God is love sermon

1 John 4 Sermon Outline

previous weeks in 1 John:

• Loving one another
• Loving God and keeping His commandments
• Abiding in God and the love of God
• Sanctification because we love God
• Today we will talk about the well from which we draw our attribute of love from, which is God Himself, the God of love

mpt-God is love, we can abide in it and it is perfected in us.

 

1 John 4:7-12 & 15-18

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 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. 11 Beloved if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. — 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love , and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgement, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.  For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

 

“God is love”

 

*God is love*

• Talk about John
  • Disciple whom Jesus loved
    • Closest to God in the flesh Jesus
    • He is uniquely qualified to teach us about God’s love
  • Love one another
• This declaration is found in verse 8 and verse 16, but is alluded to in every verse in this section, 
  • Show it in 7 and 8

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love , and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.

• All of scripture points to God being love
• John 3:16, For God so loved the world
• Romans 5:8 But God shows His love for us in that while…
• 1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called…
• Ephesians 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 
• Romans 8:37-39 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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.
• Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;  he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

• Talk about His love being a defining attribute like: His holiness, His justice, His faithfulness
• MJ example, Michael Jordan is basketball
• Talk about how love is hard to  describe
  • Kids,  they  make me  feel…
  • “breakthrough”
  • Love is a common grace
    • This why bible says in Psalms 14 “A fool says in His heart there is no  God”
    • Romans 1:20  20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

 

**Since God is love, Love is from God, it is with God’s love that we are to love one another**

sermon on loving others

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

• For

• Born of God/knows God

• • Mr. and Mrs Christian, you love one another because you are born again in God and know Him who is love

11 Beloved if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

• We love cus He loved
• If God loved your unloveable self, you ought to love one another
• If God can love you, you can love them
• If God so loved you, the least you can do is love other people that He also loves!

• Talk about how we have been seeing this throughout 1 John 
  • 1 John 3:11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another
  • It is a command
  • It is a mark of our salvation
  • We are the children of God and He wants us to love each other and love our neighbors
• When we love each other, we are only doing what we’ve seen God do, verse 19 says We love one another because He first loved us

Sermon on God is love

***God showed His love by sending Jesus***

 

9 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.

• Manifest

• • • Tangible

• Among us

• • Make it personal
    • In this the love of God was made manifest to me, that God sent his only Son into the world that I might live through him
      • Rejoice
      • Will you live through him
      • Talk about live/die
        • Ephesians 2 1And you were dead in the trespasses and sins…4But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ

10 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.

• Propitiation-worthy substitute or replacement for a debt

• • • Hard to appreciate the Love of God in sending Jesus to be our propitiation if you don’t understand the punishment that you would have received and that Jesus took for us
    • We wouldve been on the hook for the wrath of God, eternal punishment, but instead Jesus endured it for us

• Isaiah 53:4-12

• • JD Grear, president of SBC wrote in a 2015 TGC article: 

Hell shows us the extent of God’s love in saving us. Why did Jesus speak about hell more than anyone else in the Bible? Because he wanted us to see what he was going to endure on the cross on our behalf. On the cross, Jesus’s punishment was scarcely describable: this bloodied, disfigured remnant of a man was given a cross that was perhaps recycled, likely covered in the blood, feces, and urine of other men who had used it previously. Hanging there in immense pain, he slowly suffocated to death. The worst part was the separation from the Father that Jesus felt, a separation that was hell itself. “My God, my God,” he cried out, “Why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). In all of this, Jesus was taking the hell of our sin into his body. People often feel that hell is some great blemish on God’s love. The Bible presents it as the opposite. Hell magnifies for us the love of God by showing us how far God went, and how much he went through, to save us.

• • Give them the gospel

 

****why is important for us to know God is love?**** (praise team) 

• 1) Its important for us to know God is love because His love gives us assurance of salvation

17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgement, because as he is so also are we in this world. 

• As Jesus is blameless and righteous and innocent, so are we because of what He has done!

18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.  For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

• • We don’t have to fear saints
• 2) Its important for us to know God is love because we sometimes feel unloved

15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love , and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.

• • We don’t have to feel unloved because we can abide in God’s love!
  • God will pour it, promise that I pray
    • Romans 5:5 because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
• 3) Its important for us to know God is love because as ambassadors, we need to portray and luminate with His love
  • luminate your schools with His love, rattle
  • they will know us by our love

John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”