The Love of God

This is an amazing topic to talk about the love of God. And where do you start? It's one of the most precious doctrines that we can ever learn about or study about. So we're gonna begin with number one here on our handout. There's many blanks. I'm gonna read through this kind of slow for you to fill out. "God is love. God alone is the source of love. God is love. God alone is the source of love. God is infinitely loving in His entire being. God is love. God alone is the source of love. God is infinitely loving in His entire being. Love is God."

Try to remember what I wrote here. You have to give me just a second. God is love is God. Fatefully, fully. There's one more F I'm trying to remember. You have to forgive me. I'll come back to it. "Giving Himself to another person for their highest good.

God is love. God alone is the source of love. God is infinitely loving in His entire being. Love is God. Fatefully, fully, and blank. I'll think of it a second. Giving Himself to another person for their highest good." Scripture says that God is love and that is who He is in His being. All these attributes, all these characteristics that we've been studying have been focused on who God is. If we describe a person, if we say Jimmy has a great musical voice, a great musical talent, that's one way of describing Jimmy, right? You can't describe God as love. He alone is the source of love. All love comes from God.

Think about us as humans. Love doesn't come naturally to us, does it? We normally think of ourself, right? First and foremost, me, myself, and I, we don't think about others. Love is focused on others. So any love that we have comes from God. God is the source of all love. God is infinitely loving in His entire being. What we mean by that is every part of God is love. God is not sometimes love. He's always loving in every way that He relates to us, every word that He speaks to us, every action that He does on our behalf is marked by His love.

Love is God faithfully giving Himself to another. When we give ourselves to another, are we faithful in doing so? In other words, sometimes we'll be willing to maybe lay down our life for a person or to give of ourselves to another person when it's convenient for us, right? But then when it becomes inconvenient for us, we quickly change our tune. But God is always faithful in His love, faithful in the giving of Himself. When we say that God gives Himself, love simply is our desire to give to another for their highest good. And what greater gift could God give than Himself, right? Same is true with us as humans. We may talk about giving a gift to our kids. Maybe we give them a birthday present. What do your kids really want? They want love. They want their love from their mom. They want their love from their dad, right? And there's no greater gift than you can give than yourself. And God, of course, is the ultimate gift. He's the ultimate good. And if He gives Himself to us, that's far better than any finite gift, than any temporal gift that He could ever give to us.

God is not only faithful in His love, but He gives Himself to us fully. And what we mean by that is God's love is sacrificial. He doesn't hold anything back. He gives His whole person to us all the time, right? And so it's God giving Himself to another person for their highest good. Love is always personal. It's in a relationship. It's not something that you put upon — your show love to something that isn't a person. We talked about this, I think it was in week three, when we talked about the personality of God. I use example of football, how you may say you love football and have played a nachos in front of the TV, but that play to nachos is never gonna love you back. That football is never gonna love you back. Ladies, the same way, we speak of love — you know, maybe you say I love my handbag collection, or I love my shoes, or my, my wardrobe, or whatever else it is that she sets your affections on — but can those things love you back? No, because you're not a person, they're not relational, right? So love only makes sense in the context of a person.

First John 4, 7th through 8th, says, "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." It's usually the first verse that a child memorizes, that in portion of John chapter 4 verse 8, "God is love," because that describes who God is.

The application is this: we are to thank God whose steadfast love never fails. We're to thank God whose steadfast love never fails. Psalm 136:26 says, "O give thanks to the God of heavens, for His mercy endures forever." The New King James translation says His mercy endures forever. Does anyone have a different — mercy? Maybe it says His steadfast love endures forever, or His faithful love endures forever. That word is that Hebrew word "hesed," which means God's covenant faithfulness, His faithful love, and it endures forever. It's always there. It's not like human love that quickly fails, okay?

The challenge to you is not only to be thankful for God's steadfast love, but besides just expressing thanks, why don't you show your gratitude for God's steadfast love by reciprocating, by giving back to God that same love that He gives to us, and giving that love to others, to love others fully, to love others faithfully, right? That's what God does for us, and we are to love Him in the same way.

This time of the year I'm always reminded of my favorite short story. My mother was a literature professor, and she had my brother and I read a lot when we were kids, and one of the stories was an O. Henry story. It was written almost a hundred years ago. It was called "The Gift of the Magi," and it's a beautiful story, and it takes place about a hundred years ago. A young couple, married couple, they're madly in love with each other, but as most married couples are, when you're first starting off, you're very poor, right? The wife's at home, and it's Christmas Eve, and she wants to give her husband a gift for Christmas, but she has no money for it. But she does have long, beautiful hair, so she goes down to the salon, and she finds a person that cuts hairs to make wigs out of hair, and she contracts with them to cut her hair to make a wig, and she gets the money from that, and she uses that money to buy her husband, Jim, a chain for his watch. He has a pocket watch, okay? That pocket watch was the only thing of value he had. It was given to him by his father, and he had no chain for it, so she goes down to the jewelry store and buys a chain for that pocket watch. She gets home and waits for Jim to get home, and then when Jim gets home, he has a gift for her, and he insists that she opens it first, and she opens the box, and it's a set of ornate, beautiful combs for her hair, and she says, "You know, you can't afford this. Where would you get the money from it?" He says, "Well, I sold my watch to buy these combs for your hair." And in that story, of course, both their gifts ended up being useless to them, right? But the point wasn't the gifts themselves. The point was their selfless giving, right? Their sacrificial giving. They're giving themselves fully and faithfully to one another. That's the kind of love that we need to model as Christians, right?

Because it's not what our Lord Savior did for us. The true story of the Gospel is that God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son Jesus, who never sinned, who left heaven, He took on flesh, and what did He do? As a human, He suffered, He trod this earth for 33 years, He was mocked, He was beaten, and eventually crucified. A death He didn't deserve. He was totally innocent, but He did that willingly, sacrificially for us. He died in our place for our sins because He was perfectly righteous for the Father. He could be our substitute in our place. So that He laid down His life for us, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. He laid down His life for us to save us who did not deserve it, right? The just for the unjust, that we might live. Flip over on the back. Reference point number one on the back.

1 John 4:16 says, "For we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him."

Those of us who are Christians, we have God abiding in us because we have trusted in the love of Jesus Christ who's been shown to us. Bible point number two: God is everlasting, loving — is, I'm sorry, eternally loving, apart from and before all creation. God is eternally loving, apart from and before all creation. He alone is the perfect object of love.

God loves us for the sake of His own glory. Let me reread that. God is eternally loving, apart from and before all creation. What we mean by that is even before we were created, God was love. We talked about this when we discussed the Trinity, I think it was in week three, that before God created heaven and earth and created creatures, God has always been a God of love because God is a triune God. He's one God and three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And in the Trinity, we see perfect love, perfect self-giving, perfect joy, perfect satisfaction, right? He alone is the perfect object of love. He alone is the divine end of love because He is perfect and He is worth loving, right?

Don't want to be grotesque, but I clean swimming pools and one of the pitfalls of cleaning swimming pools — will go to 24 yards a day, I did this today — I drag my little cart behind me and every now and then you'll drag your cart through a thing of dog squeeze and then you track it into their nice patio around their pool without realizing it. And then you got to clean up that mess. I have no love loss for dog squeeze, right? It's reprehensible, it's gross, right? We abhor that, it's nasty. Some things aren't worth love, right?

God though is the perfect object of His love. God loves us for the sake of His own glory. Look at Psalm 11 verse 7, "For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness, His countenance beholds the upright." God loves righteousness. He loves those who act righteously, and His eyes or His countenance upholds or looks upon those who are righteous. In other words, His countenance is His favor. He favors the righteous, right?

If God loved evil, what kind of God would He be? If God took pleasure in the oppressors and in the wicked and in the murderers, what kind of God would He be? Look at Psalm 5 verses 4 through 5, "For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand in your sight. You hate all workers of iniquity." We'll be talking more about this next week when we discuss His final attribute, the holiness of God, but by God's nature, He must love righteousness and He must hate evil. Exactly right. He's not God if He doesn't.

Amen. Remember in Romans 12 verse 9, God commands us. He says, "Let your love be sincere," or "Let your love be genuine, let your love be true. Hate or abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which He is good." He would not command us something that He doesn't do Himself, right?

Sometimes, unfortunately from our pulpits, you will hear — not at this pulpit, "Praise God, we have a church that loves sound doctrine" — but you may hear a preacher say, "God loves you for you. He loves you just as you are." But that's not altogether true, is it? God loves righteousness, and the only perfect object of His love is Jesus Christ, who is a perfect reflection of His righteousness, right?

Flip over on the back. Ephesians chapter 1, which Pastor Casey is leading us through right now, look at this. It says, "Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in what? In love. Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure as will," verse 6, "to the praise of what? Of the glory of His grace by which He made us accepted in the blood." He loves us for His own glory, is what verse 6 tells us. When you go down a little bit further in chapter 12, verse 12 says, "That we who first trusted in Christ should be the praise of His what? His glory." Verse 14, "Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of what? Praise of His glory." God loves us for the sake of His own glory. He loves us for Christ's sake, right? He loves us because as believers, we have put in our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And so when God looks upon us, He doesn't see our sins, He doesn't see our failures, He doesn't see our shortcomings, but He sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. And every believer is found in Jesus Christ. Christ's righteousness is credited to the believer. So we are loved, truly loved, but we are loved for Christ's sake and for His glory.

The application is that we are to love and trust in God who alone is perfect. Application is to love and trust in God who alone is perfect. Psalm 18:30 says, "As for God, His way is perfect. The word of the Lord is proven. He is a shield to all who trust in Him."

Let's look at number three here. "God's love is understood in the Trinity. There we see perfect self-impartation, union, and fellowship. God's love is understood in the Trinity. There we see perfect self-impartation," that means self-giving, "perfect union, and perfect fellowship."

When we talk about the Trinity, it's best viewed as we talked several weeks ago in the baptism of Christ. Here you see all three persons of the Godhead interacting with one another. Matthew 3, verses 16 through 17, it's on our handout. It says, "When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold the heavens were open to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him. So Jesus, for His love and obedience for the Father, is baptized. And as He's baptized and coming up from the water, we see the Holy Spirit descending on Christ." The Holy Spirit is the mark of God's approval, His anointing on Christ, His blessing and empowering Christ. And then we hear a voice. It says, verse 17, "And suddenly a voice from heaven says, 'This is my beloved Son, this is a Son whom I love.' He says, 'And in whom I am well pleased.'" Christ obeyed the Father because He loved the Father, right? And He was pleased to serve and obey the Father. And the Holy Spirit comes down to anoint Christ to show the Father's approval and to empower Christ to obey the Father. And then the Father says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am pleased." So we see perfect love there in the Trinity.

Also look at John 1:18. "No one has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom, or the heart, or the chest of the Father, He has declared Him." We see that love is not just perfect self-giving, perfect love, but it's also perfect union. We find Christ — He's pictured as being in the heart and the bosom of the Father, if you will. He's that close. Can you get any closer than being in your very heart? No. So He is in the Father's heart.

Look at John 17:24. He prays His high priestly prayer. Jesus says, "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me, where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me, for You love Me before the foundation of the world." Perfect fellowship, before the foundation of the world, God loved them. And now God in Jesus Christ wants to share that same love, that same communion with His people, with those who believe and trust in Him.

So the application is we can know God's perfect love in Jesus Christ. If you want to be a recipient of the love of God, if you want to be the one who pleases God and the one who bears His full approval, find yourself in Christ. Commit yourself to Christ, and in Christ you will have perfect love, perfect communion, perfect self-giving, perfect fellowship with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. Flip over on the back. Number three, 1 John 4, 9 through 11 talks about this love. It says, "In this the love of God was manifested or shown towards us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. And 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 is a big word, but simply means a covering or a mercy seat for our sins. He sent Christ to bear our sins, to take away our sins, to give us peace with God. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." If God can forgive us of our sins, can't we forgive our brothers and our sisters of our sins? Can't we forgive that boss at work who may seem like the devil sometime to us? We can definitely forgive them if Christ can forgive us.

Number four, Bible point number four: God's love for us is His desire to impart Himself to us. God's love for us is His desire to impart or give Himself to us, to fill us with Himself and thereby bring us into spiritual union and fellowship with Him. God's love for us is His own desire to impart Himself to us, to fill us with Himself and thereby bring us into spiritual union and communion with Him. The greatest thing that God can give us is Himself, right? He wants to impart Himself to every person, to fill us with Himself and thereby bring us into spiritual union and fellowship with Him.

In John chapter 17, Jesus' high priestly prayer verse 23, Jesus prays to the Father. He says, "I in them," speaking — "I in my disciples, I in my believers, those who trust in me, I'm in them, and You, God, are in Me, that they may be made perfect in one, they may be completed in one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me." Isn't it amazing that God the Father loves us with the exact same perfect love that He sets on Jesus Christ, the perfect divine object of love, Jesus Christ. God loves us perfectly because we are in Christ. That's what God is telling us there. What a beautiful promise.

Ephesians 2, 4 through 7 says, "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love were with Him, He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses" — that's the word of saying those we've crossed the line, we've gone against God, we've disobeyed Him, we have lied, we have stolen, we have blasphemed, we have committed adultery in our heart, we have coveted, we've gone against His commandments, we've trespassed. Even when we were spiritually dead in our trespasses or sins, He made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. It's not something we merit. He just makes us alive by His own grace, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and the kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. What a beautiful promise. Not only have we died together with Christ in our union with Him, but we've also raised together and we sit with Him in the heavenly places. And what that simply means is that all the blessing and honor that's bestowed upon the risen Savior who sits at the right hand of God is being showered upon His church through the Holy Spirit. We're receiving all that blessing, all that honor, all that authority that has been given to Christ, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, is given for the betterment and for the good of His church, for His bride. It says that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. Forever and ever and ever, when we are in heaven one day, when we leave this world, it's going to be just a continuous revelation of the love of Jesus Christ to us. We'll never get to the bottom of His riches and of His blessings. That is what God's infinite love is. It's showered upon us because it's given to Christ and Christ bestows it upon His bride.

The application is this: receive Christ through faith. If you don't know Jesus Christ, if you're not assured that God loves you, if you believe that you are a sinner and that you're not right with God and you need His forgiveness and you want to be right with God, you want to receive God's love and favor, trust Christ. Put your trust in His righteousness and in His promises. Ephesians 2, 8 through 9, says by grace — that means His undeserved favor — you have been saved through faith, simply by believing in Christ, that Christ died for us in our place, on our behalf. He was buried, He was raised again from the dead, and He ascended into heaven. Defeated death, He took upon our sin, our shame, our death, and He removed that. Cast our sin as far as the east is from the west. So if we believe in Him, we receive His forgiveness. And He rose again. So we have the hope of eternal life too. Yes, we will indeed one day die on this earth if Christ doesn't come back first, but when we die, we go immediately to the presence of God. And one day our body will be resurrected too, the Bible tells us, and all things will be made new, all things will be restored in God's perfect love and timing. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

God's free gift is not something we can earn. We can't do enough good to overcome our evil. We can't buy our way into heaven or pray our way into heaven, so to speak, by doing merit or by doing works. It's simply a gift that we receive. We come to the end of ourselves and say, "God, I'm a needy sinner. I'm a broken man. I need Your love. I need Your forgiveness. I'm not right with You. I know it in my heart, but God, I receive Your forgiveness. I trust Your promise that if I put in You Jesus, that You will clean my heart. You'll take away every spot, every blemish, and You'll give me the righteousness of God." It's simply a gift that's received. That's His grace.

Flip over on the back. Look at what we see in concern to the Trinity with God's love and giving. John 3:16, "For God so loved that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him — it's whoever — should not perish, but have everlasting life. Because God loves, He gave. He gave His only begotten Son." Look at Ephesians 5. "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and" — what? — "gave Himself for her." Because of His love, He gave His own life for us, not as an end to itself, but to be able to possess us in His fellowship, right? To be able to purchase His bride, to bestow His righteousness on her.

Romans 5:5, "Now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was" — what? — "given to us." The minute we put our trust in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit pours the love of God into our heart, and it radically changes our heart, right? It takes a heart that's selfish, that's bent and focused on herself, and it turns and fills us with a love, a sacrificial love that we see in Christ Jesus.

Bible point number five: "God's love includes mercy and goodness. God's love includes mercy and goodness to all men whom He created in His own image. God's love includes mercy and goodness to all men whom He created in His own image." Sometimes we talk about mercy and goodness as being separate attributes of God, but truly they're rolled up in the love of God. God's love is the foundation of His mercy and His goodness, for He can only be merciful and good to men because of what Jesus did on the cross, right? And His mercy and goodness is shown to all men. God sends His reign on the just and the unjust. We call that His common grace. And the goodness of God is meant to lead men to what? To repentance, is what the book of Romans tells us, right? He allows all of us to experience the beauty of this world, the goodness of friends, the goodness of this life, even the food that we eat, to show us that He is a good creator and a loving God. And it's meant — His goodness and His mercy is meant to bring us to repentance, to bring us to a right relationship with Him. Psalm 145, 8 through 9, says, "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to what? To all. And His tender mercies are over what? All His works. His tender mercies, His loving kindness is over all His works."

Back to number five: God's love includes mercy and goodness to all men whom He created in His own image. Love seeks only the best for its end and the best is God. Love seeks only the best for its end or its object and the best is God. The best that God can give us is Himself. In this world, we believe the lie. We think the best that God can have is having social popularity. It's having riches. It's having a good time on a Friday night and not being able to remember it on Saturday morning. We believe that lie, but that's not God's best. The best is to receive God Himself, to have fellowship with Him forever, to have this peace in this life and His eternal joy in the next, right?

The application is this: love others, showing mercy and goodness. Because all men are created in God's image, every man and woman, every child, every boy and girl is worthy of being shown mercy and goodness. They're created in the image of God. And even though sin is marred that perfect image of God in them, that's why we have and we fight for the value of every human life. Whether it's an abortion or whether it's for human trafficking, all life is precious because it's made in the image of God and it's worthy of our love. That's what Luke 15 is all about. Remember the woman who loses a coin and she frantically sweeps her place looking for that lost coin, and when she finds it, she rejoices because that lost coin is worth finding. It's worth rejoicing over. And then we think about, of course, the sheep. Man has a 99 sheep and he has a one that's gone astray, the hundredth that's gone astray. He leaves the 99 to go and look for the one. And when he finds it, he brings that sheep home rejoicing because that sheep is worthy of mercy and worthy of goodness. The same with the prodigal son and his father. The father looks for his son to return every day and when he sees a son repenting and turning from afar, he runs that sign, right? He falls upon his neck and he kisses him and he welcomes the son. He says, "Bring out the best robe, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Slay the fattest calf, rejoice and begin to make merry." For he was lost and now he's found, he was dead and now he's alive because that son was made in the image of God. So we are to be burdened to show mercy and goodness to every human being because they're all created in God's image.

Flip over on the back. Let's look at Bible point number five or reference number five on the back. "A new commandment I give to you that you love one another as what? As I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this we all know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." You can't be a Christian and lack love, right? You can't be a Christian and lack mercy and lack goodness because that's — and if we are Christ followers we will reflect that in our own life, right? Look at 1 John 3:16, "By this we know love because He, Christ, lay down His life for us and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren," right?

Bible point number six. "God's sacrificial love is given graciously to His church at infinite cost." God's sacrificial love is given graciously to His church at infinite cost. When Christ died on the cross, He was God made flesh. He was man and so He suffered in His humanity. He felt pain in His humanity and He died in His humanity, but He was also deity, right? God made flesh. So what He did, His suffering had infinite value and came at infinite cost. And in His humanity He cries out, "My cross — my God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?" because He felt the crushing displeasure of God because He became sin for us on the cross. It came at infinite cost.

God loves us not for what He gets from us but for what He gives to us. God loves us not from what He gets from us but what He gives to us, because when He gives Himself to us then His image has begun to be restored in us, is it not? One day when we stand before the Lord our life of sin down here on the earth will be remembered no more. We will be sanctified and completed into the image of Christ. The church corporately will be presented to Christ as His glorious bride, will be arrayed in spotless garments, and what a joyous wedding feast it will be. And we will radiate because we're reflecting the glory of Jesus Christ that has been given to us. And so therefore Christ can perfectly love His bride because we'll be a perfect finite reflection of His infinite perfections, and what a glorious day that will be. So He loves us not for what He gets from us but for what He gives us, and He gives us Himself.

Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrated or showed His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." While we were still sinners in rebellion shaking our fist against God, Christ died for us. That's the love of God. Can you love others when they are sinning against you? Can you love others when they are cursing you? Can when you love others when they are doing you wrong? When they are spitefully using you? God did, right? Let's follow His example.

1 Peter 3:18, "For Christ also suffered once for sins the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God." That was the purpose of His suffering, that He could bring us to God, right? So we could experience that perfect fellowship, that perfect union with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. "Being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit."

The application is this: "Be in awe of God's amazing love." Be in awe of God's amazing love. Never let that fail to resonate how unworthy you are and how great He is and how He loves you despite you being a sinner, right? 1 John 3 verse 1 says, "Behold what manner of love the Father has on us that we should be called children of God." How amazing is it because we are in Christ that we can call God Father, that we are co-inheritors with Christ. Christ is our elder brother and we've been brought into the family of God because of His amazing love. 1 John 4:19 says, "We love Him because" — what? — "He first loved us." Don't ever forget that.

Flip over on the back. We're going to close out with these reference verses under number six on the back. John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends." Christ calls us His friends in the New Testament and He laid down His life for us. In the Old Testament though, God loved His people in the same way. We sometimes make a false dichotomy of the God in the Old Testament is wrathful and the God in the New Testament is loving. No. God is love and He's eternally love, right? Eternally loving. Zephaniah in the Old Testament chapter 3 verse 17, "The Lord your God in your midst the mighty one will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you with His" — what? — "with His love. He will rejoice over you with singing." Can you believe that? That the God who created this universe rejoices over you individually with a song, right? It's amazing. How many love songs do you hear on the radio, right? It's the basis of thousands of songs. God, the eternal God, sings a love song over His people.

Psalm 16:11, "You will show me the path of life. In Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Because that brings us into the divine fellowship of God the Father pouring out His love on the Son and we are in the Son so we receive that love. And the Holy Spirit communicating that love to the Son and the Son communicating that love to the Father through the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit lives within us as the church, right? What a beautiful promise that is to have at His right hand pleasures forevermore.

And lastly, Romans 8:35 through 39. I want to end with not only imagining and thinking about the amazing love of God, but also a word of caution. Sometimes we base our apprehension of God's love with our circumstances. If all is well and sunny and rosy, we think that we feel the love of God. We feel God's favor, right? But when the storm clouds come and our bodies are fighting against us, when we feel like we're losing the battle sometimes, when we feel oppressed, right, we sometimes wonder if God loves us, right?

Look at Romans 8 and how it talks about the love of God. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?" You know, Christians go through tribulation. They go through peril. They go through nakedness. They go through famine. They go under the sword. "As it is written, for your sake we are killed all the day long and we are counted as sheep for the slaughter." It's quoting Psalm 44. Even in the Old Testament, they often felt as if they were under oppression and far away from God.

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him, through Christ, who" — what? — "who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other created things shall be us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." God never stops loving us on the cloudy days or the sunny days. He is always for His people. "Maven, would you go back to point six?" Yes, sir. "The last two."

Oh, yes. His abiding love surpasses any earthly comfort. His abiding love surpasses any earthly comfort in the being awe of God's amazing love.