God is love. If the modern church in America has fixated on anything, it is fixated on that. And, it is a very important attribute of God. Does this mean that God loves everyone the same? What do we do with the Scripture that says that God hated Esau?  Find out in this message.

Teaching Notes:

The God Of The Bible Is Love

Intro: 1Jn.4:8 – “God is Love.” 1 of verses every non-Christian knows. True. But not true that is all God is. John tells us in 3 different places that God is spirit (Jn.4:24); God is light (1Jn.1:5), and God is love (1Jn.4:8). God is immaterial, holy, and love. Have talked about His immateriality, and holiness. Now, discuss Him being love. The Meaning of God’s Love: “self-sacrificial commitment to do another good.” Good definition for God’s love and ours! All the good that any creature ever receives is a fruit of His love.

1. Who Does God Love? Electing Love

1 sense in which God’s love is General. He loves every person He has made. Gives it life. Provides food, air, water.

Mt.5:43-45 “You have heard that it was said, `YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.´ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” We are called to love our enemies, so that we will be like God. How does He love His enemies? Causes His sun to rise on evil, and sends rain on unrighteous. Loves all with benefits of common grace.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” If we take “world” here in broad sense, saying God loved all men by providing Savior. His atonement sufficient for all. Would meet spiritual need of all. Called to preach gospel to all. Salvation offered to all. Demonstration of great love! None deserve that salvation should be provided or offered to them. If a man not saved, has only himself to blame. Not that God won’t let Him come to Christ. It is, rather that Jn.5:40 “you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” Rom.10:21 – “All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”

But there is another sense in which God’s love is Particular. Objects of His love are His elect. To them, not only provides and offers salvation. He guarantees that they will receive salvation!

Rom.1:7 “to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints”

Rom.9:10-13 “And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.” Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”

Col.3:12 “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;

1Thess.1:4 “knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you”

2Thess.2:13 “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.”

Jude 1:1 “Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ”
Why is God’s Love Particular? Who is the Supreme Object of God’s Love? Jesus Christ!

Jn.17:24 “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”

3x – “This is My beloved Son.” Jesus is the only altogether lovely one. Only One Father had good reason to love. Why does God love us? Cuz see us “in Christ.” God just keeps on showering His love on Christ, & cuz we are in Christ, we are the eternal recipients of God’s love.

2. Why Does God Love? Sovereign Love

Deut.7:6-8 “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

Eph.2:1-5 “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)”

1 John 4:19 “We love, because He first loved us.”
God didn’t love us cuz we loved Him. We loved ourselves, the world, desires of our flesh. Although He altogether lovely, in our fallenness we didn’t love Him. Yet, we are altogether unlovely, but He set His love on us! Nothing in us to attract His love – only to repel it, and make Him hate me (depraved, guilty, polluted, and dead). God’s love is free, spontaneous, uncaused by us. Reason He loves can be found only in Himself – not in us. We love someone cuz they are nice to us, serve us, and make us feel good. Not God!

3. When Did God Begin To Love? Eternal Love

Jer.31:3 “The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.”

Eph.1:4-6 “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

4. What Can Separate Us From God’s Love? Invincible Love

Rom.8:35-39 “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Jer.32:40 “I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.”
Love we experience from others clouded by fear. Never know will last. Marriages end in divorce; friendships break up; families torn apart. No earthly love is totally and absolutely secure. We try to tighten commitments by formalizing them w/ sacred & solemn covenants. Even this doesn’t guarantee will last. God keeps on loving even when that love not returned. His love won’t let us go. It is a love that fulfills His commitment. God’s love is as He is – from everlasting to everlasting – absolutely secure.

5. How Vast Is God’s Love? Unfathomable Love

Eph.2:4 – “His great love”
Eph.3:19 – “…the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge”
Jn.17:23 “I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

6. How Did God Love? Sacrificial Love

Rom.5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Eph.5:2 “just as Christ loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”

Eph.5:25 “Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”

Gal.2:20 “the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

1Jn.3:16 “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

1Jn.4:10 “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.”

Why was Cross the supreme demonstration of God’s Love?

1) Consider how Precious Jesus was to Father: “only Son.” One w/ Himself. In parting w/ Him, was parting w/ own heart. Col.1:13 – “His dear Son.” Consider what God gave: most priceless and valuable thing could.

2) Consider what God gave Jesus to do: death. Made curse. Become scorn and contempt of men. Hideous and shameful sufferings. God gave Him over to wrath of infinite God, to very torments of hell.

3) Consider who He gave His Son for: not holy angels. Not men as friends. Men as enemies! Men wholly undeserving and rebellious against Him.

4) Consider how freely God gave Jesus: we didn’t ask for Him, nor did we deserve Him. God gave Christ freely; unsought and unbought.

7. What Are The Effects of God’s Love? Effectual Love

A. He delivers us from the penalty of sin

Rev.1:5 “To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood.”
Titus 3:4-5 “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us”

1Jn.3:1 “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God”

B. He delivers us from the power of sin

Eph.5:25-26 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word

Heb.12:6,10 “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives… He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.”
Rev.3:19 “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.”

C. He delivers us from the presence of sin

Eph.5:27 “He loved the church…that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”

John Flavel: “Who can number the fruits of God’s love? They are more than the sands upon the seashore. It would weary the arm of an angel to write down the thousandth part of the blessings of His love, which comes to any Christian in this life. Who can tell how many sins it pardons? How many dangers it prevents, or how many needs it supplies?”

Thoughts for Application: God’s love is Electing, Sovereign, Eternal, Invincible, Unfathomable, Sacrificial, Effectual!

1. Be Amazed that God ever Set His Love on you! Think of millions sweeter & kinder than you.

2. Be Amazed that God doesn’t stop Loving you! Think of how many sins you’ve committed since becoming a Christian – yet He loves you still!

3. Rejoice that you will never become bored with Experiencing God’s Love! Things on earth become monotonous by repetition. But God’s love so great, even in heaven after million ages we will contemplate His love w/ as much wonder and zeal as when we were first saved.
4. Love God! If He has loved you like this, make sure you love nothing more than Him! As His love to you surpasses all, let your love to Him be matchless! Show your love in your life!