1 John: The Love of God - Audio
What is love? An easy question to answer it seems, as we are bombarded with tales of love in today's culture. And yet there's great disagreement in the Bible against what love is thought of in the culture. There's a special kind of love, the love of God.
- Duration
- 29m
- Broadcast on
- 24 Jul 2022
- Audio Format
- other
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I asked Doug to sing a different song during the worship set he declined. You may have heard it, "What is love, baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more." But what is love? It seems like it should be an easy question to answer because we're constantly inundated with tales about love in the culture. And yet there's some disagreement and especially there's disagreement in the Bible against what love is thought of in the culture. Not that the Bible doesn't talk about things like romantic love and the love of friendship and all those different things, but there is a special kind of love that is the love of God. And so let's take a look today at what the love of God is and let's see how we can empower in our lives. So this is 1 John 4, 7 to 10, dear friends or beloved or my family, dear family, let's love each other because love comes from God and everyone who loves has been born from God, has God born and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. This is how God's love for us has been revealed in us. God sent his one and only son into the world so that we could live because or through him, because of or through him in this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as a torment sacrifice for our sins. This is probably one of the most radical texts in all of religious history. Let's take a look at it a little bit closer and first notice this, God is love. Now that might just strike us is kind of like, well yeah, obviously God is love, but that's not how it was in the ancient world. In the ancient world God was, God's were lots of things but they certainly weren't love. Think about it this way. You can say about somebody that they're this or that, right? Like I can say that Nate is a school teacher, okay? But I would be odd if I said something like Nate is anger or Nate is love or Nate is wrath or Nate is justice or Nate is mercy, right? Those seem to be like attributes that Nate, might or might not have but it certainly doesn't seem like that's who Nate is. And moreover in the ancient world God, the gods were like that too, like there's Thor, right? He's the God of thunder. He's not, thunder is like something that Thor does. He has the power to bring down thunder or Mars is the God of war, Mars has the power to create war, to execute war faithfully. Athena is the God of goddess of wisdom. So she has the ability to make you wise, right? But notice that none of those things are like abstract attributes. And how is it possible that God then, that God could be love, that love itself is God? What does that mean? That is a bizarre claim. How do we make sense of that? And then what comes before it? Love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God. Well that's obviously not true, right? Because you have friends, you've been to a wedding where two people loved each other
Transcription truncated.
What is love? An easy question to answer it seems, as we are bombarded with tales of love in today's culture. And yet there's great disagreement in the Bible against what love is thought of in the culture. There's a special kind of love, the love of God.