Transforming Truths Series David Owens
Sermon #1: “We Are Loved” 1.15.17
Text: Ephesians 3:14-19
A. Let me begin by sharing a few simple, everyday truths:
1. “A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.” – unknown
2. “A bulldog can whip a skunk, but sometimes it's not worth it.” - J. Nowell
3. “A closed mouth gathers no feet.” - Sam Horn
4. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but an onion a day keeps everyone away”. - Cassandra Chatfield
5. “Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way if he gets angry, he'll be a mile away and barefoot.” – unknown
6. “Blessed is he that can laugh at himself, he will never cease to be amused.” – unknown
B. Although there is a bit of humor and a grain of truth in many of these sayings, I wouldn’t exactly call them transforming truths.
1. The Bible, however, is full of truth that can have a profound effect on our lives.
2. God’s truths are truly transformational.
3. In John 8:31-32, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
4. Knowing God’s transforming truths sets us free from all the lies of Satan that have held us captive in lives of sin, failure, and frustration.
5. When I say “knowing God’s truths,” I’m not talking about just knowing them in an intellectual fashion, rather I’m talking about knowing them in a personal and practical way.
6. In order for God’s truths to make a difference in our lives, they must be internalized and exercised by faith.
C. Paul explained this process in Romans 12:1-2, when he wrote, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
1. Oh, how desperately we need the transformation of God in our lives!
2. I, personally, haven’t yet arrived at maturity in Christ, and as I assess us as a church family, I can see that we still have a lot of room for growth.
3. Transformation is based on the power of God and His blessed work within us, and we must begin God’s transformation by inviting God to work in us through the Holy Spirit.
4. Let me ask these questions:
a. Are we ready to admit that we need to change?
b. Are we ready to admit that we can’t do it on our own?
c. Are we ready to allow God to show us how we continue to be unspiritual, and for Him to show us how our thinking and behavior are still conforming to the pattern of this world?
d. Are we ready to allow our minds to be renewed by the truth that sets us free?
5. I’m ready and I hope you are also.
D. Today’s sermon is the first in a series that I want us to work through at the beginning of this new year.
1. I’m calling the series “Transformational Truths.”
2. I believe that God continues to work through His Word to bring about transformation.
3. The writer of Hebrews had this to say about the Bible, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Heb. 4:12)
a. Isn’t that what you experience when you look into God’s Word?
b. Don’t you feel the living word of God spring into action in your soul – illuminating, correcting, convicting and transforming you? It does me.
4. In Paul’s farewell speech to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:32, he said, “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”
5. Throughout this series, I will be trying to do just that – to “commit you to God and to the word of his grace” – for it is able to build us up, transform us, and lead us right to heaven.
E. Today I want us to give attention to a truth that is so basic, and yet it is such a key to being transformed by all of the other truths we will explore and that we need to embrace.
1. The first of the transforming truths is – We are loved by God.
2. I am loved by God and you are loved by God.
3. It doesn’t get any more basic than that. It is one of the first truths we try to teach our children – “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
F. Is this something that you know and believe?
1. Do you know and believe that God loves you?
2. I’m not talking about knowing and believing that God loves us in general, or that God loves the “world.”
3. I’m asking you if you know and believe that God loves you, personally?
4. Do you know and believe that God knows your name and is concerned about you on an individual basis?
G. Max Lucado said it well when he wrote these words in his book A Gentle Thunder: “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If he had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, he’ll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and he chose your heart…Face it, friend. He’s crazy about you.”
1. Does that sound a little farfetched for you?
2. Does God really love each of us that much and that personally?
3. Do you or will you allow yourself to think about God’s love in those terms?
H. I have to admit that I feel so inadequate this morning trying to describe the truth of God’s love.
1. A.W. Tozer, a great American preacher and writer in the first half of the 20th century, said this about the love of God: “The love of God is one of the greatest realities of the universe, a pillar upon which the hope of the world rests. But it is a personal, intimate thing too. God does not love populations, He loves people. He loves not masses, but men.”
2. Then as Tozer attempted to explain God’s love, he wrote, “I can no more do justice to this awesome and wonder-filled topic than a child can grasp a star. Still, by reaching toward the star the child may call attention to it and even indicate the direction one must look to see it. And so, I stretch my heart toward the high, shining love of God so that we may be encouraged to look up and have hope.”
3. Let’s spend the rest of our time this morning stretching our hearts toward the high, shining love of God so that we may be encouraged, have hope, and ultimately be transformed.
I. What does the Old Testament say about the love of God?
1. Psalm 103:8, “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”
2. At least three times God refers to us as “the apple of His eye.” For instance, Psalm 17:7-8 reads, “Show the wonder of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings…”
3. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”
4. How wonderful is all of that?
a. God is abounding in love.
b. We are the apple of His eye. We are sheltered under His wing.
c. God takes great delight in each one of us.
d. He quiets us with his love and rejoices over us with singing.
e. Praise God that He loves us like that! Amen!
J. When we turn to the New Testament, we learn the same truths about the love of God.
1. Jesus told the three parables of Luke 15 in an effort to explain the love that God has even for the sinners and outcasts of society.
a. The three parables are the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.
b. From those parables, we know that God sometimes searches until He finds the one who is lost, or He waits patiently for the lost one to return, but in every case when the lost one is found or returns, then God throws a party.
c. Why? Because He loves us so much.
2. In Luke 12, as Jesus was trying to teach his disciples about the personal nature of God’s love, he said, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Luke 12:6-7)
a. While some of us may have a few more hairs than others, the message remains the same – God loves each of us and knows everything about each one of us.
3. Jesus said that he is the good shepherd who knows his own sheep. (Jn. 10:14-15)
4. G.K. Chesterton, an English apologist in the early 20th century wrote, “All people matter. You matter. I matter. It’s the hardest thing in theology to believe.”
5. Augustine, a Christian writer of the 4th and 5th centuries, wrote, “[God] loves each one of us, as if there were only one of us.”
K. Numerous times in the New Testament, we are told that God’s love for us is proven by the sacrifice of Jesus given on our behalf.
1. The most famous of all verses in the NT, John 3:16, speaks this truth, “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.”
2. Romans 5:6-8 reads, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
3. 1 John 4:9-10, “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.”
4. What more than that could God do to prove His love for you and me?
5. You’ve probably heard this saying, “Someone asked the Lord, ‘How much do you love me?’ The Lord said, ‘This much. Then He stretched out His arms, bowed His head, and died.’ ”
L. One of the more comforting verses about God’s love is found in Romans 8:37-39.
1. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced 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.”
2. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, and nothing we will ever do can change God’s love for us.
3. God loves us unconditionally.
4. Although God’s rewards are conditional, His love is unconditional.
5. Nothing and no one can cause God not to love us any longer.
M. Why is that? Why will God’s love never go away?
1. First, Because God is love - It is His nature to love.
a. Twice in 1 John 4 we read that “God is love.” (verses 8 and 16)
2. Second, Because God’s love is inexhaustible.
a. Look again at a few verses from our Scripture reading for today from Ephesians 3.
b. “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:17b-19)
c. The love of God is so great it surpasses knowledge – it is beyond our ability to completely comprehend.
d. God’s love is so wide – wide enough to encompass everyone – even you and me.
e. God’s love is so long – it is eternal, never-ending, long-suffering, and patient.
f. God’s love is so high – it is the very best, and highest of all – it is perfect.
g. God’s love is so deep – it is absolutely solid and real – it reaches to the deepest parts of our being.
N. Steven Curtis Chapman, a contemporary Christian artist wrote, “In the Gospel, we discover we are far worse off than we thought, and far more loved than we ever dreamed.”
1. Is that the conclusion that you have come to about the Gospel?
2. Oh, how I wish that every single person could understand and appreciate both how lost we were, but how loved we are.
3. 1 John 3:1 declares, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are!”
4. Any voice we hear or thought we have that suggests that God does not or cannot love you or me is a lie from Satan himself, and must be overcome by the truth.
O. I’m praying today that the love of God for you personally has gotten a hold of your life.
1. I’m praying that you have grasped just how wide, and long, and high and deep is God’s love for you.
2. I’m praying that we realize that the love that God has for us cannot and does not change regardless of how much we love Him or how well we obey Him.
3. God’s love never changes.
P. When the reality of God’s love for us makes its way deep into our hearts, then it can have the transforming effect God wants His love to have.
1. When we truly know God’s love, then we can love God in return.
2. When we truly know God’s love, then we can love ourselves as God loves us.
3. When we truly know God’s love, then we can love others with God’s love.
4. When we truly know God’s love, then we can even love our enemies with God’s love.
5. And when we truly know God’s love, then we are able to tell others about the Good News of God’s love for them.
Q. As wonderful and good is the love that we may experience with our spouses and families, our friends and in the church, none can compare with the love of God.
R. Let me tell you about a man named George Matheson.
1. George was only 15 years old when he was told that he was losing what little eyesight he had.
2. Not to be deterred, Matheson continued with his plans to enroll in the University of Glasgow.
3. His determination led to his graduation at age 19.
4. But as he pursued graduate studies in theology, the little eyesight he had vanished and he was completely blind.
5. His sisters studied right along with him in order to assist him.
6. But Matheson’s heart was dealt a blow when his fiancée, unwilling to be married to a blind man, broke off their engagement.
7. After that, George Matheson remained unmarried, but became a beloved preacher in Scotland.
8. Years later, one of his sisters came to him announcing her engagement.
9. Matheson rejoiced with her, but at the same time he felt his own heartache.
10. Matheson consoled himself by thinking about God’s love for him which is never limited, conditional, or withdrawn.
11. Out of that experience, he wrote a hymn that has ministered to many of us over the years.
12. Here is the first verse of that hymn:
“O love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.”
S. I hope that is the way you and I feel about the love of God?
1. I hope it’s a love that will not let us go?
2. I hope it’s a love that we can rest our weary souls in?
3. I hope it’s a love that causes us to give our lives in return?
T. If you are not a Christian this morning, then we invite you to experience the soul-saving love of God.
1. Allow the love of God to come into your life and bring transformation.
U. If you are a Christian this morning, but you have been doubting God’s love for you, or resisting God’s love for you, or wandering away from His love, then know that God still loves you and invites you to come home to His open, loving arms.
1. Let’s allow the truth of God’s love for us to have its transforming effect in our lives.
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