Heavenly Father, thank you that we have the privilege to have your word, to have your scripture.
Father, I ask that you would pour out the Holy Spirit upon us.
You'd open our hearts and our minds to your attributes,
to these things that you've revealed to us that describe your character.
Father, help us to understand them, to wrestle with them, and to accept them as truth.
And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Please be seated.
So we're going through the summer series titled Knowing God.
And what we're doing is, each week, we're going individually through each attribute of God,
because each attribute makes up God himself.
And the thing that you have to know with these attributes is,
you can't just cherry-pick one, lower the other, and heighten the other one,
because that would make God not God.
It would lower his sovereignty.
His true character.
We've gone through looking at God is triune.
God is infinite.
God is sovereign.
God is impassable.
And with these, we've also looked at him being omnipotent and omniscient.
And today, if you haven't noticed with the text that we've just read,
a lot of it has to do with love.
So today, we're going to be looking at God is love and his attribute of love.
And I know this is a hard thing to swallow sometimes, God's love.
We all come from different backgrounds.
Myself, I come from a background where my father abandoned me.
So I find it quite hard to grasp how God the father can love me.
Many of you might have this same feeling, difficulty.
You also might come from backgrounds of having, being in an abusive relationship,
where you thought this person was the ultimate, your love,
and then they started to abuse you and you had to leave it.
Some of you here could also be like, well, my spouse, the relationship I'm in is perfect.
I don't need any other love.
It's like, why do I need God's love?
If I'm in a perfect relationship, that fulfills me.
Other people here could also be, could say, well, I don't need this relationship thing,
this whole aspect of being a loving relationship.
I'll just have multiple partners and I'll be happy.
Or we see it in the movies or in the media or in books.
Everything always talks about love.
Our whole culture is obsessed with this notion of love.
But anything on this earth doesn't compare to the love of God.
And I would like to look at this.
I would like to look at his essence of love and what this means to us.
So if you could turn with me to 1 John 4, verses 8 to 10.
This is where we're going to camp out for most of this talk.
But we'll also mention two other texts as well that also talk about God's love.
So again, it's 1 John 4, verses 8 to 10.
And it says in verse 8.
It would be helpful if I had the right text.
Here we go.
So anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.
Now, some of you might be thinking right away that how can, if I don't love, how can I not know God?
I feel like I do a good job in my relationship loving.
Or I feel like our culture in a whole does a great job loving people.
I feel like it's the best it's ever been since the beginning.
And these are legitimate questions to ask.
But I would like to look at two concepts of love within our culture, which is cultural love and romantic love.
And cultural love, you see this as you walk down many city center streets.
You see love is love.
Or you hear the Beatles song in the back of your head.
Sometimes you hear it playing in coffee shops.
All you need is love.
Or I saw this.
I live in Perth, and I saw this walking down the street.
Love, light, and truth are essential.
You also might think you might have this mindset where, like, I just need to find the one true love, and I'll be truly satisfied.
You also hear just love one another.
You also hear love wins.
Now, what do all these mean?
Like, what do these, all these slogans that we hear so often, what do they truly mean?
When you look at a more narrow look.
You see, if we just look at love is love, we've seen this very, it's been very heightened within this past pandemic that we've just, we're going through.
We're still going through, but the height of it, when everyone was in lockdown.
You hear love is love.
Love your neighbor.
And you hear the culture over and over again saying this.
But what exactly is it talking about?
Because if you look at it, this love is conditioned.
This is a very conditioned love.
When people say love is love, but then at the same time, they say you have to follow this certain path, this certain, when the culture says,
you must follow love is love, you must love everyone, but if you don't follow my mindset, you cannot be loving.
You're instantly marginalized from the culture.
Why is that?
Why is it that when this culture that we have is so obsessed with saying we must love each other, we must do all this stuff,
but then at the same time, it will turn its back on you if you do not follow its narrative?
Why is that?
So the love of the culture is conditional.
You have to check certain boxes to be accepted, or you face this new common trend as being canceled.
You get canceled out.
You get marginalized.
You get pushed to the side while they continue their thrust.
And it's all in the name of love.
It's the dominant force of the culture.
And you also see this in our Western culture that it deems its interpretation of love as the most, as the best.
But at the same time, when you look at other cultures, they have different ways of loving their spouses,
showing love to their children, and all that kind of stuff.
So why does everyone have all these different notions of love?
You see, the human form of love is conditioned.
It wants something.
In order for it to love, it must possess it.
It must possess the person.
It must possess the object.
It must possess this feeling, the job.
It must possess the job in order to love it.
It must possess its identity.
It must possess it.
And when you continue looking at the cultural love, you start to see all these cracks,
all these seams that when you start looking at when people say love is love or all you need is love,
that you see how it starts to fall apart when you actually look at how it requires you to be a certain way.
If it doesn't, then it doesn't love you.
How is that love?
And then if you move into romantic love,
this is the love that is so heightened,
it's so put to the pedestal of what everyone deems love is.
And there's three forms of love in this.
There's having multiple partners.
There's just being true to yourself.
You can just be with whoever you want because you feel like this is your form of showing love.
There's also the dating form of love.
When you find someone,
and this person infatuates you.
Many of you could have been in a dating relationship,
or you are in a dating relationship,
and you feel like there's nothing that this person could do wrong.
You love them so much that they couldn't do anything wrong,
and you're almost tunnel-visioned,
and you're willing to sacrifice anything for them
and do anything you want for them.
And then there's the marriage love.
And in marriage, you say these vows.
You give these vows of love.
You're saying,
I will protect,
I will honor,
I will cherish you until death do us part.
See, most of us have experienced this kind of love.
And at the same time,
there could be some people here saying,
well, I've also experienced heartache.
And many of us have experienced heartache.
We've also,
there could be people here watching,
or sitting in this audience,
that you've also experienced a broken marriage.
How can something that feels so perfect,
at one moment say,
this is the ultimate,
this is the thing I will cherish most,
and then at the next time,
fall apart?
How is that?
Why is that?
You see, it comes back to the human problem
of the corrupt heart,
of it must be satisfied.
You see, in a dating relationship,
when you're,
when you're walking together in a dating relationship,
if that person stops to satisfy you,
or stops to give you that feeling
that you have at the beginning,
it normally ends.
That's when it becomes hard.
And that's when a lot of people
will just lay it to the side,
and say they'll just love again.
It's the same thing in marriages.
A lot of marriages have,
once one of the spouses
stops almost fulfilling the other spouse,
they start looking to the other way.
And this is glorified,
if you watch Netflix,
you see it in many shows on Netflix,
that there would be a couple
walking together,
enjoying life,
and then all of a sudden,
something happens,
and then one of the spouses
goes looking for love
at somewhere else.
And then it glorifies the affair.
Why is that?
Why,
why does the human,
why does humanity glorify
this love,
but when you look closer at it,
it's broken?
The love is broken.
Why is that?
Again,
it comes down to,
it's conditioned.
It's all conditional love.
Another good illustration,
you see this at many weddings,
is the wedding ring.
When you get married,
you give a ring to your partner.
You could hear officiants
or ministers say sometimes
that the ring symbolizes
the ultimate love,
because it's a circle.
It never breaks.
It's continuous.
And then you put it on
your left finger,
ring finger,
and apparently,
that's the,
has a vein that goes
all the way to your heart.
You see that a lot
at weddings.
And that's a great illustration.
I'm not dissing it or anything.
It's a great illustration.
But there's one problem with it
when you,
when you look closely at it.
You see the ring,
it's made of metal.
It's made of gold,
silver.
It could be silicone nowadays.
That breaks.
The ring can break.
It just,
it can break.
And that's the same thing
with human love.
Human love breaks.
It's not infallible.
It's not perfect
because it always breaks
or can break
or becomes conditional
or disoriented
or jaded.
You see,
when we look at God's love,
when we look at
the love of the Father,
we see that
when you read about it,
the love of the Father
has always been
before creation.
It has been
since the beginning
in the Trinity
that George talked about
that the Father loves the Son
and the Son loves the Father
and through that
they both love the Holy Spirit
and the Holy Spirit loves them
and it's almost like
a continuous circle.
But the thing
that's so drastically different
about God's love
is that it's before time.
It wasn't created.
Human love is created.
God's love is not.
It's perfect.
It's ever being.
It's always been.
It always will be.
It always will be perfect.
Now,
there's this common trend
in some churches
or some,
you see,
in the culture
you hear about too
that God is almost
looked at as a grandfather,
as a happy grandfather
that would just tell you,
like,
just slap you on the hand
when you do things wrong
and stuff like that.
this is a very common belief
of God
that he's just a happy grandfather.
He just shows up
then he leaves
at a family thing
like a grandfather does.
But that's not the case.
Now,
some of you might be asking,
well,
Matt,
you say there's a loving God,
but what about hell?
How could God
be so loving
if there's a thing called hell?
Why would he create hell?
And there could be,
there's these misconceptions
that hell is this place of fire,
this place of,
this big lake of fire.
So when you read about that
in the Bible,
when it says lake of fire,
fire,
it's not literally talking
about this,
like,
burning place
of eternal,
eternal burning.
It's symbolism.
Because it also says
in the Bible
that Jesus will return
in fire and glory.
God met,
met Abraham
in the bush.
You see,
all these things
that say fire,
it's not,
doesn't mean,
it's not,
it's a,
it's a metaphor
for something else.
And hell,
what hell is,
is that God created
free will
out of love.
Because it wouldn't be loving
if there was no free will.
We would all just be puppets.
It'd be like a parent
who completely smothers
their child
and doesn't allow them
to make any mistakes
or anything like that.
We would all say
that's unloving.
See,
what hell is,
see,
because God created
free will,
he allows us
to have choices,
to make decisions.
And because of this,
when,
when God puts forward
the chance of faith,
to have faith in his son,
if you turn away from him,
that is your free will,
that is your own decision,
that is your own decision
to be lost in yourself.
And because of this,
God allows it.
So on the day of judgment,
God will allow
you to continue
in your free will
of decision
of being separated
from God.
And what hell is,
hell is you
continuing
in your own being,
doing your own thing,
but you'll have
the knowledge
that you are separated
from God,
which will be
the worst thing
possible.
But it doesn't end there.
But you see,
everyone here,
we're all corrupt beings.
We're all corrupt
because of the fall.
And if you look at
in verses 9 and 10
in 1 John chapter 4,
it says,
in this,
the love of God
was made manifest
among us,
that God sent
his only son
into the world
so that we might
live through him.
In this is love,
not that we
have loved God,
but that he loved us
and sent his son
to be the propitiation
for our sins.
See,
God in his loving kindness
created the world
and created humans
in his image.
But the human heart
rebelled against him
because he created
free will.
The human heart
is corrupt
and sinned.
Because of this,
God's wrath
has to be appeased.
Everyone deserves death
because sin
is a separation
of being with God.
It's completely different
from his character,
which is perfect.
Now,
some of you might be saying,
why am I accountable
for this?
Why am I accountable
for something
I didn't do
that something
happened so long ago?
It's a funny question
because when we look
at our culture,
it does the same thing
to so many people.
It holds everyone accountable.
It demands
atonement.
It demands a sacrifice.
But it never provides
a way out.
It never gives forgiveness.
But God,
God's justice
is perfect.
God's love is perfect
and he provided
a way out.
If you look again
at verse 10,
it says,
in this is love,
not that we loved God,
but that he loved us
and sent his son
to be the propitiation
for our sins.
Propitiation means sacrifice,
stood in our place.
See,
God sent his son
into the world.
Jesus Christ
lived a perfect life.
He went to the cross
willingly,
lovingly,
obeying the Father.
And he died
a death for us.
The Father,
full of righteous,
the Father,
full of righteous wrath
against us,
nevertheless,
loved us so much
that he sent his son.
The son,
out of love,
obeys the Father
and goes to the cross.
And the son,
out of love for us,
stands in our place
and takes the death
we deserved
and redeems us.
That is the beautiful thing
of God's love.
That the human race
was so long gone
from God
that there's no hope
for them.
God provides a way out.
He sends his son
for us
because he loves us,
because God is love
and his perfect being,
Jesus Christ comes.
Now,
if this is true,
and if you want to see
God's wrath,
look at the cross.
If you want to see
the love of God,
look to the cross.
Both these things
are intertwined.
You can't separate them.
They're together.
And in closing,
if this is true,
what must we do?
You see,
John's gospel,
he says it best.
He puts it best
in chapter 3,
verse 16.
He says,
For God so loved the world
that he gave his only son
that whoever believes in him
should not perish
but have eternal life.
Friends,
if you're watching here,
if you're here present
or if you're watching online
and you do not know Jesus,
now is the time
to put your faith
and trust in him
because God
is the ultimate
essence of love.
He is love
and it's been made manifest
through Jesus Christ
on the cross for us.
There could be also
some of you here
who believe in Jesus
but you feel like
you fail constantly,
constantly,
over and over again
and you think to yourself,
like,
how could God love me?
How could God love
such a sinner as myself?
Well, you see,
the Bible is full
of instances
where we see
people struggle.
These people of great faith
are struggling constantly
and you see it
in Romans 7.
Paul is writing
to the church in Rome
and he's talking
about his struggle,
his indwelling sin
where he can't,
he can't stop sinning.
It drives him mad.
He calls himself a wretch.
He is wretched.
But you see,
when you've put your faith
and trust in Jesus
and God's love,
you can shout for joy
as Paul does in Romans,
in Romans 8,
verses 38 and 39
when he says,
For I am sure
that neither death
nor life,
nor angels,
nor rulers,
nor things present,
nor things to come,
nor powers,
nor height,
nor depth,
nor anything else
in all creation,
will be able to separate us
from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
See, God has revealed
his love through Jesus Christ
to save us
out of his love.
Another example
I could give is,
picture this,
picture four friends
on a canoe trip
and they've been going,
say they're in a Galquin Park,
and they come up
to a portage
and they bring stuff over
and normally at a portage
one person will stay behind
at the next lake
and start filling the canoes
to be efficient
and while the other people
go back and get all the rest
of the stuff,
the paddles and the bags
and all that.
But let's say
one of the friends
couldn't swim
and he's the one
who's loading the canoes
and it's deep there
and he falls in by accident
and he can't swim
and he begins to drown.
He begins to struggle
to stay above
and the three other friends
come back.
Now, what if one of the friends
says,
well, that's just his fate in life.
That's just how it's always been.
That's just how
survival of the fittest,
he's clearly not fit enough
to survive.
The other friend
gives examples
and instructions
on how to save himself,
how to get out
of the water,
how to grab the canoe
or how to pull himself to shore,
but he can't do it.
And then the fourth friend
jumps into the water
and grabs him
and pulls him to shore
and saves him.
Now, why do I give this example
if I'm talking about God's love?
You see,
they use this example,
the first friend
who gives the example of,
oh, well, it's just his point in life
to die right now.
That is the atheistic worldview
that it's just survival of the fittest,
dog-eat-dog world.
The third friend
who provides the instructions,
that's all other religions.
They give you instructions.
The secular mindset
gives you instructions
on how to attain enlightenment
or how to reach a God
that's just far separated.
But then there's the fourth friend.
And that's the fourth friend
who jumped in.
You see,
the Christian God,
Jesus Christ,
he came into the world
to pull us out from ourselves,
to pull us out from the sin
that we are so entangled with
that we can't save ourself.
As I read in John's epistle
where it says,
God's love is manifested.
Not that we loved God,
but that he loved us.
You see,
out of God's love,
he sent his son for us.
He pulls us out of our mess
and provides us
free,
he provides us salvation.
Now is the time
to put your faith in Jesus.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father,
thank you
that you are the perfect,
you are perfect love,
that your being is love,
that your love is manifested
through Jesus Christ on the cross,
the saving work.
Father,
I just pray for all of us here
that we would begin to understand
how great that is,
how great your love is.
Help us,
Lord,
to also understand
that how each thing
is intertwined
to show your perfect character.
that you are the God of love,
the only true form of love
that never breaks.
And I pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.