Sermon Notes By Pastor Arthur H. Coleman Sr. For Sunday May 11, 2014
Jeremiah 31:3 “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”
St. John 14:15 “If ye love me , keep my commandments.”
1 John 4:7-11 “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. (vs8) He the loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (vs9) In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. (vs10) Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation (means by which reconciliation of God and mankind is attained) for our sins. (vs11) Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”
Premise
The Pulpit Commentary Vol.11, Pages 16-17, a comment on Jeremiah 31:3 – I. THE EVERLASTING LOVE OF GOD “There is a wonder about the fact of the everlasting love of God, since there are so many things that might well be thought likely to limit and stay the love of God to such beings as we are. 1. Our Unworthiness---God is holy, and must delight only in holiness; he is great; and can create innumerable beings of far greater powers than ours. Why, then, should he love such imperfect creatures as men?---why love those who are corrupt and sinful?---Psalms 8:3-4 “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; (vs4) What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” 2.Our Indifference --- Human love looks for a return of love; but men have treated God’s love with neglect. Through the long ages during which God has been visiting his children with ceaseless lovingkindness they have been coldly turning aside to their own ways, deaf to the entreaties of an infinite condescension or ( pleasantness to inferiors). 3.Our Unfaithfulness--- For love to remain unbroken it is expected that it should be honored by fidelity. Unfaithfulness is naturally regarded as a reason for withdrawing the privileges of affection. But God’s children have been untrue to him. They have forsaken his ways, abused his blessings, flung insult on his mercy. How, then, can he continue to love him? It is , indeed, a marvel that, through these long ages of the world’s wild wanderings, God should still follow his unworthy children with ceaseless love, never refusing to bless them, always entreating them to return to him. and it must be a marvel to us that, through all the years of our unworthy lives, he has shown the same long-suffering, forebearing mercy to each of us. It is wonderful that God should ever love such unworthy creatures as we are, but it is “passing strange” that he should not cease to love us after all our provocations of his wrath, that he should love us with “an everlasting love,” and should “have continued his loving-kindness unto” us.