Tag: Love

The Vastness of God’s Faithful Love (Psalm 108:3-4)

“I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.” (Psalm 108:3-4)

One of the greatest feats of humanity has been reaching the clouds. We can fly. We can launch rockets to space. We’ve sent men to the moon and sent probes to the edge of our solar system. And yet we’ve barely scratched the surface of the vastness of just our tiny sliver in the universe.

Humanity has always wondered at the vastness of the heavens. We feel small compared to the vastness of the sky, not to mention the magnitude of space. The heavens are bigger than we can fathom.

So when David wanted to find some analogy for the vastness of God’s faithful love, he turned to the sky and the clouds. In Psalm 108:4, he declares that God’s love is higher than the heavens and his faithfulness reaches the clouds. In other words, the magnitude of God’s faithful love for us is greater than we can fathom. The best we can do is look out at the clouds or the vastness of space. Then we get a small glimpse of the immensity of God’s faithful love for his people.

Thus, we can no more reach the end of God’s love for us than we can explore the farthest reaches of space. We can no more search out every square inch of God’s love than any one person could physically explore every square inch of the earth’s atmosphere. Paul described Christ’s love for us as a love that “surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:19).

God shows us love vast as the heavens, beyond the magnitude of the sky, reaching beyond the farthest galaxies. And we taste of this love in Christ through his work of redemption. Here is a love beyond our comprehension, and we will spend all eternity exploring its vastness. This exploration should start now. We should pray with Paul that we would know more of the love of Christ that exceeds our comprehension.

As David sings in Psalm 108, the vastness of God’s love should lead us to worship. How can we respond to a faithful love that makes galaxies look small except with thanksgiving and praise? God’s love is to be marveled at and rejoiced in. We should stare often at its sheer magnitude so that our hearts might pour out the praises of our Creator and Redeemer.

Let us be careful that God’s love never becomes a stale cliche or a religious relic we mumble about on Sundays. Instead, let us pray together for the strength to comprehend the breadth, length, height, and depth of God’s love so that our hearts will truly resound with his praise (Eph 3:18-21).

This praise is not simply a personal or private practice. God’s faithful love should also spur us on to missions. David gives thanks and praises God among the peoples, among the nations. God has entrusted his people with the good news of his love revealed in Jesus. We should declare this good news to all nations. We should call all peoples to faith in God’s Son. And we should long to see all nations giving thanks and praising God because his love reaches beyond the heavens.

This week take some time to look up. Stare at the immensity of the sky, the sheer magnitude of the heavens. Let their vastness stir you to give glory to our God who made the sky, the clouds, and every galaxy. They declare God’s glory, including the glory of God’s faithful love for his people.

Bad Theology Suffocates Love (1 Timothy 1:3-5)

Last week, a minor league baseball team forfeited a game because several players on the team refused to wear rainbow, “Pride” affirming jerseys. Several major league players also received backlash for displaying Bible verses on their baseball caps during a game marketed as a “LGBTQ Pride Night.” It is all too common for these kinds of stands to be labeled “unloving” in our society. And LGBTQ issues are just one example of this. Today if you contradict anyone’s beliefs, you risk being labeled a hater.

But the apostle Paul offers a different diagnosis. He writes to Timothy:

“As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (1 Timothy 1:3-5)

According to Paul, Timothy risks undermining love in the church if he lets false teaching and sin continue unchecked. False doctrine suffocates love. But biblical doctrine revives love. Biblical doctrine leads us to the God who is Love and defines love and lavishes his love upon us in Jesus.

Paul wants Timothy to charge the church to teach only true, biblical doctrine for the sake of love. The goal (telos) of promoting good theology and confronting bad theology is love. To allow false doctrine to go unchecked in the church is profoundly unloving. It is unloving to let lies rage like wildfire among Christ’s people. It is unloving to ignore distortions of the gospel, distortions of God’s character, or distortions of God’s commands.

The standard of truth the church should promote is the “stewardship from God that is by faith.” This stewardship is the sound doctrine of Scripture that we receive by faith. Anything that rejects, denies, or distorts this stewardship will not end up on the path to love.

But when the church promotes biblical teaching, the church pursues love that has a solid foundation in purity of heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith (1 Tim 1:5). Good theology promotes the purity of our hearts. We find cleansing in Christ, and God creates a clean heart in us as we believe the gospel. Biblical teaching also properly aligns our inner compass of right and wrong based on God’s standards. And sound doctrine fans our faith into flame by showing us the wonder of who God is and what he has done.

In contrast, bad theology muddies our hearts. It leads us to believe lies about God, the world, and other people. False teaching misaligns our inner sense of right and wrong. It also corrupts our faith and makes it looks fake, because it is man-made and not based on God’s truth. False doctrine shipwrecks our faith and drowns our love (1 Tim 1:19-20).

Therefore, if love is our telos, we will confront false doctrine and proclaim biblical truth without apology. Love should be our aim. Love should also influence our manner of proclaiming the truth. We don’t want to be jerks. We want people to see the beauty of the gospel and the beauty of living God’s way.

The most loving way to live is not ignoring sin and bad theology. The most loving way to live is graciously pointing people to God’s truth in Scripture as we live it out ourselves. Lord, help us to pursue this kind of love in the church by pressing into the sound doctrine of your Word.