God Loves You!
Sixth in summer 2009 series on You’ve Got Questions – God Has Answers
August 9, 2009
Life is filled with things that bother us and that are problems for us – questions we might wish we had answers for. These things can range from how to deal with the economy and the way it affects our daily living to how to be a Christian parent to how to deal with “difficult people” to how to deal with emotions such as anger to how to keep from saying things that we know are not things God would have us be saying to how to respond when things are moving a lot slower that we would like for them to to how to deal with feelings of loneliness and the questions of how we can be sure of God’s love.
The Bible is our guide to living life in God’s ways – and contains God’s answers to our questions in life. Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that:
“16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
This summer we’re looking at some of the issues and questions we may face in our lives – and how God would have us deal with them. Today we are looking at an issue that most of us face from time to time – how to know that we are loved – important – and cared for.
Knowing that we are loved – important – and cared for is a basic human need. One of the core things we need to know to survive and thrive in the world is that we are loved – that God loves us – and that someone else loves and cares for us.
If we know that we are loved we are on the way to being the happy, well balanced, loving life God created us to live. If we know that God loves and cares for us – and that others love and care for us – we are well on the way being a happy person. However, if we don’t feel that God or anyone else loves and cares for us – we have a hard time in life.
The wonderful truth is that God loves you – and there are probably many others that love you also. You just have to accept that – know that — celebrate that – and live your life in joy and praise because of that.
But – how can you know that God loves you?
Listen to God’s word in Hosea 2:14-20:
Many of you know that I serve as a volunteer Chaplain at Carolinas’ Hospital. The volunteer Chaplains play a vital role at the hospital as we visit patients and their families – many of whom do not have a minister – and listen to their stories and pray for them. We are a vital part of the healing team that includes doctors, nurses, therapists, and a whole host of others who make a difference in the lives of the patients and their families.
When Sally and I lived in North Carolina I served as a volunteer Chaplain at 2 community hospitals. I never will forget an experience I had one week that I was on call at one of them. One night when I was on call the hospital called me and said they had the body of a man who had committed suicide – and his family was asking if the Chaplain could “bury their brother”. I felt very sad for the family – they seemed to have no one else to turn to — so I agreed to do the service. I didn’t know anything about the man whose funeral I would be conducting – but I knew that God loved him. For the purpose of this illustration I’ll say his name was John Smith. The service wasn’t held in a church — it was a graveside service. The family had no Church home. When I arrived for the service, it was raining hard – and before long the rain turned to sleet. The funeral director told me where to stand to lead the service. I said, “That’s fine, but when will the casket get here?” The funeral director pointed to a tiny box and whispered, “There are Mr. Smith’s remains.” The funeral home director couldn’t tell me much about Mr. Smith – except for that he had lived a very hard life, had been in prison, and had committed suicide a few weeks after his release.
When the time came for the service to begin, only four people had showed up. I had planned to offer them words of comfort, but it soon became obvious that none of them were experiencing grief. Instead, they seemed irritated to have been inconvenienced to come out in the sleet for the service. At one point his sister said, “You know, it’s just like John to do something like this!” I stumbled through the ceremony, and closed with a prayer. On my way home, I couldn’t help but feel sorrow for Mr. John Smith. He had lived a tough but short life that ended as tragically as a life can end, and I didn’t see evidence at the service that anyone in the world even cared. Maybe that’s why he committed suicide — he felt unloved and all alone.
You know — there is no greater feeling in the world than to know that you are absolutely, completely, and unconditionally loved. And there’s no greater emptiness a human can experience than to feel—either rightly or wrongly—that no one loves or cares for them.
Through the years a number of people have expressed this to me, and it doesn’t come from just ex-cons and other down-and-outers. People from all walks of life feel this way. Some are married, some have families, some are surrounded by acquaintances, yet they live with an emptiness—a loneliness—that cannot be ignored.
Not too long ago I read about a successful entertainer who said:
“In all my fame, I’m all alone. No one really loves me. I provide security for some people, I’m a source of entertainment for others—but if I were ever to become unable to do those things, no one would have any use for me.”
Maybe you feel this way.
Maybe for months or years you’ve been going through motions of life with a nagging sense of emptiness, wondering “Does anyone love me?”
The journal of a noted criminal – someone who seemed to be “tough as nails” and who seemed to hate everyone – was uncovered. Many times in that journal the words “Somebody, please love me” were written.
People will do just about anything in order to feel loved. Some people think: “If I succeed enough, people will love me” or “If I have a relationship with this person, he or she will love me” or “If I am pitiful enough, people will feel sorry for me and begin to love me” The problem is, none of these strategies work. Those who pursue love by means of success usually end up feeling used and unappreciated. The same can be said for those who try to trade sex for love. Those who use a pity as a means of earning affection usually find that pity soon turns to contempt, and they end up feeling alone and abandoned.
The thing is — most people who feel unloved have a distorted view of reality. They aren’t really completely unloved—they just don’t recognize the love that is in their life. Their emotional pain blinds them to the fact that they have friends and family who love them very much – and a God who loves them.
Here’s a truth I hope every one of you will always remember: If you sometimes feel unloved, or if you are in a position in life where you feel that there is no one at all that loves you – God loves you – and there is hope for you.
God loves you!
If you feel unloved, you are in the right place – because the Church can offer you hope today. This is the hope we can offer you today: The hope that there is someone who loves you, and to Him you matter very, very much — and He has gone to amazing lengths to prove His love for you.
God loves you!
Most of you have heard that statement thousands of times throughout your life–maybe so many times that the statement has lost some of its impact. Some people think:
“Yeah, God loves me. So what? He has to—he loves everybody.”
I want to make something clear: God loves you with all of His heart, and it’s not because He got stuck with you. He doesn’t love you just because you’re part of this big mass of humanity. He loves you individually. He loves you as if you were the only one in the world to love. No matter what you have done, or no matter what your life has been like, God loves you – and He wants to share His love with you.
Our scripture passage for today is a story that illustrates God’s love for you — and it shows to what length He will go to keep on loving you. It’s the story about a man named Hosea. It begins with God telling Hosea to marry an adulteress woman named Gomer. That’s right—her name was Gomer. Don’t get side-tracked by her name. I’m sure she was a very beautiful woman, and I doubt seriously that she looked anything like Jim Neighbors. Who knows, maybe in those days Gomer was considered a beautiful name.
Well — God knew that Gomer would be unfaithful, and yet God wanted Hosea to marry her anyway.
Why?
Because Hosea’s marriage to Gomer symbolizes God’s love for you. God loves you even though he knows in advance there are going to be times when you are going to be unfaithful to Him.
After Gomer gave birth to three children, she left Hosea and became a prostitute. Hosea stayed home and raised the children alone, while Gomer traveled throughout the world, selling her body to strangers. Years passed, and Hosea began to search for his wife. He wanted her back. Finally, he found her on an auction block. For a few pieces of silver and a few bushels of barley, Hosea bought back the wife who had deserted him. He took her in his arms and he said to her, “Come home. You’re to live with me now, and I will live with you.”
This story of Hosea’s love for his “runaway bride” is the story of God’s love for you. Whether you feel unloved a little or a lot, some of the time or all of the time, this story has much to tell you about the relationship God wants to have with you. It matters more than any other relationship in your life. Once you grasp God’s love, you will never spend another day feeling unloved — because you will be filled with love from the one who matters most.
God loves you!
Our passage from Hosea 2 describe in more detail the extent of God’s love for you.
1. First of all — God loves you – and directs His love to you — personally.
He doesn’t love you as “part of the crowd” — He loves you as an individual. He knows your name. He knows your needs. He understands your hurts and fears. His relationship with you is based not on what you do for Him, but what He does for you.
Listen to what he says…
(v. 16) In that day…you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’
You see — God doesn’t want to treat you like a slave — He wants to treat you like His loved spouse. God wants a relationship with you based on love — not based on the law. God wants a relationship with you based on devotion, not based on duty. The relationship isn’t to be one of tyranny, but one of tenderness.
Listen to what he says about Gomer, — and realize that it can be said about you as well…
(v. 14) Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.
You may feel unloved because you have done some things that are unlovely, but God loves you anyway. He wants to have a tender, loving, devoted relationship with you — as a husband should have with his wife. And even if you are the worst spouse in the world, he will buy you back, just as Hosea bought back Gomer.
God loves you with all of His heart, and He directs His love toward you personally, as an individual.
God loves you!
He loves you like you’re the only person in the world — it’s a personal love.
That’s the first thing you can know about God’s love.
The second thing you can know it that:
2. God promises to love you forever.
His love is permanent.
Listen to what he says…
(v. 19) I will betroth you to me forever.
The word “betroth” means engagement — in Hosea’s time it was a binding, unbreakable promise to marry. In fact, in those days it was easier to get out of a marriage than it was to get out of an engagement. So, God uses this phrase: “I will betroth you to me forever.”
God’s love lasts forever. It is permanent. It doesn’t come and go. He loved you as a newborn baby, he loves you today—and he will always love you.
In the seventies there was a song by the band “Pure Prairie League” that went:
Falling in and out of love with you, Falling in and out of love with you, Don’t know what I’m going to do, I keep falling in and out of love with you.(Falling In and Out of Love © 1974 Craig Lee Fuller)
This might describe how we sometimes love one another, but it is not how God loves us. His love lasts forever—it doesn’t get bigger on your good days or smaller on your bad days.
A few years ago there was a Wendy’s commercial that began with a mother saying:
“Kids. Most days you love them, but other days, well…”
Then the commercial went on to say that Wendy’s was a great reward for good kids, or something to that effect. When I first saw that commercial, I couldn’t believe it. Wendy’s pulled it after a very short run — I guess they realized the message it communicated. Any parent knows that even on their worst days, you don’t stop loving your kids. And even on your worst day, God doesn’t stop loving you. His love is forever. In Jeremiah God says…
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you up with loving-kindness.” (Jeremiah 31:3)
God loves you!
God loves you with all his heart–and his love lasts forever.
The third thing you can know about God’s love is this:
3. God gives his love to you without holding anything back.
Have you ever been in a relationship where you were afraid to give 100% of yourself, because you knew you were going to get hurt? Of course, it usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy — if you can’t give love in a relationship, the relationship cannot last. But if you don’t trust the person you’re in a relationship with, you have to be careful. If you allow yourself to be too vulnerable, you end up getting hurt.
God takes a completely different approach with you and me. He knows from the start that He will be hurt. He knows that we will sin — and our sin will break His heart. And yet He loves you anyway — and He doesn’t hold anything back.
Most people are capable of loving you only half-way. We may try to love others unconditionally, but there is no way we can love one another as perfectly as God loves us — because we’re not perfect. God’s love for you is different than any other love you will ever experience.
Others may love you for what you do — God loves you for who you are.
Others may love you temporarily — God loves you forever.
Others may love you for the things they see on the surface — God loves you even though He knows the deepest, darkest parts of your life.
Others may love you in an on and off manner — God’s love for you is always on. He doesn’t hold anything back. Listen to what he says…
(v. 19-20) I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness…
Righteousness – justice – love – compassion — faithfulness.
God’s not promising Hs eternal love to you because you have these qualities – God’s promising His eternal love because He has these qualities. He is saying, in effect:
“I am completely righteous, and I will put my righteousness on the line for you. I am completely just, and I will put my justice on the line for you. I am always compassionate, and I will make my compassion available to you always. I will forever be faithful to you.”
When God loves you, he holds nothing back. He’s not watching you from a distance with His arms folded, waiting to see if you can become worthy of His love. He already loves you, and He always will– no matter what you have done. No matter what others think of you, and no matter what you think of yourself, God views you with a heart full of love.
You’re not unlovable — not according to the one who matters most.
God loves you!
God loves you with all His heart.
You.
Forever.
Completely.
Without holding anything back.
In fact, 2000 years ago, in a manner far more dramatic than Hosea buying back his wife, God sent His son into the world to die for the sins of the world. He did it for one reason: Love.
“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…“
He doesn’t hold anything back.
No matter how alone you may feel, you are not alone. No matter how unlovely you may think you are, you are not unlovable.
God loves you.
There is nothing you can do to deserve that love – all you can do – and all you have to do — is accept it.
When Hosea found Gomer being auctioned in the town square, she could do nothing to save herself. She couldn’t undo the past and she couldn’t suddenly make herself worthy. All she could do was allow Hosea to pay the price, and then go home with him and start a new life.
That’s all you can do.
You can’t change the past, or undo any of the things that caused you to feel unloved.
You can, however, reach out and accept God’s love, and go on your way with Him by your side – knowing that you are loved.
Yea – God loves you! Amen.
