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Title: The Greatest Question Ever Asked (Part Three)
Today we arrive at the conclusion of our three part series based on John’s exclamation in I John 3:1. Again, my hope and prayer (and the reason I’ve taken three sermons to preach half of one verse) is that I desire for you to more biblically understand the ingredients that make up God’s love so that you can join John in his jubilant exclamation, as he marvels over God’s love.
Review:
1. God’s love is a restorative love.
2. God’s love is a precise love.
3. God’s love is a purposeful love.
Today, we will look at the final two characteristics of God’s love that I want you to understand. Let us pray.
IV. God’s Love is an Empowering Love.
I Corinthians 6:1-11 (turn and read)
Now, I admit, at first, this does seem to be an odd passage to read to teach on God’s love for us, but follow me for a moment.
Q: In this passage, why is Paul blasting the Corinthian Church?
A: They are suing each other and taking each other to the secular courts instead of dealing with these disputes internally.
Q: Why does Paul say that it is ridiculous for a Christian to drag another Christian to court?
A: Because Christians (the saints) will be judging the world, if we can’t judge each other rightly, how then can we judge the world?
POINT: The assumption that Paul rightly makes is that there is something inherently different about our ability to judge between what is right and wrong, just and unjust. We know that difference is the discernment of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, when God loves us, he imparts His gifts to us, not the least of these gifts is the ability to discern between sinning and honoring God.
Let me speak more bluntly: The non-believer can ONLY sin. Why?
(Because he is bound in his nature toward sin.)
We, as believers, often sin, but we don’t have to. Why?
(Because we’ve been given discernment to make holy choices.)
So when I tell you that God’s love is an empowering love, I’m telling you that you have power as a believer that you did not have before. Namely, you have the power to correctly understand the world, and the power to correctly make wise choices. That empowerment is freedom in Christ! The blinders have been lifted, you now see the world, see yourself, see Christ for what they really are, and can therefore (hopefully) use that knowledge to make wise choices. Amen????
V. God’s Love is an Immortal Love.
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37-38
Truly, this is one of the greatest passages in scripture. What Paul says here is that the source and flow of true love begins with, and has always been from God to us. The reason we are even able to recognize him as God and rightly praise Him, is because he first loved us.
Jesus says in his John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”
And, as if that weren’t enough grace upon our wretched souls, Paul tells us here that if we are loved by God, if we truly know Him and truly knows us, NOTHING has the power to separate us from that love. NOTHING.
Let me use a poor analogy to help better explain the magnitude of this. I love Mary very, very deeply. If something were to happen to her it would devastate my world. Truly, my life would never return to the place it was before I lost her, it simply couldn’t.
But Mary’s love, while amazing, and still very much a mystery to me, doesn’t sustain me. If it did, and she died, I would die to. The love that sustains me, is greater than me. The source of that love is, by definition immortal.
Therefore, it is also non-conditional.
God’s love to us is not conditional to our obedience, but rather, our obedience signifies that we are truly loved by Him.
What can one say in response to this? What can one think in response to this? What can one do in response to this?
There is only one thing: To live out your existence in the manner and task for which you were originally created: To glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.