Chico Alliance Church
Pastor David Welch
Impossible Love Part 7 or “Unimaginable Love Realized”
INTRODUCTION
Love is a desire and decision to meaningfully connect with others
evidenced by sacrificial deeds and energizing interaction.
I. Realize His Unimaginable Love
A. God is love
God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 1 John 4:16
God always loves. It is His nature to desire and decide to connect with us. He delights to relate to His children. He seeks responders. (John 4) Everything God does is motivated by a desire to relate to us.
B. Love comes from God and is taught by God.
hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out (spilled, gushed out – perfect tense verb indicating a past action with continuing results i.e. poured out and still there!) within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Rom 5:8
God instills a deep longing to connect with others and serf others at salvation. He floods every believer’s soul with a desire for connection.
For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline (self-control).
God teaches us to love.
Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are continually taught by God to love one another 1 Thess 4:9-12
C. Love for God and others is the central point of the entire Bible.
And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:37-40
Let all that you do be done in love. 1 Cor. 16:14
Intimate relationship with God and meaningful connection with people is the heart of the Gospel. As ambassadors for Christ we are to beg people to be reconciled to God. That means we are to beg people to enter into intimate relationship with God again. To reconcile is to restore unhindered relationship.
D. Love is the result of surrender to work of the Holy Spirit
“The fruit of the Spirit is love…” Gal 5:22
Love is the natural result of walking by the direction and energy of the Spirit.Walking by the Spirit comes by active trust in God, not ourselves, to produce the impossible in us on the basis of His promise.
E. The body of Christ teaches us and motivates us to love
But you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, 1 Tim 3:10-11
let us consider(study intently) how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near. Hebrews 10:21
Not only do other body members teach us to love by encouragement and example but through continual prayers for our increased love (Paul prayed continually that they would increase in love.)
F. Love may continually grow and increase
Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, 1 Thes. 4:9-10
Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you; and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all men, just as we also do for you; so that He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. 1 Thess 3:11-13
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Philip. 1:9-11
Desires can grow stronger. Growing in love has to do with the intensity of desire as well as the increase in deeds. We learn though words as well as witness. We learn through explanation as well as example.
G. Love involves personal participation
God enables us to love first by purifying the selfish bent inherited from our forefathers. God enables us to love by flooding our hearts with His love. God teaches us to love.
We learn love from the body. We also have a part in this love thing.
“Put on love which is the perfect bond of unity.” Col 3:14
But flee from these things (fleshly pursuits), you man of God; and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. 1 Tim. 6:11
Here is where we make a decision based on the desire of our heart to act. It is not passive. It has action built into it. We have a personal responsibility. God puts the desire in us and we must then make the decision to act on it and pursue expression of that desire to meaningfully interact with people.
H. Obedience to God reveals growing love for God.
Whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. 1 John 2:3-6
The more we love God the more we voluntarily and enthusiastically keep His word. The more we enthusiastically connect to Him, the greater desire to connect with others.
I. Love is a protective shield
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. Jude 1:20-21
But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. 1 Thes. 5:8
God’s love is a shelter in a world that desires to destroy anything that is related to good and God’s kingdom. No matter what rages around us, we are assured that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
J. Understanding love leads to divine fullness.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Ephes. 3:14-19
What prevents life-changing perception?
Ignorance , False information, Distorted ideas, Strained relationship, Guilt, Pride
Get a clear concept of what God’s love is all about. Realize that God loves us with this unimaginable love that passes human understanding.
II. Receive His unimaginable Love for you
Let us cry out to God for a fuller understanding of His love for us.
What prevents us from receiving His unimaginable love?
Guilt Bitterness Fear Ignorance Misinformation
III. Repent of failure to love
How serious is a failure to love one another? How serious is it to neglect meaningful connection with people?
Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. 1 John 3:13-18
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8
If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. 1 John 4:20-21
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. 1 John 5:1
Let’s be honest about where we are. This is black and white. He who does not love abides in death. We cannot love God without loving the people of God.
• Let us cry out to God for forgiveness.
• Let us cry out for significant healing in our soul that prevents us from releasing genuine love to those God brings into our circle of influence.
• Let us cry out for a new work in the very core of our souls that we may learn to fervently love one another from the heart.
The only way to resolve our lack of love is repentance and confession c0oncerning our failure to really connect with God.
IV. Reflect His unimaginable Love to others
The last days will be filled with those whose love has grown cold. People will be lovers of self more than lovers of God. Parents will be without natural affection. The consequences of a fleshly walk will be evident by deterioration in relationships. The church will lose its first love for God that will affect their love for each other. Carnality will result in internal fighting and disputes and jealousy. Rather than assemble more often, which the Bible instructs us to do as the end draws nearer, fleshly Christians isolate from one another. Isolation is the desire of the flesh not the Spirit. God created us for fellowship and meaningful connection. The flesh does like being around people because of continual exposure for what it is – selfish. Those in the flesh will be miserable around people our failure to love like God loves keeps getting challenged. Love longs to touch the needs of people.
Much of our interaction is mere tolerance and politeness. We no longer desire meaningful connection with the entire body of Christ. We pick and choose whom we will significantly relate to based on how comfortable they make ME feel or what they can do for me. We choose to relate to people based on a comfort or discomfort level. This, my friends, is not genuine love. This is hypocritical love and God tells us to love WITHOUT hypocrisy. This is impossible love and God tells us that with Him all things are possible even loving our enemies.
When we realize our cup is full of His eternally renewable love for us we will joyfully reflect that love to others. We will know we are His children by His love for us and our love for others. The world will recognize our connection to Christ by how we love one another. May God’s love pour out of our hearts like rivers to our families, to our friends, to our coworkers, to strangers, and yes even to our enemies. May our desire to meaningfully pursue relationship with God and others increase. May our desire to connect intensify, decisions to pursue connection solidify, deeds demonstrating our desire to connect multiply.
APPLICATION
• May our desire to connect more meaningfully with God increase
• May our desire to connect more meaningfully with our family increase
• May our desire to connect more meaningfully with the church family increase
• May our desire to connect more meaningfully with our neighbors and coworkers increase
• May our desire to connect more meaningfully with our community increase
• May desire to connect more meaningfully with our enemies increase
If we notice an obvious failure to connect with people, we are somehow disconnected with God who deeply longs to touch people through us. We are his body. We are his hands, his arms, his feet, and His heart. It is His heart of love that meaningfully touches and connects with people. For the more we demonstrate genuine love the more the world will realize that God is in our midst and in us.
