Immeasurable Love
by Rev. Kirby Williams
Turning to Scripture to attempt the impossible-- to measure the immeasurable love of God!
Text: 1John 4:9-10
Date: 12/07/2025, the Combined service.
Series: "Your Word is Truth"
Occasion: Advent
Description:
In this Advent message of "love", we will turn to the apostle John's first epistle to attempt the impossible-- to measure the love of God. For the love we celebrate during the Advent season is "not that we have loved God, but that He first loved us". We will use Scripture to climb to dizzying Theological heights to try to comprehend the nature of God's love. And then plummet to the depths of human depravity to establish the infinite distance between the two. We will return to the heights to monitor God's plan of Salvation as He sends His Son into a fallen world to redeem the souls of sinners at enmity with Him. In the process, we will consider the extraordinary manifestations of His love in His faithful covenants, along with such Christian Doctrines as Election, Humiliation, Incarnation, Sin and Imputation. We will then grapple with the greatest manifestation of His love-- the staggering reality of His Sacrificial Substitutionary Atonement on the Cross. It will be in the vast difference between these extremes that we will attempt to measure the immeasurable love of God.
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I. Introduction, Micah 4:1-2; Isa. 40:9; Psa. 99:9.
II. Exposition of the text, 1John 4:9-10.
A. Context, 1John 4:7,8,11,12.
B. Trying to measure the love of God.
1. The manifestation of God's love, vs. 9.
a. God's ontological love.
i. Anticipating the Advent.
ii. Struggling to comprehend God's love.
1) What God's love "is not".
a) A magnification of human love.
b) Grounded in the emotions, Hos. 11:8.
2) Probing "God is love", vs. 8b.
a) The "words" of love.
b) The love of sovereign election, Deut. 7:6-8,13.
c) The love of faithful covenants, Deut. 7:9,12.
d) A self-contained love, 1John 4:8.
e) The superlative of love.
f) The "simplicity" of God's love.
g) An unconditional love, Hos. 2:19,23, 11:1-2.
b. God's "manifested" love.
i. Manifested in Creation, Gen. 1:27.
ii. Manifested in the covenants.
1) With Noah, Gen. 8:21,22.
2) With Abraham, Gen. 12:3, 15:6; James 2:23; Mic. 7:20.
3) With Moses, Ex. 33:11; Acts 7:20; Lev. 23:28.
4) With David, Acts 13:22; 1Sam. 16:13; Psa. 18:50, 139:6; Isa. 55:3.
c. The descent to human depravity.
i. The concept of "Total Depravity".
ii. A host of Scriptural evidence, Jer. 17:9.
iii. A depravity from the soul, Mark 7:20-23; Rom. 3:10-18,23.
iv. A much-needed negativity, Luke 5:31-32, 7:47.
d. The love of Advent, Heb. 1:1.
i. Back to the heights.
ii. The unfathomable doctrines of love, John 1:14.
1) The Doctrine of the Humiliation, Phil 2:5-8.
2) The Doctrine of the Incarnation, Luke 1:35.
3) The Doctrine of Imputation, Heb. 4:15.
iii. Bringing the dead to life.
1) A state of spiritual deadness, Eph. 2:1-3; Ezek. 37:3-5.
2) Love that regenerates, Rom. 5:6; Psa. 68:16; Eph. 3:17-19.
2. Revealing the "why" of Advent, vs. 10.
a. Confirming the source of love.
i. Pointing us to the definition of love.
ii. Stating the obvious negatively, Eph. 2:12.
iii. Recognizing the love of God, Eph. 1:4-5.
b. The Doctrine of the Atonement.
i. The extraordinary love of the atonement.
ii. Understanding "propitiation", Hab. 1:13; Matt. 1:23.
iii. The staggering reality of the Crucifixion, 1John 3:5; 2Cor. 5:21.
III. Conclusion
