God's Unconditional Love

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

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.

This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. We know that we live in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in Him and He in God. 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. 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.

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. We love because He first loved us. 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. And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 John 4:7-21

The theme for December is be God’s love. Advent, which starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, ends on Christmas Eve. Advent begins the Church Year for most churches in the Western tradition.

God the Son, our Creator, gave up His role, power and authority as God’s Son for 33 years so He could live among us as a Man, suffer terrible shame, and cruelly die on a cross to purchase our salvation.

A similar love is shown by the many thousands of young men and women that serve in our armed services. While they hope to survive the years of military service and retire early, they know that they may give their very lives for the rest of us.

Young women are willing to risk their lives to give birth to babies. Parents work long hard hours to provide for their families. Unconditional love is seen many ways. This morning we want to pay honor to those who give so sacrificially, beginning with God.

As a child I just figured God was happy all of the time and never had any problems. Turns out I was wrong. Since God gives mankind free will He has to put up with many disappointments that come when we sin.

Imagine the pain God feels when people murder and commit all sorts of crimes thousands of times a day around the world. Yet God keeps on loving the sinners and those who are sinned against.

Every day God calls us to do something about the problems, yet we often fail because we are wrapped up in our own problems. Jesus came to “seek and save what was lost.” I believe that God has called us to seek and save the lost as well.

A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see Him, since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus reached the spot, He looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner.'"

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount."

Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." Luke 19:1-10

As God’s children we have many responsibilities. One of them is to minister to the lost. And that takes place outside the walls of this church.

Unconditional love for God will lead us to do His work!

The Evangel World Outreach Church in Chicago, a multi-cultural congregation of 1200, chose a very practical way to illustrate God’s love. For two years they had spent long hours negotiating to buy a neighboring church. They had prayed, worked out the details and gained the financing they needed. The pastor and members were growing more and more excited as the day of closing the deal rapidly approached.

Suddenly the members of the other church balked! They would sell the building, but they would not move! Two years of work down the drain! The pastor was devastated and confused. He says, “Out of my brokenness and pain I cried out to the Lord.”

As he prayed, the Lord instructed him to be a blessing! They had recently studied Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, and the pastor felt impressed to bless those in the church and community that had a need over the next 40 days.

His staff and the church leadership embraced the idea, so they went to work! They passed out business cards that read “You’ve just been blessed” on one side and “Pass it on” on the opposite card.

Pastor, Ray Berryhill, began preaching the principles of blessing others. Saturdays and Sundays became days for the church to bless the community.

Here are some of the ways they blessed their community;

1. 80 volunteers fueled cars and served food and drinks at a local service station. The church and a corporate sponsor paid for the gasoline of 100 customers.

2. Church volunteers served 100 free meals.

3. The church and a local business owner provided more than 100 free oil changes for single mothers.

4. Family vacations were given away; people’s utilities and gas bills were paid for a month and even a year.

5. One woman came to church and learned she would receive a year’s worth of groceries.

6. Members went to a coin-operated laundry and carried people’s clothing from their cars to the washers and paid for the wash and dry.

7. One member saw a young mother put her last $3 in her gas tank, so she paid to fill the tank. When the lady expressed her surprise Loretha Styles told her to “pass it on!”

8. One lady had spent many days in the hospital – her bills had piled up and she had no way to pay them. The church paid her utility bills for a month and entered her name in a random drawing for a year’s worth of utility bills.

At the grand finale of the drawing they gave away a “gently used” Mitsubishi Gallant! This event took place at the end of a large meal consisting of ribs, chickens, burgers and hotdogs served after the Sunday worship service. The day before people had received free clothing, furniture, bags of groceries, health screenings, haircuts and opportunities to meet local business people that were looking for employees. They also blessed people with computers and school supplies. Over 1,000 worshipers were present!

What was the end result? The broken hearts of the pastor and congregation were healed. More than 120 people committed themselves to a new relationship with God at that one service.

During the entire event between 20 and 40 people per week made first-time commitments to Christ during the Sunday morning services.

As a result of the new people coming in they need a bigger building than the one they were buying… Since the article was written the church has entered negotiations with the Chicago Board of Education regarding property that could house a congregation of more than 1,000 people.

Our church isn’t that big… and Loyal is certainly smaller than Chicago. However, our hearts are that big and we serve the same God!

What is unconditional love? It is God’s “agape” love – a love that requires no response. It is the love God has for us, and the love He asks us to give to others. It is the love that will let us pray for our enemies and bless those who curse us.

Love is more than an emotion. It is a choice.

Love starts with God

It flows to us

It flows through us

If it does not flow through us it becomes stagnant

Stagnant love is self-centered selfishness!

Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” To paraphrase Matthew Henry, “No change of outward circumstances should decrease our love for our friends or relatives. However, only Christ deserves unlimited confidence.”

In order to love unconditionally we must be careful about the thoughts that we dwell on. Satan will tempt you with a variety of thoughts. We choose which ones we dwell on!

Illustration: (Clean glass, dirty glass, clear water, dirty water.)

1. Clean water is poured in a dirty glass illustrating that our lives must be purified through salvation and sanctification.

2. The clean glass is filled with clear water illustrating God’s word and love.

3. Dirty water, representing bitterness, anger, unforgiveness and unholy thoughts is poured in, displacing some of the clean, showing what happens when our thoughts and attitudes are not pure.

4. Repentance cleans the glass and refills us with God’s pure thoughts.

Our teen class had a great discussion on unconditional last week. I am not going to quote them at all… But one of the questions in the lesson was, “Can we love ourselves unconditionally?”

I have asked that question of several people this week. An amazing number of people said No! But some people I really admire said, “You have to.” I agree with them. Jesus taught us to love others as ourselves. If you cannot love yourself unconditionally you cannot love others unconditionally!

One person said he believed that unconditional love is “NO RERUNS.”

Unconditional love is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.

Love never fails.

This is how God loves us! I shared this idea with a lady and she looked at me and asked, “Are you saying that God trusts me?” The answer is, “Yes!”

When you look at the attributes of love in 1 Corinthians 13, most of them are things a fence post could do… However 5 areas require a living person:

1. Kind

2. Rejoices with the truth

3. Always protects

4. Always hopes

5. Always perseveres

Are we ready to accept God’s unconditional love? It will set us free from a lot of worries and concerns!

Are we willing to live out God’s unconditional love for others?