2019 Toronto Gospel Alliance Good Friday Service
St. Paul’s Bloor St.
Introduction
Have you ever wondered what God was doing before He made everything?
Put aside for a moment when He made everything…. whether thousands or billions of years ago…
What was He doing, in eternity past? Long before there was light and matter and people and planets….
Was He just there. Perhaps thinking? Existing?
What was He up to?
Jesus told us what His Father was doing…
John 17:24 [24] Father… you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Before He was a Creator or Ruler or Judge… God was the Father. And as Father He was loving His Son.
This is part of the reason John could write: “God is love.” Notice he did not write, “Love is God.” That is an entirely different thing. As if love itself was somehow the deity. No, what He correctly wrote was, “God is love.”’ That in His essential nature, in the core of who He was, is and shall be — God is love.
God is, in fact, the very source of all love.
I once came upon a natural spring hiking in California. Up out of the ground bubbled all this fresh water! In the same way, all love in the universe has its origin in God.
1 John 4:7–8 [7] Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God,
We all wonder and think about God at times. And there are basically only two ways of coming to conclusions about God.
- Depend on your own life experiences and reason in the 60-80 years you get and draw your own conclusions.
- Depend on what God has said about Himself. What He has revealed.
I prefer option two. As Christians, we take what God has said about Himself in the Holy Bible. It is God’s Word — what He says about Himself.
And the consistent message of the Bible is that the proof of God’s love is what He has given, what He has sent. For love, in its essence is a giving to another.
Not only His giving us life and a planet on which to live.
But more precisely, in the giving to us of His Son.
1 John 4:9–10 [9] In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world….
1 John 4:[10] In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins…
John 3:16 [16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son…
God sent, God gave His Son. It is clear to see that the very essence of love is giving. Giving to the other.
There is one part of Bible speaks very directly to this.
Spend a few minutes considering it with you… you will find it on the back of your song sheet…
Romans 5:6–11 [6] For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. [7] For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—[8] but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. [9] Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. [10] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. [11] More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
I wonder if you would take a few moments to consider with me the words of the 8th verse?
[8] but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Let’s be investigative reporters and go all W5 on this sentence.
We will start with the WHO….
I. Who is the subject? Who is this about?
The answer is, “GOD.”
“God” shows His love for us.
And I think that is a good thing to observe.
ILL:
Some people have read bits of the Bible, here and there or had things told to them about what the Bible says, and they get this notion in their head that God, the Father, is a really angry, mean-spirited, ticked off Greek demi-god kind of thing and that Jesus had to come along to pacify the Big Grump upstairs.
But read that line again in verse 8.
“God shows His love…” It is God’s love and He displays it.
As we said earlier. God is love. It is His very nature to love. God is just being Himself when He loves. He has always been The Father to His Son. There never was a time when He was not. To not be Father, would be to not be God. Therefore love has always been a defining characteristic of God.
And one gets the sense when reading the Bible that God couldn’t help Himself. He had to show us that love… because that is Who He is.
So, we are speaking here about the Father.
And this takes us to our second investigative question….
II. What does God the Father do?
[8] but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
He shows His love.
This word, “shows” has been translated different ways in our English Bibles.
- Commends
- Demonstrates
- Proves — to prove by showing…
Here is what the Father does… He proves His love. He demonstrates His love. He had to — because that is the very nature of love.
If I said I loved you then stood idly by while you were accosted and robbed, you would have good grounds to suspect the sincerity of my words!
But God proves His love.
John got at this when he wrote:
1 John 3:16–18 [16] By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us…
Love, by definition, requires action. If God was merely in heaven painting with big letters in the sky, I love you… and that is it. And He did nothing for us… then we would rightly question the sincerity of that love.
But God has done something. One main thing. That in no uncertain terms PROVES His love!
So, God, the Father, proved His love.
This takes us to the third investigative question.
III. How did God prove His love?
[8] but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God proved His love by the death of His Son, Jesus Christ.
It is helpful here to remember the love God has for His Son. And the love His Son has for Him…
Does God love Jesus? Of course!
John 3:35 [35] The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.
Does Jesus love His Father? Jesus once said…
John 14:31 “… I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.”
So here you have the Father loving the Son. The Son loving the Father. And in this blissful union of love, the Father asks the Son to come and die… to prove the Father’s love by being the ultimate GIVE.
And Jesus willingly agrees.
In fact, it is Christ’s love for His people that is part of His motivation. Yes, he loves the Father and does all that the Father asks of Him, but Jesus Himself could say,
John 15:9 [9] As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. [the people He died for]
And Paul would write of Jesus…
Ephesians 5:2 [2] …Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…
There is a remarkable event from the life of Abraham where God asked Him to sacrifice his son, Isaac. The language of that request was so specific…
Genesis 22:2 [2] [God the Father] said [to Abraham], “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
This was a test designed to strengthen Abraham’s faith in God. And it worked. Abraham obeyed in faith then, at the last minute, God intervened and stopped the sacrifice!
But part of the purpose of this event was to provide us a little picture of what it was like for God Himself… to give up His Son, His only Son, the Son whom He loved…
The Father told Jesus, at His baptism…
Luke 3:22 “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
And yet it was out of love for those He would save, God asked the Son He loved, to become their substitute, their sacrifice. Their “Isaac.”
This was amazing love.
ILL:
Several weeks ago Susan and I drove along the edge of the Pacific.
As we drove along that coast, casting our eyes our over the endless sea, we sang this together this old hymn pondering the love of God…
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Nothing more vividly displays God’s love than this… He gave what was most precious to Him.
He could have given us
- more money
- more world peace
- shorter winters
- more Stanley Cups than one every 52 years!
But God knows what we need — not just what we want…
And He gave so much more than this… He gave what was without question the most costly to Him personally… He gave His Son to die for us.
Now that forces us to our last investigative question.
IV. Who is the “us?” Who did God love?
[8] but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The answer might surprise you. Verse 8 is the end of a sentence that started in verse 7. In it, the author noted…
[7] For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die…
The Righteous Person — think of a boss that pays you were wage, but no more. Does not care about you as a person. Not a cheat, but not your best friend.
— very rare anybody would take a bullet for him.
The Good Person — think of a boss who makes sure you get paid, but takes a deep interest in your life. Cares for you when you are sick. Looks after your kids’ future. Has your best interests in mind all the time.
— someone might dare to take a bullet for her. Maybe.
But who does God love?
- Not the only-fair kind of people…
- Not the even the really good kind of people…
Who does God love? Who is the “US?”
There are three words used in this paragraph to describe the objects of His love. They are not very flattering.
:6 — The Weak - in this context, the spiritually paralyzed. The people who were not able to lift themselves up or make themselves clean. Those incapable of doing things that would impress God.
:6b — The Ungodly - in this context, the irreverent. The people who (even if they give verbal assent to God) live like God is not real and like they are the only thing that matters.
:10 — The Sinners - in this context, the line-crossers. The people who deliberately break God’s prohibitions and commandments.
The weak, ungodly sinners. That is who God loved. In other words, the unloveable.
You see, this was our great problem. We were not able to do anything about our sorry condition. There was no way to clean ourselves up in order to draw God’s attention. There was no way to warrant His love… to deserve it.
Sin works like a Sharpie.
It is an indelible ink that no amount of washing can erase.
- Worse, just when you start to think you are getting one stain to fade a little bit, you add another.
- Just when we seem to be conquering our anger, we get proud about our patience!
- Just when we stop sleeping around, we discover a world of internal, raging lust!
If you are honest about yourself, to yourself, you will admit that you are a weak, ungodly sinner.
Bad news. For which we have the best news!
[8] but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Did you spot that word, “while?”
- While we were sinners.
- While we were ungodly.
- While we were weak.
It was then… when we were most helpless and hopeless and incapable of doing anything to fix our state, that Christ died for us.
What a love.
What a cost.
We stand forgiven at the cross.
Conclusion
It is important you don’t get tricked by one word in this verse, that word “us.” Paul is writing to Christians when he uses it. He is not talking about everyone.
[8] but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
People who are now, FORMERLY weak, ungodly sinners. But they have been changed. They have come to understand the love of God. They have come to understand the significance of Good Friday.
Our service tonight has had a sombre feel. There is a reason for that. For those of us who already know God through Jesus Christ… we are aware, almost painfully aware… of what it cost God to love us.
It cost Him His Son. Mark 10:45: “ …the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
The proof of God’s love is the sacrifice of God’s Son.
But, we also know that God raised His Son from the dead! That’s why we look so happy on Easter!
But tonight we reflect on His death. And yet even in that death, since it is so motivated by and immersed in love… we cannot help but smile and offer to you the Saviour. Jesus Himself said,
John 15:13 [13] Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
God in His great love has done everything necessary for you to have a real relationship with Him.
But that relationship won’t go anywhere until you admit what you really are… in the words of this text… a godless, weak sinner.
But it is just this admission that grabs the attention of God. For He is love. And He is eager to set His love upon you.
He is not asking you to clean yourself up, then come to Him. In fact, He demands the opposite. Come just as you are. There is no point hiding from God. And you will need all the help and grace and strength only He can give for that clean up!
And if you do, and agree with God that you are weak and need His help… and if you turn and accept His Son, Jesus, as the source of that help… you will say with all the other Christians here…
1 John 4:19 [19] We love because he first loved us.
In fact, you will be able to personalize the words of this verse even more to say…
[8] ...God shows his love for me in that while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me.
More than that, you will go to sleep tonight with the glorious confidence that this love of God for you will never end. That you will be loved by God forever.
Romans 8
[35] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
[37] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
[38] For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, [39] nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
He has proven His love in Christ. And now it is ours to enjoy in Him forever.
