The Attributes of God Steve Lawson
Trinity Bible Church, beginning August 3, 2022
https://www.gracegems.org/77/tbc.htm
(Review of Lesson 13. The grace of God)
LESSON 14. The LOVE of God
What was there in you or about you, which caused God set His saving love on you?
I. Intra-Trinitarian Love
II. God's GENERAL love (His goodness or kindness) to all mankind
Matthew 5:45 "He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
Luke 6:35 "He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked."
Acts 14:17 "He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."
Explain: God's general love to unbelievers is often greater than His general love to His redeemed people.
*God's general love/goodness/kindness is not salvific.
God's GENERAL love God's SPECIAL love
OBJECTS: All people Believers only
NATURE: Physical blessings Spiritual blessings
DURATION: Temporal Eternal
III. God's SPECIAL (saving) love to His chosen, redeemed, regenerate people
God's special/saving love to His people is particularly seen in saving them from sin and Hell, unto eternal glory!
God the Father chose us in eternity past!
God the Son died in our place as our sin-atoning substitute.
God the Holy Spirit regenerates, converts, sanctifies, and preserves all the chosen and redeemed.
John 10:11 "I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep."
John 10:15 "I lay down my life for the sheep."
Romans 1:7 "To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints"
Galatians 2:20 "I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself up for us."
Ephesians 5:25 "Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her."
Colossians 3:12 "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved"
1 Thessalonians 1:4 "For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you"
2 Thessalonians 2:13 "But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth."
1 John 4:10-11 "This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
1 John 4:19 "We love Him because He first loved us."
Jude 1: "To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ"
N.B. All of the New Testament epistles are written to Christians. Whenever the writers talk about gospel promises or gospel blessings—they intend them for Christians alone.
*Pronouns: we us our you me
A. ASPECTS OF GOD'S SPECIAL, SAVING LOVE (*Klassen)
A. An ACTIVE love. Scripture frequently connects God's love to the actions He takes on behalf of those He seeks to bless. The most vivid action is represented by the cross!
Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Ephesians 5:25 "Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her."
1 John 4:9-10 "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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."
B. A SACRIFICIAL love. In the great displays of God's love, He does not sacrifice things of little cost in order to benefit the lives of others. His love is expressed through His readiness to give what is of greatest value: Himself!
Isaiah 53:4-5 "We considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed."
John 10:11 "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep"
Romans 8:32 "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all"
C. An UNMERITED and UNINFLUENCED love.
Ephesians 2:1-5; Romans 5:6-10
1 John 3:1 "See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God"
Pink: "What was there in me to attract the heart of God? Absolutely nothing. But, to the contrary, there was everything to repel Him, everything calculated to make Him loathe me—sinful, depraved, a mass of corruption, with "no good thing" in me."
Spurgeon: "God's glorious, saving love streams forth to those who neither deserved it, purchased it, nor sought after it."
Spurgeon: "Christian! The Lord did not set His love upon you for anything you are, or have done—but He loves you simply because His great heart is full of love, and it runs over to you!"
D. An ETERNAL and EVERLASTING love.
Ephesians 1:3-8
2 Timothy 1:9 "God . . . who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time!"
Jeremiah 31:3 "I have loved you, My people, with an everlastinf love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to Myself." (NLT)
God's love for His people antedates the Creation and the Fall!
Spurgeon: "You can easily find the beginning of your love to Christ, but His love to us is a stream whose source is hidden in eternity!"
"Christian! You were loved by God from eternity past! There was never a time when you were not in His mind and on His heart!"
"O beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, love without beginning is indeed sweet; but there is a still more luscious sweetness in love without end! Never did His love for you begin, and never can it cease. It is from eternity, and shall be to eternity!"
Don Fortner: "How blessed it is to know that the great and glorious God loved us before the worlds were made! He set His heart upon us from eternity. Long before we had any being, almighty God loved us, chose us, and predestined us unto the adoption of His sons!"
E. God's love is a SOVEREIGN love.
Romans 9:10-18; Ephesians 1:3-8
F. An INFINITE love.
Though God's love can be known and experienced truly, it cannot never be known or experienced exhaustively.
Ephesians 2:4 "But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved!"
1 John 3:1 "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!"
John 15:9 "As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you!"
John 17:23 "You . . . have loved them even as You have loved Me."
Ephesians 3:18-19 "And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully." (NLT)
John Eadie: God's love may be known in some features and to some extent, but at the same time it stretches away into infinitude, far beyond the reach of human discovery and analysis!
John Brine: "No tongue can fully express the infinitude of God's love, nor can any mind comprehend it. The most extensive ideas that a finite mind can frame about divine love, are infinitely below its true nature."
YOUR THOUGHTS!
1. "Since God is love, then love is God."
2. Spurgeon: "Christians! God loves us better than we love ourselves! He cannot love us more!"
3. Pink: Christ did not died in order to make God love us, but because He did love His people. Calvary is the supreme demonstration of divine love! Whenever you are tempted to doubt the love of God, Christian reader—go back to Calvary!
4. Spurgeon: "The great, inconceivably vast heart of God belongs as much to every Christian, as if there were not another being in the world for God to love! Even as Jehovah loves His Only-begotten Son—so does He love each one of His children."
"The individuality of divine love is a great part of the sweetness of it. God thinks of every separate child of His as much as if He had only that one. The multiplicity of His elect does not divide the loaf of His affection."
How so?
5. Jerry Bridges: "The extent of God's love at Calvary is seen in both the infinite cost to Him of giving His one and only Son, and in the wretched and miserable condition of those He loved. God could not remove our sins without an infinite cost to both Himself and His Son. And because of their great love for us, both were willing to pay that great cost: the Father in giving His one and only Son, and the Son in laying down His life as a sin-atoning sacrifice for us. One of the essential characteristics of love is the element of self-sacrifice, and this was demonstrated for us to its ultimate, in God's love at Calvary. The cross is the absolute, irrefutable proof of God's love for us!"
6. Richard Baxter: "Is it a small thing in your eyes to be loved by God—to be the son, the spouse, the delight of the King of glory?
Christian, believe this, and think about it: you will be eternally embraced in the arms of the love which was from eternity past, and will extend to eternity future;
of the love which brought the God's beloved Son from Heaven to earth, from earth to the cross, from the cross to the grave, and from the grave to glory;
of that love which was weary, hungry, tempted, wept, scorned, scourged, buffeted, spat upon, pierced, crucified, and died!
That love will eternally embrace you!"
7. What was there in you, or about you, which caused God to set His saving love on you?
TO PONDER
Charles Spurgeon: "In the very beginning, when this great universe lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in the acorn cup; long ere the echoes awoke the solitudes; before the mountains were brought forth; and long ere the light flashed through the sky—God loved His chosen people! Before there was any created being; when the ether was not fanned by an angel's wing, when space itself had no existence, when there was nothing but God alone—even then, in that solitude of Deity, and in that deep quiet and profundity, His affections yearned with love for His chosen ones. Then their names were written on His heart, and were dear to His soul. Jesus loved His people before the foundation of the world—even from eternity!"
Augustine: "The cross was a pulpit in which Christ preached His love."
B. OUR RESPONSE TO GOD'S SAVING LOVE TO US
1. Supreme love to God
1 John 4:19 "We love Him because He first loved us"
Luke 10:27 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind."
Pink: "How little real love there is for God. One chief reason for this is because our hearts are so little occupied with His wondrous love for us. The better we are acquainted with His love—its character, fullness and blessedness—the more will our hearts be drawn out in love to Him."
Ryle: "A true Christian loves Christ for all that He has done for him. He has suffered in his place and died for him on the cross. He has redeemed him from the guilt, the power, and the consequences of sin, by His blood. He has called him by His Spirit to repentance, faith, hope, and holiness. He has forgiven all his many sins and blotted them out. He has freed him from the captivity of the world, the flesh, and the devil. He has taken him from the brink of Hell, placed him in the narrow way, set his face toward Heaven, and preserves him in that way. Can you wonder that the true Christian loves Christ supremely?"
2. Universal obedience to God (not partial or selective)
John 14:15 "If you love Me, you will obey what I command."
John 14:21 "Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me."
John 14:23 "If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching."
John 14:24 "He who does not love Me will not obey My teaching."
3. Sincere adoration of God
Revelation 1:5-6 "To Him who loved us and has freed us from our sins by His blood . . . to Him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen."
Revelation 7:10 "And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" Revelation 5:11-14
4. Total commitment to God
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 'You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must glorify God with your body."
Romans 12:1 "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship."
Romans 8:35-39 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Superficial and general views of Gospel truths call forth no adoring thoughts; nor are they sufficient to produce a holy life.
Fernando Ortega, "Stricken, Smitten & Afflicted"
Mark Webb, "His love"
How Much I Owe
When this passing life is done,
When has set yon’ glaring sun;
When I stand with Christ in glory,
Looking o’er life’s finished story;
Then, Lord, shall I fully know,
But not ‘til then, how much I owe!When I hear the wicked call,
On the rocks and hills to fall;
When I see them start and shrink
On that fiery deluge brink;
Then, Lord, shall I fully know,
But not ‘til then, how much I owe!When I stand before Thy throne,
Dressed in beauty not my own;
When I see Thee as Thou art—
Love Thee with unsinning heart;
Then, Lord, shall I fully know,
But not ‘til then, how much I owe!
Lyrics by Robert Murray McCheyne
Song by Mark Webb
C:\Users\SSchwend\Music\MUSIC\1 PRAISE & WORSHIP\Mark Webb\Mark Webb Best