Alright, if you will, turn in
your Bibles to 1 John chapter 4. 1 John chapter 4. Today, Lord willing, we'll be
looking at verses 7 through 10, and the title of my message is
Love that is of God. Love that is of God. That is
a very simple, simple topic. God's love. And that's a very
complex complicated, immeasurable topic. Something that is so plain
and so simple and so magnificent. Let's see what the scriptures
give for us today. 1 John 4 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. In this was manifested the love
of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son
into the world that we might live through Him. Herein is love,
not that we loved God. but that He loved us and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Now John had just
finished telling us in the first few verses of this chapter how
we are to try the spirits. He shows that how believers are
to know if a person that they're listening to, a person they're
hearing speak on behalf of God is a true spirit or a false spirit. And the Holy Spirit moved John
to continue to comfort the Lord's people. He says there in verse
6, 1 John 4, 6, we are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth
us. He that is not of God, heareth
not us. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error. Sinners that trust in Christ
alone have assurance. We know God. We can only hear
the truth about God. We can only give glory and praise
to Him alone. We don't want to hear anything
else. We can't stand to listen about
a God that tries. We can't stand to listen about
a God that wants to do something. We can't stand to listen about
a God that loves That is love, they say, but that love is meaningless. You can't act on it unless you
let Him. Or it's a conditional love. We have to do something.
The child of God doesn't want to hear that. They can't hear
it. They can't stand it. It's a lie. We need to hear about
our successful Savior and Lord. The one that saved us and the
one that is our Lord, and that's Christ Jesus. The Almighty God
that came in human flesh and was victorious in saving His
people and His elect children put into Him before the world
was created. That's not only what I want to
hear, that's what I need to hear. I don't need to hear something
I need to do. I can't do anything. I'm dead.
I need to hear about a victorious Savior. Someone that accomplished
salvation. I'm being reminded once again
by the Apostle of the person and the work of Christ our Lord
for His sheep. With this in mind, he continues
there in verse 7, 1 John 4, 7. Beloved, let us love one another
for love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and
knoweth God. He said, let us love one another. And the love of God has been
spread abroad in our hearts. We do not love our brethren only. This isn't just speaking about
brethren only. We have a love for all people.
All mankind. Let's turn over to Luke chapter
6. Luke chapter 6. Our Master here is telling us
to love and to be kind to all men. And He tells us why. He gives us direction, but He
also gives us the motivation. Look here in Luke 6, we're going
to read verses 35 and 36. Luke 6, 35. But love ye your
enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again. And
your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the
highest. For He is kind unto the unthankful
and to the evil. That sounds like something to
do, don't it? But here's our problem. Here's where natural
man has an issue. Here's where we fail. We think
we don't need to be kind to the evil people around us and the
people around us that are unthankful. We think we don't need to be
kind to them. But read that again. Let's look at this verse again.
He shall be the children of the highest, colon, Something else
is attached to that. Something else is coming. Four,
we will be the children of the highest. We'll be the children
of God because He is kind to the unthankful and the evil. Our issue with loving our enemies
is not that they are bad. It's that we don't understand
that we are the ones that are unthankful. We are the ones that
are evil. That's who the Lord's been kind
to. He's been gracious to. We've been made children. When we are not brought into
remembrance that our Lord was infinitely merciful to us, infinitely
loving to us, when we're not brought into remembrance of that,
what we were and what He's done for us, we do not have a desire
to be merciful to others. We look down our nose at other
people. Because we're not looking at
ourselves. We're not looking at what wretches
we are and what the Lord's done for us. Look at verse 36. Be
ye therefore merciful as, here's how, as your Father also is merciful. Now Brother Clay Curtis' bulletin
this week, he had written an article. And we'll read it to
you. It's real short. He says, It is when my brother
has treated me like an enemy that I am to be gracious, merciful,
and forgiving. By definition, grace, mercy,
and forgiveness can only be given to the undeserving. That's the
truth. We'll see in a moment that that
true love is not what the natural man calls love. The love that
is of God is not what we think of. That word means something
else than what we assign to it. But to be gracious, by definition,
is to give to someone that cannot give back. It's to lend without
expecting a return, as our Master just said there in Luke 6.35. We think of mercy in our terms. By definition, mercy is to not
punish someone that deserves punishment. They got it coming. It's right. It's just to do it
to them. It's holy to execute justice
on them and you don't punish them. That's mercy. But when
we, when natural man is what we call merciful, then we're
bending the rules. We're not holy. We're not just
in our mercy. But when we're made to see how
unthankful we were. We're made to see how evil we
are. Not the people around us. Us.
Believers look at themselves. How when Christ gave himself
for us, we were still enemies against God. We still had enmity
against God. We were dead in our sins. We
see true mercy. We see true graciousness. That's true love. No man can
be merciful like our Lord. We can't be that way in our old
man. Our new man has a mercy in him.
But that new man can only be merciful like his father because
he's known and he's experienced God's mercies. A child can't
be like their father if they don't know their father. We have
to have the character and nature put in us of Him and look to
Him and know Him to be like Him, to be merciful like Him. He has
to be merciful to us. And Christ in us, working in
His people, knowing His love for us in our sinful state when
we were born anew, makes us have a gracious, tender, kind heart
to our enemies. They just might be a sinner saved
by grace just like us. And Christ has not yet revealed
himself in them. And to you that know the Lord,
to you that believe Christ is all, all your hope, you rejoice
in him alone. What if the person that taught
you the gospel, what if the man that preached liberty in Christ,
That sovereign, saving, free grace that's in Him alone. What
if that person thought you weren't worthy? Well, they're unthankful
and they're evil. I don't need to preach to them.
What if they were not kind to share that immeasurable richness found in Christ with you? What
if they hadn't told you? All the children of God serve
Him in different ways. Some preach, some teach, some
tell their family members about Christ boldly, plainly, often. Some take care of the church
building. Not here, but in other places in this country, people
cut grass. We don't have grass here, but
somebody cleans the building. Some people just simply attend. They attend regularly. That's
serving the Lord. That's furtherance of the gospel.
They probably don't think so. Most people sitting around them
don't think so. That's a great work. Great work to have be put
in your hand. And all of them pray. We pray
for our brethren. We pray for the saints we don't
know. We pray for the saints that haven't
been born yet. We pray that the Lord's will be done. His comforter
comes. Do we have that desire to tell
others to serve Him? in any capacity we're given.
Has the Spirit moved us to do whatever we can for the furtherance
of the gospel to those who do not know Him? To comfort those
that do know Him and for the Lord to call His sheep that doesn't
know Him yet. Now look back in our text there,
1 John 4. Let's look over a page in chapter
3, verse 17. Looked at this before, it'd be
good to look at it again. 1 John 3, 17. But whoso hath
this world's good, and see his brother have need, and shutteth
up his bowels of compassion for him, how dwelleth the love of
God in him? Now carnally, we looked at this
before, that's true. If we have food and our brother's
starving to death and we don't give it to him, the love of God
doesn't dwell in us. If we have shelter and a storm's
coming, Fire, wildfires coming, you come stay at my house. We're
not close to the fire. Come stay with us, we'll feed
you. Love of God's not in them, and so on. But spiritually speaking,
if we have Christ in us, the hope, and the confidence and
the expectation of glory through Him, we know Him, and we do not
share that with a brother that's not looking to Him yet, that
doesn't look to Christ yet alone. That love of God is not in us. That does not mean that if we
love the Lord, we start preaching to every person at the grocery
store. We don't walk around holding
up cardboard signs. But maybe we encourage them to listen to
a message. Maybe we leave a bulletin for them. We invite them to come
to a church service. Maybe we share a verse with them
that we've read that day that's sweet to us. But in whatever
capacity is laid on our hearts, believers have a desire for others
to know Christ. We want our brethren called out.
Now some people will say, well, that's not my brother. They're
still seeing that unthankful evil person. They're not looking
at their own unthankfulness, their own evilness. They're seeing
somebody's outward traits and they say, that's not my brother.
How do you know? How do you know that's not your
brother? I don't know. You don't know either. And I
follow this illustration. I'm the baby of my family. I have an older sister and two
older brothers. I'm the baby. Now I was not a
brother to my siblings until I was born. I wasn't their brother
until I was born. Maybe that enemy you have is
your brother or your sister and they just haven't been born yet.
You see what I'm getting at? My siblings looked forward to
me being born on this earth. They helped my mom while she
was pregnant. They were kind to her. They were eager to go
get her something to drink. We'll pick that up for you. We'll
carry those groceries. But they'd never met me. I hadn't
been born yet. But they were eagerly waiting
for me to be born. This is why the child of God
has a heart for all men and women. They just might be another beloved
brother or sister, just might be another one of our brethren,
and we have a love for our brethren especially. We have a heart for
all men, but we have a love especially for our brethren, the ones that
already are born of God. Paul told us that in Galatians
6. He says, and we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto
all men. to everybody, especially unto
them who are of the household of faith." If someone has professed
Christ as all, we especially love them. We especially are
kind to them, love our brethren, serve our brethren. So there in 1 John 4 verse 7,
Beloved, let us love one another For love is of God. It's from God. Put in our new
hearts. He's the source. And everyone
that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not
knoweth not God. For God is love. If we do not
have love in us, this true love, that true and pure love that
is of God, that merciful, forgiving, gracious love, we're not of God. We're not His. So many people
say, I love the doctrines of grace, but I can't stand to sit
with them people down there. What is John telling us here
by the Holy Spirit? We'll have disagreements just
like Carnell, earthly brothers and sisters, we'll have disagreements.
There might be some hair pulling. There might be some bruises and
some sad feelings, but that's family. That's family. You can't get away from them.
You love them. Stick with them through the end. When we have
a true love in us, it's because we are born of God. Because God
is love. And being born of Him, being
made His child, having Christ in us, we have love. Our new
man has the nature of his father. John writes in verse 8, God is
love. Amen. That is wonderful. If we know Him, we know His holy,
majestic love because He showed us love. He first loved us. But
unfortunately, all around this world, that phrase is abused
and it's made a blasphemous statement. People abuse that phrase, God
is love. To the majority of people, the phrase, those three words,
God is love, is some kind of blank check. It has a jolly context
to it, but it's unactionable. It doesn't have a trait of action
in it. It has a sense that everything's fine, however you want to do
it. That's not the case. He's not
Santa Claus. That's not how that works. God
is love. His nature is to love His children,
to be merciful to His sons and daughters, to forgive them of
sin and remove it, never to be mentioned again, to be blotted
out from eternity. A believer that is born again,
quick and in the heart, knows God, knows that love. We have
a personal and honest relationship with Christ through His love.
That new man in us will have this love displayed to others. It's going to come out of you.
An illustration I looked at a month or two ago about loving a baby.
That's just wonderful. I have to tell it again. That's
love. You have a day old baby. It can't
do nothing for you. It just tries to soil every outfit
you put on it. It wants to eat all the time
and you think it's on a mission to keep you awake all night.
But there's nothing, it doesn't hug you, it doesn't tell you
it loves you, it doesn't know what love is. But you love it. You hug it, you hold it, you
take care of it, you feed it until that thing grows. Look after it. That's love, isn't
it? Nothing in return. Love's not
on display when it's convenient. It's not true love that is only
around for the good times. It's not true love that's conditional
on the other person loving them. That's not the love of God. True
love, that love that God Almighty bestows in the hearts of His
people freely, that unmerited love, it's a gracious love. Plainly,
that means the Lord loved His people when we didn't deserve
to be loved. That's His love. We didn't do
anything to merit it and we didn't deserve it. Let's turn over to
Matthew chapter 5. Matthew 5 here crossed again
gives us that direction and he gives us the reasoning behind
it. He gives us instruction and he
tells us why. Matthew 5 verse 44. Let's start in verse 43. Ye have
heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor
and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute
you, that he may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. Not that doing these things make
us his children, but that our new man is proven to us Now look
at that love of our Father in heaven He has shown towards us.
It proves to us we're His children. For He maketh His Son to rise
on the evil and the good. And He sendeth rain on the just
and the unjust. We're the same as everybody else.
And if we're all the same, what makes us to differ? The love
of God. Who maketh thee to differ? The
Lord does, doesn't He? Verse 46, For if ye love them
which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans
the same? If ye salute your brethren only,
what do ye do more than others? Do not even the publicans do
so? God does not love those that love Him. Isn't that marvelous? What good news? His love is not
contingent on me loving Him. Look at verse 48. Be ye therefore
perfect. even as your father which is
in heaven is perfect. He's saying love in perfection
as after the manner God loved you. Love others with that merciful
love that was given to your heart. The merciful God who is love
was so kind to his people while we were still at enmity against
him, or we still hated him. And through that love, he's removed
all the condemnation we had before him. and has given us the righteousness
of our Savior, the righteousness of Christ. Now back in our text
there, how can He love us and be merciful? He must remain holy. The way we're merciful is we
just forget the law. We ignore the law. The Lord can't
do that. He has to remain holy. He has
to remain just. In Exodus 34, the Lord tells
us, the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the
Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty. God is holy. He will remain true
to His Word and true to His justice. Is His holiness and justice pretend? Or is His love, is it pretend? It's not as if God loved His
people. It's not as if He forgave our
sins. It's not as if we were made righteous.
And it's not as if He is just. It's not as if He's holy. Those
things happen, but how? The Lord told Micah, shall I
count them pure with the wicked balances and with a bag of deceitful
weights? You've all seen them balances,
those scales, teeter-totter scales. The Lord said, am I going to
put deceitful weights on there? Am I going to call something
good whenever I say that's ten pounds, but it's really five?
We'll just put a bag over it. You won't see. He won't lie about
it. The love of God was not a deceitful
bag of weights. How then were we forgiven? How
then could this holy love be bestowed through mercy and grace? How can mercy and justice meet? How can they both be satisfied?
Look there in verse 8. 1 John 4, 8. For God is love. In this was manifested the love
of God towards us. Here is how this unimaginable
holy love was conveyed, displayed, and made effectual to us. He's
going to tell us. Because that God sent His only
begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. That is revealed. This is the
revealed love of God towards His people. Here's how it shows
us. Christ came into the world on
behalf of His chosen people and we were given life through Him.
Who's the us that John's speaking about? We've seen this several
times throughout this study in 1 John. He's referring to the
elect of God. Those chosen people in Christ
before the world was. Not every person on earth, His
people. Those that were dead. not wounded, dead. Those that
were not a little good, those that were dead in sin, not a
little capable to come to Christ, dead. And the only hope for the
us, us dead people, is that we might live through Him. Live
before a holy God, live in perfection, live accepted, live without condemnation,
and live for eternity. Our only hope for that life is
through Him, through Christ. For those whose hope rests fully
and only in Christ Jesus for life, God the Father sent His
only begotten Son into the world for them. What a thought! What a love! Because of the sin
that I am, unable to have life in myself, I'm dead. God manifested His love towards
us. He showed His love. He revealed
it to His children. He displayed it and revealed
it by His love by sending His only Son into the world to live
and die for us. He descended. He condescended
to this earth, came lower than the angels, became a man. Christ
was subjected to all the sufferings, abuse, grief, pain, sorrow that
this world has in His life. He kept the law perfectly. And
He had a perfect, holy attitude the whole time. And thought,
word, and deed for His people on our behalf. And we know it
was not an attempt at salvation, but it was a finished salvation. Christ did not just come to set
an example for us. He didn't come to show that salvation's
possible, here's what you've got to do. Be like me. His love
accomplished something. Here is true love, not as humans
think about love, not as you and I think about love, but God's
love, true love. God sums it up for us there in
verse 10, 1 John 4, 10. Not that we love God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. The love of God is an active
love. It's an actionable love. It does
something. And His love is not dependent
on us loving Him. He loved us when we wanted nothing
to do with Him. And Christ was the propitiation
for our sins. He's the mercy seat. where men
can come in the holiest of holies. They can come to the Lord, meet
with the Lord, have reconciliation with the Lord. He is the way,
the truth, and the life. That word propitiation means
a bloody sacrifice, an atonement, a satisfactory payment. He was that satisfactory payment.
Now notice there in verse 10, the words to be, they're italicized. That means the translators added
those. So let's read it again without that. Let's read it straight
through. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son, the propitiation
for our sins. We could spend decades preaching
from this verse and not exhaust the gospel truths in it. Not
even scratch the surface. Just in this one sentence. Herein
is love, not men and women loving God, but that God loved a people.
He loved us and He sent His Son, the propitiation, the satisfactory
payment for our sins. God Himself sent the propitiation
and was that accepted payment for the sins of His people. He
provided it, He accepted it, and He was it. You see the sureness
there? Christ being the satisfaction
for His people is not an offer. It's not something that can happen
if you act on it. It's not to be. He is. Christ is the propitiation for
the sins of His people. When? When did He do that? To
be is if it's coming up, isn't it? To be is italicized. He did
it before the foundation of the world. That blood sacrifice for
the sin of the elect of God was secured and guaranteed in Christ
before Adam was made. Before this rock that we're standing
on was made, Christ satisfied the payment. We were put in Him
and the Lord was satisfied in Him before the foundation of
the earth. We turn into 1 Peter chapter 1. I'm going the wrong
way. 1 Peter chapter 1. But Paul told us in Ephesians
this. He said, 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. In His love, that act of love,
that being put in Christ and Him being the satisfaction for
our sins. Titus told us that. He said, in hope of our eternal
life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world
began. Before He created anything, the
Lord promised His people in Christ. He put us in Him. Now 1 Peter
chapter 1, we'll begin in verse 18. For as much as ye know that
ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from
your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,
we know we're not saved by tradition, what grandma and grandpa always
used to tell us, something that's not factual, but by the precious,
with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish,
without spot, who verily, truly, was foreordained before the foundation
of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you."
This was done before time was, it was just manifested, revealed
to us. We're just finding out about
it now. Verse 21, "...who by Him do believe in God, that raised
Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory, that your faith and
hope might be in God." Do we choose to believe in God? We
believe in God by Him. He gives us the faith to believe
Him. Proven to us over and over that the love of God was to us
first and by His hand we are shown mercy through the blood
of Christ. He loved us first and we see
Christ as that propitiation. We see Him as that bloody sacrifice.
Before the world was made, the whole of the child of God's faith
and hope rests only in our God. Not in ourselves. It's of Him. That your faith and hope might
be in God. I turn to Romans chapter 5 and we'll close. Romans chapter 5. So Paul says here in verse 8,
Romans 5.8, But God commendeth his love towards us in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being
now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through
him. For if, when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more,
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." He was risen. That's our proof. He was accepted. It wasn't an offer. It wasn't an example. It was
accomplished. God is love. And because of His eternal, unchanging
love, He said, I've loved you with an everlasting love. He
sent His Son so he could justify his elect and still remain holy. He's the just and the justifier. He can be mercy, and grace can
meet, and justice can meet and be satisfied. And a poor, dead,
helpless, eternity-bound sinner has this revealed in them, that
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, and we love our
brethren. We love those who do not know
Christ, because they are just as we were. They're in the same
condition. Every man walking the face of
this earth that doesn't know God is in the same condition
I was when I didn't know God. And we love the one that first
loved us. And we pray for His will to be
done. And He said, those that's given
to me, I will not lose. I'll draw them to me. He's going
to get a hold of them. He's going to save them, reveal
Himself in them, and He's going to keep them forever. That's
love. You hear that. You understand
that. The Lord gives you the grace and the ability to see
His love. He sent His Son for us and it
was successful. It's done. He loved us when we
didn't love Him. We were unthankful and evil.
He gave His Son to die for us. God forsook God for me. Does that make me want to go
rob banks? No. I love Him. Makes you love them
back, just like that little baby. Didn't know nothing, couldn't
do nothing, it was unthankful. And you love it, and you love
it, and you love it, you love it. Take care of it, provide
for it, what happens over time. baby loves you back. A toddler
starts loving, don't they? The Lord makes us babes and loves
us and He grows us to be toddlers. Oh, we love Him. We cry His name,
Abba Father, don't we? I hope that was a blessing to
you. Let's pray together.