GOD’S LOVE
Andrew Hoseason
30/1/1999

	I am very glad to see you all here today
That was very easy to say, wasn’t it, but what feeling do we carry behind such simple words? 
In a week when people have died in a lake, in the river and in canals.  When whole families have been wiped out in car crashes or arson attacks.
When 30 people were murdered recently, it is a good time to say, “I am very glad to see you all here today”.

	Every week it seems we hear of events like these, and for some people these events they form a significant stumbling block to their faith in God and the gospel of salvation.
It is now about a year since the death of Princess Diana
This unfortunate event affected people in different ways.
I believe my first reaction to the news was feelings of “This isn’t right” or “This shouldn’t be happening”.
One of the supervisors at work came to me with a question the day afterwards.  He asked if that event had harmed my faith in God.  When asked, I was quite taken back because I couldn’t quite work out how someone’s faith may be harmed by an fatal accident of that kind.  Obviously death is in the world as a result of sin, so what is the big surprise that someone died?
This supervisor asked further, why could God allow someone who was known for humanitarian deeds, die, when others of lesser character continue to live.  He presumed it logical for God to back “good” people and preserve their life; though we don’t see that happening.  
	We both approached this issue from different perspectives.  The root of the difference in approach was that I accepted the Biblical doctrines of God, sin and death, whereas he accepted something different - a home made image of God - which of course is not real.  
Many people reject God, not because they dislike God, but because they dislike a vision they have of him.  They have more than likely not been taught correct Biblical doctrines.  If they were to reject God it would be far better that they first received a clear view of him, rather than rejecting him for the wrong reasons.  Then again, it would be far less likely that they would reject him then.

People may ask, why did God allow the car that Princess Diana was travelling in, to crash.
Could he not have saved her?
Well, as I replied to the Supervisor, "Was God driving the car?”

I’ll tell you one of the misgiving that people have.  They are not convinced of the authority of the Bible, the word of God.
They are not sure that heaven and hell exist!  Some think that heaven is here, now!  That this world is all people can see, so that’s all there.  That’s their opinion.  If this world is all there is, I would agree that God was behaving strangely in letting “good” people die.  But that’s not what the Bible tells us.

This world is only a step in our lives.  Every one of us is a sinner and our sin will be judged.
There will be another world, a continuation of life.  These are things we are clearly taught by God through his authoritative word.

	But hold on - even so - even if there is another world, another life beyond this one, why should God not preserve the lives of “good” people on earth?
	Asking this question forgets one basic teaching of scripture.  God is separate from us.
He does not knock about with us.
We are told that before the first sin, he did knock around with Adam and Eve, and we are told that again, those people who enter heaven will be in the very presence of God.  But not now. 
We don’t see God in the street and we don’t see God on the bus.  

We don’t even hear about him on the news; and if he were intimately living with us, he would be in the news all the time - people of power always are.

God has become separate from us because we are sinful.
He cannot be in the presence of sin.  That is why his sustaining power doesn’t sustain us.
We have been shown tiny glimpses of God’s sustaining power through the acts of resurrection from the dead which Jesus performed.  They are mere party tricks.
We are told through scripture that God has the power, and will use that power, to sustain the world.
To stop it from gradually decreasing in order and usefulness over time [diagram] 

Many people, not merely Christians, have the longing that things will be Ok.
That they will not become affected by deteriorating diseases like my Dad, suffer the decline of old age like my Grandad, or have a heart attack in the bath like my friend’s daughter.  This feeling for things to be Ok is so deeply ingrained longing that, as Joseph mentioned the other week, even Atheists pray to God before major operations!  We have within us the expectation that our bodies should not deteriorate.  That things should go well with us.  That God will sustain us forever.  That is why the question is asked “Why did Princess Diana die?”.  Each one of us has a subconscious state which knows that God can sustain us.
But those who are out of tune with God don’t follow his word enough to know that sin has separated us from his intimate presence.  Princess Diana’s sin killed her.

Turning to God.  Accepting Christ as the covering over our sin.  Being immersed into a new life in Christ.  This is the key to a return into God’s intimate sustaining presence.

Joel 2:11-13
“The LORD proclaims before His great army; His camp is very great,
for those who carry out His word is strong. The LORD’s judge-
ment day is indeed awesomely magnificent, and who can endure it?  
Yet even now," affirms the LORD, "Return to me with all honesty, and with sorrow for your sins; Disturb your heart and not your garments.  Return to the LORD your God.  He is merciful 
and compassionate, slow to anger, overflowing in lovingkindness, 
and relenting of his righteous anger.”

	I have often pondered abut what is right to bring before the congregation.  Sometimes, a phrase is given to me, something like - “Tell them about my love”

Exod 34:6-7
"The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;	who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave {the guilty} unpunished"
(NAS)

Eph 2:4-10
“God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly {places}  in Christ Jesus, in order that in the future He might show the surpassing riches of His merciful kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by an act of mercy you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, {it is} the gift of God; not as a result of our own effort, so no one can boast.
We are the result of His skill, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

On our own, would any of us come up with the notion of a God who loves us and yearns to be loved?  Those raised in a Christian tradition may miss the shock of the Bible’s message, but in truth, love has never been humanity’s normal way of describing what happens between human beings and their “Gods”.  Not once does the Qur’an apply the word love to Allah, the fictitious description of God which Moslems believe in.
It would be eccentric for anyone to claim they loved the fictitious God Zeus, or that Zeus loved us, for that matter.  In dazzling contrast, however, the Bible affirms, “God is love” and cites love as the main reason Jesus came to earth.

One popular song which I find particularly poinient is Labelled with love by Squeeze.  It gives me a claustrophobic feeling, a tight knot in my throat.  The song tells the story of a young British woman who marries an American airman during the second world war.  She moves back to Texas with him, but in due course, he dies, and she makes the move back to Britain in her old age.  There, she finds that her friends and relations have either died or moved away to unknown places.
She is all alone.  Her memories of happiness and love lie in black and white on the mantelpiece.
Her only friend is a bottle of booze.

When we first fancy a person, we are all excited and spend a lot of time with them.
Then things change, especially if we do not maintain the relationship. We become used to the person and fail to still see what a great benefit they are to us.  Is it the same with our knowledge of God?  We’re so used to the concept that God loves us, are we blase about the term?
Hey God loves us.  He loved us before we were created.
Many people are so scarred by the world that they give up hope in their lives, but if we trust in the authority of the word of God, that word gives great hope for the future life, even in the midst of this one.  I remember once hearing a story of a preacher in a church in an city, perhaps it was Glasgow.
He gave them the message of love from their creator.  That God loved them, whoever hey were.
It is only your lifestyle that he hates, and you can change that!  As the preacher said these words he saw heads rise from their stooped positions.  People were listening to the message of God and taking it to heart.  They were loved.  Their lives had meaning to someone.  This is the message of love we have from God today.

MAY GOD HIMSELF, THE GOD OF PEACE, SANCTIFY YOU THROUGH AND THROUGH.  MAY YOUR WHOLE SPIRIT, SOUL AND BODY BE KEPT BLAMELESS AT THE COMING OF OUR MASTER JESUS, THE MESSIAH.  THE ONE WHO CALLS YOU IS FAITHFUL AND HE WILL DO IT.	1 Thess 5:23-24