How Much Can We Love God?

This might sound like a strange question, but I think the answer is comforting to us. Let's take the example of Peter as our guide.

Matthew 26:31-35:

Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of Me, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of You, I never will.” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown Me three times.” But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with You, I will never disown You.” And all the other disciples said the same.

Can you imagine that conversation? Jesus says, “You’re all going to disown me.” And Peter says, “No, I’m not.” Then Jesus says, “Yes, you will, and you’ll do it more than anyone else. You’ll deny three times.” And Peter says, “No, I won’t.”

Of course, we all know that it’s usually not a good idea to argue with Jesus, right? Because that’s not an argument that we’re going to win. And we know how things turned out with Peter.

Matthew 26:69-74:

Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said. But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.” He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man!” After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away.” Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!” Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown Me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.

He denied Jesus. Not only did Peter deny that he was one of Jesus’ followers, a Christian, but he denied that he even knew Him!

In the same way, I wonder if we ever deny Jesus. We might not out and out say, “No, I’m not a Christian,” or “I don’t know Jesus,” like Peter did, but I wonder if sometimes our actions or our silence can be a denial of Jesus.

If I choose to sin, and I do something that I know God doesn’t want me to do, what am I saying there? I’m saying, “In this moment, I am not a follower of Jesus. I’m a follower of myself. I’m a follower of my desire. I’m not a Christian. I’m a Steve-ian. Because I’m denying Christ’s lordship over my life, and I’m doing what I want to do.” I deny Christ by my actions.

Or what if I’m having a conversation with someone who isn’t a Christian, but I can tell that they need to know Jesus? Should I tell them about Jesus, even though I’m nervous to say something – I don’t know how they’ll react – or should I keep quiet, mind my own business, and pretend that I don’t know Jesus either?

I think that when we don’t tell others about Christ, or when we’re embarrassed to talk with others about our beliefs, that’s a denial of Christ. We’re basically saying, “No, I don’t know Him.”

Christians need to be bold and confident. We know what God has done for us. We know what Jesus has done for us. And we know that He can do it for other people as well, that He wants to do it for other people. We have the words of life. We know the way to salvation. We can’t keep that hidden. It is our God-given responsibility to swallow our nervousness and tell people how they can be saved, or at least invite them to church so they can hear how to be saved, because we’re not doing anyone any favors by not telling them.

So, Peter denied Jesus, and I’m sure we remember Jesus and Peter’s next conversation after Jesus rose from the dead.

John 21:15-17:

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love Me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “You know that I love You.” Jesus said, “Feed My lambs.” Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love Me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” Jesus said, “Take care of My sheep.” The third time He said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love Me?” He said, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

The interesting thing about that conversation is the words that Jesus and Peter are using for “love.” In Greek, which is what they were speaking, there are three words for love. There’s “eros,” which is romantic love. It’s where we get the word “erotic.” There’s “phileo,” which is the kind of love you have for your family or friends, like Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. And there’s “agape,” which is the perfect, unconditional love that God has for humanity.

Here’s how the conversation went, using those words: Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love Me with a godly love more than these?”

Jesus is looking at the rest of the disciples who were there with them, and He’s asking Peter if Peter loves Him more than the rest of the disciples love Him because it was Peter who said he would never betray Jesus, even if everyone else did, as if to say that he loved Jesus and was more committed to Jesus than everyone else. Obviously, that wasn’t true because Peter did deny Jesus, so Jesus is asking, “Peter, do you still think you love Me more than the rest of these guys?”

And listen to what Peter says. “Yes, Lord,” he said, “You know that I love You like a brother.”

Jesus had asked Peter if he loves Him with the perfect love of God, but Peter says that he loves Him like a brother. He’s saying that he knows he didn’t love Jesus perfectly. And Jesus simply answers, “Feed My lambs.”

Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love Me like God loves?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You like a good friend.”

This almost sounds like that first part. Jesus is questioning Peter again to let His point sink in. Jesus said, “Take care of My sheep.”

The third time He said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love Me like a brother?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love Me?”

You see, it’s at this point that Peter finally realizes what Jesus is doing. Peter denied Jesus three times and so now, Jesus is giving Peter the chance, three times, to reaffirm his belief in Christ. But He’s also helping Peter to understand that he can’t love Jesus perfectly.

He said, “Lord, You know all things;” Peter is saying, “You know that I’m not perfect. You know that I made a mistake. You know that I denied You.” And finally Peter affirms the third time, “You know that I love You like a brother.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

Peter’s come to the realization that he can’t love Jesus perfectly. He can’t love Jesus like God loves us. He can only love Jesus with the human love of a family member or a close friend. And that’s all Jesus is asking for. He never demanded that Peter love Him perfectly because He knew that Peter couldn’t love Him perfectly. But he could love Him as much as he was able with that human kind of love.

It’s the same way with us. We can never love God as much as God loves us. We can’t out-love God, or even match it. All we can do is receive God’s love, thank Him for it, and then do the best we can with what we have.

Our love will not be perfect – we will make mistakes in our love to God – but our love will be genuine and real and human. And that’s all God wants from us. Amen? Amen.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why did Jesus have this conversation with Peter and let Peter know that He knew he had denied Him? Why couldn’t Jesus just have never mentioned Peter’s denial and let it go?

(Jesus was giving Peter the chance to confess and acknowledge his guilt so that he could be forgiven rather than carrying his guilt around with him.)

2. People sometimes say that God can’t use us or bless us if we’re not a mature enough Christian or if we’re not doing everything God wants us to do perfectly. What does Peter and Jesus’ conversation say about that? Did Peter have to be perfect for God to use him or bless him?

(Peter could never be perfect, yet Jesus said “Feed My lambs, take care of My sheep.” Jesus uses imperfect people because the only people there are are imperfect people. If you want God to use you, if you that desire, He will do it. If you are committed to God, He will bless you, even if your commitment to Him isn’t always perfect. Remember, God’s love is perfect even when ours isn’t.)

What Does Jesus' Prayer "Father, Forgive Them" Mean for Us?

 

From Luke 23:

³²Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with Him to be executed. ³³When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified Him, along with the criminals—one on His right, the other on His left. ³⁴Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up His clothes by casting lots.

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

I wonder. Did Jesus, in pain, as He hung upon the cross, weak from the beatings He had received, whisper, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Or did He gather whatever bit of strength that He had left and shout, "FATHER, FORGIVE THEM! THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING!"?

What would it have been like for the Pharisees and the priests and the Roman soldiers to hear Jesus utter this prayer? Would they have been suddenly struck by a sense of guilt – that they had tortured and mocked and killed this man who was now pleading for them? Or would their hearts have become even harder?

What would it have been like for His disciples to hear Jesus utter this prayer? Would they have resented such a sentiment? Would the anger and hurt that they must have felt toward their Master's false accusers have kept them from seeing the beauty of Jesus' words? Or would they have recognized the generous spirit of their Teacher and thought, "That's the Jesus I know! right to the very end"?

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Jesus was often very polemical and very biting in His speech toward the Pharisees, especially when they came to test Him or to denounce Him. Yet He was always merciful toward His opponents as well. He prevented James and John from calling down fire from heaven to destroy a Samaritan village that would not welcome Him. He restored the ear of one of the guards who had come to arrest Him after His disciple cut it off. He drove several demons out of a man whom they had possessed, but then allowed the demons to enter into a herd of pigs, simply because they begged Him to. Now, Jesus is seen praying for those who were murdering Him.

Earlier, Jesus had delivered a sermon in which He taught people to love their enemies and to pray for those who were doing them wrong. Now, on the cross, Jesus is seen as perfectly embodying that command. He is living – and He is dying – what He preached.

Not only is Jesus seen praying for His enemies, obviously in an attitude of forgiveness toward them for His own part, but He is pleading with God for them. He is advocating on their behalf. While they are killing Him, He is speaking up for them, defending them. And I think we can believe that because Jesus was and is the Christ, because Jesus was and is God, His prayer, "Father, forgive them", was granted.

But the Pharisees were not the only enemies that Jesus had. The Pharisees were not the only ones responsible for putting Jesus on the cross. In Romans 5:10, we are called God's enemies before we were reconciled to God. Our sins separated us from God and even put us at enmity with God. And because of our sins – yours and mine - a perfect sacrifice was required to atone for and cover our guilt.

So Jesus, who was completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever, came to earth and willingly suffered the death that was reserved for only the worst criminals in the Roman Empire in order to make peace between us and God, in order to reconcile us to God, in order to give us God's forgiveness.  "Father, forgive them…"

Isaiah prophesied about Jesus, saying,

"He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

And 1 John 2:1-2 reads: 

"If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."

John is telling us that not only did Jesus become an atoning sacrifice for our sins, the One who takes our guilt and punishment, but He also speaks to the Father in our defense. He is our advocate, pleading with God on our behalf, just as He pled for the Pharisees and the priests and the Roman soldiers so long ago. And because Jesus is the Christ, because He is in fact God, His pleadings for us are effective.

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

³⁵ The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let Jim save Himself if He is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”
  

 ³⁶ The soldiers also came up and mocked Him. They offered Him wine vinegar ³⁷ and said, “If You are the king of the Jews, save Yourself.”

Jesus could have saved Himself, couldn’t He have? He could have called the whole thing off and climbed down off that cross and healed His own wounds in an instant. But Jesus didn’t save Himself, because He was saving others, because He was saving us. The priests and the soldiers just didn’t get it. Thankfully, we do. Thankfully, we know that Jesus didn’t save Himself because He was doing it, He was dying, so that His prayer would be answered. “Father, forgive them.”

 ³⁸ There was a written notice above Him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

The Romans meant that sign as an insult to the Jewish people, saying that once again they had put down a Jewish rebellion, showing that this man, this Jesus, who claimed to be king, had been defeated by the awesome power of Rome.

The thing is that Jesus was the King of the Jews. He was the descendant of King David and King Solomon. By birthright, He would have been king. But Jesus was so much more than that. He was God, and He was God’s Son. He was the King of the Universe, and His power was infinitely more than that of Rome. 

But in that moment on the cross, Jesus chose not to use any kind of political power, or military power. The power that Christ wielded on the cross was the power to stay where He was, despite the pain, the power to save you and me and anyone else who will give their allegiance to Him as their King. “Father, forgive them.”

 ³⁹ One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save Yourself and us!”

 ⁴⁰ But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? ⁴¹ We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 

  ⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into Your Kingdom.”

The amazing thing here is that Jesus was about to die, and yet this criminal knew that Jesus was still going to have a kingdom. Because this criminal saw that Jesus was more than just a man, didn’t he? He got it - this criminal got it – when the priests and the soldiers didn’t.

 ⁴³Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise.”

Because this man had faith, Jesus says that he will be in paradise. “Father, forgive them.”

Paradise originally meant garden. It’s the same word used for the Garden of Eden – the Paradise of Eden. And in Revelation 2:7, Jesus says: 

“To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

That Garden of Eden, that paradise, has been moved to Heaven, and because this criminal has faith in Jesus, even while Jesus is dying right there beside him, Jesus promises him that he will go to Heaven and walk in the Heavenly Garden of Eden. This man is forgiven because of his faith in Jesus. “Father, forgive them.”

We have also been forgiven, and we will also walk in the Heavenly Garden of Eden – you may know some people who are walking there now – because we also have faith in Christ, just as this criminal did.

Father, forgive us, and thank You for forgiving us. Amen? Amen.

Did Judas Go to Heaven or Hell?  

Where did Judas go after he died? He betrayed Christ. He committed suicide. But the answer of where Judas is now might surprise you.

From Matthew 26:

 ¹ When Jesus had finished saying all these things, He said to his disciples, ² “As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”

Jesus knew that He was going to die, didn’t He? He knew He was going to be crucified, that He was going to have to go through the awful pain of that death. And He willingly went through with it because of His love for us, because of His deep over-riding desire to forgive us and to provide a way for us to come back to God. Jesus would rather come to earth and die than continue to live in Heaven without us. That’s amazing, isn’t it?

 ³ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, ⁴ and they schemed to arrest Jesus secretly and kill Him. ⁵ “But not during the festival,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.”

John 12:1-6:

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. ³ Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. ⁴But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, ⁵ “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” ⁶ He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.”

So, Judas wanted to sell that expensive perfume and then keep the money for himself. He was a thief, a greedy man, who was only looking out for himself. Here this woman is, worshipping Jesus, at least in part because Jesus had raised her brother, Lazarus, from the dead, and Judas… is not worshipping. He’s not remembering the awe of Jesus calling Lazarus, a man who had been dead and in the tomb for four days, back to life. Instead, he’s thinking about how he can make a quick buck.

¹⁰ Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. ¹¹ The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. ¹² When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.

Judas is thinking about money, and Jesus and this woman, Mary, are thinking about how Jesus is about to die for the sins of the world. Talk about Judas not having his priorities straight. Judas is right in the middle of the biggest thing God has ever done since the creation of the world – God, in the body of Jesus Christ, is about to die – and Judas is being distracted, thinking about how he can make some money.

But I wonder how many of us can get distracted too. I wonder how many of us concern ourselves with our daily living or want we want to do, and don’t notice or don’t pay attention or don’t give enough priority to the things of God.

We live in this world, and we have to take care of things in this world, but we are not of this world. Our priority, our loyalty, our future and eternal home is beyond this world. As believers, we need to be about bigger things than the daily grind while we’re here because we know that getting that next paycheck, or taking care of that next thing on our to-do list is not all there is to life. Life is about something so much bigger, something so much more beyond, something so much more eternal than our daily routine.

Judas, apparently, didn’t realize that. Hopefully, we do. I often wonder how Judas could have been right there with Jesus for three straight years and not have been affected, not have been changed, by being with Christ. There are some Christians who go to church every week and who claim to have known Jesus for years, and yet it’s obvious that they have not been changed. It’s obvious that, like Judas, they haven’t let Jesus affect them.

I say that we will not be like that. We will not be like Judas. We will take our faith seriously. We will allow our faith in Christ to change us, to shape us, to grow us, into what God wants us to be. We will have a faith that looks beyond ourselves and our daily ups and downs to a God who is in control of everything, and who has called us to higher things, to the God who wants us to be involved in His activity in this world.

Judas had the opportunity to take part in God’s work, right there by God’s side, and he wasted it. We will not waste the opportunities that God gives us. We will not waste our lives like Judas did. Amen? We will make our lives count for God and for His eternal purposes.

¹³ Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
 

¹⁴ Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests ¹⁵ and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. ¹⁶ From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.

Is it any surprise that Judas, this thief, this greedy man, was willing to betray Christ for a few coins?

I wonder what we are willing to betray Christ for. We betray Christ every time we sin. Every time we accept Satan’s temptation instead of standing strong, instead of staying loyal to our Savior.

Satan has all kinds of things he can tempt us with, and he knows each of our weaknesses. Judas’ weakness was money. What is your weakness, and what are you doing to make sure that you stay strong in that area so that you don’t end up sinning and betraying Jesus like Judas did?

The thing is that Judas went looking for trouble, didn’t he? He went to the priests, and he said, “What are you willing to give me?” Sometimes, we go looking for trouble too. We know what our weakness is and yet we still go to the places, we still talk to the people, we still buy the products, that encourage us to sin in that area.

If Judas had recognized his weakness and decided to stay away from the priests, he would never have betrayed Jesus like he did. In the same way, the first step in our fight to keep ourselves from sinning and betraying Jesus is to consciously avoid those things, those places, those people, that tempt us.

²⁰ When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. ²¹ And while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.”
 

 ²² They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, “Surely you don’t mean me, Lord?”
 

 ²³ Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. ²⁴ The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”
 

 ²⁵ Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely you don’t mean me, Rabbi?”
 

  Jesus answered, “You have said so.” …
 

 ³⁶ Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane…
 

 ⁴⁷ While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. ⁴⁸ Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” ⁴⁹ Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.

Luke 22:48:

“but Jesus asked him, ‘Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?’”

“Are you betraying the Son of man with a kiss?” Can you imagine? Judas goes up to Jesus, calls Him ‘Rabbi’, a respectful term for ‘Teacher’, and then kisses Him affectionately, knowing the whole time that he’s come to betray Him.

I wonder if we ever betray Jesus like that. Sometimes, Christians will come to church, and they will say that they believe in Christ and that they serve God, but then, they betray Him by their sinful actions afterward. They respect Christ with their mouth one moment and sin against Him the next. That’s the Judas kiss.

Friends, I say that we will not give Jesus the Judas kiss. I say that when we say that we love and serve Christ, we will mean it. I say that our actions and our lifestyle will match what our mouth says. We will be sincere, genuine Christians. We will not be hypocrites, but will serve the Lord in truth.

From Matthew 27:

Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed. ² So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.
 

 ³ When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. ⁴ “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”
 

“What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”
 

 ⁵ So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

We’ve talked about how bad of a guy Judas was. He was greedy, he was a hypocrite, he betrayed Jesus, and now, we see him committing suicide. But I wonder, where did Judas go when he died? Is Judas in Heaven? I think most Christians would assume that Judas went to Hell.

But I’m not too sure about that. I think that Judas gets a bad rap among Christians. Judas is someone who did something wrong. But how many of us have ever done anything wrong?

So, Judas does something wrong, but then, when he realizes the consequences of his mistake, when he realizes the consequences of his wrongdoing, he feels bad about it, doesn't he? He goes to the priests and says that he has sinned, and he returns the money. How many of us have ever done something wrong and then felt bad about it afterward?

So, Judas feels bad about what he's done. Judas had some serious remorse for his sin. He felt terrible. He was guilty, and he knew it.

Let me ask you: Is that enough for God to have forgiven Judas? He felt bad about it, he confessed his sin to the priests, and he gave back the money. I’m not sure there was anything more Judas could have done in order to ask for God’s forgiveness.

I think that if I had been Judas’ pastor, I would have told him that God forgave him.

But I don’t think Judas would have believed me.

Because here's where Judas made his real mistake, his fatal mistake. It's tragic. Judas is the most tragic person in the entire Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Because in Judas, we see the perfect picture of someone who was, most likely, forgiven by God but couldn’t forgive himself. Judas made a mistake, he had sinned, and he felt bad about it, but he didn't know, or he wasn't willing, to take the next step.

God forgave Judas, but Judas couldn’t forgive himself. He couldn’t let go of his own guilt, those all-too-recent memories of what he had done. Instead of acknowledging God’s forgiveness, Judas went out and killed himself. He chose to hang on to his guilt and take it to his grave instead of allowing himself to feel and experience the forgiveness that God had given him.

We can be like that too. We’ve come to God, we know we’ve been forgiven, but we still have those memories of the things we’ve done. We still feel that guilt. God says our guilt is gone – it’s forgiven – but we still carry it with us. We know that God has forgiven us, but we haven’t forgiven ourselves.

Don’t make the same mistake that Judas did. If you feel guilty about something, if you’re still haunted by the memories of things you’ve done in the past, don’t carry that guilt with you anymore.

When you continue to carry that guilt, that’s letting Satan keep you down. That’s letting Satan remind you of your past mistakes, your past failings, your past sins, instead of letting God remind you of His love, His forgiveness, all the ways He’s changed you, and the future plans He has for you.

I say that we will not let Satan keep us down anymore.

  

 

If you’re still in doubt about Judas or anyone else’s fate after death, here are a few more questions to ponder.

Is there any sin that God can’t forgive?

As Christians, we would say that the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, not suicide.

Do you have to confess and ask for forgiveness for each individual sin that you commit for God to forgive you?

I hope not, because who can remember every single sin except God alone? So, if we die with unconfessed sins, that doesn’t mean we go to Hell. Everyone dies with unconfessed sin because no one can recount every failing they’ve ever had.

When you believe in Jesus and ask God to forgive you for your sins, what sins is He forgiving you of?

When we accept Christ, His death covers every sin that we’ve ever committed as well as every sin that we ever will commit. As long as we stay in Him, our sins are covered.

Do people who commit suicide automatically go to Hell?

No. Even that sin has been paid for if they believe in Christ, though our hope would be that their belief in Christ would keep them doing such a thing. Still, we must remember that a person's mental state can cause them to do things they would spiritually oppose.

Is God Mean? Why Does God Kill People? Why Does God Send People to Hell?

Have you ever thought God was mean? Have you ever heard someone say God is mean?

I hear people say that a lot. And I see people say it even more.  I get on the internet for about an hour every day and I go to these websites where people are asking questions about God or religion or the Bible, and I try to answer them as best as I can. I find that people are usually more willing to talk anonymously over the internet about their questions than they would be to go talk to a pastor in person. It’s just easier sometimes to talk to someone while you’re typing on the computer and you don’t have to be face-to-face with someone you don’t know, talking about your deepest feelings.

So, I get on the computer and I talk to these random people, and one question I get over and over again is, Why is God so mean? And they’ll talk about how God killed people in the Old Testament and they’ll talk about how God is mean when He sends people to Hell. And they can’t love God, they can’t come to God, they can’t trust God, because they think that He’s just so mean.

So I want us to talk a little about God’s supposed meanness.

First, we know that God very rarely chooses who dies and who lives today. But in the Bible, and in the Old Testament particularly, we do have stories of God striking people dead for various sins that they had committed. The question people ask is, Wait a minute. Isn’t that murder? God told us not to murder in the Ten Commandments, but there He is murdering people. God’s a hypocrite. And He’s mean too!

Well, is God a hypocrite for killing people when He told us not to kill people? No. God told us not to kill people. That doesn’t mean He can’t kill people. God gives the rules, and He doesn’t have to play by the same set of rules that He gives us. It’s like a parent and a child. You tell your child they can’t stay up past a certain time. But that doesn’t mean you can’t stay up past that time. As the parent, you have the right to give your child rules that you don’t necessarily have to follow yourself.

It’s the same way with God. He’s God. He’s playing by a whole different set of rules than the ones He’s given us.

So, you say, Okay, but isn’t it still mean for God to kill people? It depends on how you look at it. Is it mean when the state executes someone? Or is it justice?

You see, the only reason we think it’s mean for God to kill people is that we don’t take sin seriously enough. God is holy. God is perfect. God says that anytime you sin, you deserve death. He doesn’t tolerate sin at all. God is justice.

The cool thing is that God is also love. And God usually gives people a way out of their punishment. He usually gives them a way not to be put to death. In the Old Testament, that meant killing an animal, sacrificing an animal, instead of you. In the New Testament, that means killing Christ instead of you. Something still has to die for your sin. That’s how serious sin is. God isn’t just going to forget about it. Justice has to be done. Something or someone has to be punished.

Now, I said that God usually gives us a way out of our death penalty. In the Old Testament, He usually let people sacrifice the animal. But that doesn’t mean that God always had to do that. Sometimes, when He struck someone dead, He was simply exercising His justice without giving people a way out of it.

We don’t like that. We want God to always be love and to show love because that feels better for us. But sometimes, God chooses to show His justice instead. The Bible says that the beginning of wisdom is fearing God, and it doesn’t say that for nothing. We should be afraid of God. Because if He chose to, and He has done it in the past, He would be completely within His rights to destroy us all. Because we have all sinned. We are all deserving of death according to His perfect standards.

But people will still say, Yeah, but God can’t just kill people like that. Yes, He can. He’s God. He created us. He owns us. If you make something, if you own something, you can destroy it, and no one can say that you can’t. We are God’s. We are His property. He can do with us what He wants. We’re just lucky that most of the time, God wants to show us His grace and mercy and forgiveness and love more than He wants to show us His justice and His wrath.

Okay. So, God can kill people because He’s not playing by the same rules He gave us; He’s exercising justice according to His perfect standards, and He can do what He wants with His own creation.

So that’s kind of the hard line. Now, let’s talk a little about Hell. Is God being mean when He sends people to Hell? 

Hell is not God being mean. Hell is God giving people what they want. God doesn’t want people to go to Hell. God wants us all to be in Heaven with Him.

Listen to what Jesus says in

Matthew 18:12-14 - "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in Heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.”

And God says in

Ezekiel 18:23, 31-32 – “‘Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?’ declares the Sovereign LORD. ‘Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone,’ declares the Sovereign LORD. ‘Repent and live!’”

God does not want to send people to Hell, but He does give them free will. God gives us all a choice. We can be with Him, or we can refuse to be with Him. If someone will not turn to Him and accept His forgiveness, then they’ve basically said that they don’t want to be with God in Heaven. They’ve said, “I don’t want anything to do with You.” And since God will not force them to go to Heaven, there is only one alternative for them. They’ve decided that they don’t want to go to Heaven. But they have to go somewhere when they die. That somewhere, that alternative, is Hell. If they have rejected Heaven, then they have chosen Hell by default.

And it’s not that God has made Hell a particularly bad and painful place on purpose. It’s just that Hell is the only place where God isn’t there. People have rejected God. They’ve said they don’t want anything to do with God. And so He stays completely out of Hell. But because God stays completely out of Hell, that means that there is nothing good in Hell.

James 1:17 – “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.”

God is the source of everything good. He created love and happiness and peace and comfort. So, if God stays out of Hell, then none of those good things are in Hell. You see, Earth is kind of the middle ground. On Earth, we can experience those good things from God a little bit. In Heaven, we’ll experience those things to the max, because that’s where God is. He’s right there, and He’s made everything perfect in Heaven. But in Hell, we can’t experience any of those good things God has created, because God is not there. So, instead, we experience the opposite of those good things. Instead of love, we feel only hate. Instead of happiness, there is only despair. Instead of peace, there is frustration. And instead of comfort, there is pain.

That’s the choice people are making when they reject God. They are choosing to go to the place where they won’t need to have anything to do with God. It’s just that they might not know what they’re really choosing.

But I say that Hell is for those people who choose to go there. I want us to understand that most people do not go to Hell. In order to go to Hell, you have to choose to reject God. You have to hear about God and then, willingly ignore it or reject it.

An unborn baby has not rejected God and so, they do not go to Hell. A mentally handicapped person who can’t understand about God has not made a rational decision to reject God and so, they are not going to Hell. A person who has never heard about the real God has not made a decision to reject the real God and so, they are not going to Hell. Most people in the history of the world are not going to Hell because they did not have the opportunity to believe in or reject God. God understands that and so, most of them will be in Heaven.

So, is God mean? No, God is not mean. God is simply exercising His justice on the rare occasions that He does kill someone. And He allows us to choose where we will go when we die. So, no, God is not mean. In fact, I’d say God is incredibly gracious by not killing us all the second we sin and sending us all to Hell, even though by His perfect standards, that is exactly what we deserve.

God is incredibly gracious to us because He offers us a way to be forgiven. God is incredibly gracious to us because most of the time, He chooses to show us love and patience rather than His wrath. God is incredibly gracious to us because He gave us a place to go other than Hell. God is incredibly gracious to us because He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us, and to take our punishment for us rather than putting us all to death the moment we sin. God is incredibly gracious to us. Amen? Amen.

Discussion Questions:

Q1. If God gives us rules to follow, and we break those rules, does God have any obligation to forgive us?

A1. No. God does not have to forgive us if He doesn’t want to. He makes the rules, and we have to listen to Him. He doesn’t owe us a second chance. We owe Him our life and our obedience. He’s God. The cool thing is that God does want to forgive us and to give us a second chance because that is His personality. God is love.

Q2. If God only showed love, and never showed His justice, how would people behave differently toward Him?

A2. Everyone could do whatever they wanted without any consequences. They would see God as a push-over instead of someone we need to listen to and obey.

It would be like the Congress passing laws but the police never enforcing them. People would ignore the laws.

People would not respect God or take Him seriously.

Q3. If God only showed His justice, and never showed His love or forgiveness, would people behave differently toward Him?

A3. They would resent God as being too harsh and could not love Him.

Q4. How does Jesus’ death show us God’s love and His justice?

A4. It shows us God’s love because God gives us a way to be forgiven for our sins and to not die and go to Hell ourselves. It shows us God’s justice because someone is still being punished for our sins. Our sins aren’t being ignored. God is still punishing sin. It’s just that the punishment is being taken by someone other than ourselves.

Reality Check - What Does God Do?

What is God Like?

For each statement, circle True or False. If you’re not sure, leave it blank.

1. God causes natural disasters.

True / False

2. God decides who lives and who dies.

True / False

3. If someone dies, it’s because God took them.

True / False

4. When something bad happens to me, it’s because God is punishing me.

True / False

5. When God lets bad things happen to me, that shows He’s not powerful enough to stop them.

True / False

6. When God lets bad things happen to me, that shows God doesn’t care enough about me to stop them.

True / False

7. God planned who He wanted (or wants) me to marry.

True / False

8. God has the perfect job in mind for me.

True / False

9. I talk to God when I pray, and He actually talks back.

True / False

10. God gives me what I pray for.

True / False

11. God works miracles for us if we have enough faith.

True / False

12. God wants to communicate with me.

True / False

What’d you think of that quiz? Were the questions easy to answer or not so easy? 

The thing is that we all take this quiz every day, because these questions focus on some of the big things that we believe about God. Does God have a plan for how He wants your life to go? Does He have a spouse and a job and all of that lined up for you? When something bad happens to you, where is God in that? Did He make that bad thing happen? If not, why didn’t He do anything about it?

Those are some big questions, and I want to see if we can start to work through some of them. 

1. God causes natural disasters. Is that true or false? I’m going to say it’s mostly false. We have stories in the Bible where God certainly did cause natural disasters. But does that mean that God causes all natural disasters? No.

The truth is that we live in a broken world. God created the world to operate perfectly. Genesis 1:31 – “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Now, when God says something is good, that doesn’t mean it was okay, or pretty good. That means it was good. It was perfect. There was nothing wrong with the world. There were no natural disasters.

And the Bible tells us that in the beginning, there was a layer of water surrounding the Earth, creating a kind of greenhouse effect for us. Genesis 1:6-8 – “And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.’ So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault ‘sky.’”

There was water on the earth, and there was water above the earth. And we’re not talking about the water that is always up in the clouds because there was no rain yet. Genesis 2:6-7 – “the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.” So, in the beginning, instead of having water falling from the sky, water came up from the ground somehow. Maybe it was more like just having a lot of dew on the ground.

There were no earthquakes or volcanoes or anything like that. There were no tornadoes or hurricanes or tsunamis. The world was perfect and at peace.

Then, Adam and Eve sinned and their children sinned and their children sinned and their children sinned until God decided that He had had enough. And He broke the world. Genesis 7:11 – “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.” That layer of water that was above the earth came down and the water that was under the earth that came up little by little to water the ground broke through the earth’s crust all at once and broke the earth’s crust into smaller pieces called plates, and all of that water from up above and from down below drowned every living thing on the planet except for Noah and his family and the animals he had with him on the ark.

The breaking down of that water layer ended the greenhouse effect the Earth was enjoying. Heat escaped the immediate atmosphere. All of that water started evaporating up into colder air and came down again as snow and ice. Those plates in the earth’s crust began sliding around and rubbing against each other, causing earthquakes and volcanoes.

God caused every natural disaster when He broke the world with the Flood. The Flood was what set off our weather patterns and plate tectonics. So, yes, God made the biggest natural disaster there ever was, and in doing so, He also caused natural disasters in general. But He doesn’t cause each individual storm or tsunami or earthquake or volcanic eruption. He set everything in motion with the Flood and is now allowing everything to take their natural course.

The Bible tells us that one day, Jesus is going to come back to this world and that this world is going to burn up, and that God is going to create a new world for us to live in. 2 Peter 3:6-7, 10 – “By water the world of that time was flooded and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.”

The earth was flooded. Everything died. And then, God started over with Noah and his family and those animals who had survived on the ark. When Christ returns, God is going to judge the world again. He’s going to burn everything on earth – clear the slate – and then, start again with only those who have been faithful to Him.

Does God cause each individual natural disaster? No. It’s kind of like we’re living in a condemned house right now. The landlord knows it’s broken. But rather than repair it, He knows He’s just going to tear it down and build a new one in its place.

So, no, God is not causing each individual disaster. But neither is He doing anything to stop them. He’s just letting things run down and take their natural course.

2-3. God decides who lives and who dies. True or false? Again, in the Bible, God does sometimes kill people. He’s God. He owns us. He’s allowed to kill us if He sees fit. He can do what He wants with His own creation. And God does sometimes save people from dying. But does that mean that God is always deciding who lives and who dies? Does He have a calendar up in Heaven where He writes each person’s name on the date He wants them to die? Does each person have a “time” to die like that?

No. In the beginning, God created human beings to live forever. Adam and Eve never would have died. They would have continued living in the Garden of Eden and enjoying that perfect world that God created and enjoying God’s Presence and having children and everything would have been perfect.

But then, they sinned. And the punishment for sin was death. Genesis 2:17 – “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will begin to die.” Some translations say, “you will certainly die.” The Hebrew there is actually, “dying, you will die.” We know that Adam and Eve didn’t die right away, but that they began to die. They started the process of dying when they sinned.

So, death is kind of like natural disasters. God set it in motion. He decided that everyone was going to die as a punishment for sin. Anyone who sins has to die. And because we all sin, we all die.  But God does not decide when you’re going to die or how you’re going to die. He kicked it off and now, He’s letting things take their natural course.

One day, Jesus is going to come back to this world, and He’s going to bring everyone who believes in Him back to life, and He’s going to perfect our bodies and make it so that we never get sick or get hurt or get old again. We will live forever in that new world God is going to create, just like He always intended us to do.

But that time is not yet, and so, we die.

4. That brings us to our next one. When something bad happens to me, it’s because God is punishing me. No. Just like everything else, God is not actively doing things to you. There are a lot of reasons why something bad might happen to you. Either it’s because of things that were set in motion long before you or I got here, like death or the weather or natural disasters, or because you did something or someone else did something to cause that bad thing to happen naturally, without God having to do anything about it. If, for example, you get drunk and get a hangover, that’s not God punishing you; that’s you suffering the natural consequence of throwing off your body’s chemistry. If someone else gets drunk and hits your car, that’s you suffering the consequence of them throwing off their body’s chemistry. God has nothing to do with either one. Or sometimes, things happen to us just out of simple coincidence. We’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Bible tells us that God will punish us when Christ comes back to judge the world. But, again, that time has not yet come, and so no, God does not punish us now, other than allowing us to suffer the consequences of our decisions and punishing us with death at some point, which He does not determine.

5-6. When God lets bad things happen to me, that shows He’s not powerful enough to stop them. Or, When God lets bad things happen to me, that shows God doesn’t care enough about me to stop them. Both are false. God does care about you, and God will stop bad things from happening to you. Just not yet. He knows everything that is going to happen in this world, and He has set a time that only He knows about for when He’s going to end this world and make a new one, where nothing bad will ever happen to us again. But that time is not now. And so, even though God does care about you, He knows that it’s not time to stop the bad things from happening.

God knows that our time in this world is brief. Our lifetime is like a blink of an eye compared to eternity. Romans 8:18 – “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” The pain, the hardships, the heartache that we experience here will one day seem like nothing. And so, God would much rather have us learn from our hardships and develop our character by going through those hardships than take away our problems altogether. He wants us to learn by going through those hard experiences.

7-8. God planned who He wanted (or wants) me to marry. God has the perfect job in mind for me. Again, those are both false. Christians sometimes think that God has their life all planned out. But He doesn’t. God is our Father, our Parent. You know what kind of parent plans out their children’s lives for them? Controlling ones. “You will be a doctor because I was a doctor.” Or “You will do this because I never had the opportunity to do it.”

God isn’t like that. God loves us, and He wants what’s best for us. But He’s not going to make every decision for us. He’s given us some guidelines. He’s said that He wants us to marry another Christian so that they can support us in our faith and help us run our family according to God’s principles. But He doesn’t pick the exact person He wants you to marry. 

Likewise, God has said that He wants you to be fair and honest and hardworking in your job or career, and He wants you to do things with excellence, but He doesn’t tell you what specific job you need to get or even what field of work you should be in. He lets you figure that out.

You see, just like a good parent, God is much more interested in what kind of person you are than what you do for a living. He’s much more interested in who you are than what your job is or how much money you make or how successful you are compared to your colleagues. With God, you can just be. You don’t have to do anything other than just to be the kind of person God created you to be.

9-11. I talk to God when I pray, and He actually talks back. God gives me what I pray for. God works miracles for us if we have enough faith.

I have had God talk to me, and God did talk to people in the Bible. God does and did answer prayer. God did and does work miracles. The question is, How often does God do those things?

We read about all the miracles that God did in the Bible and all the people He talked to, and we think that that must be normal. We think that’s how life is supposed to be. But it’s not.

The Bible is like the news. We watch the news, and we see stories about people being shot and houses burning down and all kinds of other strange happenings. And if we looked at the news the way we look at the Bible, we’d think, Wow! Everyone’s being shot, and everyone’s house is burning down.

But we know that’s not true. We know that the news shows us the things that are not normal, that are not happening to everyone. That’s why it’s news. If those things were normal, we wouldn’t need anyone to tell us about it because we’d already know.

It’s the same way with the Bible. The Bible shows the big things, the highlights, the things that were not normal because there’s no reason to tell you about the normal things because you already know what normal life is like. And it shows us those big things over the course of about 4,000 years. If you take all the miracles that God did in the Bible and all the times that He talked to people and all the times that He answered someone’s prayer and stretch them out over 4,000 years, I think you’ll find that on most days, God didn’t do anything. There was no news to report.

Now, of course, I’m exaggerating, because the Bible probably doesn’t tell us every little thing that God did. But you get my point. God talking to people, and God doing miracles, and God answering prayer is not an everyday occurrence. You may never experience those things. And it’s not because there’s anything wrong with your faith. It’s simply because they don’t happen very often. God is, for the most part, letting things take their natural course.

If God doesn’t talk to you, it’s not because He doesn’t like you or because He doesn’t have anything to say you.

12. Oh, but that’s getting into our last question. God wants to communicate with me.

That one is true. God has a lot to say to you, and He will talk your ear off all day long, every day, until you die if you’ll let Him. He just doesn’t talk to you the way I’m talking to you now.

You see, God has already said pretty much all He needs to say to you. He even had some people write it down and give it to you in the form of a book. I’m talking about the Bible, obviously. It is God’s Words, and when we read it, God is speaking to us, telling us everything that we need to know about Him and about ourselves and about what He wants for us and about what He’s eventually going to do for us when Jesus comes back.

God wants to communicate with you, through the Bible. And He wants you to communicate with Him through prayer. Prayer is not for us to tell God what we want and expect Him to do it. Prayer is simply for us to talk to God. I’ve said before that the thing God wants most out of us is a relationship. Talking to God, praying to Him, telling Him about your day or what you want to see happen is part of that relationship, and there doesn’t have to be any expectations involved.

You know, my wife will sometimes come home from work and tell me about a problem she’s having with a co-worker or about a task she needs to get done. She doesn’t expect me to do anything about those things. She simply wants to talk to me. And that’s the same thing we can do with God. We don’t need to expect Him to fix everything, because He’s probably not going to. But we can still talk to Him and be in that relationship with Him.

We can tell God what we want to see happen, and we can ask Him to do things. Just know that He’s not obligated to do them and that He does still care about you if He doesn’t. Prayer is about the relationship, not miracles.

Follow-up Discussion:

Q1. Have you ever heard other Christians or other churches saying that some natural disaster was God’s punishment or judgment on the world?

What do you think is wrong with that type of thinking? Or is that type of thinking wrong?

A1. When we say that God causes natural disasters as a punishment of some sort, it makes God seem unfair. Because you know that when a hurricane happens, there are Christians who are killed or whose property is destroyed too. So, is God punishing everyone in that area? Or just the unbelievers?

When you say that God is not punishing us but that He’s just allowing things to take their natural course and that He will punish us individually in the end, then you get a fair picture of God. He deals with us individually at the judgment instead of letting Christians suffer along in a natural disaster along with everyone else.

Q2. Has you ever been to a funeral and heard someone say, “Well, God wanted to take them”?

How would you feel if someone said that to you?

A2. I would feel like God was picking on me, like God deliberately chose to take my loved one away from me. And I would think, God is the bad guy here. He made this person die.

That’s not a very fair picture of God, is it? It’s much more accurate to say that God is letting things take their natural course. Sometimes, it happens to me; sometimes, it happens to you. It’s just random chance. God isn’t deciding who lives and who dies. He isn’t picking on anyone.

Q3. If God doesn’t punish us in this world, how do we know when we’ve done something wrong? Does God have any way of correcting us before we get to the judgment?

A3. That’s the role of our conscience and the Holy Spirit. God has given us all a conscience to know the basics of right and wrong, and He gives every Christian the Holy Spirit to live inside of them and remind them of what God has said.

John 14:26 – “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

God also lets us suffer the natural consequences of our decisions. If I go out and get drunk and then, get a hangover, maybe that hangover will help me understand that I shouldn’t drink so much next time.

So, God doesn’t punish us, but He does tell us when we’ve made a mistake through our conscience, through the Holy Spirit living inside of us, and through the consequences of what we do.

Q4. Have you ever heard God talking to you?

If you ever did hear God talking to you, how would you know it was Him?

A4. When you have an idea that you know you didn’t come up with, that’s God talking to you. But you also have to test it and make sure that it really is God talking to you. An easy rule to keep in mind is that God will never contradict Himself. He will never tell you something that goes against something He’s already said in the Bible. So, if that voice you hear tells you to do something that doesn’t agree with the Bible, then you know it’s not God talking to you.

Q5. Have you ever had God answer your prayer, or have you ever seen God do a miracle?

A5. I don’t want to say that God can’t talk to us or answer our prayers or do miracles, because He can and does. I simply want us to understand that throughout the course of our lives, it’s pretty rare for those things to happen and that we shouldn't expect them on a regular basis.