Jesus: His Steadfast Love

Sermon by John Turner
August 9, 2009
John 15:9-17


A Most Important Word

Apart from the names of God, the most important Hebrew word in the original language version of the Old Testament is almost certainly hesed, which I believe is best translated steadfast love. It refers first of all to a quality of God by which God establishes and maintains covenant with people who do not merit divine favor. Hesed is the kind of love that does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. This divine quality is then imparted to us as God’s covenant people and should show through us in our relationships with one another, in our family life and in our covenant community of faith, as we do for others what they cannot do for themselves, or more often as we do with others what they cannot do by themselves. Hesed is most purely revealed in God’s
perfect Son Jesus. Jesus not only provides his steadfast love for our salvation, but also commands us to show this covenant love to one another.

John 15:9-17

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.”

The point is that Friends of Jesus show divine steadfast love for one another and for others. The concept of divine steadfast love is deeply rooted in both the Old and New Testaments, in Judaism and Christianity. It comes to full flower in Jesus Christ.

Frederick Lehman

1n 1096 in Germany, Jewish cantor Meir Ben Isaac Ne­hor­ai, wrote a poem, a portion of which, translated into English, reads as follows:

Were the sky of parchment made,

A quill each reed, each twig and blade,

Could we with ink the oceans fill,

Were every man a scribe of skill,

The marvelous story of God’s great glory would still remain untold;

For He, Most High, the earth and sky created alone of old.

More than 8 centuries later, a new adaptation of that translation was found penciled on the wall of a mental institution after the death of the room’s occupant. The poem was published in newspapers, and Frederick Lehman, reading it, decided to write two additional verses, plus a refrain, and to set the whole to music:

The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell;

It goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell;

The guilty pair, bowed down with care,

God gave His Son to win;

His erring child He reconciled,

And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain: O love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure--the saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,

And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,

When men, who here refuse to pray,

On rocks and hills and mountains call,

God’s love so sure, shall still endure, all measureless and strong;

Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—the saints’ and angels’ song. Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above,

Would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky. Refrain

Frederick Lehman was born in 1868 in Germany. His family immigrated to the United States when he was 4. He was converted at age 11, pursued education for ministry, and served as pastor in four Midwestern states. He helped found the Nazarene Publishing House in Kansas City and focused much of his career on Christian music publishing. He moved to California, where he wrote this song in 1917 and died in 1953.

Thomas O. Chisholm

The theme of God’s steadfast love pops up in the strangest places in the Bible. Who would have thought to find, right in the structural center of the Old Testament book of Lamentations, a book of deep and agonizing grief over the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and her people, a celebration of the greatness of God’s steadfast love? We heard the passage read earlier. The words of that passage inspired Thomas O. Chisholm to write one of the most beloved hymns of all time, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” Chisholm was born in a log cabin in 1866 in Franklin, Kentucky. At age 16 he became the teacher of the one room school which he had attended, and at age 21 became the associate editor of his hometown newspaper. At 27, he was converted under the preaching of Dr. Henry C. Morrison, eminent Methodist evangelist and publisher as well as President of Asbury College and founder of Asbury Theological Seminary. Morrison called Chisholm into Christian publishing and then into pastoral ministry, but Chisholm’s physical constitution was not strong enough for the pastorate.

For most of his life, he earned a meager living selling insurance while writing hymns. He lived close enough to the financial edge to appreciate God’s miraculous provision; he later attributed his writing of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” to that oft repeated experience in his life of God’s showing up just in time with provision.

Chisholm also wrote “Living for Jesus,” describing a life of consecration in response to the steadfast love Jesus has displayed on the cross: “Living for Jesus who died in my place, bearing on Calvary my sin and disgrace; such love constrains me to answer His call, follow His leading and give Him my all. Living for Jesus through earth’s little while, my dearest treasure, the light of His smile; seeking the lost ones He died to redeem, bringing the weary to find rest in Him.

Lesser known are Chisholm’s earlier “O to Be like Thee” and his later “I Want to Be like Jesus.” Those hymns convey his life’s theme, Chisholm’ desire to be grasped by Christ’s steadfast love so as to reflect it in his own life. Despite Chisholm’s lifelong weak constitution, he lived into his 90’s, dying in 1960. From what I have seen of his hymns, it must have been a life well-lived.

Henry Van Dyke

In contrast to Chisholm, Henry Van Dyke was reared as the son of a prominent Presbyterian clergyman with a love for the outdoors. Henry inherited his father’s position and passion in life. He rose quickly as a widely sought preacher, best-selling author of poetry, fiction, and devotional literature, chair of the committee that produced the first official Presbyterian Book of Worship, professor of English literature at Princeton University, U.S. ambassador to Holland and Luxemborg, and moderator of his Presbyterian denomination. Van Dyke was an optimistic believer in human progress and sought to appeal to people’s better instincts. He was among the enthusiastic supports of "the war to end all wars," that so disilusioned the American people with the church. The church had reached a peak of influence in 1910, but by the 1920's and 1930's that influence was lost.

You may judge the temper of the man by what he wrote of his most lasting achievement, the hymn, “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”: “These vers­es are sim­ple ex­press­ions of com­mon Christ­ian feel­ings and de­sires in this pre­sent time—hymns of to­day that may be sung to­ge­ther by peo­ple who know the thought of the age, and are not afraid that any truth of sci­ence will de­stroy re­li­gion, or any re­vo­lu­tion on earth over­throw the king­dom of hea­ven. There­fore this is a hymn of trust and joy and hope.” Christians of all stripes, even those of us with a more sober, realistic, and biblically grounded faith, appreciate the hymn with its celebration of creation, of the reigning and forgiving love of God, and of the influence of that love on human relationships.

Maltbie Babcock

Another Presbyterian outdoorsman with strong academic credentials, but a bit more of a common touch, actually followed Van Dyke in one pastorate. Maltbie Babcock wrote the beloved, “This Is My Father’s World.” While Babcock delights in God’s presence in nature, he is also aware of the spiritual battle that is going on for our souls, and he centers the solution in the atoning work of Christ. Almost all hymnals print only three of his six verses, probably the right decision, but I have included the seldom printed ones in your bulletin insert because I think that you may find them interesting.

J. Wilbur Chapman

J. Wilbur Chapman, another Presbyterian minister, was a very different character, a product of the ministries of famous evangelist Dwight Moody, although much better educated than his mentor, with both college and seminary degrees. It should be noted that, when he graduated from seminary, Chapman married a woman who shared preaching duties with him. They accepted a call to pastor two churches, one in Indiana and one just across the line in Ohio; they traded pulpits week by week. Unfortunately, his wife died four years later.

Chapman accepted a call to a very large and successful church in Philadelphia. Shortly after his arrival in the church a layman came to him and said, “You are not a very strong preacher, but a few of us have decided to gather and pray every Sunday morning for you." The number of people praying reached 1,000, and the church grew even stronger under this “weak preacher.” After just two years, Chapman resigned to become an evangelist. His style of preaching was described as “cultured, earnest, enthusiastic, but sane; never coarse or thoughtless; calm but forceful, emotional but not dramatic,” just effective. Dwight Moody called him the greatest evangelist in the country.

After four years of this, he returned to his Philadelphia church where his church grew to the largest attendance in the world and the largest membership of any Presbyterian Church in America. Not bad for a weak preacher. He was soon on to other endeavors, one of which was developing a system that succeeded for a time in evangelizing large metropolitan areas with coordinated, multiple, simultaneous interdenominational revivals scattered across the city. Eventually, he took his evangelistic campaigns worldwide. It is thought that he preached in more countries than anyone before him. Chapman’s body did not stand up under the strain, but he refused to slow down enough to really recover his strength, and he died at age 59. His life’s motto was, “Anything that dims my vision for Christ, or takes away my taste for Bible study, or cramps me in my prayer life, or makes Christian work difficult, is wrong for me; and I must, as a Christian turn away from it.”

Chapman had served most of the last year of his life as moderator of the Presbyterian Church, oddly the same position that Van Dyke had held a few years earlier. They were as different as night and day. Where Van Dyke saw human progress, J. Wilbur Chapman saw lost souls. Chapman’s “Jesus, What Friend for Sinners,” also known as “Our Great Savior,” assumes that we are sinners and strugglers in need of help; it celebrates Jesus’ saving work--his steadfast, helping love--in a way that can be used either as a praise hymn or as an invitation hymn.

Chapman’s hymn, “One Day” also still shows up in many hymnals. I had never heard it sung until I mentioned it to Judy, and she began to sing it from memory. It is not as obscure as I thought it was. Again it focuses on the central redeeming work of Jesus. Chapman believed in keeping the main thing the main thing.

George Bennard

George Bennard was an evangelist whose entrance upon his life’s vocation was delayed by his father’s death and the immediate necessity of supporting his family. But eventually he found the career that was in his heart, traveling across the United States and Canada in his labors. He wrote many hymns, most of them on two topics, trusting God to answer prayer and answering God’s call to win the lost to Christ. But the one hymn for which he will be remembered is focused on the atoning work of Christ. “The Old Rugged Cross” struck a chord in the hearts of Christians and was a dominant hymn through much of the 20th century. It emotionally portrays Jesus’ atoning sacrifice and calls for our self-surrender at the foot of the cross, promising the eventual reward of a crown in eternal life.

C. Austin Miles

Another hymn that was dominant for several generations was C. Austin Miles’ “In the Garden.” If you evaluate it theologically, literarily, or musically, it is inferior to most hymns, but critical analysis does not determine the fate of hymns. It was set to a style of music that was popular for love songs in the time of its emergence; it appealed especially to women, and it just caught on. The critiques I have heard of many contemporary choruses, that they are just entertainment or that they are just girly love songs to Jesus, apply just as well to this old favorite hymn. It helps to know that “In the Garden,” is designed to tell the story of Mary Magdalene’s meeting of Jesus outside the tomb in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea on the resurrection morning. Here is how Miles described what he tried to portray in the hymn,

“Out of the mists of the gar­den comes a form, halt­ing, he­si­tat­ing, tear­ful, seek­ing, turn­ing from side to side in be­wil­der­ing amaze­ment. Fal­ter­ing­ly, bear­ing grief in ev­e­ry ac­cent, with tear-dimmed eyes, she whis­pers, “If you have carried him away”… “He speaks, and the sound of His voice is so sweet the birds hush their sing­ing.” Je­sus said to her, “Mary!” Just one word from his lips, and for­got­ten the heart­aches, the long drea­ry hours….all the past blot­ted out in the pre­sence of the Liv­ing Pre­sent and the Eter­nal Fu­ture.”

Civilla Martin

Civilla Martin was taken sick and was unable to accompany her husband on a preaching engagement. He considered canceling his engagement until their young son spoke up, “Father, don’t you think that if God wants you to preach today, He will take care of Mother while you are away?” With the parents agreeing, Mr. Martin went on his way to a successful preaching event. Mrs. Martin fully recovered shortly after he left and, inspired by her son’s words, wrote the words to “God Will Take Care of You” by the time her husband returned. He quickly composed the tune for it.

On another occasion, the Martins were visiting a couple named Doolittle. Mrs. Doolittle had been confined to bed for twenty years, and Mr. Doolittle had to propel himself in a wheel chair to and from work. Despite their afflictions they lived happy and productive Christian lives. Mr. Martin asked their secret. Mrs. Doolittle answered, “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.” Mrs. Martin was gripped and inspired by the answer and soon turned it into the hymn, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” that speaks to many hearts of the steadfast love of God.

Luther Bridgers

Luther Bridgers was a young Methodist evangelist, a product of Asbury College, whose wife and three sons were killed in a tragic fire. Shortly thereafter, Bridgers wrote the hymn, “He Keeps Me Singing,” also known as “In My Heart There Rings a Melody.” I would never have guessed that such a seemingly happy hymn could come from such deep grief. The Lord indeed kept Bridgers’ heart singing in a productive evangelistic career that took him to Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Russia as well as across the United States. He also pastored churches in Kentucky, North Carolina, and Georgia. He had a long and successful ministry.

Cleland McAfee

We have today considered the prominent Presbyterians Van Dyke, Babcock, and Chapman. Cleland McAfee was another prominent Presbyterian minister, a college and seminary professor, a chaplain, a choir director, and a pastor. When two of his nieces died of diphtheria, their family could not even leave the quarantined home to attend the funeral, so the funeral was brought to the street outside their home. McAfee wrote the hymn, “Near to the Heart of God” for his choir to sing as part of the funeral and as the communion hymn the next Sunday at church.

The hymn invites us to find comfort, peace, rest, and release in the steadfast, redeeming love of God in Jesus Christ. The refrain says it over and over: “O Jesus, blest Redeemer, sent from the heart of God, hold us who wait before thee, near to the heart of God.” May it be so.