Introduction: Some once collected the sayings of children about love (read a few). The Bible says that "God is love." Jesus was God in the flesh, and He exemplified the love of God. How does God love His children?
I. God loves us with PERSEVERING LOVE (John 13:1)
A. "Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end."
B. Romans 8:37-39 is a beautiful passage about the permanence of God's love for us:
"37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
C. Hymn #490, the first verse expresses it this way:
"Love with everlasting love, Led by grace that love to know:
Gracious Spirit from above, Thou hast taught me it is so!
O this full and perfect peace! O this transport all divine!
In a love which cannot cease, I am His and He is mine."
George W. Robinson
II. God loves us with TOUGH LOVE.
A. Hebrews 12:5-11
"5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."
B. He chastens us when we disobey. He does not ignore our sins. He demands that we repent and improve. His chastening makes us better people.
III. God loves us with MERCIFUL LOVE (Ephesians 2:4-10).
"4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
A. He has saved us by His grace, not by our works.
B. He has saved us to a position beyond imagination.
C. He has saved us in order to give us more grace.
Conclusion: If you are God's child, His love for you is eternal; but demanding. It is great and full of mercy. If you are not a child of God, you must be born again, even as Jesus said to Nicodemus. The Bible says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." May the Lord grant all of us a deeper and fuller faith in Jesus. Amen.