God is Love

Since I usually only get to preach about three to four times a year... I figure I better post any recent sermon excerpts on here whenever I can. Here's a small portion of a sermon I preached last weekend about God's attributes. (Apologies to those who already heard this...)


“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?” (Isaiah 40:12)

One part of God’s nature that has been made known to us in a very intimate way to us is His love. 1 John 4:16 says it quite simply: God is love.

I mean, let’s think about it...

Why would a God who can be everywhere at once allow Himself to be confined to human flesh?

Why would a God who knows everything put Himself in a position where He would have to learn how to speak as a little baby boy?

Why would a God who has never had a beginning and will never have an end… a God who has never been confined by the constraints of time… why would He become a man and allow Himself to be bound by time’s rules?

I wonder… what could possibly be the driving force behind a God who could hold all the earth’s dust and dirt in a bucket like it was no big deal... a God who could weigh the largest mountains on scales as if he were going to sell them like produce… Why would He put himself in a position where He would struggle to find the strength to carry His own cross?

What would lead a God who could hold all the earth’s water in the hollow of His hand to allow those same hands to be pierced by Roman nails?

I wonder… what would lead God, who by the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens and the earth… what would lead Him to have those hands stretched across a Roman execution device? I wonder...

But I’m not the only one who asked questions like this: King David asked a similar question in one of his Psalms:

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3-4)

I think the answer to all of these questions goes back to that simple truth found in 1 John 4:16: God is love. God loves you. God loves me. God loves each of us. His love is what put Him on the cross for your sins and for my sins.

St. Augustine once wrote about a powerful truth: “God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us.”

John wrote in his first epistle: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1)

Perhaps the most well-known verse in the world was also written by John: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)

God is love. And He has made that love known to us. He has gone to great lengths to communicate that love. For which I am certainly thankful...