Welcome to the River Mountain Church Preaching Library. It is our prayer and indeed our hope that this message might inspire your life. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the preaching of God's Word. So I want to talk about the Father's love for His children. Do you know how much you are loved? by your Father. This is almost an impossible sermon because the Bible tells us that the love of God surpasses all of our comprehension, all of our understanding. It's impossible to grasp. But I want to talk, if I could, just about three things that make God's love so powerful and unique to us. What is the love of God like? Well, first, you need to know this, absolutely have it burned into your heart and mind that the love of God is completely unconditional. Do you know that? He loves you just as much today as he did on the day you were born, and he loves you just as much on the day that you leave the earth. His love never changes and never alters. How many people know our love changes and alters all over the board? It's very inconsistent. We love people that love us. People do something mean to us. But the love of God, no matter what we do to Him, never changes. It is always consistent. It is unconditional. What the Bible refers to it as steadfast love. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. He will never stop being merciful to me. He will never stop forgiving me. He will never stop loving me. They are new every morning. Therefore, we hope in Him. We're hoping in the consistency, the unbrokenness of His love When Joshua was going over to the promised land and was having trepidations about becoming the leader because Moses was such a powerful man of God, the Lord said to Joshua, I will be with you, I will not leave you or forsake you. And we're told in the book of Hebrews, the same verses are quoted about us. This is not something just for Joshua. It's for all of God's children. It says, keep your life free from the love of money. Be content with what you have. Why? Why should you be content with what you have? Because you have a Heavenly Father who is constantly looking at you, constantly watching you, and never forsaking you, knowing every need you have before you even have the need, and you can become confident that your Father will always help you. How many people had a father who helped them? Our fathers, our earthly fathers, help us, but only in small increments. Nothing can love us the way the Father loves us. Most parents, although they love their kids unconditionally, and they will always love their kids, they don't always show that. But what you have in the story of the prodigal, the father and the son, is a kind of love that is so uncommon to human beings that we can't even wrap our heads around it. The son goes out and blows everything, does everything wrong, commits every kind of sin, doesn't follow the father, doesn't honor the father, doesn't care about the father, turns his back on his father. But when the kid comes home, Not only is he forgiven, but the father throws a party. Do you understand how uncommon that is? We would be like, you know, you got to prove it to me. I'll take you back, I'll forgive you, but it's going to take me some time. It's going to take me some time to get over this. You hurt me. You hurt me bad. No, that is not how the father reacts. Get my best robe, get my best, put shoes on his feet, Let us celebrate because the only thing God cares about, the only thing God cares about is not your past sins. He doesn't care how you blew it yesterday. He doesn't care how much you blew it last week. He cares about where are you now? Are you with him now? See, it says here, he was dead, he was lost, but now since he is alive and found, we should celebrate. If you're alive with God, if you're found with God, God says, this is all that matters to me. Not the past, the present. Are you with me now? Do you understand the extraordinary part of that love? We are constantly unfaithful to God in word, thought, deed, in attitudes. We drift, we fall away, we pay no attention, we don't pray, we don't even seek Him. But the Bible says that He always remains faithful, even when we are faithless. Because He can't deny Himself. But what this means is He can't deny that we are His children. Do you understand this? This is the love of God. It's expressed in Psalm 103. It's one of my favorite verses of scripture. Listen, God has not dealt with us according to our sin. He has not repaid us according to our iniquities. Listen why he doesn't do this. It says, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. Do you understand this? His love fills the universe. It's as vast as the earth is to the furthest star. That is the degree He loves us. And so what does He do with all of our sins? He takes them. He removes them as far as the east is from the west. He remembers them no more. And why? Look at what it says. Verse 14, as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear. He knows our frame. He remembers the word dust. We have a body that is made out of dust. We have passions that the body has that God says, I must release them from this. I must take their sins, and I must cast them as far as the east is from the west, because that sin prevents them from fellowshipping with me. He loves us completely unconditionally. And this sounds like it's repetition, the next thing, but the love of God is absolutely completely perfect. Do you know what that means? How many people were raised in a place where you were afraid of God? I still hear it today, Christians, you know? Ah, you know, God is punishing me for this. I didn't do this one thing, and so he's punishing me. In the tradition I was raised in, we were afraid not to go to church. You know why? Because church was the holy day of obligation. And the church is good at creating enough fear so you'll come. We want to scare you into heaven. We want to scare you into attending. We want to scare you into giving. We want to scare you that you are afraid. But let me tell you what love does. The Bible says that there is no fear in love. Do you understand this? There is no fear in love. Look at what it says. But perfect love will cast out all fear. When you know you are perfectly loved, when you know that you are unconditionally loved, when you know that there's nothing you can do that would change God's mind toward you, you have no fear. Now, I'll explain this later, because people are like running, verses are running through their head right now. They're saying, well, the Bible says fear the Lord, fear the Lord. I'll talk about that. Listen. But perfect love casts out fear. Listen to what it says here. for fear has to do with punishment. Why are we afraid? Punishments. That's why we get afraid. We're gonna be punished. But look, look, whoever fears has not been perfect in love. If you're still afraid of punishment, you don't understand the love of God. You can't feel that God's gonna punish you because that's where fear comes from. But when you're perfectly loved and you understand you're perfectly loved, See, He loved us first. He loved us when we were in our worst. So if He loved us then, He surely loves us now, as we know Him. God is not about punishment. I had a friend of mine call me up recently, and he said, I gotta ask you something. I talked to two Christians, two respected people that I know. Both are in leadership in a church. He says, what happens if you commit suicide? Because both of these people told me that if anyone commits suicide, they're going to go to hell. It's the unpardonable sin. Do you know why? And I'll blame it on the Catholics a little bit, but it really has trickled down because these were evangelicals. Do you know why that became such a big deal? Because what does it do? It makes you afraid. You have the fear, and so you don't do it. They're trying to scare you into not doing it. See, fear is never a good motivation. I know people think, well, I will scare people into getting saved. No. The Bible says it's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. Not fear. See, if somebody commits suicide, they're obviously sick in their mind. And even if a believer commits suicide, that obviously means that they have gotten to a place in which they're not thinking correctly. And just because of that doesn't mean that they have committed the unpardonable sin. See, the Bible says this in Romans, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Show tribulations, distress, persecutions, famine. See, if somebody's in tribulation or distress and they commit suicide, that doesn't mean that God doesn't love them, and it certainly doesn't mean that he's going to turn his back on them. Persecution or famine, nakedness, danger or sore, none of these things can separate us from the love of God. Do you know who you are? This is what was said of Jesus when he was water baptized. The Father came down with a voice and says, this is my beloved Son. He's my beloved. He's beloved by me. But what the Bible goes on to say that Jesus, before he left in the great priestly prayer of John 17, he asked the Father, he says, listen, you sent me. Let them know that they are loved by you even as you love me. That the same love, listen, the same love that the father had for Jesus, he has for each one of us. That's mind boggling. See, we are now the beloved. We are now the beloved children. We know the love of God. Jesus only gave one commandment, and here it is in John 13, one commandment he gave to us, and he says this is the commandment that you must listen to, the two other great commandments, love your God with all your heart and soul, mind and strength, love your neighbors as you love yourself, but here's a third commandment that's still in play today, the new commandment that you don't hear much about. Here's the new commandment that Jesus gave us, that we what? That we love one another just as he had loved us. May we also love one another. Do you understand this? How did God love us? How did Jesus love us? Perfection. What does perfect love look like? Matthew 5. If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors do the same. People in the world, they have common love. They love their children. They love their friends. They love their neighbors. They love people that love them. But that's not the love of God. The love of God is when you can love who? When you can love the people who slap you, hurt you, abuse you. When you can love your enemies. Why? This is the love of God. Gentiles love people that love them. If you want to be perfect, you will love people that don't even love you. Because God loves people that don't love Him. He loves the world, even though the world crucified Him. John puts it this way about perfect love. He says, no one has seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. How do I have perfect love? By being able to love others the way I love myself, which is a continual process. I fail at this, I'm sure we all fail at this, but this is where God is calling us. Third, The love of God is obviously eternal. We know that from the scriptures over and over again. In Psalm 136, if you read it, it's just over and over again. His steadfast love endures forever. His steadfast love endures forever. His steadfast love endures forever. How long will we have to be with God in love? Forever. I don't know about you, but I don't know what love looks like when it's forever. But we know that everything is passing away, even the heavens and the earth. 1 Corinthians 13 says prophecy is passing away, tongues, knowledge. Listen, it's all passing away except for one thing, love. It abides forever. This is why it's impossible to talk about the love of God in 1 Corinthians 13. It says, we are seeing it in part. We're seeing through a glass dimly. But when we see Him, we will know that we are loved by Him, and we will know how to love. That's why Paul, and we're looking at Ephesians here, and I just want to read this really quick because this brings us back to that one scripture that we looked at earlier. You need to be strengthened in your inner being. You need Christ to dwell in your heart through faith. You need to be rooted and grounded in love. Why do you need all those things? So that you can begin to comprehend. What do you need to comprehend? You need to comprehend what is the breadth, what is the length, what is the height, what is the depth, that you might know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. This comes by revelation. It comes by walking with God. The more you walk with God, the more you realize how much He loves you. And how far is that love? As high as the heavens are above the earth. If you need a visual, God gave us a visual. Look at the earth. You can't even look at the farthest star. Know that His love is as vast as that. So great is His steadfast love. The universe declares the love. Paul says, when you know the love of Christ, when you know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, you will be filled with all the fullness of God. I don't know that love. not to its fullest, but I'm growing in that love. So I want to close by talking about one final thing here, and that is love, discipline, and judgment. Because the Bible is quite clear that even though God loves us, that certainly doesn't mean that he isn't involved in disciplining us. Over and over again, we see the link between discipline and love. Here's Hebrews 12. For the Lord disciplines the ones he loves. He chastised every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. How many people in here have been disciplined by the Lord? If you haven't, God doesn't love you. But if he loves you, you've been disciplined. I've been taken to the woodshed over and over again. The time that he takes me to the woodshed the most, and I'm being honest, and I've been to this woodshed, and it's not fun, and it's always when I get overly judgmental. Now you say, pastor, most of your sermons sound overly judgmental. But that's not. See, that's truth, and I'm speaking with the highest degree of love I can. I'm talking about when I get judgmental toward an individual, toward a person, I pick somebody out, whatever reason, and I get legalistic and I get judgmental. I will go to the woodshed. I mean, he'll take me there quicker than anything. I'm not going to get into stories, but, well, maybe I should get into at least one story. Well. This was the last big time I was taking them with me. A young couple came to me, and they were all excited about getting married, and I had agreed to do their wedding. And at some point, I found out they were going to have an open bar. And it just blew my mind. And I basically told them, I cannot do your wedding if you're going to have an open bar. And they had already, somebody was buying this and whatever. And so I backed out of doing their wedding, backed out of the counseling. And to say the Lord took me to the woodshed would be an understatement. Because how many people remember the marriage feast at Cana? It would be like me going to the marriage feast at Cana and looking at what Jesus did and going, he shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have done that. Matter of fact, I've heard Baptist people say, when somebody quotes the marriage feast of Canaan, the fact that Jesus made all this wine for all these people who had already drunk way too much anyway, made all this wine for them. And it's clear in the scriptures that he did this. And by the way, it's intoxicating wine because it's the same Greek word that's used later on in Ephesians where it says, be not drunk with wine. Same Greek word. Baptists have said, well, yeah, Jesus did that, but he probably shouldn't have. That's how strongly people get about certain forms of legalism. You want to be taken to the woodshed, get real legalistic. Because let me just tell you this, it was the legalist who crucified Jesus. I'll say it again, it was the legalist who crucified Jesus. It was the religious legalist. See, the Bible says of those who are in Christ, there is now no condemnation for those. If you're in Christ, He doesn't condemn you. You cannot be condemned. He will never forsake you, turn His back on you. He will discipline you, but He never condemns you. There's a difference between conviction and being condemned. Conviction, God convicts me, so I'll change. Condemn, when you're condemned, you're just being condemned. God never condemns us. But let me say this, and this gets back to this idea, if you want to get on the wrong side of God, let me tell you how to get on the wrong side of God. There's only one unpardonable sin. There's only one thing that you can do that will make him back away from you as if you had the plague. One thing. You want to hear what it is? The unpardonable sin. The Bible says, I want you to pay attention to the kindness of God and also to the severity of God. God can be severe. Do you want to see how he becomes severe? Do you want to see what the unpardonable sin is? Do you want to know what it is? Here it is. Here comes the severity. There is severity toward those who have fallen. Now what do you think he means by fallen? I'm going to explain it. It's not about committing some gross sin, you know, falling into adultery, whatever sin you might have. It's not that. That's not what he means by fallen. Severity comes from those who have fallen. But God's kindness to you, provided that you what? continue in his what? Kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. What is he talking about? What is the great fall? What is the being cut off? What is this about? You want to see what it's about? Right here. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by what? The law. You have fallen from what? Grace. This is the unpardonable sin. Let me put it into context. I testify again to every person who accepts circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole law. Once you say, I no longer want this unconditional love, this unconditional grace, this total forgiveness, that I don't have to do anything. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I will earn heaven. I will be righteous, so righteous that God will love me. so righteous that he will look down upon me as his favorite. I will be holier than holy. I will keep the law. There are still people, when you ask them the question, how are you going to get to heaven? They say, well, I've been a pretty good person. They're thinking that somehow their good works are going to outweigh their sins. They're still thinking that. The only thing that offends the Almighty God is the attitude that somehow we could save ourselves with good works. Could Ephesians 2 be any more clear? For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your doing. What is it? Has anybody ever said after they got all kinds of birthday gifts, boy, I earned all those gifts, huh? The only thing you can do with a gift is what? Receive it. Receive it. If God gives you a gift, the only thing you can do is take it. Listen, it's not a result of works. God did not give you this gift because you were good, because you were smart, because you were intelligent, because you were good looking. He gave you this because he desired to give you a gift, and all you have to do is take it. It's never the result of your good works. Can you grasp that? Listen. Here is the unpardonable sin, Hebrews 10. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the ones who have, what? Spurred the Son of God, and they have profaned the blood of the covenant by which you were sanctified. What have they done? They have outraged, what? The spirit of grace. Grace is unmerited favor. Grace is, I'm just going to give this to you, just receive this. I'm going to love you forever unconditionally. And you go, no, no, no, no, no. I will work my way to heaven. Are you kidding me? Because what are you spitting in the face of? You're spitting in the face of what Christ has done for you. Look, how much does God love you? What do we know? God loves you this much, this is the only sacrifice that matters. This is what he gave, this is love, this is the gift. When you say, no, that's not good enough for me, that's not good enough for you. No, I gotta add something to this. The abomination of abominations, that we would stand before a holy righteous God in spite of this gift. and think that somehow we can earn heaven. Do you understand this? There is no greater love than this. This is the perfect gift. It is the perfect sacrifice. It must be received by faith, and by faith are you saved, and by faith alone. Thanks for listening to this message from River Mountain Church. If you'd like some more information, visit our website, rivermountainchurch.org.