God Is Love

Introduction

Who decided? Who decided that a random day in the middle of February would be a day that we would celebrate love. The cynical among us would think maybe it was a conspiracy between the flower, chocolate, helium, and restaurant business. I don’t really know who decided. You can go back and trace the history of Valentine’s Day, and it’s changed so much that it really doesn’t resemble at all what it originally started out to be. Who decided that today would be a day that you’d give flowers, chocolate, cards to show love? I know who decided that the first day of the week would be a day chosen to contemplate love. God’s love for us and our love for God.

I felt like it was appropriate on this random yet not random day where Valentine’s Day falls on the first day of the week for us to talk about love. Not the love that’s normally associated with this holiday, but the love that should be associated with this day being the first day of the week. When we think about love in the scriptures, when we think about love specifically in the New Testament, there are a lot of passages that we could choose from to talk about and highlight love. But I want to talk about two this morning, two that I think maybe are two of the most remembered passages of the New Testament that talk about love. The simple statement in 1 John chapter 4 and in verse 8 that says, He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

That brief three-word statement of who God is and at the same time of what love is.

I think of another New Testament passage that is so often associated with the concept of love, that would be the oft-used passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. In fact, if we took a poll this morning among our audience to say, name a New Testament passage that talks about love. And if we tried to push you in that direction, that we’d say that it talks about love in a descriptive way. Many of the respondents would say 1 Corinthians 13. Talks about what love is and how love is exhibited. When it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, begin with me in verse 4. Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.

Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails.

1 Corinthians chapter 13 tells us what love is. That love is long suffering and kind and not envious, not proud, not rude, and not selfish, not self-seeking, not easily provoked, does not think evil, but is happy in iniquity, is not happy in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. It’s bearing, believing, hoping, and it never fails.

God is love. And this is love. And so we can we put those two passages of Scripture together and get not just a description of what love is, but of who God is. We normally think of 1 Corinthians chapter 13 as, and correctly so, as a statement of how I need to be loving. Here’s what I need to do. Here’s the attributes. If I’m to be a loving Christian, here are the attributes that I need to have in my life. And that’s certainly the import of that passage. But if that’s what love is and how love is demonstrated, and if God is love, then won’t it follow that that’s what God is? That every one of those attributes of love are attributes of God. Because God is love.

1. Love Is Long-Suffering, God Is Long-Suffering

We won’t take the time to look at all of those attributes that I believe describe our God, but let’s look at a few of them. To highlight the fact that our God is a loving God. Our God is long-suffering. Love is long suffering. Turn over to the book of 2 Peter, chapter 3. Peter is dealing with a false teaching that God has delayed his coming out of some shortcoming of God.

While Peter acknowledges that God has delayed his second coming and with it the judgment. Peter will not accept the fact that it’s because of some shortcoming with God, but it’s because of a long-suffering of God. Look in 2 Peter chapter 3 and in verse 9. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us. Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Love is long-suffering. God is long-suffering. Why doesn’t God come and judge us right now? You know, I often think of that passage in regard to the second coming and the final judgment, but I think we can make another application of that of God just coming in judgment. Study the Old Testament. We’re doing that in our Bible classes on Sunday night and Wednesday night. And by the way, I hope you’ll join us. And you see the judgment of God. Now you see the grace and the long suffering of God, but you see the judgment and the somewhat direct and immediate judgment. That in times past, God wouldn’t wait to judge his people. He would send a plague. Or send poisonous serpents or open up the earth or send fire down from heaven.

And as recent in the New Testament, when those who lied to the Holy Spirit were struck dead, husband and wife. Why doesn’t God do that to you and me? Not only why does he delay his second coming and the final judgment, why does he delay judgment? Why doesn’t he strike me down? It cannot be said because I don’t deserve it. But why? Because God is love. And love suffers long. And God is patient with me. When I personalize this, I think about how many opportunities God has given me to be saved. How many opportunities God has given me to repent of my sins and to do what is right because God is long-suffering. Because God is love. Another passage, another idea or attribute of love is that love is kind.

2. Love Is Kind, God Is Kind

You know, kindness is one of those things we don’t talk about a lot in this kind of environment, but is certainly appropriate. It’s such a simple concept, but a beautiful concept. And really kindness is the idea of love put into action. Love is kind. God is kind. Again, personalize this concept and think of all the ways that God has blessed you. We challenged our congregation at the end of last year and the beginning of this year that it was easy to look back on 2020 and think of negative things. You didn’t even have to try. But we challenged one another to look back on 2020 and think of some good things that happened. And they were there. In our mind, they can easily be overshadowed by the negative, because sometimes we have the propensity to emphasize the negative over the positive.

But I can look back over the last two months of this year, the last year, in fact, my entire life, and think of ways in which God has shown kindness to me. An abundance of kindness. And thinking about that abundance, look in Ephesians chapter 3. The apostle talks about the abundance of God’s grace, mercy, love, and kindness. Ephesians 3, begin reading with me in verse 14, where it says, For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. That Christ might dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and the height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. As Paul is likes to do, he just stacks word upon word and praise upon praise of a God who, in the riches of his glory, the riches of his grace, has abundantly blessed us, in fact, can and does bless us far above that which we can even think of. God is love. Love is kind. And our God is kind. And he’s shown us that over and over again. First Corinthians 13 tells us that love is not proud. It’s not puffed up, it doesn’t think of itself.

3. Love Is Not Proud, Not Puffed Up

Is that not an attribute of our God? We think of pride normally in the terms of an inflated view of self in comparison or contrast to others. I’m proud because I’m better than you.

And we usually remind ourselves and remind one another that that’s simply not the case. I cannot and I should not be proud because I, in fact, am not better than you. But what about God? He is better than us. Yet he is not proud. Tim took us to Philippians chapter two in our Lord’s Supper discussion this morning that talks about the humility that we should have, which is the mind of Christ, that he as deity had, who was in the form of God, but took on the likeness of men. He had every right to be proud. But he was not. He humbled himself, that text tells us, and in a regression, he took the likeness of men. He took the form of a servant, not just man, but a servant.

And then he would die. But not just die, but the death of the cross. The humiliation of God is seen in the person of Jesus Christ.

It’s really epitomized in the person of Jesus Christ, but it’s really seen in every action and interaction that God has with us. God’s humility is seen simply in the fact that God would have anything to do with us. Because we’re so unworthy. That God would communicate to us, speaks of his humility. That God would bless us, do for us, answer us when we pray, and send his only begotten son, demonstrates, yes, his love, but it demonstrates his humility. That he would humble himself to reach out to us in such profound ways. And we’re left wondering why. Why would God do that? And the scriptures tell us because God is love.

You made your bed, now lie in it. And on the basis of judgment and righteousness, would have been right in doing so. God, by the virtue of his foreknowledge, knowing what we would do if he created us and gave us a free will, God could just have well suspended the whole idea of creation. But he didn’t.

4. Love Is Not Happy in Iniquity

And he loved us anyway, and he spoke to us anyway. John chapter 15 and verse 13, again, in the person of Jesus Christ, epitomizes this characteristic of love, and therefore this characteristic of Jesus Christ. Jesus, speaking to his disciples, said in John 15, famously in John 15, verse 13, greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. Love doesn’t seek its own. And God is love. Love is not happy in iniquity. That’s translated variously in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. The English Standard Version says, does not rejoice at wrongdoing. The New King James translates it, keeps no records of wrongs. Now, while it is certainly true that God does keep a record of our wrongs, it is also and more profoundly for our sake, true that God, because of his humility, because he does not seek his own, because he is love, is willing, more than willing, to eradicate that record of wrongs.

We talked about this recently in God’s capacity to forgive, that his capacity to forgive is so much greater than ours, than ours to forgive others and ours to forgive ourselves. We talked about, remember in the book of Micah, chapter 7, in a book that talks about condemning a whole nation because of their wrongdoing. It says of our God that he delights in mercy. Delights in forgiving. We talked about the psalmist in Psalm 103 that talks about how God removes our iniquities. As far as the east is from the west, so he’s removed our iniquities from us. And so while there is a record of wrongdoing, because our God is love, there is the removal of that record. Though he could, our God does not hold a grudge, but he forgives.

5. He’s Always Been a God of Love

Yes, of righteousness and of judgment and at times wrath, but he’s also always been a God of love. Sometimes we have a mistaken notion about God. We talk about the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. Because the God of the Old Testament was angry all the time. He was judging and smiting and killing people. But the God of the New Testament is the God who sent his only begotten Son. That’s just wrong. God was the same then as he is now. Again, the Hebrew writer said, Behold the goodness.

Yes, there’s judgment, there’s condemnation, there is wrath, but there’s always been mercy and grace. And to think otherwise is just completely to misunderstand and maybe not in depth enough study the Old Testament and how God interacted with people then. In 1 Peter chapter 5, we see that our God is love.

Casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you.

Conclusion

He cares for us with a never failing love. He’s there for us. And so what do we do with this? Turn with me back to 1 John chapter 4, where we started this morning. God is love, John tells us. Paul tells us this is what love is. When we put those two together, we see that this is what God is. God is long-suffering, God is kind, God is not proud. He’s not self-seeking. He’s not happy at iniquity. And he never fails. But John wants us to know that while that is God, there’s another lesson for us. Read with me in 1 John chapter 4, beginning in verse 7. Beloved, 1 John 4, verse 7, beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us, that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. On this day, that has been so capriciously dedicated to love. Let’s never forget that on this first day of the week that has intentionally been devoted to God. That God is love. And that we’re to love like God. And so we go to places such as 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and we ask ourselves, is that me?

Does that list describe me? But we also go to every biblical example and description of the love of God. And we challenge ourselves by saying, Is that me? Am I my father’s child? God is love. Am I? God is long suffering. God is kind, God is humble, and so he’s made a way for you to come back to Him, though undeserving. Because that’s what love does. Love makes a way for reconciliation. Would you come back to God this morning? Come and approach a God of love. And you’ll see the love of others as we rejoice in and with you as you make your pathway back to God. Because God is love. Will you come right now as together we stand and as we sing?

Oh my God.