God's Kind Of Love Series

Text: 1 John 4:7-21

Title: God’s kind of love

Introduction

Illustration: An eight year old wrote about the difference between love and true love. Love is when Daddy reads me a bedtime story. True love is when he doesn’t skip any of the pages.

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Today we want to look into the subject of God’s kind of love? The kind of love God has for us.

1.God’s kind of love is sacrificial (v7-13)

2.God’s kind of love is saving (v14-15)

3.God’s kind of love is secure (v16-18)

4.God’s kind of love is sanctifying (v19-21)

1.God’s kind of love is sacrificial (v7-13)

a.By sacrificial we mean God’s kind of love

1.holds nothing back

2.is totally undeserved

v9-10 describes how God first shows his sacrificial love among us

“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.”

How sacrificial is God’s kind of Love? His Son for our Sins! God holds nothing back. God sent His one and only Son.God’s kind of love is totally undeserved. This is never about us loving God first.

God’s sacrifical love also extends to Him giving us His Spirit (v13)

He gives the Son to the world (believer and non-believer) He gives the Spirit to the Church

Without the Spirit we cannot be Born again or Know him

2. God’s kind of love is saving (v14-15)

“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.”

We need to see that God’s kind of love is a saving love.

John 3:16 (TMSG) 16“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.

1.God’s kind of love saves us from our sins (v11)

“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

Jesus Christ satisfies the demands of the wrath of God

2.God’s kind of love saves us from fear (v18)

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

God’s kind of love saves from the inside out. God is in you.

Jesus on the inside, working on the outside. Oh what a change in my life.

3. God’s kind of love is secure (v16-18)

“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 him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the Day of Judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

Question #1 Will God ever stop loving me? No because God is love! For God to stop loving me would mean that God would stop being God.

Question #2 Can we rely on the love God has for us? We know we can rely on the love God has for us?

1. We know we can rely on the love God has for us by faith (rely = faith)

2. We know we can rely on the love God has for us from experience

“Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39)

Quote: “When I cannot trace his hand I can always trust his heart.”

Question 3 What about on the day of Judgment?

“we will have confidence on the Day of Judgment because God’s kind of love has done the necessary work in our lives. And that work? In this world we are like him.

Question 4. What about my fear of being punished by God?