No Greater Life

March 31, 2013

John 15:13

For the past three months I’ve stood at this pulpit on Sunday mornings and magnified the wonderful doctrine of the love of God. I tell you again this morning— God loves you. I can tell you no greater news than that!

A couple was relaxing late one evening. The wife began flirting with her husband. “Honey, how much do you love me?” she asked.

“My love for you knows no bounds,” he replied.

“Would you swim across the ocean for me?” she asked.

“I’d swim the widest ocean for you!” he promised.

“Would you climb a mountain for me?” she asked.

“I’d climb Mount Everest for you!” he bragged.

“Would you go to the store and get a mocha latte for me?” she asked. (Long pause.)

“Oh, Sweetheart,” he began. “It’s late, and I already took my shoes off.”

We chuckle, but the truth is when it comes to love, most of the time we’d much rather feel it or talk about it rather than demonstrate it.

Not so with the Lord—“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

The Lord Jesus Christ did not swim the widest ocean for us—instead He crossed the divide between heaven and earth. He did not climb Mount Everest for us—instead, He climbed Mount Calvary—to bleed and die on an old rugged cross for our sins.

For the past few weeks I’ve been preaching from John 15:13—“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” We have expounded from this text…