The theme of this conference is the love of God. Three wonderful words, love of God. We find them often in the Bible, such as in Romans 8. Paul said, I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. the love of God. You know, the Bible also speaks about the God of love. Second Corinthians 13 11 be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace and the God of love and peace be with you. Love of God, God of love. Three simple words. In fact, three simple words of one syllable each. In this session, I'd like to bring you a message on three very similar words of one syllable each. God is love. Not a mere cliche. It's very deep and profound. With your Bibles open, follow me as I read with you 1 John 4, verses 7 to 19. Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and He in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love. And he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. He who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us. By God's grace, I would like to bring you a message today on God is love in a series of three groups of three points. First, three things that this does not mean. And then secondly, three things that it does mean, and then lastly, three points of application for our hearts. Number one, what it does not mean when the Bible says twice, God is love. First thing that this does not mean, it does not mean love is God. Dr. Beeky has already pointed that out. The words are not reversible or identical. In logic and in grammar, there are ways of saying something that's the same back and forth, like, a bachelor is an unmarried man, or a spear is a round object. Unfortunately, some people use a bad logic with God is love, and they say, well, if God is love, love is God. Nope. That would be like saying, an orange is round, a baseball is round, therefore a baseball is an orange. No, it doesn't follow like that. God is love, but not everything that goes by the name of love is God. And this popular error, love is God, does two major things. It deifies the feelings or the idea of love. And it depersonalizes God. We find this in humanism and in a lot of romance ideas of God. And that frequently approves of anything that goes by the name of love. Well, this is love, I like it, therefore this must be God. And that leads to approving things like homosexuality and so forth. But even Christians have a faulty or shallow view of God when we formulate our ideas of love from the world rather than from the Word. The Word of God tells us the real idea of love. Too often a Christian thinks of love as some sweet feeling, warm fuzzies, and just oozing with sentimentality and emotional gush. There's a correct word for that. Dr. Beekier showed us various Greek words, but the real word for that is a Yiddish word, schmaltz. We say something schmaltzy, it's just oozing and dripping with gushy feelings of nostalgia and sentimentality. Now there's a place for that. I'm as sentimental as anybody else here, but let's not confuse sentimentality with spirituality. The Bible says God is love. Theos, Esten, Agathe. It doesn't use the word schmaltz. The love of God is not schmaltz. It's something better. Now this popular idea that love is God makes it love sort of ethereal and non-substantial. You can't get a hold of it. But the love of God is something different. The love of God God is real. It's not a hunk of cloud. It's real because it's rooted in God. God is love. Now this love that God is affects the feelings, but it's more than that. It affects the heart, the mind, the soul, our whole being, because God and His whole being is love. So that's the first mistake, to say love is God. Secondly, another error is this. God is only love. They say, well, if God is love, and you know, they say that, well, the Bible defines God like this twice. God is love, and they say, therefore, that is all God is. Well, that's not all God is. We find that idea in liberal theology, and it usually eliminates holiness, wrath, and other uncomfortable attributes of God. And of course, it does away with the whole idea of wrath or health. This idea that God is only love is behind phrases like this that you may have heard. The wrath of God is the love of God. Or, my God wouldn't send anybody to hell. Or, God loves everyone unconditionally. But you don't find those statements anywhere in the Bible. They're contrary to what the Bible says. No Christian would say God is only love and therefore none of these others, but sometimes well-meaning but misdirected and imbalanced Christians sometimes say something close to that, and that's this. God is primarily love. For example, amongst the wonderful attributes of God, they say the love of God stands out as the Mount Everest, and He's more love than these other attributes. Well, they may mean well, but that's childish theology. And as it says in the Bible, when I was a child, I spoke as a child. Let's become men and put away childish things. There is indeed an important relationship between all the attributes of God. God is love, but He's many, many other things. And brethren, we dare not make any one of them primary at the expense of making others secondary. Those that make love the main thing in God usually downplay the holiness of God, and you can see it in their lives. By the way, all practical errors... I got this from Errol Hulse about 30 years ago, Joe. All errors in practice can be traced back to a faulty view of God. So if we say God is primarily love and we minimize His holiness, that shows up in a lifestyle of license. But then we go to the opposite extreme and say it's mainly holiness, then it becomes legalistic. So you see how it works. The truth is, brethren, God is infinite in all He is. So He's infinite in love and infinite in holiness. Explain to me how one infinity is greater than another infinity. It's impossible. God is all infinite love and all infinite holiness and infinite power and wisdom. He's infinite in all that He is. Third error. And this is a strange one. This error says God is not love. Now, this notion is easy to disprove with this logic. If it is true to say God is love, it is not true to say God is not love. Now, of course, very few people would explicitly deny God is love, but there are some views that come close to saying that. I'm no expert on Islam, but it seems to me, from what I've gained reading about their religion, Allah is not love. He's actually, they overdo his power and his holiness, and Allah becomes very cruel. And the idea of love is maybe for humans, but not in Allah. But we can scrape that away because Allah is not the Jehovah of the Bible. But what about those that do believe in the God in the Bible? Well, they will overemphasize other attributes of God at the expense of God's love. If some people overdo His love and not the others, some go to the opposite extreme and de-emphasize God's love. So you have to look far and wide to find it in their theology or in their love. Let me give you an example. A preacher friend of mine I knew some years ago, Thought he was being profound when he said to me, Kurt, God's essence is holiness. Love is just an attribute of God. I think it's just an attribute. He doesn't know his systematic theology. I felt like throwing him Louis Burkhoff's systematic theology. I said, so go read about this. He is infinite in all that he is, including his love. Other people will say, well, yes, God is love, but the way they describe it is that it's really just an illusion that God is love, by which they mean God is not really love. Love is a human thing. God is not a man. Therefore, it's just an illusion or maybe just a figure of speech. Now the Bible does use figures of speech talking about God, talks about we find comfort under the wings of God. Well God doesn't have wings, literally as Walter Martin said about the Mormons, they say God does have a body and therefore he said well is God a celestial chicken because it says he has wings? No, that's an anthropomorphism. There's also a figure of speech called anthropopathy, or anthropopathism, which means that we attribute to God human emotions in order to draw some sort of analogy. Some people overdo that in this area and say, well, we have love, so in some sense, yeah, I guess you could say God has love, but not really. No, that's wrong. You see where that leads? That leads to an explicit denial of our text. God is love. The fact that God is love and we have a kind of love doesn't mean that God is less than love. It means that he is more than love as we know it. He has perfect love in a greater way. Then there are those who greatly minimize the love of God even by appealing to great biblical truths such as what has already been shared amongst those that are Calvinists often. There is a kind of, well, dare I use the word, hyper-Calvinism, something that I know a little bit about. I am not, nor ever have been a hyper-Calvinist, but I've read them, and there is one form of hyper-Calvinism that says God does not love everybody, God loves only his elect. He has no love of benevolence to everybody. He has no goodness for them, no mercy, no anything positive toward everybody. But it's all reserved only for the elect. That's not what the Bible says, and that's not historic Calvinism. But you see, behind that error is a distorted view of God that would basically say God is not really love. He is only love in a relational way to some people. So, the Bible says God is love. He is not just love, and He is not just barely love. God is love. Okay, we've set aside those three things that it does not mean. Let's get to the good stuff. What does it mean, God is love? You know, you see that on little cards people send them, and maybe you have a little plastic plaque nailed up on your bedroom wall. God is love. Little children like that. It's fairly simple, but it's very deep. Let's go into the depths. Let's see what the Bible says. Here are three things that the Bible says what it means when it says God is love. Number one, God is love in his very essence. How do I know? It comes from that the operative verb in that sentence. God is love. That tells us it's part of his essence. It's like in two parallel passages, John 4, 24, when Jesus said, God is spirit. Not a spirit, but spirit in his very being. He doesn't have material substance or a body like we do. That talks about his essence. Secondly, 1 John 1, 5 says, God is light, and in him is no darkness. So when it says God is love, it's talking about something about his essence. His essence within himself, his internal nature, not just his external relations with his creation. God is love in himself, not just God is loving to others. Way back in eternity, before anything else existed, God was love in His very being. We're talking about His eternal substance, not what He becomes and not what He is in relation to other things. That springs from His nature, as we shall see, but we're going back far enough into eternity. His eternal substance, His internal nature. God is unchangeable in all that He is, therefore it would be legitimate to say God is love, God has always been love, God always shall be love. So the first point is God is love in its very essence. Now, love is not some thing or part of God. You know, the Westminster Confession says God has neither parts nor passions. We can't say, well, the love of God is like the arm of God or the leg of God. No, that's not what it means. God has no parts. All of God is love. The love of God is simply God Himself loving. It is God who is love. Now, when we say God is love in His essence, we don't mean God is love because He meets some higher standard of love. That there's love there, God meets it, therefore God is love. That's not what we mean. If you can follow with me on this, it's a parallel with other things. God is truth. He's not truth because He meets a higher standard of truth. He is the standard. Same thing with love. He is love by His essence. Eternally, there are no other standards. He is the standard. So when God shows love, it comes from his very being that is eternal and it's absolute. It comes from within him. I'll allow this to say God doesn't derive love from anything or anybody else. It's self-generated. Illustration would be the sun and the moon in the sky. The light that reflects from the moon comes from the sun. But the sun doesn't reflect light. It radiates light. Now, God is light. God is like that sun. God is love. He doesn't reflect it from some other source. It comes from his very being because God is love. All the attributes of God may be harmonized together. such as holiness and love. We've already mentioned that. And it would be very wrong, brethren, to put them at loggerheads and say, well, I can't reconcile them. Well, like Dr. Beekie said, friends don't need to be reconciled. But look at it like this. There's a beautiful harmony in all that God is. God is holy. God is love. That tells us that His holiness is a loving holiness. His love is a holy love. And so on and so forth. It's the same thing with God's infinity. Infinite God is love, therefore God is infinite in His love. And we find this expressed in the Bible, Psalm 86 5. You are abundant in mercy. Or sometimes that's translated, you are merciful, you are full of mercy. Later in verse 15 it says you are full of compassion. Let me give you a practical application at this point. If God is infinite in His love, that means we can never exhaust it. There's more than enough to go around for us in our deepest valleys and certainly for all eternity as Dr. B.T. will show us tomorrow night. Let me give you an illustration that Charles Spurgeon gave. He said, we can no more exhaust the infinite love of God than a little fish can drink up the oceans. And he said, sometimes we're like little thirsty fish. And Spurgeon said, he said, drink up little fish, you'll never drink the oceans dry. My dear brethren, we need the love of God and we need never fear that God will have to portion it out or ration it and say, wait in line, there's only so much to go around. He lavishes the love on and He says, drink all you want because there's more in infinity that you will never be able to exhaust. My point is, God is infinite, God is love, therefore He is infinite in His love. And since it's a holy love, it is a pure love. The pure love of God, when it says God is love, that means He is absolutely pure without even one micron of impurity, no wrong motives, no wrong desires, no wrong thoughts that are to be found in His infinite love. Unlike our best love. Take your love on your best, most sanctified day. It will still be shot through with the indwelling sin that's in the best of us. Only when we get to heaven will it be pure. But God has always had an absolutely pure love. Brethren, this is where we need to get on our hands and feet, on our faces, and say, God is pure love. First John 1.5, God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Same thing, God is love and in Him is no impurity whatsoever in any part of His being. Go to the outermost parts of His being, you will not find even one bit of impurity. Tomorrow, His pure love. Just imagine it. Pure love. We don't know what that's like in our experience. Some of us have been hurt by a very impure love that is really lust masquerading as something else. Or someone stops loving. Or when we try to love, we find it hindered by our impure motives. But never with God. It's an absolutely pure, infinite, and absolute love. This love within God is a kind of magnetism. You see, love, you could say, is a heartfelt, affectionate going out to another. Within God, there's a going out, there's a magnetism that binds God to God. It binds Himself to Himself without weakness. For you see, God is powerful love. He's infinite in His power, He's infinite in His love, so it is an omnipotent love. So there's our first point. God is love. in his very essence. Secondly, love in God is essential, I choose the word correctly, love in God is essential to the Trinity. God is love, therefore he has always been love. Let's go back into eternity in our imaginations, go way back, long before creation. The Bible says, before time began, you want a good thought? Meditate upon that late at night, you'll never get to sleep. Before time began, what was before time? Eternity. And back in eternity there was no earth, no humans, no animals, no angels, no nothing except God. From all eternity, God's self existed within himself. And back then, God was love. How? How could God be love? Since God is love in his essence, God, in his highest degree of love, loves himself. There was nobody else to love. God loves himself. If our highest duty is to love the Lord your God, I say it in a holy way, it's God's highest duty to love God, and He does. Herod Backer said, if our greatest privilege is to worship God, that's part of God's eternal being to worship Himself. Let's think on that sometime. Now, we sometimes have problems with saying God loves Himself, because we say, well, wait a second. Isn't self-love wrong? By the way, a lot of people think nothing's wrong with self-love in us, but it is. But in God, there's nothing wrong with self-love. Why is it wrong in us? Because self-love in us easily becomes selfishness, greed, a man-centered universe. It's not appropriate for us to love ourselves for this reason. We are not God. But God is God. There is nothing wrong with God loving Himself. That's His ultimate prerogative. God loves Himself. And that's where it says God is love. God loves Himself. Now, by its very definition, love requires an object. It's a transitive verb. You love something or someone. Now, you probably have your back up against the wall and say, but God, there's only one God in eternity, and there's no angels, people, or animals. Who did God love? Well, God loved Himself. You say, yes, but where is the object of God loving Himself? Here we find that God is both subject and object. God loving Himself. There is only one God. This, therefore, tells us there is something plural within God, the Trinity. God loves Himself. This is a glorious aspect of the Trinity. Let's start with the Father. The Bible repeatedly says the Father loves the Son. John 3.35, the Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. John 5.20, the Father loves the Son and shows Him all things that He Himself does. Let me show you a beautiful verse on this. Turn over to John 17. There are just so many verses that tell us about this love of the Father for the Son and so forth. At Christ's baptism, the Father says, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Colossians 1.13 calls Him the Son of His love. Look at John 17, verse 24. This is where the Son of God is praying to His Father. Verse 24, He says, Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me, For you loved me before the foundation of the world." So the love of the Father for the Son isn't just something after the incarnation. We're not talking about incarnational love. We're talking about Trinitarian ontological love, back in eternity before the foundation of the world. Proverbs 8.30 puts these words politically in the mouth of Jesus. I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. God promised the Messiah, Isaiah 42.1, Behold my servant whom I uphold, my elect one in whom my soul delights. So the Bible is replete with verses like this that says the Father always has loved the Son within the bounds of the Trinity. There are different kinds of love, but in this love, it's a perfect love, it's a unique love. For you see, when the Father beheld the Son, He took a delight in the Son. He looked at the Son and He saw the essence of all beauty and all goodness. And when He beheld the Son, He had a perfect smile from all eternity in this wonderful love of the Father for the Son. Now remember, it's eternal. There never was a time that the Father did not love the Son, and there never was a break in this where the Father said, I need to take a break for a minute and regather my resources. No, more than enough, from all eternity, there was this loving relationship of the Father going out to the Son in a benevolent way, in a way of delight toward the Son. For you that like theology, this is closely related to the biblical doctrine of eternal generation. So the Father loves the Son within the Trinity. What's more, the Son loves the Father also. John 14, 31, Jesus said that the world may know that I love the Father. Now, this is true in His dual nature, of course. In His humanity, Jesus had no sin. He always kept the laws of God. He kept the great commandment to love the Lord your God. We're going back deeper than that. We're going back into eternity before Jesus became a man. God the Son loved God the Father from all eternity within His deity. As the Father eternally loved the Son, the Son eternally received and returned that love unbroken, Immediately, perfectly, without delay or hindrance or interruption. Brethren, what we see here is infinite love being given to an infinite object and being returned perfectly for all eternity. You see, Christ, being eternal God, has the infinite capacity to receive that infinite love and to return it in an infinite way that's perfectly acceptable to the Father. Let me read a few short sentences from one of the great Puritans named Robert Trail. The love of one creature to another is sometimes very great. The love of the believer to Christ is so greater, the love of God to His chosen greatly exceeds both, and so does the love which Christ bears the church. But above all, beyond all these, is the love which the Father has to the Son. In the first case, it is a creature loving a creature. In the second, it is a creature loving God. In the third, it is God loving a creature. In the fourth, it is Christ loving his own body. In all, either the subject or the object of the love is a creature. But here is a paternal deity that loves and filial, that son deity that is beloved. Surely there must be a heightened depth, a lengthened breadth here that passes knowledge. The infinite love of the Father to the Son secures all good to those whom the Son loves. It's never unrequited. Doubtless there are people here that have had a broken heart with unrequited love. You love somebody and they don't return it. Or perhaps they loved you but they stopped loving you. Not sad. That's an effect of sin in the world. It was never like that within God and never shall be. It's never unrequited. It's never too late. It's always returned. And the Father and Son always took this eternal loving delight in each other. Let me quote you my favorite theologian. I got to give this at least once every conference. Jonathan Edwards, my favorite. Listen to this. The infinite essential love of God is, as it were, an infinite and eternal mutual holy energy between the Father and the Son, a pure holy act whereby the deity becomes nothing but an infinite and unchangeable act of love which proceeds from both the Father and the Son. Tis all in holy energy consisting in that infinite flame of pure love and holy delight that there is from all eternity between the Father and the Son, immensely loving and delighting and rejoicing in each other. That's good theology. Who says Calvinism is dry and emotionless? No, this is good theology for the heart. The Father loving the Son, the Son loving the Father, a self-perpetuating dynamo of holy love. What about the Holy Spirit? Romans 15.30 calls it the love of the Spirit. Now here's where theologians are of one of two minds. Some say that as the father loves the son, the son loves the father, so the spirit comes in. The father loves the spirit, the spirit loves the father, the son loves the spirit, the spirit loves the son, and so forth. That's granted. Others go deeper, such as Edwards and others, and say the spirit himself is that bond of love between the two going back and forth, very deep. Someone once asked Cornelius Van Til, what is the deepest thing he meditates on? In a flash he said, oh, it's the ontological eternal trinity. Oh, you're on holy ground just to meditate. It's love between the members of the trinity. This helps us understand the nature of God's holiness. Let me explain that. In true love, there is always a jealousy that protects it. There should be between husband and wife a jealousy that you will not share the object of your affection with another. It's between that bond of love. The same thing is true within the Trinity. The Father loves the Son and the Spirit. They love each other in a jealous way, I say. And when anything in creation dare intrudes upon that, Within each member of the Trinity, within the Deity itself, arises a holy jealousy. When someone, for example, comes between the Father and the Son, and questions the Deity of the Son, or questions His perfect humanity and His sinlessness, the holy jealousy of the Father rises up and says, How dare you say that against my Son, that I love and I delight in? So you see, the holiness of God springs, it's like a flame that issues forth from the holy love within the Trinity. Holiness and love within God are not loggerheads. They work together in a marvelous way. This love within the Trinity then is a self-perpetuating dynamo of living energy and holy glory. Thirdly, God is love and therefore God displays his love. Out of love to each other, the members of the Holy Trinity chose to display it. I like how Dr. Beeke said, I've never heard it quite like that before. Something like, within the infinity of the deity, it overflows. And it does overflow. God chose to display it outside of himself. The internal love of God now becomes externalized to his creation. And it began back in eternity in the covenant of redemption. which I call the covenant of love. God predestined all things and said, I'm going to display this love in a variety of ways. There are different words for love. There are also different flavors of love and different degrees of love. And God is the source of all true love. If you got your fingers back in 1 John 4, look at verse 7. Love is of God. Out of love, God gives good gifts to His creation. James 1.17, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights. God is love, therefore God is loving and shows love to His creatures. He so loves that He gives. And He does it in a variety of ways. And by the way, that is important to remember, that there are varieties and degrees of love. There are those that say, if God doesn't love everybody and everything equally, that's not right. Who says so? Somebody who I won't dignify by naming this morning wrote a book last year. What love is this? And he dared attack this idea that God chooses to give some love to others and a different kind to others. This is just what the Bible says. What kind of love is this? It's amazing, glorious, holy love. So God chose different kinds of love. God loves the flowers. God loves the animals. I like to say the animals are God's pets. You love your pet, God loves all the animals. But God loves the animals in a greater way than He does the dirt and the trees. And in the same way, God has a different kind and a higher love for humanity. And then, of course, the angels. But within humanity, it's God's sovereign prerogative to show different kinds and degrees of love. That's election and reprobation. It's His sovereign choice. God has a general love for all, but He reserves a special love for some. It all comes back to God being love, who displays the wide variety of His love. So God loves all men with some love, and he loves some men with all love. Now, in this display of the special ultimate love of God, God draws his elect into this special love, this love bound within the Trinity. Look again at John 17. Look at verse 26, the last verse of the Lord's Prayer. He says, I have declared to them your name and will declare it. that the love with which you loved me," notice the past tense, talking about eternity, the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them. The elect therefore were created and chosen to be the love gifts between the members of the Trinity. You know, you that are married, you men give your wife a love gift, you better. and your wives, you love your husband and you want to show the love, and parents to their children and other ones. The Father, Son and the Spirit within themselves in all eternity, they had this love, but in creating things to display it, the things that they create become not only the gifts between one another, they become the conduits of the love. So the love from the Father to the Son flows through us and we get to Enjoy some of that love. He brings us into the bonds of the Trinity. Now, mind you, we do not become divine, but we do partake of and enjoy the love within God Himself. The Father gives us to the Son as a gift of His love, and it goes back to the Father. What is all this to say? As it's displayed, and I think Dr. Beek, you will bring this out sometime later today, as this love that's within God is displayed within you in His creation, there's a focal point in the incarnation, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the Son is between the Father and the Spirit within the Trinity. And as the Son becomes the revelation of the love of God, let me boil it down. The Lord Jesus Christ. is the love of God in human flesh. It is not just poetry, it's good theology to say Jesus is love incarnate. Maybe some of you have been looking for love, like the old song says, looking for love in all the wrong places. You want real love? Come to Jesus. He is love in the flesh, perfect, beyond our wildest imaginations. He's better than we could ever dream. He is love in the flesh. Three quick applications of these truths as we close. Number one, this truth, God is love, should move us to worship God. God reveals His essence to us so it might be reflected back to Him in the appropriate manner of worship. Therefore, God shows His love for us and it should move us to worship Him. When we ponder God as love, we should not just simply feel sentimental or feel good within us. This should move us to worship such a God. Within the Trinity, and He chose to display it to us, this should move us to worship such a God. with a holy wonder and a delight and rejoicing and singing. Secondly, this should move us to love God. When we know what a wonderful God is, loving God is, that should move us to love Him in return. And that helps us and enables us to keep the greatest of all the commandments, to love the Lord your God with all your soul and mind and heart and strength. Let me quote again my favorite theologian, Edwards. Earlier this year I was arrested by this statement. Let me read it to you. If holiness in God consists chiefly in love to himself, holiness in the creature must chiefly consist in love to him. When we seek for true holiness without love, that's not holiness. A true holiness is an effectual love of God. And coupled together with worship, it becomes a loving worship and a worshipful love, what the old theologians called adoration. We enjoy a holy, loving intimacy with God. 1 John 4 19 says we love him because he first loved us. Lastly, we should love one another. This is where we came in and this is where we'll go out 1 John 4 over and over again. For example, it says let us love one another for love is of God. God is love. When we are moved by God saying God is love, It's easier to then immediately love God, but let's don't end it there. We need to also let that love that He has shown us, and it fills our hearts, spill over to other people as well. God loves them too, remember. It's not so easy to love our fellow sinners, nor for them to love us. But the love of God makes it possible. Because the love of God flows through us. And also God's grace flows through us so we can love our enemies. If we don't, then we really don't know what this means. God is love. We appreciate those three precious words best. in a loving relationship with God and a love for the creatures that God also loves. May the Lord bless these words to our hearts and our minds today. God is love. Let us pray. Lord, we stand amazed at such a being as yourself. We have pondered just one aspect of you this morning, Lord. We could go on for years, as we shall for eternity, meditating upon your power, your wisdom, and so much else. But Lord, we thank you that you have said twice in your word that you are love. Oh Lord, what a wonderful, glorious God you are. And as we ponder it, We can scarcely believe it's true, but it is true. And therefore, we worship you and we love you. In Jesus' name, Amen.