The Love of God - Part 1

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gifted speaker and preacher and he agreed to let him speak on a Wednesday night in the church basement to part of the congregation. 

When D.L. Moody returned on Saturday from his trip Moody asked, as all of us do, we ask family members, so how did it go? He asked his wife, so honey how was Harry’s preaching? Her response was this: He preaches a little different from you. He preaches that God loves sinners. Moody says, he’s wrong. You see in the mid 1800’s there was absolutely no emphasis on the expression of God’s love to anyone except the elect. He said he’s wrong. Mrs. Moody advised D. L. to wait and hear him and to see what he thought after he heard him. So sure enough that Sunday morning, the following Sunday morning, D.L. Moody sat in the congregation and listened as Harry Morehouse opened the Scripture. The first thing that D.L. Moody noticed that was different was that all the people came with their Bibles. He had not encouraged them in the past to bring their Bibles yet they brought them. They immediately needed them because Harry Morehouse opened his Bible to John 3:16 and began to teach on the love of God. But really he didn’t stay there. It was more of a topical study starting in Genesis and ending in Revelation  about the love of God. 

Moody later wrote this about that service. He said: 

                        He went from Genesis to Revelation giving proof that God loves

                        the sinner. And before he got through, two or three of my sermons 

                        were spoiled. I never knew up to that time that God loved us so

                        much. This heart of mine began to thaw out. I could not keep back 

                        the tears. 

Fleming Revell remembered lifelong that image of D.L. Moody sitting there that Sunday morning scrawling passage after passage on his little pad as Harry Morehouse preached. He preached again that Sunday night and Harry Morehouse had a quirk a bit like mine. He tended to sway from one foot to the other. But Fleming says you forgot all about it as you heard the message coming from his lips. The text was the same. God so loved the world. And once again he unfolded it from Genesis to Revelation looking at different texts. Moody was so moved that he asked Harry Morehouse to preach the entire week every night to which Harry replied he would. He came back and every night again he looked at the love of God. Fleming Revell writes this. He says:

                        Outside in the sharp February air Chicago life rolled on unawares. 

                        Merchants dined and wined, the poor huddle half frozen around 

                        smoking stoves. Sailors from iced up ships lectured or boozed 

                        or brawled. At Illinois street among that crowd of humble citizens 

                        and a few new immigrants and a sprinkle of the rich, the spirit of 

                        love ran unfettered. And D.L. Moody turned in his ways to become 

                        from that time forth, an apostle of the love of God. 

It was an understanding of the love of God for sinners and also for him that revolutionized the ministry of D.L. Moody. I’m afraid that you and I as believers all too often fail to grasp the depth of God’s love for us. Let me show you why I know that’s true. Turn to Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter 3 in verse 14, notice this prayer of the apostle Paul. He says, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father ….” And what you’re going to see in this prayer is sort of a ladder. He starts at the lowest rung and the first rung is this, “I pray”, verse 16 “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.” That’s my first prayer. That you, in your inner man, would be strengthened by the power of God. That’s the first rung of the ladder. But notice the second. 

Verse 17, “So that ….” I want you to be strengthened in your inner man because I have even a greater purpose in my prayer and here it is “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love ….” It’s interesting how he uses two different metaphors there. “Rooted” is an agricultural metaphor; it speaks of a tree having its roots down in the soil of love. And the other image is “grounded.” That is more of an architectural image. That’s of a building. Having a foundation. Having the foundation of love. Those are two powerful images. He says I want you to so be built up in your inner man that you begin to be built up on the foundation of God’s love for you and that your roots sink down deep into the knowledge of God’s love for you. And then he puts it this way, that you “… may be able …” verse 18 “ … to comprehend [to understand, to fathom] with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” There’s the last rung on the ladder. I want you to comprehend the full love of God. And then you’ll take one more step. You’ll be filled up to all the fullness of God. 

There are several things this text tells us. First of all it tells us that we have not yet begun to grasp the richness and the depth and the profundity of the love of God. Otherwise Paul would not have been praying that for the Ephesians where he spent 18 months and ministered and taught them about the love of God. It also tells me that a knowledge of God’s love is absolutely foundational to our Christian life and experience. So with that in mind I want us to look at God’s love. But let me warn you before we begin we’re swimming in deep waters here. 

As Tozer put it, “His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats confused and abashed.” The bottom line, in much less eloquent language than Tozer put, there’s no way I can begin with this poor stammering tongue, as the hymn says, to rehearse to you the richness and the power and the depth and the breadth of the love of God. But we’re going to look at it together, this week and next. And my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would take what I can’t communicate to you and open your eyes to behold the richness of Scripture. That’s called illumination. And I had not planned to give this illustration but let me just tell you why it’s important for me to pray and for you to pray that God would open up your mind as Paul says in Ephesians 3, to really grasp the love of God. It’s because you and I can read the words on the page, we can basically understand them but we need the Spirit to illumine our minds. What that means is to turn on the light. 

Behind me, if the screen weren’t down, you would see a stained glass impression of a cross. At night without the light shining through it you can see it, you can understand what it is, you can see the colors that are there but it’s sort of flat. Illumination is when the Holy Spirit turns on the light. If you were to come back here tomorrow and if the sun were to be blazing tomorrow, which apparently it’s not going to be, but if it would be blazing through the window behind me you would see that image in powerful, fluorescent color. That’s the difference between reading the pages, reading the words on the pages of Scripture, and having the Spirit turn on the light where you really grasp the richness and the fullness and you have a spiritual apprehension as the Reformer’s said, of what’s there. That’s what I want you to have when it comes to the love of God. Not simply rehearse with me the facts as I go through them. But I want the Holy Spirit to turn on the light so you really understand. 

Scripture is clear that love is part of God’s unchanging character. Second Corinthians 13:11 says, God, or refers to God I should say, as the God of love. First John 4:8 says God is love. You know it’s interesting, three times Scripture tells us something about the nature of God beginning with God is. Scripture tells us God is spirit. That is, He is a non-corporeal, non-bodily being. God is light. That is, He is perfectly holy, untainted by anything of impurity. And God is love. God is love. Now many have distorted the apostle John’s meaning here. John is not saying that love is a definition of God as if love equals God and God equals love. If you were to interpret it that way it erases all the rest of His divine attributes. What John is saying is simply this; that love is an essential attribute of the character of God. When you think of God, let me put it to you this way, when you think of God you are to think of Him as a person characterized by, known by, described by, love. Our God is love. 

So what is love? Well, let’s look first at the primary biblical words. First, in Hebrew there’s one word and the verb form is “aw-hav’ ”, it’s how it’s pronounced [ahab]. I remember this from beginning Hebrew because the way our professor taught us to remember that “Ah-hav’” means love, is “Ah-hav-love.”  “Ah-hav-aw” [ahaba] is the noun form. Both are used for love of men for other men. In other words, people’s love for each other. And of our love for God and of God’s love for us. Same word used for all those different kinds of love. 

In the Greek, you recognize the word “agape” [ag-ah’pay] which is the noun form; “ag-a-pa’-o” [agapao] is the verb form. This is used only of the believers love for God and man and for God’s love for us. This word was relatively unknown in secular Greek. Greek had several words for love but this word was used very rarely in secular Greek. It existed but it really had not been defined, clarified, or sort of informed by common usage. And so it’s the word that the Septuagint translators decided to use. When they translated the Hebrew Old Testament they came across the word, “ahab” [pronounced ah-hav], they translated it with “agape.”. And so the Old Testament informed the word “agape.” When the New Testament believers read the word “agape” in their Greek Bibles what their minds went back to was the Septuagint and how it had been used to translate the Hebrew word, “ahab.” 

Now what is this love, this agape love? It’s a reasoned love. It is not based on emotion, but this is important, it is not void of emotion. It loves irrespective of the worth or the response of the object. That’s a very important point to recognize. Because whether it’s God’s love to us or our love to others, this kind of love, loves regardless of how worthy the object is. And this kind of love loves regardless of even the response that it gets. You see human love, the kind of romantic love that’s popular in the world, only loves when that love is reciprocated. But that’s not agape love. Agape love keeps on loving regardless of the worthiness of the recipient of the object or the response of the object. This kind of love is self-sacrificial; it’s self-giving. Now with those pieces let me give you my definition of agape love. It is the unselfish self-sacrificing desire to meet the need of the cherished person regardless of their worthiness of it, or response to it. Of course, in our love for God He is more than worthy of it and He does respond to it but there are times we’re called upon, for example, to love our enemies with this kind of love. It’s unselfish, self-sacrificing and it reaches out to meet the needs of the cherished person. It is a giving love.  

Now, with that in mind that’s sort of the words used for love, what is love when we talk about the divine attribute of God. When we talk about God is love what are we saying about God. Well, let me give you several definitions. Louis Berkof in his Systematic Theology says, “It is that perfection of God by which He is eternally moved to self communication.” In other words, God gives of Himself and this attribute of love means that He has to give of Himself, He’s compelled by His character to give of Himself. Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology says something very similar, “God eternally gives of Himself to others.” But I like this definition best. Jack Cottrell writes, “It’s His self-giving affection for His image bearing creatures and His unselfish concern for their well being that leads Him to act on their behalf and for their happiness and welfare.”  That is the love of God. Notice the components: self-giving affection and it’s for those who bear His image. It’s unselfish concern for their well being but it’s not merely concern. It’s not merely affection. It doesn’t stop in the heart. It expresses itself in action on their behalf for their happiness and welfare. That’s the love of God. It’s part of God’s nature to give of Himself in order to bring about blessing or good for others. 

Now to make sure that people understand that God’s love is different from the sentimental, emotional love of the world, many well intentioned people have removed all emotion from this word. They’ve said God’s love is just the love of decision. Well, that’s true as we saw earlier. It doesn’t depend on the worthiness of the object. Doesn’t depend on the response. So in that sense it is an act of the will. This love is an act of the will. Sometimes I’m counseling couples who are struggling with loving one another. Well, guess what the Bible says? The Bible says husbands, [agape] your wives. Love them self-sacrificially regardless of what their worthiness of it is and regardless of their response. Give of yourselves to meet their needs. And guess what Titus says. It says that women are to love [agape] their husbands. When I tell a couple that sometimes they’ll say, well I just don’t think I can, I just don’t love them anymore. I don’t think I can love them. I say, well, ok. You can’t love this person, as a spouse. What about as a friend? I mean Scripture says “Love your neighbor as yourself” .. can you even contemplate your spouse as a friend? And sometimes honestly there’s an unsettled conflict that they have trouble even coming to that point. And I say, alright. Would you say that you’re enemies? You see where I’m going here. Love, agape, your enemies. So it doesn’t really matter whether that person is your enemy, or your friend or your spouse whom you cherish. You’re still commanded to display the same response to them. You’re still demanded to give of yourself to meet their needs. Regardless, of what their response is. And that is exactly what God does. But that expression, that decision of the will, is also accompanied by emotion. 

Now, let me remind you that all of the biblical descriptions of emotions in God are what theologians call, “anthropopathic.” Anthro meaning man, “pathos” meaning feeling. It means that we are simply attributing man’s feelings, or man’s emotions to God. Our emotions are not experienced by God like we experience them. Our emotions are physical responses to external stimuli. For example, you’re on the freeway. You’re driving your car, you’re enjoying a little talk on the cell phone as most people do when they’re in their car. And all of a sudden a person swerves and almost catches you right on the front. What happens to your body? The old fight or flight mechanism kicks in. Your heart starts racing, you begin to sweat, your adrenaline pumps up. Fear kicks in. You have had an external stimuli that has caused a physical response. And that response is fear. God, on the other hand doesn’t experience emotions that way because God doesn’t react to anything. Nothing surprises God. So He doesn’t experience emotions like you and I experience them. But He still describes Himself as experiencing emotions. That means that there is something in God which can best be explained to us by comparing it to our emotions. It’s not exactly like our emotions because ours are reactions. But there’s something in God that is like the emotions we feel. God uses the human language of emotion to describe His love for us. Let me show you this. Turn to Zephaniah. Zephaniah chapter 3, verse 17. The picture here is of the end times when God gathers Israel to Himself and He redeems her and she becomes loyal and faithful to Him. Notice what verse 17 says. At that time “The Lord your God is in your midst. A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.”

Now what’s going on here? You have God described as expressing His love with emotion. The picture in this verse is of a proud parent whose child has just won first place in a contest. The parent sits back and savors the moment. When Israel is ultimately restored, God will savor the change in her, in love. God has something similar to our emotion that accompanies love. Let’s go on to talk about the character of God’s love. 

What exactly are the attributes or the characteristics of the love of God. How does He express it? 

First of all, it’s a sovereign love. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 7. Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 7. Of course the book of Deuteronomy was Moses speeches to the children of Israel as they’re on the east side of the Jordan, near Jericho, after the forty years wandering, they’re about to go in and take the city of Jericho. Moses is going to die first. Before that He gives them these series of speeches. Notice what He says in Deuteronomy 7 verse 7 [and 8]:

                        The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because 

                        you were more in number than any of the peoples for you were 

                        the fewest of all peoples. But because the LORD loved you 

                        and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD 

                        brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from 

                        the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Now notice what Moses says. He gives us the reason why God loves the nation that He chose. What makes God decide to love them? Notice verse 7 again, “The LORD did not set His love on you because you were more in numbers ….. but …” verse 8, the LORD did set His love on you “because the LORD loved you.” What does that mean? The LORD loved you because He loved you. That is the language of sovereignty. That is the language that says, God chose them, He set His love upon them, because He chose to set His love upon them. It wasn’t their intelligence, it wasn’t their moral purity, it wasn’t their goodness. There was absolutely nothing about them that caused God to love them. The same is true for us. There is nothing in us that causes God to say, I’m going to love that person. It is a sovereign decision by God. I will love those whom I love. And you see this even in the New Testament in Romans chapter 9 verse 13. You remember as Paul sets out to explain the doctrine of election, he says there in chapter 9, “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.” And then he goes on to say, and that’s before these boys were born, that’s before they did anything good or bad. So the point is this: God decides to set His love, irrespective of the object. It’s His sovereign choice.

John, the apostle John, puts it differently in 1 John 4:19. He says, “We love …” God. Why? “… because He first loved us.” Who decided to love first? God did. He set His love upon us. Why? Because He decided to do it. A.W. Pink writes: 

                        God’s love for me and for each of His own was entirely unmoved 

                        by anything in them. What was there in me to attract the heart of 

                        God? Absolutely nothing. But to the contrary, everything to repel 

                        Him, everything calculated to make Him loathe me - sinful, depraved, 

                        a mass of corruption with “no good thing in me.”

He’s right. There’s nothing in you or nothing in me that “attracted” God. People are constantly asking, why doesn’t God choose everyone? Why doesn’t He choose to set His love on everyone? The real question is, why does He choose anyone? Why has He chosen what Revelation 7:9 calls a “great multitude that no man can number [count]?” Because He chose. Because He chose to love, to set His love. 

The love of God is also infinite. Ephesians 2 verse 4 says, “God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us …” Great, magnificent. John 3:16, the familiar verse, “For God so loved …” Here is the intensity of His love, that He gave His only begotten Son. What more intense expression of God’s love could there be than that. It’s infinite. It can’t be measured. It’s also eternal. Jeremiah 31:3 says, “The LORD appeared to him from afar …” speaking of Israel, speaking again of the renewed Israel when He redeems her, when He saves her, “…. The LORD appeared to him from afar saying, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.’” Romans 8:38 and 39:

                        For I am convinced 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 the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

God’s love is an eternal love. It began in eternity past, the first few verses of Ephesians 1 tell us. “… He chose us in Christ [Him] before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption.” In other words, before we were ever adopted He loved us. And it all began according to verse 4, before the foundation of the world in eternity past. God’s love for you is eternal. It had no beginning and therefore, and this is the good news, it also has no end. Because God set His love upon you before you were ever alive before you had ever done anything good or bad. Nothing you can do changes God’s mind about having set His love upon you. Nothing surprises God. 

It’s also utterly unselfish. Turn to 1 Corinthians. We normally read 1 Corinthians in a different light, the love chapter. First Corinthians 13. But it uses the same word, “agape”, that’s used to describe the love of God toward us; so just as these attributes and should be attributes of our love for each other, they are also attributes of God’s love for us. Notice what it says. 1 Corinthians 13 verse 4. Here’s how God loves you:

                        Love is patient, love is kind and it’s not jealous; love does not brag and 

                        it’s not arrogant. It does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, 

                        is not provoked, it does not take into account a wrong suffered. Love 

                        does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; [love] 

                        bears all things [that is endures all things], believes all things, hopes all things,                                     and endures all things. Love never fails. 

That is a description not only of what your love and my love for one another should be, but that’s a description of God’s love for us. God’s love is utterly unselfish. 

So how can we begin to picture, how can we begin to get a grip on the love of God. Let me suggests several illustrations. I don’t have time to go through them tonight but I encourage you to do that. The first is Hosea. There’s no more powerful image of the persistent, undying everlasting love of God than the book of Hosea. I encourage you to read it as it’s meant to be an illustration of God’s ‘hesed”, His unfailing love, for His people. There’s another illustration. It’s a chapter we’ll go to at some time. I encourage you to read it. It’s graphic, it’s almost unfit for sort of general consumption. But I encourage you to read it because it’s intended, through the prophet Ezekiel, to express the love of God for His people in spite of their response. But what I do want to call to your attention is Solomon. 

Turn to 2 Samuel chapter 12. This is a fascinating one to me. 2 Samuel chapter 12. You’re familiar of course with the story of David’s sin, how he sinned with Bathsheba, committed adultery, and then had Uriah killed. And in 2 Samuel 12:24, it says, “And then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and he went into her and lay with her….” this is after, the death of course of the child that came from the adulterous relationship that they experienced. The child is now dead. After that David lays with her and she gave birth to a son and he named him Solomon. Now the Lord loved him. The Lord loved him. What’s remarkable about that is that Solomon at this point is still a child. He’s done nothing good or bad. And in fact God even does something else, verse 25, He sent word through Nathan the prophet and God gives Solomon a nickname: it’s Jedediah. Jedediah simply means “loved of the Lord.” Here is Solomon unable to do anything good or bad but God has already determined to set His love on Solomon. And He sends Nathan to nickname him, loved by God. 

You know the story of Solomon, of course. Solomon wasn’t without sin. Solomon contributed much to the history of Israel but his story also had some tragic parts. He chose to sin in his old age. He chose to multiply wives which he was commanded not to do. And then in his old age those wives drew his heart out after idols. And he actually in addition to the worship of the true God, worshipped idols as well. And yet what’s remarkable is, look at Nehemiah. Nehemiah’s writing almost 600 years after the death of Solomon. And notice what Nehemiah says in chapter 13. Nehemiah 13 verse 26. Now the context here is Nehemiah finds out that the children of Israel are again intermarrying with the people of the land and of course he knows where that took them before, he knows where that took Solomon and he uses Solomon as a negative example. Verse 26, “Did not Solomon king of Israel sin regarding these things?” He says don’t you remember, don’t you remember the tragic consequences of Solomon’s sin? “Yet among the many nations there was no king like him and he was loved by his God. And God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin.” You know what Nehemiah is saying? He’s saying even in the context of pointing out Solomon's gross sin and his negative example I want you to know that he was loved by God. From the very beginning and throughout his life. 

Listen, God chooses to love whomever He chooses to love. Not because of us but in spite of us and in spite of our sin. And of course He ultimately loves us to the point of cleansing and purifying and sanctifying us. And we’ll talk more about that next week. 

Who are the objects of God’s love? Who exactly does God love? And the first one might surprise you. God loves Himself.  He loves the persons of the Trinity. There are a lot of texts actually in the Scripture that describes this. It’s fascinating. Matthew 3 verse 17 says a voice came out of the heavens and said, “This is My beloved Son” - this is of course at the baptism of Christ - and this voice says, He is my beloved Son. He’s the one I love. “In whom I am well-pleased.” Matthew 17:5 at the Transfiguration, “While He was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them and behold a voice out of the cloud said, ‘This is My Beloved Son.’” This is the Son I love. This is what it says. A Father expressing His love for the Son. John 3:35, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand…”, Christ says. John 5:20, “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing.” You get the picture? But it’s reciprocated as well. In John 10:17, He continues to say, “…The Father loves Me.” Then He says in John 14:31, “I love the Father.” John 15:9-10, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you.” What a remarkable statement. As the Father has loved Me, Christ says, I have also loved you. “Abide in my love - if you keep my commandments - you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and I abide [or continue] in His love.” John 17 verse 24 and 26, “Father….” It’s His high priestly prayer the night before His, in just the hours before His crucifixion: 

                        Father I desire that they…” [that is My disciples] “… whom You’ve 

                        given Me, be with Me where I am so that they may see My glory 

                        which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation 

                        of the world…. And I’ve made Your name known to them, and will 

                        make it known, so that the love with which You have loved Me may be in 

                        them, and I in them.

And finally Colossians chapter 1 verse 13, Paul tells us that God “rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son He loves.” 

Have you ever thought about this? Have you ever thought there is absolutely perfect love within the Trinity? You see ultimately the relationship between the members of the Trinity is the model for the love that you and I are to show one another. That husbands are to show to their wives and wives to their husbands. And each of us as believers to one another. Before anything existed there was love in God. As Christ says, You loved Me before the foundation of the world, before anything was created there was this perfect, self-sacrificing, self-giving love between the members of the Trinity. That’s a mystery none of us can plumb but it is the foundation for God’s love for us because throughout these passages did you notice that God’s love for us is expressed to us in the same way as His love for His Son and the Son for the Father. The love within the Trinity is eternal, self-giving, self-sacrificing love. And God decided to create and He took that love and He voluntarily, without obligation, decided to love outside of Himself. He freely chose to direct that love toward you and me. 

How should we respond to that kind of love? How do we respond? Well, first of all study, meditate, and pray to understand His love more deeply. We looked at that reference in Ephesians 3. I’m not going to take you back there now again. I just want to remind you that Paul prays for the Ephesians; that they would really come to understand, to grasp, the height, and the depth, and the breadth of the love of God for them. Folks, if Paul thought it was so important for the Ephesians and for their spiritual development then how much more important is it for ours? Ask God to show you the depth of His love. As we go through this study pray that He would open up your mind to grasp it. 

Why is it so important that you and I grasp the love of God more?  Well, there are a number of different reasons I could cite but I want to give you two. Here’s why its so important that you and I come to really grasp and understand the love of God. First of all, turn to Luke chapter 7. Notice verse 36:

                        Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Jesus [Him] to dine with 

                        him, and He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 

                        There was a woman in the city who was a sinner … [that means an 

                        immoral women] and when she learned that Jesus was reclining at

                        the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of

                        perfume, and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began 

                        to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair

                        of her head, and kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume.

                        Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to 

                        himself, “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what 

                        sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is an 

                        immoral woman [a sinner]. 

Jesus of course knew his thoughts and He responds this way. “And Jesus answered him, 'Simon, I have something to say to you.’” And he replied, 'Say it, Teacher.’” And He goes on to give him a parable. He says “A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii [a denarii was essentially equivalent to a day’s wages], and the other fifty.” So five hundred days wages; almost two years worth of wages and the other owed fifty. A couple of months. “When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both.” So, He says to this Pharisee, “So which of them will love him more?”

This is a pretty straight-forward question. Verse 43, “Simon answered and said, ‘I suppose the one whom he forgave more.’ And He said you judge correctly.” Verse 44, “Turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, 'Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss, but she since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she has anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven for she loved much.” Here’s the punch line: “But he who has forgiven little, loves little.” 

Now don’t misunderstand the point of this story. The point of the story isn’t that you’ve been forgiven a lot and I’ve just been forgiven a little. The point is all of us have been forgiven an unpayable debt. In one case it was fifty day’s payment and in the other case it was five hundred but in both cases, it was a debt they could never have paid. Christ’s point is this: the greater your perception of the debt you have been forgiven, or can I put it this way? The greater your perception of the love of God in expressing His forgiveness to you then the greater your love in return for God will be. The more you come to grasp the expression of God’s love to you, the deeper and richer and fuller your love for God will be. That’s why it’s so important that we study and meditate and pray to understand the love of God more deeply. Because the more we grasp the reality of God’s love, the more we will love God in return. 

There’s another reason. It’s found in 1 John 4:18. Again there’s a number of reasons I could bring up to you but these are two that particularly struck me as I studied this week as to why it’s important that we really try to grasp the love of God for us. First John 4 verse 18, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love because He first loved us.” Now what’s going on here? Go back to verse 18 again and notice what the apostle John says, “Perfect love casts out fear.” You see fear is as I described before the painful emotion or the physical response that arises at the thought that we might be harmed or made to suffer. That’s fear. And fear continues as long as we are potentially subject to someone who does not desire our good or well-being. But as soon as we come under the protection of someone we see as a person of goodwill, fear disappears. Let me give you an illustration that Tozer gives in his little book, The Knowledge of the Holy.  You ever remember being lost as a child, lost let’s say, you were with your parents in a department store and for a few moments you were lost. You couldn’t see them, you didn’t know where they were; as far as you were concerned they were gone. You remember that immediate feeling that response of incredible fear and terror? There was terror that you’d be left and not knowing how you would fare on your own, there was a certain terror at looking around at the people and seeing them almost as strangers, as enemies, that would somehow seize the moment to hurt you. But then your mother came around the corner, she picked you up in her arms, and in the moment, in an absolute moment of time the terror is gone. Even though the circumstances had not changed. You were still in the store just as you’d been before but in a moment the terror was gone. Why? Because you were in the presence of someone whom you saw as having only your good and best interest at heart. 

The same is true for God. The more you and I comprehend the profundity of the love of God for us, the more it casts out fear and the more it gives us confidence in His presence. The more we come to understand that He means only our good; that He has only our best at heart. It’s like Psalm 23, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil.” Why? “Because You are with me.” Because I know You have only my good at heart. Like the mother in the department store, You’re not going to subject me to anything that would harm or hurt me. I know You. I know who You are. Tozer concludes his illustration with this quote. He says, “Let a man become convinced that nothing can harm him and instantly for him all fear goes out of the universe.” So many people struggle with fear; fear about various things. When we really come to grasp the depth of the love of God for us, we understand that we are constantly in the arms as it were, of one who means only our good. Then as John says, “All fear is gone.” Perfect love casts out fear. There’s so much more to be said about the love of God. We’ll look at the other objects of His love next week, the expressions of His love and many more of the responses that Scripture gives us in terms of how we should respond to such amazing love. Let’s pray together.

Father, this is one of those times when I feel so inadequate to begin to teach about who You are. Lord, my prayer is with the apostle Paul that you would broaden our souls to grasp the height and the depth, the reach of the love of God. Lord, that we would see Your love in all of its richness. Open our minds to understand, Father, so that we would love You more deeply. And so that all fear would be cast out because we come to understand that we live in the sphere of love. Lord, I pray that You would enable us even this week, to understand something more about the nature of Your love for us. And I pray Lord for the person here tonight who isn’t confident of Your love. Lord, help them to come to You in repentance and faith, falling down before You recognizing that You’ve promised never to cast out the one who comes. And that You will respond to them in love. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.