-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Welcome to the cafe. Good to be here today.
00:40 Hope you’re having a wonderful week. It is a wonderful day in the cafe. Today we are talking about God’s steadfast love for you.
00:49 Hopefully you got a cup of coffee or tea or even hot water with lemon. That’s pretty good too. I’ve been drinking a little bit of that lately.
00:58 Something comforting, soothing because the way that those drinks will soothe the body is the way that God’s Word soothes the soul. And I mean that. God’s Word soothes the soul.
01:10 It is wonderful. It is contrary to all the anxieties we feel in the world when we read God’s Word. I know we don’t serve the Lord by feeling but thank God He gives us peace in the midst of our trials and our struggles.
01:24 And here today we are talking about God’s steadfast love for us. God’s steadfast love for you. Romans 5:8. But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
01:40 As I prepared for this message on steadfast love, the first thing that came to mind, really the only thing that came to mind was God’s love for us in the circumstance that we were in. And so I’ll get to a little bit later how it’s easy to love someone that loves you. And you you might know that there’s scriptures on that.
02:01 But it’s kind of hard or it’s not kind of. It is really hard to love somebody that doesn’t even like you. That breaks your rules.
02:10 That goes against you. That tries to usurp your power. That is rebellious.
02:16 The best way I could describe it would be like having a child. Of course, you always love that child. But oh, how hard it is to love them when they’re nasty.
02:27 You ever have a child that’s nasty? You have maybe a teenager. I don’t want to pick on a certain age group. But those that have teenagers know what I’m talking about.
02:35 Amen. Oh, how sometimes they can push all our buttons. And it’s hard to pay him a compliment.
02:41 It’s hard to love them. It’s hard to sacrifice form, oftentimes when they are so ungrateful. And yet we see this picture in multitudes, uncountable, more with God’s love for us.
02:56 So how we would love rebellious teenager, or rebellious relative or somebody that was just really hurtful to us as hard as it is for us to love them. So much more so is it a holy God? It’s hard for a holy God to love sinners like us. And Romans 5:8tells us that God loved us so much that, hey, he sent Christ, his only begotten, his beloved son, Jesus, to die on the cross, the most brutal death.
03:24 The Bible speaks to the fact that Christ was unrecognizable on the cross. He had been beaten and scourged and brutally murdered. So Oh, it was unbelievable, the worst death ever.
03:36 And that’s the physical aspect. Then you count for the fact that he had to drink that bitter cup of sin for all mankind. And then He was taking on the sin of think of the worst person you’ve ever known to live in this world.
03:48 Christ was bearing that person’s sin, but not just that person’s sin, but your sin and my sin, and the whole world’s sin past, present and future. Oh, Christ bared it all on the cross for you, you and for me so that we could be saved. And that was God’s glorious, beautiful, poetic plan for salvation.
04:07 And that my friend, is steadfast love. Steadfast, the definition, resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering, steadfast loyalty. You know, I love the word steadfast.
04:20 When you say steadfast, you kind of think yes, you know, strong, loyal, commanding, unwavering, right, steadfast, and we steadfast. It is describes God’s love so perfectly, because that is all how God has loved us. He’s loved us with a love that doesn’t waver.
04:40 He’s loved us with a love that started before time as we know it. He’s loved us with a love that is so long suffering. How many Christians out there have borne just terrible burdens and asked God and pleaded with God for God to come back.
04:53 And yet God says not yet, not yet. There’s more to be saved. Not yet, not yet.
04:59 Soon I will, but there’s more to be saved. Amen. God is so long suffering.
05:02 He is so good to us. I’m so thankful that the Lord tarried long enough for me to be saved. Amen.
05:07 Because I was hardheaded, stubborn, as bad as they get, talking about rebellious as a teenager. Even into my twenties, I was a very, very lost and just downtrodden and worm of a man. And God waited and waited and waited.
05:22 And the Lord sent people my way. And one day, oh, I got saved. I got gloriously saved.
05:27 And it was the most beautiful day of my life. Amen. And every day since has been a blessing.
05:32 And no, I haven’t always been perfect, but I thank God for my salvation. And I can see his unwavering, steadfast love in my salvation. I’m sure you can see his love in yours if you’ve been saved.
05:43 And if not, today is the day, amen, to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. So as we look at God’s love and the idea of being steadfast, first let’s look at who God is loving. He’s loving a people that have gone astray.
05:58 Hosea 3:1, Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord towardthe children of Israel, who look to other gods and love flagons of wine. The Israelites were committing spiritual adultery against God. Can you imagine this? You have God, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, Amen.
06:24 You have the God that delivered the Israelites out of the bondage of sin and out of the bondage of real-life bondage in Egypt, out of slavery, parting the Red Sea, delivering them from Pharaoh, Amen. You have a God that is so wonderful, loving. And here the Israelites go saying, oh, there’s so much pleasure in sin for this season, and oh, this looks appetizing.
06:49 Oh, let’s go worship this false god, and let’s go bow down to this false god, and let’s go sacrifice our children to Molech, and let’s go bow down to Baal, and let’s go build a tower and try to reach heaven ourselves, and let’s go and commit this sin and that sin and every sin under the sun. And God saw that, and it hurt Him because He loves Israel. He loves His people.
07:10 And if you have a husband or a wife and you love them so much, can you imagine the feeling, maybe you’ve experienced this, of adultery? It’s more common, I think, than a lot of people understand, and how much that hurts and how hard it is to get over. And that’s how God has felt there about the Israelites. But look, it’s not just the Israelites.
07:35 It’s us today. It’s Americans, Amen It’s us as a nation. We were founded on godly principles.
07:37 People say, oh, I don’t see that in the Constitution. Please, look, read about the pilgrims. Look at why they came over here to begin with.
07:43 Look at the roots of this country. Look at In God We Trust. Look at how God has blessed this land incredibly, more than really any other land in the world.
07:51 Look at God’s hand on us. Look at us in partnership with Israel. And as we blessed Israel, we were blessed, as the Bible explains.
07:59 This is a godly country that’s gone greatly astray. And oh, how do we need to repent as a nation? Oh, how we need to shed tears for our nation. Oh, how we have gone astray, and we have gone after the sinful thing.
08:11 You know, if you’ve ever sinned in your life, you know that a lot of times there is pleasure in sin for a season. And you may even think on that, and that may even draw you back into that sin. And God is saying, don’t do that.
08:26 Don’t be an adulterer. Don’t be an adulteress. Don’t live out of the fleshly lusts and desires.
08:31 Don’t look for, like, that thing that looks so sweet, like that Garden of Eden, the fruit there, that looks so sweet, and then it was so bitter, and the taste was so bitter, as they were expelled from the garden, as they couldn’t come back in there and had to live a very hard life. And ever since, sin has entered the picture, and we have had to live hard lives because sin is grievous. It’s a grievous burden to bear.
08:51 And God loved us. His love was and is unwavering. He kept His covenant with Israel.
08:57 Amen. He has kept His covenant with Israel. He’s not forsaken them as much as they have done to Him.
09:02 He has not forsaken them. And He’s kept His promises to us. He loves us.
09:07 It’s an unwavering love. It is such a good and holy love. I could preach on it all day.
09:12 But for the sake of time, secondly, it’s a not an easy love. Matthew 5:46. For if you love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicansthe same?
09:26Luke 6: 32. For if you love them which love you, what thank have ye?For sinners also love those that love them. You know, it’s so hard to love the unlovable, and it’s much easier to love those that love you. If someone loves on me all the time, it’s easy for me to love them because they’re always nice to me.
09:43 Think about someone that pays you a compliment every day, and you say, oh, I love that person. Well, maybe you love them because they love you. It’s easy to reciprocate that love.
09:51 But when you people act violently toward you, when people persecute you, when you go through all manner of trials and stresses, do you love them? You know, I’ve heard a testimony of the founder of Voice of the Martyrs, and how he was praying for those prison guards that beat him, and even one prison guard that had literally killed somebody. That man on his deathbed before he died was sharing the love of Jesus with the one that had literally basically taken his life. Amen.
10:15 And that’s the kind of love that we are to have because that reflects God’s love for us. That while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God commendeth his love toward us while we were yet sinners.
10:26 And so we have to understand the context in which Christ died for our sins. That we were rebellious, and how hard it is, the Bible speaks to how easy it is to love somebody that loves you, and how hard it is to love someone that is unlovable. And think about what God calls us to do.
10:47 He calls us to love the unlovable. If you ever kind of take a survey of who’s really involved in the church, or who the church really blesses the most, often think about who it is. It’s the poor.
10:55 It’s the recovering addict. It’s the physically maimed, or people that are dealing with all manner of medical and health issues. It could be people that have been born different, Amen, in all manner of ways.
11:11 And the church is, like, that is where they are, amen. That is their comfort zone. That is their place because God is in there.
11:22 And I’m talking about a Bible-believing church, amen. God is in that Bible-believing church, and the members are living out godly principles by loving the unlovable. And here God is, in a poetic way, saying, okay, you see how you love the unlovable? You see how you have in your church gymnasium, you have AA meetings once a week? Or you see how you have a ministry to minister to those single moms out there, or those that are struggling to make ends meet? Or you have a ministry for the homeless? Okay, you see how you’re loving those that have been cast aside? Okay, well, God is saying here through this, well, now look to me.
11:57 I’m loving you in that regard. I’m loving, God is loving us as we’ve been spiritual adulterers, as we’ve gone astray, as we have put our hopes and our dreams in theme parks, and in movie screens, and in the internet, and in all video games, and in cars, and in material things. We put our hopes and dreams in these modern-day false gods.
12:13 And God’s saying, I still love you. Come back to me. Come to the altar.
12:17 Repent. Get right with me. I want to have a relationship with you.
12:21 I want peace in your life. I want harmony. I want you to live as I can see you living in joy and happiness.
12:28 I want to give you an expected end. Now, I’m just paraphrasing, and Lord, help me to say it correctly, but God loves you. And now we need to return that love to God.
12:37 Firstly, Proverbs 8:17, I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me. I love them thatlove me. That’s pretty straightforward.
12:46 We are to show God the same love that he’s given us, and we should live sacrificially, and we should give to him out of need, and we should serve him even when we’re tired and beaten down, and we should be grateful beyond grateful, and we should repent and go to him and get rid of any kind of pride and ego, and we should live for him wholeheartedly following his will for our lives, because he’s been so good to us. Amen. And to fellow man, John 13:34, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
13:17 That’s Jesus speaking there. 1 John 4:20, if a man say I love God and hateth his brother, he’s a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? So we need to not contradict ourselves.
13:29 We need to show godly love to God, return that love that he’s given us so greatly, and praise, and so forth, and we need to show that to our neighbors, and to our brothers and sisters in Christ, and yes, to the unlovable, and yes, to the persecutor, and yes, to even the people on the other side of the political aisle, or the ideological aisle, or the sport team aisle, whatever aisle is separating you. We need to go ahead and show that love, because that’s what God called us to do. Not compromise on the commandments, not compromise on living a holy life, but show love and realize that when people say God is love, that there is Bible to back that up, and that there is truth to back it up, and we are so grateful for what Christ did for us.
14:12 Thank you so much for listening. Take care. God bless, and Amen.