First Presbyterian
Church of Inglewood
100 North Hillcrest Ave
Inglewood, California
90301
Telephone numbers:
(310) 677-5133 Fax (310) 330-8342
Electronic mail: PRESBYTS@SBCGLOBAL.NET
Valentine Day, Sunday, February
14, 2010
Rev. Dr. Harold E. Kidd
JUST BECAUSE
“We love Him because He first
loved us.” 1 John 4:19
As we read and study the Bible, the
more we pray, we come to understand that from Genesis to Revelation it is God’s
Living Love Letter, God’s Valentine’s Day Message to Humanity. For if there is
one dominant, recurring theme connecting all 66 books of the Bible into one
consistent whole, it is that God Loves Us. Amen.
This Living Love Letter is filled
with example after example of how God continues to reach out to His creation
after we fell into sin, and how His love for us continues to reach out to us expressed
through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who came to redeem
us.
“But God demonstrated His own love
toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” “God so loved the World that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life.” The story of
Abraham’s willingness to offer up his son Isaac at the command of God, Hosea’s
love for his wayward spouse Gomer, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins,
the Parable of the Great Marriage Feast are but a few examples to express the
depths to which God loves us.
If we are ever in doubt or afraid of
our future destiny, of what’s going to happen to us after our physical death,
or God’s judgment, we can find comfort in this Living Love Letter from God
which reminds us, that, “Neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor
any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The Bible is a Living Love Letter from God.
And Jesus has become the ink through which God has declared the depth of His
love for us.
Jesus reminds us in Mark 12 that all
the commandments can be condensed into two: ”And you shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with
all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is
this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment
greater than these.”
And so in the Old Testament we have
stories like Ruth and Naomi, or David and Jonathan, to help us understand what
it means to love our neighbors as we do ourselves. The kind of love that says,
I will be there for you in the best of times as well as in the worst of times, no
matter what. And in the New Testament we have the life of Jesus, which is all
about love. Amen. Of how Jesus loved the unlovable.
While Jesus did teach on the torments
of Hell, He taught more on the subject of love. Amen. When
Lazarus died, Jesus wept, and the crowd responded, “See how he loved Him.” And before
the crucifixion, He left His disciples with One Holy Commandment, “Love one
another even as I have loved you.” The Bible is God’s Love Letter. A manual on
loving God, ourselves, and our neighbors.
Our love for God is to be expressed
in how we demonstrate our love for each other in a variety of relationships. And
as we search the scriptures, the Bible has a lot to say concerning “What’s Love
Got To Do With It”. The book of
Ephesians, for example, contains rules governing relationships between husbands
and wives, parents and children, slaves and masters, and is part of a larger body
of scripture known as The Household Codes.
And the theme within all these
relationships, that holds every relationship together, is Christ and His love
for His church. And so whether we are single, married, or widowed, in the love
of Christ we can find fulfillment that enriches whatever relationships we are
in. In any relationship, if we pursue it with the same love with which Christ
loves the church, God will bless that relationship. The Household Codes represent an ideal, in
that any relationship is at best a work in progress.
The marriage relationship, if one is
married, is to be one wherein love is to be mutually given and received. “Husbands,
love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
The way that Jesus expressed his love for the church is a sacrificial,
lay-down-my-life kind of a love.
I know that we sometimes in the
church get hung up over our interpretation of “Wives submit to your husbands as
to the Lord”. I’m not going down that
road, but it does not mean a spouse is to be a doormat, but that she would
willingly give herself in a supportive way to her husband. Because behind very good man there has to be a
good woman, and vise versa. Amen. And when both husband and wife are working
together in a loving, respectful, and supportive way, their marriage is blessed
in the Lord.
The Bible is God’s Living Love
Letter, Amen. Having many different
themes, lessons, and stories of love. The text before us, 1 John 4:19, is “We
love Him because He first loved us.” The NIV translation of this verse says,
“We love because He first loved us.”
This was written by John to remind the church that God’s love is the
source of all human love. Verse 8b says, “God is love.” Meaning every quality within God’s character
is an expression of His love. Love is the essence of His Eternal Being.
His goodness is an expression of His
love. His grace and mercy are expressions of His love. His wisdom is the wisdom
of love. His omnipotence is the power of love. The judgment of God is perfect
because it will be exercised out of His love. His immutability -- meaning God
is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow -- is the constancy of His love. He
loved us yesterday, He loves us today, and He will keep on loving us throughout
all eternity. His love is the manifestation of His omnipresence -- meaning,
wherever God is, and God is everywhere, His love is present at work in us and
throughout His creation.
We can run from God, but we cannot
outrun God. The love of God will find a person. “You have hedged me O God
behind and before. Where can I go from
Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven you are there; if I
make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.”
The Love of God is the message of the
Bible. And because He has loved us, we ought to love everybody. Everyone ought
to be someone’s valentine. Because we all recognize what this world needs is
more love.
And because God is love, John
declares that it is impossible for anyone to be a child of God, and not love
other people. Just as our children possess
characteristics of both parents, a child of God cannot love God and hate
people, because God, Who is love, dwells in us. That’s why he writes in vs. 20, “If someone
says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not
love his brother (sister) whom he has seen, how can he love God, Whom he has
not seen?”
I want to close this message with an
illustration we discussed in Wednesday’s Noon Day Bible Study, concerning the
Love of God. In the heavenly Court of
God’s justice, there is a courtroom. In
this courtroom there is this great bench. And sitting behind this bench is God,
the righteous Judge of all living, past, present, and future. And one day there
is going to be an accounting, wherein the roll will be called, and the record
will be given, and everyone must, says Paul, give account for their lives before
God.
In this Heavenly Courtroom, seated
behind one desk is the Devil, the Accuser of the Saints. He is the prosecuting attorney. His job is to get a conviction that will send
our soul to a burning hell. His job is
to present to God every sin, every mistake, every word, every act, every
thought, every meditation, every omission that will get him our conviction. As a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour,
the Devil is working right now to see if he can get a verdict when we stand
before God of guilty as charged.
On the other side of this courtroom, however,
there is another bench. Seated behind this bench are you and me. To use the
words of the old song, “You’ve got to stand your trial, and you’ve got to stand
it by yourself.” And the One Who sits at
our side as our Court Appointed Attorney is Jesus. You know the Bible does
declare that “there is but one mediator between God and humanity, and He is the
Lord.”
He is our Court Appointed Attorney,
because there is not enough money in this world or good works that you or I
could ever do to pay Jesus to take our case and represent us. We just have to
accept his appointment by grace through faith.
As the case gets under way, the Devil
brings up every eyewitness to our sins, including our conscience and
meditations of the heart. He’s got a
mighty good case in that all have sinned. Air tight in that we do stand guilty
as accused, based upon the factual evidence. Did steal that little boy’s candy
bar at age 7, did shoot that cat with our BB gun at age 11, did cheat on that
biology exam at age 16. O, it gets a
whole lot worse, but just to name a few.
But then up steps Jesus. He recognizes that every one of the devil’s
allegations may have some truth to them. But in pleading our case before God, Jesus
decides to throw himself upon the mercy of the court. So He does not seek to disprove the
condemnations of the devil. What He does
is present the love of God that covers a multitude of sins.
“As many as call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved.” “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” “God commended
His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the
ungodly.” “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for the
remission of sins. Do this, as often as
you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” “In Him we have redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” “But God,
who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even
when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace
you have been saved).”
Finally, after giving a record of God’s
love for humanity, Jesus holds up his nail-pierced hands and says, “Father,
just because I love them, charge that to my account. Just because I paid the
price. Forgive them for they know not what they do.” And God lowers the gavel, not guilty, not
guilty. Not guilty. We love Him because
He first loved us!
He didn’t have to do it, but He did. No reason in and of ourselves, no rhythm to
our madness, but just because He loves us so.
And what John is trying to
communicate to us on this Valentine’s Day Sunday is just because. The longer we
are together -- whether it be as spouses, as friends, as parents and children,
as neighbors, as a church family, as single persons, widowed, divorced -- in Christ
it should be becoming a “just because” kind of a relationship. “We love, because He first loved us.”