In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes that God's love for us is not based on our current state, but despite it. However, this love does not leave us unchanged. The message of the text is that Jesus died for us so that we no longer live for ourselves, but for Him. The preacher highlights the importance of not remaining self-centered, but instead living for the one who died and rose again for us. The sermon also addresses the concept of God's love in relation to sin, emphasizing that God does not love sin or those who continually practice it. The preacher encourages the audience to stick with the text and preach the Word without embellishment or protection. The sermon concludes with a reflection on the unfathomable love of God, who gave His Son for undeserving sinners like us.

the experience of Your great love for us. Oh, Father, would You be pleased to take puny little words and put them together in such a way, with power, that we will see just how much You love us. That You will grant the Holy Spirit, who is Thy love, to flow out here on our hearts, in our hearts, through our hearts, so not only will we love You more, but we'll love one another more. And I pray for he or her who has yet to see Your love. Oh, God, this very moment would You protect them from the lies of hell that will be preaching as I speak. Lord, I pray You would cause the birds of the air to not be able to light nor pick the seed that will be planted in their hearts. And grant them faith and repentance in this very hour. For His glory we pray. Amen. There are two very wrong views of God's love, popularized by two different views of God. One view of God sees Him loving the elect only and hating all others. There are Scriptures that tell us that God does hate the evildoer. But there are also verses that speak of His love for the wicked. The ill-advised tendency of man's logic when confronted with paradoxes is to embrace one and dismiss the other. This view has embraced that He loves only the elect and that He hates all others. Yet, this does not solve the paradox. You still have Scriptures explaining God's love for those whom He knows will never repent and believe in Him. And to twist these passages of God's Word to fit a logical system will cheat you, rob you of a clearer and better view of God. It causes the Lord to become one-dimensional rather than this transcendent being that He is. You see, God transcends dimensions. Could, therefore, a transcendent being love the sinner and hate the sinner at the exact same time? Of course, this question is not hypothetical. The Bible says He does. Our God is of so much more expanse in intellect and emotions and soul than you or I. His capacity far exceeds ours and even our imagination to comprehend it. Now, some may object and say that my resolution of this paradox is merely intellectual suicide. That I'm suggesting that there's a contradiction within God's person. But that's not what I'm doing. I'm saying that the Bible presents God in such a way that He is bigger than human logic. I'm saying that your powers of intellect and logic are just not sufficient to comprehend the love of God. Finite logic has an end. And when your powers of analysis has ended, God's powers go on, continue without end. The eminent Spurgeon commented on man's propensity to have these nice, neat, tidy systems of theology. Systems of explaining God at the expense of Scripture. I think it would serve us well this evening and this weekend to cite this quote at the very beginning. He said, As far as I can, I'm content with believing all that I see in God's Word. People say. But he contradicts himself. I dare say I do. But I never contradict God to my knowledge, nor yet the Bible. If I do, may my Lord forgive me. Do not believe me for a minute if I speak contrary to God's Word in order to appear consistent. The sin of being inconsistent with my poor, fallible self does not trouble me a tithe as much as the dread of being inconsistent with what I find in God's Word. Some want to shape the Scriptures to their creed. They get a very nice square creed, too. They trim the Bible most dexterously. But I'd rather have a crooked creed and a straight Bible than I would to twist the Bible around to suit what I believe. Hear, hear. The Bible presents a God that is not one-dimensional in His love. He loves with different kinds of love. Or maybe a different way to say it would be, He loves with different purposes or in different ways. He can love the sinner in one way and love His redeemed in yet another way. Much like you can love your neighbor's children in a way different than you love your own children. Friends, this is no contradiction of Scripture. I'd like to think it's a more biblically integrated understanding of God's love. I think one of the reasons, and I hate to use terms on you tonight, but I don't know how else to say it. I think one of the reasons our Arminian friends despise or dislike we who hold to the doctrines of grace, whatever you want to call them, sovereign grace, is because they do see sometimes we taking certain verses that state clearly what they know it means. We've taken out our paring knives and trimmed it and reduced it so it means not what it says. Well, you say to me, well, they do the same with their text. They take verses with sovereign grace and they whittle them down so they don't mean what they supposedly say. Yes, but does one good turn deserve another? Let me speak to especially the younger men here this evening. I know you love this idea that God's grace is absolutely free. I do too. There's no sweeter melody to my heart. I cannot think of one song sweeter than the song of amazing sovereign grace. But friend, it doesn't need tweaking. It doesn't need embellishing. And it doesn't need protection. Just preach the Word. Just stick with the text. And if you, like Spurgeon, find yourself inconsistent with yourself, then praise the Lord. You're getting somewhere. Where am I getting? You're getting to an idea that God just can't be contained in our little systems. Now that I've scratched that itch, now let me get to what I want to really say. This evening, I want to deal with this other view of God's love that is deadly wrong. It's a view that God loves all mankind with this accepting type of love that forgives and overlooks sin. It's the kind of love that if you stop a man walking down the street and say, Hey, does God love you? If he believes in a God, he will say, of course he does. And he has the hope that one day God will accept him into heaven in spite of his sin. Why? Why? Because God loves him unconditionally. God's love is often called unconditional love. I want to give you the first of two propositions tonight. The first is this. God's love is not unconditional. Don't say amen because you don't know where I'm going to go. God's love is not unconditional. Now, centuries ago, theologians used the term unconditional to mean that God receives sinners just as they are and that He would forgive them. And in that way, the word is acceptable. But today, in our time, in our culture, the word unconditional love means something completely different. It means that not only will God accept you the way you are, but God doesn't expect you to change either. He loves you just the way you are and you're free to live as you please because God loves you as a wonderful plant. God does not love unconditionally in that way. That is a damnable lie. That is an unbiblical presentation of God and His love. I have often used the term God loves unconditionally. I was taught to use that term. It's what they teach you to use. But every time I'd use that term, there was this inward compulsion to put on the heels of that. Now, that doesn't mean blanket acceptance. It doesn't mean God doesn't expect anything in return for His love. Let me ask you, do you think God expects anything in return for His love? The answer, biblically, is absolutely. He expects our love and faithful obedience. If that is true, and it is, you can't say God loves you unconditionally. See, that's why I told you, I warned you, don't say amen too soon. Some of you, most of you, probably don't agree with me at this moment. It means, unconditional love in this generation, in this culture, means something like this, that God accepts you without imposing any of His values on you. He loves you just like He loves everyone else, without judgment or finding fault. And in our present day culture, that's what unconditional love, that God does not love that way. God does impose His values on us. He does expect us to return His love with faithfulness. And if we don't, then He's absolutely clear. He refuses to bless us and accept us, and there is no hope of eternal life. Now, listen to what God said to His people in Hosea 9, verse 15. Hosea 9, verse 15. All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I hated them. Because of the evil of their deeds, I will drive them from My house. I will love them no more. You say, that's the Old Testament. Very well then, let's listen to Jesus. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is He who loves Me, and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father. I will love him. It goes on to say, if anyone loves Me, he will keep My Word, and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. The word, if, introduces conditionality, doesn't it? If God's love is not unconditional, is it then conditional? And the answer is, yes and no. How do you like that for a plain answer? No, in that God did not love me conditionally when He saved me. In other words, He loved me and saved me in spite of me. But now that I'm saved, there are conditions for me to experience His love as a father and a son, just like there are in your family. The Lord loves His children graciously, but He tells us in no uncertain terms that we cannot remain the way we were, or the way He found us when He saved us. The quotes of Jesus I just recited to you suggest conditionality. The question I think we need to ask is this this evening. Does Jesus introduce this word, if, to mean we've got to jump through hoops in order to be loved by Him? I want to answer strongly, no, absolutely not. I'm not suggesting, nor is Christ with this word if, that you've got to do certain things in order for Him to love you and save you. There is a kind of conditional love that's like that. Manipulative, mean-spirited says something like this, I will love you if you love me the way I want you to love me, and if you don't love me the way I want you to love me, then I will make your life miserable until you love the way I want you to love me. That's not the way God loves us. What then is Jesus' purpose with this word if? This is crucial. What does it mean? It does introduce conditionality, but what does that mean? I think Jesus means this. He wants you to understand that you can know that you love Him, and that He loves you because there has been a change in your life. In other words, you can know that you love Him by whether or not you obey Him. If you love Him, you will obey Him delightfully. John says His commandments are not a burden or grievous to the child of God. We delight in pleasing God because we love Him. Those who obey God are those who have already been loved by God and have been chosen and have been redeemed by the Lord, so that now they are His children. So, the word if is a condition of distinction. It is distinguishing those who are converted and those who are yet to be converted. It distinguishes between the redeeming, electing love of God and those who have yet to receive it. Now, that takes care of my no answer. God does not condition His love for us based upon what we do, but there is still a yes part to my answer. Is God's love conditional? No and. And here is the yes part. God's love demands changes be made. God's love for you demands there are changes that are to occur in our lives. Let's go to our text now. The thing I said has been an introduction. Sometimes you just have to do that. Clear the air and kind of redefine things because things have been so garbled. American Christianity, the evangelical world and, of course, the world outside it. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 15, And He died for all. Why? I'm going to tell you. That those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. You are not okay. I am not okay and, therefore, God is not okay with us. There is a problem here. We are God haters. The Bible says we hate. We oppose God. We were His sworn enemies. And God's love cannot delight in our wickedness. The great love chapter, chapter 13, says this about love. Love does not rejoice in iniquity. God says He will not accept the evildoer into heaven. His exact words are this. Listen. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 beginning with verse 9. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Oh, I hope you're listening. Young people, are you listening? Do not be deceived. The unrighteous do not inherit the kingdom of God. You can have been raised in this church with a godly heritage, with a mother and father that loves Christ with all of their heart, and you have lived a life that has been well pleasing in mom and dad's sight, in your grandparent's sight, in your pastor's sight. Don't be deceived. The unrighteous will not enter the kingdom. But I'm not unrighteous. I've been good. Listen to me. I know no evil worse than the evil pride of self-righteousness. Don't be deceived. If you've just followed somebody's prayer or formula and they told you you were saved, don't be deceived. The unrighteous do not inherit the kingdom. Oh, please. Get this. Don't be deluded and therefore damned. It goes on to say, neither fornicators... We're not having sex. We're just experimenting. We're not going all the way. Don't be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, covetous, wanting something because you've placed your delight in it more than you do Christ. Nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. Now listen, if God loved unconditionally, then He could not exclude anybody from His kingdom. He would not be able to say to the immoral man, No, sir, you cannot come into My kingdom. The way unconditional love is defined today would say, I love you without expecting anything from you. Now, I don't like your sin, but I'll tolerate it anyway because I love you. The Bible continues to say, to Christians in the very next verse, listen to this, that such were some of you. Now why does He say some? Why didn't He say all of you? All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I think the answer is because the list that He gave is not exhaustive. It doesn't mention liars. It doesn't mention blasphemers. So, I think that's why He uses the word some. He's not intending for you to think that if you grew up in church and you've always been good, you're exempt. Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God. In other words, a change has taken place in your life, in your behavior. You no longer participate in the old life style. The kind of unconditional love that God has accused of today is a promiscuous kind of love that turns a blind eye to sin. It's a love that's twisted and perverted to blanket every man with the title good, whether he has any intentions of being good or not. It grants men and women safety in their sin. Why fear God that will do nothing to you if you transgress His way? Why repent and turn from your sin? God loves you. You can have the proverbial cake and eat it too. You can have Jesus and whatever else you want, even if they're contradictions. Beloved, God demands holiness. Live it in a way that glorifies Him and pleases Him because you love Him. That's what that means. That's what He demands of you. Be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect. I am holy. Therefore, you be holy. That's the standard by which God has given to us. You want heaven? You want me? You want salvation? Here it is. Be like me. Listen to what James says to Christians. Notice the terminology he uses. I'm sure if a pastor did this this coming Sunday and called his congregation these words, there would be a business meeting quickly thereafter. Adulterers and adulteresses. He's writing to a church. He's writing to you and me. Are you taking something that belongs to another and are you using it on your own pleasures? That's what an adulterer and adulteress does. They take something that belongs to their spouse and they squander it and give it away for their own joy and pleasure. If you're doing that spiritually, with your life, with your ambitions, with your goals, with your time, with your affections, adulterer! Adulteress! Don't you know that He who would have the world as a friend, friendship with the world, His enmity with God? Whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Again, listen to what the Bible says. Romans 2, beginning with verse 5. Romans 2 and 5. But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, the hardest people I've ever talked to about Christ is church people. Mainly pastors. We wonder why there's so many people lost in our church pews. Come on. Shepherds produce. But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you're treasuring up for yourself wrath and the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds. Look at verse 8. But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who does evil. Listen, God loves in no way except sin or those who continually practice it. How then is this love that the world says God loves us with, how in the world can God truly love us while we are practicing sin and enjoying it? There's a disconnect here, friends, from the Scripture. We've departed from truth. So, if this love of God is not conditional in a manipulative, mean-spirited way, which means this, I'll love you if you love me. If God's love is not conditional in that way, how can that be so? Because it sure sounds like it when you read these verses. God's saying, I'll love you if you love me. Two reasons why it isn't conditional in that way. Number one, because He loves you in spite of your wickedness. God loves you in spite of your wickedness. Herein is love that God loved us and gave us His Son for the propitiation of our sins. We love Him because He first loved us. So, God somehow loved us in spite of us. But number two, and most importantly, this is what the message of our text is, redeeming love makes the necessary changes in those whom it loves. This is how God's love manipulative. I'll love you if you love me. This is how God's love is not conditional in the sense that we normally think conditional. It's because not only does He love you in spite of you, but if He redeems you, if He sets His electing love upon you, He will not leave you where you are. This is the kind of love that goes beyond just acceptance to changing us, conforming us, transforming us into the very image of Christ. This is love amazing. Love divine. The love of God works in us to give us a new heart with new desires. You don't change yourself up and then clean up your life and then tidy yourself and then come to the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll never be saved that way. You're not able to change your behavior and your life and your heart. Oh, you can change your behavior, but not your heart. You can transform your actions to a degree, but out of the heart comes the issues of life. What really matters, what you love, what you desire, the direction in which your life's course will go comes from the heart. And that, my friend, you cannot change. You can change your appearance. You can change your friends. You can even change churches. That doesn't save. God doesn't want you to try extremely hard to change yourself and then come to Him hating every minute of it so you can get into His heaven. Because that's not love. That's slavery. God's love replaces your heart and gives you a power to love God with all of your heart. Not just Him, but His ways. This is love divine. That God loves you by not leaving you the way He found you. He doesn't leave you in your hateful and wicked ways. He turns you into a child of love. A child that loves His Father more than anything else. This is the kind of love we're talking about. This is God's love. That's why Jesus said, those who love Him are those who obey Him. Well now, if the love of God is not conditional and it's not conditional, then what is it? If it's not conditional in the conventional sense of the word and it's not unconditional, what is it? Here's my second proposition to you this evening. God's love is undeserving. God's love is undeserving. I think this is a much better way to describe our God's love for us. Undeserved rather than unconditional. Again, let's look at our text. We judge thus, that if one died for all, then all died. Friend, He died in your place. He died in your death. In other words, Jesus came and He got from the Father what He too did not deserve. But this case was not His love. It was your penalty. Jesus Christ did not get what He deserved. He received the judgment of your sins so that now the Father can give you what you do not deserve. His mercy. This is the kind of love we're talking about. The Apostle Paul shows us it's undeserved when he says, but God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were yet sinners. It says it all, doesn't it? He came to die for the unworthy, the unlovable, for those who did not deserve it, including you and me. It's a love you can't earn. God's love flows out of His graciousness. Or maybe we could say it this way. His graciousness flows out of His love. I don't know. All I know is, it does, it works, it changes us. Because the truth is, I still don't deserve His love. He still loved me, the unworthy. He sets His love upon the broken who cannot fix themselves. Are you unfixable tonight? Have you so marred your reputation and your image that it's beyond repair? Have you fallen off the fabled wall and all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put you back together again? Then listen to me. I definitely have something to say to you. God will love you and does undeservedly. Therefore, I say, just receive it tonight. Accept it. Accept the fact that He loves you, not because you deserved it, not because you're worthy, but because He loves us undeservedly. You can't deserve His love. And you need not wrongly think that you've got to tidy up your life before you can come to Him for forgiveness, because you'll never come if you wait for that to happen. You'll never deserve His love. Ever. I don't deserve His love. Even in this message, I am sure there's enough sin and corruption in my proclamation to you to damn my soul forever. I'm not trying to get God to love me by preaching to you. There are many Sundays I kind of think, God, if You really loved me, You'd get me out of this. Not worthy to stand here. And I don't earn any favor from God because I'm standing here this evening before you. You don't deserve His love, nor will you ever. You remain a debtor to love that is so amazing, so divine, and so, again, I say, accept undeserving love. Right here, right now. He extends it to you. How do I know this? How can I say He extended it to me? Why? Because Jesus died. The Bible says if you believe upon Him, you will be saved. That's the Gospel. I'm afraid we too have gone the other extreme and we've begun to put our reformed qualifications on conversion. Friends, there's no other qualifications other than this. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and rose again the third day. If you will believe that, trust in that with all of your heart, commit your heart to that, and your life, you will be saved. The question is tonight, how can we be the recipients of such love? Because of what the text says. We judge thus, that if one died for all, then all died. Jesus satisfied your condition of God's love. If you were to have any chance of being forgiven and accepted by God, then you needed to be perfect in your obedience and that had to be on your account. But that's never going to happen. You have not been perfect. You will not be in this side of heaven. And so therefore, God said, I will give you My Son and His perfect obedience will be transmitted and given to you freely. Not because you've earned it. Not because you've prayed the prayer. Not because you were baptized. But simply, you had so much confidence in what Christ did that you said, it must be so. There is no other way. You did not trust in anything else but Him and Him alone. Could you if you tried to imagine the angels in heaven? What they must have thought when Christ came for us? The Lord did not gather the heavenly host together and He made that announcement that one of them would give up their immortal life for one of us. Rather, He uttered the unfathomable. He mentioned the name that they only spoke with the deepest tones of reverence. The name of the Son of God. That He would give His life for the wretched on earth. I don't know if angels can be shocked or horrified, but if they can, they must have been that day when they heard that their beloved Prince would come and give His life for miserable people like you and me. The undeserved. The unworthy. Certainly, they must have been stupefied in the greatest of horror they ever imagined. Satan's rebellion must have been bad, but this could not eclipse this news that Jesus Christ was coming. Who did He die for? Who did He die for? He died for everyone who took His precious name and threw it out like a common word or term. Have you blasphemed the glorious name of Jesus? Then for you, He's died. Have you ever turned your affections toward something more than the Lord Jesus Christ and considered His blood common? And behold, He came and died for you. Surely those angels perhaps protested that their Prince of Glory would come, but all against their protest, He still came and they watched Him unrobe His eternal life and enter into the very darkest place on earth, a woman's womb. Then later, a borrowed tomb. Why? This love of God so baffling doesn't make any sense that God would give you and I who are so undeserving this glorious hope of redemption in Christ Jesus. I think it's unthinkable to think what we have done to Him. That we, mankind, took His Son and did unspeakable horrors and vicious crimes against Him, and yet He died for us? How do you explain this kind of love? How do you find words in human vocabulary? What songwriter or poet can put words together that will equal the grandeur of the love of God? Tell me, sir! There's none higher, no symphony sweeter than Calvary's blood dripping from the cross. For you. Me. Would you believe it? Would you receive it here tonight? What stands in your way? What keeps you from coming to the cross and receiving God's undeserved love? Do you think you've got to do something? Must you find yourself going about some task, some religious duty, so that when you come and present yourself to God, you can have somewhat merited this favor? Man, that's foolish. You will work your way to hell, don't you? Undeserved love is the only kind of love that God gives human beings. There's only one person that's ever deserved His love, and it's the Son of God. The very image of Himself. I can't understand why He loves me. I, who do not love Him as I should, and yet He loves me as if I did love Him that way. So, I want to say to you, God does not love you just as you are. He loves you despite how you are. But His love does not leave me the way I am. That's the message of this text tonight. He died for all, but those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. You see, I don't have to remain the self-centered person that I have been, living for my own concerns and cares. I can now live for Him who died for me. This is the glorious news of the Gospel. I can now live for Him who died for me and rose again. I can be free of the baggage that dragged me down. Some of you are in this room, sitting here, wore out, spiritually speaking, because of the sins that hang around your neck like an albatross. Do you know your sin hangs about you? Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king who invaded Israel 160 years before Jesus was born, was a maniacal and evil man. When he invaded Palestine, he passed a law that the Jews couldn't circumcise their children, the male children. Two mothers did and they were caught. They slaughtered those babies in front of their mother's eyes and then sewed the babies to their chest. As grotesque as that image must be to you right now, I want you to know if you are lost without God tonight, something far worse is hanging about you tonight. Corruption far worse than a decomposing body. It's your sin. God smells it. It stinks in His nostrils. Yet, He loves you. Not only does He love you that He would forgive you, but those of us that have been forgiven, He still loves us. When we don't progress in this faith as much as we desire to, He still patiently forbears us and continues to transform us into the image of His Son. Oh, how sweet the love of God to me and you tonight. You don't need to carry the load of your sin any longer. The love of God will change you and you'll be clean. My friends, you need a Savior who will love you in spite of you. You need One who can love you enough to patiently change you until one day you are completely finished looking like the Son of God Himself. You need One who will not leave you nor forsake you when you don't change as quickly as you desire. You need a love that will not accept you and leave you the way you are. Oh, no. You need a love that will accept you and change you and not leave you where it found you. This is the love of God. And it's the only kind of love that can save you. Oh, please be saved tonight for the glory of the One who died for you and me. Let's pray. As your heads are bowed and your eyes are closed, I want to speak to a Christian person right now who came here to this meeting full of doubt, questioning whether or not God loves you. I can't make you to know God's love. I wouldn't dare presume upon the condition of your heart tonight, but you profess the name of Jesus. My dear friend, if you're like me, the reason you get in that predicament is because you forget you can't deserve the love of God. And you start trying to deserve it. So, tonight I'm asking you to lay yourself before the Lord Jesus Christ and profess what the Bible says. It is well with the righteous. It is. What the Bible says, it is well with the righteous. And friends, it is well for the righteous, not because he feels it is, but because God says it is. Receive undeserved love tonight. To the sinner, if you can't earn it, and it's offered to you undeservedly, why not surrender to it? Surrender right now. Cry out to God and ask Him to save you. To grant unto you the Word of faith that will dispel the darkness of your own soul. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Ask God to make what you've heard, the Gospel, alive in your soul and believe it. I'm going to pray that you join me. Father, tonight we come to You. We thank You that Your love is not unconditional. But it changes us. It fulfills the demands of holiness for us. It grants unto us a heart that wants that. To pursue and follow the heart. Oh, Father, I pray here tonight that the saint will keep himself in Your love for those who are weary, looking at their performance, distracted from the cross. Oh, I pray, Father, that You would once again lift them up out of their own despair, the despair of their own making, and help them to see what You've made for them in Jesus Christ. Perfect acceptance in the Beloved. May You do the same for the sinner here tonight. God, if there's ever a way for Jesus Christ, I believe, to be magnified. It is in the salvation of sinners. Make the blood real here and powerful tonight for them. I ask it for His glory. Amen. Amen.