The Depth of Christ's Love: Its Cost

From Gospel Translations

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Revision as of 18:01, 16 September 2008

The Depth of Christ's Love: Its Cost

Ephesians 4:32-5:2

And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Review

If love for one another is going to flourish and grow in our church, we must be rooted more deeply in love. That was the point of last week's message. In other words becoming a loving person means living with the roots of your life sunk deep in the love of Christ for you. Being loved by Christ is the ground of becoming loving. And the root that you send into that ground is the faith that you are loved.

There's a phrase in 1 John 4:16 that describes this root:

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.

We have come to know, and have believed the love which God has for us. The love that God has for us is the ground of our becoming loving people. And the root that we send down into that ground, to be nourished by it, is faith—"we have believed the love that God has for us." Believing the depth of God's love for me is the key to my growing into a loving person.

And the key to believing the love that God has for us is seeing it revealed in the word of Scripture. A few people were allowed to see Jesus in the flesh and touch him and watch him teach and heal and suffer and die and rise. We might feel jealous that our faith in the love of Christ can't be based on that kind of first hand sight and touch. But that was not God's plan. When Jesus prayed for his disciples in John 17:20, he said, "[Father], I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word." It was the plan of God that we come to faith, not by seeing the love of Christ in the flesh, but by seeing the love of Christ in the word of those who knew him.

Focusing on the Depth of Christ's Love for Us

Because of all that, here's the plan for the next four weeks. I hope this will help you prepare yourself in prayer and meditation for what's coming. And I hope it will help you know when God is moving you to invite others to attend with you. My aim in this series is that our love for one another and for those outside would grow and deepen. But this will happen only as we are rooted—that is, as we believe—more and more deeply in the love of Christ for us. And that belief comes by seeing the depth of Christ's love for us revealed in his Word. So for four weeks climaxing on Easter Sunday I want to direct our attention to the depth of Christ's love for us.

As I have pondered the love of Christ for us, and the different ways that the Bible presents it to us, I have seen four ways that the depth of Christ's love is revealed. We will spend a week on each of these.

1. First, we know the depth of someone's love for us by what it costs him: if he sacrifices his life for us, it assures us of deeper love than if he only sacrifices a few bruises. So we will see the depth of Christ's love by the greatness of what it cost him.
2. Second, we know the depth of someone's love for us by how little we deserve it. If we have treated him well all our life, and have done all that he expects of us, then when he loves us, it will not prove as much love as it would if he loved us when we had offended him, and shunned him, and disdained him. The more undeserving we are, the more amazing and deep is his love for us. So we will see the depth of Christ's love in relation to how undeserving are the objects of his love (Romans 5:5–8).
3. Third, we know the depth of someone's love for us by the greatness of the benefits we receive in being loved. If we are helped to pass an exam, we will feel loved in one way. If we are helped to get a job, we will feel loved another way. If we are helped to escape from an oppressive captivity and given freedom for the rest of our life, we will feel loved another way. And if we are rescued from eternal torment and given a place in the presence of God with fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore, we will know a depth of love that surpasses all others (1 John 3:1–3). So we will see the depth of Christ's love by the greatness of the benefits we receive in being loved by him.
4. Fourth, we know the depth of someone's love for us by the freedom with which they love us. If a person does good things for us because someone is making him, when he doesn't really want to, then we don't think the love is very deep. Love is deep in proportion to its liberty. So if an insurance company pays you $40,000 because you lose your spouse, you don't usually marvel at how much this company loves you. There were legal constraints. But if your Sunday School class makes all your meals for a month after your spouse dies, and someone calls you every day, and visits you every week, then you call it love, because they don't have to do this. It is free and willing. So we will see the depth of Christ's love for us in his freedom: "No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:18).
   

That's what I see in the New Testament. There are specific texts that stress each of those four ways of seeing the depth of Christ's love for us. We'll take one a week. And if you pray earnestly, and the Fasting Forty seek the Lord, then perhaps God will answer the prayer of Ephesians 3:17–18, that we would be rooted and grounded in Christ's love and have power to comprehend the height and depth and length and breadth of his love—and so become like him in his love.

The Depth of Christ's Love Revealed in Its Costliness

Today I want us to see the depth of Christ's love revealed in its costliness. Let's look at Ephesians 5:1–2,

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Be sure to see four plain and wonderful things here.