From today through Easter I’ll be taking up the theme ‘Loving God.’ This phrase can be taken a couple of ways in the English language. First, it’s an adjectival phrase. In grade school we learn that an adjective is a word that describes a noun. So, in the phrase ‘Loving God,’ God is described as being ‘loving’—God is a loving God. It’s also a verbal phrase. Verbs are action words and ‘Loving God’ denotes an action taken towards God—we are to be loving God. So ‘Loving God’ is both a description and a prescription. For the first half of this series we’ll be considering the descriptive aspects of ‘Loving God’—who is this loving God, why is He loving, how does He love, who does He love, etc. And in the second half of the series we’ll explore our response, the prescriptive aspects of ‘Loving God’—e.g. why, how, when, where, etc. are we to be loving God?
I chose this subject last year after reading J. I. Packer’s book “Knowing God.” The book is great, but that title stuck with me. I realized that to really know the God revealed in creation and in the Bible is to know that He’s a loving God who is worthy of our love. Lately I’ve felt that my love for God doesn’t match my knowledge of things about God. Maybe it’s the same or opposite for you. In 2016 I want my actual love for God brought into balance with my factual knowledge of God, both of which will entail growth. And growth—both intellectual and affectional—requires nourishment; so while we’ll look at texts from all over the Bible, our scriptural entrée for each sermon in this series will come from John’s gospel and John’s epistles, where—if you’re familiar with John you’ll know—love is a very prominent theme.
Before the Foundation of the World
Tackling a subject as huge as ‘Loving God’ requires that we start at the beginning. You might think since we’re in John’s Gospel that John 3:16 would be the natural starting point. But God’s love doesn’t begin at “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” It begins much earlier—eternally earlier in fact. It begins with “For God so loved His only begotten Son”! But since that isn’t an actual Bible verse we come to something very close in John 17, to this spoken encounter between two members of the Godhead where we learn that God’s love was around long before the world was around.
Jesus is in the upper room. He’s washed the disciples’ feet, instituted the Lord’s Supper, dismissed Judas to go betray Him, foretold Peter’s denial, promised the Holy Spirit, told the disciples they’ll be hated by the world and assured them that He’s overcome the world; and after all of this, John tells us in 17:1 that Jesus looks up to heaven and begins praying. Tender loving affection for His disciples drips from every word of His prayer, but where does that love originate? Is Jesus stirred to love these men because of a shared Jewish ancestry? No. Is it because they’re Galileans like Himself? No. Is it because they gave up so much to follow Him for so long? No. He loves them because He knows what love is. And how does He know what love is? Because He’s experienced it in its purest, most powerful form for as long as He’s existed—and that’s a really, really long time!
Among other things, Jesus prays for His disciples to be unified. Why does He pray for this? Because He’s unified with His Father. Jesus’ desire for unity in the Church has less to do with agreeing on every tiny detail of doctrine, getting along with each other, or sticking together in order to stand up to the world’s hostility, and much more to do with showing the world the love contained within the perfectly unified Godhead. Notice what He says in vv. 22-23: “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that (here’s the motive, the goal) the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” Jesus doesn’t just want the disciples to show the world how well Christians can get along with each other; He wants the world to see God, and to see God’s love for them, and to know something about that love: that God the Father’s love for them is the exact same love—in quantity, quality, and intensity—as His love for His only begotten Son. That’s some big love!
And, as if that isn’t mind-blowing enough, Jesus goes on to say in v. 24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” Sounds like what He says in John 14:1-3: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” Jesus wants us to be with Him, why? Because He’s been with (and is going back to) His Father and He knows there’s nowhere better for anyone to ever be!
It might be said of a woman who’s just gotten an engagement ring, or who’s just received flowers at work, or who’s just found out that she’s carrying she and her husband’s child that she’s ‘glowing,’ that she has a certain aura or radiance about her. If her beloved is faithful, she’ll know she’s loved even without the gifts and the glow; but it’s always nice to see a shared affection manifested externally, isn’t it? For most of Jesus’ earthly life the glow of His heavenly glory was veiled. But on certain miraculous occasions, like the calming of the sea, the healing of the lame and blind, the raising of the dead, the heavenly Father’s affirming, approving, affectionate adoration for His only begotten Son would burst through for all to see. And sometimes God the Father even spoke audibly, like at Jesus’ baptism, on the mount of transfiguration, and during His teaching in Jerusalem. On earth Jesus never lived a day without or in doubt of His Father’s love. Why would He when for all eternity past—‘in the beginning,’ as John says in John 1:1, and ‘before the foundation of the world,’ as he says here—Jesus had known and enjoyed and gloried in that love? Even on the cross when Jesus cried out in anguish, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He knew His Father’s love for Him hadn’t stopped, but that it was as perfect as it had always been.
Should We Ask ‘Why’?
The love shared between the heavenly Father and Son was, is, and always will be an unbroken, unbreakable love. And friends, we know, because we are here and we are conscious beings who can read and understand and accept the storyline of God’s redeeming love for mankind through Jesus, that it is for this very same unshakeable love that God invaded a sinful world personally and visibly, and that it is into the joyous, glorious perfection of this very same unbreakable love that God the Father invites us through God the Son. And we also know we have a part to play in this grand storyline of redemption, because that invitation—like concentric ripples on the surface of a pond—is still outgoing to the furthest reaches of the globe and we’ve been commissioned as the invitors. Jesus prays in vv. 20-21, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” And He closes the prayer in vv. 25-26: “O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, [so] that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
We know all of this both by experience and by faith. But I don’t think it’s outlandish or unfaithful for us to wonder why this is so. Why, when for an ageless eternity past, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had enjoyed, gloried in, and been satisfied with a perfect love for each other—a love not lacking in any mutual fulfillment, a love not needy for any outside affirmation—what could compel God to ever say, “Let there be…light…sun, moon, and stars…mountains, rivers, lakes…plants, birds, fish, and animals all producing more of their own kind? And why would this loving God ever say, “Let Us make man in our own image”?
Many in this world doubt and even deny the existence of God. But nobody in his or her right mind would doubt or deny the existence of mankind. I’m not suggesting that we doubt or deny man’s existence; but isn’t it okay for us to question it—not ‘Do we exist?’ but ‘Why do we exist?’—especially when the Bible shows us a self-loving, triune God who got along just fine without us for untold ages? Such a questioning of our existence would seem a necessary exercise in humility. It would seem that it isn’t wrong to wonder why God would create us but that it’s wrong not to wonder why.
That all seems quite logical, doesn’t it? It’s right to appreciate the perfection of God’s love for God; it’s right to be humble before God and to see ourselves as minuscule to Him by comparison. God got along fine for ages without us; He surely doesn’t need us. To rightly view the immensity and intensity and perfection of God’s love for God we mustn’t see ourselves as adding anything to or taking anything from that divine equation. That seems logical, unless, that is, we’ve always been part of the equation of God’s love for God. You see, the problem with the scenario I just set up is that it assumes there was a point somewhere in eternity past that we were not on God’s mind or in His heart. It assumes that there was a point where something new and previously unknown occurred to the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful triune God—an idea, a thought, a dream of a created universe and a planet earth that He would populate with beings made in His image, beings who would then fall into temptation and sin and whom He would then send His Son to rescue.
But friends, I’m here to tell you that no such point ever existed in eternity past—no such ‘new’ thought, idea, or dream ever occurred to God. It’s illogical; it’s an oxymoron to think that something previously unknown could at any point become known to an all-knowing Being. But, more importantly, not only is such a notion illogical and oxymoronic; it’s unbiblical. Listen to what God says through the prophet Jeremiah to the exiled Israelites in Jeremiah 31:1-6:
“At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.” Thus says the LORD: “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the LORD appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued in my faithfulness to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel!
Call me simple-minded or naïve if you like, but I tend to take people at their word; and I take God at His word. If He says to His people, “I have loved you with an everlasting love,” I don’t read a lot into it. He means it, and not in some sentimental, romance novel kind of way but in the only way an eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful God can mean it: that for as long as He has been, He has loved His people; and not some vague idea of His people that became clearer as His plans for them unfolded but a perfectly formed lavish love for all of them collectively and each of them specifically, intimately, by name.
What Was Jesus’ Aim?
What was Jesus aiming at in His prayer in John 17? Many things. He wants glory—His and His Father’s as He anticipates their reunion in heaven. He wants His Father to keep the disciples in His care and to protect them from the clutches of the evil one. He wants the disciples to be sanctified—purified—by continual exposure to the truth of God’s word. As we noted He wants unity among the disciples, but He wants all of these things and more because He wants them to know God’s love. In a world where everything—including love—was cheap and would only become cheaper, more disposable, more sentimental, with an ever-shortening shelf life, Jesus wants all of His disciples to know that He and His Father have something far more permanent and pleasing to offer.
To be affectionately adored is something every person wants. People will do crazy, irrational things to get affectionate adoration. And sometimes people will do crazy, irrational things to show affectionate adoring love to others. And with all reverence and humility I am pleased to say that I worship just such a crazy, irrational, loving God. There’s never been a moment I’ve not been on His mind and in His heart as an object of affection. How do I know? The Bible tells me so! The Bible tells me that before going to the cross to purchase my forgiveness, God spoke to God on my behalf, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Love is the Rhythm
Love is the pulse; love is the beat, the rhythm to which all creation longs to move. God’s perfect love for God is the cadence with which every creature yearns to keep time. It was so in the beginning with man, but even though a dissonance, an arrhythmia, a disharmony called sin broke into the concert hall of the cosmos disrupting the symphony, a loving God’s heart still beats on. You may not hear it today over the clanging clatter of sin; but if you listen closely you may. It beats the name Je-sus, Je-sus, Je-sus, Je-sus!