Trust His Love

I was listening to the radio on my drive home from work this week, and a song came on that I had heard a few times before. It is a Christian song that is fairly up beat, and there was phrase that stuck out to me, that was repeated throughout the song.  The phrase was this: 

“No regrets, in the end. I wanna know I got no what-ifs, yeah. Na-na, na-na-na…”

I sure like the idea of living a life with no regrets, but when I truthfully look at my life, it’s difficult to evaluate even one day of my life, and think I nailed it. I feel closer to the line at the beginning of the movie “Inception” where it says:  

“Do you want to take a leap of faith or become an old man filled with regret?”

On the scale of “no regrets”, to being “filled with regret”, where do you see yourself?

If we are looking at ourselves rightly, whether we use the word regret or not, we will see all kinds of insufficiencies. Ways we have failed to act. Failed to love or serve. Failed to be self-controlled or patient. Failed to have faith and trust God. And when we see these things, it is tempting or even natural to think these things aren’t lost on God. If I can see it then surely God sees it to.

We probably still know that God loves us, but we can also think he isn’t all that happy with us. That His love is a love of forbearance, more than it is a love of delight. We can live with an undercurrent of discouragement or guilt that we are constantly letting God down. We think He still loves us to some extent, but He is a little bit frustrated with us, a little bit tired of us. Maybe He loves us but does He like us?

Let me ask a different question for a minute. Have you ever doubted if God loves Jesus? That the Father loves His Son? I doubt you have ever done a Bible Study needing to prove to someone, or to yourself, that the Father delights in Jesus. Any doubts in our minds there? If we were to look, and just to scratch the surface, the gospel accounts record two separate instances, when the Father’s love for the Son was made crystal clear. Where God spoke audibly and declared His love for His Son. 

First, at Jesus’ baptism the Spirit of God descended like a dove onto Jesus and a voice from heaven spoke saying “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.”

And again, as Jesus was was getting closer to the cross, when he was transfiguring before Peter, James and John and gave them a glimpse of His glory. The Father again spoke from heaven and said: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

And in addition to God's outright declaration that He loves the Son and is pleased with Him. We can look at his life … and what’s not to love?

He was full of grace and truth. His goodness and strength were on display all the time. He did the will of His father in every single circumstance. “He loved [his disciples] to the [very] end.” He lived a perfect life, and was innocent in His death. 

Of course the Father loved the Son. Jesus was filled with righteousness.  

And, Jesus took that righteousness, and placed it on us and clothed us in it. He took his perfect record of obedience and faith, and signed it over to us.  

Those who by faith go to Him as their refuge are wrapped up in His righteousness. And the Father’s love for His Son is set on us and shines on us just as it shines on Jesus as the “Beloved Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased.”

So what this means is that if we are confident that the Father loves the Son, and not with a forbearing love but with a delighting and embracing love, then we can be confident that He loves us with that same love, because by faith we are united to Christ and are hidden in Him. 

The love that the Father has for us isn’t just like the love He has for Jesus, but it is the love He has for Jesus. A love that Jesus has brought us into by clothing us in His righteousness. We do not need to doubt His love for us.

The exhortation this morning is to trust his love for you. Because of Jesus we can say: “if God loves Jesus, then God loves me.”

Pray with me,

Father, we praise you that by having faith in your Son, we are united to Him and share in His all sufficient merit. We thank you that “For our sake [you] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Father, forgive us for the ways that we doubt your love, or the ways we doubt your patience and lose sight of your never ending goodness to your children. Let us leave all our sin and any regrets we may have at the cross right now. Help us to see ourselves rightly as we confess our sins in silence to you right now …

… Father, one thing we will never regret is living our lives in surrender to you. We will never regret living for your glory. Would you remind us of your love as even this morning we have fallen short. Help us to be strengthened by your grace and to keep running with our eyes fixed on you. Your love has set us free, help us to sing as people who are free because of your love. Jesus, let it be so, Amen.