The Lavish Love Of God! Series

1. There are so many of us that before you became a Christian, you were a very mean, hateful, & hard person person.

• Of all the words that someone would use to describe you (and me by the way), LOVE definitely wasn’t one of them.

• But all that changed with Jesus Christ. We were born again and what awakened in us was a keen sense of love for others.

• For that I am forever grateful! Because not only did love spark in my life, but it’s grown throughout the years.

• Why? Because the love of God has been poured into our hearts.

NOTE: If you’re a Christian today, that same love is in you too!

• Not just AROUND you, or TO you, but IN YOU!

CHAPTER 5 contains an interesting contrast…

V1-2 – Peace with God, Access to God, Grace of God, Hope in God.

V3-5 – Glory in tribulations knowing that God is producing something through every single of one them in our lives.

• Perseverance, Character, and hope!

V6-11 – The Love of God poured out & demonstrated in our lives.

We live in a rather loveless world. It seems like everyone is out for themselves, trying to get ahead at anyone’s expense.

• They call it a dog eat dog OR every man for himself (VISCIOUS!)

• It’s a society where a person’s word doesn’t mean much any more because it’s become easier & easier to lie to each other.

• Our world promotes sexual immorality & godlessness.

• Leaders are not taking us toward equity & fairness, but they too have taken advantage of their positions…

• Where’s the love in a high school teacher molesting a student?

• Where’s the love in a convenience store clerk being shot?

• Where’s the love in the latest corporate directors being sent to prison for stealing millions from a pension fund?

I’ll tell you… the only place you will find true love is in Jesus!

John 13:1 (NKJV) 1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

THE BIBLE TEACHES US that the Holy Spirit pours out in our hearts the very love of God.

• So that we have this ever increasing joy of His love.

• LOVE, the word used here is “agape”, the selfless, self-sacrificial love of God toward man.

OUR ENGLISH LANGUAGE can sometimes be so limited.

• You know we’ll say, “I love you” to those we cherish and at the same time say “I Love Cheesecake”.

• Of course we don’t mean the same thing, but we only really have one word to describe affection in different degrees.

• Greek, there were at least 4 different words to describe love…

#1 – PHILEO – speaks of a friendly, brotherly type of love.

Hebrews 13:1 Let brotherly love continue.

#2 – EROS – Speaks of a sexual, intimate type of love. (Septuagint)

#3 – STORGE – speaks of a fondness, a family type of affection.

Romans 1:31 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful;

#4 – AGAPE – the selfless, self-sacrificial type of love from God.

John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

What’s been poured into our very being but the very love of God.

• His nature is love, John tells us and now we have that very love flowing in and through us.

ONE OF THE MOST ASTOUNDING TRUTHS of the Gospel is that our Holy & Righteous God LOVES unholy & unrighteous human beings!

• It’s the very essence of the grace of God. – John 3:16

• So beautiful in simplicity. God loved. God gave. God sacrificed.

• It’s not like we cleaned up our lives and came to God with a airtight case on how much we deserve His love. NO WAY!

• The love of God came to us, without a cause!

SALVATION & God’s LOVE comes to the undeserving.

• It can’t be earned. IT can’t be bought. It can’t bargained for.

• GRACE – God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense (jot that down)

• We get the riches of God because Jesus paid the price!

• God looks at me, looks at you as though I never sinned. WHY?

• Because of what Jesus has done.

• It’s not our works… it’s His finished work!

• Flip back to 3:24…

YOU NOTICE PAUL WRITES… ‘BEING JUSTIFIED’.

• It’s here in the original language in the present continual tense.

• It means it’s happening continually. It didn’t end the day after you got saved, but even now as we sit here.