When You Feel Like God Can’t Love You

When You Feel Like God Can’t Love You

Scripture References

Primary text

• 1 John 3:1
• Luke 8

Other references

• Psalm 103
• Exodus 34
• Romans 5:8
• Deuteronomy 31:8

Overview

God’s defining attribute is that He is a loving Father, yet many of us quietly doubt that love because of painful or absent relationships with our earthly dads. Using 1 John 3:1 and the story of Jairus and the bleeding woman in Luke 8, Pastor Sam showed that the Father meets us right where our wounds are deepest. God walks with us, stops for us, and talks to us—lavishing a love that re-labels us as His sons and daughters.

Context

• Over 15 million children a year grow up in single-mother households, creating “daddy issues” that often distort how we see God.
• Even the most faith-filled “shouters” can become “doubters” when life hurts and we wonder whether God really loves us.

Main Points

Our earthly fathers shape our view of our heavenly Father

• A good, bad, or absent dad inevitably colors how we read “loving Father.”
• The crowd splits into “shouters” (“God loves me!”) and “doubters” (“Why would He love someone like me?”).

• Illustration: Pastor Sam’s own dad, an encourager with a thick accent, called him “Tiger,” told him he was “cream of the crop,” and even pushed him into Little League with the line, “You’re not a Mexi-can’t, you’re a Mexi-can.”

Three common lies about God

1. Lie: God is judgmental—always tallying my mistakes.
   • Truth: He is compassionate (Psalm 103).
2. Lie: God is angry—waiting to punish me.
   • Truth: He is patient (Exodus 34).
3. Lie: God is hateful—He could never love someone like me.
   • Truth: He is full of love (Romans 5:8).

Jesus, Jairus, and the bleeding woman (Luke 8)

• Jairus, a synagogue leader, risks reputation for his dying 12-year-old daughter—picture of a devoted earthly father.
• On the way, Jesus stops for a woman bleeding for 12 years, ceremonially unclean and utterly isolated.
• When she touches His robe, He asks, “Who touched Me?” and finally calls her:

Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.

• The girl appears to die while Jesus is “delayed,” yet He continues to Jairus’ house, takes her hand, and says, “My child, get up.”
• Lesson: God’s love is big enough to care for another’s crisis without abandoning yours.

How the Father’s love is experienced today

1. He walks with us
   • Jesus agreed to go with Jairus; God promises never to leave or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8).
   • Illustration: Pastor and wife Liz “walk” across a projected beach scene—showing how life’s highs and lows feel different when someone who loves you walks beside you.
2. He stops for us
   • From creation’s seventh-day rest to pausing for the bleeding woman, God stops to meet our need.
   • If you feel overlooked or unworthy, He is stopping for you right now.
3. He talks to us
   • Hundreds of times in Scripture God speaks; Jesus speaks tenderly to the woman and the child.
   • “The lavish love of your Father labels you His child.” Our old labels fall away when He calls us “son” or “daughter.”

• Story: Maria, assaulted at 19, chose to keep her baby and leaned on God as the Father her daughter lacked. That daughter—Liz—grew up in rough Los Angeles streets yet flourished under the Father’s love, later marrying Pastor Sam and reshaping her family’s legacy.

Key Truths

• God’s perfect fatherhood is not limited by our imperfect fathers.
• Lies about God’s character lose power when confronted with Scripture’s truth.
• Jesus can minister to someone else and still be on time for you.
• The Father’s love re-labels us: we are not defined by wounds or words spoken over us.
• His love is most clearly felt as He walks with us, stops for us, and talks to us.

Response

• Admit where father wounds have distorted your view of God.
• Replace each lie about God with the matching Scripture truth.
• Reach out to Jesus in honest faith—expect Him to stop for you.
• Walk daily with the Father: invite Him into every valley and victory.
• Speak the new label aloud: “I am a child of God.”

Closing

Pastor Sam reminded the church that nothing can separate us from the Father’s love and invited anyone still in the “crowd” to become God’s child through Christ. Hands rose across every location as people exchanged old labels for a new identity.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are.”

Prayer

The congregation prayed for a deeper experience of the Father’s love, then many prayed a salvation prayer, surrendering sin and receiving new life in Jesus.