The Price of Love

REFLECTION QUOTES

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.”

~John Lennon (1940-1980)

“Only in Jesus Christ is the Trinity opened up and made accessible.”

“There is no other glory of God to be seen than the glory of Christ.”

~Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988), Swiss theologian

“…God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them…. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

~St. Paul on what God was doing in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19, 21 NASB)

“God’s vengeance did not fall on the sinners, but on the only sinless one, the Son of God, who stood in the place of sinners. Jesus Christ bore the vengeance of God…. Christ calmed God’s anger against sin….That was the end of all false thoughts about the love of a God who does not take sin very seriously. God hates and judges [his enemies] in the only righteous one, the one who prays for forgiveness for God’s enemies. Only in the cross of Jesus Christ is the love of God to be found.”

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German pastor-theologian executed at Flossenbürg concentration camp for his opposition to the Nazis

“The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.”

~Augustine (354-430), famed North African Bishop

“The essence of sin is we human beings substituting ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for us. We…put ourselves where only God deserves to be; God puts himself where we deserved to be.”

~John Stott (1921-2011), famed theologian and rector of All Souls Church in London

SERMON PASSAGE


1 John 4:7-21 (ESV)

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.