ADVENT | The Love of God | 1 John 4:7-21 | Curtis Hall

December 11, 2022 Speaker: Curtis Hall Series: ADVENT | Words

Topic: New Testament Passage: 1 John 4:7–21

12/11/2022

ADVENT | The Love of God | 1 John 4:7-21 | Curtis Hall

 

THE LOVE OF GOD

INTRO:

Good morning, Mercy Fellowship, I hope you are all doing well this morning. We are starting a new series for the Holidays going through Advent, which means arrival. And working are to way to Christmas Eve, as we celebrate the arrival of Immanuel, God with us. God, entering human history as an infant 2000 plus years ago. Leading up to Christmas Eve, we are going to be talking about, Hope, Peace, Love & Joy and how we are giving these gifts because of Jesus’ arrival into human history. This week I have the privilege of talking about Love. We gather every Sunday, and open up, God’s word, because we believe that it has something to say to us about our lives. It becomes a failure for us, if we ever begin to think, that God doesn’t have something to say to us, or that he doesn’t say anything about what we care about; nothing could be farther from the truth. God’s word, talks about our jobs, it talks about our finances, it talks about our relationship to God ultimately, and it talks about our relationships with one another. How do we navigate relationship with one another when they are hard? How do we navigate relationships with others who we may disagree with? With people who we may not like or get along with? The undeniable answer is that we are to love. But what is love? Is it a positive feeling? Is it only a feeling? Is it only action and no feeling?

LOVE DEFINED:

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. - 1 John 4:7-8 When it comes to love, it is a word that becomes so popular on a cultural level, that we don’t fully grasp it. In fact, many of you I am sure have seen the creeds that people put in their front yards. Creeds are formal statements, of what a person believes. They are these black yard signs and have a number of statements on them, always starting off with saying “In this house, we believe…” and goes on to say black lives matter, women rights are human rights, science is real and one of them says “love is love.” Now what does that mean? Does it mean that love is obvious and you’ll notice it when you see it? Does it mean, that no one is excluded from loving who or what they want to love? 1- God is Love We as Christians, do not afford ourselves the liberty of redefining words for our own gain. We believe the bible to be God’s word and therefore we believe not only what it says, but what it defines, and in this section we don’t see that ‘Love is Love’ rather, we see ‘God is love.’ What this means then, is that I don’t need to go looking at other peoples relationships to see what love is like, however good a relationship may be. I don’t need to guess by my human reason, what love is. Rather, the purest and most perfect place I can look to see what love is like, is I need to look at God, and if I look at Him, I will get a clear picture of what love truly is. 2- Love has an aim. THE LOVE OF GOD 2 Are call as followers of Jesus, is to ‘Love one another.’ This is something that the Apostle John will say throughout his entire letter, and this is important, because he’s writing to churches that have been through hard times. They have had people leave the church because they don’t believe Jesus is the Son of God. There are traveling ministers who are coming to these home churches, and John calls them deceivers. And a question that John is addressing in this letter is “what does a true Christian look like? He gives lots of evidences for what a Christian is, but one of them is that Christians are to ’Love One Another.’ Love has an aim to it. A question we can all ask this morning, is ‘Can we know this love?’ Is it possible for us to know this love?

LOVE MANIFESTED:

9 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. 10 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. - 1 John 4:9-12 GOD CAN BE KNOWN: God’s love has been made known through His incarnation: This great love that God has for us, has been made known to us! How? God sent His only Son into the world. This is what we are celebrating this season, that God has become man and entered into our story, so that we could know Him and be known by Him. This is part of my story of how I became a Christian, and I hope it is part of your story as well, that you can know God! What this means is that we are not deists. We don’t simply believe in a supreme being out there, who is never engaged with humanity, who doesn’t know us and we don’t know Him and all we can do is speculate about who is out there, but at the end of the day, none of us really know. We don’t believe this. Rather, the writer of Hebrews starts off his letter and says “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature..” - Hebrews 1:1-3 Has God made Himself known to us? Yes! Has God shown us His love for us? Yes! Can you know God? Yes! Do you know God? We know God primarily in 2 ways, general revelation and special revelation. General revelation: Means that God has revealed Himself through creation. The Apostle Paul says this in Romans 1 that God has revealed Himself in creation, and we can know about God THE LOVE OF GOD 3 because of His creation. This allows it to be possible, to where the most remote tribe in the wilderness or the most learned man can both looks at creation and have a sense of awe and wonder, that pulls on their soul to tell them, something has created this! A few years ago there was a group of us guys that hiked the enchantments up in Leavenworth, and its about 20-23 miles round trip, a full 12 plus hour hike and worth every minute of it; it’s called the enchantments for a reason. And as you are hiking on mountain peaks and seeing these amazing valleys and beautiful lakes made by glacier water that is crystal clear, what comes over you is awe. That what you are witnessing is truly amazing! It is truly by definition, awesome. And what does is fill you with gratitude for the Maker of all this. So general revelation can tell us things about God, but in order to fully grasp Him, we need special revelation. Special Revelation: Special revelation, is God has given us His Word, so that we may know Him. Who is that? That’s Jesus! He is the Word incarnate, the Apostle John tells us. We can know God because He has revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus, and as the writer of Hebrews said, “He is the exact imprint of His nature.” So if you want to know God, know Jesus! How do you know Jesus? From this word. We don’t just make up our own ideas about who Jesus is. He is a real person, in real time that entered into time and space roughly 2000 years ago. And God in His grace, has given us this word, so that we may know Him and His promises for us. God can be known not only though general revelation but special revelation as well. God’s love has made Himself known through His sacrifice: God has made Himself know through the incarnation, but He has also made himself known through His sacrifice for our sins. The word that the Apostle John uses here, in verse 10, is ‘propitiation.’ He says “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.” That word means not only sacrifice for our sins, carries the idea of appeasing God’s wrath. You need to know this today, and it is the failure of modern evangelicalism and protestantism, that we emphasize God’s love, and we should talk about it lots, yes and amen to that, however, we need to be clear, there are times where God has wrath, there are times when God is angry, there are times when God hates. Now, let’s be clear up front, God’s love is not like our love and in the same way, God’s anger is not like our anger. He is justified and perfect in all of His judgements. Furthermore, the Bible says that God is love, it never says God is wrath. Rather, it says, God is provoked to wrath. Now, you guys understand this, and here’s how. If you are at home asleep and someone tries to break in to harm you or your family, you’re not shaking their hand. You are filled with wrath and want them destroyed. Why? Because of how much you love your family. In the same way, church, there are things that harm and ruin God’s children. And as our Father in Heaven, who is also a prefect judge, His wrath will be poured out on sin. Sin, is the very thing that separates us from God, our Father and a price must be paid for it.

THE LOVE OF GOD

4 The options are this, either you can pay for it by your own blood on your last day, or you can place your faith in Jesus, who shed His blood for your sins, and you can repent of your sin. Why can’t God just forgive? Some of you might say. Because He wouldn’t be just if He didn’t. When I was a young kid playing in the neighborhood with friends, we would ride our bikes everywhere and there was one driveway that was really steep and turns hard at the bottom of the homeowners driveway onto the curb and right next to the curb was his truck. And so I went to the top of his driveway, rode my bike down and couldn’t turn hard enough to get onto the curb and ran right into the back of his truck and left a pretty significant dent in the back of it. My dad and I went over to the homeowner and I said I was sorry and my dad offered to pay for it and he said it was okay and forgave me. What happened? We didn’t have to pay, did that dent just go away? No, its’s still there and he, out of his own pocket, paid for it. Here’s what I am trying to say to you, God loves you so much that He paid out of His own pocket for your sins. He sent His only Son for you, because He loves you. Did God send his son? Yes! Did Jesus do this willingly for us? Yes. Jesus says this “12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” - John 15:12-13 This morning, do you know that God loves you? God’s love has been made manifest to us, not only in His incarnation, but also in His sacrifice for our sins. I think a failure we all have, if you’ve grown up in church at all, is that you and I have heard on numerous times, that God loves us, and we agree with it and move on from it, but what I believe God wants for us from this section of scripture, is that He wants us to move deeper into this reality. Another way of saying it, is abiding in this reality. ABIDING LOVE: 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. - 1 John 4:13-18 In this section here, the word abide is used 5 times and it means to communicate endurance or remaining in place. More specifically though, it has to do with remaining in a relationship with God where you know Him and are known by Him. How do you do this? I believe there are 5 things that God has given us, as the Church to help us abide in Him. 1) Prayer: Prayer is the way that we communicate with God. In fact, if you think about this, for centuries of the churches existence, not everyone could read and the printing press, didn’t THE LOVE OF GOD 5 come about till the 15th century. How would people have a relationship with God? Through prayer. George Whitfield & J. C. Ryle. If we are going to be followers of Jesus, and abiding in Him, we MUST pray. You parents, do you pray with your kids? You spouses, do you pray with each other? Church family, do you pray with people here who are suffering and in pain? If you haven’t, don’t be embarrassed, start now. 2) Church: This is what Jesus created for His followers. The church is the place by which the people of God are meant to gather together and remember who God is, and what He has done in and through the person of Jesus. The writer of Hebrews says “24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” - Hebrews 10:24-25 This is why you are here! 3) We come together to worship God. In Fact, some of you might think pretty low of the church this morning, but be reminded, Jesus so believes in the Church that He shed His blood for it. There is a big amount of people, who claim to be followers of Jesus, and yet could care less about the church. Their way of life, is not one of growing in love for God or others. 4) Word: We hit on this already, but this is a huge gift to the people of God, because in this word, we learn about God’s redemptive history for this world. We understand why the world is full of sin and brokenness’s, we understand the solution in Jesus Christ and placing our trust in Him. Let me say this, from a statistical standpoint, reading the word is amazing. The Center of Bible Engagement compiled extensive research findings by Arnold Cole, Ed.D. & Pamela Caudill Ovwigho, Ph.D. into a document from 2009 titled “Understanding the Bible Engagement Challenge: Scientific Evidence for the Power of 4.”  In the study, they polled 40,000 people ages 8 to 80. They wanted to see how people were engaging in Scripture and it’s benefits: People who read their bibles 1-3 times a week, nothing really changes. However, you get to 4 or more days a week and statistically things change massively. Feeling lonely drops 30% 1. Anger issues drop 32% 2. Bitterness in relationships drops 40% 3. Alcoholism drops 57% 4. Sex outside of marriage drops 68% 5. Feeling spiritually stagnant drops 60% 6. Viewing pornography drops 61% 7. Sharing your faith jumps 200% 8. Discipling others jumps 230% Perhaps you’re walking in today with some problems, there may be a lot of reasons for that, but perhaps one of them is that you are not opening the word. If you want to learn about that, come January 18th, we are having a class on Wednesday nights called Equip, and we will be opening up the Word. The Word is something that God has given His church to help us abide in Him. THE LOVE OF GOD 6 5) Communion: Jesus, before He was arrested, took His disciples into a room and broke the bread and told them all to eat and said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” He did the same thing with the wine and had all His disciples partake of this, and it would foreshadow the eventual death that Jesus would face. Through communion, we take the bread and the wine, every Sunday to be reminded of what Jesus’ broken body and shed blood for us. Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath for our sin, so that we may be reconciled to God. Hopefully when you take communion, it gives you a sense of gratitude and love towards God. Why? Because of the great lengths to which He went to love you. 6) Baptism: How many of you love watching people get baptized? Baptism is this beautiful picture, of when someone has placed their faith and trust in Jesus, they are identifying with Jesus, death, burial and resurrection. Outward expression of an inward confession. MH baptism, Footoohi All of this is meant to help us abide in Him, for the purpose of His love being “perfected in us.” What does that mean? It means, we are being sanctified. That we are being made more and more perfect, but this only happens when we abide in Him. John in this section alone of his letter, has the word ‘love’ 27 times. And if you can follow the trajectory we’ve been on in this section, it has to do with understanding and identifying what God’s love is. After that, we abide in His love, don’t move away from it, but abide. And as we abide then, we express love to one another. LOVE ONE ANOTHER: 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. - 1 John 4:19-21 The apostle John, when he is writing to these home churches, he states that he is not writing anything new, but reminding them of of what they already know. Most likely, this church would have heard the story of Jesus washing the feet of His disciples, and it is something that John repeats in this story numerous times. JOHN 13: If you remember, in John 13, it starts off with saying. “3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” - John 13:3-5

THE LOVE OF GOD

7 This was the job of the lowest of servants. To clean the feet of people when they would walk in to a house, and get all the dirt off of their feet, perhaps even animal feces as well. And this is the job and position of servant our Lord Jesus takes when, all authority has been given to Him. Later on, after washing all of His disciples feet, including Judas Iscariot who would eventually betray Him, He goes on to say “34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” - John 13:34-35 And I hope you catch that this morning, that we have a reactionary faith. Because God has initiated in loving us, therefore we are to love one another. That God has set the example for us of what love looks like. Conclusion: Here’s what I want to say in conclusion to all of this. This is a command that our God gives to us, that we are Love one another, just as he has loved us; this is hard! We are not always the easiest to love, but my hope for this morning, is that you’ll know God’s great love for you, in sending His only Son for your sins, so that you may be redeemed and reconciled to God. I hope this morning, you start making efforts in trying to abide in this love and abiding in Christ. And as you abide in His love for you, this will empower you to love one another. Why? Because people are easy to love? No! Because our Lord Jesus has given us an example and has commanded us to do the same. To take on the role of a servant, in sacrifice to the betterment of other people.