The Love of God and Prayer
Prayer • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 1:00:36
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Interceding in prayer for others is an expression of the love of God in the Christian’s life.
The Bible teaches that God as to His nature, is love.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (NASB95)
God is love itself.
Love is an attribute of God and thus originates with Him.
The love of God is of the very essence of God.
God’s character and nature, His Person is love.
2 Corinthians 13:11 Finally, brethren, rejoice, be made complete, be comforted, be like-minded, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. (NASB95)
God would continue to love even though there were no sinners because His attribute of love is a part of His divine essence.
God’s love is an attribute but there are two kinds of attributes: (1) Absolute or intrinsic: those attributes that God possesses of Himself such as life and love. (2) Relative: those attributes related to His creation and especially men and angels.
For example, by nature God is truth but when God relates that truth to man, God’s truth becomes faithfulness.
Love is one of God’s intrinsic or absolute attributes but when His love is directed towards sinners, it becomes grace and mercy and compassion.
Ephesians 2:4-7 teaches that is “God is rich in mercy” and in “grace” and these riches make it possible for sinners to be saved.
We are not saved by God’s love but by His grace and mercy, which are expressions of His love.
He treats us in a manner that we don’t deserve and this is made possible because of the spiritual and physical deaths of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on the cross.
God manifested at the cross, His hatred of sin and His love for sinners.
Therefore, one of the attributes or characteristics of God’s love is that it is “merciful” meaning that God is compassionate towards His enemies and pardons them (Eph. 2:1-7).
Mercy characterizes God’s love.
Love is an attribute that helps to compose the essence of the Triune God.
Essence means “inner nature, true substance, a person’s qualities or attributes,” and implies being or existence.
Some of these qualities of a person are visible and some are invisible.
God’s essence is made up of attributes, which are essential characteristics of the Trinity and without these qualities, God would not be who He is-God.
We can only understand God’s essence through His attributes.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the love of God incarnate since He is the God-Man who has explained the character and nature of God, and thus has explained the love of God perfectly since love is an attribute of God (cf. Jn. 1:18).
The love of God was manifested perfectly to the entire human race through the Father’s sacrifice of His Son at the cross of Calvary and the Son’s willingness to be that sacrifice.
God manifested His attribute of love by raising the Christian up when the Christian was under real spiritual death and seating the Christian with Christ at His right hand (Eph. 2:1-10).
The greatest act of love by the God-Man was His voluntary substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths on the cross.
The agape of God is a gift to mankind since the Lord Jesus Christ is the Father’s gift to mankind and He is the love of God incarnate.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the love of God incarnate since He is the God-Man (John 1:18).
All men are the objects of God’s impersonal love and all believers are the objects of His personal love.
Impersonal meaning that God’s love does not need an attractive object.
God’s love is able to love the obnoxious and those who are His enemies even to the point of self-sacrifice.
Personal love means that believers are attractive to God since they have His holiness, the new Christ nature indwelling them.
All church age believers are the objects of God’s love and the beneficiaries of this love.
We are objects of God eternal love, which He manifested to us when He sent His Son into the world to die for ours sins so that we might live with Him for eternity.
The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is the object of the immutable eternal unconditional self-sacrificial love of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.
The divine-love of God the Father expressed itself through His work in eternity past on behalf of every church age believer: (1) Election (2) Predestination (3) Eternal inheritance) (Eph. 1:1-14).
The divine-love of God the Son expressed itself through His work in time at the cross: (1) Redemption: The Lord Jesus Christ on the cross-purchased the entire human race out from the slave market of sin with His substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths (Mark 10:45; 1 Cor. 1:30; Gal. 3:13; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:13-14; Titus 2:14; 1 Pet. 1:18-19). (2) Propitiation: The Lord Jesus Christ satisfied the righteousness of God with His substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths on the cross-as the payment for our sins (Lev. 1; 16; Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). (3) Reconciliation: God’s peace treaty with the entire human race as a result of the substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths of Christ the cross which removed the Barrier which separated mankind from God (2 Cor. 5:18-21; Eph. 2:14-16; Col. 1:20-21). (4) Mediatorship of Christ: Our Lord as the God-Man is the Peacemaker or Mediator between God and man (Eph. 2:14-16; 1 Tim. 2:5).
At the present time, the Lord Jesus Christ is expressing His divine-love towards the believer through His Advocacy for the believer at the right hand of the Father where He defends the believer against the accusations of Satan (1 John 2:1).
The divine-love of God the Holy Spirit expresses itself through His seven salvation ministries on behalf of the believer: (1) Efficacious Grace: Makes faith in Jesus Christ effective for salvation (2 Cor. 6:1-2; Eph. 2:8-9). (2) Regeneration: Creates a human spirit for the purpose of the imputation of eternal life (John 3:1-16; Titus 3:5). (3) Baptism of the Spirit: Places every believer in union with Jesus Christ (John 7:37-39; 1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 4:5; 1 Pet. 3:21). (4) Indwelling: Creates a temple for the indwelling of Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19-20; 2 Cor. 6:16). (5) Filling: Influences the soul of the believer in executing the plan of God for the church age (Eph. 5:18). (6) Sealing: Puts His stamp on the believer to guarantee his salvation (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13; 4:30). (7) Distribution of Spiritual Gifts: Gives every believer a spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12:4-11; 1 Pet. 4:10).
God the Holy Spirit’s post-salvation ministries on behalf of the believer: (1) Empowers the believer to execute the plan of God (Jo. 14:16, 26; Ga. 5:16, 25; Eph. 5:18; Phlp. 2:13). (2) Reproduces Christ-like character (fruit of the Spirit) in the believer (Ga. 4:19; 5:5, 16-23). (3) Teaches the believer the doctrines of Christ (Jo. 14:26; 1 Co. 2:10-16; 1 Jo. 2:20, 27).
God commands the believer to love his fellow human being.
John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you self-sacrificially love one another, even as I have self-sacrificially loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have self-sacrificially love for one another. (My translation)
John 15:12 This is my commandment, that you self-sacrificially love one another, just as I self-sacrificially loved you. (My translation)
God would never command the believer to love like Himself unless He had already given the believer the capacity to execute the command.
The fact that the believer is an object of the Father and the Son’s love provides the believer the capacity to love others and execute these commands.
Intercessory prayer for both believers and unbelievers is an expression of the love of God in our lives.
If we love our fellow believer, we will pray for the spiritual growth and temporal needs of members of the royal family of God (Eph. 6:18; Col. 1:9-10; 1 Thess. 5:25; 2 Thess. 1:11; James 5:16; 3 John 2; 2 Cor. 13:9; Rom. 15:30-31).
If we operate in the love of God, we will pray for our enemies.
Matthew 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (NASB95)
The believer receives the capacity to pray for his enemies, when he accepts by faith Christ’s love for him and responds in obedience to Christ’s love for him, and which love, the Spirit reveals in the Word of God.
The Lord Jesus Christ expressed His divine love for those who mocked, scourged, vilified and crucified Him by interceding for them before the Father (Lk. 23:33-34) and Stephen expressed the love of God at his death (Acts 7:59-60).