The Love of God
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Get the right idea of what love is.
Eros- Physical love or attraction
Eros- Physical love or attraction
Not in the bible but
Epithymeo- Lust
Epithymeo- Lust
To take that which isn’t lawfully yours, to covet.
Phileo- Brotherly love
Phileo- Brotherly love
I care for you your a good friend.
Agape- Sacrificial love
Agape- Sacrificial love
Highest form of love that their is.
We speak of the love of God as more than just something He does but one of God’s attributes because of verses like.
1 John 4:8, 16
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
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.
God’s Love is Trinitarian
God’s Love is Trinitarian
If God is love it didn’t start at the time of creation, it has been around since eternity past.
God didn’t need us to have someone love Him, He was already loved before anything was created.
Matthew 3:17
17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Not just my son, but my beloved son. This is a statement showing the love that exists in the Godhead.
John 3:35
35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.
John 5:20
20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.
John 17:24
24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
John 14:31
31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.
The Son loves the Father.
So we see that love is an attribute of God that isn’t new, it’s been around from the beginning of time.
God’s Love is Infinite
God’s Love is Infinite
He doesn’t only have a limited amount to go around.
He had so much love that He created us and called us.
Ephesians 1:4-5
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
1 John 3:1
1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
John 3:16
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.
John 17:23
23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
Loved them, the amount is incredible.
Jesus in us, this is the part that truly makes us completely lovable.
John 17:26
The love that God has will be in us, with Christ. We must recognize that it is the indwelling of God in our lives is what makes us truly lovable.
There isn’t anything special about us or in us that would be desirable. But God within us makes us lovable.
God’s Love is Sacrificial
God’s Love is Sacrificial
This is part of the definition of agape love. It gives.
John 3:16
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.
God loved, so He gave.
Romans 5:8
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God showed.
John 10:11
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
He is the good shepherd. What does the shepherd do out of love? Lay down His life.
John 15:13
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Laying down life for His friends
Jesus was saying that He was about to lay down His life, but we are called to lay ours down as well.
Ephesians 5:25
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
Christ did what for the church?
What should we as husbands be doing for our wives?
God’s Love was Volitional
God’s Love was Volitional
It was a conscious choice that He made out of His will to do.
Not because we were lovable. Nothing of the sort. We were unlovable people before.
Deuteronomy 7:7-8
7 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,
8 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.
There was nothing desirable about Israel. God chose them out of His good nature.
God loved them first. He does the same thing for us.
1 John 4:10, 19
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.
19 We love because he first loved us.
God loved us first, He called us.
God’s Love is Affectionate
God’s Love is Affectionate
We can get the idea of God’s love being a choice, more intellectual than anything.
Deuteronomy 30:9
9 The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers,
He takes delight in us. Pleasure in allowing us to prosper.
Jeremiah 32:41
41 I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.
God rejoices in giving us good things.
Zephaniah 3:17
17 The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
God rejoices over us, He sings over us. This is His love for us.
Luke 15:20
20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
God rejoices when His children come home.