God’s Love for You

This week’s sermon is all about what Jesus did on the Cross. Pastor Q has done an excellent job of delivering an Easter message about who Jesus died for – YOU! These are my notes from his sermon, which I pray will bless you as much as they did me. I love going through my sermon notes, as it reinforces what I have learned at church.

Bible Verses Used

John 3:16Philippians 2:6-8


John 14: 1-4

John 3:16 underpins everything that happened to Jesus – the Cross, the crucifixion and the empty tomb. We are the “why” that happened. Jesus died for You! When Jesus stood before Pilate, He said,

For this reason I was born.

You could substitute your own name for “this reason“, and maybe then you would realise how important you are to Jesus. What was behind the extraordinary reason? You were! Jesus left everything that He had in heaven, just for you. It was all for You!

He was crucified for you, the stone was rolled away from the tomb for you, and when the stone was rolled away, it showed Jesus’ love for You. Regardless of who you are or what you’ve done, Jesus died for You!

You could be the most despicable, vilest, most hateful person and yet, He died for You. You are no less important to Jesus than anyone else. He died for the world. The flash houses of today would look like ramshackle beach shacks compared with what Jesus left behind when He came to earth.

Dr Maxwell Maltz was a renowned plastic surgeon, and He saw a woman whose husband was severely disfigured in a house fire trying to rescue his parents. The husband’s face was horribly disfigured, but he refused Dr. Maltz’s offer to help restore him to some degree of normality. His wife came back to see Dr Maltz, and he was surprised because he knew that her husband had refused his help previously. This time she asked Dr Maltz how much it would cost for him to disfigure her face like her husband’s, so that her husband would let her back into his life. Jesus was severely and callously beaten for us, tortured with the Crown of Thorns, flogged, mocked, spat upon and hanged upon the Cross at Golgotha where He endured the agony of the Cross for You, and all that He wants is to be allowed into your life.

The Cross is a universal symbol of Christianity, and yet we would never wear a guillotine around our neck, but we proudly wear the Cross which was the ultimate persecution that Jesus endured just for You! How did a symbol of torture become something of beauty?

The arms of the Cross show:~

Horizontal Band – The Breadth and Length of God’s Love

Vertical Band – The Depth and Height of God’s Love

The resurrection of Jesus Christ shows God’s Love for You! Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the gift of Your love.

Jesus, You showed us Your love through the Cross, the empty tomb and Your scarred body.

I pray that you unshakeably take hold of God’s Love for You.

The (Scientific) Death of Jesus

At the time crucifixion was the “worst” death. Only the worst criminals were condemned to be crucified. Yet it was even more dreadful for Jesus, because unlike other criminals condemned to death by crucifixion Jesus was to be nailed to the cross by His hands and feet.

Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long.

The nails were driven into His wrist.  Not into His palms as is commonly portrayed. There’s a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder.  The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support himself so that He could breathe.

Both of His feet were nailed together.  Thus He was forced to support Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross.  Jesus could not support himself with His legs because of the pain, so He was forced to alternate between arching His back then using his legs just to continue to breathe.  Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering and the courage.

Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours.

Yes, over 3 hours! Can you imagine this kind of suffering?  A few minutes before He died, Jesus stopped bleeding.

He was simply pouring water from his wounds.

From common images we see wounds to His hands and feet and even the spear wound to His side.  But do we realise His wounds were actually made in His body.  A hammer driving large nails through the wrist, the feet overlapped and an even larger nail hammered through the arches, then a Roman guard piercing His side with a spear.   But before the nails and the spear, Jesus was whipped and beaten.  The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh from His body.  The beating so horrific that His face was torn and his beard ripped from His face.  The crown of thorns cut deeply into His scalp.  Most men would not have survived this torture.

He had no more blood to bleed out, only water poured from His wounds.

The human adult body contains about 5 litres of blood.

All these without mentioning the humiliation He passed after carrying his own cross for almost 2 kilometres, while the crowd spat in His face and threw stones (the cross was almost 30 kg of weight, only for its higher part, where his hands were nailed).

Accept the reality, the truth that JESUS IS THE ONLY SALVATION FOR THE WORLD.

God has plans for you – think about what He experienced to save you. May God bless your life richly!

Feed My Sheep

A holy man spoke with the Lord about heaven and hell. The Lord said to the holy man, “Come, and I will show you hell.”

They entered a room where there was a large table, and a group of people sat around a huge pot of stew. Everyone was famished, desperate and starving. The stew made the holy man’s mouth water. Each person held a spoon that reached the pot, but each spoon had a handle so much longer than their own arms that it could not be used to get the stew into their own mouths. The suffering was terrible, and everyone sitting around the table were thin and sickly.

“Come, and now I will show you heaven,” the Lord said after a while. They entered another room, identical to the first — the pot of stew, the group of people, the same long-handled spoons. But there everyone was happy and well-nourished. “I don’t understand,” said the holy man. “Why are they happy here when they were miserable in the other room and everything looked the same?”

The Lord smiled, “Ah, it is simple,” he said. “Here they have learned to feed each other.”

The greedy think only of themselves.

When Jesus died on the cross, He was thinking of you!

Remember that I will always share my spoon with you.

In Christ

In Christ there is no East or West,
In Him no South or North;
But one great fellowship of love,
To show His glories forth.
In Him do true hearts everywhere
This sweet communion find;
His service we do gladly share
In love to all mankind.

Join hands then, brothers of the faith,
Whate’er your race may be:
Each one who loves the blessed Lord
Shares in His victory.
In Christ now meet both East and West,
In Him meet South and North:
All blood-bo’t souls are in Him blessed,
Thro’ them His love flows forth.

J. Oxenham

How Broad is His Love

How broad is his love? Oh, as broad as man’s trespass,
As wide as the need of the world can be;
And yet to the need of one soul it can narrow,
He came to the world and He came to me.

How long is His love? Without end or beginning,
Eternal as Christ and His life it must be,
For to everlasting as from everlasting
He loveth the world and He loveth me.

How deep is his love? Oh, as deep as man’s sinning,
As low as the uttermost vileness can be;
In the fathomless gulf of the Father’s forsaking,
He died for the world and He died for me.

How high is His love? It is high as the heavens,
As high as the throne of His glory must be;
And yet from that height he has stooped to redeem us,
He “so” loved the world and He “so” loved me.

How great is His love? Oh, it passes all knowledge,
No man’s comprehension, its measure can be;
It filleth the world, yet each heart may contain it,
He “so” loved the world and He “so” loved me.

Annie Johnson Flint