Rev. David Holwick Q Series: What Is Ours in Christ
First Baptist Church Mother's Day
Ledgewood, New Jersey
May 13, 2001
Isaiah 49:15
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I. Can we take love for granted?
A. Rejection by your tribe.
To me, "Outback" is a high-class steak restaurant with plastic
crocodiles and platypuses [platypi?] on the wall.
But for tens of millions of Americans recently, the Australian
Outback has been the scene of gripping human drama on the
TV series, "Survivor."
Week by week, the participants endured subsistence eating, weight
loss, competitive challenges, and exhausting living conditions.
And week by week, the "tribe" has voted at the end of the
program, deciding which one of them would be sent away.
As that person's torch is extinguished, the host says matter-
of-factly, "The tribe has spoken. It's time for you to go."
Ouch.
Ron Hutchcraft notes that somewhere along the way, we have all
felt the sting of rejection from our tribe.
It could be friends who turned on you ...
co-workers who stabbed you in the back ...
someone you trusted who betrayed your trust ...
Even your family, maybe even the person closest to you.
After all you'd been through together, your tribe spoke and you
were suddenly on the outside.
The rejection we've experienced exposes the awful truth about most
human love - ultimately, it's conditional.
We have their love as long as we're lovable, as long as we're
benefiting them, as long as we're not too much of a burden.
And then, often when we need their love the most, they're gone.
#19065
B. Mom will never reject me, right?
1) We take their love for granted. Moms have to love.
There was an interesting story on CNN not long ago about
a twenty-five-year-old man in San Francisco.
He was dying of AIDS.
Most of you can figure out how he got the disease.
Because of that his father had completely disowned him.
His mother was dead.
So there was nobody.
The man looked like he could not weigh over a hundred
pounds and he had the look of death on his face.
The reporter asked him how he was able to stand all of
the pain.
Not just the pain of death, but the pain of family
rejection.
The young man gave an interesting answer.
He said:
"I stand it by closing my eyes and imagining that I will
awaken in the arms of my mother.
I know that she will never leave my side."
#19106
2) There is a tenacity about mothers.
II. Moms are good at loving, but God is even better.
A. Isaiah 49:15 makes this point rather dramatically:
"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no
compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you!"
B. Does God love ME?
1) God loves everyone. The Bible says so.
a) You are part of the "everyone."
2) Preachers like to speak of God's love as unconditional.
a) He loves us in spite of what we do (or don't do).
1> Is it really?
b) Not a completely accurate statement.
III. Love always has conditions.
A. Howard Snyder on the misconception about God's love.
Many people, probably even many Christians, think God's love is
unconditional.
And insofar as God extends his love to all people without
distinction, it is true.
But many have bought into the sentimental notion of
unconditional love expressed in the old popular song,
"Though it makes him sad to see the way we live,
he'll always say, 'I forgive.'"
This kind of automatic forgiveness is cheap grace, and not
the way Jesus does stuff.
B. Is unconditional love the loftiest form of love?
Consider three cases:
1) A mom and her toddler.
A mother is having a test of wills with her two-year-old.
The young boy wants to continue playing, but it is time for
bath and bed.
Mom has already given him a five-minute grace period.
Now she insists he will do as she says.
If the child could speak articulately, he might say,
"If you really loved me, you'd let me do what I want."
As adults, we can identify with Mom here.
She is expressing love, but is it unconditional?
Yes, in the sense that she will love her son even if he
disobeys.
But no, in the sense that she is requiring conditions.
2) A philandering husband.
This is a harder case.
Dick and Jane have been married for almost 20 years.
But Jane has discovered that her husband has committed
adultery, and Dick wants to continue the relationship.
He also wants his wife to accept it and continue the
marriage.
What does real love mean for Jane in this situation?
If she loves him unconditionally, won't she accept her
husband on his terms as an expression of her love?
Or will genuine love require Jane to say,
"It's either me or her"?
Authentic love requires conditions.
3) God's love.
So we come to the third and ultimate case: the love of God,
"greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell."
Surely God's love is unconditional, right?
Yes, but ...
Yes, God loves all of humanity and offers salvation to all
without conditions of merit or worth.
But God's love has conditions.
When God created humanity, conditions were there from the
start.
"You are free ... But you must not...." Gen 2:16-17
God's love requires conditions, and in this sense it is
misleading to call it "unconditional."
The good news is: God loved our sinful race so much that he
sent his Son.
He will not, he cannot, forgive and accept us except on the
basis of Jesus' sacrifice.
To do otherwise would betray the integrity of God's own
holy character.
The condition for God's love to reach us was the Cross.
IV. There needs to be a response.
A. Love is about relationship.
Love is about relationship, about reciprocity.
Both sides give, both sides get.
True love is impossible without the potential for freely given
response.
If love is compelled, it ceases to be love.
If God loved unconditionally the way many people take that term,
he would forgive and accept every person no matter what.
You wouldn't need the Cross anymore.
But then the Christian message wouldn't make sense.
It would be as shallow as the love of a person who always
accepts another's destructive behavior without ever calling
him or her to account.
B. God's love is always a transforming love.
Why does God not simply accept people (sinners) on the basis of
Jesus' sacrifice, irrespective of their responses?
Again, the answer lies in the nature of love itself.
Without repentance, faith and discipleship, what a person is
conscious of is something less than God's love.
It may be relief, psychological peace, or even a (false) sense
of security.
But it is not God's transforming love, and therefore it's not
salvation.
God's love has conditions, not because he is a tyrant, but
because God is love.
It is a moral and psychological necessity.
It is grounded in God's character as demonstrated by the way
he has acted in history.
C. The cross is necessary.
To rely on God's "unconditional love" apart from Jesus Christ,
or even in him but apart from personal faith and
discipleship, is to trust in mushy sentiment.
These are the two essential conditions for experiencing God's
love:
1. Jesus' death on the cross (costly grace) and ...
2. Our self-committing trust (genuine faith).
Apart from God's grace, we can do nothing to save ourselves.
Our works can never save us (Titus 3:5).
But this does not mean salvation is unconditional.
The cross of Jesus shows us the true nature of love - and its
breathtaking cost.
#3695
V. God's love can be experienced. [Expand more...]
A. Through other people.
1) No mom is perfect, but many find God's love through a mom's
love.
B. By the touch of God himself.
1) A feeling that can flood your soul.
2) Perhaps at unexpected moments.
C. When you experience it, share it.
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This series is based on one in Discipleship Journal #114, Nov/Dec 1999.
SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 3695 "Is God's Love Unconditional?" by Howard A. Snyder, Christianity
Today, July 17, 1995, page 30. Sections III and IV of the
sermon are from this article.
#19065 "Survivor: When Your Tribe Has Spoken," by Ron Hutchcraft;
May 2, 2001; Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400,
Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission.
#19106 "There Is A Tenacity About Mothers," from Rev. Brett Blair's
Illustrations By Email, www.sermonillustrations.com;
May 13, 2001.
These and 17,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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