Good morning. Let's bow together and ask the
Lord to bless His Word to our hearts. Our Heavenly Father, we are thankful
that there is a throne of grace to which we can come boldly.
and find grace and help in our time of need. Lord, we are a
needy people. We are sinful people, a people
laden with troubles. And Lord, you're the only one
that can help us. And we pray now that you would
be pleased to make your love known to our hearts and that
you would reveal to us the glory of your dear son. His accomplished
work, and that You would cause us by Your Spirit to find our
comfort, our hope, our salvation, our reason for rejoicing in the
person of Your dear Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. For it's in His name we ask it.
Amen. If you'll turn with me in your
Bibles to 1 John chapter 4, In 1 John chapter 4, the theme this
morning for both messages is the love of God. The love of
God. The world talks about love. When
they talk about love, they're talking about an emotional feeling,
a dependence, an attraction to something or someone. But apart
from knowing God, there's no such thing as true love. The Lord makes that clear in
His Word when the scripture tells us here in 1 John chapter 4 that
God is love. God is love. Now we know the
Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And so what the scripture says
about God being love, it is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ being
love. And if we don't know Christ,
we really, really don't have any understanding of true love. We may have some sort of affection,
we may have some sort of lesser type of feeling, but love as
God defines it can only be known in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. All that the Lord would cause
us to experience His love. In 1 John chapter 4 verse 11, John begins by addressing God's
people as the Beloved. As the Beloved. How often we
use that term without really reflecting on what it means to
be loved of God. I'm just convinced. that if we
could comprehend the love of Christ for us, it'd solve everything. John Lennon had it right when
he said, all you need is love. The problem is he didn't give
us any answers. He didn't give us any answers,
but it's true. It's true. that what you need
and what I need is to experience the love of God. And he addresses
us here as the beloved, as the beloved. This is the meat of
the gospel. This is the deeper things. This is the perfection of our
salvation, to experience the love of God. Are the doctrines of the gospel
and the doctrines of grace important? Yes, not only are they important,
they're essential. But if they don't take us to
experience the love of Christ and the love of God, then we've
missed it all. We're going to see that when
we turn in a moment to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. How often times the
Lord spoke audibly from heaven, and said, This is my beloved
son, in whom I am well pleased. And Isaiah said, Behold my servant,
whom I have chosen, mine elect, in whom my soul is well pleased,
my beloved. So the scripture speaks of the
Lord Jesus Christ as being the beloved of God. And then in the
book of Ephesians, God tells us that we are accepted before
God in the beloved. And the Lord Jesus Christ makes
it clear in John chapter 17, that as the Father has loved
me, so I have loved you. And the love that God has for
his people in Christ is exactly the same as the love that God
has for his beloved son. The truth is that because our
God is immutable, because he does not change and cannot change,
that's who our God is. He's never had a new thought.
Nothing's ever occurred to him. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. He said, I change not, you sons
of Jacob. That's the only reason that you're
not consumed. And as a God who doesn't change,
he can't fluctuate in degrees of love like we do. He said that You thought that
I was altogether as thyself. Oh, don't err in fashioning God
in your imagination to be like you. He's not like you. He's not like me at all. He's
holy. He's got one kind of love, one
kind of love, and it's perfect. It's holy love. You know, we've
got love for strawberries, and love for a beautiful day, and
love for our children, and love for God, and it's, you know,
we just use the same word, don't we? And we're speaking of so
many different things. The scripture says here that
if you're in Christ, you are loved of God. And I'm just so
convinced that if we could get a hold of that, if we could believe
that, If the Lord would convince us that we are loved of God,
well, as it's said in another songwriter, not quite as popular
as John Lennon, but he wrote, Looking for Love in All the Wrong
Places, didn't he? That's what we do. That's really
what we do. We're just trying to discover
satisfaction outside of Christ. And it's not there. It's not there. True happiness,
true satisfaction, true peace, true hope, true comfort. And I'm emphasizing the word
true because if it's not true, it's a lie. It's a lie. It's false. It's a mirage. It's a figment of our imagination. There's no substance to it whatsoever. Now I want to know the truth.
Because the Lord said if you know the truth, the truth will
set you free. There's no freedom outside the
truth. There's no hope outside the truth. So just forget all
the world's definitions of love. People fall in love and out of
love, and people try to find their love in other people and
in things. What does God say about it? He
says He is love. Look, beloved, let us love one
another, for love is of God. If you don't know the love of
God, you know nothing about love. Now, I'm not suggesting that
you don't have emotions and feelings, that you don't have affections
and attractions and dependence on things. That's natural in
everybody. But I'm talking about true love,
the love of God. If you don't know Christ, you
don't know anything about true love. You've settled for a substitute. And that substitute is a counterfeit. It's a counterfeit. There's no
life in it. There's no true happiness in
it. It's just a cheap fake. Brethren, let us love one another,
for love is of God. It's of God. It can only come
from Him. And everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. And he that loveth not knoweth
not God. For God is love. God is love. Now, if God's love,
then that means everything outside of God is not love. That's what
he's saying here. He's just saying that there's
only one kind of love, and that's to be found in God. It's to be
found in Christ. It's to be found in the beloved.
And outside of him, it's just a worldly, cheap counterfeit. that God says, in fact, is not
love at all. It's not love at all. Oh brethren,
let's not settle for anything less than true love. True love. The love that can
come only from God. The love that's found only in
Christ. Let us not be deceived by the
world's definitions and opinions of love. In this, so what's this love
look like? Well, in this was manifested
the love of God toward us. Here's how God made his love
known to us, because that God sent his only begotten son into
the world that we might live through him. God so loved that he gave. That's what love is. That's what
he's talking about here. He's talking about sacrificial
love. He's talking about giving love. And that's what God's love does.
God's love always, always, always has the interest of the one being
loved above its own. And that's just, that's what
God's love does. And that's what it does in our
hearts. Now, let me make this as clear as I know how to make
it. There is absolutely no such thing as unconditional love. There's no such thing as unconditional
love. God's love toward us is conditional. It's conditional. He loves righteousness and he
hates wickedness. Jacob have I loved, and Esau
have I hated." God is not capable of loving anything that is not
perfectly righteous in His sight. That's why we have to be in the
Beloved in order to be loved of God. Oh, but if we are, His
love for us is perfect love, His holy love. In this, God manifested his love
toward us because that God sent his only begotten son into the
world that we might live through him. He loved his people with
an everlasting love. He chose them in the covenant
of grace. He placed them eternally in the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's people have never been
viewed by God outside of Christ. You haven't discovered your salvation
yet, but you're one of God's elect. You're as loved in your
lost condition as you will be when He saves you. That's just glorious. He doesn't
ramp up His love for His children when He makes Himself known to
them. He's loved them with an everlasting
love. And His love doesn't change.
So there comes a day, Paul said, when God who separated me from
my mother's womb and was pleased to make himself known in me,
it's the day of his power when he makes us willing and he opens
the eyes of our understanding and we discover for the first
time the love of God. But it's always been there. Always
been there. It can't be any other way. Herein is love. Herein is love. Not that we loved God. Don't
define love by your love for God, but that He loved us. and gave his son to be the propitiation
for our sins." Now, don't be thrown off by that word. It's
not a word that's used in our vocabulary much today, but it
was used very much back in the days when the Bible was translated
into the English language, to be made propitious just means
that all wrath and all anger has been drained away and it's
been replaced with love. And the scripture says that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins. That He suffered
the full wrath of God's judgment on Calvary's cross for our sins. And that He satisfied God's holy
justice once and for all. So that there is no wrath. There
is no anger. It's been quenched. The fire's
been put out. The sacrifice is acceptable to
God. And in its place, we have the
love of God. The love of God toward His people. Not that we loved Him. I used
an illustration Wednesday night. You all like to go to the beach.
I like going to the beach. We've got some beautiful beaches
here in Florida. Next time you go to the beach, see if you can separate out from
the sand below your feet one grain, of sand, one grain. It takes some dinner to get one
grain separated out and put that grain in the palm of your hand
and look at that grain of sand and then look at the beach around
you. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us. and gave
himself as a propitiation for our sins. You don't define the
beach with one grain of sand, do you? You define the beach
by, well, innumerable grains of sand, don't
you? Narian is the love of God toward
us. Lord, would you be pleased to put a few more grains of sand
in my hand Here's the difference. The Lord said if you have faith
as small as a mustard seed, and as I understand a mustard seed,
it's about the size of a grain of sand. So we could say if you
had faith the size of a grain of sand, you can say into this
mountain, be removed and it will be cast into the sea. The Lord told the disciples one
time, He said, O ye of little faith. Aren't you glad that He
didn't say, O ye of no faith? There's a whole lot of folks
that don't have one grain of sand in their hand. If you've got any faith at all,
you know that that grain of sand came from that beach. And He's the source of it all.
Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and gave himself
as a propitiation for our sins. There's the demonstration of
his love for us, putting away all our sin and making us acceptable
in the beloved. Read on. Beloved, if God so loved
us, we ought also to love one another. Not only is God the source of
your love, but God will be the cause of your love for others. You know, trying to Trying to
understand love from a human perspective in terms of, you
know, how do I act in a way that's lovely, in a way that demonstrates
love? I mean, you can read books about
love. People don't know anything about
love. Truth is that if you're experiencing the love of God
in your own heart, you won't have any trouble expressing that
love to others. You just won't. Your expression
of love to others is a direct reflection of your experience
with the love of Christ in your own heart. It just is. And if you don't know how to
love others, you gotta go back to the source of the problem. That's what he's saying. Beloved,
if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another, for
no man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth
in us, and his love is perfected in us. In other words, the demonstration
of God's love for us is seen in the sacrifice of his Son,
and the manifestation that we know something about that love
is seen in how we love one another. Hereby know we that we dwell
in Him, and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit."
You can't know the love of God apart from the Spirit of God.
This is a work of the Spirit of God in the heart. The Spirit
of God's the only one that can breathe life into us. He's the
only one that can enable us to look upon Christ and to rejoice
in Him, and He's the only one that can put the love of God
in our hearts. And we have seen and do testify
that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world." I don't have to go into this.
He's chosen men out of every tribe and tongue and nation and
people. And when the word world is used, particularly when John
uses it, he's describing all nations outside of Israel. All
nations outside of Israel. A Gentile world. That's the world. And the hope is that that I was
a stranger to the covenant of grace and I was separated and
outside of the tribe of Israel and that God was pleased to reach
all the way down to where I am. Here's the mystery of the gospel.
Believed on in the world that Christ would be believed on.
That's the work of grace. And that's what he's saying here
that he sent, yes, for worldlings like you and worldlings like
me. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God
dwelleth in him, and he in God." Here's our confession. Our confession
is the same confession that that Ethiopian eunuch made. When Philip said to him, when
he asked him, what doth hinder me to be baptized? If thou believest
with all thine heart, thou mayest. And what did the Ethiopians say?
I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe that. Now he didn't say, I'm just announcing
that or saying that. I believe that. I believe with
all of my heart that Jesus accomplished what he came to do. That's what
his name means. For He shall save His people, salvations of
the Lord." When I speak His name, I'm speaking it out of faith.
I'm not just saying it like other men say it. I believe that He's
the Christ, the Anointed One, the one Son of God, the Messiah,
for the purpose of saving all of Israel. I believe that He's
the Son of God. I believe that He's Sovereign,
that He does whatsoever He wills. And that my salvation is not
by my works of righteousness. It's not by my will or by my
works. It's by His mercy and by His
grace. To say that I believe that Jesus
is the Son of God is not just to mouth some words like religious
men mouth. It's to believe what that means.
It's to speak it with understanding and with faith. And that's what
the Lord's saying. If you're able to do that, then
God dwells in you. You wouldn't be able to do that.
And if you understand what that means, and that in spite of the
fact that this is who He is, in light of who you are, and
that He's loved you anyway, oh, oh, that that God would love
me? Herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Here it
is. Here is how our love is made
perfect, and here it is, the only hope that we have of approaching
the throne of grace and finding help in our time of need. We
can come with confidence. How is it? Well, here it is.
As He is, so are we in this world. Right now. Let me ask you a question. Did God the Father accept the
Lord Jesus Christ when He ascended back into glory? Was there any
reservation or hesitancy on the part of God the Father to receive
His Son back to His rightful place? Was there? No, you've not thought that for
a second, have you? As He is, so are we! In this world, here's
the love of God! That God would accept me in the
same way that He accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and continues
to accept the Lord Jesus Christ? That He would accept me like
that? Of all people? What greater love is there? It's just in our minds that that
God would somehow be holding us off and be waiting for us
to prove ourselves and be demanding of us some more evidence of our
sincerity before he's going to show his love toward us. That's
how we treat one another, isn't it? Here's our boldness. Here's our
confidence. Here's our hope. that even as
the Lord Jesus Christ himself is before God, so are we. In spite of what we are. In spite
of our sin. I tell you what, brethren, if
the Lord's pleased to convince us of that, that's the only power that there
is against sin. It's the only power there is. Verse 18, there's no fear in
love. There's no fear in love. The
law brings fear. You're going over the speed limit,
running out in the interstate, and all of a sudden you look
in your rearview mirror, and you see the law coming, what's
the first thing that happens? Before your foot comes off the
gas pedal, what's the first thing that happens? Your heart takes
an extra beat, doesn't it? The law brings fear. Judgment. Oh no. Not a $250 ticket. The law brings fear. There's no fear in love. No fear. Oh, don't you love it when your
children just come and throw themselves at you? No fear. Perfect love casteth out fear. He's the propitiation for our
sins. He put away the wrath of God. God's not angry. Not at those who are in Christ.
Now, here's an easy one to remember.
Psalm 711. You can remember that. Psalm 711. God judges the righteous, the
righteous, and that's what He did. He judged the righteous
when He gave His Son as a sacrifice for our sins and satisfied all
of His holiness and all of His righteousness and all of His
justice once and for all so that that judgment is done away with
and there's no reason to fear God. And the rest of that verse says,
and he is angry with the wicked every day. Every day. There's no in-between with God. There's no in-between. He either loves you in a perfect
love and you have no reason to fear Him whatsoever You know,
you just think about the life of the Lord Jesus Christ when
he was here on earth. You don't read anywhere in the
gospel account of a prostitute or a publican or a sinner who
ever demonstrated any fear of Christ. He invited them into His presence.
They felt comfortable around Him. They felt welcomed by Him. Who was it that held Him off
at a distance? It was the Pharisees, wasn't
it? It was the self-righteous. When you experience the love
of God, there's no fear. You just flee to Him. You flee
to Him. And you know that there's no
reason to fear Him. Perfect love casteth out fear,
because fear hath torment. Fear is based on the judgment
of the law. Christ suffered the curse of
the law for us. The law has nothing to say to
God's people. Nothing to say. There is now
therefore no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.
The accusations of the law have been silenced. The law can't
say a thing to you if you're in Christ, if you know anything
about the love of God. This is the only thing that's
going to cause... You see, it's the love of God that causes us
to draw to Him. If you fear God, then you're
not going to come near to Him. You're going to run from Him.
You're going to hide from Him. You're going to do like your
father Adam did. In his shame and in his guilt, you're going
to hide in the trees and try to cover your nakedness with
fig leaves. He that feareth is not made perfect
in love. No reason to fear Him. Just come to Him. Come to Him. In Christ, come to Him. We do love Him. As imperfect and shameful and
minuscule as our love is compared to His love for us, we do love
Him. But only because He first loved us. You see that? He's
the one who started this love relationship. If a man say I love God and hated
his brother, he is a liar. Plain and simple. Plain and simple. For he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? How can you say I have the love
of God in my heart? I have no love for my brother. And this commandment have we
from him, that he who loveth God loveth his brother also. God is love. He's love. Read 1 Corinthians chapter 13
when you get a moment and think about what's said in that chapter
in reference to the love of God toward you. That's not a... 1 Corinthians
chapter 13 is not a a set of instructions on how
it is that you're to somehow manifest your love. Your love
will be manifested in direct proportion, in direct proportion
to your experience of God's love for you. It just will be. Oh, may He be pleased to convince
us of His love. Let's take a break.