Amazing Love

Text: 1 John 4:9-10 (KJV)

Introduction

Our world is full of statements of love.

We have love songs, love perfumes, love manuals, and love stories.

Love is a very popular concept.

Yet perfect love, the kind that can cast out fear, that gives it self so you can have, is not as popular.

Perfect love is a love that gives of itself to another person even if that person hates them.

It is a love that loves the unlovable.

John is known as the apostle of love.

In this epsitle love is mentioned 46 times in 135 verses

John tells his readers about a great God with a great love for great sinners.

It is this great love, this amazing love of God that I want to examine this morning.

Lets examine 5 things about God’s Amazing Love.

1. The Initiation of His Love

"In this was manifested the love of God toward us,because that God sent...”

Verse 9 gives us the Initiation of God’s love:

What a statement!

The love of God was manifested (made clear) toward us because that…..

Notice the words “God sent..”

God made it clear to us that He is love becasue he sent His Son.

So He gave us something that was priceless to show us that He was love. But wait, the One offended gave us something.

Lets examine this for a bit.

If there is going to be reconciliation between offender and offended, the offender should be the one that reconciles not vice versa. Yet between God and man, It was the offended that initiates reconciliation.

Suppose you and I are sitting next to each other in church on a Sunday morning. After the service concludes, in my haste to exit and beat everybody to the restaurant, I bump into you abruptly and step on your toes. Do you turn to me and say, “Oh, excuse me, I’m sorry”? No! I am the one pauses and apologizes to you for my behavior and seeks your forgiveness. I am the offending party. In social etiquette, the offender seeks forgiveness from the offended.

But God did not wait for rebellious humanity to send word to his throne for terms of reconciliation.

God himself commenced negotiations!

We did not pursue God; God pursued us.

His love is boundless, and beyond compare.

We offend God and yet He initiated reconciliation.

2. The Expression of His Love

Second, His love is amazing because of the way He chose to express it.

notice whom God sent: his only Son.

God did not send Abraham, Moses, or one of the prophets.

He did not send an angel.

He sent Jesus who is his only Son.

The word order in Greek puts emphasis on “his Son”: “that his son, his only Son, has God sent.…”

Furthermore, the verb translated “sent” is in the perfect tense in Greek, conveying the connotation, “God has sent Jesus, and we now enjoy the blessings of his mission!”

In Greek the word translated “only” is monogenēs.

It is made up of two words that we have borrowed from Greek and brought into English.

Mono means “one,” and genēs is the word from which we get our word gene.

Jesus as Son is “one of a kind,” unique, sharing in the very nature of the Godhead in a way that no other created being shares.

Jesus is the Son of God who is divine.

Our sin caused such a mess that only the Son of God himself could extricate us from it!

The love God has for you and me, is of such amazement that it could only be expressed by sending his only Son.

God could not have given us a greater gift.

3. The Intention of His Love

Third, The amazing love of God is amazing because He has intent behind His love

“so that we might live through him.”

Isn’t that amazing?

God loved us enough to provide eternal life through His Son.

In Christ we live!!

While in sin we were separated from God and destined for eternal death and destruction, but in Christ we inherit eternal life.

We no longer have to fear death, but have the assurance of life.

That in itself is enough to shout about,

but I rejoice that we don’t have to wait until we depart from this life to enjoy living.

The saved are alive in Christ as this very moment!

He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.

We don’t have to wait until we close our eyes in death down here to enjoy living in Christ.

We really begin to experience eternal life at the very moment of conversion.

That is available to us through Christ!

He tells us in

Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

4. The Expectation of His Love

1 John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us....”

Fourth, What does God Expect in return for loving us.

Nothing!

the amazing love of God is so amazing because to love us He expected nothing in return.

His Love for us originated with Himself .

We can only return that love once we have been made alive in Christ.

Oh you can try and love Him, but when times get tuff you will walk away because you may know that He loves you but you have never truly loved Him.

You praise him with your lips but your heart is far from him

you may be able to quote John 3:16, and sing oh how I love Jesus

but you have never felt His love deep in your soul,

Why?

A dead man cant feel anything

Ephesians 2:1 “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;”

Some think that you have to do such and such for God to love you.

God does not operate on a quid pro quo

Romans 5:6–8 “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

God loved us when we wanted nothing to do with Him

Ephesians 2:2–3 “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”

It is hard to love someone that does not love you back.

If I would have told heather I love her when we were dating and she never said it back, we would never have gotten married.

But God told us he loved us while we were enimies and strangers to the commenwealth of Isreal.

We are gentiles, He judged gentile nation in the OT.

We dont deserve His love.

He loved us even when we cussed his name

He loved us even when we served his worse enemy.

But yet he sent His Son to prove His love for you and I.

From human perspective, this is completly insane.

Thank God He doesnt operate on a human perspective.

He loved us before we ever loved Him.

5. The Valuation of His Love

Fifth, the amazing love of God is very costly.

and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (v. 10).

a. The Price that Was Required

“Propitiation”—now there is a word we don’t use every day.

I’ll bet when you and your friend were running late to math class in school you did not say to your friend, “We are going to be late, and the teacher is going to be mad; so we’d better find a way to make propitiation.”

We don’t talk that way.

But this word is a very important word in the Bible; so let’s camp out on it for a moment.

Propitiation is a word that means “to appease someone’s wrath.”

In ancient Greek mythology, the gods were easily angered by humans. Humans sought to appease that anger by offering sacrifices to the gods.

This is thought to be the reason for the use of this word.

It made readers think, “I have angered God His wrath is surly to come, but wait, you mean to tell me that One has already paid the price?”

Now you may be here this morning and be thinking, “why is it necessary that there be a “propitiation” for my sins?”

Why doesn’t God just wave his magic wand and forgive everyone’s sin?

Let me answer this question with another question.

Why dont we let violent criminals loose?

To ask the question is to answer it.

If we let a murderer loose that would be an egregious violation of justice.

If God were to do the same for our sins, it would be a denial of the seriousness of sin and a gross violation of his justice.

That would mean that nothing that was written in this book was true and God is a liar.

Because of who God is (holy, just, and vengeful), a payment had to be made to satisfy His wrath against sin.

That is where propitiation comes in

Something had to be given to God to appease His wrath.

There was a price required.

and it was a price that we could not afford.

We have sinned against a Holy and righteous God and

God’s wrath is his settled judgement against our sin (Romans 1:18

Romans 1:18 KJV 1900

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

God is angry with sin and sinners.

You say, “Wait a minute, you just got through telling me about God’s love for us.”

Yes, I did.

“Now you are telling me God is angry with us.”

Yes, I am.

God can be angry with sinners and love them at the same time.

Have you ever been angry with your spouse or kids?

Did you stop loving them?

Just because you love your children does not mean you would let them get away with breaking the rules, there must be punishment for breaking the law.

Was it just for Joe Biden to pardon Hunter?

No, why?

Because Hunter broke the law and should pay the price.

If a serial killer walks into the court room and the judge is his father and the judge looks at him and knowing that the price for his crimes was death and the judge declares him not guilty, not becasue of lack of evidence but because he loves his son and does not want him to die, would that judge be just or unjust?

Sin violates God’s law, and his law demands that justice be done.

God is just.

He must punish sin.

There is a price required

Blood must be shed

Without the sheding of blood there is no remission of sins

That is the price required, there must be a propitiation for sins!

But God is also merciful.

He is willing that sinners not receive all they deserve for their sin. But that they all would come to repentence.

God being merciful equals God is loving

His love extends to all people.

God desires the salvation of all people.

But just because He loves you does not mean he will let you escape judgement

This is where God’s grace comes into the picture.

So let’s talk about the payment.

a. The Price that Was Required

b. The Payment that was Rendered

In ancient Greek culture, people use to offer certain things up to appease the gods.

But there is nothing we can do to turn away God’s righteous anger against us and our sin.

So if there is nothing we can do, how do we appease Him?

John tells us “and sent His Son to be”

God does something for us that we could never do for ourselves.

He pays the price for our sin.

God himself takes the initiative to propitiate his own wrath.

God’s love through Jesus on the cross provides the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

When Jesus died on the cross, he became our substitute and took the wrath of God against our sin upon himself, thus satisfying God’s justice, rendering payment.

In Jesus’ death on the cross, God’s holiness, justice, wrath, mercy, love, and grace all converge.

only God could make the sacrifice for our sins since he has demanded it.

The Father did not demand a cross that the Son was reluctant to bear.

John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”

John 10:18 “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again…”

The Son did not extract from the Father a salvation he was reluctant to bestow.

John 5:30 “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”

What an amazing love!

God himself in the person of Jesus died to make propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the entire world (1 John 2:2 “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

The initiative is from God; the response must be from us.

When the Phillipian jailer asked Paul and Silas what he had to do to be saved, they didnt tell him to do this or that, they simply said believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved.

Paul tells us in Romans 10:9–10 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

God proved His love for you and His desire to save you when He sent His only begotten Son.

all you have to do is accept that the payment has been rendered on your behalf

because God first loved us so that we might be able to love him.

What amazing love!!!

Conclusion

No one has ever sinned himself or herself beyond the love of God.

There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more than he loves you right now.

There is nothing you can do to make God love you any less than he loves you right now.

We offended Him but He initianted reconciliation

We didnt believe Him so He expressed it by sending his son

He did it with the intention that we would accept his love and live through His Son

He expects nothing in return for loving us

But there was a cost for Him to love us.

This price was paid by His Son. The expression of His love became the payment for our sin.

What Amazing Love!

Wont you come this morning and be saved?

Believers wont you come this morning and worship Him for HIs Amazing Love.