All right, brethren, back to
1 John chapter 4. John's purpose in this passage
that I'm going to preach from tonight, his purpose in this
passage is the same throughout this epistle. You know, I like
to go back and read the epistle from the beginning from time
to time and just read all the way through it even into the
second and third epistle. And it's really as you go through
it and you do that it becomes so much more clear what he's
talking about all the way through the epistle. And his purpose
is to show us that it's God alone that makes his child to have
life and believe on Christ and love our brethren. It's God alone
that makes us believe Christ and love one another. And it's
God alone that makes us continue believing on Christ and loving
one another. And this is the manifest difference
between the child of God and the child of the devil. There's
nothing a child of God cannot do that a child of the devil
can do. We'll do what the child of the
devil will do. But there's one thing that God will not allow
the child of God to do. We cannot cease believing on
Christ. We cannot do that. And He's going
to keep us loving our brethren. A child of the devil may confess
Christ. He may confess to love the brethren,
or profess to, but when he goes out from us, or he denies Christ,
or he mistreats the brethren, he manifests that he never was
born of God, that he never believed on God, and never truly loved
the brethren. Because God keeps His child believing
on Christ. And as we'll see tonight, Wherever
God's given faith, He keeps His child loving our brethren. He keeps us loving our brethren.
Now, I want to give you a little context here before we get into
our text. And the Spirit of God moved John
back in 1 John 3.23. He told us, 1 John 3.23, He said,
This is God the Father's commandment. that we should believe on the
name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another as his son
Jesus Christ gave us commandment. And then he said this, and he
that keepeth his commandments, talking about these two commandments
or this one commandment, however you want to look at it, that
he just gave us, he that keepeth, you know that old English ETH
means to continue, to continue. And so he that continues believing
on Christ and loving his brethren, he's saying he dwelleth in God
and God in him. That's how he does. He dwells
in God and God in him. Our Lord Jesus said that if any
man love me, when God gives you a love like we're going to see
tonight, He creates love which is of God in our heart, He says
He'll keep my commandments. He'll believe on me and He'll
love my brethren. And He says, and my Father and
I will come to Him and make our abode in Him. It's by the Spirit
of God that we believe on Him and have love and it's by God
dwelling in us that we continue to believe in Christ and love
one another. And so he says there, and hereby
we know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which He has given
us. By what the Spirit makes us to
do. The Holy Spirit makes us continue
in faith and continue in love. And by this, by what the Spirit
makes us do, we know that He dwells in us and we dwell in
Him. We dwell in Him. So John told
He told us here, then he begins in verse 4 and he says, so try
the spirits. He said, try the spirits. Believe
not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are God.
And he says, we try the spirits by what do they believe and what
do they preach concerning Do they preach in truth? Do they
declare Christ in truth? And now he turns to love. And
he says in verse 7, 1 John 4, 7, Beloved, let us love one another,
for love is of God. Now, we can test preachers by
this as well to a degree, brethren. This is not something you'll
discern over the internet, but if there's a preacher who may
be preaching the gospel, but if he's mistreating the brethren,
if he's preaching for selfish gain and glory at the expense
of the brethren, then he's not of God. He's not of God. But I want to focus tonight on
loving one another. And I think a lot of times here
when we look at this and we see, hereby we know, remember our
Lord Jesus said, He said, this is how all men shall know that
you're my disciples if you have love one to another. This is
how, and John's given us discernment here to discern in others, to
discern in others who were his and who were the spirit of truth
and the spirit of error. That's what he said at the beginning
of the chapter. And that's what he's dealing
with some here as well. But we're going to focus here
on us loving one another. And this is the exhortation here.
He says, Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God. Now the first thing we need to
understand is that the love that's spoken of here is not of us. It is not of our flesh. This
is love which is of God. Beloved, let us love one another
for love is of God. This is spiritual love. This
is spiritual. This is love which is of God
the Holy Spirit. It's produced in us by God the
Holy Spirit. Look at Galatians 5 and verse
22. And look at this. Galatians 5,
22. It says, but the fruit, the fruit
of the Spirit is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love.
This is the love that is of God. When He says love is of God,
the fruit of the Spirit, that fruit produced in God's child,
of God the Holy Spirit is love. That's what we're talking about.
And also joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. John's
been talking about faith and love. And not only is faith of
God, we've seen that, faith is of God, it's the gift of God
by His grace, but also love is of God. This love we're talking
about is of God. Both are of God. Both are fruit
produced in God's child of God the Holy Spirit. Now you notice
there in Galatians 5, Paul listed many fruits, but he called it
the fruit of the Spirit, singular. It's like the doctrine. There are many doctrines that
we teach, but Scripture calls it the doctrine, singular, of
Christ. Why? Because they all go together. They're all inseparable. That's
why. And the fruit of the Spirit's
inseparable. The fruit of the Spirit's inseparable.
If you have love, you have faith. And if you have faith, you have
love. And they're united. As long as we live in this flesh,
in this world, we're going to have the two together. Let me
give you an example. You know in 1 Corinthians 13
the Holy Spirit said through Paul that faith without love
is nothing. Faith without charity is nothing.
Well, that would be some sort of faith conjured up of the flesh,
wouldn't it? Because we just saw the fruit
of the Spirit is love and faith. And faith which is of God includes
love which is of God. And love which is of God includes
faith which is of God. These two are united to each
other. They are united. Remember Christ
said to those folks, He said, If you loved me, you would receive
me. If you loved me, you would believe
on me. That's what He said. If you are
going to believe on Christ, you can't believe on Christ without
loving Christ. I don't know that it's worthwhile
to get into which one is given first. I don't know that you
can even do that because in order to believe Him and truly believe
Him, you have to love Him. You have to be giving. And when
you behold Him with faith, you're going to love Him. But they're
inseparable. They're united. So this is a
spiritual love we're talking about. Love that's of God. But
it's not love that's of us. That's what we usually think
about when we think about love. We start thinking about what
we call love and what we consider love. But love that is of us,
of our sinful flesh, is marred by sin. It's marred by sin. We naturally have love. Whenever
God made Adam, He made Adam in His own image. And at that time,
in that state, Adam had a love which was of God. He had a love
which was of God. But when he disobeyed God, that
image of God was marred in him and that love was marred. Before
the fall, he loved Eve with love which was of God. But after the
fall, he blamed Eve. He blamed her for his disobedience. We all are born of Adam's corrupt
seed. We come into this world of our
father, him of his father. If you go on back far enough
in your genealogy, you're going to come to Adam. We all came
from Adam, so we're all born of Adam's corrupt seed, conceived
of Adam's corrupt image. You read in the scripture where
it talks about back in Genesis, it says God made Adam in his
own image and then when it says Adam begat a son, it says he
begat him in his image, in his own image. And so we have the
image of Adam and so love that's from our sinful flesh, natural
love, is selfish. Most of our love is selfish.
Our love is full of lust, pride, envy, jealousy. Sin mars our
love. You compare, if you were comparing
the love which is of God, this love we're talking about, that's
of God. When compared to the love which is of God, the deepest,
truest, sincerest love that we could think of is not even worth
being called love compared to this love we're talking You take
the love of a mother for her newborn child. That's the deepest,
truest, purest love that you and I could think of. But compared
to the love we're talking about here, the love which is of God,
that love is not even worth being called. It's not worthy of being
called love. I'm trying to get through to
you, this is a love not like anything We think about, when
we think about what we naturally think of as love, nothing like
it. Some mothers don't even love
their children. Our love, natural love, is various
levels of God restraining our sin. It's basically what it is.
When you see somebody that seems like they just really, really,
really love somebody, it's God restraining what they otherwise
really, really, really could do. And that person who could
have a child and just leave that child, that other person could
do the same thing if God took his hand off of him and didn't
restrain him. We're not as sinful as we could
be. God restrains us. We're totally, thoroughly, completely
depraved. And the only reason it doesn't
show up every single moment of every day is because God restrains
it. He restrains it. So we're not talking about love
that's of us. John is talking about love which
is of God. Love which is of God. Now, secondly,
this love which is of God is produced in us by God making
us to be born again of God so that we know spiritually, we
know God. We understand, we see, we have
a revelation of God that He's been revealed to us in spirit
and in truth. Look here in verse 7. Beloved,
let us love one another for love is of God and everyone that loveth
is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not
God, for God is love. You notice this is so of everyone. that loves. Everyone that loveth,
he said, is born of God. Everybody who possesses this
love is born of God and knows God, for God is love. And so
he says, he that hath not or he that loveth not knoweth not
God. He's not been born of God. He's
not been given a spiritual understanding or spiritual revelation of God.
He doesn't know God in spirit and in truth. Now, the Lord Jesus
told us this. Go back over to John chapter
3. The Lord Jesus told us that we have to be born of God the
Holy Spirit in order to know anything spiritual. And that's
the only way we're going to have this love in us is to know God. He says in John 3 verse 1, There
was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. That means he was a religious
teacher. The same came to Jesus by night, ashamed to be seen
with Christ. Ashamed of Christ. And he said
unto him, Rabbi, And that's a name they would call a teacher. He
said, we know. And this, you know, a lost man
is always very quick to brag about what he knows. He says,
we know that thou art a teacher come from God. For no man can
do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. Christ
is God. He is God. He is salvation. He is righteousness. He is propitiation
for the sins of His people. So Nicodemus by his own testimony
here shows that he has no spiritual knowledge of God. He has none
whatsoever. He's not been born of God. He
doesn't have this love of God in his heart. And Christ tells
him that. Look. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, That means this is of utmost importance.
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. What did Christ say about the
kingdom of God? He said the kingdom of God is not of this world,
it's spiritual. So what he's saying is, except
a man be born of God, he cannot see anything spiritual. None whatsoever. Nicodemus saith
unto him, How can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter the
second time into his mother's womb and be born? And again,
Nicodemus proved Christ true. He's proving by his own testimony
that he does not understand spiritual things. Jesus answered, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into spiritual things. He can't do
it. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Every
man born the first time is born of flesh, and that which is born
of flesh is flesh. It's sinful flesh. But when we're
born again, if God makes us to be born again, that which is
born of the Spirit of God is spirit. So that in a believer
that's born of God, there is an old man of flesh and a new
man of spirit. There's two natures in a believer. And he says, verse 7, marvel
not that I said unto thee, you must be born again. The wind
blows where it listens. That means where it will. and
thou hearest the sound thereof, but you cannot tell whence it
cometh and where there goeth. That means you can't resist it
whatsoever. And he said, so is everyone that's
born of God. The Spirit of God enters whom
He will and irresistibly births a sinner a second time. So this
is all of God. This is all of God. We had nothing
to do with our first birth. We have nothing to do with this
second birth. Our first birth was of sinful parents so we were
born with their image. This new birth is of God and
we're born with God's image. That new man is created in God's
image. Our first birth was fleshly so
it made us carnal. This second birth is spiritual. and creates in us a spiritual
man, makes us spiritual. Our first birth gave us carnal
minds in which we hated God, the scripture said. This new
birth gives us the mind of God, gives us a love for Christ and
a love for our brethren. So everyone that loveth, everyone
that has this love we're talking about has it because he is born
of God. That's the cause. And when you're
born of God, you're made to know God. You're made to know Him. Spiritually enter in and know
Him. For God is love. Now, here's
the third thing. Back in our text, God produces this love in us
by giving us spiritual knowledge of God's love toward us in Christ
Jesus, His Son. That's how this love is created
in the child of God. The new man is created in love. God is love. So the new man is
love. He is created in love. And then
God gives you a knowledge of His love. A revelation of His
love in Christ Jesus. A revelation of His love toward
you who have been born of God. And this is how this love is
produced. Look at verse 9. And this was
manifested the love of God toward us. Now he said, he ended verse
8 and he said, God is love. It doesn't mean that, you know,
people say different things the way they phrase things about
God and God's a loving God. God is love. He is love. The reason I picked that second
song we sang, Love Found A Way. Don't read that as some ambiguous
love God found a way. God is love. God is love. And the way that we behold His
love, the way He manifests, clearly, obviously, openly manifests in
our new heart, His love for us is in the face of Christ Jesus. He says, And 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. Herein is love,
not that we love God. but that He loved us and sent
His Son, the propitiation for our sin. Now when God regenerates
us and gives us life, God's love is then manifested to us, not
before. A dead man can't see, a dead
man can't know anything. Remember what Paul said? We have
received not the spirit which is of the world, but the spirit
which is of God. That we might know the things
that are freely given to us of God. And so that's why when he
gives you the spirit of God, he makes you to know things that
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
their foolishness to him, neither can he know them because they're
spiritually discerned. And so, but you that are spiritual,
you discern all things. So when he gives you this new
heart, this new spirit, the Spirit of God becomes your teacher.
And he makes us behold true love. And he makes us behold it. It's
manifested to us. Now look how he words this. And
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 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. This love was manifested to us
because God sent His Son that we might live. And in God sending
His Son that we might live, we see the love manifested. God
sent His only begotten Son. What does that mean, only begotten
Son? That is an inconceivable I can't
express what that means. It means He's God of very God. He's the only Son of God who
is one with God in that He is God, equal with God. He's the
Son who is of Himself one with the Father. He is God. And God
sent Him into this world. God so loved His people that
He sent Him into this cursed, vile, sinful place called this
world. He sent Him here. And He sent
Him here to take a body, a human body, like His brethren, a human
nature without sin. He sent Him here to humble Himself.
You know, we were talking about this the other day, about we
don't understand true love, that is a righteous, holy love, because
we can't comprehend God, that doesn't seem right to us, God
manifesting His love by humbling Himself and becoming a servant
to serve for worms like us. When we hear that parable our
Lord gave when he said about the king would seat his servants
at his table and he would come forth and he would serve his
servants. That just doesn't seem right
to us. That's perfect love. That is true love without any
pride, without any envy or jealousy or arrogance or anything. That's
love absent of all sin. He sent His only begotten Son
to humble Himself and take the form of a servant where He would
be tempted in all points like His people, where He would be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities and yet without sin. That's the manifestation of God's
love. He manifested His love toward
us because God sent His only begotten Son into the world that
we might live through Him. We could not be born of God justly
unless Christ came and made it just for God to give us life
and give us life eternal. He came into this world, God
sent His Son to die. He was born into this world to
die, to die in the place of God's particular
people so that God could give us life. He manifests God's righteousness. He came to fulfill God's law
and to satisfy God's justice so that God could justly give
life to each one for whom He died. Can you imagine sending
your child, your only son, to a place so wretched, to a people
so wretched, to knowing when you send them that you're going
to kill them? You're going to first make them
to bear the sin and the guilt. That's why He sent His Son knowing
He's going to make His Son bear our sin and our guilt. And then
He's going to pour out holy justice on His Son. He sent His Son to
bear our sin so He could justly pour out wrath on him and cause
him to die. So he could make him justly pay
the wages of sin, which is death, and do it for his people so that
God could justly shower us with mercy and give us life. The law
had to be honored. God's holy justice had to be
honored. His law had to be upheld and
magnified. because God's righteous. And
now, brethren, because He bore that, because He came in that
place, God must give us life. Because that justice that once
demanded we die, now that Christ died for us, that same justice
demands now that we live. See, I want everybody to get
this and I'm trying to be simple. I hope it's been simple. I want
you to understand that Christ died for a particular people. He paid for the sins of a particular
people. He is the propitiation for the
sins of a particular people. He made atonement for the sins
of a particular people. He expiated the sins of a particular
people so that those sins for that particular people are gone. They're paid for. That debt is
paid in full. The guilt has been put away.
Now, before the holy law of God, that people for whom Christ died
are innocent. They're completely innocent.
Now, they're still walking around dead. Some of them are still
walking around dead in sin. They have no idea what God did
for them. And here's the next thing. Herein
is love. Not that we love God. We were
dead in sins and we hated God and we did not want this free
salvation that cost the precious blood of God's Son. We didn't
want this salvation that's free. It's free to you and me because
it cost God's Son His precious blood. But we didn't want it.
And yet, there's some right now that don't want this, they ignore
this, they think it's useless to be here, they think it's a
vain thing and a waste of their time to even come in and hear
the gospel. And yet, some of them are the
very ones for whom God did this, for whom God sent His Son and
for whom Christ laid down His life. Hearing His love, not that
we love God, but that He loved us. Aren't you glad He did? He
sent His Son, the propitiation for our sin. And not only that,
He sent His Son, the Spirit of His Son, into our hearts when
we didn't love God. We didn't want anything to do
with Him, but He wouldn't take no. He sent His Son. So verse
11 tells us, beloved, if God so loved us, if God loved us
after this manner, we ought also to love one another. We ought
to love and lay down our lives for those that He loved and laid
down His life for. Even when they don't love us,
we ought to love them. Because remembering, we didn't
love God and yet He loved us. He loved us. And His people do.
That's what John is telling us. His people do. His people do
this and it's by the constraint of His love. Let me show you
this. God who is love, by God who is love, He said God is love
and by Him dwelling in us, He makes us behold His love for
us in Christ Jesus and that's how we love God and our brethren.
Look back at verse 7. Everyone that loveth is born
of God and knoweth God. End of verse 8 says, For God
is love. Now look at verse 12. No man
hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, the cause
is God dwelleth in us. That same God who is love, God
who is love dwelleth in us. And His love, His love for us
is perfected in us. He's brought us to the end the
end to which His love brings His children. He brought us there. You get what I'm saying? God
who is love dwells in you who are born of Him. And because
His love is perfected in us, brethren, in our new spirit,
that new spirit, there is no guile. Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not impute iniquity and in whose spirit
is no guile. There's no guile in that new
spirit. Here's what that means. It means we love God with no
guile in our inner man. It means we love Him with no
dissimilation in our inner man. In that man, in that new man,
there's not a little bit of love for God, a little bit of love
for something else. We love God with all our new
heart. That's what he's saying. Listen
to this. Deuteronomy 30 verse 6. The Lord thy God will circumcise
thine heart to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart
and with all thy soul that thou mayest live. That's what kind
of love we're talking about. It's not a love that is partly
for one and partly for another. This love that in that new man
with God who is love dwelling in us by this knowledge of what
he did for us, he constrains us to love him with our entire
new heart. There's no sin there. And not
only that, by the same cause, we love our brethren with no
God. I won't have you turn there, but you know back a couple of
pages or over a couple of pages, he said in 1 Peter 1.22, he said,
you've purified your souls in obeying the truth through the
Spirit unto what kind of love of the brethren? Unfamed. That
means there's no guile. That means there's no hypocrisy.
That means it's all true, pure love of the brethren in our new
man. Well, how come it doesn't seem
like that to me? How come my love for my brethren
seems so feeble and just so weak and nothing? Because there's
a lot of fleshly sin mixed with it. But in that new man, if that
new man, when that fleshly man's dropped, that perfect love will
be all that's left. And that, he says, is unfamed
love. It's from a pure heart because
we've been born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible
by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever. How do we
know that God dwells in us? Because He's given us of His
Spirit who makes us believe on Christ and makes us not ashamed
to testify of Him. Look at verse 13. Hereby know
we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given
us of his Spirit. And what does the Spirit make
us do? First, he makes us believe. First, we've seen and we do testify
that the Father sent the Son and he successfully is the Savior
of his people all over this world. And then, whosoever shall confess
that Jesus is the Son of God, it's because God dwelleth in
him and he in God. This is how we know. We believe
God. That's how we know by the Spirit
of God we believe God and that's how we know God dwells in us
and we dwell in God. And the Spirit makes us know
and believe the love that God has to us and that constrains
us to love Christ and our brethren. Look at verse 16. And this is
the second thing the Spirit does. We've known and believed the
love that God has to us. God is love. He that dwelleth
in love. You that believe. He says you
dwell in love. That means you love Christ and
you love your brethren and you dwell there. You continue in
it. When you have God who is love dwelling in you, you dwell
in God who is love. And you dwell in the love of
God. You live in it. You abide in it. Remember I said,
if Christ is in you, the Spirit of Christ is in you, you are
not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit. He is saying here, you
are not in that hatred anymore. You dwell in love if His Spirit
is in you. This is how God says it is. This
is how God sees it. He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth
in God and God in him. Now brethren, let me end with
this. What does this love, which is of God, what does it make
us do? What does it make us do? How do we love God and our brethren? Well, first of all, this love
which is of God makes a believer cease loving the world. It's true. The man who loves
the world doesn't have the love of God in him. We cannot cease
loving Christ and our brethren and go after this world. You
can't do it. Look back over at 1 John 2 verse
15. If any man... Let's see the second
part. If any man loved the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. You see that? When you have
the love of the Father in you, you're not going to love the
world. That's all we loved before, but you won't love the world
after that. What does that mean? That means you're going to be
willing to sacrifice the world and the things of this world
for the cause of Christ, to support the gospel, to send it forth
because you love Christ and you love your brethren. You want
them to have the gospel. And so you'll do that. And then
here's the other thing. Go back over. I will have you
turn to 1 Peter. Go back a couple of pages. 1
Peter 2 and look at verse 1. When you have this spirit in
which is no guile and you have this unfeigned love for Christ
and for brethren in that new man, here's what it makes you
do. 1 Peter chapter 2. Verse 1, He makes you lay aside all malice,
and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
and as newborn babes makes you desire the sincere milk of the
word that you may grow thereby. He makes you desire it and He
makes you desire it for your brethren. And so, He makes you
to put away all these other things. He makes you, I know we fall
into these things because this is all our flesh is, but He makes
you Put those things away because it's not worth it. None of those
things are worth it. Malice and guile and hypocrisies
and envies and evil speaking because you desire this sincere
milk of the word and you desire it for your brethren. You want
them to have it too. That's two things He does that
makes us give everything in love to our brethren and in love to
Christ because we believe Christ and we desire this gospel. You cease loving this world and
you use the world and the things of it just for the sake of the
gospel. And you put away all that old
man and all his evil speaking and all of that and you walk
in love and you love your brother because you desire the word and
you desire the word for them. So He says, Beloved, let us love
one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loveth is born
of God and knoweth God. Amen.