Sermon
No Greater Love
August 26-27, 2000
Pastor Donald Sheley

Did you catch the theme of the hymns today? Amazing love how can it be, that thou my God shouldst die for me. He left His Father's throne above, so free, so infinite His grace. Emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam's helpless race. 'Tis mercy all immense and free, for 0 my God it found out me. How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be; how marvelous, how wonderful, is my Savior's love for me. We've been thinking about a verse found in your pew Bible page 715, and in your own personal Bible it's John 3:16. Known as possibly one of the greatest text in the Scriptures, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. A great text.

Now a couple of Sundays ago in our lesson we talked about the God of love, because if it says God so loved, it's imperative that I should know the One who is declaring the statement. In knowing Him I'll appreciate more deeper His love, so we got acquainted with the God of love. Last Lord's Day we talked about the love of God. We just reversed it and this subject matter became love, and you'll remember that we concluded our time together as the song was sung, if we could ink the ocean fill and were the skies of parchment made, and every stock on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry, and should the scroll contain the whole if stretched from sky to the sky. Some heart trying to help us to understand the love of God. That's my theme today, the love of God, no Greater love.

Now quickly let's take our notes, and in our notes we've commenced our lesson today by suggesting that in1 Corinthians 13, Paul, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, pens one of the most beautiful descriptions of love. He says that, "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, it is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth; love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." What a beautiful description of the characteristics of love. And Paul begins this chapter, which is considered by many, to be one of the most wonderful chapters in the whole New Testament, by declaring that a man may possess any spiritual gift, but if it is unaccompanied by love it's useless. He may have the gift of tongues, but it was no better than the uproar of heathen worship if love was absent. He may have the gift of prophecy or have the gift of intellectual knowledge, but both have no value to mankind if love is not behind them and motivating them. And then, after giving us the list of the characteristics of love in action, Paul concludes this chapter in verses 8 through 13 with three final things to say that he says about Christian love. And let me read them for you.

If you'd like to turn to it it's 1 Corinthians 13 in your Bible. And this is what he says, Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; and whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, and I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. And I've suggested in your notes that we can divide those few verses at the conclusion of the chapter. Paul stresses the absolute permanency of love. When all the things which men glory have passed away love will still stand. In one of the most wonderfully lyrical verses of Scripture, the Song of Solomon, it sings, "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it." The one unconquerable thing is love. And that's one of the great reasons for believing in immortality. When love is entered into, there comes into life a relationship against which the assaults of time are helpless and which transcends death. There is a permanency about love that lasts forever Paul says.

Secondly, he says that it's absolutely complete in itself. As things are, what we see are reflections in a mirror. He said, then we see through a mirror, darkly. That would be even more suggestive to the Corinthians than it may be to us, because history tells us that in the city of the Corinth that's where they manufactured mirrors. But the early mirrors were made out of metal, and so you could not get an exact reflection. It wasn't until the 13th century that we have the mirrors as we have them today. And Paul, on the last sentence of the page, it says, in this life Paul feels that we see only the reflections of God and are left with much that is mystery and riddle. And that's true. As deeply as you and I try to understand the things of God, we try but we realize that the finite does not grasp the infinite. And Paul says as the result of love ultimately one day love will complete it all, and because of God's love we will be brought into the very eternal presence of God and then we shall know as we are known, and then love will have brought us to that place where our knowledge will be complete.

I'm on the second page. Paul says that love is absolutely supreme above every other thing. As great as faith and hope are, he says that love tops them all. Now that's Paul's description of human love, and as beautiful as it is it doesn't compare with the description of God's love. If you'd like to turn in your Bibles it's page 762, but if you'd like to read along with me in the notes here's Paul's description of God's love. 1 Corinthians - human love. Here we have in Romans chapter 8 God's everlasting love. It may be so marked in your Bible. Here's what it says beginning at verse 31: What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also make intercession for us. Here's the question, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul said God's love is so much everlasting from everlasting that there is nothing that will ever happen to us in life that will ever separate us from God's love. Now every time I read that I think of an experience that I had when that 35th verse really became something I'll never forget. In verse 35 Paul asks the question, who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can tribulation? Now it's interesting in the original Greek text the word for tribulation is tribulum, t-r-i-b-u-l-u-m, tribulum. And it describes an ancient instrument that looked like a sled, and under this sled were steel bars. And as a farmer you would cut your grain and then you would lay down the stock with the grain head, and you would run across this grain and the crushing of the sled would push the grain away from the stock and so you to end up with the stock. It was a separating device. And so because it happened under pressure and it was dividing, when Paul uses the word tribulation he thinks of life's experiences that seem to almost just press down upon us and to strain out all that's lovely, and all that's beautiful, and life turns turbulent and difficult, and he calls that tribulation.

That word tribulation became so real to me. Many years ago, about 1993, I was praying one day and I said God, you know, before I go home to heaven I'd like the joy of going to at least one end of the earth and finding a place where I can preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I got out my globe in my office and I looked across this massive piece of real estate called the Soviet Union, and there's that massive piece called Siberia. And so I looked at Siberia and I said, you know, that's a long ways away from humanity. And then I put my finger on Siberia and said what's the farthest place you can go. Here's Moscow, and if you go west towards Japan, the Pacific Ocean, the city that's furthest and northern is a city called Magadan. You can't get to Magadan any other way than by ship for by plane, because it's a city that's a prison in itself. You can't get out of it. You get on the Trans-Siberian railway over here in Moscow and you travel through the Urals and down through Eastern Russia, and finally you end up even going through a portion of Mongolia and up a little bit, and finally end up almost over here in China. And here's Vladivostok. If you go this way it would be Japan. You get a ship and you go north, and it's a city called Magadan. It was the city selected by Stalin where his dissidents were sent. He put them on cattle trains in Russia and it would take days going across that Trans-Siberian railway, and finally after arriving in Vladivostok they put them on ships and took them to Magadan. History tells us that Stalin sent maybe 60 million people to their death, and many of them went to Magadan.

And so I decided it would be interesting to go there and preach the gospel, and we did. We started a Bible college and we have now about 60 pastors who are ministering in that part of the world as the result of our Bible College. But while there I said to the missionary, you know I've heard so much about people who Stalin took and sent over here for their faith, could we find somebody that would fit into that, that would have a story. Someone said, yes Pastor, if you go south there's a little village. It's made up of renovated chicken shacks, and there's a 94-year-old lady who lives there. She has a wonderful story to tell you. So we get in our car and we had for this little village, and it's a cold Siberia and winter day below zero, and we get out of the car and we go through a small door into this chicken coop into this room where there's a bed, and on the bed lays this 94-year-old lady. Her 70-year-old daughter is there taking care of her. And so we introduced ourselves and I said, Mother if it would not be too troublesome to you, could you tell me how you got to Magadan? I understand you're here because of your faith. She said, I'll tell you my story Pastor.

She said, years ago, I think it was in the '60s, Stalin was doing his purging and down in Ural Russia, which was known as White Russia. She said one day the police came to our door and required all of us, four children and my husband and I, to come to the police station. She said we went in the police car to the police station, and she said the policeman stood up and said, now listen, if you will denounce Jesus Christ and leave your Christian faith you can go home free. And they spoke up and said, oh no sir, we love Jesus and Jesus loves us, and we would never, we would never deny Jesus. And so after a long interrogation the policeman took the father out to the door of the police station and shot him dead in front of the family. They came and hauled away the body. The police officer came back and said, now have you changed your mind? She said, no sir, she said Jesus has always loved us and we love Him, and we would never denounce His love. So they took the first child and shot them. The second child, and shot them. The third child, and shot them. And she said, you know, Pastor the last thing that crossed my memory, she said, I watched my little darling girl being torn away from me with a little dolly in her arms, and I saw the police drag her out of the room.

And then she said they came and put me on that cattle car, and she said, I think it was 17 days, traveling night and day across that Trans Siberian railway. She said as people would die they would just open up the doors and just push them outside and close the doors. The train never stopped. Much of their load was lost along the way. And she said when I got to Magadan I was placed with a harness around my body, and she said, I was sent to the forest. And, she said, with others they would hitch our harness onto logs and we would pull those logs for miles from the forest down to the port of Magadan so they could be shipped to wherever they were going. She said, Pastor, I did that for 20 years. She said, there were times that my body was so thin because of lack of food I could press my belly button and touch my spinal column. And then she said after 20 years they brought me into town, and she said for another number of years, and I was thinking it was either 18 were 20, she said I worked in town at some little job. And she said I always was praying, Jesus, if my daughter is still alive, would You help her find me? And she said one day a few years ago I was down at the little store down on Main Street and she said this lady walked up to me and said, I'm looking for, and she gave the name, Oh she said that's me! Well she said, I'm your daughter. And that daughter after 40 years had trekked across Russia, rode the Siberian railway, got on that ship, and found her mother in Magadan. And now they're living together. Mother is sick and dying, and the 70-year-old daughter is taking care of mother and they're living in this chicken coop. By this time I drew near to the bed and I said, Mother, can I ask you something? Sure Pastor. If you had it to do all over again, would you change anything? And those 94-year-old eyes just lit up. Oh Pastor, she said, no she said Jesus has always been with me and she said even in those times in the forest, she said, He never left me. I always felt His presence. And she said look at Pastor, here I am and my daughter is with me, God's provided my little home for me, she said, no, I would never, never turn against Jesus because He's never turn against me.

And I sat beside that bed and said, God, I'm never going to complain again, never. And I gave that little mother a hug, I understand a few weeks later she went to heaven. I'll see her there. Paul said there's nothing, nothing in life, even the crushing of tribulation, the distress, there's nothing that will take us from God's love. Amazing. So I went back to my Bible this week and said, now we've talked about the God of love, and we've talked about the love of God, so what's the next word in our verse? God so. Let's stop there. God so, loved. Now that's a little word, but it changes the dimensions of the phrase that follows. Let me illustrate. I can say to something, my that's beautiful, isn't it? And I'm just complementing it, but when I say, that is so beautiful. Do you see what I've done? I have magnified with extravagance to make the object extraordinary. And we use that as human beings when something deeply impresses me. I had my little grandchildren, they were over the other night, and I said to my little granddaughter, Cyrene, I said, you know, you're so pretty Cyrene. I changed it from the ordinary to the extraordinary an added dimension of extravagance, so. God says, the Scripture says, God so. He added that dimension of extravagance and that dimension of the extraordinary to the love that was demonstrated in his Son Jesus Christ. God so, loved the world. Then I thought to myself, is there a story in the Bible that will help us never to forget that little word - so? And I found it.

Would you go with me in your Bible to page, it's the book of Hosea, page 607 in your red pew Bible, and I'm going to tell you the most fascinating story I think there is in the Scriptures. This is absolutely. It's the story of Hosea. You say I never even knew this book was in the Bible. This is fascinating. Most people don't. I had a man come up and his Bible was marked over and he said, Pastor, you preached on something today I didn't even know was in there. But it's the story of Hosea and here's the background. Hosea was a prophet/preacher. He was a godly man. But he's watching his nation, Israel, go down the tubes in sinning. Now remember, in history, God selected the nation of Israel as the nation that He wanted to bless, that He wanted to reveal Himself to all the world. There were to be the missionaries to all the world to demonstrate the love of Jehovah God. That's why He chose Israel. They were going to be the missionary nation for heaven. And God likened that relationship to Israel as a relationship between husband and wife. It was so dear. In fact, He called it a covenant relationship, and He signed that covenant at Sinai, and God says, I'm your God and you are My people. I will love you. I will watch over you. I will bless you. I will care for you. All I ask you to do is to love Me in return, but the history of Israel is that time and time again they slipped away into idolatry, they were bowing at idols, they were worshiping other gods, and God looked upon that action of Israel as a spiritual act of adultery. God said, listen, I'm married to you. I'm your love. I'm the One who'll pour out My love upon you. That's all I required in return. But when you go out and love idols and worship Baal, you're committing spiritual adultery. And so the nation has gone down the road of a spiritual harlotry. I mean, if America is wicked today, it's a Sunday school picnic in comparison to what Israel was when Hosea started to preacher.

Now God said to this little preacher, you and I are going to set up a pageant. We're going to act out something that will be a spiritual lesson, but we're going to do it in a way that will tell the world how much I love Israel. Now, he said, now Hosea, here's the pageant. You're going to represent Me, you're Me. And what I want you to do, I want you to go down on the streets and I want you to find a harlot, a prostitute, and I want you to marry that lady. Because that lady will represent Israel, who is sinning against the God who loves them. Now I don't know about you, but that would be a hard assignment, wouldn't it? In fact, interesting, the other day I had been thinking about this story all week. It fascinates me. So I went down here on El Camino to a little coffee shop and I wanted some pancakes for breakfast. When I get out of my car, sitting there on the bus bench was a prostitute waiting for her pickup. And I stood there for a moment and I looked upon this sad countenance smeared with all kinds of rouge, lipstick clear up to her nose, and I said God, thank you You didn't call me to be Hosea. (Congregation laughs) But Hosea, remember, you represent Me and I am married to a nation that I love, but sins against Me and worships idols.

So, in the Bible, would you go there with me to Hosea? Verse 2, When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: "Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord." So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Then the Lord said to him: "Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel." In other words, the first child was to be given a name which was a warning that judgment is coming. Now notice verse 6, then she conceived again and a little daughter is born, and the name is given Lo-Ruhamah, which means for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel. Now it's interesting, the texture of the Hebrew text suggests that that second child was not the child of Hosea. And then the Bible goes on to say, one more time, a little lad is born to Gomer. Now you've got to put yourself, and it's hard, but here's Hosea. He's sincere. He's representing God. He loves Gomer, but Gomer has been unfaithful to the marriage vows and she brings home the fruit of her sin. Such was the nation of Israel. They'd go sin - God still loved them. Now the story proceeds and says that Gomer decided one day, she comes to Hosea and says, Hosea, I'm leaving. I'm going to go live with my lovers. Now this gets very tender, because I have in every congregation families that have been divided by adultery, and there's nothing more anguishing, nothing more painful than to hear that that trust that you have put so much confidence in has been trampled. Can you imagine the heart of Hosea? He loves Gomer, but she is unfaithful.

So she now has left the house. She is living with her lovers, running from one to another, and finally they give up and she gets hungry. I'm in chapter 2 now, and I'm just hurrying along because my time is against me today, and the result is that God says to Hosea, now Hosea, Gomer is hungry and I want you to take her some food. If it was me, I'd say let her starve. Right? Most likely Hosea, but God said, no Hosea you're representing Me and I want you to go down to Albertson's and I want you to get some groceries, and I want you to take it wherever you can find Gomer, wherever she's living. And make sure she doesn't know where the groceries came from. Hosea, remember, you're representing Me, and even though Israel departs from Me, and even they wander down paths of sin I still love them Hosea. And what you're representing is My love to a nation that just keeps running away from Me. Even when they're running, I'm trying to chase them to show them my love. You take the groceries to Gomer - God's love.

Chapter 3, Gomer has gone so low now she has sold her body as a slave, and now her slave owner doesn't even want her so he's going to put her on the auction block to sell her. Remember, she's Hosea's wife. And so when slaves were sold in ancient times they were stripped naked because if you're going to buy a slave you wanted to see if they had a physique, you wanted to see if the lady was beautiful. So here are these slaves standing naked on the auction block. Now God says, Hosea, I want you to go to the auction today and I want you to buy back your wife, because the day will come when I will gather Israel to myself once again in love. I could have thought of a thousand places to go but that auction that day. But Hosea, you remember, is representing God's love. So he goes to the auction and there standing before them all is his naked wife, Gomer, the slave. The auction begins. Who will give three shekels? Three shekels sir. Five? Five. Seven? Seven. Ten? Ten. Twelve? Yeah, I'll give twelve shekels. And the auction slows for a moment and then someone speaks up and says I'll give fifteen shekels and a pound of barley. And the auctioneer says, fifteen shekels and a pound of barley going once, going twice. And all of a sudden Hosea steps up and says fifteen shekels of silver sir and a pound and a half of barley. And the old auctioneer says fifteen shekels of silver and a pound and a half of barley for this slave, going once, going twice, going the third time. Sir, there's your slave. Take her away. And Hosea, the husband, walks up to his wife and with only the delicacy of a man who's her husband he puts her clothes back on her, and he says, Gomer, I love you and we're going to go home and start all over again.

You say, I never knew that was in the Bible. But you see we often have a difficult time understanding spiritual truths, and God said I'm going to act this one out for you. Ladies and gentlemen, I think the most difficult times for me in counseling is when I have a couple sitting there and then the revelation surfaces, honey, I've been unfaithful to you. I tell you if there's nothing more crushing and devastating it's to learn that your trust and the one you've loved has violated such a sacred and beautiful thing such as marriage. I've sat in my office and I've watched the innocent party break and weep and sob, and that's one of the difficulties about reading the book of Hosea. It's reading from a man who's sobbing. His wife is gone. She's run off and left the kids. She's out there with her lover. He sobbing and when you're sobbing sometimes your thoughts aren't coherent and your sentences aren't complete, and you find that in the book of Hosea he's just sobbing, and sobbing, and you can't hardly find out where his heart is going because he's hurting. And then in love he brings her home, and in the counseling room I sit there and say, God, this hurts. But you know, the most beautiful moment - sometimes it happens - sometimes it doesn't - the innocent party will turn to the man or the woman who has violated something so sacred as the marriage and say, honey, if you'll come home I'll forgive you, and will start all over again. The reason why I find it so difficult, such a difficulty, is because you know, I've had such a lovely wife and nearly 50 years of marriage, and there's nothing so sacred, nothing so precious as that relationship that I have with Vernita. And if that was ever injured, I don't know how I could handle it. And my heart really reaches out for people who have to, and it happens so frequently.

I had a couple walk up to me in the last service and I've known them. I've been to their home and they're struggling with this issue, and both of them were just standing there weeping and saying, Pastor, we've decided we're going to start all over again. We're going to start all over again. We're going to love as God loves, and I put my arm around them and said thank you, thank you. You see, the bottom line is this, our souls went on the auction block when sin entered this world. Your soul is at stake. And we're on the auction block and Satan is there as one of the bidders, and he's saying I'll give pleasure, I'll give fame, I'll give fortune, I'll give all of the world, I'll give the kingdoms of this world, that's my bid for your soul. That's why Jesus asked the question, what will a man give in exchange for his soul? It's the most precious thing a human being has, for it lives for eternity. And God steps up to the auction block of life and says, I'll be the highest bidder. My Son will die and give His blood, and there is no greater price. And God Almighty, on the auction block of life, has already purchased your soul so that you might spend eternity with Him. And He made the purchase with His own precious blood. You can't give a higher price. That's why we sing these beautiful choruses today, how marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be, how marvelous, how wonderful, is my Savior's love for me.

When you hear the verse again, God so loved, and you come to that little word, never forget the story of God's love demonstrated by Hosea to Gomer. You see, I'm that prostitute and so are you. We're the ones that prostitute God's love. We're the ones that run off into sin and do our thing, and we're hurting the God that loves us intensely every time we do it. And we take sin lightly, but to Him, we're the object of His love. He's already paid the price, and we're the Gomers that run from God's love just as Israel did. So the story isn't too historical, it describes us. But best of all it describes God's love, that no matter how far we've gone he says come home, I love you and we'll start all over again. That's love. That is love. Let's pray. We can talk about it, but this story really drives the truth of Your love home to us dear God. We're the sinning Gomer. You love us. You'll do anything for us. Your mercy is from everlasting to everlasting, and we like fools keep running when all the time You want to be the God of our strength and our peace and our joy. Some of us have run too long and Your love keeps following us. With every head bowed. If you're here today and you say, Pastor, I never thought of my relationship to God in terms of Hosea and Gomer, but I've run from God's love and I've ignored His salvation through Christ, and today I'm going to stop running. I'm coming home to God.

With every head bowed why don't you just raise your hand to God, and all you're saying with your hand raised is, God, I'm tired of running and I'm coming home to Your love, yes, yes, yes (multiple yeses), to Your forgiveness, to Your grace, to know that You love me this much absolutely overwhelms me God and I can't run anymore. And to know that when I come, the past is forgotten and life begins. Others? Yes, yes (multiple yeses) In your heart just say, God, here I am. I respond to Your marvelous love to today and I want this to be the day I come home to You. I receive Jesus as my Savior. We walk away from this story today almost speechless, God, because we never knew You loved us that much, or at least we didn't grasped it. Now we do and it's amazing. Thank you, and everybody said, amen. God bless you.