KNOWING GOD PART III
GOD IS LOVE!
I John
4:7-17 02/05/2017
Introduction: February month has
begun! It’s a month of love where we hear these three magic words, “I love
you.” The consumer world seems to advocate we can buy love in the market
place. A minister was speaking to the
Sunday school about the things money can’t buy. “It can’t buy laughter and it
can’t buy love” he told them. Driving his point home, he said, “What would you
do if I offered you $1,000 not to love your mother and father?” Stunned silence
ensued. Finally, a small voice queried, “How much would you give me not to love
my big sister?”
An
Irish Blessing goes this way, “May those who love us, love us; and those who
don’t love us, may God turn their hearts; and if He doesn’t turn their hearts,
may he turn their ankles so we’ll know them by their limping.” What is love? It depends on who you ask you
get a wide range of answers. Where did love originate from in the first place? What
does true love look like? We have been working through a series titled Knowing
God. Last week we learned that God wants us to know Him intimately as a husband
would know his wife. Today we will look
at how unconditionally, unlimitedly and unfailingly God loves each one of us.
All the natural and moral attributes of God are based on this one attribute,
i.e., “GOD IS LOVE!
The
God of the Bible wants his followers to follow him not out of fear but out of
love. He is not just full of love, but He himself is love. In the first Epistle
of John the word love in its various forms is used 43 times. In the read passage alone, the word love
appears several times. This repeated word love, gives us a window into the kind
of relationship the Apostle John, had with his Lord. As we know, John was in
the inner circle of Jesus, at times he was seen leaning on the bosom of Jesus. Rightly
so John has earned the title, “the disciple whom Jesus Loved.” John
emphatically said, twice in I John 4: Vs 8 & 16 “God is Love.”
John
also made some striking statements: Vs 7-8, “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.” In Vs 20, “If anyone says,
“I love God, yet hates his brother is a liar.” Can you imagine what powerful
implications these statements might have on us? Can we honestly say on one hand
we know God, and yet remain unloving and hateful towards others?
I.
GOD’S UNCONDITIONAL LOVE:
Human
love tends to be transactional and conditional. We love those whom we like, and
who are good to us. We hate those whom we don’t like and those who oppose us.
That is natural. Anything opposite to it, is
supernatural, that is God’s love. There are several conditional promises of God
in the Bible, such as, “If you obey me I will bless you, if you disobey me I
will curse you.” “Draw near to me I will draw near to you.” If you seek me you
will find me” Delight in me, I will grant the desires of your heart etc. Whereas
God’s love, comes with no conditions. This is how the Apostle John explains God’s
unconditional love. I John 4:19, “We love because he first loved us.” When it
comes to loving us, God always takes the first step.
Paul
explains in Romans the most unthinkable and outrageous way God loves sinners.
Romans 5: 6-8, “You see, at just
the right time, when we were powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very
rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might
possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While
we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is the stark difference
between Christianity and other religions.
What
does this mean for us today? No matter who you are, what terrible things you
may have done God always loves you unconditionally. He comes to where you are and
takes you to where he wants you to be. Isn’t it comforting to know that God has
always loved you and he always will. You don’t have to do anything to earn his
love, except to receive it by faith.
II.
GOD’S UNLIMITED LOVE:
Merriam
Webster defines unlimited: Extending
indefinitely, no limits, infinite, in exhaustible. The scriptures offer us an
unlimited bundle of God’s love. What does it mean? It means God’s love is
everlasting, remains forever. It also means God’s love is not only for those
who fear him but it is extended to all people everywhere, people of all races,
genders and ethnicities. The best part is, that God’s love is free for all both
for a saint and a sinner alike.
Consider
the following scriptures that allude to the fact that God’s love towards us is
unlimited: Jeremiah 31:3 “The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: "I
have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing
kindness.” The Psalmist experienced firsthand God’s unlimited love “But from everlasting to everlasting the
Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s
children.” Psalm 103:17
I
can testify to this scripture. Four generations ago my great grandfather turned
away from worshipping idols and followed the God of the Bible. The successive
generations have experienced God’s gracious provision of his faithfulness and
love leading up to my children. My hope and prayer is, that God would continue to
bless my children and their children for generations to come. These days I hear
a lot of people expressing concern for the future of their children. They we
want a better country for their children.
The
only way we can give a better future is not through changing regulations and
writing new policies, but by having the fear of God. When we walk in the fear of God, our children
hopefully will learn from us and walk the same path. When we honor God through
our lifestyle, hopefully our children will learn to live a God honoring life.
Our children observe us keenly, so let’s set godly examples before their eyes
and pray that they will follow them.
God’s
love is not only unlimited for believers, but also for non-believers. It is
hard for us to understand how God could ever love those who are bent to harm
us? Do we get offended when we see God reaches out to Muslims and people of
other religions with the message of love and hope? That was the thinking of the
Jewish people, they could not digest the fact that God wanted people from all
nations to be saved. They wanted to keep God only to themselves.
God
had to bypass that kind of selfish thinking, otherwise you and I would not have
been saved. Listen to this, “For God so loved the world he gave his only
begotten Son Jesus, whom so ever believes in Him will not perish but have
eternal life. This why we do missions, this is why give generously for the work
of God both locally and Globally.
III.
GOD’S UNFAILING LOVE.
Politicians make a lot of promises
during the election campaign. But can they keep all those promises, that is a
different matter. But when it comes to God when he makes a promise he keeps his
word. God made a promise to David regarding his son Solomon, “I will be his
father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod
wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken
away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.”
2 Samuel 7:14-15. With that confidence, David, said in Psalm 143:8 “Let the
morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.”
Randy
Alcorn, in his book If God is Good, shared this story of a faithful father: “In
1988, an Armenian earthquake killed forty-five thousand. In the chaos one man made his way to his
son’s school, only to find nothing but rubble.
Other parents stumbled around dazed and weeping, calling out their
children’s names. But this father ran to
the back corner of the building where his son’s classroom once was, and began
digging. To everyone else, it seemed hopeless.
How could his son have
survived? But this father had promised
he would always be there for his boy, so he heaved rocks and dug, calling for
his son by name: “Armand!” Well-meaning parents and bystanders tried to pull
him out of the rubble. “It’s too
late!” “They’re dead!” “There’s nothing you can do!” The fire chief tried to pull him away saying,
“Fires and explosions are happening everywhere.
You’re in danger. Go home!” Finally, the police came and said, “You’re in
shock. You’re endangering others. Go home.
We’ll handle it!”
But
the man continued to dig, hour after hour—eight hours, then twelve,
twenty-four, thirty-six hours. Finally,
in the thirty-eighth hour of digging—a day and a half after everyone told him
to give up hope—he called his son’s name again, pulled back a big rock, and
heard his son’s voice. “Armand!” the father screamed. From under the rocks came
the words, “Dad? I told them! I told the other kids that if you were still
alive, you’d save me!”
The
father helped his son and thirteen other children climb out of the rubble. When the building had collapsed, the children
survived in a tent like pocket. The
father lovingly carried his son home to his mother. When the townspeople praised Armand’s father
for saving the children, he simply explained, “I promised my son, ‘No matter
what, I’ll be there for you!”
God is more faithful than even this
very human father. We often bring the
house down upon ourselves… but even then, He seeks to clear the rubble. Thank
God, for he never gives up on you. He has a plan for you and is faithful to
carry it out in your life.
What
would be our response to God’s unfailing love love?. Some of you sitting here
may have never experienced God’s forgiving love. Some of you may have been
following Christ for a long time, yet off late nothing seems to make any sense
any more. No amount of bible reading, praying, getting involved in the worship
team is able to bring back the spark of love that you used to enjoy between you
and God. Everything seems to be flat and dry.
You
feel like as if God has abandoned you. If you find yourself in that situation,
you are not alone, as a former NPR reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty notes, you
might be going through a Mid-faith ennui or a Mid-faith fatigue. “Mid-faith
ennui is not tied to chronological age but to spiritual maturity. If you are
striven to know God for a decade or more, you are almost certain to cross a
spiritual wasteland.” During such painful moments, we need to recognize the
fact that we are deeply loved, and embraced by our heavenly father. We need to
hold on to these truths that God’s love for us is unconditional, it is
unlimited and it is unfailing. Amen
