The Love of God

REFLECTION QUOTES

“…service and self-giving are themselves the highest of divine attributes.”

~C.F.D. Moule (1908-2007), biblical scholar and Cambridge professor

“Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to—because of us.”

“At the cross, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.”

~Philip Yancey, author

“Jesus says, ‘By this all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.’ …Jesus is giving a right to the world. Upon his authority he gives the world the right to judge whether you and I are…Christians on the basis of our observable love toward all Christians.”

~Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) in The Mark of a Christian (1970)

“This is that mystery which is rich in divine grace unto sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange, our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s; and the righteousness of Christ is not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied himself of his righteousness that he might clothe us in it, and fill us with it: and he has taken our evils upon himself that he might deliver us from them.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546), German reformer

“It is the dogma that is the drama – not beautiful phrases, nor comforting sentiments…but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death.”

“Why do you balk at the doctrine of the Trinity – God the three in One – yet meekly acquiesce when Einstein tells you E=mc2? What makes you suppose that the expression ‘God ordains’ is narrow and bigoted, while your own expression, ‘Science demands’ is taken as an objective statement of fact?”

~Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957), English writer

“…happiness of the Deity, as all other true happiness, consists in love and society.”

~Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), New England pastor and theologian

SERMON PASSAGE

1 John 4:7-14, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NASB)

1 John 4

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 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.

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

1 Corinthians 13

4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails…