Loving God

#40 – Loving God (1 John 4:7-21)

SLIDE 1 – Summer of Love

Good morning everyone. My name is Michael Steemson and I’m the Associate Pastor here at Trinity Church Golden Grove. It’s my pleasure to be here with you today as we kick off a new year together.

I do hope that over the past couple of weeks, each of you has been able to take some time away from the normal busy pace and rhythms of life and spend quality time with the people you love, doing the things you love. I hope that it has been, and it continues to be, a Summer of Love for you. Because we all love, love, right?

SLIDE 2 – Love Songs

The entertainment industry knows that we all love, love. Songwriters love to write songs about love.

Whitney Will Always Love You and KISS Was Made for Lovin’ You and Taylor will write and sing you a Love Story. The Beatles say All You Need is Love and with love being all we need, it’s fortunate for us that Love is in the Air and it will never run out because it is an Endless Love.

And just as we love to listen to songs about love, we also love to watch movies about love.

SLIDE 3 – Love Movies

Perhaps watching Love Actually is one of your Christmas traditions. Even if it isn’t, odds are that some of your other Christmas traditions involved eating, praying, or loving. Crazy, Stupid, Love was one of the first films that Liz and I ever watched together, long before we ever said P.S. I Love You to each other for the first time – more on that story next week!

And so love is central to much of what we do, how we spend our time, and who we spend it with. And in the same way, our desire here at Trinity Church Golden Grove is for love to be central to all that we do. As the banner up the front reminds us each week, we’re all about three simple things: loving God, loving people, and making disciples of Jesus.

And it's these ideas of loving God and loving people that we are going to explore further in this Summer of Love two-week series. Today’s focus then is on loving God.

And I hope that as we leave here today, we all leave with a fuller knowledge of our God and a deeper love for our God. To work towards that outcome, we’ll first consider who God is, his nature and his attributes, and then we’ll consider how we ought to respond to God’s generous, loyal, and sacrificial love for us.

First Teaching Point – God’s Simplicity

So let’s turn our attention to today’s Bible reading from 1 John chapter 4. Let me read verses 7 and 8 for us:

SLIDE 4 – 1 John 4:7-8

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

(p) God is love. Stated here in verse 8 and then repeated in verse 16, this statement is compact, yet comprehensive, and one of the most beautiful of all biblical affirmations concerning who God is. And given its short yet significant nature, it's also very easy to misunderstand what it means that God is love.

One common yet dangerous misunderstanding of what it means for God to be love is to think of love as God’s primary attribute, which trumps all of his other attributes.

This false line of thinking goes a little something like this – God is love and because God is love, he could not and would not condemn people to eternal torment in hell because that would be unloving and contrary to his nature. You would find ideas like this in books such as Love Winsby Rob Bell.

But the big and dangerous error with this line of thinking is that it does not take into account what scholars who study the Bible call God’s simplicity.

SLIDE 5 – God’s Simplicity

God’s simplicity means that God is not just one attribute, such as love, and that God’s many attributes do not complete or compete with each other.

For example, God’s justice is not in an arm-wrestle with his mercy, nor does his justice balance the scales in relation to his mercy. God has no greater or lesser attributes. No attributes that are dominant and driving over others, and none that are derivative or dependent on others. Rather, God’s different attributes are different ways of thinking about God’s perfectly integrated being.

So it is wonderfully true that God is love. But at the same time, it is wonderfully true that God is not only love, nor does his love compete with and triumph over any of his other attributes.

(p) So then, thinking of God’s love as his only or primary attribute is one misunderstanding we want to avoid. How then can we rightly understand what the statement ‘God is love’ tells us about God’s nature and his attributes?

Well, classically, when biblical scholars discuss the nature of God, they distinguish between his natural attributes and his moral attributes. God’s natural attributes describe who he is, his being, whereas his moral attributes are related to his actions, what he does.

Now of course, we can’t press these categories too hard because doing and being are largely inseparable – what someone does is an expression of who they are, and who someone is determines what they do.

And we see this with God’s love, in that love is part of his being – one of his natural attributes – and at the same time God’s love is always displayed in all of his actions – it is one of his moral attributes. So then, let’s consider God’s love as both one of his natural and moral attributes.

Second Teaching Point – God is Love – Natural Attributes

SLIDE 6 – God is Love: A Natural Attribute

(p) Love is one of God’s natural attributes because love lies at the heart of the inter-trinitarian life of God. Christianity is unique among the world’s religions in its belief in one God whose one divine essence is shared by three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And therefore, within the very being of the one God exist loving relationships; the Father loves the Son and the Spirit; the Son loves the Spirit and the Father; and the Spirit loves the Father and the Son.

And so God is love in his nature, in his being, in a way that is entirely unique to him. He needs no one else outside of himself to experience love. That’s true for no one else. You and me, none of us, have love as part of our independent being. We all require another party to experience love, either to receive our love or to express their love for us.

So God is love in his essence, his being, his nature. God confirms that love is part of his being when he passes in front of Moses on Mount Sinai. In the Old Testament, this is the pinnacle moment of God making himself known, of God revealing his name, his nature, his glory. Exodus chapter 34 verse 6 says:

SLIDE 7 – Exodus 34:6-7

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

Here God describes his own nature, he is a God full of compassion… and grace… and patience… and abounding in love.

SLIDE 8 – Loyal Love

The Hebrew word khesed lies behind the English translation of ‘abounding in love,’ and it is a challenging word to translate into English because it combines the ideas of love, generosity, and enduring commitment into one word. The guys at the Bible Project have produced a helpful video on khesed and they chose the compound word ‘loyal-love’ to try and fully encapsulate the meaning of this word.

And the story of the Old Testament is the story of God displaying that he is generously loving and eternally loyal, time and time again. Even when his people don’t love him, or especially when his people don’t love him, God is still committed to them because in his nature, he overflows with loyal-love.

SLIDE 9 – OT References of Ex 34:6

And it is to this comprehensive self-revelation of God’s nature at Mount Sinai that God’s people returned to over and over again throughout their history, any time they needed to be reminded of who God is.

Like hitting re-centre when you scroll ahead and get disoriented while using a GPS, returning to this description of the LORD as the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and overflowing in loyal love, was how God’s people re-centred their lives when they got disoriented.

(p) So in his triune nature and in his description of who he is, God is love – a love that is abundantly generous and loyal. And because God is love in his nature, it follows that all of his actions are loving actions.

Third Teaching Point – God is Love – Moral Attribute

SLIDE 10 – God is Love: A Moral Attribute

Returning to 1 John 4 and picking it up again at verse 9; which says:

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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

There have been and are many manifestations of the love of God. As we’ve explored, it is no doubt constantly manifest in heaven – and so not visible to us – in the relations between the three persons of the triune God.

But among us, among humanity, God’s love is made known most obviously and most abundantly through the action of sending his Son into the world as a gift, the very gift we have just celebrated at Christmas.

But not just in the sending of the Son and his incarnation, for as verse 10 makes clear, the love of God is seen most evidently in the sending of the Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

SLIDE 11 – John Bible Verses

Jesus sacrifice on the cross as the pre-eminent display of God’s love for the world cannot be understated. The apostle John, who authored this letter, stresses this point repeatedly because it is of the utmost significance. Earlier in chapter 3, verse 16, he says:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

And in perhaps the most famous verse in the whole Bible, he says the same thing in the Gospel of John, also chapter 3 and verse 16, which says:

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.

The love of the Father is seen most clearly in the giving up of that which is most precious to him, his Son. And the love of the Son is seen most clearly in the giving up of that which is most precious to him, his life. And so it is at the cross where we see the ultimate example of God’s love, a generous, loyal, and supremely self-sacrificial love.

(p) And what’s more, God loves us with this supremely self-sacrificial love for no other reason than that’s just who God is, he is love. For us, however, we tend to choose things that show us that they are worthy of our love.

Consider how important the photos are on websites like realestate.com or Facebook Marketplace. You want to see well-lit photos that show cleanliness and no evidence of damage. You want to see houses and items that are worthy of your time, your interest, and your investment. And if anything looks dark, or dirty, or damaged, you scroll on to the next one.

But God’s not like us. He picks us and loves us with all our dints and scratches. He picks us, the project in need of restoration.

God generously and loyally and sacrificially loves sinners who are unworthy of his love, who are instead actually worthy of his righteous judgment. And yet, he loves us and sends his Son into the world to rescue us, not because we are lovable, but because he is love.

Here again, we see the beautiful uniqueness of our wonderful God on display. All other religions ask you to do these five things, take these eight steps, and then you will be worthy. Do all these things, meet all these requirements, and then you will be loved and accepted by God and receive blessings.

But Christianity says that our God loves first because that’s who he is. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Fourth Teaching Point – Loving God

SLIDE 12 – Loving God #1

(P) How then ought we respond to this generous, sacrificial, and loyal love that God bestows upon us? Well, it’s simple. 1 John 4 verse 19, We love because he first loved us.

In response to God’s great and loyal love for us, we are to love him and be loyal to him in return. To enable us to do this, the God who is love gives us his Spirit, so that like a mirror, we can reflect back to him the same love which he has already directed towards us. Because we are loved, we love!

And just as God overflows with loyal love and holds nothing back in his love for us, not even his one and only Son, so too our love for God is to be all-encompassing. When asked what the greatest commandment in the law is, Jesus responds by saying:

SLIDE 13 – Loving God #2

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. (Matt 22:37-38)

Whether it’s with our physical strength, or with our emotions, or with our intellect, we are to love the Lord our God with everything that we have. Each of us will likely find it much easier to love God with one aspect of ourselves. Perhaps you find it easier to love God with your feelings and emotions but struggle to love God with your mind and intellect. If that’s you, what could you do this year to foster a greater love of God in this area of your life?

Or perhaps you’re like me, and you find it easier to love God with your intellect but not so much your emotions. The same question applies: What could you do this year to foster a greater love of God in this area of your life?

(P) We are to love the God who loves us so very dearly, with our whole selves, with our whole lives. And if we are to love God with our whole selves, our whole lives, it naturally follows that a significant part of how we show our love for God is by the way in which we treat other people. Jesus followed the first and greatest commandment with the second, which is like it: ’Love your neighbour as yourself.’

And this thought of loving people as a way of displaying our love for God is pervasive throughout the 1 John passage we have looked at today. Notice how often in these verses the apostle John encourages the community of believers to ‘love one another’:

SLIDE 14 – Loving God = Loving People

Verse 7 – Dear friends, let us love one another

Verse 11 – Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Verse 21 – And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

It’s kind of hard to miss the point, isn’t it? Loving God, and loving people, cannot be separated, but rather our love for people is the very evidence of our love for God. We show our love for God by how we treat the people around us. And so next week, we’ll continue our Summer of Love series by further exploring the topic of loving people.

But before we get to next week, I want to conclude today’s Bible talk with a focus on God’s love and loving God by reciting Psalm 136. Psalm 136 is a community psalm, and each verse is in two halves.

The first half is to be read out by the leader of a gathered community of worshippers, and then the gathered worshippers respond with the second half, the refrain, which is His khesed, His loyal love endures forever.

SLIDE 15 – Psalm 136

Now there are 26 verses in this Psalm, so we’ll just do half - the first 9 and the final 4. As I say the first half of each verse, I encourage you all to respond as a community of people, loved by God.

Psalm 136:

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His loyal love endures forever. 2 Give thanks to the God of gods. His loyal love endures forever. 3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords: His loyal love endures forever.

4 to him who alone does great wonders, His loyal love endures forever. 5 who by his understanding made the heavens, His loyal love endures forever. 6 who spread out the earth upon the waters, His loyal love endures forever. 7 who made the great lights— His loyal love endures forever. 8 the sun to govern the day, His loyal love endures forever. 9 the moon and stars to govern the night; His loyal love endures forever.

23 He remembered us in our low estate His loyal love endures forever. 24 and freed us from our enemies. His loyal love endures forever. 25 He gives food to every creature. His loyal love endures forever.

26 Give thanks to the God of heaven. His loyal love endures forever.

Amen! Let me invite you to now take one minute to open your phone or your notebook and write down your One Thing. One thing that struck you, challenged, or encouraged you today. Take 60 seconds to write it down. Then share it over morning tea. After the 60 seconds, Micah will continue leading us in a time of prayer.