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God is Love

From the Series: God Is
Speaker: Craig Groeschel
Date: June 7, 2009

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Transcript

God loves you! God loves you! I’ve heard that my entire life. And while I understand how God can love you, it’s hard for me to understand how God can love me. The Bible says: For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son. I can see how God loves the world and how God loves you, but when it comes to me, I know how bad I am and I know how insignificant I feel.

Welcome today to One Prayer churches in countries around the world. My name is Craig Groeschel and it’s one of the greatest honors of my entire life to unite with you, to stand with your churches and your pastors and together talk about who God is. Imagine thousands of churches in countries around the world united together to talk about who God is. Today I want to talk to you about one of the attributes of God. I want to talk to you about his unconditional love for us, and as I do, I’ll just tell you honestly that I’ve heard my whole life that God loves you, God loves you. And I believe it with all my heart – that God loves you, but it’s often hard to apply his love toward me because I know how insignificant and unworthy I feel. As we talk about God’s love, I want to start today with two questions that I’ve often asked myself and perhaps many of you can relate.

The first question I’ve asked myself over and over again is this – why would God love someone as bad as me? Why would God love someone as bad as me? See, I know all the things I’ve done wrong, I know all the dark thoughts I’ve had, I know all the people I’ve hurt. In fact, one time, years ago, right before I was going to preach, I did something that made me feel so undeserving of the love of God. Where I live, many of us have basements and we bought a house that had a basement. No one told me that basements often flood, so we put all our valuables down in the basement and one day, before I was going to preach, this big rain storm hit and our basement flooded and my wife, Amy’s, wedding dress was down there and she was like, “Save the day!” So I ran down there as heroic as I could and got in the basement, I was standing waist deep in water and I was looking for the pump that the previous owners had left to pump out the water. So I was diving down into the water trying to be a hero and finally I found the cord to the pump and I pulled it out and I looked and I thought, ‘where do you plug this thing in?’ I looked above me and there was a rafter with an extension cord coming over the top and I thought, ‘oh, there is where you plug this in.’ In waist deep water with my wife screaming at me, I held one cord and the other one and thought to myself, ‘if I’m really fast, like faster than the speed of electricity, I can do this.’ My wife was like, ‘save everything but don’t die!’ And all I remember saying was, “Pray for me,” and when I touched the prongs together, this bolt of electricity shot through my body something fierce, and as it was shooting through my body, this bad word formed at the back of my brain. I gotta be honest with you, I’m not one who says bad words. I used to but not now. But this word formed and the electrical current forced it out, and this bad word didn’t just come out once, but it kept coming out, repeatedly. My wife was looking on, thinking, ‘my husband who is about to meet God, his last word on earth is going to be the granddaddy of them all!’ Obviously, I lived to tell about it but I walked out of there with my hair standing straight up and I felt so unbelievably unworthy and sinful. I was to preach that night about the Lordship of Christ and out of my heart just came one of the filthiest words of all time. That may not sound like a big deal to you but it really is a big deal to me. How could God love someone as bad as me? And that’s just the story I can tell you about. There are others but if I told you, people would never come to church! I’ve done so many things wrong and I feel so unworthy. I’m just curious, at all of our One Prayer churches, people participating around the world, how many of you would say you’ve often felt unworthy or undeserving of the love of God? Raise your hand. A lot of us have. And even as we look in the Bible, many people evidently felt this way as well. You can look at Job, when Job really saw God in his purest essence, here’s what Job said in Job 42:5-6:

My ears have heard of You but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore, I don’t even like myself. I despise myself, I can’t even stand me.

Paul, in the New Testament, I Corinthians 15:9, he was reflecting on all the bad things he had done and he said:

For I am the least of the apostles, I don’t even deserve to be an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.

You could almost hear his insecurity as he goes back through his life and realized that before he was a Christian, he used to kill Christians. How could God love someone as bad as me.

The second question I often ask myself is this – why would God love someone so insignificant? Do you ever feel this way? Six billion people on the planet, people all over the world and God’s got these big things going, He’s got wars and natural disasters and epidemics, He’s got poverty, starvation and all these different diseases, and who am I? He’s got world leaders and big players and yet I’m just one of six billion people. Who am I in this whole scheme of things that God would know me and love me? In fact, when you read in the Old Testament, you can see some of the biblical players who, perhaps, had similar feelings of insignificance. In Exodus 3:11 when God was going to raise Moses up to help deliver the Israelites, He said, “Moses, here’s your job.” But Moses said to the Lord God, “Who am I?” ‘I’m a nobody, I’m not good enough, I’m insignificant. Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’

David said the exact same words when he had God’s people together and they were going to worship God and give to God. In I Chronicles 29:14, he said, “But who am I and who are my people that we could give anything to You?” Everything we have in from You. We are bad and we are insignificant. God, how could you love someone like me?

I was on an airplane one time having a great conversation with this guy next to me. We were just getting along great, until he asked me what I did for a living. I said, “I’m a pastor of a church.” All of a sudden, he countenance changed, his mood changed, and he said I want you to know that I don’t believe in God so don’t talk to me about him!” I said, “Fair enough.” He said, “I don’t think you understand me, I don’t believe in God and I don’t want to talk about him!” I said, “I heard you.” He said it a third time, “Don’t be witnessing to me, don’t be pushing religion on me, I don’t believe in God!” That’s when I thought to myself – well obviously you want to talk about it even though you said you didn’t, so I said, “Why don’t you tell me about the God you don’t believe in?” And he said, “I will.” So he got into this deal and he said he didn’t believe in a god who is angry at people and is waiting for people to sin and as soon as they sin, He writes them off and takes great delight in sending them to Hell, I don’t believe in a god like that!” I said, “Dude, I don’t believe in that god either!” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “When I read Scripture, I read about a God who is just and yes sometimes people do go to Hell, but I read about a God who doesn’t just love you, because maybe you’ve heard that your whole life, God doesn’t just love, but God IS love. You see love is not just something that God does, love is who God is.” Write that down.

Who is God? God is love. At One Prayer churches in countries around the world, voices uniting would you say that aloud? Who is God? God is love! One more time, God is love! Scripture says it. I John 4:8, who is God? God is love. And this is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only Son, Jesus, into the world that we might live through Him. This is love. Not that we love God, but that He loves us and He sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Love is not just what God does, it is who He is. When we recognize it’s not just an action that God does, but it is a reflection of the essence of who He is, that changes everything. Then we don’t just believe it is out there somewhere, that God loves you, but because of who He is, there is nothing I can do to earn more love or nothing I can do to stop Him from loving me, because it is not just something He does, you see, it is who God is.

Let me explain it to you this way, because so many people have a hard time recognizing his love. I put together a list of different types of people that God loves starting with A, B, and C. We could have gone through the whole alphabet but that would take a month, so I’ll give you some A’s, B’s and C’s. Who does God love? A’s – God loves artists, astronauts and aerial space engineers. God loves accordion players, ankle-biters, animal rights activists, airplane pilots, athletes, acrobats and accountants, especially during tax season. God loves people from Alabama, Alaska, Africa, Albania, God loves absent-minded people, awkward people, assertive people, authoritarian people, anti-social people and even aggravating people. Yes! God loves the person sitting right by you. Who does God love? B God loves babies and boys and bankers and band leaders and ballerinas and Bible readers and biology teachers, bird watchers, bus drivers, bookworms, bachelors, botanists, bowlers, baby-boomers, boomerang throwers, bee keepers, BBC watchers, blondes, brunettes and people with blue hair! I just had to include blue hairs so we could make sure we covered everybody on Christian television. Who does God love? God loves the beat-up, the burned out, bosses, braggers, bag ladies, bartenders, brats, bushmen and Baptists. Not only does God love Baptists, C, He loves Catholics and Charismatics and Congregationalists and Congressmen and crooks and creeps and cheaters and country music fans! That’s how big his love is. God loves Cubans and Caucasians and Californians and Cambodians and Cherokees and Comanches and Cajuns, God loves cooks and celebrities, cops, cheerleaders, clowns, comedians, and God even loves people who own cats! He does. I hate cats but my kids love cats, so we have a cat. And my cat, as I speak, is about to give birth to kittens. See how bad my cat is, we don’t even know who the father is. God doesn’t just love, it is who He is. And when we recognize who He is, that He is love, that changes everything. So the next time you feel unworthy and undeserving, remember this – God’s love covers your sins. God’s love, Jesus shed his love as a covering for our sins.

I Peter 4:8 says that love covers a multitude of sin. God’s love, it covers your sins. This is so important to me because I did so many things wrong, and growing up, I never felt worthy of God’s love, so I thought I had to work harder and stop doing bad things, I had to be religious and the more I tried to be religious, the more I seemed to do bad things, and it wasn’t until I was in college and I was lost in the middle of more sin than you can imagine, that I started to read the Bible and I read that God truly loved me through Christ and that I could be made right with Him not by my works but by the love of God and by his grace and through his mercy. When I understood that, the only way I could describe it, the biblical term is born again, and that is the most accurate statement I could ever say. I was new. I was like born spiritually. There was something spiritual in me that burst to life and my old nature was gone and everything became new and I was a different person. So I went back into the bar scene that I came out of because I loved those people, so I went back in not to drink, but to offer living water and to share with them about Christ who changed me, and I found that drunk people love to talk about God and they also loved me. Every single drunk person loved me! I love you man!

So one day, we’re in there talking to a man who loved me, we’re talking and he was very interested in talking about God. He was so interested, he said that the music was too loud and asked if we could go outside. So we walked outside and across the street there was a flat-bed trailer with a street preacher on it. My first thought was, ‘praise God, I’ve got reinforcements, we’re going to tag team,’ but what I didn’t realize was that this was a ticked off angry street preacher. I don’t know if you have ticked off angry street preachers in your countries, but in my country, every now and then, there are people on a mission to show how angry they are and preach about it, and that’s what this guy was doing. He pointed right at me and said, “You’re going to Hell you fornicating sinner!” I was like, “Dude, no, I was but not now.” Well, my drunk friend, who loved me, didn’t like the guy who was telling me to go to Hell, so he pointed to the street preacher guy and said, “You’re going to Hell and I’m about to send you there.” God as my witness, this is true. This guy charges the street preacher guy, a fight breaks out and finally I yanked him off the street preacher and this guy just unloaded with more emotion than you can imagine. He said, “See! I told you God doesn’t love me!” He opened a floodgate of spiritual hurt. The louder he cried, the more I tried to convince him that God loves him. He kept saying God didn’t love him, and I kept saying yes He does, and the more we argued, all of a sudden I felt God leading me to do something very strange. I hurt for this guy and I felt like God prompted me to agree with him. I didn’t believe that theologically, but practically that’s what I felt like God was telling me to do. So finally, I went, “You might be right.” And he sobered up and went, “Huh?” And instantly I could see what was going to happen. I said, “Dude, you’re probably right, God probably doesn’t love you.” And He said, “Well, He might.” I said, “No, God loves everybody else but not you, you are the exception, his love is for everyone else, but you’ve been too bad, you probably have sinned one too many times.” And He went, “Unk-uh.” And the next thing you know, the harder I argued I against the love of God, the more passionate he argued for the love of God. And right there on the spot, he led himself to Christ! He shared the Gospel of Jesus with himself. We prayed right there. Can drunk people come to Christ? You better believe they can! I stayed in touch with this guy and two years later he was a volunteer youth pastor. He was changed when he recognized that God doesn’t just love, but that God is love and his love covers a multitude of sin.

All the way back in the Garden, you remember when Adam and Eve sinned and one moment they were naked and not ashamed but when they sinned, they became naked and ashamed, what did God do? God took an innocent animal and he covered their shame with the skin of that animal. New Testament, when Jesus told a story a son who left home and went and partied hard and wasted his father’s wealth and sinned and came home filthy, what did the father do? He welcomed him back and took the robe and covered him. If you feel unworthy today, you are. So am I. That’s what makes his love so beautiful. His love covers our sins.

I love the way it is phrased in the book of Titus, Chapter 3:4-5:

But when the kindness and the love of God are Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but instead, because of his mercy.

When the love of God appears, God’s love covers our sins.

The second thing is this. When you start to feel very insignificant, remember this, it is God’s love that makes you significant. It is his love that makes you who He wants you to be. Jeremiah 31:3 says that God has loved you with what kind of love? God says I’ve loved you with an everlasting love. I’ve drawn you with a loving kindness. God is drawing some of you today with a loving kindness. You may say there are so many of us, how could God care about me?

Let me tell you three quick stories. You can read these in Luke 15. Jesus told three different stories showing the love of God. The first story was about a woman who had ten coins and one day she lost one of the coins and she was so upset because she lost one, she ripped her house apart looking everywhere to find the missing one. There was another story, a father who had two sons and one son left home, and even though there was still another son at home, every day the father went out to the edge of town hoping, praying, waiting and watching, begging for his one son to return. Jesus told a third story about a shepherd who had one hundred sheep, and one day one sheep wandered away, and even though he still had 99 left, he left the 99 because his love called him to pursue the one. So yes, even though there are six billion people in the world and yes, even though, right now, around the world there are literally hundreds of thousands of people hearing the same message at the same moment, do you realize this, that maybe YOU are the one. You in South Africa who used to walk with God but you walked away, his loving kindness is drawing you back. You in the Philippians who ended up divorced and you have shame and guilt and remorse over this and you feel unworthy, God’s loving kindness is drawing you to Himself. You in Chili who have never been part of a church but something is happening today and something is drawing you toward God, that is his love, that is his loving kindness pulling toward Himself. You in Italy, you have a pornography problem, you feel too dirty and too unworthy, God doesn’t just love you, He is loving you right now because love is not just something that He does, it is who He is. You in England who have been an atheist all your life but something is happening right now, something inside you, that is God loving you because it is not just what He does, it is who He is. God is love. Maybe you are the one He is pursuing.

John 3:16: For God so loved the world, take out world and put a blank in there for you to put your name, for God so loved Craig, for God so loved Michael, for God so loved Wan, for God so loved Mary, for God so loved Pierre, for God so loved Taylor and Jennifer, for God so loved you that He gave his one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Love is not something He does, it is who He is.

One of the things that really helps me understand God’s love is having more than one child. When I had my first child, Katie, I was overwhelmed with love for this precious girl. I remember thinking, ‘how could I possibly love another child as much as I love Katie?’ Then God gave us Mandy. She had the most beautiful dark hair and no one gives better hugs in the whole world than little Mandy. I realized that I could love two children with an equally intense yet very, very personal love. Then a couple years later, we were blessed with Anna, the most animated, spunky, Daddy’s little girl that ever existed. And somehow I found even more love in my heart for yet another. A short time later, God blessed us again, this time with our first son, little Sam, the strongest, fiercest little competitor that you’ve ever met and I woke up realizing that my love had somehow increased and I loved four with the most intense and yet personal kind of love. Then there was number five, Stephen Craig, the most adventurous, fearless kid ever, and once again, my heart expanded with even more love. Then one day, there was number six, Rebecca Joy, we call her Jo Jo and she is absolutely the joy of our lives. Six kids, all very different and I love them all with this overwhelming sense of very personal love. As I start to look at my different children, I start to understand how God can love us. Sometimes I feel really bad about myself and I often feel insignificant but by being a father and loving children, I can see how God can love you and God can love me in a very personal sort of way. That’s why we can love each other and we can love Him back. Why? We love because He first loved us.

One time a little girl came running in and said, “Daddy, did you know that God will tell you He loves you if you listen closely enough?” And the Dad looked on and the little girl looked up to heaven and the little girl smiled and said, “See Daddy, I told you, God will tell you He loves you if you listen closely enough. And the Dad thought to himself, ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ but then he realized that maybe he wasn’t listening closely enough. God will tell you that He loves you because it is not just something He does, it is who He is. Listen closely enough.

God, we ask that in this holy moment, there are literally hundreds of thousands of us in countries around the world that we would be overwhelmed and overcome with your unconditional love. God help us know You in a more intimate way. We want to know your power and the truth and your love, show it to us so that we may be forever different. God, I pray that as we as the body of Christ that we hear your word, as we worship and serve and fellowship and reach out, may your love become so real to us that we can’t miss it. I pray that we would be overwhelmed and different because we understand that as believers in Christ, we are living from a position of acceptance, but not because of our works, but because of the love of God through Jesus Christ. May we live in such a way that we reflect your love. Show us your love.

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