Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to 1 John chapter 4, and reading
through our text, verse 19. Verse 19, we love him because
he first loved us. 1 John chapter 4, verse 19. Our text speaks of an order,
something that happens first and then something that follows. And it's put in the way of that
which happens after that proves what has happened before. The
first that we know of God first loving us is that we love Him. And for those that have the love
of God shed abroad in their hearts and know that they love Him,
they know this truth, that the reason why they love Him is because
He first loved us. Right from the beginning of the
Word of God, God sets before us the need of an order. With the creation, if you read
what the Lord did in those six days of creation, the first three
days was preparing places. He prepared the heavens and the
universe, or where the sun, the moon, and the stars are now,
And then he prepared the sky and the sea. And then he prepared
the earth and land and the Garden of Eden. And then in the remaining
three days, he populated those. He put the sun, the moon, and
the stars in the heavens. He put the fish in the sea, the
birds in the air. And then he put land animals
upon the land, and then lastly, man. And man not just anywhere
on the earth, but in a prepared garden. And so God very clearly
shows that order and preparation first, and then putting those
things into it. And those of you that you do
gardening, you would know that the first thing you've got to
do is to prepare the ground, and then you put the seed in
it. You wouldn't put the seed first in a a bit of weedy ground
and then decide that now you put the seed in, you better turn
it over and dig it up and make it a proper seed bed. There is
a very need for order. Those of you that do dressmaking
or those that do making cakes or anything like that, all the
time there is an order. Just about every profession that
we can think of There is an order. If someone is building a house,
they put the foundation first, and then they build upon it.
They don't do the other, the top structure before the foundation
is there. And the apostle Paul said, in
the things of God, that the law comes first. The law is a schoolmaster
unto Christ. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. And the Lord says that he came
not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And so
there is a conviction of sin first, a need of the Savior,
and then the Savior is revealed. And right the way through scripture
is that order. And we think of in Romans chapter
eight, where we have the beautiful order there of the foreknowledge
of God for his people, and how that then right flows right through
to glory. If I can turn to him, we have
the order beginning, all things working together for
good to them that love God, to them who are called according
to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow, foreknowledge of God,
He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His
Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren, and whom
He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom He called,
them He also justified, and whom He justified, them He also glorified. And of course, often it is in
the calling that we find ourselves first when God quickens into
life and calls, and we are to know then from that calling that
God always did predestinate, He always appointed that in this
world we would be called and we would be like Him, not like
the world, we would be sinners and sinners trusting in Him and
seeking His ways, and then we know from that, even going further
back, that actually we had been elected and loved eternally. And so when we are called, we
can trace, because of Scripture, because of the Word of God, trace
back to what led up to us being called. And then we can go forwards
and to see also that Being called, we're also justified, that is
free from guilt and free from condemnation. And we also then
will be glorified as well. So in the Lord quickening, calling,
giving the new birth, bringing us a spiritual life, we can go
back and we can go forward. And those things are all linked
together and all in an order. But where we come into that order
is not necessarily at the beginning. Don't fall into the thought and
saying, well, I must know that I am elect first. That's what
I must know the order is, is to know our election by our calling. And the same here. We could have
those who say, I want to know, that God loves me, that he loves
me eternally. No, the important thing is that
we be brought to love God. And when we love God, then we
will know that the reason why we love him is because he has
loved us first. And that order is very, very
important. So I want to look then with the
Lord's help Firstly, the doctrine or the teaching of the love of
God. And then secondly, the manifestation
of the love of God to us, that is, how God's love is actually
shown to us, how we actually know that love, how he imparts
it to us. And then thirdly, our love to
God in return. We love him because he first
loved us. Firstly, the doctrine of the
love of God. It has been said, and there is
actually a book written with the title, The Difficult Doctrine
of the Love of God. It is a mystery. It is a difficult
doctrine to to understand, to comprehend. In the portion here,
John deals with it very concisely from one angle and then another,
but very clearly makes a statement in this chapter that God is love. In verse 8, he that loveth not
knoweth not God, for God is love. And then in verse 16 as well,
we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love and he that dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God and God in him. So we have that clear
statement. It's a good thing when we come
to such clear statements as that, that in a way I quite often picture
in my mind it's like putting a stake in the ground and saying,
well, whatever, else comes at this doctrine, at this teaching,
this can never change. God doesn't turn into a tyrant. He doesn't turn into someone
that is not love. He is love that belongs to Him. And all must point to that same
description. But there comes the difficulty,
you might think, because How is it that a God of love could
then take His only begotten Son and allow Him, yea, command Him
to come to this world and to endure the contradiction of sinners
against Himself, to suffer the death of the cross, to be mocked,
to be ridiculed, to be nailed to the accursed tree? How could
he hide his face from Him? How could he endure and put the
wrath of God on his own beloved son, and this be a God of love? And many of the things, the objections
in men's hearts as to God, to His love, to the things that
He does or permits in this world, often they can be resolved or
seen more clearly when we come to Calvary. We come to how God
dealt with His only begotten Son. And when we see the two
sides of it, as Peter says, that he who was delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked
hands crucified and slain. And so the guilt of his crucifixion
was charged rightly to men. It was by their wicked hands.
But then the overruling purpose and bringing it about was under
God's command. and God's ordering of it. God
is not the author of sin or of evil, but when sin entered into
the world and death by sin, it is God that turns that evil into
good. A love of God must be also consistent
consistent with God's holiness, it must be consistent with his
love of that which is good, and if that is the case, it must
be also a hatred to sin and evil. We read in Psalm 97, Ye that
love the Lord hate evil. God is angry with the wicked
every day. That doesn't seem consistent
with love, It is consistent with the love of a holy, pure God. God that cannot look upon iniquity
but with utter abhorrence. And love then is to be a love
that is to be understood. In Psalm 107 we read of a people
that often went away from the Lord and they fell down, there
was none to help, Then they cried unto the Lord, and the Lord saved
them out of their distresses. Many things that God's people
went through. And at the end of that psalm,
it says, that he that is wise and will observe these things,
even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. It is like a parent that chastens
and corrects a child, not in anger, but in love, in a right
measure, a proportionate measure, and is done in love, and is understood
as an act of love, as much as if that child has been given
something like a present, something that is beautiful to see. But
it is to be more understood. And so it is. in the cross especially,
that we can really get a picture of the doctrine of the love of
God. When Paul writes to the Ephesians,
he speaks to them of the love of God. He says in verse 4 of
the first chapter, According as he hath chosen us in him,
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will. And joined to that love then
is the choosing of the people of God. You might say, well doesn't
it say in John chapter 3 that, for God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but should have eternal life. And that is
true. But that doesn't mean that God
loves every individual in the world. but he loves the world
as the world is where his people are, his chosen are. And for that purpose, he bestows
goodness on them that love him and those that don't. He causeth
his reign to reign upon the just and unjust, him that serveth
God and him that serveth not. And very often we read in scriptures
of the blessings even upon the ungodly because of the godly. We think of the blessings to
Jehoram who was an ungodly king of Israel because of the presence
of Jehoshaphat. And the prophet said that he
would not even look toward Jehoram if it was not for Jehoshaphat
being there. We think of the blessings that
the whole ship had in when Paul was a prisoner going to Rome
and he was one of the Lord's people and the Lord said that
he would preserve him and all those that were with him in that
ship. You remember when Abraham was
pleading for Sodom and the Lord said that in that wicked evil
city if they'd been found ten righteous, ten of the Lord's
people, He would spare that whole city for their sake. And even so, now the world continues
because God's people are in it. They're hidden. We do not know
where they are, but they are in every nation, kindred, and
tongue, and scattered through the world. And for that reason,
the world will remain and the mercies and the blessings that
are given to it and to a nation. Righteousness exalteth a nation,
and sin is a reproach to any people. The blessings that come
are because of a people that God has known eternally and has
loved eternally. I have loved thee with an everlasting
love, chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world. We must be very clear in this,
that the love of God begins in God and is not foreseeing anything
good in us, not foreseeing our exercising faith, it's not foreseeing
that we would love Him. There's no reason in us at all. With the children of Israel,
the typical people of God, the Lord tells them in Deuteronomy
that He did not choose them because they are more than other people,
because they were less than other people. And when you read of
the children of Israel and how they provoked the Lord to anger,
how they went to idolatry again and again, they weren't a better
people. We think of Jacob and Esau. Jacob, have I loved? Esau, have
I hated? The God of love, actually says that there is one
there in that same womb that is hated and one loved. One chosen,
one not. And yet when you see in their
lives many things that Jacob did, deceiving his own father,
lying, those things that were wrong, he was not chosen because
of any good that God foresaw in him. And this is why In one
sense, it is a difficult doctrine because it is a love consistent
with the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, and righteousness
of God, and it all is in Him. And it is to be believed and
known that our God, the God of the world, the God of salvation,
is a God of love. The God that brings salvation
is a God of love. So the doctrine of the love of
God is set forth right through the scriptures and certainly
in this chapter. We'll notice some other verses
in it. He deals very much, John especially,
deals with the love of God. Of course, in the case of God's
dear people, that love that is a saving love, it is in and through
the Lord Jesus Christ. It is chosen in Him. Thine they
were, the Lord says of the Father, and thou gavest them me. Chosen
in Him from the foundation of the world, an everlasting and
eternal love. So I want to then look secondly
at the manifestation of love of God. That is how it is shown
to us. This is so vital for us, especially
in a saving way. Perhaps just briefly to think
of it in a natural way, to remember that in Adam we have fallen,
in Adam we have the sentence of death upon us, and that we
deserve nothing at all out of a deserved hell. Very often when
we have a trouble with the love of God or the Lord's dealings
with us, it's because we are expecting a certain level of
benefits and goodness to be shown us. And when what God does to
us in his lies, it doesn't come up to that, then we have some
difficulty with the love of God. But when we view all of mankind
under the wrath of God, under the sentence of God, because
of sin, and realize then that this God of love has found a
way to show a love to a people that have been chosen from eternity,
a love from eternity, but found a way to love them and still
be holy and just and righteous and good. So how is it then manifested? How does God show his love? Well, John, in this very chapter,
he gives us a summary of this very clearly in verse 9. He says,
in this, was manifested the love of God toward us, because that
God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might
live through him. And again, just reinforcing our
text, herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved
us and sent his Son to be the propitiation that's a wrath-ending
sacrifice for our sins. So this is what is being said
of the people of God and those that are not yet called. When
they are called, they know that belongs to them as well and they're
not to write themselves out. Don't write yourselves out of
these blessings and say, well, I want to know what is hidden
first. I want to know first election
or first God's eternal love. We want to know it in how this
love was first manifested. The Holy Spirit shall receive
the Lord said of mine and show it unto you. And our Lord said
none can come unto me except the Father which sent me, draw
him, and I'll raise him up at the last day." It is in the Lord
Jesus Christ, again where we said concerning Calvary, it really
is the secret of all. Because when the Lord makes known
his love to a sinner, it will be, as Christ said, I, if I be
lifted up above the earth, will draw all men unto me. drawing of the Father, the work
of the Spirit, is to reveal this event that is set forth here,
that manifests or reveals the love of God towards us. We think how early it began with
the first promise, as soon as Adam and Eve had sinned, then
there was the promise of the seed of the woman that should
bruise the serpent's head, the promise of the gift of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to be given. And that promise,
of course, reinforced again and again, right through the scriptures,
right through the prophets. Paul says in Romans 5, Verse
8, God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. And we may put it this way, while
we were yet unregenerate, while we were yet uncalled, before
we knew God, before we were brought to any assurance, any hope in
Him, that already that Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet perventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And he's pointing to that order
again. The Lord died for a people. He said, I lay down my life for
the sheep. This commandment I received by
my father. Power to lay it down, power to
take it again. And this promise, this gift of
the Lord Jesus Christ is a manifesting the love of God, taking our nature,
coming under the law. I'm born of a woman. and dying
in our place. This, you might say, well that
is outside of me. That is not yet directly related
to me. You may say everyone that is
saved in this gospel day, before they are saved, when they come
into this world as sinners and under condemnation, Already God
has given His Son, already He has come in our nature, already
He has suffered, bled and died for our sins if we are the people
of God. That already has all been done. But we do not know that. We don't
have any assurance of that and we can have no way of knowing
that. though the love of God is shown
in that way, but then the love of God is to be manifest or shown
in a personal way, and that is by calling. In Jeremiah 31 and
verse 3, we have those beautiful words, Yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving kindness,
have I drawn thee. And we have a joining together
of the eternal everlasting love of God with a drawing, a calling,
a quickening. And all of those that have been
loved eternally, there will come that time that the Lord passes
by them when they are in their blood and he bids them live.
He gives them life. I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of mine hand. The new birth,
to be born again, and our Lord describes it to Nicodemus as
being born of the Spirit like the wind. You can hear the sound
thereof. You cannot tell where it comes
from or where it is going. So is everyone that is born of
the Spirit, sometimes so softly, so gently. And we have that all
around us. We think of springtime when the
dead trees start to spring out with the new growth. You can't
hear anything. If you sat with a chair and stared
at the branch, You'd stare there for days and you'd hardly notice
anything perhaps, but you look at that branch and you come back
a week later in the spring and suddenly there's all that growth
and it's all springing out, you've heard nothing. It's been so gradual,
you haven't even perhaps noticed it day by day. If you go away
for a couple of weeks, you come back and suddenly, well, everything
is just so changed and so much has grown in that time. Those
sort of things illustrate how the Lord works, gently, gradually,
line upon line, here a little, there a little, and yet a change
is being wrought. He which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. Despise not the day of small
things, of small things, The whole description of a real
work of grace, God's saving grace being bestowed, is that the Lord
Jesus Christ is being made manifest. He's been shown to a sinner. It's a great blessing, you know,
if you can come into the house of God. Maybe you only glean
one thing from a sermon. But it's something you've seen
in the Lord Jesus Christ you haven't seen before. Something
that you know now that you didn't know before. And it wets the
appetite. You want to know more. You want
to hear a little bit more. And all the time there's that
object. The hymn writer says, object
of my first desire. Jesus crucified for me. And there's being a drawn to
him. And this is how God manifests
his love to a sinner. He doesn't leave them in nature's
darkness. He doesn't leave them without
concern. He gives them a concern. He doesn't
leave them content with not having that assurance and comfort and
felt interest in him. They're brought to a point. It's
a point I long to know. Often it causes anxious thought.
Do I love the Lord or no? Am I His or am I not? more and more precious, and the
more we know our own sin, the more we feel our own sin, the
more we realize that we need, we need this love that didn't
foresee any good in us, that never expected it, that knew
there would be nothing good in us, but it provided everything
in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is through His grace through
his mercy that we stand. And so it is in calling the love
of God is manifested, but then it doesn't stop there. It also
goes to the chastening, the correction of his people. In Revelation
chapter three, in the letters to the churches in verse 19, we have written even to the Laodicean
church, that church which was lukewarm. As many as I love,
I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent. A people that have been quickened,
a people that are God's people, instead of being cast away, He
corrects them. And that is known, isn't it,
in our families? You wouldn't think the next door
neighbor that would go into your house and correct our children. But our own father or mother,
we'd expect that because they are our parents, that they will
correct us. And the Lord does that for His
children. And there's been some very sweet
times the Lord has given me an assurance of his love when he
has corrected. Hear ye the rod and who hath
appointed it. Hebrews chapter 12, the Lord
correcteth every son whom he receiveth. And that then is a
manifestation of his love. We spoke of Romans, Psalm 107,
a love that is to be understood, and that is in the correction
of the Lord as well. Another way that it is shown
is in John chapter 10, where the Lord speaks of himself as
the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giving his
life for the sheep, but not only gives his life for the sheep,
but he goes before them. He putteth forth his sheep, he
goeth before them. In Psalm 23, we read of him,
the shepherd leading them beside the still waters and in green
pastures. He's providing for them food,
spiritual food. Man shall not live by bread only,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth. of God, except
ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no life in you. And again it is pointing to Calvary,
to Christ and his sufferings, his shed blood, his broken body. These things are setting forth
the love of God. It's no wonder that the Lord
has instituted for the Church of God, the Lord's Supper, this
do ye in remembrance of me, ye do show forth my death till he
come. And it is to remember not just
that precious blood shed at Calvary, not just his sufferings, but
the love of God, the love of God to us before we loved him. And the church is to be reminded
of that, to remember that. Sometimes we might say, like
in Isaiah, the Lord hath forgotten me. Zion complaining that she
seems forgotten. But the Lord says that can a
woman forget her sucking child? Yea, she may forget. Yet will
I not forget thee. I've graven thee upon the palms
of my hands. Thy walls are ever before me. And so the Lord does not forget
his people when he visits them, he shepherds them as his sheep. He provides for them that bread
of life, the manna sent from heaven. All that he has, he bestows
upon them. And all is done in love. And it's a blessed thing where
we're able to trace that love. where we're able to see love
inscribed upon all that the Lord does. Sometimes we can't see
it immediately. We might be like Jacob and say
all these things are against us, but we're to judge nothing
before the time and be able to see or even say with this armist
in affliction, it's good that I was afflicted. Before I was
afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept thy word. May we have the love of God manifested
to us, shown to us, revealed to us, a love to us, a particular
love, a love bestowed upon us, that we receive the benefits
of that love, and especially having our eyes opened, our ears
opened, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself being made precious to
us. I want to come then to, lastly,
our love to God in return. Peter, he thought that, he said,
though all men forsake thee, yet will not I. He felt that
he loved the Lord more than others, and that that would keep him
from ever denying his Lord. But the Lord brought him to know
by very painful experience that he was not able to keep himself. And he did deny the Lord, not
once, but three times. But the Lord has said, I prayed
for thee that thy faith fail not. And there we have the love
of God. And afterwards, Well, the Lord
has said, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And
afterwards, when he had been restored, that's really what
is meant there, not conversion as to be born a believer, but
restored again. The Lord met with him on the
lake, and he asked him those three times, lovest thou me? Lovest thou me? You would think
that Peter, having denied the Lord, really would have more
value, the Lord saying to him, Peter, in spite of your denials,
I still love you. But he didn't. He put it in the
way of our text. And Peter well knew this. We
love him because he first loved us. So the Lord is saying, love
us thou may. And Peter was able to testify
to the love that he had. And then at last, Thou knowest
all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee. And that is our
recourse, that the Lord does know what is in our hearts. Often we feel our love so cold,
so faint, so far off. But even our natural love, it
ebbs, doesn't it? With a husband, with a wife,
with children, We believe, we know, we love them all the time.
But sometimes it wells up with a real, such a strength and such
a feeling within of real love to them. And so it is with the
Lord Jesus Christ, so it is with the brethren. John also gives
this witness that we know that we have passed from death unto
life in that we love the brethren. And so, in the verse after our
text, if a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is
a liar. For he that loveth not his brother,
whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen? This commandment have we from
him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. Now, right through the Word of
God, we have the effect, and I would say it is the effect,
the fruit of the love of God to us first, will always end
up in obedience to the Lord. In the law of God, if we were
to go back to Exodus and to chapter 20, with the giving of the law,
we read of the Lord that he is showing mercy unto thousands
of them that love me and keep my commandments. So right there
in the law we have the joining of love and the keeping of the
commandments of God. And joined with it is showing
mercy unto thousands. Now mercy and earning something
don't go together. So the Lord is not saying that
those that keep my commandments earn heaven and get to heaven
by their keeping of them. He's saying, no, they are saved
by mercy without works at all. But their being saved by mercy
is evidence in the keeping of the commandments. Not perfectly.
No man ever can. That's why we need the Savior.
That's why we need him to keep the commandments for us. to suffer
for us, to bleed for us, but the effect will be obedience. If we go back to John's Gospel
and chapter 14, we read in verse 15, if ye love me, keep my commandments. And then down to verse 21, he
that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth
me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I
will love him and will manifest myself to him. And we can easily
put that in the other way around and say, I want to have the Lord
manifesting himself to me, and through that then I want to know
that he loves me and then I'll keep his commandments. But where
the Lord starts to show himself and shows his love, another way
of showing that love to us will be the outworking of it. How
can I sin and do this thing, great thing, against God? And
it has regard to the commandments, including this, the whole word
of God, not just the 10 commandments, the whole revealed will of God. We won't have the attitude, well,
I can see what the Lord requires me to do, but until I'm called,
and still the Lord changes my heart, I'm not gonna do it. That
won't be our attitude. The attitude will be, the Lord
has shown us what is right, we desire to do it, We may fail
to do it, like Paul said, the good that I would, I do not,
the evil that I would not, that I do. And in desiring to walk
in the right way, we have the same answer as Paul, who shall
deliver me from this body of death. I thank God through Jesus
Christ, my Lord. And it brings us to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so, again in chapter 15,
John 15, the Lord says, if ye keep my commandments, ye shall
abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments
and abide in his love. And those blessings, all flowing
out from the love of God first, bring us then to walk in the
ways that please him, and that show forth that those things
are being done by love, not by duty, not by thought, to earn
salvation, but because we've already been partakers of it. So in 1 John chapter 5 and verses
2 and 3, 4, by this we know that we love the children of God,
when we love God and keep his commandments, For this is the
love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments
are not grievous. Are not grievous. Those things
the Lord would have us to walk in. They are walked in in love. In verse 6 of the second epistle
of John, And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment. that
as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it. And so,
when we think of our love to God in return, the way it's set
forth in the Scriptures is obedience. The Apostle Paul on that Damascus
road, how soon, when he was converted, how soon he says, Lord, what
wilt thou have me to do? He wants to know. what is the
right way. He wants to know those things
to do that shall please the Lord, not grieve him, not walk in a
way that mirrors the world but mirrors the Lord. And so may
we know the doctrine of the love of God and the manifestation
of the love of God to us, and also know something of the outworking
of it, our love to the Lord in return, the love of God constraining
us, drawing us, bringing us to do what we would not do otherwise,
but is done for love's sake. So may the Lord bless us with
this love of God and may each one whom he is loved with an
everlasting love, know that love and be persuaded of it. And Lord,
shed abroad in your hearts that love of God by the Holy Ghost. Amen.