Tom Groelsema | The Greatness of God’s Love

Thursday, April 2, 2026; Maundy Thursday
Given by Tom Groelsema | Executive Pastor, Christ Covenant Church

The Greatness of God’s Love

1 John 4:9-10

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Let's turn in our Bibles to 1 John 4. There's two verses. 1 John 4:9-10. Pay careful attention as we read God's holy Word. 

“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. 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.”

People of God, we are gathered here, of course, tonight on Maundy Thursday – a commemoration of the night before Jesus was crucified and died. This is a solemn night, as our Lord is ready to lay down his life. This is a somber night, for in the darkness of night came the darkness of his betrayal, denial, Gethsemane, his trial. This is an ominous night, because we know what's coming next. All we have to do tonight is think about the sounds. Think about the sounds that you've heard tonight. Think about the musical notes that have been played tonight. Think about, in just a few minutes, when the service is over, we will walk out in silence. All of those things reflect the mood of this night, don't they? 

But we have to remember tonight that this is also a night of love. Love doesn't cancel the horrors of this night, what will happen tomorrow. But we cannot let the sufferings of our Savior make us lose sight of the Father's love for us. Jesus’ suffering was atoning. Jesus’ humiliation brought our redemption. Tonight, tomorrow, and Easter Sunday is the unfolding of the Father's plan of love for us. I remember just a couple of years ago in this church talking to a woman who was going to get married for the second time. Her husband had died. Her future husband's wife had died. And she was talking to me about this new relationship in her life, and she had these words. They still stick with me. She said, "He loves me. He really loves me.” There is nothing in the message tonight, I dare say, that you haven't heard before. The message tonight is basic, but I hope it's glorious for you. Don't let it pass you by. Would you receive the Father's love tonight? Would you believe the Father's love tonight, because what he's saying to you tonight is, “I really love you.” 

Three things from this text that highlight his love for us. First of all, his love is prioritized. I want you to look at your Bibles and just notice the context of what John is saying. The context here is really a call for us to love one another. That's not our focus tonight, but that is the context. You see in verse 7, John says, "Beloved, let us love one another." And then, verse 11, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." So, this call to love each other, it brackets our passage. But tonight, our focus is upon God's love for us, because our love for others is rooted in his love for us. And John points that out. He says in verses 7 and 8, “Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” If you love, it is a sign that you have been born of God, and you know his love. When you know his love, then you love others. And he says it on the other side as well: “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” What John is telling us is that it is in the love of God for us, out of that can flow love for others. Or another way of saying it is – John is saying – God's love is always first. It is primary. John prioritizes it here, and what's amazing is that that is not just true of our love for others but especially true of our love for God Our love for God, it always comes after his love for us. That's what he says in our text tonight. He says, "In this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son." And he'll say it another way just a few verses later, verse 19. “We love because he first loved us.” 

You see, what John is reminding us of is this fundamental gospel truth: that God's love is not a response to our love, but rather our love is a response to his love. God is the initiator. God loved us before we ever loved him. Working with a couple of couples right now in pre-marriage counseling, and as they're telling me their story of how they fell in love, sometimes it'll come up, this question: Who said I love you first? Who made the first move? Friends, there's no question when it comes to God. He loved us before we ever loved him. Before we were ever seeking him, he was seeking us. Before we ever pursued him, he pursued us. His love stretches all the way back into eternity in his electing love. And what this reminds us of tonight is that his love is not based on our faith, our obedience, our love, or anything of the sort. Not based on any movement toward him, but his love is pure mercy and grace. Paul says, “God shows his love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Imagine that. While we were still sinners – not after we loved him – while we were still sinners, while we were running away, Christ died for us. That is tremendous, great love, isn't it? This love of God for us, the initiating love. God is the fountain of love. God is the spring of love. Our love always and only a reflection and a response to his love. He loved us first. 

Second way that John talks about God's great love: he says it's revealed. And this is really the heart of what he's getting at in the text. He points this out twice, this revelation of God's love. He says in verse 9, “In this the love of God was made manifest.” This is how God showed his love to us. And he says something similar, verse 10, “In this is love.” God has not kept his love a secret. God has revealed it to us. God has put it on display. There is no hide and seek when it comes to the love of God. But he says here it is. 

What does he say about it? How has it been revealed? Two ways. First of all, he says God sent his only Son. He sent him. This is mission language. Jesus came with a commission from God, a purpose, an aim. See it already at the beginning of his life, in his name, Jesus, he will save his people from their sins. Jesus didn't wonder what he would do when he grew up. In fact, at a very early age – you remember the story – he stayed in the temple and says to his parents, "I had to be about my Father's business." That's what he came for. God sent him, commissioned, and he sent his only Son. Some translations say only begotten Son. Whatever way you read that, what both are getting at is that Jesus is the one unique Son of God. Yes, we are children of God. We are sons and daughters of God, but ours is by adoption. And there is great love in that, no doubt. But John isn't saying anything to diminish that. What he's simply saying is Jesus is the only natural Son of God, one with the Father from all eternity. There is no other son like Jesus. Maybe John's words here remind you of a story from the Old Testament, and that story is Abraham getting ready to offer up his son, Isaac. Genesis 22 reminds us that Isaac was his only son. Take your son, your only son. Put him on the altar. Slay him. And Abraham is ready to do it, and God holds Abraham back, and Isaac is spared. And the Lord says, "Now I know that you fear God." Abraham's love demonstrated in his willingness to give his only son. It wasn't just a few weeks ago that one of our members, a couple from our church, lost their only son, about 40 years old. It's the very first thing the father said to me, "It's my only boy." God didn't lose his Son. God sent his Son, his only Son. The best gift that the Father could ever give. Paul calls Jesus his inexpressible gift to us. This is love. John Calvin says the reason John talks about Jesus as the only Son is God's way of amplifying his own love. In other words, he's saying it's like a speaker. It's like a megaphone. This fact that God gave his only Son. It's shouting to us tonight. God loves you. God loves me. His only Son. 

But friends, it gets even better. Why did he give his only Son? John tells us to be the propitiation for our sins. That word propitiation – you may be familiar with it, maybe not. It's not a word that we use in everyday language. Not used very often, in fact, in the New Testament. It is used by John earlier on in this letter, chapter 2 verse 2, but used often in the Greek version of the Old Testament the Septuagint. And that simply tells us that it's a word with Old Testament roots, Old Testament background. The Hebrew word is “to cover.” It's in reference to sin, to cover sin, to bring about cleansing, to bring about forgiveness, and this is always before God. To put it all together, propitiation means to placate. It means to appease. It means to satisfy. And here in particular, to satisfy God's holy wrath against our sin. I like how our pastor puts it. Daily Doctrine: propitiation means God is pro-us. The personal offense of sin – God's anger, wrath against our sin – it is removed. It's really a travesty that over the centuries, and maybe even particularly in our own day, the concept of propitiation is looked down upon, frowned upon. And the reason is some see in this doctrine God as a wrathful, vengeance-seeking, incensed God whose love has to be won over. Doesn't love us, doesn't want to love us until a sacrifice is given that begs his love. Friends, that's not God at all. Oh yes, he's displeased with our sin. But his love doesn't have to be squeezed out of him by a sacrifice. In fact, it's his love that is the very spring from which our forgiveness comes. God isn't waiting to love us, but it's because he loves us that he has sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. You see, propitiation doesn't detract from the love and mercy of God. It rather enhances the marvel of his love. God sent his Son (incredible!), his only Son (amazing!), but wonder of wonders that he would send him to be a sacrifice for our sins. No greater love is there than this, that God would send his Son to lay down his life for sinners. In sending Christ, God sent the best that he had for the worst that he could find. And our sins are forgiven, and his wrath is satisfied so that we can know his love. He really loves us. 

And here's the final way that John speaks about this great love of God: he says it's purposed. There is a reason for it all. At the end of verse 9, he says it: so that we might live through him. God's love indeed takes away our sins. It brings about forgiveness. Our guilt is removed. The record that stands between us and God, it's cleansed. But John is giving us the other side of it here as well. God loved us in Jesus so that we might live, that we might have life, that we might have it now. Remember how Jesus put it in John 10:10? “I came that you may have life and you may have it abundantly.” Life that is overflowing, like a cup that is full, and it's spilling out over and over, all around. That's the kind of life that Jesus came to give us and also that we would have life forever, that we would know peace, joy, comfort, rest, hope – now, today. And that in the days to come and in the end of the age, to be with Christ forever, or if it comes sooner at our death, to be with him, to be at home with the Lord. No more temptation, no more sin, no more suffering. Maybe you've read this before, but on the last page, the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis writing about eternity, ready to close the story, he says, "For us, this is the end of all the stories, but for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world had only been the cover and the title page. And now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever. And every chapter is better than the one before.” 

That's what Jesus died to give us. That's how much the Father loves us, that we can be turning the pages of the story right now and have life in Christ – wonderful life in Christ – and then someday turn that last page to a new chapter and every chapter better and better and better and better. He sent his Son. He loves us so that we might live through him. 

Friends, as I close tonight, I just kept thinking about songs. How do we respond? Just listen, and just sing in your heart. And can it be, amazing love? How can it be that thou, my God, would die for me? I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how he could love me, a sinner condemned, unclean. How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me? When I survey the wondrous cross, love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Friends, he loves us. He really loves us. Let's pray together. 

Father, as we now turn to your table, we pray, God, that we'll see the emblems of your love there. Bread and juice pointing us to the broken body and shed blood of Christ. Father, may we know your love as we feast on your table in Jesus’ name. Amen.