Abundant Love

INTRODUCTION

This Wednesday is Valentine’s Day. It’s a day that we often associate with hearts, candy, flowers, gifts, romance, and love.

Love is a major focus of our culture.

A study about the psychology of music found that over 67% of all published song lyrics since the 1960s have a focus or a mention of love

It’s fascinating that the 1960s ushered in the “free love movement.” The free love movement sought to redefine love away from life-long commitment to open relationships with whoever, whenever, over whatever. Today, nearly 65 years later, people are not free to love, but rather they have been enslaved to lustful and infatuated passions in which love is more of a matter of emotional highs with endorphine rushes rather than willful commitment, contentment, and happiness.

Our world is consumed with the idea of love all while looking for love in all the wrong places. Love has become more about self-centered acceptance and tolerance rather than self-sacrifice and putting the needs of others before our own. Many seek to the be the object of love all while rejecting the rich, pure, and abundant love of God.

This morning I want to take the conversation back to where love begins: The Abundant Love of God!

Romans 8:31–39 ESV

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

4 Attributes of God’s Abundant Love…

1) God’s Love is Sacrificial! (v.32)

The Text…

True Love is sacrificial and self-less.

God, who is perfect in every way, loves us from the purest form of love. In His abundant and perfect love, He “did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all”

Paul gives us this encouragement to say, God didn’t give up His own life for us just to leave us abandoned in this world.

He goes to say, “How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

God’s sacrificial love is not only for us in getting to know Jesus, He is also for us in growing closer to Jesus and following Him!

Apply

If God loves you enough to open the door to a relationship with Him through Jesus, He will not fail to walk with you in that relationship.

2) His Love is Redefining! (v.33-34)

The Text…

Before faith in Jesus, we are all condemned through our own sin.

Romans 5:8 “8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

When we come to faith in Jesus, we become His. We are redefined by Him.

We are no longer condemned, but rather we are rescued, redeemed, and restored to right relationship.

1 John 3:1 “1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

Apply…

God changes who we are through His love. The change is for our good and is bringing us back to who we were originally made to be.

While the world wants to condemn Christians for how they think about the world and their devotion to God, God reminds us that there is now, no more condemnation for us.

It is God who justifies. It is Christ who redeems and intercedes for us.

The world may have an opinion, but it is no longer entitled to the final word or the word that matters over your life!

3) His Love is Empowering! (v.35-37)

The Text…

What can remove us from the love of Christ?

Trials, distress, persecution, famine, vulnerability, threats, worldly force? Nope.

In anything situation or scenario of this world, we are more than conquerors! We are overcoming overcomers!

All of our victory comes from God who loves us sacrificially and redefines who we are in His love.

Apply…

When we truly find our worth and our state of being in God’s love, nothing of this world is a threat to us!

Philippians 1:21 “21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

The 4th Century church Father, John Chrysostom was brought before the Roman Emperor where he was threatened with banishment if he did not turn away from being a Christian. His reply, “Thou canst not banish me for this world is my Father’s house.” “But I will slay thee,” said the Emperor. “Nay, thou canst not,” said the noble champion of the faith, “for my life is hid with Christ in God.” “I will take away thy treasure.” “Nay, but thou canst not for my treasure is in heaven and my heart is there.” “But I will drive thee away from man thou shalt have no friend left.” “Nay, thou canst not, for I have a friend in heaven from whom thou canst not separate me. I defy thee; for there is nothing that thou canst do to hurt me.” (Henry Hart Milman, History of Christianity)

When we are empowered by the Abundant Love of Christ, this world has no sway over us. We can freely live with our hearts and focus on God with no cares of the opinions or threats of this dying world.

4) His Love is Unshakeable! (v.38-39)

The Text…

God’s love is so great, that there is nothing that can overcome God’s love for you. I may be rejected but it cannot be dissolved.

Death cannot separate us from God’s Abundant Love

Life cannot separate us from God’s Abundant Love

Spiritual forces cannot separate us from God’s Abundant Love

Human influence cannot separate us from God’s Abundant Love

Circumstances cannot separate us from God’s Abundant Love

Location cannot separate us from God’s Abundant Love

Nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s Abundant Love

Apply…

There is nothing you or anyone else can do to you that makes not love you.

There is nothing that gives a valid reason for you to be rejected by God.

Because of God’s great and Abundant Love we should embrace Him and not reject Him.

CLOSING

WE ARE MADE TO BE LOVED, BUT IF WE LOOK FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES, WE DO OURSELVES GREAT HARM. GOD SEES OUR PREDICAMENT AND PUTS HIS PERFECT LOVE ON DISPLAY FOR US BY SACRIFICIALLY LOVING US. HIS LOVE IS GREAT AND NO ONE IS OUTSIDE OF HIS LOVE.

HAVE YOU EMBRACED THE ABUNDANT LOVE OF GOD? HAVE TO COME TO SAVING RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS?

DO YOU LET THE ABUNDANT LOVE OF GOD EMPOWER YOU TO LIVE FREE FROM THE CARES OF THIS WORLD?

HOW ARE YOU LETTING YOUR LIFE BE REDEFINED BY GOD’S ABUNDANT LOVE?