Sunday School | God as Redeemer

Introduction

That'll do for now, I think. You guys, good morning. Hope you're doing alright. You guys have a good weekend? Did you get outside for maybe the last ridiculously, unreasonably warm day? So so good. I'll take it as long as it lasts.

You guys, if you're here, we're doing a long multi-year series on doctrine. We're just covering big overview of all the major Christian doctrines, and we're beginning with the doctrine of God. Who is he? What is he like? And we're looking at it through the lens of his attributes. There's a number of ways we can slice it, but we're essentially thinking about things that are organized. What is God like as creator? What is God like as judge? And what is God like as redeemer? It is necessarily a little bit of an artificial construction. We're just organizing things so that we can help keep track of it. But as we've said over and over again, he's all that he is at all times. Right? He's all of these things.

The Attributes of God

When we talked about God as creator, what were some of the things that we said there? Kinda attributes that we see in his creative power? Remember some of these? No? That is true, although we didn't say it. We talked — this is the thing, there's a kind of a very easy simple triple set of God's attributes that's very common. His omnis, right? His omniscience, omnipotence, his omnipresence — we threw in his sovereignty. We talked about God as judge and under that we talked about what? These are kind of maybe a little bit, if it's fair to say, a little bit the scarier side of his nature. What is that? Sovereign. His sovereignty.

We put that under creator. What is it, Kelly? So this is what Fetz? Yeah, yeah, would've been when Fetz was up here. Do you remember this? God as judge. We're looking at this as holiness and his justice, his righteousness, that he is in fact the embodiment of truth. He angry, God? Like what can be? We didn't talk about that. Although, yeah, we talked about his righteousness. That's correct.

Remember, if you speak, I can barely hear you and you're two feet from me? So, if you speak in this class, bear in mind that there's people behind you. So, like, let's go when we talk. Okay? Okay.

God as Redeemer: Love and Mercy

Today we're gonna talk, we're gonna organize it around God as Redeemer, okay? And in particular, what I want to talk with you guys about is the fact that God is love and God is mercy. He's all of these things, but as we start, give a sense, when we say that God is love, what do you think love is in the first place? Do you have a working definition when we say that God is love? Or you can even say that God is loving or you can say that God manifests love. What is love as you think of it? Give me a couple of rough draft ideas for how you would define that. Did I hear caring? Is that what I heard? Caring? That's actually kinda close to a biblical, to a dictionary definition. Yeah. God is love. What does that convey to you guys?

I guess I instantly think of First Corinthians 13. That's great. Good Bible answer. Love is patient. Love is kind. Does not envy. Does not boast. Is not proud. Is not self-seeking. All these aspects of it. That's not a bad starting spot. Love is unselfish. Unselfishness. That's not bad out of First Corinthians.

Some of you yeah, Fred? God overlooks your weaknesses. God overlooks your weaknesses. Okay. Now I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna organize that a little bit as an implication of love, not the nature of love. Because when the Father loves the Son, he's not overlooking the Son's weaknesses. Right? For there are no weaknesses to overlook. But there are implications about what happens when love meets unworthy people. So we'll come to that in a minute too.

You might go to, if some of you have like a counseling or psychology background, might think of Carl Rogers' work and his definition or his description of unconditional positive regard. Right? That's not a bad starting point for love. Unconditional positive regard.

A dictionary might say something more like an inclination towards affection or towards concern, right? That when we say we love someone, it usually means we take some pleasure in them. There's an affection, I like them, but also I'm worried about them. When my kid gets in a motorcycle accident, it's more meaningful to me than it is to you. And it's not because you're evil, it's just because you don't love Max like I love Max, right? I have a particular pointed concern for him because I love him, that's the nature of it, right?

Okay, so we talk about love, we get all these things. The best way that we could define any of these terms is to look at how the Bible actually uses it. And I remember, when the first time I got a Bible, like my own actual Bible, somebody gave me, I'm sure it was probably my mom, it must have been my mom, gave me an NIV study Bible. And I had never seen, I didn't have a Bible, much less a study Bible. It has all these funky little features. And in the back of this study Bible was a mini concordance. And to some of you, I mean concordances are almost antiquated at this point because everything is digital. But back in days when all the world was paper, there is a book, there's a book that is called a concordance.

And somebody, if you just pause to think about this, the work that somebody did, what a concordance does is it organizes every verse in the Bible by word, right? So normally you read the Bible in the sequence of the words that are written, but a concordance, somebody went through and looked up every word in the Bible and then listed them all in order of the words themselves. You can pick a word, say, you know, chariot, and they jot it down every single time the word chariot appears in the Bible. You know, it's like a dictionary. You go through, you find the C section, you look for chariot, and then like here's the 17 times that the word chariot shows up in the Old and New Testaments. Which just think about the regard for the scriptures that you would have to have to do that work. It is extraordinary, right? But I remember in the back of my NIV study Bible there was a mini concordance. So it's not exhaustive, it doesn't have every use, but it's got, hey, here's the top 20 uses of the top 400 words or whatever it is, right? And I remember going through it and he's like, know, entry, entry, entry, entry, love. And And it's like it just runs and runs even in a mini concordance. The number of uses, the number of times that the word love shows up in the Bible, it's just infinite. If you look at an exhaustive concordance, it is just over and over and over again. And so when we do this every week and I'm like, hey, let's talk about where do we see the righteousness of God or where do we see the justice of God or where do we see the omnipotence of God, I'm cheating, right? I'm thinking about this before we get here. And I'm going through and I'm like, hey, what are the things that they might say? I wanna be ready to be like, what are the passages that are pertinent to this and be ready.

And playing that game that we're about to play where, where do you think the Bible speaks about the love of God? Is it — it's an impossible game. Because there are just so very many things that you might say right now. It just permeates the scriptures. But nevertheless, we're still gonna play, where does the Bible say that God is love? Not just literal, that's 1 John 4. We'll cut that out, okay? So 1 John 4, God is love, noted. Okay? But where does it describe the love of God? What are the passages that frame and shape our understanding of what it means that God is love? So what do you got? Where would you start us off?

Yeah, Don? I would say Exodus 34. Okay. Love comes surrounded by things like slow to anger and faithfulness, but it's that he is abounding in love. Okay. So, and you've heard, I've, I feel like there's certain things that I know I say all the time and you're like, blah, blah, blah. I know. Exodus 34 is one of the things that Tim Henderson loves to tell you because what is the claim to fame of Exodus 34:6? You know, do you remember? And maybe I don't say it enough. Most repeated verse in the Bible. See Old Testament's favorite Old Testament verse, right? So Exodus 34:6, The Lord, the Lord, the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. Right? That whole imagery, it is not only. The reason it's the Old Testament's favorite Old Testament verse is because it's the most apt description of who He is. Right? So Exodus 34 is a great place to start. Gary? John 3:16, very well known. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Now, it's probable or possible that many of you hear that so in John 3:16 as an emphatic so. Right, you're a little kid. How big is Benjamin? So big. How much does God love us? He loves so much. That's not what it means. It doesn't mean that God loves you so much, although he does. It means this is how. It's a connector. It's a logical so. And he's pointing us to the redeeming work of Christ ultimately, but he's actually hearkening back to something that happens in Numbers 21. So if you wanna learn about that, God so loved the world. In this manner, God loved the world. In the same way that he did in this crazy moment in Numbers 21, that's how he loves you. Okay? John 3:16, Exodus 34. What else we got?

Kristen? Romans 5. No, but God demonstrated his love for him. Excellent. Romans 5:8. For God, God demonstrates his love for us in this. And what's the "this"? While still sinners. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So that's a little surprising, honestly, right? That there's a demonstration of his love and it's seen that he doesn't just love us when we're good, on our good days and our bad days, but even when we were his enemies. It was then in the moment of our rebellion, speaking words of forgiveness for those who had crucified him that he died. So that gives us a little bit of an insight. It's a different sort of a love. He loves us differently than we love anything, right?

And you might recall, you might remember that when we began this series that I suggested that most theologians will organize the attributes of God into two broad categories. There's his communicable and his non-communicable attributes. There's the things that are basically contagious. We become like him in these ways, but we don't become like him in these ways. And I'm suggesting to you that's a bogus set of categories. And I'm standing against basically everyone when I say that, okay? Nevertheless, I'm still gonna say it.

We tend to say he is loving and we are loving. And he is omnipresent and we are not present. But I would suggest to you that he is present everywhere, you are present somewhere. You are like him in his presence in a much more limited fashion. And the difference between his omnipresence and your presence is not that much greater than the difference between his love and your love. We flatter ourselves to think that we love like he loves. Like are you kidding me? Like while we were his enemies he went to a cross. I don't think there's anyone in this room that would go to a cross for somebody who voted for the alternative candidate. Much less. Okay. Much less for your mortal enemies. Right? He is different. He is just altogether different. Okay.

The love of God. Catherine? I was just thinking that a lot of the love scriptures are somebody's doing something. Like, God is doing something. Yes. You're doing something. Like, in I found this one in John. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. And then he goes on, but I didn't read the rest. Yeah. And will be loved by my father and I too will love him and show him. Yeah. So I mean, it's kinda become somewhat popular in this era to affirm the title of a book. Love is a verb. Love is a verb, which is what an action is exactly. Love is a verb. And we do see the love of God in his actions. And Jesus exhorts us to demonstrate our love for him by our obedience to him. Yeah. Totally true.

Yeah. I think I think Deuteronomy 7 speaks to God's love, period. He loves you because he loves you. Yes. So do you guys know this Deuteronomy? Listen, this is a really fun thing. I don't think we've probably talked about this at some point in this class. Go to Deuteronomy 7. In Deuteronomy 7, it's the one place that I'm aware of that God attempts to explain not that he loves you, but why he loves you. Right? This is what you're talking about. Deuteronomy 7:7-8-9. Is that am I the right, am I reading your mind here? Yeah. Okay. Deuteronomy 7:7-8-9. The Lord did not listen to this. Listen to the logic of this. The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you are more numerous than all other people, for you are the fewest of all people. So we're like, okay, now I'm paying attention. He did not choose you because you were more numerous. You're like, okay, do tell, why did he choose me? Look at the next line. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery. He did not love — he did not set his affection on you because you were more numerous. But he did all these wonderful things to you because he loved you. He loves you because he loves you. That's as far as we can take it. Like when the omniscient brilliant mind that created gravity cannot explain why he loves you without falling into circular reasoning, you just take it. Yeah. He loves you because he loves you. It's his nature to love you.

And that could be very disarming news if you're accustomed to people loving you because they've always loved you. Because you're a great athlete. Because you're really funny. Because you're really pretty. Because you're really whatever you've hung your hat on your entire life. And he's like, yeah, yeah, don't really care about that. That can be very dis– well, what am I gonna hang it on then? Because my whole life is predicated on the fact that people like me because I jump through this particular hoop. And his answer is, I love you because I love you. And it's a totally different game. Right? Something about his nature. So great observation. And I also think it means he can't un love. This is right. If he doesn't love you because of some attribute in you or some activity you perform, then you won't lose that love when you fail to perform that activity. Right? This is foundationally important to understand what his love is like. That's like—Louder, Katherine. What? Be louder. Oh, hey. When, you know, when saying that, you know, we show love by by following his commands, but he gives us a new nature. Yep. And so the new nature, he doesn't love us because we follow his commands. He makes us want to follow his command. Yes. Yes. And and you know, that's a whole new platform he lifts us up on because when I don't follow his commands, I feel it. Amen. So that's a new nature. That's right. And this new nature is not unrelated to his love. There's a singer, I don't even know if he's still recording, Fernando Ortega. Do you guys know Fernando Ortega? And he would do a lot of hymns. Don't know if this is a Fernando line or if he just covered a hymn, but I heard it in his voice. And he has a song where it has a lyric, Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be. Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be. And so he loves us in order to make us lovely. He does not love us because we already are.

Bob? Tim Keller has preached several sermons when he's talking about how we are then to love, and he uses the example with your wife. And he's, honey, why do you love me? Well, it's because you're so beautiful or it's because you're nice to me or you meet my needs, and every one of those things are not the reason you should love your spouse or others. It's because you love me. Even though they're obviously true. Well, Tim Keller was saying this age has an effect on looks. Things happen that can are conditional, and our love should be unconditional just as — yeah — God's love is unconditional. That's right. That's right. Exactly.

Eric? The simplicity of it's beautiful because it's logically analogous for God to say, I love you because I love you, for him to say, I am that I am. It's just you just have to be comfortable and accept it. Yeah. And don't overcomplicate it. Yep. It is the basis of the whole thing. And I'll, well, have more to say about the basis before we're done here today. Okay? There's a million more that we could say. Anybody like you have to, if you don't mention the love of God on this passage, then you just should be fired. Okay, Herrick? Oh, threatening, go ahead.

John 15:13. Can you say it loud? This dude has got so much Bible jammed in his head. I don't know it word for word but greater love has no one than this: that one would lay down his life for his friends. Excellent, right? So John 15 is this great beginning of the upper room discourse. It's where we get the vine and the branches. And Jesus is like, this is the top version of love, right? Man has no greater love than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends. And of course he doesn't just say it, but he does it. Right?

One passage you might look at or one thing is Psalm 136. Do you know Psalm 136? It's kind of a call and response Psalm and every other line is his love endures forever. Over, I mean it says it like, I don't know, 25 times. His love endures forever. His love endures forever. His love endures forever. Something about his love, the nature of his love is that it doesn't endure forever. I mean that it it it our love doesn't endure forever. That is a classic attribute of the way that we love things. It's like, for now, as long as my needs are being met, as long as situations remain, that's what we mean. But Psalm 136 says that his love is not like that. It is not conditioned. It is not temporary, but he has an enduring love. It's his very nature.

The Merciful Character of God

Okay? Now, let's talk about mercy. And I want you to think about mercy in light of love. Okay? What is mercy, you guys? And we defined love a minute ago. How would you define mercy? Forgiving the unforgivable. Forgiving the unforgivable. Okay. Or forgiving something that's done wrong. Mercy is gonna be the thing that motivates that. Great. What's mercy? DFP? Not giving a negative response to something that absolutely demands and deserves a negative response. Okay, this is great. Not giving a negative response to something that absolutely demands and deserves a negative response. Now, the way you're using the language of negative response makes me think that negative to the recipient. They don't like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great, and that's fair. And you're framing it there in a way that we often will put mercy and grace right next to each other because they are kissing cousins. But while we're here, how would you define grace then? Grace would be giving good things when they are not deserved. That's right.

Do you feel this? So they go, so mercy gets you out of the hole. Mercy is the avoidance of the punishment, whatever that negative thing is. And then grace is the accumulation beyond that of more than we could possibly have deserved, right? So they tend to go together, it's great. So these are great definitions. Mercy, one more. Or some aspect of mercy we're failing to hit. Unmerited favor. Unmerited favor is we've often will use that. And sometimes we'll use unmerited favor with mercy. Sometimes we'll use it with grace. But they are, we don't need to distinguish between them, right? They come together, right? I would say one thing is when we think about mercy in light of love, would just add to it the idea that mercy is what love looks like when it encounters the undeserving, right? If I love you and you screw something up, my orientation towards you is very likely to be one of mercy. And in fact, that is God's orientation to us. So his mercy, not really different from his love, it is just love run through the filter of somebody who doesn't deserve it. So the Father never shows mercy to the Son and the Spirit never shows mercy to the Father. There's simply no occasion to do that. They just love each other. And then there's us, for whom there's just infinite opportunities to show mercy because we are infinitely doing things that deserve something negative or failing to do something that deserves the positive. Right? So similar.

Okay, we don't have quite an enormous dump truck of scripture on mercy, but we have no shortage of it, to be sure. The mercy of God. What are what are the passages in the scriptures that would affirm to you not just that this is what he does, but that this is just who he is. It's just his nature to be merciful. Jennifer? I think in Psalm 23, there's something about Surely surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. The reason they follow us is because he is the usher of these things. Alright? Great. Psalm 23. The mercy of God. Where would you go? Yeah. Well, Lily first and I'll come up here. Lily? I don't remember which Psalm this is, but it says, he is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made. His mercy is over all that he has made. Yes, Lily, where is that? Let's see. I was actually looking at this in the last two weeks. His mercy is good to all. Is it Psalm 145? 145:9? Look it up. Maybe that might be I don't, I think this is recent, but I can't access it. If whoever finds it first wins. Okay? And Melissa's in the lead, I think. Was at 145? I was gonna say. 145. I feel like it's later. 145? That that feels more right. I don't know. But I was gonna say one oh three. Where he says, he does not treat us as our sins deserve. Yes. Okay. Psalm 103 does not treat us as our sins deserve. I think 145, that that feel, that's where that's the area that I was in. I think that's correct. So if you find it, you know, pull it up.

Psalm 103 is one of my favorite Psalms. Probably because it's the maybe the first one that I ever actually understood. What is it? 145:8-9. One forty five:8-9, okay. So Psalm 145. What's interesting about that, that whole thing, every line of Psalm 145 is about the ridiculous breadth of the love of God. The whole thing is full — what Lily said here, that he's good to all, the whole Psalm is all about the allness of his love. Right? The breadth of his love, the universality of his kindness and his benevolence. It's just the whole Psalm is all about that.

And then, well, we're not talking about that right now. So that's a different conversation. How about James 2? James is so funny because James is such a terse, grouchy old man, but it is full of this kind of stuff despite his terse, grouchiness. So what's James 2? Mercy triumphs over judgment. Isn't that interesting, right? And this is from a guy that has no problem saying, you knock it off, sinner, bad. But it's mercy. And in fact his vision of God in James 5 is that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. Right? James is a he's kind of a contradictory guy.

Peter. There's a different slant on mercy. It is a release from suffering. Okay, this is good. This is actually helpful. So the way that we set it up, that mercy tends to be dealing with undeserving people who have done something wrong but I'm not gonna punish you. But there is another aspect of it, right? Nurses are agents of mercy. The fact that you're in the hospital doesn't mean you did anything wrong. But you still need mercy. Be nice to me because I'm hurting, right? Be gentle with me because I'm raw. Be lavish with me because I am hanging by a thread. And that attitude, that thing that moves us towards you is mercy, and God is merciful in that sense of what's not just that we're avoiding the just punishment of our sin, but it's also that we are weak and we are frail and we need somebody to just be nice to us. And he is that as well. That's more invoked in the idea of God being full of compassion and mercy. Right? So it's a great observation. Yeah, Rachel? Micah 6:8. Okay. Micah 6:8. You guys know Micah 6:8? This is kind of one of the, this is in the pantheon of all the minor prophets that nobody knows anything about. Micah 6:8 kind of ranks. What does it say, Rachel? He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? But to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Right. So, this imitate. Now, this is, you might bust Rach. That's not about God. That's about us but bear in mind this, okay? He has shown you, O man, what is good, what the Lord requires of you, that you would love just, that you would—how does it love justice, do mercy, walk humbly with God? Okay? Whenever there's a little trick here about the law. When we're talking about what is God like? Every time, every single time, always and never not, when you see a command in the Bible, what you are also seeing necessarily is a description of God. The law, including Micah 6:8, is a revelation of God's nature before it is a revelation of his will. Because everything that he ever asks of us is merely and always that we would be like him. He has not arbitrarily said, don't, I don't know, don't steal stuff. Because that seems like that might be a better way to order society. The reason he tells us not to steal is because he is not a thief. The reason he tells us not to lie is because he is truth. And the reason that he tells us to do mercy is because he is merciful. Right? So the law will always point us back to his nature. So I rule it inbounds. It is a description of him because the law is a description of him. Make sense? Okay.

Kelly Sue? I was gonna go ahead. Go for it, babe. Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2, we should know Ephesians 2. Sets us up, right? As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins when you used to live and you followed the ways of this world, the ruler of the kingdom, we have the Spirit is now working in those who are disobedient. But what do you wanna say about that, Kelly?

Verse 4, but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions. Right. To by grace you have been saved. Right. To we who are dead in our transgressions and sins, you get this great, but God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ. Right? His mercy is good news. His mercy is simply what love looks like when it encounters the undeserving.

Chris? I was gonna say, tying what we just kind of talked about, just the I am of God, the love of God. Be a little louder. So, the love of God, the I am of God but also the mercy of God. Romans 9 talks about referring back to what Moses says in Exodus, the I will be, I will have mercy on who I will have mercy on. Yes. So, we hit this, we're talking about the sovereignty of God that in Romans 9 points back to Exodus that exercises his mercy within his sovereign framework. Right? He's not obligated to show mercy, but he loves to do so and he administers it in his own wisdom. Right? This is always gonna be the case.

How about this? Luke 6. Gosh, the clock just ticks so fast in here. Luke 6, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great and you'll be sons of the Most High. Why? Because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful. Right? This is back to Micah 6:8. We do it because he is this.

Now, we could rip through all these things. There's tons of scripture on this. It just permeates. And it's good news. It's comforting news. It's reassuring news. It's also instructive news. For we are to be what he is. To a lesser degree, to be sure, but we are to emulate him. Alright? He is loving, we are to be loving. He is merciful, we are to be merciful. But we're not nearly as good at it as he is.

Final Thoughts

Okay, now couple things before we roll out of here. The nature of communication, which kinda drives me insane, is that you can't say everything first. Right? It is always the case that you're not only choosing your words, but you're choosing the sequence of your words. And when we began this series, I wanted to start with God as creator. And look at his omniscience and his omnipotence and his sovereignty and talk about his justice and his righteousness, all that sort of things. And it's, we've been talking about what God is like for, I don't know, two months, and we're only now finally getting to talk about the love of God. Which could create the illusion, or it might create an impression, that this is in some sense subordinate to other things that are true about him. But you just can't say everything first, okay? So don't over-realize the fact that like the ninth thing that we're talking about is the fact that he's loved. Because the truth is, the fact is, if there's anything that is most chiefly fundamental about him, it's probably this. Right? And even if, even if I'm wrong in that, and his love is not more fundamental to his absolute being, it is beyond question the reason that the universe exists and the reason that you exist. So even if there's something more fundamental to him in some abstraction, there is nothing more fundamental to the fact.

Why does the universe exist? Because of love. Why did he create? Because of love. So briefly, we're gonna talk about the Trinity. I'm gonna steal my own thunder. We're gonna talk about the Trinity eventually. If God was not a multi-personal being, then it would've probably — it's, it would probably be the case that his essence is power. He is omniscient. He is sovereign. He is in charge. He is raw power. Basically he would be Allah. The God of the Muslims is not multi-personal. As they imagine him to be, he is not Trinity. Okay, now hear me. I'm not suggesting that there's some other god running around that is the God of Muslims. I'm saying they have a corrupted false misunderstanding of the one God who actually is. And they don't know that he's Trinitarian. They don't know that, in his most reduced sense, when you just strip everything away and say, but what is he? They don't know that what he is, is a relationship. Father, son, and Holy Spirit from all eternity have known and loved each other. Before there was power, before there was carbon, before there was light, before there was time, there was already love, deference, camaraderie, delight.

What exists in the eternal center of everything within the Godhead is love, is relationship. And he created the world so that undeserving creatures could behold the splendor of the show of the love that exists among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is literally the case that the reason there is a world is that the God who could have quite contentedly adored himself, loved himself, been with himself, had no reason to do anything. He existed before the universe began. Right? When we say in the beginning God, what I really mean is the beginning of the universe. God created the world. Prior to creating the world, he was happy. He was in love. The Father could behold the supremacy of the Son. They weren't lonely, they needed nothing, but they wanted the beauty and the perfection of all that they had to be seen and observed by another. Love is why he made the world, so that undeserving people could behold the show.

And then mercy is the reason he let the world fall. Why did the world break? We have puzzled over this for centuries. We will ponder it forever and perhaps why in the world did he knock the apple out of her hand? You know, like prevent, prevent, prevent. Why does he allow the world to fall into madness? Romans 11, I think, 32 is the best place, the closest indication of this. Romans 11:32 says, for God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that — and do you know the next line? — so that he may have mercy on them all.

There is a black hole of insight here, okay? The density of what's going on here is — this could be unpacked for a very long time. We'll do it in probably about sixty seconds, okay? When God made the world, it was so that others could partake, to observe, to watch the show. In John 17, he walks in, he's like, I want them to be with me. I was with you and you were in me and I want them to be with us, and together we may see. It's an invitation to splendor. And then it just goes really sideways, right? Sin wrecks everything and ruins everything. But what sin did, the opportunity that was created by sin, was it made a world possible in which the mercy of God could be seen.

Prior to the breaking of the world, no one could possibly imagine what does love look like when it encounters the undeserving. Because there were no undeserving. Everything was great. The Father could never love the Son in an extravagant way because the Son always perfectly warranted the Father's love. But once he makes us, and once we screw everything up, now there was an occasion to be like, I wonder what would happen if what would happen if the love of God were to encounter a rebel? What would happen if the love of God were to encounter someone who hated him? How would that play out? And the answer is it would play out in a cross. That the love of God would triumph because mercy is the proof that he does not merely love lovely things. Mercy is the proof that he loves unlovely things so that they might become lovely.

Here's what Lewis says, and then regrettably we've gotta stop:

Before and behind all the relations of God to man, as we now learn them from Christianity, yawns the abyss of a divine act of pure giving. The election of man from nonentity to be the beloved of God, and therefore in some sense the needed and desired of God, who but for that act needs and desires nothing since he eternally has and is all goodness. We are elect out of nonexistence to be able to watch the show. And not only to behold it, but we get to come on the stage.

Mercifully, he has invited us to not watch the love that exists among the persons of the Godhead, but to swim in it. To become one with it. To become participants, co-actors in this drama of the world. And that is the condescension of that is beyond reckoning. The love of God and the mercy of God. Though we're hitting them like ninth or whatever after we've talked about his ability to do. You guys, it properly is way back here. It's why he did it in the first place. And our great confidence is that he does not love us because of our attributes, but because it's just his very nature to do.

Good enough? Yeah. We're enough for you. Alright. We'll do a little bit more next week, and I appreciate you guys coming. Good to be with you again. We'll see you.