I’ll have to admit, when the task is to find hymns to complement a service focused on the passage “God is love” (1 John
4:8), the difficulty isn’t finding suitable material—it’s trying to narrow the material down! See if you notice some of the
fantastic descriptions of God’s love in our hymnody this morning: it is “ineffable,” “wondrous,” an “immortal flame,”
and the “love of every love the best.” We’ll confess that His love is mighty, and yet mightier than it seems. The psalms
will remind us that His love endures forever (Psalm 118) and to “trust in nothing but His love” (Psalm 62). But I think
my favorite rendering of the love of God that we’ll sing this morning is the beloved children’s hymn Jesus Loves Me,
This I Know. All throughout this sermon series, I’ve hoped to find a place to use this hymn because it pairs so
appropriately with the Apostle John, who often refers to his readers as “little children.” The simple yet profound words
speak to the hope we have from the Scriptures that Christ died to wash away our sins because He loves us—truths that
bring comfort to Christians of any age. —Henry C. Haffner
