Giving
Welcome to Refinery Life Australia.
Today we continue our series titled The Doctrine of God.
Today we are talking about The Love of God.
Prayer
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Text
Jeremiah 31:3 AMP
3 The Lord appeared to me (Israel) from ages past, saying,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you and continued My faithfulness to you.
Scripture Reading
Jeremiah 31:1-6 AMP
Israel’s Mourning Turned to Joy
1 “At that time,” says the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”
2 Thus says the Lord,
“The people who survived the sword
Found grace in the wilderness [of exile]—
Israel (the Northern Kingdom), when it went to find its rest.”
3 The Lord appeared to me ([a]Israel) from ages past, saying,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you and continued My faithfulness to you.
4 “Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt,
O Virgin Israel!
You will again be adorned with your tambourines and [b]timbrels
And go out to the dances of those who celebrate.
5 “Again you will plant vineyards
On the mountains of Samaria;
The planters will plant
And enjoy the [abundant] fruit [in peace].
6 “For there will be a day when the watchmen
On the hills of Ephraim cry out,
‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion,
To the Lord our God.’”
Introduction
The better acquainted we are with God’s love, the more our hearts will be drawn out in love to Him.
Jeremiah wrote, The Lord appeared to me (Israel) from ages past, saying,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you and continued My faithfulness to you.
How little real love there is for God!
One reason for this is that our hearts are so seldom occupied with the wondrous love of God for His people.
However wonderful human love may be, it is but a poor reflection of the divine.
Consider three questions about God’s love.
- What are the characteristics of God’s love?
As Christ taught us, God’s love for us is utterly beyond enlightened self interest, the Golden Rule, or good Samaritanism.
Christ manifested the only absolutely selfless love.
- The love of God is unmerited.
There is nothing in the objects of God’s love to call it forth, nothing in His creatures to prompt it.
The love one human being has for another is because of something in them, but the love of God is free, uncaused, unmerited.
In effect, Moses told Israel, “God loved you only because He wanted to, not because you deserve to be loved”.
We love God because He first loved us.
God loved us before we had in us a particle of love for Him.
What is there in me, what is there in you, to attract the love of God?
Nothing!
To the contrary, there is much to repel.
Yet He loves us.
B. The love of God is eternal.
Such a concept transcends the grasp of our minds, but is nonetheless true.
God Himself is eternal, and God is love.
Since God had no beginning, His love had no beginning.
Love is more than a feeling.
It is an act.
God’s love is not only eternal, it is also historical.
How clear is our text on this point, verse 3 says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.
C. The love of God is universal.
He loves all people.
We all know John 3:16 where it says “God so loved the world”, the good and the bad, the healthy and the sick, the rich and the poor, the saint and the sinner, every creature in this world.
God loves all people as they are, the deranged, the dirty, the diseased, and the sinful, and He sent His Son to save them all.
D. The love of God is infinite.
Everything about God is infinite.
His essence fills heaven and earth.
His wisdom is infinite, He knows all things.
His power is unbounded.
His love is without limit, Ephesians 2:4-5 says, 4 But God, being [so very] rich in mercy, because of His great and wonderful love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were [spiritually] dead and separated from Him because of our sins, He made us [spiritually] alive together with Christ (for by His grace—His undeserved favor and mercy—you have been saved from God’s judgment).
The love of God cannot be estimated.
E. The love of God is immutable.
As with God Himself, “there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17) so His love knows neither change nor diminution.
During Jesus’ last night on earth, one disciple would betray Him, another would ask, “Lord, show us the Father”, and another would deny Him three times.
And in the critical hour, all would forsake Him.
Nevertheless, John 13:1 tells us, “Having [greatly] loved His own who were in the world, He loved them [and continuously loves them with His perfect love] to the end (eternally).”
Nothing can seperate us from God’s love.
F. The love of God is Holy.
It is not regulated by passion, or sentiment but by principle.
God’s love is no mere weakness or softness.
God will not wink at sin, even in His own people.
2. What are the results of God’s love?
What does God do because of His love for us?
- Because God loves us He saves us.
He prepared His matchless plan for salvation.
In fact it was conceived in His loving heart before the foundation of the world.
God alone is the author of our salvation.
God alone wrought the change seen in believers in Ephesians 2:4-5.
This change in sinners is grounded in God’s boundless mercy and love.
God’s love is that divine disposition that sees something infinitely precious in people in spite of their sin.
B. Because God loves us, He sent Christ to die on the cross.
John 3:16 says, “For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life.
He loved us.
Love has been defined, once and for all, by the act of Christ giving His life for us.
Paul wrote to the Galatians about Jesus as “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me’ in verse 2:20.
To the Romans, Paul wrote, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Love substituted itself, that the one loved might be freed.
The cross is the uncovering of the realism of love.
C. Because God loves us, He sent the Holy Spirit.
Revelation 3:20 AMP
20 Behold, I stand at the door [of the church] and continually knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him (restore him), and he with Me.
He stands not only at the door of a lukewarm church, but also at the door of an unsaved individual.
If you are not a Christian, He is standing at your door offering you the gift of love.
D. Because God loves us, His children, He helps us.
Because He lives within us by His Holy Spirit, His power is available to us.
At times Jesus’ philosophy life may seem to be negative, but it always leads to the positive and the joyful.
Jesus said in Matthew 16:24,
Discipleship Is Costly
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me].
To some, this may sound like taking the joy out of life.
But to the contrary, it is love seeking the highest and best for His own.
3. What should our response be to God’s love?
How should we respond to a love so great?
- We should respond with conviction of sin.
Realising that a pure and Holy God loved us enough to die in our place should break our hearts, striking conviction, deep and strong, into our souls.
B. We should respond with conversion from sin to Christ.
Conviction is not enough, we must totally commit our lives to Christ for all time to come.
These days some scoff at the idea of instantaneous conversion.
Though we must grow and develop in the things of Christ, there is no other type of conversion.
C. We should respond with commitment to Christ’s way, the way of love.
Christian commitment is to be for the things Christ is for and against the things He is against.
Love hates war, racial discrimination, injustice, inhumanity, and dishonesty.
Love will not cease its efforts until it does all it can do to change conditions.
If we love God, everything else will fall into place.
D. We should respond with community in Christ.
Christians are saved to live in a community of believers.
Of course one must be saved to even be eligible to be baptised into the fellowship of a church, but a converted person outside the fellowship of a church is a hopeless contradiction.
Conclusion.
Love is not a luxury in our world.
It is the most profoundest practical need of humankind.
Half of the diseases we see are due to hate, and half the accidents are due to hate, love is the remedy.
Love is the medicine for the sickness of the world.
God’s love, that is.
We should love God because He first loved us.
Until next time
Stay in the Blessings
Giving
I really want to encourage you to be diligent with your Bible study time, because God has so much more for us than we can get from just going to church once or twice a week and hearing someone else talk about the Word.
When you spend time with God, your life will change in amazing ways, because God is a Redeemer.
Theres nothing thats too hard for Him, and He can make you whole, spirit, soul and body!
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