Date of Sermon Delivery: 11. Feb. 2024
Place of sermon Delivery: Delhi, India
Sunday Worship Service
Speaker: Brother Jatin
Title: God’s Love
Bible : 1 John 4:7-12
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
Good morning
This morning, I welcome you all to this beautiful park.
I have been coming to this park for 11 years, and during that time I have come here many times, not with someone but with all of you.
Here, many things that were kept by the people have changed over time.
But all those things that were put here by God have never changed.
Can you tell what you think is there that has not changed yet?
The birds come here and sing their songs.
The air here, the greenery here, the sun rising here, the stars appearing in the evening, people being here, breathing of people, rainfall in this place during the rainy season, and clouds always cover this place.
You can experience these wonderful works of God from here or wherever you live.
Why did God give us such a nature or environment ?
Why did God create the sun, birds, animals, trees, water, and sky?
He did this all for us because he loves us a lot, and through this, we may glorify his name.
All these things show that God is love.
But I want to ask you. What do we mean by love?
We heard this word everywhere.
I love chocolate, I love ice cream, I love that movie, and I love that place.
We confuse the words love and like.
In word like involves an emotional/feeling attachment to something and when like something we enjoy it and we enjoy up to a certain period of time, therefore many time we substituted the word love with the like.
In biblical word agape means love.
This word agape love does not move with our feeling or emotion, and if our love moves with our emotion and feeling then that is love but I will say that is like.
Because love has to do with a decision.
Biblical love does not start with an emotion, but it starts with a decision , LIKE start with emotion because it is how you feel about it.
Biblical love does not include an emotion, that is why God command you to love your enemies. And if love were an emotion, then you would never be able to love your enemy.
Do you know why?
Because your emotions are bad to your enemy all the time.
So when God is saying to love your enemies, He is not telling you to feel good about somebody that hates you, but he is talking about making decision.
Love is command of God, not emotion.
In John13:34 Jesus says, A new command I give you; love one another, as I have loved you, so you must love another.
So what is the reason God commands us to love?
1. Love because God is love. (1 john 4:7-8)
The first reason we love is because of the character of God. God is love.
We cannot make excuses for ourselves by saying that we are not a loving kind of person. And as I said to you, love does not refer to feelings or being emotional. Love is the denying of oneself for the gain of another, but if we are looking at how others can deny themselves for the gain of me, then that is love; it is called selfishness.
Therefore, many relationships are destroyed today because people do not know true love. If they do not love, that means they do not know God. They have not been born of God.
But if we are born of God, we will share in his characteristics; we will love everyone as he has loved us.
Loving each other is proof that we know God and are born in Him.
- Love because God loved us (1 John 4:9–11).
If God is love, then he has shown that he has love. So he showed this amazing love in a powerful way. Through the sending of Jesus, his only son, to die on the cross so that we might live.
How did God show love?
God denied himself for our gain; he sacrificed his son so that we could have life in him.
In verse 10, John Boldy says that love is not that we love him, but that he loves us.
Love us, not that we do things for God, but that God has done so much for us.
He sent his son for our sins. God removed our offence and our sin with his mercy so that relationship is restored, and that sacrifice reveals the love.
Those who are parents, if there is a choice between the stomach of yourself or the stomach of your child, You will immediately give yourself.
Why would you do that?
Because your love is so great for your children.
Therefore, we see how great God’s love is for this world.
We see how great God’s love is for every person.
We see how much he loves you and me.
He loves us beyond measure.
Paul says in Ephesians 3:19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
His love for us cannot be quantified. So if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another (verse 11)
- Love because we show God to the world! (1 John 4:12)
No one has seen God, but the love of God should be seen in us by loving each other. We cannot see God, and the world cannot see God.
But the world is supposed to see the love of God in us in the way we treat each other, and through that, we can convince people that the invisible God truly exists. God is seen in that he abides in us.
His love is perfect for us. We prove God by the love we show for one another.
When we do not sacrifice for one another, it shows that God's love is not in us, and God's love has no meaning or value to us.
But when we see God's love and act on that love by loving others, then God’s love is complete in our lives and, as well, complete on this earth.
Our love for others becomes a visible testimony to the world of God’s presence in us and active work in our lives. Through that love, others can experience a glimpse of divine love that transforms hearts and heals wounds.
Dear brother and sisters
I want to encourage you this morning that love is not a human emotion or feeling, and I request that you do not keep that kind of love that falls like a wind because that is not love.
Love is not feeling, if you say I feel I love him, it is not feeling it is doing.
Therefore root your love in God, because God is love. And his love is not movable; it does not move like seasons; his love does not change by our feelings, but his love is always the same; therefore, he sent his son even though we were sinners; because of love, that love will empower us to love others selflessly and sacrificially.
Our love for one another becomes a powerful testimony to the transforming power of God’s love at work in our lives.
Amen.
I pray that everyone loves each other, not just likes, so that more people know Jesus and that his peace may cover all of us.
