John Thweatt is a child of God seeking to introduce other people to his Father. He is a husband to Kim and a father to Hannah, Hope, Hollie, and Kimberly Joy. He has served as pastor of three churches and has been teaching/preaching in the local church for over 20 years and is currently the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Pell City, AL.
John graduated from Boaz High School, Boaz, AL and then received a BS in Education from Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, AL.
He received a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, TX and a Doctor of Ministry from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, LA.
His main gifts lie in preaching and teaching and he is committed to teaching through the Bible book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and word by word.
When he is not with his family or working John enjoys running (he tries to complete a marathon or a half marathon every year) and an occasional round of golf.
March 8, The Love of Christ
Last week I closed with a question, How did Christ love us? The Greek word used in John 15 is agape—it is a reference to an unconditional love. Jesus loved us unconditionally. Jesus didn’t love you because He saw good in you. Jesus didn’t love you because you were loveable. Jesus loved you “while you were still a sinner.” He loved you when you were opposed to Him. He loved you where there was nothing good in you. He loved you when you were dead in your sins and completely unworthy of love. You didn’t have to earn His love, you didn’t have to even love Him first. You didn’t have to choose Him so that He would love you—in fact He reminds the disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” That is the love Jesus displayed toward us, but it goes even deeper.
Jesus tells us that He loves us in the same way the Father loved Him. He loves us perfectly. He loves us completely. Let me take you back to something Paul prayed for the Ephesians so we can grasp His love. He said, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together, with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
How wide is God’s love? It reaches out and includes the Jew and the Gentile. It extends to every nation and every tribe and every man, woman, boy and girl. How long is the love of God? He made the decision to love us before He created the world and He secures us for eternity. How long is that? Well think of it this way—God decided to love you before time began and he will still love you when time will no longer matter! How high is the love of God? It reaches up to the heavenly places and blesses us with every spiritual blessing. How deep is the love of God? We see the depth of His love as he reached down to man in the depravity of his sinfulness and sent his son to die for us while we were sinners. That my friend is love beyond measure or as John says “How great is the love the father has lavished upon us!”
That is how Jesus loved us and that is how we are to love others. Now, don’t you wish He would have said, “Love each other as they love you?” That would make it easy to deal with the Ben Laden’s of the world, but that isn’t what Jesus said. Jesus said, “Love each other as I have loved you.” Now wait a minute. What about the person who harmed me? What about those who abused me? What about those who hate me? What about the man who left me? What about the woman who cheated on me and is making my life miserable? What about those who strap bombs on themselves and blow up people? What about those who fly planes into buildings? What about those who are looting all over the city? Are you saying I should love them? No, I am not saying that—Jesus said it.
Your love for every person on this earth—should be as wide and long and high and deep as God’s love is for you. Well, you might say, “They don’t deserve my love.” No, and you didn’t deserve God’s love either, but that didn’t stop Him from loving you. That is the call of God and you can’t ignore it and be in a right relationship with Him—you cannot refuse it and abide in Him and if you don’t abide—you’ll never know Jesus Joy.