Holiness Shows the Distance. Love Crossed It.

Ken Tram

1 John 4:7-8; Ephesians 3:16-19; 1 John 4:9-10

If God is perfectly holy and you know you aren’t, what does He actually do with you? Pastor Ken starts with the woman dragged in front of Jesus for adultery and asks what holiness would demand, then follows 1 John 4 and Ephesians 3 to argue that God’s love isn’t a mood or something that rises and falls with your circumstances. It’s who He is. Holiness shows the distance between us and God, and love explains why He crossed it. This one is for anyone who wonders if God’s love depends on how life is going.

COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS MESSAGE

What does it mean that “God is love”?

In 1 John 4:8, John doesn’t only say that God loves; he says God is love. Pastor Ken’s point is that love isn’t one of God’s moods or actions but his holy character, so our affection, compassion, and sacrifice are only echoes of it. Reducing God’s love to a feeling shrinks it to a small fraction of who He is.

How can a holy God love sinful people?

The message says holiness shows the distance sin creates between us and God, and love is why God crossed it. In 1 John 4:9-10, God sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice, not because we loved Him first but because He loved us. Pastor Ken points to the woman caught in adultery, where Jesus, the holy one, tells her, “Neither do I condemn you.”

Does God’s love change when life gets hard or I feel far from Him?

According to this message, no. Pastor Ken says God doesn’t become loving because circumstances are good and doesn’t stop being loving because we’re hurting, so measuring His love by unanswered prayer or by how people have treated us is a conditional way of thinking. He compares it to a child who hears “I discipline you because I love you” and can’t feel it in the moment, but later understands.

What does knowing God’s love have to do with forgiving other people?

Pastor Ken says every expression of love we have is “downstream” of who God is, so when we don’t really know God, it’s harder to give others grace and mercy. He says God tells us to forgive no matter how someone sinned against us, and that it becomes possible when God’s power is at work inside us. That’s why he prays through Ephesians 3:16-19, that we would grasp how wide, long, high, and deep Christ’s love is.