The Character of Love Part 3
by Joey Carroll Corinth Missionary Baptist Church
As we continue from last week on the character of love, we come to this, Love… “does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6, NASB).
One of the most beloved Bible verses is “God is love” (1 John 4:8, NASB).
And how wonderful His love is! It was His great love that sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins.
In Ephesians 3:18, Paul prays that we would begin to comprehend the breadth and height of His great love.
We will worship God for His great love and be satisfied in His great love for all eternity.
But God has many other great attributes.
For instance, there is only one tripartite expression in Scripture that is used to describe the person of God.
Which means, there is only one word that is repeated three times to help us comprehend who God is.
That word and that phrase is “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord” (Isaiah 6:3, NASB).
Holiness describes the moral perfections of God.
He is all-together without sin. He is perfect in all his judgments and ways, and the sum of all that He says in His Word is truth.
In fact the Bible says of itself in two different places “Your Word is truth” (Psalm 119:160, John 17:17).
We worship a God, who is perfect –– perfect in all His ways and trustworthy and true in all that He says.
Thankfully, God does not have a split personality.
He is fully all of His wonderful attributes all the time.
He is faithful and dependable without fail.
When you trust in Him, you have nothing to worry about because He never changes.
(Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8, James 1:17, and Numbers 23:19).
Therefore, He is always demonstrating love and truth fully and equally at the same time.
He can never contradict Himself or any of His attributes.
Therefore, when the Bible says that love cannot rejoice in unrighteousness, that should be easy for us to understand.
God, in His love, finds no pleasure in sin, wickedness, or unrighteousness.
In 2011, a false teacher by the name of Rob Bell published a book entitled “Love Wins.”
It was meant to highlight one aspect of God’s character at the expense of the other attributes of God.
It described a god without moral absolutes, who was unconcerned with how we choose to live our lives.
The book failed to face the harsh reality of sin, death, and judgment.
Of course, the world loved the book.
A god without morality is the lust of the world.
The world has always longed for a god who would not hold anyone accountable for their actions.
And so, as God created man after His own image, man has created a god after his own image.
Since the fall, the human heart has been an idol making factory.
We all want a god who accepts what we think and rejects what we reject.
We want a god who will #bless us, and a god who will reject and condemn exactly what we reject and condemn.
We want a god who understands we do wrong sometimes, but punishes those who do wrong to us.
In other words, we want a god who looks, acts, and thinks exactly like the person in the mirror.
Thankfully, God is not like us.
God is perfect in love and perfect in holiness.
He alone is the moral standard, which brings us to our great problem.
No man can ever meet the moral standard of God.
No man can ever stand before a morally perfect God who is holy and just.
God would have to act contrary to who He is to accept us and welcome us into in His presence in heaven. We are in desperate need of a savior.
This is precisely what makes the Good News so good.
In His love, God sent His Son to suffer the justice that was due us.
Jesus was born a man to die for the sin of man.
The holy Son of God carried our sin to the cross and suffered the judgment we deserved in order that we who believe might be saved.
Today is the day of your salvation! Turn from yourself and your sin and trust solely in who Jesus is and what He has done for your sin on the cross.
