Daniel's Notes

The Love of God

6 min read

SeriesLocationSubjectsTakeawaysSermon Link
Allison on 2 CorinthiansEmmaus Orthodox Presbyterian Church--

💡Big Idea

Takeaways and Next Steps

📖Bible Passage

2 Corinthians 13.14

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s love, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Points

  • Our verse today is a blessing, a benediction.
  • It shows the Trinity
    • the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
    • God (the Father)‘s love
    • the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
  • Today we focus on the second part: God’s love
  • This verse teaches us that God is a God of Love
    • This truly is a profound revelation.
    • To be clear, He is more than just a God of Love. He is also a God of Justice, Power, Holiness.
    • Yet here, Paul chose to highlight the love of God. Why?
      1. Because this highlights that God is a person
        • The Greek gods in Corinth were impersonal forces. Some people worshipped the moon, or the mountains or thunder.
        • Impersonal forces are uncaring. They are merely abstract concepts or thoughts.
        • Yet our God is personal, loving and caring.
          • He has a mind and a heart.
          • He has pity and compassion upon His children.
      2. This love reflects the innermost nature of God Himself:
        • Love in inseparable from God’s very identity.
          • God cannot not be love.
          • God is love, always was love, and always will be love.
          • God is consistent love.
      3. The greatest thing that we need is the love of God.
        • We are tiny specks in this immeasurable universe. This makes us prone to call the world chaos and meaninglessness.1
        • Yet, God loves us, even us tiny specks.
          • The world says that we are insignificant.
          • But God says that we are so significant that He died for us.
            • We are significant, not because of us but because of His love for us.
        • One of Jonathan Edwards final sermons was entitled Heaven is a world of love.
      4. Love is the marvelous Word spoken from the horrors of Calvary.
        • Inscribed upon the cross we see in shining letters: “GOD IS LOVE”. (From the hymn: We sing the praise of Him who died)
        • Despite the pain and trauma inflicted upon Jesus on the cross, He said “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
          • What incredible love He showed even to His enemies.
        • God’s love for us sustains us if and when we fall into backsliding.
          • How amazing and wonderful it is to know that God can love unlovable me and unlovable you!
        • God is everything that we need. He is our all in all.
          • He loved us so much that we now share in the inheritance of His Son.
            • Wow! The living God offers you the redemption, glory, and righteousness of His Son.
        • There are no boundaries to God’s love.
          • Our love has boundaries. We are willing to love others, but only so much.
          • But this is not so with God. He loves us no matter how much we have abused and betrayed Him, and even after we continue to betray Him.
  • Let us consider how God loves:
    • In Mary Washes Jesus’ Feet With Her Hair, we see Jesus’ love:
      • Mary saw how deeply Jesus loved her.
      • What is God’s love like?:
        1. His love is initiatory. He loves us first.
          • Mary did not love God first. She was sinful, rebellious and resentful toward God. But God showed His love toward her.
          • In spite of all our wretchedness and sinfulness God loves His people.
          • He doesn’t love us because of anything good in ourselves. He loves us simply because He is love.
          • Jeremiah 31.3 Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.
        2. He loves us authentically.
          • His love is genuine.
          • His love is not self-serving.
            • Our love is self-serving. We love others in order to get more for ourselves.
            • 1 Corinthians 13:5-7[[1 Cor-13#v6|]][[1 Cor-13#v7|]]
          • Jesus always loves to do good to us.
          • ⭐ How do I know that I am saved?
            • 🅰️ I know that I am saved because every day I taste the love of God.
              • Everything I live for I owe to the love of Jesus Christ.
        3. This love is unquenchable.
          • Song of Solomon 8.6 Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of Yahweh.
            • God’s love is stronger than even death.
          • Romans 8:38-39 For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. [[Rom-08#v39|]]
        4. God’s love is unfailing:
          • Many things in this life are failing:
            • Solomon’s love for his friend failed.
            • Friends fail: Psalm 41.9 Yes, my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me.
          • God is always motivated by love.
            • Even when God comes to humble us, it is out of love.

Application

  • Let everyone come to Jesus. He loves you more than you could know.

Further Study

💬Discussion Questions

  1. If God is love then why does the CHAPTER 2 § 1 say that God is without passions? Isn’t love a passion?
    • Passions are changeableness. One example is rage. People become quite different when they rage. But the love of God doesn’t change because God doesn’t change.
    • It is worth noting that passion means different things in different contexts. Historically the church has used the phrase The Passion of the Christ to refer to Jesus’s death on the cross. In this context, passion actually means suffering (Latin patis). Christ, in His humanity did indeed suffer under the wrath of God, but Christ in His divinity did not suffer in the same way.
      • But the use of passion here in the Westminster Confession is a different definition of passion. Here passion means a strong emotion. To be clear, God does in fact have emotions, yet His emotions do not work in exactly the same way as ours. In particular, His emotions are not fickle, arbitrary nor shifting.

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. This philosophy is essentially absurdism or existentialism. ↩

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