Dear Christian friends:

Do we really appreciate God's love? Sometimes I wonder if we do because a positive response to His love is so often lacking. God complained to His Old Testament Church about its failure to respond to His love as we heard in the Scripture reading last Sunday. He laments, "What shall I do with you, O Ephraim; what can I do to you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears." (Hosea 6:50)

Does God also sigh and lament about the fickleness of our love for Him? When our love is tested does it fail to respond? When we are asked to prove our love by forgiving, giving and serving and volunteering what is our response? If we honestly examine our past performances, I'm sure we will agree that our response could have been and should have been more positive than it actually was.

We cannot hear enough about God's love for us. It is the only solution to our problem of little or no response. In our text, which is the Epistle Lesson for this Sunday, which has been read, St. Paul gives us another precious look at God's love. He says,


I. God's love is unlike human love which loves only the loveable.
II. God sees to it that His love is not wasted on us, and that
III. God's love enables us to respond with joy.

A. Paul says in our text that we humans are not inclined to sacrifice our life to save another. (read verse 7)

1. Our experience in life shows this to be an accurate assessment of human nature.

2. We would not think of dying for an evil person or an enemy. We prefer to hate and kill him.

B. But God demonstrates His love for us by sending His Son Jesus Christ to die for the "ungodly", for "sinners", for "enemies", our text tells us. (verses 6, 8, 10)

1. Our text bluntly states: "Christ died for the ungodly" (verse 6) and "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us." (verse 8) Christ's love is based on God's grace and, therefore, is not the result of any inherent worthiness found in mankind. In fact, God's love is lavished upon us in spite of our unlovely, undesirable character.

2. The Bible describes this ungodly nature of us humans in Romans 3:10-18 where St. Paul quotes several Scriptures, mostly from Psalms. Let me read it to you. "As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. There throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: There feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways. And the way of peace they have not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes."

It simply blows one's mind when one thinks that God who is goodness itself, could love such trash and wretches such as we are. What an amazing love, what amazing grace! Indeed, God does commend His love to us. And there's even more to be said about God's amazing love.

II. God sees to it that His love is not wasted on us.

A. Paul continues: "Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." (verses 9-10)

B. If Christ's death was a demonstration of God's love, what is Christ's resurrection and life and His sitting at the right hand of God?

1. It is even more of a demonstration of His love. It is assurance to us that we shall be saved from God's wrath which shall be fully revealed on the Last Day, at the final judgment. Paul's argument is this: If when we were enemies Christ's death justified us, much more now that we are "reconciled" friends of God, and Christ is alive and ruling, He will see to it that we are led to faith, keep in the faith through all temptations and adversity, and finally received up into glory.

2. This of course, Christ does through the ministry of His Church on earth, the proclamation of the Gospel, through preaching, witnessing, and administration of the Sacraments. And, of course, the Holy Spirit is active in all this as St. Paul shows in the very verse before our text where he writes, "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given us." (verse 5) Have you ever thought of your church as a demonstration of God's amazing love to you? Well it is and you should!

There's even more to commend God's amazing love to us.

III. God's amazing love enables us to respond with joy.

A. Paul continues, "And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement" (reconciliation) (verse 11)

What a commendable love! God even enables us to respond to His love with "joy". Not only are we justified by Christ's death and saved from God's wrath by His life, but we are also enabled to rejoice in God through Him, Christ our Lord!

B. As God loved us, so we are enabled to love those He has loved although they, too, are undesirable and unlovely and unworthy.

1. The Gospel lesson for today tells of Jesus love and compassion for the multitudes who are yet without Christ. Jesus calls our attention to His great harvest, the lack of workers to bring in this precious harvest and our need to pray for workers and be a worker.

It is this commendable love of God in Christ that touches our hearts and gives us joy to work and serve.

2. This commendable love of God also enables us to love and forgive our enemies and those who have been a real problem and test for us.

Frank and Elizabeth Morris of Pee Dee, Kentucky, according to an article in the May 1986 issue of the Reader's Digest, seem to have been so touched and enabled by God's amazing love.

Their eighteen-year-old son was killed by a drunken driver. At first they wanted the "punk" who killed him to die, too, and sought the courts. It took almost two years for the case to move toward resolution. A ten-year sentence was fixed and the young man was to spend two days in the county jail every other weekend for two years, as well as participate in the local chapter of Mother's Against Drunk Drivers, (MADD).

Elizabeth's encounter with the young man through MADD led to a discovery of his addiction to alcohol since he was sixteen, and knowledge that the grief he had brought on his family made him drink even more. He could only endure his guilt and shame by being drunk. Elizabeth's God-given ability to forgive the young man and ask he's forgiveness for the hate she felt towards him changed both of their lives.

Isn't it amazing that God still loves us and befriends us in the midst of our sins? What amazing grace! What a commendable love!

Amen.