The Foundation of the Timeless Love of God

Intro

God says from the cross “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Powerful words about a powerful truth…namely that God’s love for the whole world…was put on full display when God the son…the Lord Jesus Christ…willingly…obediently…and lovingly gave himself up…gave up his life for you and me…and all who believe in him!

That was God’s ulimate demonstration of His faithful love.

What is Love?

Today we begin a new sermon series: The Timeless Love of God. Each Sunday in September we will be focusing on this attribute of God’s character…and what it means for you and I…in living out our faith everyday.

Today we start with the FOUNDATION of the timeless love of God.

So along with the 90’s artitst Hadaway…I ask all of us “What is Love?”

A group of 4 to 8-year-olds was asked: "What does love mean?" Here were their answers:

"Love is when you kiss all the time," said one. "Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss."

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne," said another, "and they go out and smell each other."

A really good one is when One little girl answered, "Love is when your mommy reads you a bedtime story. True love is when she doesn't skip any pages."

But one of the children summed it up very much like Jesus: "When my grandmother got arthritis," she said, "she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."

Yes it is!

In the Bible, love is summed up for us in 1 Corinthias 13:4-8…tanslated and paraphrased by Eugene Peterson as follows:

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.

Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.

In other words…love is self-giving; self-sacrificial; and other oriented.

When 1 John 4:7-9

1 John 4:7–9 ESV

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

As Christians…when we believe in Jesus as Lord and savior...we live through Christ…we begin to take on God’s attributes…expressed perfectly in and through Jesus Christ.

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

This is the gospel…the good news of the kingdom of God…as Jesus first word’s in the gospel of Mark say “we need to repent and believe” God’s good news to the world!

Foundation of Love

The foundation of God’s timeless love…is of course…God himself.

As Christians we affirm and believe in God as 1…there is only one true God…all others are idolotries of our own making...

But we believe and understand the one true God…as 3 persons…NOT THREE GODs…but one God revealed to us in scripture as...Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

That is within God’s very being…God’s essence…there exisits an eternal relationship of love…perfect unity…perfect self-giving…and recieving…God’s being…is LOVE.

So in our passage today…from Deuteronomy…we find an expression of God’s choosing…or electing…to love his own creation....making covenant with a certain people group…why? Out of God’s love.

Does that mean God doesn’t love other people groups? No. We’ve already looked at God’s love for the whole world...

But it means that God is not conent on creating the universe and letting it go…God chooses…or elects…to be engaged in His creation…in realtionship with his creation…and by choosing or electing Israel…the Hebrew/Jewish people…God demonstrates his love is unconditional…and on purpose.

Deuteronomy 7:6–11 (ESV)

“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Why did God choose the Jewish people?

“Because the Lord loves (them) and is keeping the oath that he swore to (their) fathers.”

God’s choosing of Israel…is an expression of God’s grace. They weren’t the cool kids on the block…they weren’t the most numerous or powerful…in fact…just the oppotiste.

God is always on the lookout for the outcast…the picked on…the weak of this world…to show them…and shower them with His love and amazing grace.

Closing

So what are we to do with an understanding of God who is love itself?

Daniel Migliorie defines God as “self-sharing, other-regarding; community-forming love.”

He dervies this definition from his scriptural understanding of God as trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). Withing God’s self exists these things eternally…it only makes sense that this type of love…would call God’s own creation…to live in the same way.

God chose…elected…Israel…and you and me…to faith. To covenant relationship with God…established and founded on God’s steadfast and everlasting love and faithfulness.

We live this out in our lives when we do the same thing. When we are self-sharing…giving freely of what God has blessed us with and not holding on to it for dear life.

We live out this foundational love when we regard others…consider other people before ourselves. Philippians 2:3

Philippians 2:3 NLT

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

We live out this foundational love of God when we invite others into out community of faith…not based on their merit…or looks…or what they have or can contribute (after all what could Israel contribute to God…nothing....God chose to be in communion with them based on nothing else other than God’s love). Not based on anything other than wanting to express and show God’s love for them.

May we all more and more demonstrate God’s unconditional love for ourselves…and for others. May we all choose to love…as God loves us.

Thanks be to God…AMEN