As we come into our tenth sermon on Romans 1:1 – 7, we are going to focus our attention on the first part of the verse where he addresses the Romans “who are loved by God”. I wonder how often you think deeply about God’s love for you. I know for me, it is really difficult to understand how and why God would love me.

1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the nations, 6including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, 7To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

My childhood was not an environment that was full of love. To say that my childhood home lacked any sense of nurturing love, is a huge understatement. I know that not all of you had the same traumatic upbringing as I did, so you may not relate with that. But I also think that some of my struggle to fully believe God’s love for me, is simply attached to my struggle with sin. I still find it hard to believe that God could love someone who has and does fail in sin like I do. I am sure some of you can relate with that, right?

I know that this issue of struggling to believe God’s love for me, is probably the center of all my identity issues. I think about that list of “new names” or identity traits that we have been building over the course of our study, and I think that the center of the issue as it relates to my ability to walk in the wholeness of the identity that has been given to me in Christ Jesus, centers on, or is founded on my inability to fully experience and therefore fully believe that I am genuinely loved by God.

It is like there is this wall, that has been built, brick by brick over the course of my life, that separates me from fully experiencing and believing that I am lovable. Those bricks in that wall, they have their own names on them; names that were etched on those stones by a little kid in the dark basement of my soul. Names that became so familiar that I did not even know they were still there.

Names etched on that brick wall such as filthy, disgusting, shameful, guilty, abused, abandoned, lied to, rejected, used, let down, left out, embarrassing, not good enough, insignificant, deceived, worthless, unneeded, unwanted, undesirable, ugly, weak, forgotten, stupid, failure, powerless, useless, forgotten, etc., etc. Those are some of the names on the bricks in that wall deep down inside the dark corridors of my soul.

I am learning that the enemy has been working since before I could even defend myself; working to coerce me into believing these lies and then telling myself, in my familiar own voice, that they are true so that I would be the one who wrote those names on those bricks as I placed them in that wall, isolating myself from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

It is almost as though I believed just enough of the truth of God’s love for me to get saved and to take some baby steps in transformation of believing just enough of God’s love for me to get by, barely, while deep down inside (I feel embarrassed to admit) that I have actually believed that I am unlovable, which means that I inevitably do not fully believe in God’s love for me.

It is not just that I do not accept his full love for me, it is that I do not believe that, in Christ, I am actually lovable; as though Christ’s work at that bloody cross was not enough to simultaneously express his love for me and make me into his lovable son. I am sure there are plenty of you who can relate with this, right?

If you relate with any of what I am saying here, then I hope our time together will create some breakthrough for the both of us. I am hoping and praying that as we survey a small handful of key passages together, that God will break through into the dark recesses of our hearts and minds, and that he will set us free to not only see his love for us, but to also experience this truth, that in Christ Jesus, we are lovable.

#1: LOVED BY GOD – THE BOOK OF ROMANS

I want to begin by turning our attention to a couple of passages in the book of Romans, that I believe are absolutely critical for breaking through that wall in our hearts as we press into believing that we are in fact lovable in Christ Jesus.

Romans 5:6 – 8 says that “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.

Romans 8:1 – 4 says that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit”.

Romans 8:31 – 39 says “What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

I think these three passages in Romans are some of the most encouraging and transforming passages regarding how God’s love for us actually makes us lovable.

1: God’s love deletes my weaknesses and sins (Rom. 5:6 – 8). God did not wait for you and I to reach some magical point of cleanliness before he rescued us because we got clean enough to be lovable. He did not wait in the background until we found the strength to get better and therefore become more lovable to him. He also did not toss the dice in hopes that we would maybe respond to his love and become lovable enough to deserve his love. God extended his love towards us in Christ Jesus, when we were at our worst, so that as his love deleted our weaknesses and our sins, we could be reassured that we are in fact lovable – not because of anything we did to earn it – but simply because he loved us at our worst and made us lovable through his very own love.

2: God’s love deletes the condemnation that once owned me (Rom. 8:1 – 4). Condemnation is the imprisoning weight of the shackles of sin that once owned you and I. We had no hope of ever being set free from those shackles of condemnation. But God in his great love, through Christ Jesus, came and broke those chains, as he deleted the condemnation that had entrapped us, and set us free to walk in the power of the Spirit. Our filthy prison clothing of condemnation was deleted as God in Christ Jesus handed us the new clothing of those who loved by God. We were transformed by God’s love from condemned criminals into beloved children in Christ Jesus.

3: God’s love deletes anything that separates me from him (Rom. 8:31 – 39). This passage, along with the last one, are literally my life verses, because it has been so hard for me to accept God’s love and to believe that I am actually lovable. It is a wonderful miracle to me that God in his sovereign grace saw fit to give you and I the assurance that there is not a single thing in all of creation that can separate us from his love; nothing in all of creation that make us unlovable in Christ Jesus.

God’s love towards us in Christ Jesus is so powerful that it literally deletes anything that tries to get in the way or tries to isolate us from him. The only isolation we experience in this life is when we pull away from God’s love in disbelief, but even that is not separation; even that is not powerful enough to separate. How powerful is that kind of love; the kind that cannot even separate us from the Father who loves us? I pray that the Spirit of the Lord would help us to experience this profound love of God in Christ Jesus towards us and that we would begin to see what God sees in us – namely that in Christ we are totally lovable.

#2: LOVED BY GOD – PAUL’S OTHER LETTERS

I also want to turn our attention to a small handful of passages in Paul’s other letters that I believe are necessary for us to stick in our quiver of arrows, so that we are equipped to shoot some of the bricks of that wall down, so that we can fully experience what it means to be loveable in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:4 – 7 says that “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus”.

Ephesians 3:17 – 19 says God’s Spirit is the one who gives us inner strength “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God”.

1 Corinthians 13:4 – 8 says that “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends”.

1: God’s love for me is the center of his mercy and grace (Eph. 2:4 – 7). I have always said that God’s love is like an invaluable coin with two sides etched in his mercy and grace; without his unconditional love, his mercy and his grace are meaningless. But because of his great unconditional love, his mercy withheld what we deserved, and his grace extended what we do not deserve, as he saved us and breathed new life into our once dead spirits.

When I disbelieve God’s love, I diminish the mercy and grace he extended to me in salvation. This is why I need to constantly remind myself that I am lovable in Christ Jesus because the love he extended to me was wrapped in his mercy and grace towards me.

2: God’s love for me is what grounds me in his presence (Eph. 3:17 – 19). To “comprehend” the immeasurable vastness of God’s love is to experience something that “surpasses knowledge” but simultaneously grounds us in his life-giving presence. The only way to make sense of this phenomenon that Paul prays for here is to realize the difference between someone who has never had a loving father who talks about how loving a father might be, and the person who has had a loving father and finds safety and security in the presence of that father. One talks about it as one who has head knowledge with no experience. The other talks about it as one who has experienced it from the heart and is well grounded because of that experience.

3: God’s love for me never ends (1 Cor. 13:4 – 8). This dovetails nicely off the other two passages and principles. God’s mercy, grace, and presence are hard to experience when we believe that God’s love ends or runs out every time we behave in an unlovable way – as though his love is controlled by our actions and behaviors, a works-based religion if there ever was one!

This simple truth that the fullness of God’s love – as described in this text – never ends, is meant to be the hammer that crushes the lies of the enemy every time he comes and whispers “did God really say he loves you and that you are lovable?”

#3: LOVED BY GOD – THE REST OF THE BIBLE

I also do not want to neglect the rest of the Bible as it relates to the truth that we are actually loveable in Christ Jesus. There are a few passages in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament Gospels that I believe we need to hold onto as we ask God, to help us remove those bricks, out of that wall, deep down inside the hallways of our hearts.

Deuteronomy 7:6 – 9 says “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments”.

Jeremiah 31:3 describes God’s love for his people when he says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you”. Likewise, Hosea 11:1 – 4 continues the theme of God’s everlasting love towards his people when he says that “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke of their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them”.

John 3:16 – 17 says that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him”.

1: God’s love for me proves his faithfulness (Deut. 7:6 – 9; Jer. 31:3; Hos. 11:1-4). In all three of the Old Testament passages we read, God describes his love as the proof of his faithfulness. I am sure we have all experienced the unfaithfulness of someone we granted access to and the earth-shattering pain that resulted from their inability to love us in their unfaithfulness. This is not the story of God’s love! God is a loving father, a loving husband, or a loving brother who is faithful to make good on his promises and to honor his commitments. He has promised to never leave us or forsake us, therefore, because of his great love for you and I, he stays with no matter how much work it takes to restore us into the image of his Son.

2: God’s love for me guarantees an eternal, life-giving relationship (Jn. 3:16 – 17). Again, I am sure most of you have experienced the devastation of a broken relationship or two. We were created to love and to be loved. But on this earth, we experience the brokenness that happens in relationships due to the destructive nature of sin. But there is one relationship that will never leave a huge hole inside your heart where love used to live. That relationship is the relationship that you and I can have with the lover of our souls because of the work of Jesus at that bloody cross and that empty tomb. That eternal life-giving relationship with God is guaranteed – like the best un-bounceable blank check ever written – because it is guaranteed by the never-ending, unconditional, love of God in Christ Jesus.

CONCLUSION…

In conclusion, I am also reminded of the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11 – 32. I am sure we are all familiar with the story enough to know that the son went to his dad, essentially wished him dead, demanded his inheritance, squandered his Father’s life earnings, destroyed his life, decided to go back home smelling like the pig pen he found himself in, hoping to become a hired hand.

As he rounded the bend with his prepared speech of repentance on his lips the text tells us in verse 20 that “he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him”. Before a word left his lips, the father loved his filthy, wayward son. Before the son had the chance to make things right, the father loved him. The father’s love was expressed not merely with words but with actions that welcomed his son back into his arms with tears and kisses.

The rest of the story is the son’s response in verse 21 where he says “Father I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” And the father responds in the rest of verses 22 – 32 by putting new clothing and a new family ring on his once-lost son, throwing a massive feast to celebrate the salvation of his son, and confronting the older brother for his hypocritical jealousy over his younger brother. The bottom line here is this: this is the love with which God has loved us which therefore makes us loveable.

The only reason you and I struggle to believe the truth about God’s love for us is because the enemy created a huge hole inside our hearts at some point in our lives when we were unable to defend ourselves from his attacks. His entire aim was to steal, kill, and destroy our ability to believe and receive the complete love of God in Christ Jesus.

From that point forward, as I said earlier, he helped us build a brick wall full of bricks that were inscribed with names about ourselves that would shield us from believing in God’s complete love and the truth of our identity in Christ as those who are not only loved but also lovable by God.

At the end of the day, I believe we all need to fully experience the Good Father at the end of the driveway – the one who throws his arms around us despite the stench of sin because of his great love for us. The bloody cross, the empty tomb, and the promised return of Christ Jesus is the eternal declaration of God’s great love for you and I. At the end of the day, we must hold onto these truths as we remove those bricks from the wall around our hearts:

God’s love deletes my weaknesses and sins, it deletes the condemnation that once owned me, and it deletes anything that separates me from him. God’s love for me is the center of his mercy and grace, it is what grounds me in his presence, and it never ends. God’s love for me proves his faithfulness, and it guarantees an eternal, life-giving relationship with Him (Rom. 5:6 – 8; 8:1 – 4, 31 – 39; Eph. 2:4 – 7; 3:17 – 19; 1 Cor. 13:4 – 8; Deut. 7:6 – 9; Jer. 31:3; Hos. 11:1-4; Jn. 3:16 – 17). – Amen!

1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).