What does it mean when we say that God is love? What does the Bible teach about God’s love toward sinners? In this video, Pastor David Platt explains that God’s love is good news to sinners because it reaches out to those who are unloving and rebellious. Pastor Platt explains that our love is fundamentally different from ours. We tend to love things that are inherently lovely, but God loved us when we were sinners who had rebelled against him. When we understand that love starts with God, we can give thanks for the love he showed humanity by sending Christ to earth.
- Love as God’s Nature
- Natural Rebellion as Our Nature
- God’s Unchanging Love for Us
Watch Full Message of A Love Relationship with God
God is Love
God is love. He is love. Verse eight, verse 16, say that outright, which is a pretty powerful statement to say, someone is love. I’d like to say David is love, as if David was synonymous with love. David is perfectly loving. That’s not true. I’m not always loving in every way. I’m not love. You couldn’t say David is love, but you can say God is love. Think about it. Supernatural love exists eternally in God.
It exists in God, finds its existence in Him. It’s in His nature to love. And it always has been, before time began, before the world was even created, God was love. We’ve seen all of First John, the Trinitarian nature of God, God the Father, God the Son, Jesus, God the Spirit. So before man or woman or anything else was even created to love, God was loving in and of Himself, it’s a part of his nature.
Love is part of who He is. Just as the sun gives light, because it is light and fire gives heat because it is heat, God is loving because He is love. Supernatural love exists eternally in Him. And so it follows then, this is in your notes there, supernatural love flows completely from God. It flows from God, which is what John says in the first verse we read, chapter four, verse seven.
Love is From God
Love is from God. It doesn’t start with us. Love starts with God. Verse 10 says, this is love. Not that we loved God, but God loved us. Love started with Him, not with us. In love, He sent His son to be the sacrifice for our sins. Which so don’t miss this, that implies that we were not loving. We are sinners against God. We have all turned aside from God. We have not been loving toward God. None of us has. We have all been defiant toward God. This is the primary problem in every single one of our lives. We have defied God instead of loving God.
Supernatural love doesn’t start with us. Natural rebellion starts with us. Which means, so follow this, this makes God’s love totally different than the way we think about love. I was just kind of letting this soak in my own life. I was thinking about the people I love most in this world. I think about my wife, Heather, our kids. So just think about Heather, my wife. I fell in love with her as a teenager.
Do you know why, because I thought she was lovely and I was attracted to her beauty inside and out. I fell totally in love with her. I was doing all sorts of dumb things to try to impress her because I wanted her to love me because I thought she was lovely in a way that’s only grown. So we’ll celebrate 19 years for us of marriage this year, and she is more beautiful to me today than she ever has been in my eyes.
So there’s a sense in which my love for her, follow this, my love for her was prompted by her loveliness and even by her love for me. The more she loves me, the more I love her. But this is not the way a relationship with God works. I think my wife and I have a pretty healthy relationship, but this is so much different, so much greater. So love and a relationship with God flows completely from Him. Because in our sinful nature, there is nothing in us that loves God. We are prone to defy God. We don’t desire God. We are not drawn to God. We are sinners that have turned from God in our lives. We desire so many other things in this world more than God, namely ourselves. So this is love. Not that we loved God, but that when we were totally unlovely, God loved us.
God Loves You Because He is Love
Is this not awesome to think about? I talk with people who say, look at all that I’ve done in my life, there is no way God could love me. But there is, because His love doesn’t start with you, it starts with Him. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no sin in you that is greater than God’s love for you. Isn’t that good news? To a bunch of sinners here and other campuses right now done all kinds of things, there’s no sin in you that is greater than God’s love for you.
God’s love for you, just get this. This is totally different. It’s not the way we think. God’s love for you is not in any way dependent on you. God never says, “I love you if. I love you because.” God loves you. Why? Not because of what you do, but because of who He is. He loves you because He is love, which also means His love for you does not grow. Do you know why not? Because it can’t. It’s perfect in the first place.
What it Means to be Christian
Just feel what this means to Christians. You are totally free from any and every attempt to earn more love for you from God. God will never love you any less than He does right now, and He will never love you any more than He does right now because He loves you supernaturally and His love flows from Him, not from you. Let this soak in. In a world where we are wired to love the lovely, God loves us when we are unlovely. In a world where all kinds of people will say, I will love you if you’ll do this, if you’ll do that, where people love you when things are going well and don’t love you when things aren’t going well.
In a world where, and in many of our lives, people have loved us for a little while and then left us. I think about husbands who have stopped loving their wives and vice versa for this reason or that. Parents who have left your home, who have loved you and then are not there anymore. Children who have rebelled against your home. In a world of unpredictable, undependable love, the nature of God is 100% predictable and 100% dependable. He is love.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
