God's Love

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, January 9, 2022.  The Bible verses used are 1 John 4:7-21.

Do you believe that God cares about you?  

When I ask that, I’m not asking whether you believe God cares about the world, or whether God cares about human beings.  I’m asking whether God cares about you.  Specifically, you, as an individual.

           It’s an important question.  And I think the way we answer tells a lot about how we think about God.

It’s understandable why some people struggle with believing God cares about them individually.  I mean, we’ve talked about this before, but think about who God is.  This is the almighty, all-powerful God we’re talking about.  This is the God who just had to speak a word and the entire universe was created.  This is a God who is bigger and greater and stronger and more powerful than anything we could ever imagine.

           Now think about who we are.  We’re small, puny, tiny.  We must be less than insects compared to God.  Could you care about an insect?  An insect’s a pest, right?  Do you care about a pest?  

And the other thing is, there are an awful lot of us pests.  Over seven billion at the last estimate.  Even if God wants to, can God even keep track of that many of us, let alone care about us as individuals?

          It’s understandable why some people say no.  One of the most prominent among them is the famous physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking.  Several years ago, he flatly said that it would be impossible for God to care about seven billion individuals.  In fact, he used that as proof of the non-existence of God.  Dr. Hawking said about the way Christians view God, “They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship.  When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible.”

           It’s obviously not just Dr. Hawking who thinks that way.  There are millions of people who claim to have a belief in God, but who don’t think God takes any active interest in human life.  It’s often referred to as the Watchmaker Theory:  God created the universe in much the same way a human would make an old-fashioned watch.  God then “wound up” the universe, so to speak, and then let it go, to tick on its own.  God may be observing what happens, but God does not take any action to influence it.  God has left us to our own devices, to sink or swim on our own.

          When we read the Bible, though, it’s clear that the Bible does not endorse that theory.  The Bible regularly shows God taking an active interest in human affairs and taking action to influence them.  But even so, when we read the Old Testament, it’s hard to find much that leads us to believe God actually cares about you and me individually and personally.

           The Ten Commandments are great, but they say nothing about love or caring or anything like that.  There’s a lot in the Old Testament that shows God caring about the people of Israel, God’s chosen people, but that’s a promise to Israel as a nation, not as individuals.  There are a few select leaders who seem to achieve a personal relationship with God, but that kind of personal relationship does not seem to have been available to most people.

           That’s the reason the priests made all the ritual offerings and sacrifices we read about in the Old Testament.  Common people did not have individual access to God, so they needed the priest to go to God for them.  God was thought of as being God of the big picture.  God would take care of the people of Israel generally, but God did not necessarily take care of individual people.

           That’s one of the reasons so many people had a hard time accepting Jesus as their Savior.  The idea that God would take human form, that it was possible to have a direct, one-on-one relationship with God, was not the way most people thought about God at that time.  It did not make sense to them. 

Even if they could conceive of God wanting a direct relationship with individuals, they’d have expected God to go to the top people, the priests, the Pharisees, people like that.  That’s not what Jesus did.  Instead, he spent time with the common people, or even to the outcasts, the lowest people in society.  It did not make sense to them that God would want a one-on-one relationship with people like that.

One of the greatest and most important things about the story of Jesus is that Jesus was God living on the earth, having a direct, personal, one-on-one relationship with human beings.  Not just the privileged few, but all human beings, including the common people and even the lowest of the low.  All of Jesus’ life involved God having that personal relationship with people on earth.  Not only that, but because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, each of us can still have that personal relationship with God if we accept Jesus as our Savior.

That’s incredible, you know?  It seems amazing to me every time I think about it.  God, this being that is beyond my comprehension, wants to have a personal relationship with me, as weak and sinful and inadequate as I am.  There’s no logic that explains that.  There’s no good reason I can think of for God to want that relationship.  The only reason there can possibly be is love.  God wants that relationship with each one of us, as weak and sinful and inadequate as we all are, just because God loves us.

There’s a phrase our scripture used twice today.  I’m sure you’ve heard it many times before, but I don’t know that we always really think about it.  The phrase is this:  “God is love.”

“God is love.”  Think about that.  It’s not “God loves.”  It’s not “God has love.”  It’s not “God feels love.”  It’s “God is love.”

Love is an intrinsic part of who God is.  Love exists because God exists.  God could not exist without loving, any more than you and I can exist without breathing.  God does not stop and think about loving us, any more than you and I stop and think about taking our next breath.  God just does it.  God loves us because that’s who God is.  The almighty, all-powerful God is also the all-loving God.

Our scripture also says, “Love is from God.  Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”  Because God is love, and we are created in God’s image, we, too, have the ability to love.  We don’t have that ability without God; in fact, our scripture says, “whoever does not love does not know God.”  Without God, there is no love.  Love exists because God exists.

That’s true whether we know it or not.  It’s true whether we’re aware of it or not.  There are people who don’t believe in God who are still able to love.  Why?  Because God is living in them, whether they realize it or not.  Our scripture says, “Those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

That’s amazing, really.  God loves each one of us so much that God will live in people who do not even acknowledge God’s existence.  Even when we’re apathetic, even when we resist, even when we actively try to fight God, God still keeps working on us and working in us.  God never gives up on us, because God loves us.

Our scripture says, “If we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.”  When we show love to someone, in that moment, we are as close to God as we can ever get.  When we truly show love, when we do something for someone with no plan of getting anything in return and without it even occurring to us that we might get something in return, we act in as much of a God-like way as it’s possible for us to act.  And if we can get to the point where doing that comes naturally to us, where we do it without even thinking about it, then God’s love truly has been perfected in us.

Our scripture closes by saying, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.”  That’s the other thing we get from that one-on-one relationship with God.  We don’t have to live in fear of God, because we know God loves us.

In Old Testament times, people feared God.  The psalms and the proverbs even say that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.  That’s why following all those Jewish laws was considered so important.  People were afraid that if they did something wrong, God would punish them.

That idea does not show up in the New Testament.  Why?  Because we know what they did not know in Old Testament times.  We know that Jesus is God, and that God is love, and that where there is love there can be no fear.  When the Holy Spirit is in our hearts, when we have a personal relationship with God, we no longer have to live in fear of punishment.

            Now, obviously, that does not mean we’re free to do anything we want.  What it does mean is that we’re free to live as God wants us to live.  We don’t have to constantly look over our shoulders.  We don’t have to worry that God’s watching our every move, waiting for us to step out of line.  Instead, we’re free to go out and show God’s love to people everywhere and at all times.  We don’t have to live in fear.  We don’t have to worry about following all the technical rules.  The only rule we have is God’s rule, and that’s love:  love of God and love of each other.

            There is nothing we can ever do or say or think or feel that will keep God from loving us.  God always loves us.  God loves you, and God loves me.  God is love.