart attitude toward you,

if you had a clear and unhindered view of His love for you,

you would respond to that love

with a love response to him

that would utterly,

and completely,

and eternally transform your life.

And how can I say that with such confidence?

Well, I can say it because that message forms the central theme

of everything being given to us in the New Testament writings,

but if you’d like it in a single sentence,

I John 3:2 will do nicely.

1JO 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

The first part of that verse makes sense to us.

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be.

We know in our spirits that we are His children.

At the deepest level of our being

everything really does cry out to God as our Father.

But we also know

this is definitely NOT as good as it gets.

What we see going on in our lives

isn’t even remotely what we really long for.

Most of the time

we spend most of our efforts

fighting doubts,

and fears,

and confusion,

and temptations,

and responses within ourselves that are anything but what we want.

Right on, John!

It has DEFINITELY not as yet appeared what we shall be.

But then he goes on to make that second remarkable statement.

We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

All of the confusion,

and the ignorance,

and the fears,

and the doubts,

and the misinterpretations of His actions will be gone.

We will see instantly,

perfectly His true mind and heart of love for us,

and we will respond in perfect love to what we see.

Which means, of course,

that even now,

on this side of His appearance,

the key battle we fight is still the same.

It is not a battle for MORE POWER,

or the search for some secret knowledge,

or the pursuit of entrance into some special experience

that has the ability to transform our lives.

It is, quite simply,

the daily battle for our correct understanding

of the mind and heart of our God toward us.

Are you angry at your God right now?

Are you afraid of Him?

Are you fighting against something He has said,

convinced there is no way your needs can ever be met if you obey Him?

Are you working very hard

to create for yourself

a “God-free” life,

because you are secretly terrified at what might happen

if you ever let Him in on His terms?

Well, let me offer you a question,

and then a statement that might help.

First the question.

Are you honestly pleased with the inner quality of your life right now?

Are your relationships working the way you want them to?

Do you like yourself,

and find it easy to love those around you

and receive their love in return?

Do you find that your spirit sometimes just overflows with joy

in response to the life you’ve been given by your God?

OK, that’s four questions, not one,

but they’re all tied together.

And then, here’s the statement.

If you found yourself responding to those questions

by saying, “Well, no...not really.”,

then maybe it’s time to reexamine that battle

that you have going on between you and your God.

And if so,

I can assure you of one thing for certain -

the battle you’re fighting is a battle that’s all based on lies,

lies you have believed about your God.

If you could see Him as He really is,

when you see Him as He really is

you’ll wonder why you ever doubted,

or feared,

or hid from Him in the first place.

And before we finish this series on discovering the love of God,

we’ll look at 4 major forces

that war against that discovery in our lives.

And then we ended last week

by looking at a statement made by Christ Himself,

in which He explained to us

the relationship between our growing discovery of His love for us

and our practical performance,

the way we live out our Christian lives on a daily basis.

He stated it in John 14:15, and then repeated it again in verse 23.

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments...

If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word...”

The world of religion

attempts to offer the human race

all sorts of different motivations for improved performance.

Nearly all of them are emotion-based,

intended to bring about a sufficiently strong feeling

that will then drive the follower into being better and doing better.

Most of them aim at negative emotions -

fear,

guilt,

shame.

“If you don’t change your ways

God will fling you out of His family

and wash His hands of you in disgust forever.”

“After all Christ has done for you,

aren’t you ashamed of yourself?

Don’t you owe Him more in response?”

“If you were arrested for being a Christian,

would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

Some of them aim at positive emotions,

promising special recognition within the religious community

or eternal rewards after death for exceptional performance.

But, like all emotion-based actions,

they last only as long as the emotion lasts,

and in the end they are powerless to bring about

any enduring change within us.

As Paul put it so powerfully

in his letter to the Colossians,

COL 2:23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

They look good,

they sound great,

they simply don’t work.

The only adequate, enduring motivation

for bringing about true transformation in our lives

is our personal confrontation with the true nature of the love of God for us.

Only His hand in ours,

His arms of love around us

can give us the courage and the strength we need

to go through the healing process.

OK, that’s where we’ve been during the past couple of weeks.

Now, I’ll tell you right now

that what I’m going to do during the rest of our time together this morning

is very likely not going to be what you want me to do.

Up to this point in our discussion about being loved by God

we’ve seen that discovering His love is the central theme

in all that He is doing in our lives,

and we’ve seen

that every significant change in our lives

grows out of that discovery.

So the next logical thing should be

for me to explain to you

how you can go about discovering His love.

And that is something I simply cannot do.

I can tell you that He loves you,

I can give you countess external evidences and expressions of that love,

beginning with the greatest expression of them all - His death in your place for your sins.

But facts, truth alone does not awaken our spirits

to the living reality of God’s personal love for us.

I cannot tell your spirit that God loves you in a way your spirit can hear it.

Only God Himself can do that.

In the past 35 years

I have know many people within the church world

who really don’t like God very much at all,

people who seem to be convinced that He doesn’t like them much either.

They know all about His death for their sins.

They’ve read all the same verses I’ve read

about the way in which His love has motivated Him

to pour out on them every spiritual blessing,

freely giving them everything they need for life and godliness.

And yet their spirits don’t overflow with gratitude toward Him.

In fact, they forever hold Him at arm’s length away from them,

mistrusting His intentions

and misinterpreting His actions.

Why is that?

It is because the God they have created in their minds

is not the God who really exists.

Somewhere along the way

they have accepted as truth

a twisted and distorted caricature of the God who really exists,

and then they have entered into a mental,

and emotional,

and spiritual warfare with that caricature.

During the past 35 years of public teaching

I have continued to search for more effective ways

of leading the minds and hearts of those I teach

into a clear awareness of the truth of God’s love for us.

Most of the time

I come away from those efforts

less than satisfied with what I’ve been able to do

because true love cannot be taught.

It can only be experienced.

But even though I cannot teach you into an awareness of the love of God for you,

I can make you aware of those barriers that war against our personal discovery of His love,

and I can share with you

what I have come to recognize as some of the greatest barriers in our lives

that prevent us from the discovery of the truth.

And next week

we’ll look at the four barriers that I have found to be the most destructive.