God is Love

AI Transcript

Good morning. Welcome. If you have a Bible, are going to be in 1 John chapter 4 this morning. If you can begin to make your way there. We are in this series. God is it's a series on theology proper just to lift our eyes to help our minds expand a little bit to behold who God is, his glory, his majesty, the truth of who he is. And we've begun to look at some things that he's self-existent in.

self-sufficient. Last week we looked at God is holy and not only are we beholding God but we're seeing that in every way that affects how we not only know Him but how we live. And in all of His attributes they are perfect and infinite. And in all of His attributes they are not contradicting one another. They work in unison and they complement one another. Now that's important to keep in mind

when we come to today's topic. Today, you might think this is an easy one. is God is love. Like if there's anything you can just kind of rest in, if there's anything you can go to your unbelieving friends and family and neighbors and be like, God is love. They'll say, I agree with that. God is love. Great. This is like a three minute sermon. Let's wrap it up, get a couple extra songs here, get some donuts. We're good to go.

until you start to realize, well, maybe when I say God is love and my unbelieving neighbor agrees with me, maybe we are thinking of different things. Maybe we're not saying the same thing. Maybe when we start to define the terms, there's some difficulty there. We can think about how that works. And so before we even get into our passage this morning, we've actually got to do some deconstructing and then

reconstructing of what this idea means before we jump into the passage in the New Testament that actually says God is love. Think about our culture. Think about what you hear and see and listen to in the culture at large. Our culture loves love. But think about how they determine what that means, what they say. Think about the songs that are popular or the

The movies, Jerry Maguire, You Complete Me, The Notebook. Think about all the ways that our culture pumps the message, love, God is love. Often it gets reduced to kind of a sentimental, emotional feeling. It means that God is a means to an end to get to that kind of high that we call love. We think about, if God is love, He just wants me to be happy.

Which is actually half true. The problem is in the culture, happiness is self-determined and whatever we determine is our happiness. If God is love, he's got to give us that thing. Sometimes love is, well, oftentimes love is reduced to the affirmation of self. It is whatever you determine, love is affirming whatever the other person self-determines.

them to be. So if you're really going to love someone then whatever they believe or think or do you must affirm. That's what our culture would say about love. If God is loved then God must affirm whatever I believe about myself or sometimes love is this idea of this is ultimate. It's this nebulous force in the universe. It is ultimate and it's detached from God's other attributes. Remember what I said in the beginning.

None of his attributes contradict. They all are who God is. So if God is love and God is holy, how do we work those two things out? If God is love and God is just, how do we work those things out? If God is love and he also has righteous wrath, our culture does not know what to do with that. And so they talk about love as the ultimate, even above and beyond outside of God. It is...

Ultimate like a Jedi force or something. They'll say all that matters is love or they'll say something like love is love this that's supposed to mean something Like try that with anything That doesn't make any sense it if it feels like love it can't be wrong This is what our culture says so when they hear us say God is love. They're like, yes agree with that But this is also the cultural air we breathe, right?

We consume the same media, the same songs, and read the same books and all these things. And so often this can begin to work its way into our hearts and minds in thinking about God and adopt these views. And so we can neglect what the Bible has to say about the love of God. We can project on the Bible a view of God that is not true. So again, as I was beginning to work a couple of weeks ago on this sermon, I was like, this will be easy. God is love.

But then I realized, this is not so easy. And so I came across this book. I don't always say this, this is super helpful. It's a book by D.A. Carson called The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. Again, even the title of it, you're like, no, if there's one doctrine that's not difficult, it is the love of God until you start to think about it. And so if you will with me, just for the next five, seven minutes, I want us to now reconstruct some things.

Think about a biblical spectrum of how or rather the five aspects of how God's love is portrayed throughout the Bible. So it's going to take some we're going to have to do some engagement here in our minds for a moment and then we'll get to the text and we'll see how this all works out. But D.A. Carson says there's five aspects. I'll put them on the screen. The first aspect that the Bible talks about in love is God's intra-Trinitarian love.

That from eternity pass, the reason there is love in the universe is because our God is triune. And there is love between father and son and son and father. And the bond of love is the spirit of God. It is the source. And remember, he is self-sufficient and self-existent. There is no need in God. So there is this no idea that God created the universe and created us because he needed

to express his love. That's not why God did any of that. It's out of the overflow of this perfect intra-trinitarian love that he creates, that he made you and me. Why this matters? If you lose this, God's love becomes dependent or reactive on creation rather than intrinsic to his nature. Jesus talks about this often in the Gospel of John, this love between Father, Son, and Sending of the Spirit.

Secondly is God's providential love. This is God who has love for all and all things and all all molecules in the universe. is his creating love that has made the universe and made all people and it is for all people. So for example a couple of verses Psalm 145 verse 9 the Lord is good to all. He has compassion on all he has made.

Jesus says it this way in Matthew 5 45 God causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sins reign on right on the righteous and the unrighteous. is a real sense where God does love all and he sustains all even those in rebellion to him. He's keeping their hearts pumping right now. This is his providential love. Why this matters without this category you cannot account for real.

goodness in the world extended to believers and unbelievers alike. The third aspect of God's multi aspect of love is God's salvific stance toward a fallen world. God's salvific stance toward a fallen world. So out of his providential love he does have this concern for the whole world for all peoples. This is John 3 16 for God so loved the world.

that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Peter talks about this. Paul talks about this in First Timothy 2 for God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Why this matters. This guards against a cold overly narrow view of God that minimizes his genuine compassion.

toward the lost. See, we can lock in on one of these to the exclusion of the others and miss the full-orbed view of God's love, which leads to number four. God's particular, effective, electing love. The Bible from Old Covenant to New Covenant often says God has set his electing affection on sinners. Not because they were worthy, not because

They had enough information to choose God. No, we were dead in our sins and transgressions, unable to make any choice. Children of wrath, deserving His judgment, and yet God in His love, elects and redeems and saves some. So Ephesians 1, 4, 5, for He chose us in Him, us, the church, those who believe. He chose us in Him before the creation of the world.

to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will. Again, this matters because God's love for His people is able to rescue people who are dead in their sins and transgressions, who are unable to make any choice in of themselves. God's love isn't

vague or wishful that he hopes some will come? No, he is effective in his saving power to save sinners. And because of this one, we are secure in his love. Paul will write about this in Romans 8. What can separate us from the love of God? And he goes to this long list. Nothing in all of creation because God's electing effective love. Why it matters. Well, I just said why it matters, which leads to number five.

God's conditional relational love. Now, Mark, didn't you just say, didn't you just quote Romans 8, for nothing shall separate us from the love of God. That is true. This is where the Bible speaks about his relational, covenantal love. This is where the Bible repeatedly calls believers to obey his commands. And when we disobey, we...

relationally are stepping away from His love. Jesus talks about this again in John, but in Jude 21, He says this, keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Keep yourselves in that.

It's this idea of being in relationships, submitting to God in relationships. This does not mean God's love is fickle, but there is a relational experience of His love that can deepen or diminish based on our obedience to His commands. Now, let me help you understand maybe by illustration, because this is a hard one. What do you mean God's love is conditional? Now, every illustration and analogy breaks down, especially when we're talking about God, but

Parents understand this. You have an unconditional love for your children. It's unconditional. Absolutely. Imagine you have a teenager. In a teenager, you have a good relationship. And this teenager is making good choices and they have good friends. And they come to you and they say, hey, dad, I want to go on this trip with my friends, but I can't quite afford it. Could I have a couple hundred dollars so I could go?

And there's this good relationship. You're like, yes, I want to love you in that way. I want to give that to you. Yeah, absolutely. It's a relational love. But let's say that the teenager is in rebellion, making poor choices, having bad friends, maybe getting into drugs and alcohol and is on a destructive path. And the teenager says, hey, dad, I need a couple hundred bucks to go on a trip with my friends. And you, because you love your son, say no.

I'm not going to do that. Now, what that son received doesn't feel like the same kind of love that the other son received, but it is out of an unconditional love. But our relationship to God can deepen or diminish based on our submission to His authority in our lives. Why this matters. Without this, you flatten the biblical warnings and calls to abide, to obey, and to remain in God's love.

I think sometimes we can be so enamored by the grace of God and we should be that we can then come to the passages where God warns us. God calls us to obedience. We're like, well, I'll just go do it because God is love and he has to forgive me. That's what he does. Yes, you can quench the spirit and hurt your relationship. So there is a danger to overemphasizing or

neglecting any of these. So let's think about this for a moment. If we focus on number three alone, God's salvific stance toward a fallen world. We may strengthen the hand of those that are Arminians, like God loves the world. He just is kind of out there inviting everyone. We can increase a sentimental view of God, but we can also diminish a view of His holiness.

It's the doctrine of God's love is difficult because what do do with God is also righteously wrathful against sin? God, what do you do with judgment? What do you do with holiness? If we focus and emphasize only on number four, God's electing love, then we have a narrow sovereignty. We're like, well, because God from eternity past has only chosen some, therefore.

We don't need to. fact, we shouldn't even go evangelize the world because after all, God is going to accomplish what he's going to accomplish. Now, I don't think most of us that are even in this like focus on this category believe that. But practically we do. We think, well, because God's, you know, God's sovereign over salvation, I'm not going to go tell my friend.

my neighbor, my co-worker about Jesus. Because he's got it. Even though God commands us to do that and commissions us to do that. See, we can kind of hide behind some of these. And if we neglect some, we miss it as well. we neglect number five, for example, we talked about this, obedience to his commands.

are irrelevant, then why are they in the Bible? Why is God's people called to obey Him, both in the Old Covenant and New Covenant? If we neglect, number one, that God's intratrinitarian love, then love becomes this force outside of who God is. It's this disconnected, impersonal force. Okay, so it's harder than you think is all I'm getting at. All right? Let's turn in our Bibles to

1st John chapter 4 and we're gonna see how some of these aspects are worked out in our lives and in who God is. So we'll pick it up in verse 7. This is God's Word. Listen carefully. John writes, Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God. And here it is because God is love. There it is. God is love and he'll say it again and down in verse 16. God is love. Now we've already talked about a little bit but let's explore a little bit more. What does this not mean? What does it not mean that God is love? It doesn't mean that love is God. The sentence isn't reversible.

Whatever the culture determines is love. What we'll say, well, that's God. That's not what the Bible means when it says God is love. does not mean that the only definition for God is love. Again, we can so focus on this to the neglect of the other attributes. Some will say, well, it says right there, God is love. And some of these other attributes, it doesn't say that God is these things. And so this must be it. This is the ultimate. This is

This is what it means. God is love. Well, in the New Testament, there are four things that says God is. It says God is love. God is light. God is spirit. And we're like, OK, we can we could deal with all that. But Hebrews 12 29 says God is a consuming fire. No one in the culture is saying that. Right. God is a consumer. And no one would say that's all God is. But when it comes to this one, they're like, yeah, that's all.

God is. No. So that isn't, that's what love is not. What is love then? Well, he begins to define it for us in the next couple verses. says, this is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. Again, it's an echo of John 3.16 and 1 John 3.16, which says this.

This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. He says love is costly and sacrificial. He goes on. This is love. Verse 10. Not that we loved God. Not that it started with us, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice.

for our sins. This is the idea that there wasn't anything necessarily lovely in us that God would choose us. This is the fourth aspect of his love. He just loved us. This is where God time and time again comes to the people of Israel in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 7 verse 7 he says,

It wasn't because you were more numerous. It wasn't because you were better. It wasn't because you were more moral. It wasn't because of anything in you, Israelites. It was because of me that I chose you out of all the nations. Not that we loved God. Romans 5, 8. This is how God demonstrates His love that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is love that the world...

doesn't understand that the world thinks love is ultimate and supreme, but the worldly view of love is too flat and too shallow. In fact, it's bankrupt compared to this love. He says, no, this is love. I sent my son, it was a costly, bleeding kind of love as an atoning sacrifice. This is what the world gets wrong. Well, after defining it, he says, now how does this begin to work its way?

In the next few verses he shows that his love is both the model and motivation and the source for our own love. We've already seen this command a few times in here, let us love one another, let us love one another, let us love one another, but the gospel never commands you to do something that it doesn't also empower you to do. And so this is what he says, dear friends, since God so loved us, there's the model.

We look to Jesus. We look to Him putting on flesh, going to a cross because He loved us. We also ought to love one another. There's the motivation. But again, we can't just do it with a model and motivation. We need more. Verse 12. No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God lives in us. There's the source. And His love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in Him.

and He in us, He has given us His Spirit.

So there it.

Everyone is difficult to love sometimes. You are difficult to love sometimes. Everyone that's been married more than a month knows this truth. Like, thought it was just going to keep going like this, right? No, we get it. it is people are difficult to love. So how do we do it? Well, we can try to muster up the strength and do it, but...

that tank runs dry very quickly. And so what this model of love is, like, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. There's the model. You're like, okay, but I don't always feel like loving my wife as Christ loved the church. I need something else. I need something outside of me or rather in me to do that. And good news.

If you're a follower of Christ, the Holy Spirit loves to love through you. You can love your spouse, you can love your neighbor, you can love your coworker. Jesus will even call us to love our enemies. None of us want to do that. None of us are motivated to do that in and of ourselves, but we can through Him who has put the source of love in our lives.

And God's love, we'll see, not, God's love through us is not only the basis of our salvation, we'll see it's an evidence of our salvation. Look at verse 16. so we know and rely on the love of God, the love God has for us. We rely on it. We live in it. We, we behold it. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us.

that we will have confidence on the day of judgment in this world we are like Jesus. Here's the thing, we should be able to look at our lives and say, man, nothing in me wants to love that person and yet by God I can love that person.

Our loving of people does not save us, but it is evidence that we are saved. It is evidence that the Spirit lives in us. And so this is what he's saying. We will have confidence on the day of judgment when we love, empowered by the Spirit like Jesus. Verse 19. We love because He first loved. Just again rehearsing and reminding us of the gospel. We love not because we just ought to love.

We love because we have been loved by God. Whoever claims to love God yet hates his brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command. Again, here's a command. Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. Which leads us to just one question. I'll put it on the screen.

kind of just wrestle with here. Who am I struggling to love right now and what would it look like to love them with God's love?

Only you can answer that. Who am I struggling to love right now? And what would it look like to love them with God's love? Now, let me be clear. This question is not trying to keep you in a situation where you're being abused or being hurt. What it would look like to love that person in that situation is to set up good boundaries.

But for many of us, we know God has a person on our mind, maybe a family member, a coworker, a friend. What would it look like to love them? Like, there's nothing in me that wants to love them right now. Exactly. But what if the spirit in you wanted to love them? What would it look like? And so you begin to pray. Do you know how hard it is to keep hating someone you're praying for every day? It's so hard. Because

You feel like a hypocrite praying for him. Now the first time you can come to God and be like, Lord, I have no love in my heart for this person. You can deal with that. You can begin to pour into that. What would it look like? Imagine how this kind of deep, rich and sacrificial love could transform a marriage.

Imagine how it could transform a friendship.

neighborhood and a city. This is what God is calling his people to. This is why we are the hope in the world because his spirit lives in us and lives on our streets with us. My prayer is Lord make us a church that fixes our eyes on Jesus. Always remembering this is love that he came first and loved us and died.

for us. Lord, make us a church that understands that God not only loves us, but He loves through us. Lord, make us a church that loves one another. Jesus says, when you love one another, you will show the world that you're my disciples and something in that transforms the world. Friends, God is love. So let's love one another. Amen.

Let me pray for us.