The Father

In the World

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Father 4 Comments

…having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. – John 13:1

You are in the world, and, as you all too surely feel, temptations have shown you that you are not yet in Heaven; you have sighed for a lodge in some vast wilderness, that you might cease from the troublers of earth, for what with the evil language which you hear, the corrupt practices which come under your notice, the temptations that are thrust in your own way, and the persecutions and the cruel mockings with which you are tried, you feel that this is a wretched world to live in. Now mark, Jesus loves His own who are in the world. You men that have to work with so many bad fellows, you tradesmen who have to go in among many who shock you, you good work girls, who meet with so many tempters, if you are His, He loves His own which are in the world.

As the sparks fly upward, so were we born to trouble-why do we count it a strange thing? But Jesus loves His own which are in this dolorous world: this is the balm of our griefs, and I call upon you to hold to it, and not let the devil delude you into the idea that the Lord does not love you because affliction happens to you as it does to other men. Of course, it must so happen so long as you are in the world. How can you expect exemption? Would you have a glass case made for you to keep you snug away from all the frosts and winds of this world? Would you have your heavenly Father indulge you with all the sweet things of this life, and spoil you for the life to come? Would you strike the root in this world and never be transplanted to the heavenly Eden? Do you wish to have your rest and portion in this life? Oh! no; you could not wish for that. Well, then, take what God sends to you, receive evil as well as good from Jehovah’s hand, as Job aforetime did; but never let it be the thought of your heart that Jesus does not love you because you are subjected to evils which are necessary to the place in which, for wise reasons, He suffers you for a little to remain. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0810.cfm

Infinite Love

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father Leave a comment

…having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. – John 13:1

As to the past, let us with holy contemplation review it: Jesus has loved His own people from of old. A most blessed fact! He has loved them eternally. There never was a time when He did not love them. His love is positively dateless: before the heavens and earth were made, and the stars were first touched with the torch of flame, Jesus had received His people from His Father, and written their names on His heart. This everlasting love has a speciality about it. Our Lord has a general love of benevolence towards all His creatures, for “God is love;” but He has a special place in His heart for His own peculiar ones. There is a discriminating and distinguishing power about that love that is spoken of in the text, for it is not said, “Having loved all men,” but “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” Jesus, before all the world, set the crown of His peculiar love upon those whom He foreordained unto His glory.

This love of His is infinite. Jesus does not love His own with a little of His love, nor regard them with some small degree of affection, but He says, “As the Father hath loved Me, even so have I loved you,” and the Father’s love to the Son is inconceivably great, since they are one in essence, ineffably one. The Father cannot but love the Son infinitely, neither doth the Son ever love His people less than with all His heart. It is an affection which no angelic mind could measure; it is inconceivable, unknown. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0810.cfm

Truth: the Infinite God Loves Me

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father Leave a comment

…because He first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

Get the thought into your head a minute: “God loves me-not merely bears with me, thinks of me, feeds me, but loves me. Oh, it is a very sweet thing to feel that we have the love of a dear wife, or a kind husband; and there is much sweetness in the love of a fond child, or a tender mother; but to think that God loves me, this is infinitely better! Who is it that loves you? God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Almighty, All in all, does He love me? Even He? If all men, and all angels, and all the living creatures that are before the throne loved me, it were nothing to this-the Infinite loves me! And who is it that He loves? Me. The text saith, “us.” “We love Him because He first loved us.” But this is the personal point-He loves me, an insignificant nobody, full of sin-who deserved to be in hell; who loves Him so little in return-God loves me. Beloved believer, does not this melt you? Does not this fire your soul? I know it does if it is really believed. It must. And how did He love me? He loved me so that He gave up His only begotten Son for me, to be nailed to the tree, and made to bleed and die. And what will come of it? Why, because He loved me and forgave me, I am on the way to heaven…He loved me before I was born; before a star begun to shine, He loved me, and He has never ceased to do so all these years. When I have sinned He has loved me; when I have forgotten Him He has loved me; and when in the days of my sin I cursed Him, yet still He loved me; and He will love me when my knees tremble, and my hair is grey with age, “even to hoar hairs” He will bear and carry His servant; and He will love me when the world is on a blaze, and love me for ever, and for ever. Oh, chew the cud of this blessed thought; roll it under your tongue as a dainty morsel; sit down this afternoon, if you have leisure, and think of nothing but this-His great love wherewith He loves you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Prodigal, God Loves You Still

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, The Father Leave a comment

 “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” – 1 John 2:1

The motive power which draws back the backslider is the cord of love, the band of a man, which makes him feel he must go back to God with weeping and repentance, because God loves him still. What man among you hath a son who has disobeyed him and gone from him, and is living in drunkenness, and in all manner of lust? If you have in anger told him, so that he doubts it not, that you have struck his name out of your family, and will not regard him as a child any longer, do you think that your severity will induce him to return to you in love? Far from it. But suppose instead thereof, you still assure him that you love him; that there is always a place at your table for him, and a bed in your house for him, ay, and better still, a warm place in your heart for him; suppose he sees your tears and hears your prayers for him, will not this draw him? Yes, indeed, if he be a son. It is even thus between thy God and thee, O backslider…Surely, if anything will draw you back, this will. “Ah !’ saith the wandering son, “my dear Father loves me still. I will arise and go to Him. I will not vex so tender a heart. I will be His loving son again.” God does not say to you prodigals, who once professed His name, “I have unchilded you, I have cast you away,” but He says, “I love you still; and for My name’s sake will I restrain My wrath that I cut you not off.” Come to your offended Father, and you shall find that He has not repented of His love but will embrace you still. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Look to God’s Eternal, Costly Love

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? – Romans 8:32

The soul grows rich in love to God when she rests on the bosom of divine lovingkindness. You, who are tossed about with doubts and fears as to whether you are now accepted or shall persevere to the end, you can scarcely guess the ardours of heart which inflame those saints who have learned to cast themselves wholly upon Jesus and know beyond a doubt His love immutable. Whether I sink or swim, I have no hope but in Christ, my life, my all.

“I know that safe with Him remains,
Protected by His power,
What I’ve committed to His hands
Till the decisive hour:”

And in proportion as I am thus scripturally confident, and rest in my Lord, will my love to Him engross all my heart, and consecrate my life to the Redeemer’s glory.

Beloved, I desire to make this very clear, that to feel love to God we must tread along the road of faith. Truly, this is not a hard or perilous way but one prepared by infinite wisdom. It is a road suitable for sinners, and indeed saints must come that way too. If thou wouldst love God, do not look within thee to see whether this grace or that be as it ought to be, but look to thy God, and read His eternal love, His boundless love, His costly love, which gave Christ for thee; then shall thy love drink in fresh life and vigour. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

The Proof of God’s Love

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

…because He first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

John does not say, “We love Him because we admire Him,” but “We love Him because He first loved us.” Love to God, wherever it really exists, has been created in the bosom by a belief of God’s love to us. No man loves God till he knows that God loves him; and every believer loves God for this reason first and chiefly, that God loves him. He has seen himself to be unworthy of divine favour, yet he has believed God’s love in the gift of His dear Son, and he has accepted the atonement that Christ has made as a proof of God’s love, and now being satisfied of the divine affection towards him, he of necessity loves his God. Observe, then, that love to God does not begin in the heart from any disinterested admiration of the nature of God…I, a poor sinner, by nature sunk in the mire, full of everything that is evil, condemned, guilty of death, so that my only desert is to be cast into hell, am under such obligations to my Saviour and my God, that it would be idle for me to talk about a disinterested affection for Him, since I owe to Him my life, my all. Besides, until I catch the gleams of His mercy and His loving-kindness to the guilty, His holy, just, and righteous character are not loveable to me; I dread the purity which condemns my defilement, and shudder at the justice which will consume me for my sin. Do not, O seeker, trouble your heart with nice distinctions about disinterested love, but be you content with the beloved disciple John to love Christ because He first loved you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

True Knowledge and True Love

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. – 1 John 4:7

True knowledge is essential to salvation. God does not save us in the dark. He is our “light and our salvation.” We are renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us. Now, “he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” All you have ever been taught from the pulpit, all you have ever studied from the Scriptures, all you have ever gathered from the learned, all you have collected from the libraries, all this is no knowledge of God at all unless you love God; for in true religion, to love and to know God are synonymous terms. Without love you remain in ignorance still, ignorance of the most unhappy and ruinous kind.

“Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us.” Now no man is a Christian who does not love Christians. He, who, being in the church, and yet not of it with heart and soul, is but an intruder in the family. But since love to our brethren springs out of love to our one common Father, it is plain that we must have love to that Father, or else we shall fail in one of the indispensable marks of the children of God. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren;” but we cannot truly love the brethren unless we love the Father; therefore, lacking love to God, we lack love to the church, which is an essential mark of grace…Oh! Christian, thou canst not have the nature of God implanted within thee by regeneration, it cannot reveal itself in love to the brotherhood, it cannot blossom with the fair flowers of peace and joy, except thine affection be set upon God. Let Him then be thine exceeding joy. Delight thyself also in the Lord. O love the Lord ye His saints. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm