Because He First Loved Us Series

Because He First Loved Us

God’s love for us produces love in us

God’s love in us, enables us to…

…Love others…

… Sacrificially

… Undeservedly

God’s love for us is received through believing in Jesus

Good morning. You can go ahead and be seated.

We are glad that you are here.

We started a series last week talking about some of the issues that have been raised in the movie Fireproof that came out last weekend. I hope you have had a chance to see it, because it truly is a powerful film.

This morning we are going to be talking about God’s love and how He loved us and how He wants us to love others.

Take a look at this clip from the movie as we prepare to talk about God’s love.

Show video Clip “the Cross”

Slide

One of the things that Caleb’s dad tells him in this clip is

“You can’t love her because you can’t give her what you don’t have.”

I want to ask,

Is that really true?

Is it true that we can’t love because we haven’t received God’s love?

I know many people who appear to love their kids and they are not Christians

I know many people who say they love their spouses who are not Christians.

They have never hit their spouse

They have never physically cheated on their spouse

So is it true that we can’t love because we haven’t received God’s love?

Well that depends on how you describe love.

Our society tends to define love as an emotional feeling.

We are in love so we drift off in our dreams thinking of our wife or fiancée or girlfriend.

Or we love our kids because they are a part of us and they bring us joy.

The Bible doesn’t define love in terms of some feeling however.

The Bible defines love in terms of actions and commitment and choices.

Listen to this passage in 1 Corinthians that we often hear at weddings, and is talking about what love is as God defines it.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.

Those things are all actions and or decisions that are being made.

This is how love is being defined in the Bible.

Now when we stop and look at our lives, we might think that we do those things some of the time.

Caleb thought that too.

But if we stop and think, we will find that we are not always those things.

We do not always choose to be patient

We do not always choose to be kind.

We may do that sometimes, but we fail so many other times.

And the times we do choose to be kind or patient is often time in accordance with how we feel.

I’ll be patient until I don’t feel like it anymore.

I’ll be kind, until that person pushes me too far, then forget it.

I will keep no record of wrongs, until we are fighting and then I will pull out how you wronged me.

To love the way the Bible talks about we can see that it is going to require something or Someone greater than ourselves working through us and helping us to experience love when we fail.

Transition

Turn with me to 1 John 4:7-16 (p.863) It is all the way at the back of your Bibles.

Slide

This morning we are going to be taking a look at what God says about love and how He loved us so we might be able to love others with His kind of love.

1 John 4:7-16

7 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 We know that we live in him and he in us, because 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 him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.