Investigating God #11
Faithful Love
Steve W.
Reeves
stevesermons.blogspott.com
INTRODUCTION:
A. In
the city of Miami, Florida, a woman named Judith Bucknell was murdered. She was the 106th homicide for that particular year. Judith was 38 years old. She lived in a
fashionable luxury community called “Coconut Grove.” She had a good career, wore
stylish clothes, drove a new car and by all accounts seemed to be the epitome of
success. What made Judith’s situation unique was the discovery of her diary. In those
personal pages she revealed her insecurity. She feared getting old, getting fat and
getting pregnant. She was not happy. Her life had gone from one relationship to
another. She wrote, “Why can’t I find someone to love me?”
1. The need to feel loved is universal. From the day we are born until the day we die
each of us needs security, significance and satisfaction. We need to feel loved.
2. It is difficult to feel loved in a society that is becoming increasingly isolated.
a. Electronic communication and social media have created a world of impersonal
relationships.
b. Instead of speaking to one another face to face we rely on texting, Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter or Snap-chat. Conversations are transmitted by e-mail.
Education is received through distance learning and on-line classes. Groceries
can be ordered on-line and delivered to your home. You can shop from home
with Amazon and Wayfair without every communicating with another person.
3. In the loss of social interaction many people feel unloved, isolated and lonely.
4. This year the state of Arkansas mandated that public-school teachers receive
training in teen suicide prevention. Did you know that suicide is one of the leading
causes of death among young people and the elderly? A high school principle
conducting one of these workshops emphasized the importance of letting every
student know they are loved.
B. My objective in this message is to communicate to you the enormous extent of God’s
love for you.
1. There is a passage of Scripture that communicates this objective.
2. In the New Testament book of Ephesians the writer, Paul, expressed his prayer or
all Christians. Those living in his time and those living in our time.
3.In Ephesians 3:14-19 he wrote, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He
would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with
power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts
through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to
comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and
depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may
be filled up to all the fullness of God.”
a. Paul wanted his readers to “know the love of Christ” and be filled with “fullness
of God” (vs. 19). Notice how he bowed before the Father (vs. 14), that they might be trengthened through the Spirit (vs. 16) so that Christ might dwell in their
hearts by faith (vs. (vs. 17). b.
b. Consider the four dimensions of love mentioned in this text.
I. HOW WIDE IS GOD’S LOVE?
A. You can never get around God’s love.
1. Wherever you go God’s love is there.
2. You can no more escape God’s love than you can escape God Himself.
3. The Old Testament account of Jonah reminds us that we cannot ruin away from
God. Jonah tried to run away from God’s call by going as far away as possible
(Tarshish). You can run from God but you cannot hide!
B. There is no place you will ever go that God’s love is not available.
1. You may feel lonely, isolated, ignored, rejected, unappreciated, overlooked, or
homesick. God’s love is right there.
2. In today’s world of satellite and digital TV there are hundreds of channels! This
had not always been the case. When I was growing up we had just four
channels. If your TV was not tuned to the proper channel you had a screen full
of static. It wasn’t that programming was not being transmitted. The difficulty
was with the receiver.
3. If you are not experiencing God’s love the difficulty is not with the transmitter.
Your receiver (heart) needs some fine tuning.
II. HOW LONG IS GOD’S LOVE?
A. Is there an end to God’s love? Does He ever stop loving us?
1. In an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, Opie brought home a report card with
straight “A’s.” His “Pa” was so proud he bought Opie a new bicycle. Then Opie
found out the teacher had made a mistake. He made an “F” in math. He decided
to run away. When his “Pa” caught up with him Opie said, “I was going to run
away until I could make you proud of me again.”
2. A lot of people are this way about God. We think we have to earn God’s love by
keeping rules, being good, coming to church, reading our Bibles, not cussing,
not cheating, not stealing, not viewing porn or having sex outside of marriage
and not doing drugs. If we do any of those things we think, “It’s no use, God
doesn’t love me.”
3. In his book, Where Is God When I Hurt, Phillip Yancey tells of a man who had
struggled with alcohol for years. When someone asked, “Do you believe in
God?” he replied, “Yes, but I don’t think God believes in me anymore.”
B. There is nothing you have done or will ever do that would make God stop loving
you. His love never ends.
1. The world’s love is temporary.
2. The world’s love is here one day and gone the next.
3. God’s love is so passionate that He takes extreme measures to show you.
a. Perhaps you’ve seen someone extend a marriage proposal on a billboard or
on television or on a banner trailing an airplane.
b. God’s love proposal to you was extended on a cross by His Son.
III. HOW HIGH IS GOD’S LOVE?
A. Here’s what Paul wrote in Romans 8:37-38, “But in all these things we
overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor powers, 39 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.
B. Several members of our youth group and their chaperones recently made a trip to
Colorado where the climbed Mt. Arkansas. The summit of Mt. Arkansas is 13,500
feet. I admire those who made this trek.
1. Some of you are facing some formidable mountains in your life right now.
2. For you who are freshmen in college the entire experience might seem a little
overwhelming and intimidating.
3. For some entering your senior year you may be wondering what lies beyond
college.
4. Wherever you are in life’s journey there are mountains to face.
C. God’s love is higher than any challenge you are facing. In Joshua 1:9 as Joshua
prepared to assume leadership of Israel following the death of Moses the Lord
said, “Do not be troubled or dismayed for I, the Lord your God, am with you
wherever you go.”
IV. HOW DEEP IS GOD’S LOVE?
A. Have you ever felt low?
1. The lowest spot in the state of Arkansas is the Ouchita River at 55 feet above
sea level. By comparison Searcy is 245 feet above sea level.
2. The lowest spot in the United States is Badwater Basin located in Death Valley,
California. It has an elevation of 279 feet (85 m) below sea level.
3. The lowest spot in the world is the Dead Sea in Israel. It has an elevation of
1,391 feet (424 m) below sea level.
4. The lowest spot in the sea is Challenger Deep, at the bottom of the Mariana
Trench, 36,201 feet below sea level.
5. Even at the lowest point on Earth God is still there. If God is there, His love is
there.
B. There is no depth to which you can sink in your life that God’s love cannot reach.
1. You may be laid low physically be sickness or disease.
2. You may be low emotionally due to depression or discouragement.
3. You may be low spiritually because of sin.
4 You may be low in your marriage, financially, in your job or in bondage to an
addiction.
5. I want you to know that no matter how low you may be God’s love can plunge
the deepest depths and rescue you.
ONCLUSION:
A. Judith Bucknell never found the one thing she wanted more than anything. All of the
wealth, luxury, status and pleasure could not fill the hole in her heart. The reason is,
as Augustine said, “we have a God shaped hole” that can only be filled by Him.
B. May I encourage you to turn to Jesus Christ for the love you need both now and in
eternity.
