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By Pastor Glenn Pease
Tolstoy wrote a story called "Where Love Is, God Is."
It is about an old cobbler named Martin who lived alone.
One night as he read the story of Jesus visiting the Pharisee, and the poor welcome he received, he prayed that the Lord would visit him.
In his sleep he heard a voice saying, "Tomorrow I shall come."
The next day Martin waited all day for his visitor.
He saw a poor old man sweeping snow, and he called him in from the cold and gave him some hot tea.
He kept looking out the window and the old man asked, "Are you expecting someone?" Martin told him of the voice.
Sometime later he saw a shivering mother with her crying baby, and he brought them in and gave them some warm soup and a cloak to shield them from the cold.
He told her about the voice as well.
It was getting late, and still the Savior had not come.
He looked out one last time before closing, and saw an apple woman scolding a boy who had stolen an apple.
He rushed out and made peace.
He paid for the apple and persuaded the woman to forgive the boy, and they departed with the boy carrying her basket.
That night Martin heard the voice again saying, "Martin, Martin, don't you know me?" "Who is it," he asked?
"It is I," and he saw the old snow-sweeper.
"It is I," and he saw the mother with the baby.
"It is I," and he saw the apple woman with the boy.
Then they all vanished, and Martin realized that Christ had visited him that day after all, and his heart felt strangely warm.
Tolstoy was saying by this story that where love is, God is.
The presence of God and the Lord Jesus Christ is directly linked to love.
Love is the fruit of the Spirit, and so if the Spirit is present, the first evidence will be love.
If God is love, then love is a sign of His presence, and lack of love is a sign of His absence in Spirit.
John say in verse 12 that no one has ever seen God.
So how can we know if God is present?
John says we know God is present because of love.
If we love one another that is the evidence that God dwells in us.
When you see love, you see God.
When you feel love, you feel God's presence.
God is present in love, for God is love.
Where love is God is.
The more we love, the more we experience the presence of God.
No wonder the Paul said everything without love is nothing.
Even faith and great knowledge, and even sacrifice, are not worth anything without love, for love alone is our link to God, and only in love do we experience the authentic presence of God.
Everything we do in worship is much ado about nothing if it does not lead us to love.
Therefore, there is not greater good than to gain an understanding of what the Bible is saying in this simple but sublime sentence stated twice in this fourth chapter of I John: "God is love."
The implications of these three words are so vast that one message on them is like trying to harvest a million acres of corn with a comb.
There is no way to get all of the infinite riches they contain, but we will at least get a taste of what this love is.
First lets taste-
I. THE INEXHAUSTIBLE ILLUMINATIONS OF IT.
R. A. Torrey, the great evangelist, said this is the greatest sentence ever written, and voices without number in heaven and on earth echo with an amen!
Three little words made up of just 9 letters in English, and yet they are saying something that all the words of every language can never fully convey.
They are giving us an inexhaustible illumination as to who God is.
Read all the books of men, and search the universe, and you will not find a more important truth about God than these three little words that God is love.
It is the brightest light we have by which to see who God is.
Torrey said if he had to choose one sentence to sum up the entire Bible and is message to man, it would be these three words.
D. L. Moody, another great evangelist, felt it was the essence of the biblical revelation as well, and he had it put above the pulpit in the famous Moody Church in Chicago.
This is the Gospel in a nutshell.
This is why God sent His Son to die for us.
This is why Jesus paid it all, and why he left his church here to carry this message into all the world.
In this sentence are included all the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Love strong as death and stronger,
Love mightier than the grave,
Wide as the world and longer
Than the ocean's wildest wave.
This is the love that sought us,
This is the love that bought us,
This is the love that brought us
To gladdest day from saddest night,
From deepest shame to glory bright.
If God was not love, there would be no Gospel.
Only love could come up with a solution to the fall of man and the sin problem.
Only love would take on the guilt of the sinner and pay the penalty for their freedom.
We have examples of this kind of love in history.
Schanyl, the great Circassion leader of his people for 30 years revealed the power of love.
Bribery was becoming so prevalent in his government that he announced that anyone caught bribing an official would receive 100 lashes.
Not long after, his own mother was arrested for bribery.
He could not let her go, for this would make a mockery of justice.
His law had to be carried out, and so he brought her to the whipping post and the whipping began.
At the fifth lash he cried halt.
He released his mother.
Then he bared his own back and took on himself the remaining 95 lashes.
His love met the demand of justice, and set the prisoner free by taking the penalty on himself.
This is what Jesus did for all of us, and not just for family and loved ones, but for the whole world of sinners who were enemies of God.
God's love is unique, for it is not directed toward those who love him, but even toward those who do not love him.
It is of the very essence of his being to love.
Can ice cease to be cold, and still be ice?
Can light cease to shine, and still be light?
Can fire cease to be hot, and still be fire?
Can humor cease to be funny, and still be humor?
We could go on and on, and the answer is no, for you cannot take away the essence of a thing and still have it.
Its essence is what it is, and God is love.
Love is not something that God does, it is something that he is.
Love touches all that he is and does.
Every theological idea and concept we have must include this truth that God is love.
If not, you are dealing with some other god than the God of the Bible.
The God of the Bible has given us this truth about himself that illuminates all other knowledge about him.
Many people who have rejected God have not really done so at all.
They have only rejected some imaginary god of human invention and speculation.
When people say they do not believe in God you need to find out if the God they do not believe in is love.
If not, then you can say you do not believe in the God they do not believe in either.
The Christian does not just believe in God, but he believes in the God who is love.
All other gods are not God.
The gods that people reject should be rejected, for they do not exist, and they are poor images of the real God.
Everything you believe about God must be consistent with this revelation that he is love, or you are walking in darkness rather than in the light of his Word.
Hold everything up to the light of this truth to see if it fits, and if not you can be sure it is not a part of God's will.
Take prejudice for example.
You can never make this evil look good in the light of God's love.
All the arguments about differences in races and their abilities mean nothing, for no argument for being unloving towards people can resist being shattered by the laser beam of the light from the truth that God is love.
If you want to be unloving toward anyone, you have to do it in the dark, for the light will not support you.
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