Knowing The Love Of God - Zac Poonen
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Summary
The central message is that our love for God must flow from the conviction of His perfect, unconditional love for us, as stated in 1 John 4:19. The speaker warns against lukewarm faith, suggesting that any fear or hesitation in our love for God indicates we are not fully convinced of His love. True Christian life involves abandoning the fear-based worship of 'heathen gods' and embracing the joyful, generous reality of God's love.
Outline
The message in plain words, in the order it unfolds. Select a time to jump the video to that moment.
The importance of knowing God's loveBelievers must be gripped by the foundational truth of how much God loves them, as described in 1 John.1 John 4:16–19
Why we struggle with loving worldly thingsThe secret reason many Christians battle worldly affections and find serving God difficult is that they are not truly convinced of His perfect love.
Rejecting the heathen concept of a terrifying GodHeathen religions and distorted versions of Christianity worship a god of fear and strict rules, making people cold, calculating, and unforgiving.
Free from fear and past sinsBecause Jesus paid for all past sins on the cross, believers do not need to fear punishment or harbor anxiety that God is out to hurt them.
Doing things in secret without keeping scoreJesus taught radical generosity where even the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, meaning we quickly forget the good we have done.
Reflecting God's memory by forgetting wrongsJust as God does not remember the bad sins of those who repent, we should forget the bad things others do and remember only the small kindnesses.
Being saved from the poison of selfishnessThe core poison inherited from Adam is selfishness, and Jesus came to completely save His people from this root sin.
Discovering selfishness in marriage and communityClose relationships like marriage and church fellowship act as iron sharpening iron to expose and scrape away our hidden self-centeredness.
Love does not seek its ownTrue biblical love, unlike worldly romantic infatuation, refuses to seek its own benefit and always pursues the good of others.
The mark of true discipleshipJesus said people will know we are His disciples not by how we treat strangers, but by how we love our fellow believers in the church.
God gives generously and never scoldsGod gives wisdom and grace to all without scolding, never throwing our past failures or repeated mistakes in our faces.James 1:5
The parable of the eleventh-hour workersGod's generous nature is displayed in the parable of the workers, where latecomers are treated with astonishing grace and large-heartedness.
Dropping grudges and legalistic rulesTrue spiritual maturity means abandoning childish legalistic rulebooks and refusing to keep grudges, becoming fully saturated with God's forgiving love.
