God Is Love
Notes
Transcript
Two weeks ago, we started a series on Sunday mornings called Knowing God. We started out by looking at the fact that God is good. He is all good, and because He is good, He is out for our good. We studied that even when things seem to go badly for us, God allows those things and even puts trials in place ultimately for our good. As we continue this study, you will notice that this attribute of God is foundational for us to understand Him.
The week after that, which was last week, we saw that God is trustworthy. We walked through some of the events in Abraham's life and saw that God is a trustworthy God. He is someone that we can fully depend on, and this stems from the fact that He is good. If He were not trustworthy, then He would not be good.
We saw also last week that without faith, it is impossible to please God. As we walk our Christian walk, we must do so trusting that God will fulfill His will in us. That trust will be accompanied by our obedience, otherwise we would have what James refers to as "dead faith."
This week, we continue to study who God is and to kick it off, I'd like us to sing the song Jesus Loves Me.
To most, if not all of us, this song is really familiar. You've probably heard it since you were a child. I hear it very often still because it is Ella's favorite song. But do we think of the words ever? Do we really believe that God truly and deeply and passionately loves us? There are so many passages in the Bible that describe God's love toward us that it was hard to pick just one.
I thought about the book of Hosea. Hosea was an Old Testament prophet. He was commanded to by God to live out an object lesson to the nation of Israel. Israel had been serving false gods and as a nation, they had turned their back on God and had began to act as the pagan nations around them. Sin and evil were the norm. Leaders, both religious and political, were corrupt. The nation as a whole had abandoned God and His statutes. So God sends Hosea to preach to the nation and to live out an object lesson before them.
God tells Hosea, "Go marry a prostitute and love her." So Hosea goes and marries a prostitute named Gomer. For a while, they live well. They have a son, and God names the son Jezreel. It is a name that is symbolic of God's coming judgment for the nation of Israel.
After a while though, Gomer goes back to her old ways and begins having affairs and selling herself once again. She has two more children, and God tells Hosea what to name them as well. One, he names Loruhamma. She is a little girl, but her name literally means no love or no mercy. With this name, Hosea is proclaiming that this child was not a product of his and Gomer's love, but of an affair with another man.
The next child is named Loammi. This little boy is given a name that means "not my people." With this name, Hosea is proclaiming to the nation that Loammi is not his kid either. How would you like your name to be Not Mine? Even after all this, as you read the book, Hosea still pursues her, because by this point he truly loves her. He does everything in his power to draw her to himself and win his own wife, but Gomer doesn't stop. She ends up selling herself and getting into a position where she is now a sex slave. God tells Hosea to go and buy her back.
So Hosea goes and finds his wife and has to buy her back. Can you imagine the pain and the humiliation and the agony that Hosea has to go through as he looks for his wife and finally knocks on a door and has to bargain a price to buy his own wife out of slavery from another man? Most would have been done with her, but no Hosea.
See, Hosea is a picture of God's love toward Israel, but also of His love toward us. Israel had turned their back on God, and if you are familiar with the Old Testament, you will remember that often God compares worshipping other false gods to adultery. With this object lesson, God shows that even though Israel will sink into a state so low that they will become slaves once again because of their idolatry, God still loves them and will pursue them and redeem them to Himself.
If that is not a picture of love, I don't know what is!!
Go with me to 1 John 4:16
1 John 4:8, 16
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
If you were ever wondering, these are the verses that tells us that God is love. But notice how 1 John 4:16 starts out: "We have known and believed." I want you to analyze the love of God for you this morning. My desire is that at the end of this service, you can also say fully and confidently, "I have know and believe that GOD IS LOVE.
PRAY
As we dive into the study of God's love today, just like we have over the last couple of weeks, I would like to present to you a FALSE NARRATIVE and JESUS' NARRATIVE.
The False Narrative
God only loves us when we are good.
Some of you saw my post on Slack or Facebook. I asked people to participate in a poll and answer this question: What should someone do to get God's favor?.
I'll read a selection to you now.
- Read the Bible
- pray
- live for Him
- worship God
- obey His Word
- live a life that is pleasing to Him
- Praise Him
- Honor your father and mother
- Read the book of Revelation
- Seek godly counsel
- Love God
- Do God's will
- Have a pure heart
- Fear God
- Pay the pastor a lot of money
- Humble yourself before God
- Be baptized
- faithfully attend church
- give tithes and offerings
- witness to others
- keep His commandments
The list goes on and I will read others in a bit. But do you see a common thread? Many would hear this list and be in complete agreement, that if I want God's favor, if I want Him to bless me, these are things I have to do.
You know where this list comes from? It comes from the narrative that if I want God to love me more, to favor me more, then I need to do better.
This is called PERFORMANCE-BASED ACCEPTANCE.
Each of us here are VERY familiar with performance-based acceptance, because each of us here has been on both ends of this treatment. What happened to you if you were no good at dodgeball? You got picked last for the team. What happens if you don't do well at work? You don't get a raise.
How do you get a promotion, a better office, and a designated parking spot? You do better than others at your job. You EARN it. You PERFFORM to a high standard.
This is not just something that we lean at work or school; before we can even talk, we have adapted to philosophy that praise and love and acceptance comes from doing good things: "Good girl, you ate all your vegetables!" And disappointment comes from doing bad things: "You colored on the wall? Bad boy!"
Part of this is necessary though because as parents, our job is to train up our children, but it can be very difficult to express to children clearly that what is being evaluated is their BEHAVIOR, not their IDENTITY.
"Because this is so much a part of the way we see and experience the world, it is only natural that we project this same understanding onto God. God is bigger, smarter and more powerful than our parents, the coach and the boss. God sees everything! What can we do to get God to approve of, accept and love us? The answer, as you would expect, has to do with our religious performance."
When you ask the average person the question, "What must you do to get God to like, favor, and bless you?" the answers are as we mentioned just a while ago. This is what we refer to as legalism. it is the attempt to earn God's love or acceptance through actions. Just like we described a couple of weeks ago, this train of thought is simple superstition.
Performance-based acceptance will leave you only with anxiety and uncertainty.
So what is Jesus' Narrative about God's love?
Jesus' Narrative
We have been seeing that Jesus revealed God's character not only through His stories and parables, but also through His actions. So this morning we will take some time to look at examples of both.
Jesus' stories (parables): The story that comes to mind when I think of a parable that describes God's love would be the parable of The Prodigal Son.
Luke 15:11-13
We see a man here that has two sons. The younger of the two does something that in that culture was HIGHLY disrespectful. He basically says to his dad, "I wish you were dead already, go ahead and give me what is coming to me in the inheritance." Instead of rebuking his sone, the father splits the inheritance between the two sons, and a few days later, the younger son splits from his father's house and goes to a far away country. There, he wasted all his money with riotous living. This wis extravagant and reckless living.
V. 14
He soon finds himself broke, and living that kind of lifestyle brings with it a certain type of friends, and when he found himself broke, he also found himself friendless. So he joins himself up with a citizen of that country. Not a friend that he had lavished gifts and parties on, not a compassionate person that looked on him with love, but a pig farmer that could get away with paying him substandard living wages for filthy work.
V.15-19
As he is sitting there, wishing he could eat the food that he was giving the pigs, he realizes who his father is. He realizes that even the lowest servants there are treated better than he is being treated now, they have more food than he has now, and if he stays where he is, he will soon die of hunger.
So the son concocts a plan to get back into his father's good graces. He decides to go back home and ask his father for a job, knowing that because of his disrespect and his wastefulness he does not deserve to be considered a son ever again. But maybe, just maybe, his dad will allow him to be a servant if he asks for forgiveness and begs just right. So he makes his way back home.
V.20-24
What an ending to a story!! As the son is walking back up the road to his old home, the father exhibits some odd behaviour.
First, the father sees the son from a great way off. You know what that means? HE WAS WATCHING AND WAITING for the son to come back!!
Then, he runs to his son. This is humiliating in two ways: 1) For an adult male in that society to run, he would have to lift the hem of his garments, and that was not done unless there was an emergency. 2) For that father to go and hug and kiss his son that had disrespected him in that manner was a sign of accepting that disrespect and was therefore bowing to the humiliation that was inflicted upon him, instead of standing up and defending his honor. This son son, by Jewish law, deserved death because of his disrespect for his father.
Bur then, the father continued to do odd things. When the son began his apology, the father cut him off and told the servants to bring and do certain things.
- bring the best robe and put it on him - status as a son
- put a ring on his finger - buying power. With this ring, the son could make decisions in the father's name
- put shoes on his feet - servants were barefoot, free people wore shoes
- kill the fatted calf - celebration
Isn't this odd? Where the father could have said, "Serves you right! You will be a servant until I am satisfied that you have learned your lesson," the father instead welcomes him back in a way that can only be described as love and forgiveness.
This is one example of Jesus telling a story or parable so that people could understand the level of love that God has toward us. But Jesus' actions also reflect God's character of love.
Matthew 9:9-13 9 And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.
10 And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? 12 But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. 13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Jesus exhibited odd behaviour here for a Jewish teacher also. He goes to Matthew, a tax collector. In the eyes of every Jew, Matthew was a traitor to their nation because he was working for the Romans to collect taxes from his Jewish neighbors.
But Jesus goes to Matthew, and He calls him and tells Matthew, "Follow me. Come do life with me. Live with me. Learn from me." And when he does, Matthew invites all his tax collector friends that no one else likes, and no one else wants to hang around to his house for a party. These people are considered the lowest of the low, the undesirables, the traitors, the sinners. No one likes these people, and no one loves them. But Matthew has just experienced acceptance from Jesus, so he invites his friends to eat with them.
And what does Jesus do? He sits with them and eats with them.
The Pharisees criticize, but it doesn't pull Jesus away because Jesus is here demonstrating that God is a God who welcomes sinners because He loves them.
Love is so misconstrued now, and it has been for a very long time. Love is depicted in film and books and even in the way we talk as a feeling of deep emotion and romance and sexuality. That is not love.
If you want to do a study on what love truly is, study 1 Corinthians 13. You will find so many descriptions of love, and not one of them will deal with emotions.
Better yet, come on Wednesday nights as we study through 1 John and see what he has to say about love. That may throw some of you for a loop when we get there!
Love, as described by the Bible, godly love is a choice that wants the other person's best no matter the cost.
There are four components to Godly love and God's type of love:
-Giving
-Sacrificial
-Unconditional
-Boundless/never-ending
We see these four attributes depicted in John 3:16
So what does this mean to you?
- God's thoughts and intentions toward you are always for your good and never for your harm
- He is kind and open and approachable
- He emotionally identifies with your Joy and your Pain - John 11:35 Jesus wept.
- He takes pleasure in you for who you are and not because of what you have done. You are not loved if and when, you are simply loved.
Listen, some of you have grown up all your lives being taught that if you don't act a certain way, sing certain songs, dress a particular way, or do certain things, or go to certain places that you are less than in God's eyes and you must atone and try to make up for whatever sin you are involved in.
Some of you have come from places and teachings that have told you that if you mess up in certain ways then you lose value and you lose God's love.
Some of you may have heard that because of particular sins, you are nothing more than damaged goods.
I am here to tell you that that is the farthest thing from Jesus' description of God the Father that you will ever hear. You are loved, unconditionally!!!
There is NOTHING that you can do to earn God's love. There is nothing that you can do to increase His love for you. And there is nothing that you could ever do to make Him love you any less. Romans 8:38-39 is one of my favorite verses. It tells us unequivocally that there is NOTHING that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
But make no mistake, God's love is a true love. God's love wants what is best for you. God's love will pursue you and if you are in sin, He loves you enough to tell you that it is sin.
How many parents do we have present? If your child was walking off down a path that would get him or her killed, would you not shout for them to stop? Would you not go and physically impede their "progress" in order to save them?
God's love is infinitely more perfect than our love could ever be, and He does the same thing. His love for you will not let you continue in sin and be comfortable. His love for you will seek to correct you and to bring you back onto a path that is good for you. His love for you will even allow hard times and difficulties to come into your life to strengthen your bond with Him and to make you better and stronger.
The other false narrative of "God is love, so I can do whatever I want to without consequences" is a narrative that completely goes against God's nature. As a parent, I remember yelling roughly and loudly to one of my kids to stop as they were walking out onto a busy parking lot. I don't remember exactly who it was, but he turned around and began to cry, I am sure because I may have sounded angry (Tahsha say's I can sound like a drill sergeant when I yell), perhaps I had scared him, maybe he cried because I prevented him from doing something he wanted to do, or maybe it was a mixture of all three things. But the reason I yelled, the reason I sounded harsh was because had he not stopped in that moment, he risked getting run over by car. I picked him up and he didn't want anything to do with me; no consoling from my part was going to do a thing. But I did it because I loved him. His feelings at that moment were less important than his life. His desires were less important than his health.
This is how God is toward us sometimes, and so many times we interpret it as "God doesn't love me anymore because I messed up." But he does. He just loves you too much to see you throw your life away. A life that he loves so much that He gave His only Son to die for it.
How Should We Respond To God's Love?
1.) Receive it. By Faith. For God so loved the world that He GAVE. He gave His son to die on a cross that whosoever believes in Him shouldn't perish but have everlasting life. That all those that believe in Him should then become the children of God. It is a gift. Because he loves you, he won't force it on you. You must receive the offer of salvation and a relationship with Him
2.) Believe it. Believe that God loves you. Sometimes we may not feel like He loves us. Many times that comes after we have sinned or after a long time of not developing our relationship with Him. But like we covered last week, God is trustworthy. He keeps His word, and His word is that we are loved unconditionally.
This also means that you can trust that He loves you even after you have messed up royally. And that is important because it means that like the prodigal son, you can go back to a Father that is waiting for you with open arms.
3.) Give it away. We have freely received God's love, we are to freely demonstrate that to others as well. 1 John 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
Invitation: As Tahsha plays and sings this song, sing out with her. How Deep the Father's Love for Us
