Nothing you can do can make God love you any less
~~ Watch the Video ~~
Outline:
- Introduction
- Traits of Wholeness
- God’s love is unconditional
- We Want Justice
- We don’t have to earn God‘s love
- Suffering Is Not a Sign that God Doesn’t Love Us
- You must accept God’s gift of love
- Hosea: Example of God’s Love
- God Showed His Love Through His Actions
- God is Calling Us into a Relationship With Him
- God’s love changes everything
Scripture:
- Jeremiah 31:3
- Romans 8:14-17
- Romans 8:33-34
- Romans 8:35-39
- Hosea 11:1
- Hosea 11:2-3
- Hosea 11:8-9
- John 3:16
- Hebrews 4:16
- 1 John 4:11-12
- 1 John 3:16
- Galatians 5:14
Introduction
The greatest reality in our lives is the love of God
- If we are not aware of it… We are aware of too many other things
- We are aware of the inferior
Jeremiah 31:3
The LORD appeared to him long ago, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you out with kindness.
Love at first sight
Who here believes in love at first sight?
Do people usually fall in love at first sight with someone who is:
- Unattractive
- Repelling
Our love usually has conditions on it
We only love those who we consider worthy.
in the last lesson we defined love as
- An emotion
- A decision
- Action
- A response to value (the person, the relationship)
- Revealed through sacrifice
God’s love is uncaused
We don’t have to earn love from God. You don’t have to meet certain conditions.
There is nothing you can do to cause God to love you.
There is nothing you can do to prevent God from loving you.
God loves you simply because he is God.
- Not because you have done anything to cause it.
Nothing you can ever do can make God love you more. Not:
- Greater achievement
- Greater beauty.
- Wider recognition.
- Greater levels of spirituality and obedience
Nothing you can do to make God love you any less.
- Sin
- Failure.
- Guilt.
- Regret.
The Love of God
Traits of Wholeness
- Honesty
- Kindness
- Behavior not influenced by external approval / validation
- Living by values and principles
- Setting Boundaries
- Taking ownership of your responsibilities
- Living with purpose and passion
- Hope
- Confidence
- Not losing control of your emotions
- Free from addictions
- Addressing Conflict with truth and love
- Has the capacity to resolve conflict maturely
- you “fight fair“
- Not critical or Judgemental
- Not jealous of others
- Forgive those who have wronged you in the past
- Know that you’re worthy of receiving love
- Not afraid to fail
- Able to manage irrational fear, worry, and anxiety
- Selfless encounters with others
- Not manipulating others trying to control their actions
- You care about how others feel
- Patient
- Don’t give into peer/social pressure
- Can communicate without antagonizing others
- You can complain respectfully
- Recognize, manage, and take responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings
- Slow to anger
- Not easily triggered
- Ability to maturely express your wants, needs and desires
- Can listen without reacting
- Can respect others without having to change them
- Able to negotiate solutions and take other people's perspectives into consideration
- Give people room to make mistakes and not be perfect
- Love God
- Love your neighbor
- Pray and spend time with God
- You are led by the Spirit
- Have faith in your salvation through Jesus
God’s love is unconditional
God loves you as if you were the only person in the world, and he loves every other person the same way he loves you.
– St Augustine.
The Greek word “agape“ is described as the kind of love God has.
- The Greek gods did not love unconditionally.
- The biblical writers invented the concept of agape as we know it based off of Jesus’ love
If you only love me when I’m good to you then that dilutes the meaning of love.
Prodigal Son
Luke 15:11-32
Repentance
The Bible doesn’t imply that the prodigal son realized that he was morally wrong
He decided that he could have a better life as a servant of his father
He was motivated to go back because of the hope of a better life
- He wasn’t motivated because he wanted to restore the relationship with his father
Fathers reaction
The father didn’t seem interested in an apology.
Something that is lost was just found.
Example: You lost an expensive ring
- Thought it went out with the trash
- How do you feel when it just pops up?
The father's gifts of a
- robe
- ring
- sandals
These three gifts collectively demonstrate the father's overwhelming love, forgiveness, and complete restoration of his son.
Here's what each item represents:
- the "best robe"
- Restoration of Honor and Dignity:
- The "best robe" signifies a complete reversal of his condition, restoring his place of honor and respect within the family. It's a public declaration that he is not a servant, but a beloved son.
- Identity: It reaffirms his identity as a cherished family member, not an outcast.
- The Ring:
- Authority
- Trust
- The Sandals:
- Sonship (vs. Servitude)
- Slaves and servants typically went barefoot in that culture.
We Want Justice
God is love, but he is also
- Holy
- Just
When we do something wrong we feel guilty about it.
- We were made in the image of God so we want justice.
- When we do something wrong and don't get punished about it, it screws us up.
- We start to question whether God is just.
Jesus‘s death was the punishment
When you say to someone I forgive you you have to tear up the case file. When God forgives us he restores us to the point as if it never happened.
If I'm forgiven then that means the previous times I did it can't be brought into the equation when I do it this time. You can't say this is the sixth time you did this. No, this is the first time I did it because you forgave me.
Example: forgive 7 x 70
- same as saying forgive once because each time is new
Slavery to children
Romans 8:14-17
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons and daughters of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
We move from slavery to family. Changing the road in your relationship to God from slave to child changes the revelation you can get. Jesus said I no longer call you slaves because the slave does not know what his master is doing.
Jesus said but I call you children because all things I have heard from the father I've made them known to you.
Orphan Mentality
https://youtu.be/Vf141qEdM50?si=UTcrAtw8tPuPDjuZ
We don’t have to earn God‘s love
Romans 8:33-34
33 Who will bring charges against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, but rather, was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.
Many people who grew a Christian don’t believe that in the midst of their sin, God still loves them.
They believe that what matters is what they can accomplish for God
One of Satan‘s most effective strategies is to undermine our understanding of how much God loves us
Why we doubt
When we were children, we believed that God loves us.
- But that was before we committed that wrong or that mistake
We feel that we have to do something to get back into God’s good graces.
The reality is that before during, and after our stumble, God’s love remains intact and perfect
When we doubt the love of God when.
- We are the victims of evil.
- When we are the agents of evil
The error is in thinking that the presence of evil means the absence of God’s love. God has never promised to keep evil away from us. The Bible reminds us that evil is all around us. But God is always more powerful than the worst the devil can throw with us.
God forgave David and restored him to fellowship.
We messed up and not only does God forgive us… But he still gives us the things that we asked for
Legalism and perfectionism
The two main factors that disconnect us from receiving the love of God are
- Legalism
- Perfectionism
Legalisms says there are a list of things that I have to do in order to receive God‘s love
Perfectionism says I have to be perfect in order to receive God‘s love
We don’t receive God's love by
- Knocking on doors
- Bringing a certain number of people into the kingdom
Love is the response to understanding the value of someone or something
Suffering Is Not a Sign that God Doesn’t Love You
Romans 8:35-39
35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or trouble, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 Just as it is written: “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE REGARDED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.” 37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The greatest message in the Bible is “nothing in the entire universe can stop God from loving us”
God’s love does not depend on
- whether or not we love him back
- Earning it.
- Deserving it
- maintaining it
suffering
Romans 8:35-39
- Tribulation.
- Distress.
- Persecution.
- Famine .
- Nakedness.
- Peril.
- The sword (the threat of death)
Paul is challenging the assumption that if we find ourselves in any of the situation that God does not love us
Our difficulty, and our circumstances are not a reflection of the love of God
God didn’t promise us an easy ride through life?
- Not from scripture
When bad things happen, Christians begin to conclude… If he really loved me, he would not have allowed this to happen
We slip into the error of thinking that God’s love means infinite protection
God’s love remains intact in spite of your anger
You must accept God’s gift of love
A gift that you do not receive is of no value
God gives you the gift of love… But you have to receive it
The gift has to be
- Accepted
- Opened
- Identified.
- Appreciated
Accept God’s Perfect Love
The solution is to realize that God accepts you and loves you just as you are
- Realize you are a child of God
- Realize He sees you as enough
- He has forgiven all of your sins
Believe that His love isn’t impacted by your sin
Believe that there is nothing that can separate you from God’s love
- Believe that nothing that stands against you can succeed
- God is a good Father who takes care of His kids
God isn’t waiting for you to become
- More spiritual
- More celebate
- Nicer
- Serve more
- Less of an alcoholic
He loves you just the way you are
Hosea: Example of God’s Love
God made Hosea marry a prostitute and take her back after she slept with other men just to show us how there is nothing we could do where he wouldn’t take us back.
In Hosea God uses 2 analogies how he loves us.
- Father.
- A husband
A father
Hosea 11:1
1 When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son.
Israel only knew the love of God as a nation. Each individual did not have a personal relationship with the heavenly father.
Jesus taught us to see God as “our father“
He loves us as a husband.
The husband imagery of God is the primary analogy used in the book of Hosea.
Just as Hosea took Gomer back with his steadfast love, God also brought his people back to him.
The forgiveness of God’s love.
Hosea 11:2-3
2 The more they called them, The more they went away from them; They kept sacrificing to the Baals And burning incense to idols. 3 Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in My arms; But they did not know that I healed them.
How did God respond to Israel’s infidelity?
We want to apply the law of physics to the law of love.
- For every action we want to apply an equal and opposite reaction
The compassion of God’s in love.
Hosea 11:8-9
8 How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I surrender you, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned over within Me, All My compassions are kindled. 9 I will not carry out My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, And I will not come in wrath.
Ephraim is often used to symbolize Israel as a whole
Israel is the name of the 10 northern tribes that split off from the southern tribe of Benjamin and Judah
God does not mean that there won’t be judgment. He means there any long-term threat of permanent judgment will be set aside. There will be no ultimate destruction of Israel, as there was for Sodom and Gomorrah.
God Showed His Love Through His Actions
John 3:16
16“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
God wrote his love in blood.
John 3:16 is the most popular book chapter verse reference in the Bible
Tim Tebow put John 316 on his face in a national championship college game.
- Immediately afterwards, there were 9 million searches for John 3:16 on Google
After leading the Denver Broncos playoffs or Steelers 3 years later
- He had thrown for 316 yards.
- The Associated Press said that he averaged 31.6 yards per completion.
By Monday morning, John 316 was the most searched item on the Internet
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxM8uOzCinQMJ7-8Qyjf-Pbl2R3j0zyih6?si=fX2JCT82jnlUeYRN
How did John 316 come to be?
John 3:16 wasn’t spoken in front of the song on the mountain. It was spoken in private to one person… Nicodemus.
Jesus told Nicodemus his salvation was available not just to the Jews, but to the entire world.
God’s love is extensive.
The world.
It was basic in Jewish culture. The Jews loved Jews, but not so much everyone else.
God loving the world is a distinctly Christian idea.
Titanic: Love in Action
story of Reverend John Harper on the Titanic.
The story goes that on the night of April 14, 1912, as the RMS Titanic was sinking, John Harper, a Scottish Baptist pastor who was traveling with his six-year-old daughter, acted with remarkable selflessness and urgency.
Here's a summary of the widely reported accounts:
- Ensuring his daughter's safety: Harper reportedly made sure his daughter, Annie Jessie, was safely put into a lifeboat. He then gave her a kiss and told her they would meet again, indicating his acceptance of his own fate.
- Giving up his lifejacket: Accounts state that he gave his own life jacket to another man, saying, "You need this more than I do."
- Shouting a desperate plea: As the ship was going down, he was heard shouting, "Let the women, children, and the unsaved into the lifeboats!" This demonstrates his profound concern for the spiritual state of those who were about to perish, believing that believers were ready for eternity but those who had not accepted Christ were not.
- Evangelizing in the icy water: Even after he was plunged into the freezing North Atlantic, clinging to wreckage, he continued to swim to others, asking them, "Are you saved?" or "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
- His "last convert": One of the most famous parts of his story involves a young man who later testified at a survivor's meeting that he was John Harper's "last convert." The man recounted that Harper approached him twice in the water, asking if he was saved. The second time, as Harper was visibly weakening and about to succumb to the cold, he again urged the man to "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." The man stated that in that moment, alone in the vast ocean, he accepted Christ. He was later rescued by a lifeboat.
God is Calling Us into a Relationship With Him
Hebrews 4:16
Therefore let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of our need.
You have to get into the presence of God every day
- Listen to someone else worship isn’t enough
- Watching someone else worship isn’t enough
When you spend time in the presence of God your body becomes recalibrated to hunger for what it was born for
The Bible says “be still and know that I’m God“
- There is a reason he tells us to be still
- our agenda for God often keeps us away from God
I disengage from my capacity for love when I have
- Fear
- worry
- Anxiety
- Worry about what other people think
how often do you sit alone and say “father I’m here to be loved by you“?
- Not seen, discerning, feeling
- just sit and receive God‘s love
God’s love changes everything
1 John 4:11-12
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us.
They say that as the apostle John got older, he preached about nothing else but love
If we lack the ability to love… We lack the ability to live the abundant life.
John 10:10
God is our only source of love
Because God loves us we can love ourselves.
To love ourselves as God loves us means that we
- Have to love ourselves the same way God loves us.
- Seek after his best for our lives.
- Conform ourselves to his expectations.
- Live according to his guidelines.
John says I love him because he first loved me
- I can only love him to the measure that I’ve received love from him
- receiving the love of God… Gives me a capacity for love that I did not have before
I was designed to be a lover of god with every part of my being
There’s an emotional capacity for love that must find expression in my relationship with God
- It’s a lifetime journey
- I never stop and grade myself
- I keep moving forward
Because God loves us we can love one another.
1 John 3:16
We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters.
God loves us > empowers us to love him in return > allows us to love ourselves
God is invisible, but his love through us makes him tangible to others
Love is the heartbeat of our faith
Our number one priority in fulfilling the mission of bringing people to Christ… Is to love one another
Because God loves us. We can love our neighbor.
Galatians 5:14*
14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”
Your neighbor is anyone who encounter that has a need that you can fulfill
we don’t worry about the results, because we have no motive other than to spread the love that God has given us
Let love change your world
Some people may seem unlovable to you.
- But remember… You may seem unlovable to someone else
We’re not convincing people of a Christian philosophy… We are introducing them to love
A magnet will pass its magnetic charge into a piece of iron if it is left near long enough.
In the same way, there is no force more magnetizing than the love of Christ. If we are near him long enough… We will love also.
“if I say that I have love for God and don’t have love towards people… You have every reason to question my love for God”
Giving others what they don’t deserve
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DK1c32rsCtA/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
God's Romance - Sharon Ortiz
Instructor: Michael Leadon
References
The Father’s Love
Kris Vallotton
What kind of love is this
Tim Timberlake | celebration church
God loves you
David Jeremiah
Inconvenient Love Part 2 - The Power of Wholeness
Touré Roberts
How to experience and live from God‘s love
Bill Johnson teaching
Extra
An over obsession with the opinions of others is evidence that the revelation of God‘s love for you is lacking
2 Timothy 1:9
Who hath saved us, and called [us] with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
4 “Hear, Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! 5 “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 “And you shall repeat them diligently to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. 8 “You shall also tie them as a sign to your hand, and they shall be as frontlets on your forehead. 9 “You shall also write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
