God So Loved

Prayer

Heart of the Gospel

We’re in our fourth week of the season of Lent, the time the church sets aside for to remember and reflect on Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. That’s our focus, we asking the question of what it means to be Good News People, people whose lives are rooted in the story of the gospel, which is the story of Jesus Christ - and here’s a key element, people who live that story out. And I want to make this clear, because I’m not sure I’ve laid it out as well as I want to.

Here’s what I mean: the gospel is something we receive, it’s a message that’s proclaimed, and you receive it, hear it - that’s great news! And we talked the first week about the basics of the gospel that Paul lays out in 1 Corinthians 15, that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and on the third day he rose again. Here’s the thing I want to make clear - this good news isn’t just something we receive, it’s an invitation into a whole new way of life, we are invited to live in the way of Jesus. To follow him.

So when we talked the second week about grace, that aspect of the gospel that distinguishes it from every other belief system, every other religion, what that means is that to be a good news person is to receive the grace that Jesus offers to us, dying for our sake, rising to new life, as a gift to us. But it is also invitation to live in the way of grace. To become people who are gracious and compassionate toward others, just like Jesus.

Likewise, last week we talked about gospel as it relates to righteousness - this idea of being in right relationship with God and others, of true inner goodness. The gospel, receiving the story of who Jesus is and what he’s done for us - that’s an invitation to be made righteous through faith, God makes us new, away with the old self, and it’s an invitation to live in the way of righteousness. Which is to say, the way of Jesus, to become like him.

And that’s absolutely true for what we’re going to talk about this morning, which is at the very heart of the gospel, its center, its essence. And it really is the heart of the gospel because it’s what reveals God’s heart to us, his motivation. And what is that thing?

John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. It’s right there, why did God give his son on behalf of the world, in order that we might not die, but rather experience full and forever life? Love. Because God so loved the world. Loved us. Loved you.

Another one, Romans 5:8, and this one takes it a little further, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So, again, the gospel is a demonstration of God’s love for us, it reveals his heart for us. Here, even more so, while we were still sinners - in other words, while our backs were still turned against him, rebelling against him, going our own way - that’s when Jesus died for us.

So, the important question here is, what is meant by love here? What is love? When the Bible talks about God’s love for us, what does that mean? Now, you may think that’s a silly question, everyone knows what love is, after all, we use that word all the time. And we do, but that really just reveals the problem, why we have to talk about what love is. If I asked you to define love, what would you say?

Think about all the different ways we use the word “love” - I love that song (or that restaurant, or pizza, or whatever). If I say I love my mom, is that the same? And is that the same as when you say that you love your significant other - boyfriend or girlfriend? Husband or wife? It’s clear that we mean different things when we use the word love.

In that sense, the ancients were smarter than us, they wisely used multiple words to differentiate the various types of love. For instance, in Greek (that language the New Testament is written in), there is the word eros. Which would be romantic love. So that’s the word you’d use to describe your love for your significant other. We’ve sexualized the word, only time we use it is in the word erotic. Now the Greeks also used the word philos, which is often defined as friendship love - but it’s broader than that, can describe family relationships - idea of mutual affection, loyalty to another. And then there’s the word, storge, which is a love, or an affection that comes out of familiarity. Love you have for your hometown, country, love that comes out of you grew up with these things, familiar with them, feels like home.

But there’s one more type of love that’s used in Greek, it’s the word that’s most often used in the New Testament. That word is agape. We might understand it best as servant love, sacrificial love. Description I like the best - love that is for the good of the other.

And it’s this love, this agape love, that’s at the very heart of the gospel. And if we’re going to be good news people it’s vital that we understand this love - not just understand it, but that we receive it, open ourselves to it. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this might be the most essential thing, and here’s why: because the goal of following Jesus is to grow into the fullness of spiritual maturity (which is another way of saying, to become like him). Spiritual maturity means one thing: love. To become people who love. Love God with all of our heart and all of our mind and all of our soul and all of our strength. And to love our neighbor as ourselves. That’s it. It’s all about love.

So I want to look at two passages from the apostle John, from his first letter to the early church. Love was a central theme for John, and he lays out why. One of the passages is 1 John 3:16-18. Now, right before this John is talking about need to love one another, that this is the command Jesus gave his disciples on their last night together, as he loved them by washing their feet (which was an act of servant love). He commanded them, as I have loved you, love one another. So, that’s the context of John’s writing here in vv. 16-18:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

That’s as plain as you can say it: you want to know what love is, you want to see it in action, this is it: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. That’s it. The ultimate sacrifice, the greatest gift - you literally cannot give more of yourself to or for another person than to lay down your life for them. Exactly what Jesus did for us (and, as Paul wrote in Romans 5:8, while we were yet sinners).

This, of course, is the good news, the gospel, it is Jesus loving us so much, so fully, he laid down his life for us. This is such a beautiful, amazing thing to consider, after all, you don’t have to guess about God’s heart toward you. It’s not a mystery.

Sometimes, we make it a mystery - especially when we’re suffering - or people we know and care about are suffering, when our life is a mess. Or it may be when we know it’s our fault our life is a mess. We’ve been selfish or foolish. It’s often in those times that we doubt God’s love for us. Has God forgotten me? Does he care? Does God still love me?

That may feel very real in those moments, but nothing could be further from the truth. You are loved. I am loved. With great, great love. Sacrificing love. God is for us, for our good, so much so that he sent his son to lay down his life for us. As John writes, this is it, this is love. And we need to know this love.

John lays it out even further in 1 John 4:7-16, Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

So, again, John points out that it’s in God’s actions, his sending his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him, as an atoning sacrifice for our sins - this demonstrates God’s love for us. This is how God showed his love among us.

And that as you know and experience this love from God, it will, it must, by the very nature of love, move us toward loving one another. There is no separation for John - or for Jesus, by that matter - between loving God and loving others. They are two sides of the same coin, inseparable. They go hand-in-hand. To live in this love is to live in God, who is love.

That’s an essential point John is making here - and what it means to be a Good News Person - that as we know God, as we know his love - and when I use the word know here (as John does), we’re talking knowing experientially, you have an experience of God’s love. It’s the difference between reading about the beach, or looking at a picture, versus actually going to the beach, standing on the shoreline, feeling the sand between your toes letting the waves rolling over your feet, feeling the pull as the water rolls back, sucking the sand with it and your feet sink deeper. The feel of the breeze. The smell of the ocean air. Summer sun. All of it. As we know God’s love in this way as demonstrated in the gospel, then we will in turn become people of love - people who love God and love one other. Let me finish with just a little more on that idea.

Becoming Good News People - Becoming People of Love

Start with this idea of knowing God, knowing his love. Please hear this, this is so vital. Here’s why - because we are people made for love. Made by God to be in perfect loving relationship with him, and with one another. We have deeply intuitive sense of this, why we know love is the most important thing, why we long to be loved - and we want to love others.

Love is the basis of our value. It’s how we know we matter, where we get our significance from. It’s why it’s such a tragedy when people are unloved - or poorly loved, they doubt that they matter. Feel worthless, “nobody cares about me.” Why it’s such a blessing to grow up in a loving family, to have people in your life who express care for you, to be a part of a loving community (I hope and pray that’s true of our church, that we genuinely love each other). All these things make such a huge difference in our lives.

And that knowing we are loved, it’s so essential to our sense of self, that if we feel unloved, we will search for it somewhere else - in a romantic relationship. Or in sexual relationships. Some people numb that emptiness with drugs or alcohol. Others pursue that sense of significance through achievement - they pour themselves into a career, making a lot of money, having nice stuff. Or through their appearance, where they get their sense of worth. We so want to know we matter, feel that we are valuable - or we don’t want to feel at all, harden our hearts, I don’t need anyone.

But here’s the thing, even good loving relationships aren’t enough. Even if you had a mother and father that loved you well, you’re in a good marriage relationship. This may be hard for some of you to believe, but I don’t always love my wife well. I can be inconsiderate, too wrapped up in what I want to be doing. But we were made to be loved fully and to love fully. We may love well, but all of us fall far short from the perfect love of God. A great quote from St. Augustine - our hearts are restless until the rest in you. His point is, our hearts were meant to rest in the love of God, in his perfect everlasting love.

Bring us to becoming Good News People

This is why it’s so vital that we grow in knowing God’s love for us - especially as it’s revealed in the good news of Jesus. That is what John is talking about - he’s trying to make clear that you don’t have to wonder about God’s heart toward you, he’s already demonstrated it by sending his son, Jesus. You are already perfectly loved as you are. Not because we act in a certain way, have the right answers, but in all our mess. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God is in them. This is the goal, to live in God more and more, which is to live in his love.

Becoming Good News People is to know God by being with him, and therefore to know his love, to receive it. And to let it into the deepest, darkest parts of who we are by opening up the depths of our being to him. You can’t live in God on a surface level. Jesus is inviting us into a union of love with him - he loving you with his perfect, sacrificial love (laying down his life), you loving him with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength.

And as we do so, we become Good News People, people who live in the love of Jesus, people who love like Jesus. Jesus’ love will transform us toward becoming people who love. There is nothing that spurs my heart toward becoming more like Jesus than knowing his love, being filled with. I can love freely, because I’m not seeking love or approval from others, not trying to find my significance or worth in how well I perform or how I look or who likes me. I am filled with God’s love, and free to love others.

Spiritual Disciplines - How do we put this into practice, how do we move toward becoming Good News People, people who live in the love of Jesus, people who love in the way of Jesus.

Spend time this week simply being with God and receiving his love. This takes intentional time and effort, the discipline of solitude, to quiet yourself to be present to God, to open yourself to receive his love. You can reflect on that love by reflecting on the gospel itself, what Jesus did for you. Reflect on the words the Father spoke to Jesus at his Baptism: This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased - hear the father speak those words to you. As you confess your sins, receive his forgiveness as his love toward you.

Or, pursue the other side of the coin, by making intentional efforts to love others: Lent is for Loving...

Let’s be people who live in God and who live in his love. Prayer - time to reflect, what has God been saying to you, your response?