Message: “Because of This Love, vol. 2: Before Time Began There Was This Love” from Ross Stackhouse

We’re going to go back in time. Before anything existed. What was in God’s mind (so to speak) before the universe exploded into existence? What was/is in God’s character that motivated God to create? A significant part of being human is that we have dreams and hopes that get dashed as we grow up in this world that’s not as it should be. Strangely, God’s dream for the world, so to speak, has not yet come to fruition. Here’s what hasn’t changed: God’s character of goodness of love, which has been God’s character since before time began.

More Messages from Ross Stackhouse

From Series: "Because of This Love"

1 Peter 4:8 tells its readers "to keep this intense love among you." That adjective–translated here to “intense”–occurs only here. The verb that shares the same root means “to stretch” such as when Jesus stretches out his hand to heal. This is the love we’re trying to recall and recover in this series. From the beginning and even before the beginning, God’s character has been purely that of love and goodness. God’s drive to create life–from the big bang to the consciousness of humankind crowned with glory and grandeur (Psalm 8)–was out of an intense love and desire to extend love, power and glory to created things. But a hallmark feature of the world in which we live and our existence in it is that it is so easy to miss or forget God’s intense love. In this coming weeks, our goal is to reach into our souls, our experiences, our Scriptures, into God’s heart as revealed in Jesus to recover what we’ve lost: this love that covers practically everything (Eugene Peterson’s translation of 1 Peter 4:8).