God’s Love
John 3:16:

Psychology has always recognized the importance of love, but has done little to study it. In recent years there has been quite a bit of research and investigation into the study of love in the lives of people. There are some interesting ideas that are being re-affirmed. I say re-affirmed because there are things that are common to our experience once we begin to think about them.

A. The best predictor of how satisfied and happy a couple are in a relationship , according to one study, is not how much or how little the partners love each other, but rather how equal their love is There is a great comment on God’s love. God so loved that he gave his son.
This is another way of describing God’s becoming human to show his love in terms of equality. Certainly God’s love is enormous, but in the Incarnation God seeks man on the basis of equality.

B. In another study concerning romantic love relationships, the “single most important element found to be sharing ideas and interest with one’s lover.” When one speaks of God as the great lover he seeks to share himself with the beloved. We are the recepients of God’s love.

C. Another idea about love was the romantic situation and growing through the relationship. “Growth came about by taking pleasure in doing things for the other person.” When God loves he has taken pleasure in doing something for mankind. That act involves redeeming us, changing us, delivering us from self-destruction, and giving us everlasting life.

D. There is a basic core of what love is whether it is loving relationship of adults or children. That core includes such elements as being able to count on the loved one in times of need; having a mutual understanding and sharing oneself and one’s things with the loved one; giving and getting emotional support; promoting the welfare of the person, and valuing and being happy with the person. These are the things that really seem to matter when it comes to love.

When we begin to think of God loving the world...we are talking about many of these things. We have times of need and He is there; there is a mutual understanding on God’s part for our condition; there is the giving of emotional support. God has been promoting our welfare–he gives us directions for living and he values us as persons.

I. God Loves the World

Martin Luther once declared, “If I were as our Lord God, and these vile people were as disobedient as they now are, I would knock the world in pieces.” But God loves the world; his foolish, blundering, wayward, sin sick world; and cannot bear to leave it in the troubles and disasters in which it has involved itself.

It is easy to think of God as looking at man in their disobedience and rebellion and sayings, “I’ll break them I’ll discipline them and punish them and scourge them until they come back.” It is easy to think of God as seeking the allegiance of man in order to satisfy his own desire for power and for what we might call a completely subject universe.

The wonderful thing about this text is that it shows us God acting not for his own sake, but for ours, not to satisfy his desire for power, but to express his love. God is not like an absolute monarch who treats each person as a subject to be reduced to abject obedience. Instead, God is the Father who cannot be happy until his wondering children have come home. God does not smash people into submission, but yearns for his wayward children to come home. He waits in love for our return.

God loves the world....not just a nation; it is not just good people, it was not only the people who loved him, rather he loves the world....The unloveable and the unlovely, the lonely who has no one else to love them, the person who loves God, and the person who never thinks of Him, the person who rests in the love of God and the person who rejects that love. God loves all. He love the people of different cultures, races, colors, and languages.

It is important to realize something more than the abstraction and conclude that God loves me. In the course of our day we need to say to ourselves, God loves me. If God loves me, I can accept me, I can grow, I can change, I can love also....

II. God gives eternal life

Eternal life is something that I cannot say much about. Jesus makes the point that eternal life is a quality of life, not a matter of time. Living forever does not need to include time. We normally think of time as changing and life as we know it has change involved in it all the time. Eternal life gets above the idea of change. That life is a quality of life in the presence of God. It is a transformed life. We were sinners falling short of the glory of God, but by faith in Christ we look forward to sharing the glory of God. (Rom 5:3)

I have been doing a lot of reading about Islam and it is interesting to see what Mohammed claimed about life after death. Muslims are prohibited from drinking wine and hard liquor on earth, but in paradise there will be wine and liquor that will not intoxicate. There will be women transformed and they are described as black-eyed women who have eyes only for their husbands and who are always virgins. There is no comparable description for the believing Muslim women who go to paradise. Little is said about knowing God directly or seeing God in life after death.

III. God can be rejected 18

We have the paradox of God’s love yet rejecting that love is possible and this brings about judgement on ourselves. To reject God’s love is to make a little universe for ourselves in which we are the only important person. To reject God’s love is to reject the whole idea of love. There is no other source of love apart from God’s love, because the Bible says, God is love.(1 John 4:16) If we do not relate to God we cannot know love in its greatest context.

United States Senator Jake Garn of Utah did something most of us admire-and perhaps should consider doing ourselves. He donated one of his organs to save a life.

A recent survey says 73 percent of Americans approve organ donation. But only about 20 percent actually sign donor cards and make arrangements for our corneas, kidneys, or other organs to be used when we die.

In Senator Garn's case, however, he did not wait until his death to donate his left kidney. His 27-year-old daughter, Susan Garn Horne, suffered from progressive kidney failure due to diabetes. Her condition deteriorated, and doctors determined that she needed a kidney transplant immediately.

Jake Garn and his two sons were all found to be compatible donors. The senator insisted that he should be the one to give the kidney. "Her mother carried her for nine months," he said, "and I am honored to give her part of me."

So, on September 10, 1986, in a Washington, D.C. hospital, a six-hour surgical procedure was performed to remove one of his kidneys and to implant it into his daughter.

The radio news broadcast a story on Garns, and in it was a comment from the doctor who put the donated kidney into Susan's body. At a press briefing at Georgetown University Hospital, the doctor said, "The senator is awake, has a bit of a grin on his face. He seems very self-satisfied, and happy and peaceful."
The senator had to be in pain at that moment. The incision through which his kidney was removed goes from his back to his front ribs. There were tubes in him, needles yet to come, and several weeks of recuperation lying ahead. But he was smiling!
That grin on Jake Garn's face could have meant only one thing: no regrets. Love makes it possible for a person to do the most difficult and dreaded of things without looking back.

Let’s suppose that during the operation on her Father that daughter, Susan, would have said, “I reject the gift of his kidney.” What would this have meant for her life? It would have been certain death. What hardness of heart would have prevailed if in spite of his love for her she had rejected the kidney.

Think for a moment about what Jesus did to save you. He left the worship of angels to be born in a stable. He accepted the limitations of human form, suffered indignities of the greatest magnitude, and shed His lifeblood to purchase your redemption.

The most astounding thing about all He did is that there is not a word in the Bible which indicates that the Son of God regretted doing it.
His only regret would come if you refused His gift of life.

Love allows people in their freedom to go their own way. The story of the prodigal son indicates that one may leave God the father and stray into one’s own ruin. That is freedom.
There is the love of many parents who plead with their children not to chose this or that action which will bring harm to them, or ruin their lives.....but their love can be rejected.

Conclusion:
Believing in Jesus means that God loves me, that God cares for me, that God wants the best for our lives.

Believing in Jesus is to commit your life to Him. This is the marvel of love. Real love brings joy. Real love brings a sense of happiness, a sense of worth and value. All of us want to be loved and to love. Real love is possible because God loves. God loves you and me.