THE LOVE OF GOD

08 17 03
Ang Pagibig ng Dios
The Love of God



God is love. 1John 4:8,16
Kung meron man isang salita na nakapagbigay kalituhan ng mga tao, ito ang salitang pagibig. Ano ba ang pagibig. What is love? Ang salitang love sa orihinal ay hindi kasi natin nabibigyan ng hustisya sa ating pagtranslate. May 3-4 na klase ng pagibig. Andiyan ang phileo na siyang ginagamit natin sa brotherly love. Andiyan ang eros na ang gamit ay para sa physical and sensual love. Dito ang ginagamit ay ang agape. Agape is that kind of love that is freely given and that expects nothing back. Ito ang pagibig na kusang binibigay at hindi humihingi ng kapalit.

Ang pagibig ay hindi yuong sentimentality, romantic attachments at iba pa. Minsan nalilito tayo sa sa ating sinasabi tungkol sa Dios , sinasabi natin na Siya ay pagibig ngunit dulot ng ating kalituhan ginagamit natin ang modern usage ng salitang pagibig.of the word ‘love’. We often think of love as some wimpy sentimental gushy indulgent kindness. This is where we need the truth of Scripture to transform our thinking and give us the real definition of love.

Today as we think of God as love we have to ask what does the Bible say about His love? Napakayaman ng Bibliya sa mga sinasabi nito tungkol sa Dios na pagibig depinisyon nito tungkol sa pagibig.



1. His love is a love that denies itself for the one loved. Ang kanyang pagibig ay isang pagibig na di lumilingon sa sarili maibig lang ang iniibig.

Basahin natin ang 1 Corinthians 13.
If you look deeply into this chapter you will find all the attributes of God we have discussed. So anong klaseng pagibig ito na siyang imahen dn ng ating Dios.

Ang pagibig niya ay matapat (His love is faithful),v.4
Ang kanyang pagibig ay di nagbabago (His love is unchanging),
Ang kanyang pagibig ay maawain (His love is merciful),v.5a
Ang kanyang pagibig ay hindi nagmamaliw (His love never fails).v.8


Napakaiba ang pagibig ng tao. Ang pagibig ng tao ay parating nakasalalay sa pagibig ng iba. Umiibig ang tao ngunit humihingi ito ng kapalit. The love of man is often contingent upon others returning our love or giving us the favors we demand. God’s love however does not seek His own benefit.

Kung ang pagibig natin ay kagaya ng pagibibig Niya, itong pagibig na ito ay makapagbago sa atin.


We love Him because He first loved us. 1John 4:19
Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love. Psalms 48:9

Hindi natin maintindihan ang buong kalawakan ng kanyang kahulugan.

To step into this holy ground and try to elaborate on this description of God is to know we will only touch the surface of this attribute. In 1743 John Brine appropriately said, “No tongue can fully express the infinitude of God’s love, or any mind comprehend it: It ‘passeth knowledge’ (Ephesians 3:19). The most extensive ideas that a finite mind can frame about Divine love, are infinitely below its true nature.” As with all of God’s attributes, we must look past the mind of man to the revelation of God’s word to get a glimpse of this marvelous perfection of God’s love.

2. His love is a love that was a certain willingness to give up one’s life for another. Ang pagibig Niya ay may kahandaang ibigay ang sariling buhay.

Maibigay lang niya ang buhay na hawak sa iba, If we were to describe the love of God without the Word of God we would fall miserably short. 1 John 3:16 (NIV)16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. John 15:13 (KJV) Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ano ba ang dapat maibigay natin kagaya ng pagbibigay ng isang What more could anyone give for another? Romans 5:5-8 (NIV)5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.


If we are to look at a picture of this attribute there is but one perfect picture – it is the cross. It is in Christ Jesus loving us so much that He willingly laid down His life for us. That is the love of God demonstrated for us so that we might be able to understand it. For God so loved the world He gave his only begotten son… A laying down of one’s life or that dearest to him for another is the love we are talking about. This is the love that God has for you. Oswald Chambers said, “In the cross we may see the dimensions of Divine love. The cross is not the cross of a man, but the exhibition of the heart of God. At the back of the wall of the world stands God with His arms outstretched, and every man driven there is driven into the arms of God. The cross of Jesus is the supreme evidence of the love of God.”

In 19 We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19 (NIV) And remember what love we are talking about? Love that lays down your life. We see the love He first had for us in laying down His life for us, and as we let the power and reality of that past our hard exterior and into our very heart, the same type of love is birthed in us, His own love, that lays down our life for Him and for others. This is one place NIV has a more accurate rendering of the Greek, for there is no pronoun that is the object of love in the Greek. It doesn’t say we love HIM or we love OTHERS. The text just says, “We love because…”

3. His love causes us to love those whom He loves. Ang pagibig Niya ay tumutulak sa atin na umibig din sa mga iniibig Niya.

You can’t have that agape love in you without loving God and in turn those He loves. And again, that love is death to self, laying down your life. Follow along as I read what John writes in the fourth chapter of his first letter: 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.19 We love because he first loved us.20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 John 4:7-21 (NIV)

Verse 9 says God showed His love – it has been demonstrated in sending His only Son into the world, why? That we might live through Him. God loves us so much that He wants to rescue us from our spiritually dead condition. We don’t deserve to be rescued, but He loves us, and He desires to rescue us and give us life. The

Elizabeth DeBeasi tells the story of putting her daughter Carla to bed. She asked Carla, “What is it like to be 4?” Carla answered, “It’s special!” “Why”, her mother asked. “Because I know my mommy loves me”, came her quick reply. Life is special no matter what your age, because you know for sure that your heavenly Father loves you!








4. His love is poured on us. Ibinuhos Niya ang pagibig Niya sa atin.

1 John 3:1 (NIV) 1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! I like that word ‘lavished’. God’s love doesn’t just get distributed sparingly, for God declared Himself to Moses as the One abounding in love. What a need there is for us to know how much we are loved. When you realize what man is, as we contemplated in the sermon last week, and what it means that God is holy as we studied the week before, then we realize how much we need the love of God in abundance.

5. His love is a jealous love. His love desires that we love Him who is the righteous and just God that we have. Ang pagibig Niya ay seloso. Ninanais Niya na Dios na matuwid at walang kamalian Siya ay walang karibal sa ating pagibig.

James chapter four tells us how jealous God is over us. The world looks at jealousy as a negative virtue, but we must understand the desire of God is that we be completely His. What else is there? If we belong to anything else, it is the world – and that is sin – and sin destroys. God’s jealousy is holy, unlike man’s. It is a desire to see us pure, kept from evil, walking in His life and light, completely His.

The love and faithfulness of God are ever preceding Him, but remember that his rule and reigning is established on a foundation of righteousness and justice. Psalms 89:14 (NIV) declares, Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you. The love of God will not ignore justice or keep from disciplining those He loves. With love comes some painful scourging. God will do, in love, whatever it takes to keep His child from going astray. He wants us to know the consequences of sin. If you want to walk closely with God welcome that consistent discipline from the loving hand of God.

When God allows those painful experiences in life it helps me to remember what Christ suffered. He was beloved of the Father but He experienced poverty, disgrace and persecution. He got hungry and thirsty. The fact that men were allowed to spit on Him and punch Him did not mean that God did not love Him. And so we, too, should not question the love of God when we are rejected, afflicted or in a trial. He had nowhere to lay His head but He did have the Spirit without measure. Understand that spiritual gifts and spiritual comfort are gifts of God’s love that are worth more than wealth, more than pleasure, more than all the world can offer.




Conclusion
Brothers and sisters, if we are going to touch the community, we must be willing to allow God to change us from whiners to winners! Winners realize they have won. They don’t focus on the little errors of others. They are focussed on the victory of Jesus. Because God loved you so much He made you a winner in His Son. When He said, “It is finished!” He was declaring His victory for you. When He rose from the dead He rose victorious over death and hell. If you’ve risen with Him you are a winner! His abundant love is upon you.

Eph 3:16-19(NIV)16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge --that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

God expects His life in you to express His love, His unconditional love to Him first. That is the great Commandment, and then to others as His love flows through you. John said, if that isn’t happening, we probably don’t know God, because GOD IS LOVE. The invitation is to open our hearts afresh to Calvary and our eyes to His love expressed in so many ways toward us personally everyday; and then for us to return that first love, and let it flow to others. The cost is laying down our life, but that is the natural fruit of knowing and receiving His love for us. We can’t work it up, but we can let it flow. We can follow the leading of the Holy Spirit as He expresses love toward the Father, and love to others.

I’ll close with a story from Ed Rotz. He went to the hospital to see his premature granddaughter, Zoe. Zoe is the Greek word for life. Little Zoe was only 1 pound and 7 ounces. Ed’s wedding band could slide up Zoe’s arm all the way to her shoulder. When Ed first saw Zoe she had 2 IVs in her naval and one in her foot. There were monitors on each side of her chest. In her mouth were respirator and feeding tubes. To make matters worse, one-week earlier Zoe’s biological father had moved on. The nurse, Helen, found out Ed was related and told him, “You are going to be Zoe’s surrogate father. I want you in here everyday stroking her arms and legs with your fingertips and telling her you love her. If this baby is going to make it she will have to hear and feel she is loved.”

God knew we needed His voice and touch, so He not only gave us His Word (His voice) but also His Son (His tangible presence). He gave us not only Jesus Christ (the Word made flesh) but also His body, the church. God’s voice and God’s touch say, “I love you. Keep your eyes open to His love as you go through each day and your ears open to His words of abounding love toward you.