Spreading The Love Of Christ by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Love of God — What the New Testament Actually Says

The Bible never instructs believers to pray for God to give them love. The New Testament's emphasis is not on asking for love but on understanding, receiving, and walking in the love that has already been given.

A search through the epistles reveals this pattern consistently:

• Romans 1:7 — addressing those who are "beloved of God"
• Romans 5:5 — the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts
• Romans 8:39 — nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus
• 2 Corinthians 13:14 — the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God
• Ephesians 3:19 — to know the love of Christ
• 2 Thessalonians 3:5 — the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God
• 1 John 3:16 — hereby we know the love of God

The New Testament does not speak primarily about our love for God — it speaks about the love of God. And our love for him is simply the overflow of the revelation of his love for us.

God wants you to love him by knowing that he really loves you. That conviction — believing that truth — is love for God.

Love for God Means Obedience, Not Emotion

Ephesians 5:2 says to walk in love. It is not something you pray for. It is a decision you make.

People will never deserve your love, just as you will never deserve some people's love. Walking in love is a command — not because people earn it but because love is the nature of God's kingdom.

John 14:15 and John 15:14 make it plain: if you love God, you keep his commandments. Love for God is not an emotional feeling toward him — it is a decision, a lifestyle of faithfulness.

For those the enemy guilt-trips with the question, "Do you really love God?" — if you are showing up in the word, maintaining a prayer life, and genuinely wanting to please him, that is love. His love toward you is not a feeling; it is a decision. Yours toward him is the same.

The First Mention of Love in Scripture

The first time the word love appears in all of scripture is not between husband and wife, between friends, or even directly between God and man. It appears in Genesis 22:2 — connected to a father and his son, and a demand that the father give up that son.

God said to Abraham: "Your son, whom you love."

Notice: it was God who named it love, not Abraham. That is significant. In the pattern of creation, when Adam was told to name the animals it was because he was given dominion over them. Whatever you name, you have authority over. If God named it, God lords it — and if he lords it, he can test it.

The Difference Between a Test and a Temptation

• Temptation — from the devil; designed to make you disobey God's word. It is tailor-made. You are tempted with what you like — what the Bible calls the weapon fashioned against you.
• Test — from God; designed to affirm that you trust him, to generate growth, to confirm what he has been teaching you.

James 1:13 says: "If anyone is tempted, let him not say he is tempted by God." God tests. He does not tempt.

When Jesus was on the cross, the temptation was the mockery — the crowd urging him to come down and show power. The test was to hold himself, stay on the cross, and complete the plan. The same distinction applies to the wilderness: the devil tempted Jesus to turn stone to bread. Jesus identified it as a test — connected it to Deuteronomy 8:2 — and refused, knowing that man does not live by bread alone.

You cannot have a test without a premise of teaching. A test always comes after God has prepared you. And during the test, he does not speak — teachers do not talk during exams.

What the Test of Abraham Reveals About Love

God told Abraham in Genesis 17 that through Isaac his seed would bless all nations. He had also declared himself El Shadai — the one who makes alive. So when God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac in Genesis 22, it was not a contradiction. A student who had taken correct notes would have understood: "I will sacrifice him, because God will resurrect him — he promised that in my seed all nations will be blessed, and he is El Shadai, the one who gives life."

That is the conversation found in Hebrews 11.

The passage reveals several things about love:

1. Love is tested in obedience

   John 14:15 — If you love me, keep my commandments. Love and obedience are inseparable.

2. God interprets love as the fear of God

   Genesis 22:12 — After the test, God said: "Now I know that you fear me." But the test was love. God substituted love for fear. People sin because there is no love of God in their heart — meaning, no fear of God. Joseph refused Potiphar's wife not because a commandment existed against it, but because he had the fear of God. Loving God simply means: I cannot do this and have God be pleased. I cannot abuse grace.

3. Love is revealed by what we are willing to give up, not receive

   John 3:16 echoes Genesis 22 — an only son, a beloved son, a begotten son, given by a father. The love of God is defined not by what he received from us but by what he gave up for us.

4. Love to God is value and priority

   Matthew 22 gives the framework: love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind — and love your neighbor as yourself. The first is vertical. The second is horizontal. And the horizontal is the works of faith of the vertical. As Jesus told Peter in John 21: "If you love me, feed my sheep."

God Is In People

Matthew 25:41–44 records Jesus saying to those who neglected the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, and the imprisoned: "When you did not do it to the least of these my brethren, you did not do it to me."

He said to Saul: "Why are you persecuting me?"

God is in human beings. The God you are looking for far away is in them. If we are going to love God, we will value him, prioritize him, and love people.

How We Share the Love of God: The Gospel

Christians who do not share the gospel do not actually believe it. Their works of faith reveal what they truly think.

No one who truly believed that a person was about to walk into danger would stay silent. The reason people do not share is not a hard heart — it is unbelief. They do not fully believe that an unsaved person is on the path to destruction.

A good person without Jesus is still in sin. Moralism is not the power of God unto salvation.

An unbeliever is not someone who will be condemned — they are already condemned. Mark 16:16: "He who does not believe is condemned." 1 John 5:13: "He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life."

Jesus told Nicodemus — a teacher, a religious man — in John 3: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

There is only one way. And sharing that way with people is one of the clearest expressions of love.

Evangelism is not merely talking — it is the translation of a person from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God. That requires power. The god of this world has blinded the eyes of unbelievers. Intercession must accompany proclamation.

How We Share the Love of God: Giving

Matthew 6:1–2 instructs: do not do charitable deeds to be seen by men. In modern terms, this means not photographing or publicizing acts of generosity to gain attention. Real giving does not degrade the recipient. It does not come with an entitlement mindset. You do not get to say, "After all I did for them." Whatever you are giving was itself given to you.

Practical principles for becoming a giver:

1. Never give what costs you nothing. Do not give torn, stained, or broken things. If a gift does not cost something, it is hardening your heart rather than softening it. If you give used clothes, at least iron them first. People are human beings.
2. Never visit anyone empty-handed. Proverbs 18:16 — a man's gift makes room for him. The Hebrew word there is matan, meaning a present. Gifts open people's hearts toward you.
3. Act on giving promptings immediately. When God places a generous impulse in your heart — an amount, a name, a moment — that is the gift of faith to give. If you delay, the prompting reduces. You may give a smaller amount and lose the blessing. When Jesus asked the Samaritan woman for water, it was not because he was thirsty — it was to legitimize favor. He supplies the faith to give, and if you act on it, he releases what he wanted to release through you.
4. Make giving a lifestyle, not a reaction. Budget for it. Allocate a portion of every income specifically toward generosity. When a need arises, give from that portion — not under pressure, not in crisis mode. Matthew 6 presents giving, prayer, and fasting not as occasional acts but as the four pillars of a believer's life: giving, praying, fasting, forgiving. These are practices, not performances.

The true test of generosity is giving to someone you will never see again. It is easy to give to God because scripture promises a return. Giving to a stranger with no expectation — that is where the heart is formed.

Speed Is in Love

In 1 Samuel 30, David and his men returned from battle to find their families taken. God commanded them to pursue — using the word porshu, meaning to run fast, move quickly. On the way, they encountered an abandoned Egyptian who had been left for dead by the very raiding party they were chasing.

David stopped. He fed him. He gave him water and let him recover.

That Egyptian led them directly to the camp of the enemy. When David arrived, the camp was unguarded — celebrating, unprepared. David recovered everything.

God put speed in love. If you are not showing love, you do not have speed. You may still get there — but it will take much longer, and it will be much harder.

When Everyone Is Against One Person

When everyone around you is condemning someone, make yourself different. You can disagree with behavior and still show love. Discipline and love are not opposites.

When people are criticizing one person, do not add your voice — see it as an invitation to go and help. Love is not blind to wrong, but it extends mercy even in correction.

The preservation of your soul is in how you treat people when it costs you something to be kind.

When you have been hurt — genuinely betrayed, wounded — and you allow that wound to change who you are, you have lost yourself. The person who hurt you is still living through you. The experiences that injured you have become you. That is the thing repentance restores: not just relationship with God, but relationship with the person you actually are.

Father, we receive your love. We receive your peace. We choose to walk in love — not because people deserve it, but because love is what we are made of. We release every weight of unforgiveness and every pattern of hardness. Lord, let your love flow through us freely, in Jesus' name. Amen.