Searching for God 1

Intro

Fall Kick Off!

Students how are feeling?

School is officially started, you feeling good?

We are starting a four week series called: Searching for God

The goal of this series is to give you some of the most commonly asked questions about Christianity

We finished up Summer in the Psalms and wanted to give you some answers to questions you might get at the lunch table

When I first got saved I was a senior in high school

I went up to friends I had and tried to tell them about Jesus

I was like you should come to church with me we have some fun, Brad is bad at basketball so it’s fun to block him

And they’d ask me a question about God or the Bible and I didn’t have an answer

I remember one of my friends was a big atheist and challenged me with different things on the Bible — I had to tell him I didn’t know the answers and he started berating me

Our goal for this series is to give you answers to those questions

Does God love?

The first question we are going to tackle is:

Does God love everybody?

Now this question is a commonly asked/searched/googled question and that hurts my heart

But think I think about life and culture today and it makes sense

When we are in traffic an someone cuts you off and “you’re number one” salute comes out — that’s not love

Political unrest with both sides attacking each other — that’s not love

Families constantly spewing hateful texts to each other — that’s not love

So it makes sense that people are asking the question — does God love everybody

Because we are looking around like “I only love two people in this world my bed and my momma”

Just kidding its my wife and our child

So when asking the question about does God love people we must first understand — does God love at all?

Most people see and view God as a evil God who is waiting for us to mess up so He can strike them down

He’s the white bearded man with lightning bolts waiting to strike

So does God love everybody? — better yet does God love anybody?

So to answer the question about God we are going to go to His words

We can’t know anything about God without Him reveling it to us

So rather you have a paper bible, digital bible, or just your eyelids — we are going to be in the book of 1 John

1 John 4:7–8 ESV

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John tells us an important truth about God

God is love

1 John tells us that God is love!

The very essence, the very nature of God is love!

He is a loving God not a hateful God

What is love?

This sounds so good — God is love — He literally is love

But what does love mean?

Culture has tried to explain it

If you go to google and type in “what is love?” you’re going to get the answer “baby don’t hurt me”

But if you ask Google to define love you are going to get a bunch of different answers:

As a noun:

An intense feeling of deep affection

A great interest and pleasure in something

As a verb:

To feel deep affection for (someone)

To like or enjoy very much

Culture has even coined a new phrase maybe you’ve heard of it: love is love

Love is love

Which by the way, breaks the way we define something because you can’t use the word in a definition

But culture and this world says that love is simply accepting someone, taking pleasure in someone, to allow them to be who they are accepting them

Is that what God means when God says He is love?

Listen to what John says next

1 John 4:9–10 ESV

9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

John says that the love of God is clear — He sent His Son into the world

God sent Jesus into the world to be the propitiation (fancy word for payment), for our sins

John also wrote this:

John 3:16–18 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

God’s love is sending Jesus to pay for our sins and offering us life

God’s love is not accepting the sin and wrong and evil things about us, it’s paying the penalty for it and calling us to come to Him

The true definition of love when it comes to God is this:

Love is seeking the greatest good for the object that is being loved

When you are seeking the greatest good for something you are showing it love

God is seeking the greatest good for us — not by affirming our sin, but sending Jesus to pay for them and calling us to flee from them

God isn’t affirming a lifestyle — God is calling you to step into the life He created you for

Notice: God loved the WORLD

The question was: Does God love everybody?

The answer: YES!

He sent His Son for the WORLD!

He sent His Son for everyone!

God loves everyone

But love isn’t accepting or affirming, it’s seeking the greatest good! It’s seeking that we turn from our sin and come to Him

Conclusion

Listen to how John continues this section:

1 John 4:15–18 ESV

15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

He says if we want to participate in this love we must confess that Jesus is the Son of God

We must abide in God — the idea of relying on Him and turning from our sin

If we do this John tells us that we have confidence when the day of judgment is coming — our sins are forgiven and we are with Jesus

If we don’t there is a lot to fear because the punishment of eternal separation is coming to us

Kase has an example that goes like this

Salvation is not a present that God is offering us — That allows us to play a role in it

Salvation is more like a raging waterfall of God’s love — of Jesus’ blood being poured out for our sin

We are at the base of the waterfall — God is pouring out His love and we are there at the base dry and dead in our sin

For us to be saved — for us to taste this living water — for us to have the blood of Jesus cover us from all our sin we must choose to die to our self

We must choose to go under the raging waterfall of God’s love and allow it to overtake us

Everything we want — all our sin, passions, lusts, desires — we must die to them and instead embrace Christ

We can’t breathe our own air because we have succumb to the waterfall of love that is Jesus’ sacrifice

That is where we are saved — when we die to ourself and allow God to flow through us in every avenue

We we trust Him with our life and allow Him to do, change, and fix anything in us that is broken

We are saved when we repent and seek God