Understanding The Love Of God

Introduction

* Sinclair Lewis: “Love is the morning and the evening star. Love is the inspiration of the artist and the substance of the philosophers.

* Powerful Quotes about love:

– “We are most alive when we are in love.”

– “The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.”

– “There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.”

* “Love” has a mystical, magical meaning to it in the secular culture.

* It is the goal and desire of every human heart is to experience a dimension of love that is transcendent.

* Yet sadly, the evangelist can always get a crowd if he continually speaks in meaningless terms about the love of God.

* In fact, the way to go against love is to corrupt it, pervert it, by directing people away from the source, from the Creator of love.

* It is important that we come rightly to the biblical concept of the love of God, and not draw it from the secular culture of our day.  

Biblical expression of “The Law” refers to:

1) 10 Commandments

2) Mosaic Law (First 5 books of the Bible)

3) Instructive commandments given in the Old Testament

* Taken together, it consists of [Dietary laws, Ceremonial laws, Moral laws].

* Dietary and Ceremonial laws are replaced by Christ, but moral laws are still binding for Christians today (10 commandments are strictly moral laws in nature).

* Yet observing these laws and commandments don’t get us saved.

* <Ro 6:14>: “We are not under the law, but under grace.

Slide 4

<1 John 4:7-11,16,19>: 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another… 16 And God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them… 19 We love because he first loved us.

1. For love comes from God <v7>
2. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God <v7>
3. God is love

• God = Love?
• A “hyperbolic” language, meaning its deliberately emphasizing.
• God is love = God is so closely and infinitely linked with love.
• Love is in His Creation.
• Love is radically shown through His Salvation.
• The Problem of believers having a cheap view of God’s love.
• Cheap view of God’s love strip God of His other characters.
• Exchange the glory of the true God for a lesser concept = Idolatry.
• God is a simple being (i.e. not made up of parts).
• God is always 100% of every of his attributes.
• All other attributes of God must go with His love.

4. A thorough inference of <John 3:16> about God’s love.

* 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 <Jn 3:16>.

* For God so loved the world = Universal love?

* The World is fine because of God’s love?

* The Love of God that involves the:

1) Justice of God

2) Holiness of God

3) Love of Complacency

4) Love that Hates