The Lord’s Message:  The Gospel Makes All the Difference:  God’s Love Never Ends

The Lord’s Message:  The Gospel Makes All the Difference:  God’s Love Never Ends
Date:  November 3, 2024
Where:  Tilghman Methodist Church
Scripture Reference:  1 John 3:1-3

An excerpt from Christianity Today, October 5, 1982:  “As Vice President, George Bush represented the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev’s widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev’s wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest. There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband.”  Leonid Brezhnev’s wife’s hope was that the Gospel makes all the difference: God’s love does not stop at the grave, but continues forever, it never ends.

            Let us pray.

            The Apostle John explains this love as lavish.  He says in 1 John 3:1a, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us.”  Lavish means to bestow something in generous or extravagant quantities.  Another way of saying what the Apostle John said is that God bestows His love on us in generous or extravagant quantities.  The Apostle Paul says in Romans 5:10-11 that this love is so lavished that when we accept this love, we are changed from being enemies to God to reconciliation.  John has another name for this reconciliation, child of God.  The transformation that we receive when we accept God’s lavished love is “that we should be called children of God!  And this is what we are!”  We have gone from being enemies to God to being children of God.  We have gone from sinner to saint.  We have gone from death to life. 

            This new identification as God’s children gives us five benefits, Love, Transformation, Hope, Purification, and Humility. 

            Love from God.  I would like you to think about this, the God that made the universe, the planets, the sun, the earth, the plants, and animals, made you and loves you, so much that He was willing to send His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to pay the penalty for your, and my, sins.  There is nothing that we can do or not do that would stop God from loving us.  Paul says in Romans 8:37-39.  I am sorry for the people that do not know how much God loves them, 1 John 3:1c. 

            We are transformed by the love of God.  In verse 2, we are being changed and we do not know what we are going to be, but when Jesus appears we shall see Him as He is.  The first transformation starts when we accept the relationship that Jesus offers to us.  The love of God changes us.  It changes what we think.  Paul says that we should think about things that are God worthy, Philippians 4:8-9.  We begin to act more like Jesus, Romans 8:28.  The final transformation comes when Jesus returns to the earth, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. 

            God’s love gives us hope.  In Lamentations 3:21-23, Jeremiah is preaching to himself during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.  Jeremiah is reminding himself of God’s love, mercy, and kindness.  This gives Jeremiah hope to endure the siege.  The steadfast love of God never ceases.  Despite financial hardship, news of medical disease, natural disaster, or relationship problems, God’s love gives us hope for now and in the future.  “Everyone who has this hope…”

            God’s loves purifies us.  In 1 John 1:7-9, the all-encompassing work of Christ on the cross covers all our filthy sins with the blood of Jesus.  When Jesus said from the cross, “It is finished,” the work of salvation was completed.  When we accept God’s love through His Son Jesus, the Holy Spirit works within us to expose our sin, in order that we can confess those sins and receive forgiveness and repentance. 

            God’s love humbles us.  When you take time and think about what God has done for you and there is no way that you deserve any of this, then you are humble.  You will freely surrender your will to God. 

            This is what Leonid Brezhnev’s wife hope when she made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest.  That is why all believers in Jesus have faith when our loved ones die, or we face our own death that God’s love never ends. 

            My good friend, who has lost her husband, her son, her parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts and now lost her niece wrote on Facebook that despite all she has gone through, she knows that God’s loves never ends and one day, she will see Jesus face to face.  That is the hope that she holds onto every day. 

            That is the hope that we need to hold onto.  If we do, we will all grow together in faith.  After all, we are all children of God.  The Gospel makes the difference:  God love never ends.  Amen.