John – Mt Freedom Baptist Church

In this series of messages, we have examined God’s love. We found that God is love by His very nature. God manifested His love in the world when Jesus – God the Son – was embodied in the flesh of the man Jesus of Nazareth. God’s Spirit fills the heart of every believer with His love in the hour we first believe. On the evening He was betrayed to be crucified, Jesus demonstrated the sacrificial love we are to offer people when He washed His disciples feet, then He gave them (and us) a “new” commandment, that we are to love one another just as He has loved us, saying that all people would recognize by our love that we are His disciples.

We have seen that God Himself is the very definition of love. Love is not an aspect of God’s character. Nor is love one of God’s creations. Love is the very essence of God. Logically then, since God is love, Jesus who is God in human flesh is God’s essence of love embodied. But the love of Jesus is much more than a state of being. Jesus clearly demonstrates His love through action. The apostle Paul wrote that Jesus demonstrates His love for us in giving His own life for sinful mankind. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is indeed the ultimate demonstration of God’s loving nature. But Jesus also demonstrated God’s love throughout His earthly ministry by acts of selfless service to His children. Jesus used the example of washing His disciples’ feet on the night He was betrayed – including His betrayer Judas Iscariot! Afterward He commanded them (and us) to serve those around us sacrificially just as He had demonstrated.

God’s love is unexplainable because our limited human capacity for love can’t truly understand God’s boundless love. People fall in and out of love, but God’s love never changes and lasts forever. We give our love to another most often based on the character and behavior of our loved one. If our feelings about them change, we stop loving them. But God loves us regardless of who we are or how we act, and He will always love us just because we are the ones He loves. God extends His love to everyone, and Jesus demonstrated His love for us by sacrificing His own life on the cross in our place. Perhaps the apostle John said it best when he wrote in 1 John 4:8 simply “…God is love.”

In his letter to the church at Colossae, Paul addressed a misconception among them that Jesus can’t be Immanuel – God in human flesh, because their view was that all flesh is inherently evil. Paul reminded them that Jesus – the Word of God – is the instrument by Whom our Three-In-One God created the world. Therefore Jesus was before all things as John reminds us in the introduction of his gospel account. In describing this concept to the Colossians, Paul used the Greek word πρωτεύω) prōteuō – preeminent. In our lives and our belief, Jesus must not only be important. He must be the only and central focus of our entire being. In other words, we must hold Him “Preeminent.”

As we celebrate Fathers Day, it is helpful to look at how Jesus modeled His own relationship with His father during His ministry on Earth. The defining characteristic of that relationship is connection. Jesus was in continual communication with His Father as He accomplished the mission on Earth that He was given by God the Father. Then, by dying on the cross in our place, Jesus made the way for us to enter into that same kind of relationship with God.

In finishing up our series on God’s grace, it’s important to remember that it is certainly God’s grace alone through which we are saved out of death in our sins – His saving grace, and His grace is sufficient for us to carry us through whatever we might encounter in this life – His sustaining grace. Along the way, God’s grace is perfecting us day-by-day into the very image of God’s Son Jesus – His sanctifying grace. Finally, throughout this life and our eternal life to come, God’s grace is and will forever be poured out in infinite measure upon His children who have believed on the Name and Gospel of Jesus for salvation – God’s securing grace.

God has chosen each of His followers for His specific purposes. Some of us will seem to move from blessing to blessing while others will have to endure seemingly endless sorrows and frustrations. From time to time, most of us question God’s purposes as we make our way along the path God has ordained for us. We are tempted to compare our own lives with those of others – particularly other believers. In such seasons, we need to always remember that God is sovereign in all things and He is always working His perfect plans in our lives and through our lives. So instead of comparing our own circumstances with those of others, we must seek to learn God’s purpose in the things He has led us to and move confidently in assurance that whatever God has led us to He will also lead us through for His own glory.

Jesus frequently taught that whoever would be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven must be the servant of all in our lives. Jesus Himself modeled this life of service for us, perfectly fulfilling the prophecy we find in Isaiah 53 of God’s servant who takes upon Himself God’s rightful punishment (death) for the sins of all mankind. Jesus Himself said that He offered Himself as a ransom for many. So, since we have this perfect model of servitude shown to us by our LORD, we must also humble ourselves and become servants of all.

Thomas gets a bad rap and the common nickname “Doubting Thomas” due to the well-known stories from the gospel of John in which Thomas first refused to believe the other apostles’ report about the resurrected Jesus appearing to them, and then a week later Jesus’ mild rebuke of Thomas saying, “Be not unbelieving, but believing.” But does Thomas really deserve our scorn and ridicule. After all, the other apostles refused to believe the report from the women to whom Jesus appeared at the empty tomb until He appeared to them later. Furthermore, once Thomas touched and saw the resurrected Jesus for himself, his faith in the Gospel was fulfilled as he fell down in worship declaring, “My LORD and my God!”

On the evening He was betrayed, Jesus gave a new commandment to His disciples – that we are to love one another, saying that all people will know that we disciples of Jesus by the love we show toward one another. Later in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed for all of those who would come to believe in His Gospel through the words of His disciples. We who are followers of Jesus have a sacred calling from our LORD to go forth and share the Good News of salvation in Him with the lost and dying world all around us who desperately need to hear. Therefore, Pastor Brian asks simple yet critical question. In response to our call from Jesus, Will you go?

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