You can turn with me again to
that reading, 1 John and chapter 4. With God's help, we shall
have a look at this great chapter. I've already said a little bit
about the Apostle, and if you read into theology, you can read
many things. You can read things I don't agree
with. I've read that John didn't write
very well. Some of you may have read this.
Some said his use of Greek wasn't very good. And so on. I want to say, John's epistles
are wonderful. This is the word of God. And
he says many very striking things which we must take note of. And you sense when you read these
epistles, of course this was the beloved apostle. This is
the one who lay on the bosom of Christ and something of that
love and affection doesn't it come out? Do you not see it when
you read these epistles? His love for the Saviour is the
overwhelming motivation behind those things that he's writing
here about love because that's what I want to talk about this
morning and that's the theme in this chapter And I was thinking,
once I talk about the love of God, but I think everyone who's
called to minister knows that we often have to attempt to put
over things that really are beyond us. How could I find words to
express the love of God? Of course I can't, but by God's
grace we have to try because it's part of the gospel. We have
to discriminate what is that love of God from what is love,
what people's general understanding of love is. This is an area of
careful discrimination of the truth of Scripture which we do
in this chapel. Our pastor is very clear and
we need to know the meaning of the words and I have checked
carefully that this chapter does use that particular special Greek
word. agape or agape, not philio or
the other words, it uses that particular New Testament Greek
word for love, the love of God, Christian love, love in the church,
and so that's very clear as we read here, as in 1 Corinthians
13, you know, it's translated charity but it is the same word
that is used here today. It's important today because
this word love is used an awful lot And you know it's used and
it is misused. It's a banner for many things. It's a blur, isn't it? It's misused. It's used sentimentally. Sometimes
people say, I love something. What they really mean, I just
like it. I've said many times, very hard in the English language
now to use superlatives because they've been exhausted of their
meaning. If I say to you, oh, that was
terrible, People take no notice. If you say it to an American,
there is prick-up, because they continue to use it as a superlative. I work with the Americans. I
discovered there were words I had to be very careful in our common
parlance. They use differently. They would
use words like awesome, you know, and we don't. You hear people
say awesome. They mean, well, it's, we don't
like it very much, but Americans say it awesomely. They usually
mean a superlative. And so love isn't, I just like
it. And it's even used for lust,
of course, we won't go there. But today, we must understand
today in our society, their concept, the world's concept, which is
the fruit, well, going into it, of the Enlightenment, anyone
who's read philosophy and utilitarianism and all these things will know
that the fruit of all that is man at the center and an idea
of love and goodness. Those two concepts are at the
heart. I'm fortunate to study some of these things in my youth,
and I'm glad that the Lord moved me off them quickly. and so today
these ideas of what is good or what is love is used as the basis
for morality this is how we've got into the mess we've got in
relationships and marriage in our society again not wishing
to open it all up because you're aware of it because they say
people love each other therefore why can't we do x y and z what
is the banner over all this? it's love But you see, love is
defined in the scriptures totally different. We want to come back
to the root, to the love of God. It's so, so important to us. There are two banners we need
to understand. You've heard all this from me
before, but one is love and the other is equality. And I would
suggest that both things have no great meaning without being
specific. But today, that people therefore
are able to say we must treat people equally men and women
and so on so women must be in the army and they must be at
the front line and all the rest of it it's a nonsense and God
has made it quite clear that there are men and women and men
have different strengths and abilities to women and if we
go against that we are going against what God has set out
and in the end we know that actually People can't refute that. They
are inexorably, because of their creation, drawn back to those
realities. Women want to be mothers. They
want to be at home. They want to bring up their children.
Of course they do, because God's put it in them. They don't want
to be at the office, and having it all, and having the holidays
abroad, and the two cars, and having the nanny. People get themselves into an
unnecessary mess. but life is tough today I understand
that I understand why people need to work because of economic
circumstances but we can't deny our nature and what society is
doing today is denying the nature that God has given us and it
will end in tears and we can see that we need to understand
the great truth of that we need to understand it in the context
of the gospel and this is where It's so important. I want to
centre our thoughts particularly on verse 10 this morning. We want to talk about love. Well,
herein is love. So John is quite clear. Herein
is love. You want to talk about it from
the word of God. Here it is. Not that we love
God. but that he loved us and sent
his son to be the propitiation for our sins this is it this
is so crucial in our day to understanding everything this is the gospel
here in this verse and this is that which underpins those things
that we believe People look down on us, they think, oh you people,
you dead Calvinists, you're excluding everybody from the gospel, what
a terrible religion you believe in. But no, I'm sorry, we believe
what the word of God teaches. I believe in sovereign grace,
not because I think it's clever, or I like the books and I think
it all adds up, but because this is the clear teaching of scripture.
and if you, like me, I've been preaching for 50 years, you've
preached in so many parts of the scripture, you cannot get
away from it. This doctrine is there, it confronts
you in every book of the scripture. Here in His love, we read that
God, not that we love God, that he loved us. Now the free will
man says it's the other way around. God loves us because we love
him. We came to him, we said we want to find you, want to
love you, we've been to the evangelistic meeting, we've been to the alpha
course, we've been to the coffee morning, we've thought up the
card, so now We love you God, you can love us. No. Sorry, no. But that's what people around
us believe. We have to love them in the law. We have other Christian
friends and so on, each of us, who do not hold what we believe.
But this is not the truth. It's not that we love God. Far
from it. As Ephesians tells us, we were
dead. Not just in trouble, but we were
dead in our trespasses and sins. And you can only be, I get into
trouble with some people, but you can only be dead or alive.
You can only be lost or found, and so you know where I'm coming
from. And the people want to muddy this, you know. They do
in our church, that we'll have a middle way, good standing,
good family. I'm sorry, I object to it. You're
either lost or you're found. We're Baptists, we have many
chapels and people aren't baptised, it can't be right. I thank God
that the people here are baptised in Salem. That's because we've
had faithful ministry over many decades setting out these things. We should feel strongly about
this, this is the heart of the Gospel. Here are our articles
of faith. I preach on this at other chapels,
I don't think people know what they are. And Article 3 we believe
in the everlasting and unchangeable love of God, that before the
foundation of the world, the Father did elect a certain number
of the human race unto everlasting salvation, whom he did procrastinate
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will." These articles are good, aren't
they? It sets it out so clearly. That's what we want to say. I
can't explain why. I can't explain why God loves. Why should he love us? Why should
he love sinful people? It's impossible. But God declares
that he does. Here in his love. And I love
this verse because there he sets forth the means. How is it God
is able to love sinners? when we read, and our pastor
has gone into this in great detail for us, hasn't he? The propitiation,
Lord Jesus Christ, the propitiation, what a word that is. And you
go into a very deep word. It's not, see some people say
Christ just died for our sins. We sinned and he sought the punishment.
No, that's not what we believe. Yes, that's expiation. We believe
propitiation, that the wrath of God was turned away from us.
There was a satisfaction. God was satisfied with that sacrifice. Not with all the lambs and the
goats and the calves, but with this one sacrifice. He was satisfied. Sin was put away, far as the
east is from the west. That's what we believe, don't
we? And that's what is distinguishing, I think, about Salem. I think
Andy was saying on Thursday, wasn't it? Where else in this
city are these things preached? I don't think they are, are they?
I've listened to some of the preaching from the Grace Chapel,
and it's quite acceptable. I don't want to criticize them,
but they're not preaching these doctrines, and we need to set
them out. and we need to be beware in the day that we live. If we
don't understand John, then we're going to misunderstand things.
Very crucial. Each part of the Word of God
is necessary. I find it amazing. I read through
it. It's 66 books. And you can try and work it out.
I've tried. Possibly 40 human authors. That's one book, isn't
it? It amazes me how it can all hold
together like an incredible Intricate perfect jigsaw and it doesn't
let people say all the Bible argues against itself and disagrees
It doesn't that's the miracle of it. It's one glorious book
and Of course, we we we love that to think about the truth
and the word love is very important and we don't despise what God
has given us in our nature there is good human nature that we
we're capable of noble and good deeds of course we are in love
and we're members of families families here young little ones
here we can appreciate the love of parents for children. It's
a very precious thing, isn't it, to know the love of a family,
and to be in a family, we all know, gives us a sense of belonging,
doesn't it? It gives us a sense of being
loved. It gives us a comfort. It gives us a security. Of course
it does. And that's a God. But then that's
a picture, and scripture used that, it's a picture of the church
of Christ, a temple, a building. and we are we can be the hand
the foot we can be the body of Christ and we are given these
wonderful pictures before us in the scripture but we how do
we come to this knowledge how can we come to a knowledge of
God we it's by sovereign grace and if you ask me to define sovereign
grace i think that know that i can I can tell you what happens,
what it is, but how God does this is of God. It's God's sovereign will. God
has a will and a purpose. And I want to quote a verse you'll
know very well, 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6, but I think it's very
apt in this context. How is it that any of us come
to faith? How is it any of us have any
spiritual life within us whatsoever? What did we do? Because most
religion, if you want to join Islam, go down to their place,
their mosque, they'll tell you what you've got to do, things
that you have to do to become a Muslim. But listen, to be a
Christian, this verse, God, who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, have shined in our hearts. to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ
now I've preached on that verse here I'm sure Andy's probably
preached on it at some time but what a wonderful verse that's
that's the gospel God commanded the same God who commanded light
to shine at the creation the same power and authority of God
we read gave the night of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ, God by his command, his will
came and revealed Christ to us that's what we believe I can't
make you do that, I can't take you to the evangelistic meeting
and warm you up, I've been there, I've seen this warm you up with
the choir and the music and then the big speaker comes on the
stage in a flashy suit and all this sort of stuff you can't
do it people think that's what we're all about, evangelicals,
but we're not We want to say it's all of God. That's where
we stand at Salem, isn't it? The doctrine we give all the
honour to God. He's shined. Oh, has he shined
in your heart? You'll know. Has he shined in
my heart? You'll know when he has. Because
all things are new. You suddenly find the world is
a different place. You suddenly find things you
love, you don't love. and you want to go to God. This
is what we don't see. Whitfield, in his day, God stirred
up people. People were in tears, queuing
up to hear him. I think it was in the Gospel
Standard a few years ago. George Whitfield went to the
United States, it was the colonies in those days, to preach, and
there was a farmer who was out in his fields in Massachusetts,
and he saw a lot of dust and he looked up and his wife looked
up and what's going on and he saw suddenly saw lots of people
and lots of carts and lots of horses and he said whatever's
going on they said George Whitefield is here we're going to hear him
preach and they dropped everybody dropped their tools everybody
wanted to hear George Whitefield wait it's a work of God you read
Jonathan Edwards on the great works of God in North America
terrific terrific stuff David Brainerd at the same period.
Terrendous stuff. It was a work of God. We long
to see a work of God in our day. Shining, that light, that knowledge.
We have to take the Gospel. We can't work it up. That's the
heart, as I said, of what we believe. And the ultimate sign
is here in this verse, you see. It's all coupled with the Son. With no sending of Son, no propitiation,
no hope, no life, no love. That was Christ's coming was
the ultimate expression of the love of God and if we want to
understand the love of God which I said I can't really explain
all I can do like we ever do I point you to Christ if you
want to know God is love look at him he had no gain by coming
here it was with God as we know from Philippians it was in the
glory all perfection bringing himself down, emptying himself,
which we know he couldn't not be God, but of his reputation,
where he was, that place, that Greek word kenosis, very difficult
word, but he came down to human form, humility, he came and was
born and laid in an animal feeding trough, he knew poverty, he didn't
live in a palace, he knew the spite and torment of men, bitter
persecution, His disciples fled from him at the end, denied him,
and then spat at him, beat him up, and they slew him for nothing,
washed their hands of him on the cross. That's the love of
God. That's how we have to explain it. And in all of that is propitiation. And when you see it, you see
everything. I think I mentioned it to you, a dear late friend,
Franco Maggiotto, and I think I put the back there's a cd i've
made up of his testimony he'd been a roman catholic scholar
and priest and he was in the mass and they were reading from
hebrews 11 no sorry it was 10 and the words were so clear to
him no further sacrifice for sin He just threw his robe off
and walked out. That was the end of Romanism
for him. The Church of Rome sought to
persecute that man until his death. He's a wonderful character. There's no further offering,
no further sacrifice. This is it. Everything is done,
is in Christ. He's propitiated. Thus, mercy
can be shown to us. God has provided a way through
his son. Isn't that wonderful? This is
love. And I'll give you some verses on love shortly. We've
seen from our article what it is. And it should work itself
out in the life of church. If we have that love, oh that
God would so bring it to us. I'm sure you know what I'm talking
about. And it's a great love. John chapter
15. I was on the underground train
one day and they had up there I think a quotation from I think
it was Chairman Mel they had some other Eastern scholar could
be Confucius or somebody and then they had this greater love
have no man than this that he laid down his life for his friend
no S the other two inscriptions on the underground attributed
the quote the one from Christ was not attributed and it was
from Alcoholics Anonymous, it was one of these organizations
who put the banner up. I wrote to them and they wrote
me a one page letter of waffle about it. They couldn't say it
was Jesus. This was some years ago. but the love of Jesus, how can
we express it? John 15 verses 12 and 13 this
is my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you
that's why we should love one another it's the commandment,
it's Christ isn't it? greater love have no man than
this that a man lay down his life for his friends now we know
that Christ laid down his life for us, he called us friends
And we see that greater love hath no man than this. And we
have, you know, there've been various memorials, some there
are wars recently. The Great War and then the Second
World War. And we know many acts of heroism
have been set before us where people gave their lives, really,
for their friends. They took upon them to attack
or do something dangerous, probably knowing they weren't gonna come
back. But Jesus says, greater love hath no man than this. And
we know that in the context of the gospel, that's himself, isn't
it? act full and sufficiently the
death of Christ what it achieved was so vast and so monumental
we can't really put it into words we've been reading together through
Ecclesiastes and we're now in the Song of Solomon you know
in many ways a wonderful book also it's a difficult book in
many ways It's very evocative of course in the language that
it uses, but of course it speaks of the love of Christ for the
church and it achieves something, doesn't it, the book, of the
intensity. That's why so many people come
back to this book. Yes, there are some perhaps things
we might think are difficult, mature, innit? But, you see,
what it sets forth to us is an intensity. It has feelings, doesn't
it? That's what we need. When I say
the love of God, you could say that flatly, but the whole person,
including our emotions, have to be caught up in the things
of God. and I love this we were just
reading this couple of nights ago chapter 2 verse 4 he brought
me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love that's
the gospel we he loved us first we didn't choose God before time
in eternity God elected he chose his people And he's chosen in
time through his gospel, through that light of the gospel, the
knowledge of Jesus Christ, to make himself known to us. He
brought me. Isn't that wonderful? How is it I know the gospel?
Because he brought me. I might not have seen it that
way at the time when I was struggling with these things, struggling
and repenting. But I now see he brought me.
He didn't bring me to something mean. People would go past this
chapel and think, I'm glad I'm not in there. I'd rather go round
to the Battle of Minden or somewhere. A lot more fun going round there
than going into a place like that. But no! That's not what
the word of God says. He's brought me to his banqueting
house. Is that your experience? That's what we've got to see.
We're in the banqueting house of faith. And all these precious
and lovely spiritual truths and food is put before us. It overwhelms us. It's so abundant
we couldn't possibly take it all in. Is that your experience? Oh, by the grace of God, I pray
that it will be. And then, His banner over me
was love. Isn't that fantastic? Just think
about that. His banner over me was love. It's saying, I own you. You're
mine. I've loved you. I went to the
cross for you. I brought you into my banqueting
house. You're into a life of faith. And I've put a mark on you, a
banner over you, saying you're mine. Isn't that lovely? God
loves us. He owns us. He cares for us.
We believe in those five points. Of course we do. And there's
the preservation of the saints. And often in Scripture that's
presented as we are kept. Do you believe that? We are kept.
It's a glory. These are the doctrines. Remember
mr. Mastro is saying there's no comfort
in the gospel in anything else If you don't believe these things
if you don't believe the five points of Calvinism you have
no comfort Because you're you you've got to heaven or you you're
a Christian because you made a decision And if you're an Armenian
you believe you could you could fall away you could lose all
that but no He loved us. He saved us. He keeps us. That's
what we believe and And that gives us a great confidence,
not confidence in ourselves, but confidence in him. I mentioned
1 Corinthians 13. We could go through that great
chapter. But that is, if you like, is looking at the impact
of the gospel, humanly speaking, upon us. What sort of people?
What's the outworking? What's the fruit of all these
things in our lives? And it's put there very powerfully
by the apostle, by the spirit of God, isn't it, in his life.
He says, we're not speaking like the men, speaking with tongues
of men and angels, and we're not sounding brass. It's not
as though I've got a great gift, all this sort of thing. I'm bestowing
my goods. No, he says. It's not that. I've got to be
long-suffering. I've got to be kind. I've got
to vaunt myself. I've got to behave myself properly.
I've got to not rejoice in evil. I should bear all things, hope
all things, and so on. that's how it should work itself
out we know the love of god then that's what happens to us or
should happen to us and so we we come now just to look a little
bit closely at some one or two things still in this this chapter
it's a wonderful wonderful chapter and we won't look at all of it
because there's so much but it's love this is all about love and
therefore it's important that you lay the foundations for what
that love is when you come to read such a chapter. In fact,
when you read John's epistles, which are full of this, because
he's so clear in his mind, he's so keen to deal with the nature
of the person of God, the nature and person of Christ, the deity
of Christ, the true love of God, what is of the Spirit, what is
not of the Spirit, and he wants to drive that out. and that must
be wonderful. I've been reading the history
of the church fathers and the theologians. It's been very interesting.
One of the characters I read, of course, is Polycarp, who was
a martyr in the middle of the first century. As a young man,
he knew the apostle John. What a wonderful thing to have
known that great apostle and the influence that John had upon
Polycarp. He died a glorious martyr at
the age of 85. And he must have heard some of
these things personally from John. that we must love one another. Verse 7. It's a challenge in
the church. For love is of God. Everyone
that loveth is born of God and loveth God. And that's our motivation,
isn't it? That we know the love of God
and it works out. That love we have. I've known
people, family members, people outside the church have not understood
us as a church. They don't like, actually they
feel uncomfortable when they come in because of the friendship
and fellowship of the church they see actually often it's
it's higher and better isn't it than we have in the family
let's be honest um that's like christ said you know here is
my mother and here are my brethren to the disciples and isn't that
how we feel this is this is this is my family we have father family
but we don't share faith with them and we have the great family
of god in verse 8 he that loveth not this is this is john now
you john does this you know it does it's this two-part thinking
if you either have it or you don't have it and there's so
many things in scripture like that you know when you go through
the the couplets in the Old Testament, they're like that. What they
do is they set truth off against error, one thing off against
another. You go right through the Psalms and Proverbs, it's
all there. And in a sense, John is influenced by that way of
thinking. Either love if not, knoweth not God. So if somebody
comes in amongst us and they show no love, you have to question
what they have. If we have the Spirit of God,
it should show And in verse 9, and this was manifested the love
of God toward us because the God sent his only begotten son
into the world that we might live through him. It's a re-emphasis
that Christ was sent. All of this depends upon Christ
and his death. Now, I have to say that in our
day amongst evangelicals, I've been reading again recently,
there are quite many who do not like the sacrifice, the offering
of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ and they call it
by many and wicked names, quite famous names including people
amongst the General Baptists who now do not like the whole
idea of blood sacrifice they say that God could not have afflicted
his only son, that is not love, they said that is not love and
you may have heard this term, I don't like it, but they talk
about cosmic child abuse, they say the doctrine of God allowing
his son to go to the cross to propitiate for our sins it's
wicked but many people believe that they don't believe the atonement
anymore this is the day that we live in but without that we're
lost in fact this is amazing to us that Christ could go to
the cross but it is also an expression to us of the love of God for
the church he wanted to have a people to himself in all righteousness
the world can't understand it understand why we think this
world is significant. My answer to anybody, I don't
want to get into cosmology and it's a terrible nonsense area,
I say this world is important because Christ came here. He
came here for a purpose. I have no knowledge or idea what
other purposes God has in his creation. We are told it's all
for his glory, that his revealed purpose is that he will have
a people in all righteousness in this world and we know that
when Christ comes again there will be a new heaven and a new
earth so that gives a clue perhaps to what I think about the rest
of the universe and cosmology there's an outworking of all
these things and the root of the work of course is the spirit
hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us that if you're in him you have
the spirit and it's the spirit that moves and motivates us. I often turn us to a passage
I love in John chapter 14 when Jesus is addressing his disciples
for the last time and verses 15 to 17 He says, if you love me, keep
my commandments. So we have that again. Christ
sets that out. And I will pray the Father, and
he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever,
even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because
it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him. For he
dwelleth with you and shall be in you. He dwelleth with you
and shall be in you. If we are the Lord, we have the Spirit.
Isn't that wonderful? and we need therefore to think
about that and live according to that as it were a silent presence
and we have assurance verse 16 and we have known and believe
the love that God has to us amongst our community there are many
who say they don't have assurance and almost if you say you have
assurance almost look down on you if you say you have assurance
but I'm afraid I believe what the word of God says and we have
known and believed the love that God have to us and that's my
confession i felt and know that love i have confidence in that
over how many 54 years God is love and he that dwelleth in love
dwelleth in God and God in us it's not an in and out of thing
I know in some of the hymns it talks about the Lord coming to
us and going from us and visits but you see he never leaves us
or forsakes us I always have some difficulty with these hymns
I understand in our perception of him sometimes we feel we don't
feel we can feel him or see him in our perception but he never
leaves us nor forsakes us. The Lord is always there. We're
never abandoned. When we pray, he's always there. Isn't that
amazing? God is the God who fills all
in all. And we pray, of course, through the Spirit. And how can
we get to verse 17 unless we have that assurance and confidence
in verse 16? Because in verse 17 we read,
Here is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in
the Day of Judgment. Why is it we can have boldness
in the Day of Judgment? Because we have an assurance, not in
ourselves and what we have done, we have an assurance in what
Christ has done. We have an assurance in that
propitiation and that God has revealed it to us, that it is
for us, that we are His, we are His child. That's our assurance.
Then we have a confidence. We can come before Him because
as He is, so are we in this world. and there's no fear in love.
Isn't that wonderful? There is a true fear of God and
that's the right thing. In our day there isn't. People
mock God, they mock religion, people just find it almost impossible
not to blaspheme the name of the Lord Jesus Christ at every
possible opportunity. But there is a fear of God and
we should have a real fear we should see God for who He
is when we come to pray we come carefully I've been in prayer
meetings and people are very flippant we should come carefully
before God acknowledging who He is but there's no fear because
when God looks at us people try to express that it's how He looks
through Christ He sees Christ, He sees that sacrifice He sees
that propitiation and He loves us because we are in Christ He
loves us in Christ. Isn't that wonderful? So there's
an essential recap here. I love that. He goes through
all these things and he goes back to this verse 10, his foundation
point. We love him because he first
loved us. That is one of the distinguishing
marks of what we believe. It underpins, our articles underpins,
the five points of Calvinism. People who won't accept them
are effectively rejecting that verse. They're saying no, It's
we loved God before God loved us. I'm sorry, that is a lie,
a wicked lie. I can't accept it. And there's
a test. John always has tests. I said
to you that he was trying to test out the spirit of Christ,
the spirit of Antichrist, what is the true spirit, what is the
false spirit. So he says at the end of this chapter on love,
so I've defined these things, if a man say I love God, and
Haithafi's brother is a liar so again I want you to know these
things in the scripture are often very black and white my preaching
might be black and white but that's because it's the scriptures
I like to explain that to people in the past I'm sorry I only
preach what's before me so don't find fault you come and tell
me from the scripture what I said that was wrong and then one brother
not so long ago couldn't do it because I was preaching what
the word of God said for he that loveth not his brother whom he
hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? there
are these tests and I love we end with this lovely command
because religion has to be practical it has to be outworked faith
is not a dead thing we know we believe James it's a living thing
there has to be evidence there has to be fruit or there's nothing
you say you have faith and there's no fruit then you have nothing
John says, and this commandment have we from him, so this commandment
from Christ, that he who loveth God loveth his brother also. Oh, we thank God for his word
of truth. We thank God for this. We have
this gospel and it's all, not of us, it's not what we did,
it's not of our works, it's not because I'm a better person than
other people, it's not because I've done lots of things for
the church or I've been a kind person or I've worked for charity,
no. It's this, here in Islam, not that we love God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Amen.