Because He First Loved Us — 1 John 4

0:00 Let... Let's read then. First John. First John. The...

0:05 Anyone's visiting, we pray that you would feel at home. First John, we know that several of our people are in Florida and they're heading back. Kind of I'm kind of laughing because they should have been here in February then gone from for March, right? Right. And that's what they get for, you know, running off on us.

0:28 Alright. First John four nine. By this, the love of god was manifested in us that god sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him. And this is love, not that we love God, but that God loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if god so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1:00 No one has beheld god at any time. If we love one another, god abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit. And we have beheld and bear witness that the father has sent the son to be the savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him and he in God.

1:33 And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love. And the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us that we may have confidence in the day of judgment because as he is, so also are we in this world. There's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

2:08 We love because he first loved us. If someone says I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this is the commandment that we have from him. That we love that that, I'm sorry, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

2:35 Wow. This is a tremendous passage. I'm sure it's been probably one of your most beloved passages for many years. I I I have a some couple of confessions and one is that I've never really understood what what love is. And so as you look at the word of God, it kind of, it changes your whole perspective.

2:57 What I mean by that is my understanding of love was always conditional. You do something for me, then I'll do something for you. How you feel towards someone. And of course, the TVs and the media, to them, love is romance, right? And so when the romance is gone, you hear statements like, I fell out of love, I don't love you anymore, and stuff like that.

3:24 And so very confusing to really understand what it means to love. What does that mean? And I've struggled for years to grasp meaning of it. And so I'm going to attempt and kind of embarrassed of my people attempt because I'm not very good at elaborating a thought this deep. But I'm going to at least give it a shot, and let's just look at what the word of God has to say.

4:35 And so you can see that he starts the argument with, we don't love God, and he concludes it with, we don't love God. Both times, it's he loved us. All right, a couple of things about love, about god, and and who he is and what we mean by love. First of all, god's nature is to love with no conditions. I've tried it and and I failed.

4:59 I I don't know what it's like to love without conditions. I'm asking god to help me But God's nature is to love without conditions, without expectations. Anybody already fail like I did? Without response. In other words, God loves us whether we respond to his love or not.

5:20 And not performance based, I don't have to do anything, don't have to perform. God just loves and that's others to it. All right? Secondly, his love is grace based. God gives us what we don't ask for, what we did not deserve, without having to do anything or change anything.

5:42 Once he gives it, he does the changing, we do the receiving. And again, this is from God. This is not human. This is supernatural. This is what God does.

5:58 It's taken me years to grasp how can this be? How can this be a reality? God's love always gives our sacrifices for our benefit. It's it's always true. We're gonna see that in a minute.

6:13 Next, God defines love. It doesn't define him. God defines love, it doesn't define him. The next point is then the natural conclusion then to these statements is that God wants a relationship with us Because you can't love a wall. I guess you can love a wall, but it won't respond.

6:34 Right? So so he he loves people who who don't love him, who who don't care. If god doesn't intervene, in other words, we'll just go on, we'll be happy without him. We'll be happy without him. We'll just do our own thing.

6:48 So God had to intervene to people who don't care for him, don't respond to him, don't do anything, he does the loving. And after he does the loving and transforms us, then he says, okay, now, can you love me back? And I think that's the thrust of what verse nine, 10, and 11 are are driving at. So let's look at it. By this, the love of God was manifested.

7:13 This is what we know how God loves. This is how it shows up in us, that God sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him. So in other words, when he starts defining love, the first thing he says is God had to sacrifice something. God had to do something for us. See?

7:33 And so when I was thinking of love most of my life growing up, it's like, what are you going to do to me to show me you love me? It's never, what do I have to do? What do I have to give up? What do I have to sacrifice to show you I love you? And it's always conditional based.

7:48 But God says, this is the unfolding, the manifestation of how God is. He loves us. Now, let me give a little parentheses real quick. Love alone cannot save us. Love alone cannot save us.

8:29 And so, bam, they shoot them. Love has to do something in order to be able to save that person. So love alone is good, but God couldn't save us on the basis of just love. God couldn't reach us on just love. Yes, he loves us, but there's a problem, and the problem is sin.

8:54 And so in order for him to love us, that has to be taken care of. That's why it says, by this, the love of God was manifested in us, that god sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him and this is what we live and die for. Isn't that the the the reality of the gospel? That is not what we did. It's what he did.

9:17 He saw us dead in sin. He saw us desperate. He saw us rebellious. He saw nothing in us attractive, but he loved us, and so he had to do something in order to be able to draw us close to him. And so that's when verse 10 explains it deeper, and this is love.

9:36 Not that we love God. Now, I'm sure you have and so have I sat down with many people when you're trying to explain God to them, and they'll say, but I love God. Have you talked to someone who said that? I've talked to many people. I love God.

9:52 I love him a lot, and I'm good. Well, the Bible says you don't love God. Either you accept this statement or you reject it. The reality is that god has declared to you and me that we don't love him. It's it's not in our nature.

10:09 Our nature is rebellious. Our nature is to pull away from god, to do our own thing. We all went astray and did our own thing. Isaiah chapter 53, right? All like sheep have strayed away.

10:22 It's it's we we don't love god. And and that's kind of hard to to to grasp and understand because I would say I had some affection towards God. But I think it was more, I love God because of the benefits that I get from him. You give me food, you give me health, you're there. And so again, it's a expectation.

10:44 Do something for me, then I love you. So God declares something right away. This love is totally from God's part. It's not from our part. It's all from him.

10:56 We don't even respond to him because we're dead in sin. We don't love God. Not that we love God, but that he loved us. Either you reject that or you accept it. You understand that reality or you don't.

11:07 And I come to understand that that's true in my life. That if God wouldn't have supernaturally intervened in my life, I would just be doing my own thing. So not that we love God, but that he loved us. And what did he do? How did he show that he loved us?

11:25 He had to sacrifice. He had to give something up. He had to do something to people who didn't want it, who didn't care, who were dead in sin, who were rejecting them. But he had to give something up because he loved us, he wanted to draw us to him and have a relationship with us. Consequently, it says here he loved us, and so he sent his son.

11:44 He had to give something up. It cost him to be the propitiation for sin. So God is not just love, but God is also holy and righteous and pure and perfect. And so even though he loved us, he couldn't draw us close to him unless the problem got removed, the sin problem. And so the sacrifice of love is this, that he sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins.

12:39 His sacrifices work on our behalf was accepted by god. So, to quote a to quote a book I read, and I didn't get the name of the author, but it's from Principles of Spiritual Growth. Oh, yes, by Miles Sanford, just remember. He said this, God is satisfied with the cross. Our father is fully satisfied with his beloved son on our behalf, and there's no reason for us not to be.

13:06 The death of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only ground on which God can rightly clear a sinner, and the only ground on which a sinner can rightly stand before God. Wow. Alright. So are we getting the picture then? We don't love God.

13:26 You can can argue with God if you want this point, that's between you and him. Go ahead and argue it. But when he declares something, it's it's true. And and I understand that to be a truth in my life. I don't love him.

13:39 He he loved me. He had to sacrifice. He had to do everything. And then he covered the sin through the work of Jesus, and he's satisfied with what he did. So this is something that should blow you away, right?

13:54 It's like, wow. And then that's why he says in verse 11, this is what I call a the results of love. Beloved, if god so loved us, we also ought to love one another. That's pretty much a natural conclusion. If God was willing to sacrifice and give up and do whatever it took to draw us to him, to have that relationship with us, then we should be doing the same thing with one another.

14:24 Then he comes up with another statement. No one has beheld God at any time. That means nobody has seen God. Jesus saw him, and when he was on earth, the men saw him. They said, we saw Jesus, and he was real, but Jesus returned to heaven.

14:45 Right now, no one's seeing God. Anybody here can... Can anybody here say, I saw God? I know you can come up with, you know, people have said, oh, had a vision, I had a dream, and I saw him. No, you didn't.

14:56 No, you didn't. The Bible just said, the Bible just said right here, no one has beheld God at any time. It just said it. So it's not true. We haven't seen him.

15:08 But if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. So let me keep reading. By 13, by this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his spirit. So the result of love is that we love one another through the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Spirit. God takes the hate out of your heart.

15:36 You know, without the holy spirit in our lives as believers who have received the lord and and understood the love of god, then really, you don't have that basis of the Holy Spirit transforming you. And so consequently, you have a lot of hate in your heart, a lot of anger, a lot of bitterness. But the Holy Spirit allows us to be able to love one another. We love one another. It's the Holy Spirit who makes that real, who enables it to be true.

16:39 We touched him. We slept with him. We ate with him. We we saw him crucified, and we saw him resurrected, and he's real. And we can give testimony to the fact that we saw him.

16:51 You haven't seen him, but we did. And this is a tremendous reality that we're expressing to you that Jesus was a real person that we saw tangible, that we touched and ate with. And so this is what we understood, that the father sent the son to be the savior of the world. Whoever and then he says again, whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So in other words, if you were saying, right now, you have declared openly confessed with your mouth, Jesus is son of God.

17:27 He's fully God. He's this man who people saw and touched that was real, that died on the cross as a real person that was buried and resurrected. If you believe that, he was the son of God, that he's up in heaven right now, if you believe, you confess that with your mouth that Jesus is the son of God, then God abides in you. God abides in you. So the Holy Spirit then has transformed you and taken away that hate.

17:54 You actually love one another. And then not only that, but you can be saved. You can be saved. And if you declare it, you confess it, then you are saved. If you believe this reality, then you are God.

18:08 God is in you, because you cannot say that Jesus is Lord unless the Holy Spirit is in you, one Corinthians 12 and verse three. It's impossible to say Jesus is Lord unless the Holy Spirit abides in your life. And so then, verse 16, and we have come to know and have believed the love god has for us, that god is love. Now, the number one thing the enemy tries to do is to tell us that you're not good enough, that God doesn't really love you, that you're not performing good enough, that you have to do certain things, and God doesn't really love you, but he's at a distance. And so this is to counter that.

18:56 I have believed with all of my heart that God loves me. I understand that. And that he's never going to say, I fell out of love with you. He's never going to say, I'm tired of you. He's never going to say, I'm sick of it, I can't put up with it anymore.

19:15 I've come to believe the love of God is love. Remember, his love is different from ours. Ours is always conditional. The supernatural love of God, he looks at you and he says, I love you. I'm not disappointed with you because I already knew before I saved you all your faults, and all your tendencies and all that kind of stuff, and I love you.

19:39 And so have you believed that? It's just one thing to be saved, another thing to be free, because you believe what God says about how he looks at you. The one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. And so then he takes it to another level. And before I say that, let me quote again from Principles of Spiritual Growth.

20:04 To believe and to consent to be loved while unworthy is is to believe god's love. To believe and to consent to be loved while unworthy. I'm I'm I I don't feel worthy. I'm pretty sure you don't, but it doesn't matter. God still loves me unconditionally.

20:25 I can't do anything to fall out of his love, in other words. What he says in Jude chapter verse 20 is that don't pull away from God's love. It's that we are the ones that pull away. He keeps loving us. He never changes.

21:05 Verse 17, by this, the love is perfected or the word perfected there could be mature or is growing in you. You're understanding it, if you want to put it that way. By this, the love of God is mature in us. Why? That we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world.

21:29 We have confidence in the day of judgment. I'll be honest with you, if somebody were to pull a gun on me right now, so I'm going kill you, I would be scared. I'd be like, oh my word, and probably have a heart attack before they pull the trigger. But I'm not scared to die because I know that when I stand before God and he tells me, why should I let you in heaven? I said, because Jesus is my propitiation.

21:56 He covered the sin, and I am in Jesus. Therefore, I have confidence. You're not going to judge me to hell, but you're going to take me right up there because of Jesus. And that's the confidence that the believer has. That's the confidence.

22:11 And that's why he said we have confidence. We're not scared of judgment. Listen, can you say that, that the moment I die, I'm going to stand before God, and he's not going to judge me to hell because of the propitiation, because Jesus covered my sin, because I am in Jesus, and he's my savior. And so that way, I know right now that I'm justified. I know right now, have confidence that I'm going to stand before God, and he's going to let me in because of Jesus.

22:38 Nothing to do with me. Notice nothing to do with what I did. It's all what he did on my behalf. And so we're not scared of judgment. We're not scared of judgment.

22:50 And he builds on this by saying this, there's no fear in love. But perfect love casts out fear because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. The question always arises, can you lose your salvation? Is there something I can do? And so I'm sitting here talking to this man, and and he says, is there any way we we can lose?

23:27 I said, well, did you do anything to get it? No. Okay. Well, that's your your first answer. Is there any way we can walk away with it from it?

23:35 I said, well, according to Romans, nothing can separate me from the love of God. And he says, yeah, but what about you? What about if he says trials or tribulations or angels or whatever can't but what about if you decide I'm going to walk away from it? It says, or nor any created thing. Are you a created thing?

23:58 Yes. So nothing can separate us from the love of God. And so why are we afraid? Because we don't understand that it's not performance based. It's not what you do.

24:15 It's him loving me, period. In spite of what I am, in spite of what you've done, in spite of all your failures, he loves you, and there's others to it. And when he saved you, he already knew how goofy you were going to be. I'll take that back, I was going to be. I was going to be.

24:37 And he didn't sit there and say, oh man, I made a mistake. If I knew you were going to go there, I wouldn't have saved you. See, he didn't do that. That's conditional love. And that's why it's so difficult to grasp that because that's this is supernatural.

24:55 This is from God. It's it's not human based. It's not work based. It's from god. And so, I'm not fearful right now that he's going to punish me.

25:08 Are you? It doesn't mean he won't discipline you if you goof up because he loves you as a Christian, but he's not going to punish you or ever separate you and say, that's it, I'm going to throw you in hell. It's tremendous truth. So there's no fear. There's no fear.

25:29 You can go to bed and say, Lord, I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid because you're with me. Your hand is with me. I can sleep in peace. Now, if I need to confess some sin and some unrighteous, that's another story.

25:43 Right? He'll deal with you with that. But you don't have to fear punishment because fear involves punishment as the text says, and the one who fears is not perfected enough. That means you're not mature in love. You still don't understand the love of God.

26:33 And to know the love of Christ, notice, which surpasses knowledge. I I I can't understand this but that doesn't mean I don't preach the truth, right? How can God love me that way? How can his love be so deep and so wide and so tall? And the Bible acknowledges it surpasses human understanding.

26:59 But remember, we're people who who receive god's love. We don't do something to earn it. We we just sit there and receive. So, not only do we receive his love, but we receive his forgiveness, and we receive the Holy Spirit, and walk in confidence because we understand how much he loves us. And the Bible even acknowledges, this surpasses our grasp, but that doesn't make it less true.

27:28 It doesn't make it less true. And so, mature love has confidence that God loves me, and he proves it through Jesus. Mature love has no fear. We're not afraid of judgment or punishment. And let's continue.

27:47 Then he throws in again just in case you forgot. Oh, by the way, verse 19, we love because he first loved us. Can I, let me remind you again? It's not that you love god. It's not that you love god.

28:00 It's that he loves you and he's doing the work. We receive. We don't do. And once he saves you, again, it's a receiving. I just keep receiving what he gives me and and and I grow in that.

28:16 Then he throws in a little like a correction, if you will, or exhortation. If someone says, I love God, well, hopefully all of us are saying today that we love him. I love God because he first loved me. I love God. Now, I wish I could love him more and better and more committed and deeper, but I don't.

28:43 I'm not afraid to admit, I wish I loved him more. But if someone says I love God, hopefully we are saying that. That's what it says, and he hates his brother. Now, again, within the context, and it's consistent with first John, his brother means your brother in Christ. It doesn't mean you go out and you start loving Hitler.

29:05 That's not what he's saying. It's a a that was kind of funny. You should supposed to have laugh, but that's alright. Alright, it means your brother in Christ. Your brother in Christ.

29:20 Alright? If you hate your brother in Christ, you're a liar. I mean, something's not right. That's what he's saying. Something's something's not because when god gets a hold of you and you understand his love and you repent of your sin and you turn to Jesus and he saves you, then you can't hate your brother.

29:37 Doesn't mean you can't be mad at him. It doesn't mean you can't disagree or have issues, but you can't hate him. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love god whom he has not seen. So that every time I I have an issue with my wife or with my children or or with one of you. I I gotta get something right with god.

30:02 I always go, lord, there's a reason why I'm losing my temper. There's a reason why I'm doing this and that my heart's not right with you. And I'm just taking that out on them. And so so I need to get it right with you, Lord. What what's wrong?

30:18 Remove this apathy from my heart. Remove this indifference, this... Whatever it is that's interrupting that relationship. Because the only reason I'm not treating the people right is because I'm not right with you. You can't be right with God and treat someone wrong, period.

30:35 I come to understand that. And we try to blame it on everybody else, right? I've done that too. It's your fault. No, it's not.

30:43 I'm not right with god. And and and so verse 21 and and this commandment, notice it's a commandment. It's not a suggestion. It's in a command mode. This commandment we have from him, from god, that the one who loves god, there you go.

31:02 So, do you love god? Should also love, should love his brother also. Wow, this is one of the toughest verses that you can apply in the Bible. Right? That's one of the toughest verses.

31:17 You love God? Okay, well then go love your brother. Go make it right. Go make it right. So I wrote down, let's do some application.

31:26 How can we love practically? Well, number one, we have to love God, verse 21. That was pretty easy, right? Love god. Number two, three seventeen says says pretty clearly, but whoever, three seventeen, first John, but whoever has the world's goods and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

31:52 So so this is very practical. How can we love practically? When when you know someone can't make a bill, when someone is really suffering or struggling economically, and you can give them $20 and you don't do it, then you're not showing love. It's pretty simple. Isn't it pretty practical?

32:09 You don't take them some food. You don't do something to help out, then something's not right. So that when we love God, we have compassion towards when there's a need. That's a practical way of showing love. Galatians six:two, I'm just going to tell it to you, Bear one another's burdens.

32:30 And for, and and this is how you fulfill the law of Christ. Right? Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. So how do we practically love? Well, we love God.

32:41 We share with those in need, we bear one another's burdens, and praise God that the church is here right for one another. Amen? Amen. And according to four twenty, you make things right, you make things right. John has pounded this to us throughout the whole book, you can't hate your brother, go and make it right.

33:02 If you need to talk to somebody, talk to them. You can't keep it up, you can't keep it up, go and do it. And so this is a command to love your brother through the Holy Spirit. Alright. Let's pray.

33:43 But we thank you that you do love us and that you did something about it, and you gave your son to save us, and we thank you that you give us the Holy Spirit who works in our hearts. Help us to love, Lord. Help me to know how to love in a practical way because they're not gonna look at Jesus anymore. He's in heaven. They're gonna see us.

34:05 So help us, Lord, we pray. Bless us now as we go home. In Jesus' name, amen.