God's love is a topic that can go several different ways. Some people take God's love and use it to ignore things about God they aren't comfortable with or don't like. For instance, that God punishes our sin. Some people downplay God's love and emphasize His righteousness and justice.
A proper understanding of God's love is crucial to understanding the gospel and to truly knowing Him personally. At the heart of the Christmas story is the truth that God loves. But the fact that God has an incredible love does not mean that sin is excused or that His holiness is compromised.
In fact, John 3:16 explains to us the reason why God can love us rather than just punish us.
See, every person is a sinner. It's the natural tendency of our hearts. We are born in sin, and sinning comes naturally. That's why we don't have to teach our children to sin. They figure it out quickly on their own!
God is holy. He is perfect, glorious, and worthy of total honor, respect, and obedience. He is also a righteous judge. Because of our sin, because we live the way we want instead of God's way, because we think we know what's best for ourselves instead of trusting Him, because we have broken His perfect law again and again, we are guilty before this righteous judge.
God can't do anything contrary to His nature. God always has been and always will be a perfect, righteous judge. He can't dismiss sin because of "love." That would mean He has to stop being just in order to be loving.
So what does it mean that God loves the world? Enter John 3:16.
"For God so loved the world..." If we stop there, that's the feel-good direction. God loves everyone, and that's all that matters.
God doesn't sacrifice His justice to love us. He sacrificed His Son.
But the way that God loves the world is through His Son, Jesus Christ bearing the weight of all our guilt and shame and rebellion. God's love is that He did whatever it took to give us what we needed most.
What did we need most? Him.
We weren't created to be self-sufficient. We were made by Him to love Him, to know Him, to treasure Him, and to enjoy Him. There's no greater purpose and joy for us that to know and experience God.
God's love is that He sent His own Son to take our place, so that we could become forgiven, adopted sons and daughters, so that we could enter back into a love relationship with Him.
God doesn't sacrifice His justice to love us. He sacrificed His Son.
Let the weight of this love stop you in worship today. "God loves you" is not just a nice thing to say. It is the truth that changes everything about our lives and our relationship with God.
