Sermon #14 Series: Who Is God?
Title: “God Is Love”
Text: I John 4:16
Reading:
Subject: The Love Of God
Date: Tuesday Evening - April 17, 1990
Tape #
Introduction:
The Bible tells us three things about
the nature of God and we must form all our thoughts about God in the light of
these three things.
1.
“God is Spirit” (John 4:24). In the original text there is no corresponding
word for the indefinite article “a”. And really our King James translation
here, “God is a Spirit,” is
horrendous. The text should read “God is Spirit.” To say that God is a Spirit
is to suggest that he is one among many! Our Lord’s words to the woman at the
well were, “God is Spirit” - God is
Spirit in the highest sense of the word. This distinguishes him from all his
creatures. An angel is a spirit. Satan is a spirit. And man was created with a
spirit. But God is Spirit. That means that he has no physical, visible
substance, or body. If God had a body, as we do, he cold not be omnipresent and
infinite, he would be limited to one place. But because “God is Spirit” all who worship must worship him in Spirit and in
truth.
2.
“God is Light’ - (I John 1:5). “In
him is no darkness at all.” Light is the exact opposite of darkness. In the
Scriptures, “darkness” represents sin, evil and death. Light represents
holiness, truth, and life. When John says, “God
is light,” his meaning is, God is the sum and essence of all that is
excellent. God is holiness, God is truth, God is life, because “God is light.”
3. “God is
love” - (I John 4:8, 16).
It is true that God loves. But John is not here describing an act of God. He is
describing an attribute of God. “God is
love.” As his nature is Spirit and Light, so in the essence of his nature “God is love.” That is our subject for
this evening - “God is Love.” May
God himself be our Teacher as we contemplate this blessed attribute of his holy
Being.
Most of what has been said and written
about the love of God reveals how utterly ignorant the world is of God and his
love. The love of God is commonly regarded as an amiable, but helpless and
frustrated passion in God, a sort of good natured indulgence. God’s love is
usually reduced to a sentiment, subject to change, like the human emotion we
call love. Such love is below our God. And such love produces no ground of
comfort for our souls.
Proposition:
Whenever we think about the love of God we must understand
that God’s love is altogether like himself, for “God is love.”
Divisions:
Last week, I tried to show you the revelation of God’s love
in Christ. Tonight, I want to show you Seven
indisputable facts about the love of God. The love of God is...
1.
uninfluenced.
2.
Eternal.
3.
Sovereign.
4.
Infinite.
5.
Immutable.
6.
Saving.
7.
Fruitful.
I. THE LOVE OF GOD IS
UNINFLUENCED (Deut. 7:7-8).
When I say that the love of God is
uninfluenced, I mean that there was nothing in us, and nothing foreseen in us,
that caused God to love us or attracted his love toward us. This kind of love
is totally foreign to mankind. Any love we have for others is caused by
something in them. God’s love is totally free, spontaneous, uncaused (I John
4:10, 19).
Our minds must be clear about this if
we would honor God in our hearts. The love of God for us in uncaused by us.
·
There was
nothing in us to attract God’s love.
·
There was
everything in us to repel God’s love.
·
And God knew
that his love for us, though fully manifested and revealed to us, would produce
very slight love in return.
·
Yet, he loved
us from himself, “according to his own
purpose.”
II. THE LOVE OF GOD IS ETERNAL (Jer. 31:3).
This is indisputable. God himself is
eternal. And God is love. Therefore, the love of God must be eternal. As God
has no beginning, so his love has no beginning. Eternal love transcends the
thoughts of our finite minds. We cannot comprehend it. But we can rejoice in
it. We can adore it. How blessed it is to know that the great and glorious God
loved us before the worlds were made! He set his heart upon us from eternity.
Long before we had any being, almighty God loved us, chose us, and
predestinated us unto the adoption of sons (Eph. 1:4-5).
A.
God’s eternal love for us should evoke constant praise from our hearts (Eph.
1:3).
B.
God’s eternal love for us should fill our hearts with comfort and quieten our
souls.
“Since God’s love toward me had no
beginning, it can have no ending! Since it is true that `from everlasting to
everlasting’ He is God, and since God is love, then it is equally true that
`from everlasting to everlasting’ He loves his people” (A. W. Pink).
III. THE LOVE OF GOD IS SOVEREIGN
(Rom. 9:13).
This too is a self-evident necessity,
that is beyond dispute. God is sovereign in all things. He is under obligation
to no one. He is a law unto himself. He always acts according to his own,
imperial, sovereign pleasure. Because God is God he always does as he pleases.
Because God is love, he loves whom he will (Rom. 9:13-18).
Will we ever learn this fact? - God is
totally uninfluenced by anything in his creatures! He is infinitely above,
independent of, and sovereign over his creatures. God’s love is not for sale!
His love cannot be bought! His grace cannot be won! His salvation cannot be
earned! He says, “I will love them
freely!” And his free and sovereign love is the basis of all his works of
grace (Rom. 8:28-31).
III. THE LOVE OF GOD IS INFINITE (Eph. 3:17-19).
Everything about God is infinite,
beyond measure calculation, or comprehension. His essence fills the universe.
His knowledge comprehends everything, past, present, and future. His power is
uncontrollable. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. And his love is without
limit, indescribably infinite (Eph. 2:4; John 3:16).
There is a depth to God’s love which
no line can fathom. There is a height to God’s love that no mind can scale.
There is length to God’s love that no heart can comprehend. There is a breadth
to God’s love that no imagination can reach.
The love of God reaches down to the
lowest dregs of fallen, humanity and lifts guilty sinners up to the very height
of God’s glorious throne. The love of God stretches across the length and
breadth of this sin cursed earth and gathers his elect from afar. The hymn
writer captured the meaning of Paul’s words -
“Could we with ink the oceans fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade -
To write the love of God above
Would drain the oceans dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky!”
V. THE LOVE OF GOD IS IMMUTABLE.
“His love no end nor measure knows,
No change can turn its course;
Eternally the same it flows,
From one eternal source!”
Like God himself, with his love there
is “no variableness, neither shadow of
turning” (James 1:18). His love does no change. It never increases. It ever
decreases. It never ends.
A.
Poor, shifting Jacob is an illustration of God’s immutable love (Mal. 3:6).
B.
Jacob’s great uncle, Lot, is another example of the immutability of God’s love (Gen.
19:16).
C.
Our Lord’s disciples were all examples of God’s immutable love (John 13:1).
1.
Philip said, “Show us the Father.”
2.
Peter denied
him.
3.
All forsook
him.
4.
Thomas doubted
his word of promise.
Nevertheless, “having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the
end!” The love of God is immutable, indestructible love. Above all, I am an
example of the immutability of God’s love!
·
It is as
strong as death (Son of Sol. 8:6-7).
·
Nothing can
separate us from it (Rom. 8:34-39).
IV. THE LOVE OF GOD IS SAVING.
The love of God cannot be separated from the grace of God.
And the grace of God cannot be separated from the salvation of God’s elect.
That love of God from which we cannot be separated is clearly setforth in
Romans 8:28-39. The love of God is the commitment of his holy Being to the
salvation of those sinners who are loved by him. And that commitment is seen in
these four things.
A.
His sovereign providence (v. 28).
B.
His saving purpose (vv. 29-30).
C.
His substitutionary provision (vv. 32-34).
D.
His steadfast preservation (vv. 35-39).
“If
God be for us, who can be against us?” God is for the people whom he loves!
And every sinner loved of God...
·
Has been
predestinated to eternal salvation.
·
Has been
redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.
·
Shall be born
again by the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit.
·
Shall be
preserved blameless to the end.
·
And shall be
saved at last (Jude 24-25)!
VII. THE LOVE OF GOD IS FRUITFUL (I John 4:7-20).
The love of God produces the fruit of
grace in all who know it and believe it. What does it produce?
1.
Faith in
Christ (vv. 9-16).
2.
Brotherly love
(vv. 8-20).
3.
Confidence in
the promise of God (vv. 17-18).
4.
Love for God
himself (v. 19).
Application:
“We have known
and believed the love that God hath to us” (v.
16).
1.
By the
revelation of his love in the sacrifice of Christ (vv. 9-10).
2.
By the
revelation of Christ in our hearts by the Spirit (vv. 13-14).