Everyone is looking for love. This quest is around us every day, in the music we hear and the movies we watch.
• The desire is woven into the fibre of our being. We all need love. We need to be loved.
• If everyone has this same need, then there must be a universal solution. That solution is in God.
• John says love comes from God and God is love. Blaise Pascal puts it plainly: “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”
Ultimately we need to know and experience the love of God. There is no fulfilment in life without the love of God.
• The source of love is in God. It did not start with the object of love. His love for you has nothing to do with you. He has chosen to love you.
• You cannot demand it, earn it, win it, or try to woo Him for it. He does not love you because of who you are. He loves you because of who He is.
• The love of God is born from within Him, not from what He finds in us. His love is uncaused and spontaneous. It is His very nature to love unconditionally.
• And you can never change that!
(1) REST IN THE CERTAINTY OF HIS LOVE
Rom 8:38-39 “38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 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.”
• Actually it just means nothing. But the writer wants to make sure we understand.
• Not even angels or demons can do anything about it. Not even the future, or any powers – your sins and failures – they are powerless to change God’s love for you.
• In fact, He loves us while we were still sinners. (Rom 5:8)
We are confident in life today, not because we love Him, but because He loves us!
• And God demonstrated that – when He sent His Son Jesus to us. John says, “… that we might live through Him.”
• Love seeks the highest good for the object of love. God has your welfare at heart. He was thinking about you and He IS STILL THINKING about you today!
Imagine this for a moment – such a stance will stay that way FOREVER.
• Max Lucado (A Gentle Thunder, p.46): “God’s love never ceases. Never. Though we spurn him. Ignore him. Reject him. Despise hm. Disobey him. He will not change. Our evil cannot diminish his love. Our goodness cannot increase it. Our faith does not earn it anymore than our stupidity jeopardizes it. God doesn’t love us less if we fail or more if we succeed. God’s love never ceases.”
• Knowing we didn’t do anything to earn God’s love - means we do not need to live in fear of losing it either.
• If you did nothing to gain it, how could your performance (or lack of) lose it?
Jesus knows everything about us - the good, the bad and the ugly, the past, the present and the future - and He loves us still. Enjoy that freedom.
• 4:18 “There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives our fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
• You do not have to prove anything. He loves you for who you are. He sees through all of the stuff in your life and loves you just the same!
• Edmund Chan: You’ve nothing to prove, nothing to lose, and nothing to hide.
(2) ENJOY THE BLESSINGS OF HIS LOVE
Many are not enjoying being loved! They are still trying to prove that they are WORTHY of love. We need to BELIEVE God’s Word and ENJOY it.
Listen to how Paul prays for the Ephesians – Eph 3:17b-19
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Many are not enjoying the full measure of His love.
There is no way we can measure how much God loves us.
• It requires divine revelation to KNOW His love – we need the power to grasp because it surpasses knowledge.
• We pray for that revelation. We pray that we can all be convicted of this.
Many struggle to comprehend God’s love because of our human experience.
• We have been conditioned, throughout our lives, to measure love by what we do and how well we do it.
• Our loves are always conditioned by IF and BECAUSE - I love you if you do this, or I love you because you are cute. We can hardly imagine a love without conditions or expectations.
We need to CONVINCE ourselves that we are loved, despite our failures, despite our sin, despite our bad looks.
• The truth is, even if you have nothing to offer Him, even if you’ve never done anything, God still takes pleasure in you.
• Max Lucado: “The love of God is like the Amazon River flowing down to water one daisy.
What more does God have to do to show you that He loves you?
When we truly believe that we are loved and accepted, we no longer have to strive to make a good impression or try to score points with God.
• You are always highly favour, deeply loved and forever blessed. Enjoy it.
• You don’t have to compare yourself with someone else. You don’t have to compete for attention. God loves you as you are.
The world has conditioned us to compare and compete. We fear of being ostracised, being put aside, unwanted and unappreciated.
• Right from the start of life – sometimes at home (we compare our children) – from the Kindergarten to the University, from the classroom to the corporate world.
• People compare and compete. We want to stamp our superiority – to prove that we are somebody smarter, stronger, quicker, and better than others.
An object’s value is determined by the price paid for it. The value of God’s payment for us tells us how much we are worth to Him.
• John: “…He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (4:10)
• We are worth the life of His Son! That’s enough for me!
In 2002, a drawing was discovered in what used to be a maid’s room in one of the museums. The chalk drawing of a candlestick was one of 5 drawings sold collectively to the museum in 1940 for $60.
For decades, it sat in the storage until one day a visiting scholar recognized it for what it was: an original Michelangelo. Today, it is valued at more than $12 million.
What was the difference between the drawing in 2002 and the drawing now? Nothing. It’s the same drawing it has always been.
The only difference is that the artist is now known.
We have the touch of the Master’s hand; we are God’s workmanship. This realization makes all the difference!
• Sometimes, you may felt like an ordinary humble sketch tuck away, unnoticed in a storage room.
• The cross should convince you otherwise. God demonstrated His love for you.
• You are a priceless work of art in His eyes. Deut 32:10 “He shielded him and cared for him; He guarded him as the apple of His eye…”
Henry Ward Beecher: “No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.”
• You are a child of the living God. That’s who you are, that’s how rich and blessed you are.
• Meditate on that, be proud of that and ENJOY it. Live up to your name, and build up your godly character. Live like the child of the King.
God created you to be different and to make a difference in your world.
• He has a purpose for your life. If you constantly wish or desire to be someone else, you are not honouring God and you are wasting the person you are.
• There is never a need to worry about what others think, you just need to (1) REST in the certainty of His love for you and (2) ENJOY the blessings of His love.
(3) GIVE HIS LOVE AWAY
John says it many times in this passage. Love one another appears 4 times.
• Let the love of God flows out from your life like water that is kept running.
• You hoard it and it becomes stale. You let it flow and it stays fresh and clear, and becomes a blessing.
• Love is best experienced when it is given away.
You cannot exhaust God’s love. We are commanded to give it away.
• The more you give it away, the more you see His love being poured back into your life. God fills you up. He replenishes each time you give it away.
• If you are feeling miserable, it is a sign that you have not been giving your love away. You have been too self-centred, self-absorbed and selfish.
Reach out to those who are different. Get to them who are in need.
• You cannot love at a distance. Jesus did not speak to the lepers at a distance; He touched them. He did not stay away from the sinners; He ate with them.
• Touch someone today, in this room, this church, in your office or school this week.
• What you do with the love God has given you is the best gift you can offer Him, so give it away. Give more of it away.
CLOSE - Jer 31:3 “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
• May God continue to show us His love in a mighty way!
• Ask the Lord to touch us with a new revelation of His love for us.
PRAYER: Lord, let us rely upon and rest in the certainty of Your unchanging love for us, even when we don’t feel it. Help us to see it even in difficult times, to know that it’s always there, regardless of our performance. We thank you for Your love. Let it really sink into our hearts as we’ve never known it before. Open our eyes to see Your love this week…
