We are not through with this
subject of love of God and love for each other. We will never
be through with this subject. We know in part, we preach in
part. My father used to say, we haven't
commenced to get started. Haven't commenced to begin to
get started, he used to say. We have so much to learn in this
thing of the love of God. That's what I just quoted. Paul
said, oh, that we might be able to comprehend with all saints
what is the breadth, the length, the depth, the height, to know
the love of Christ, which passive knowledge, that we might be filled
with the fullness of God. Turn with me. Well, let's read
these verses. 1 John 4. Verse 10, herein is love, not
that we loved God, but that he loved us. Now, he's going to
talk about our love for him. This really is half of the subject
anyway. But there was a time we did not
love him. There was never a time he did
not love his people. But there was a time we did not
love him. And thank God, He put this love of Christ, the love
of God, in his people. That's what he's saying, here
in his love, not that we love God. And this is wondrous love,
that he loved us even while we were yet sinners, Paul wrote
in Romans. Sent his Son, how do we know God loves us, his
people? Sent his Son, to be a propitiation
for our sins, so beloved. Now here is what he is exhorting
us. to do and to find out, do we
love Him? Do we love each other? We need
to know that. And He said back in chapter 3,
look at verse 18, look at chapter 3 verse 18. You
know that love is throughout this book, don't you? First John.
And verse 18, My little children, let us not love in word, neither
in tongue, but in deed and in truth, and hereby we know if
we really love, and truly love, hereby we know we are of the
truth. Because if we really do love,
if we can find out, then God loves us, and He put that love
in us. He wouldn't be there if He didn't
love us. And it wasn't, there was a time
when it wasn't there. I'd rather be anywhere than here. I'd rather
be with my old cronies than you, and not now. I don't have any
other friends now besides God's people. So he says, but beloved,
verse 21, if our hearts condemn us not, if we have some measure
of confidence that we know and love the Lord and we have confidence
towards God. So go back to the tape, 1 John
4. Beloved, verse 11, if God so
loved us, we ought also to love one another. God's people do,
but we need to be encouraged and exhorted to, and we need
to promote this love, don't we? We need to grow. We're going
to talk about perfect love and being perfected in us. Love in
us perfected. This is what he's going to talk
about. That doesn't mean our love is ever going to be perfect
like our Lord, but it does mean maturity. It means it grows.
It does grow. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time
if we love one another. This is an evidence. God dwelleth
in us. His love is perfected in us. His love. Hereby know we that
we dwell in him, he and us. Didn't our Lord say, hereby shall
all men know you're my disciples? How? If you have love one to
another. Real love, genuine love, not
fake, phony, not a facade of love. You've seen that, you've
heard that. Religion is the worst, you know.
Religious people are mean, you know, they're back biters. They
talk about you and they smile at you and tell you they love
you and then turn around and talk about you. That's not love,
is it? It's not real love. That's not
true love. If we can discern and ascertain we have this, it
will cast out fear. Stay with me. If we love one
another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in
us. Hereby know we, we dwell in Him, He in us. He's given
us of His Spirit. Galatians 5.22 talks about the
fruit of the Spirit. Fruit, not fruits. Because all
those are together, all of them are in God's people to a degree. What is the first fruit? Love. Isn't it? Love. And so this is
the first thing when God, He breaks down the enmity in a child
of wrath, like we were, even as others. But God, He breaks
down this enmity in us, this hatred of God, hatred of Truth,
hatred, like Titus 2 says, 3 says, hating one another, hateful and
hating one another. Breaks down this enmity and makes
us one with Christ and one with each other. Of two men, one man. Making two, one. United in love. Brothers. Love like brothers. Or with Christ it's a marriage.
It's a Mary. So he does it. And love, love. It's the first thing, joy, peace,
and all and all together. Verse 14, now he says, we've
seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the
Savior of the world. How does salvation begin? By seeing the Son. Hearing the
gospel of Christ and Him crucified. Our Lord said, this is the will
of God, that every man that seeth the Son and believeth on him
may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up. This is
life, to see the Son, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Look
at the next verse. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. I believe that Jesus of Nazareth
is the Son of God. It's not humility to say, I think
I believe. No. Come on now. Examine yourself, whether you
be of the faith. When the Lord asked the disciples, whom do
men say that I am? And they said all sorts of things
about him. And he said, whom do you say that I am? Simon Peter
said, we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the
Son of God. I chose you, that's why. I reveal
myself to you. I've hid these things from others
and revealed it to you. I believe. Nobody, I don't think
there's anybody or anything or anyone that can convince me otherwise. You? In fact, the more I hopefully
grow, the older I get, the more foolish the wisdom of this world
and everything in this world becomes to me. Doesn't it, you? And I just don't pay attention
to any of them anymore. I glance at the news and all
that, but... Well, here's how we know. We've seen, we do testify that
the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Brothers
and sisters, when the Lord reveals Himself to you truly, you see
in Him all you need. You rejoice in the Lord Jesus
Christ and his gospel, salvation for a sinner. You will testify. You will confess him. You will. Nobody will have to beg you or
plead with you or try to convince you to confess him and believe
his baptism. You'll want to. You'll come to
the preacher and say, would you please baptize me? I've got to.
And he may try to put you off, but you can't be put off. It's
like marriage. It's like marriage. You won't
take no for an answer. And your love, I want you. And
so that's, it's testifying. All right? This is how we testify
of our love to Him and His love. We're testifying, I believe the
Lord loves me, laid down His life for me, died for me, put
away my sin, I believe. And I believe I love Him because
He first loved me. All right, so hereby we know.
We dwell in him. Like Simon Peter, don't you love
Simon Peter? I'm so thankful for him. I can relate to him. I'm so glad
the Lord let him talk when he shouldn't and let him deny the
Lord. It was a very painful, hurtful,
terrible time he went through, but I'm glad he went through
it, aren't you? Because I deny Him all the time. But Simon Peter,
he said, I believe Jesus Christ. And he confessed Him. Verse 16,
we've known and believed the love that God hath to us. God
is love. As a young believer, I loved the sovereignty of God
so much that I heard a preacher say one time, God is merciful,
so God had to show mercy. And I remember I didn't like
that, I didn't like it. No, he doesn't have to be merciful.
Well, I've grown a little bit now, and if he's merciful, yes
he does. That's his character. He doesn't
have to be merciful to whom he will, but he is merciful and
he is going to show mercy to somebody because that's who he
is in love. You see, I've grown in my understanding
of that. My knowledge of him has been
perfected. We've known and believed the
love that God has for us. God is love. And you know how
that modern Christianity, if you ask them what's the greatest
characteristic or attribute of God, describe God in one word,
and if you know it, they'll all say love. Love. But that is not God's chief attribute. You know this. You know this. God's chief attribute is holy. When Isaiah saw the Lord in Isaiah
chapter 6, the angels said holy, holy, holy. They didn't say love. They said holy. All through the
book of Acts, you know this. The word love is not there. Not
one time. When the disciples went out preaching
to a lost pagan heathen world, They didn't stand up and tell
everybody, God loves you. They stood up and said, God is
holy. Fear, see the fear of the Lord. And when you find out that somebody,
if you can ascertain that somebody fears the Lord, and somebody
repents, repentance toward God, and somebody says, I need a Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, then you can say, smile. God must love you, or you wouldn't
fear Him, or you wouldn't bow to Him, and you wouldn't repent
to Him. You wouldn't need the Lord Jesus Christ. You wouldn't
see your need in Him. But you don't start with none
of the prophets ever went out telling everybody God loves you.
False prophets do. He is a false prophet who stands
up and tells everybody God loves you. A false prophet. No prophet
in the Bible said that. None. No apostle said that. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
stand up. You'd think if anybody would
tell people that God loved me, he'd be the son of God. He did
not, did he? Who did he tell that to? His
disciples. The Father loves you because
you love me. Isn't it? So, we've known and
believe the love that God has to us. God is love. He that dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God and God in him." And we've seen that
this love, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts is first
love to God. You love God as God. You love his word, don't you? You love his truth. It's not
just believing the truth. Salvation's not just believing
the truth. I believed the truth when I was a young boy. I believed
it. I could argue about it, but I
didn't love it. It is Him. Christ is the truth. There is
a difference. And it's the love of the truth. All right, now here, verse 17. Herein is our love made perfect. Now whose love is he talking
about? Our love, right? I learned something here. I've
read John Gill, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, my pastor, and
they all agree. The subject right here is our
love growing and being perfected. All right? Remember, when it
started, he said, hearing his love, not that we love God, but
that he loved us. Verse 19 says, we do love him. We love him. And I don't have to keep telling
you all that, do I? But I do. Because God gets all the glory
if we love him. Herein is our love made perfect. Our love grows. Do you see that? Do you see it with me? Whose
love is he talking about? God's love can't be improved,
can it? Can't increase. Ours needs to. Where do I go? Look at 1 Corinthians
16. 1 Corinthians 16. I quoted this. 1 Corinthians
16. You know, the song of Solomon
is a love story. It's the story of Christ and
his bride, is it not? Right? Who loves who? Well, they
both love each other. They both love each other. And
you'll be reading in one place, it'll be Christ talking about
his beloved. My beloved, my sister, my spouse,
my fair one, all that. And then it'll turn around and
she'll be talking about him. Oh, I love my beloved and my
beloved is mine. Is that presumption? Is that
pride? Is that self-right? No, it's
love. So what we need to ascertain or discern is, do I love the
Lord or no? Am I his or am I not? That's
John Newton's poem, 1 Corinthians 16, 22. If any man love not the
Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha, accursed
when the Lord come. Nobody's going to be in heaven
who doesn't love Christ. And nobody would want to be.
It'd be misery. to just worship all the time. But to those who really love,
see what I'm saying? Do you love what you're doing
here? Maybe someone's here out of duty or habit. The next message
is on the heroes, the four types of heroes. If love for Christ
is not there, you're going to leave. Because if this is all
we do is preach Christ, if you don't love Christ, you're going
to leave. Not enough. But if you love Christ, it's
all you need. So we need to understand it,
ascertain it. We're not saved, let me say it
one more time, we're not saved because we love Him, but we're
saved to love Him. Ephesians 1 says that. He says
he's chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love. That's
two-fold. That means he did it and loved
us and he put this love in us. That we're going to stand before
him someday in love. Just in love with him. And this
love is growing right now. It is. Perfected. John Newton,
everyone who's ever read this, loves it. Here's a point I long
to know and it often gives me anxious thought. Do I love the
Lord or no? Am I His or am I not? He's going
to go on to say, if I didn't love Him, I wouldn't even be
thinking about it. There was a time I didn't know
if I didn't love Him and I didn't care. I wasn't asking myself
if I loved Him. Right? I am now. Examine yourself. Know you not
your own self, has Christ be in you? What does that mean?
Faith in Christ? Love? Need? It all goes together. Faith,
hope, and love. The greatest of these is love.
Do you really love the Lord? Well, not like I ought to. Not
like I want to. Not like I'm going to. But yes,
I do. When the Lord After he arose
from the grave, after all they went through on Simon Peter,
he asked him one question. Didn't he? He asked Simon Peter
one question. Now, remember Peter said, I'm
going fishing. That was his life before. Fishing was his life. He was in the world and he was
of the world. And boats and nets and fishing in the sea was his
life. When Christ came along, Christ
put life in him, eternal life, new life, a new creature in him.
And now the world is not his life, Christ is his life. He
dropped everything. How do you know Simon Peter loved
the Lord? He didn't love anybody or anything
more than Christ. He loved Christ supremely. Did he love him perfectly? No.
But this love grew. Perfect, being perfect. Okay? And then when the Lord came,
after it was all said and done, He said, Simon, son of Jonas,
sinner though you be, son of your father, lovest thou me more
than these, more than these boats, and these nets, and this sea,
and this world, and your family. Didn't our Lord say, if any man
love his father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, more
than me. Didn't he? Ken, do you answer that question? Got to. Our Lord said that. I didn't say that. We need to
ascertain that, right? Simon, John, Mike, Stephen, do
you love the Lord more than this? What did Simon say? Yes, Lord,
I do. And Abraham, the Lord said, take
your son, your only son, whom thou lovest, my only child, and
offer him to me. And what he did, what did that
prove? It's going to be some severe
trials. Love is going to be tried. Faith is going to be tried. Love,
faith, love. Faith that worketh by love. That's why it says the greatest
of these is love, because it's easy to say you believe. It's
easy to say. But if you believe, it will be
proven by love. Listen to this. Newton says it. If I love, See, it's looking
within. Why am I thus? Why this dull
and lifeless frame? So many times we come in here
and we act dead and dry, we leave and we didn't get a thing. And
then if the Lord convicts us of that, we think, what's wrong
with me? Don't I love the Lord? He says,
hardly sure can they be worse who never heard His name. Could
my heart so hard remain in prayer, a task, a chore, and a burden
difficult to prove? And every little trifle give
me pain if I knew the Savior's love. You ever ask yourself this
question? I love this hymn. I put it in
the back of one of my Bibles years ago to look at it all the
time. He says, when I turn my eyes
within, all is dark and vain and wild, filled with unbelief
and sin, can I deem myself a child? If I pray or hear or read, sin
is mixed with all I do. You that love the Lord indeed,
tell me, is it so with you? Yeah, everyone of you. Yet, I mourn my stubborn will. I find my sin a grief and a thrall. It hurts me. Should I grieve
for what I feel if I did not love at all? Could I joy his
saints to me, choose the ways I once abhorred? Moses said, I'm not going with
the Egyptians. I'm going with God's people.
What happened? The chain, a new man came over.
He loved God's people more than Egypt. Could I find at times a promise
sweet if I did not love the Lord? Lord, decide the doubtful case.
Thou who art thy people's sun or light, shine upon this work
of grace if indeed it has begun. Let me love thee more and more.
If I love at all, I pray. If I have not loved before, Let
it begin today. That man loved the Lord, didn't
he? And if you can say the same things, then you do too. You do too. Paul wrote in every
one of the epistles, especially the Thessalonians, he said, Timothy
came and told us about how your faith and love groweth exceedingly. And this, he said, I pray that
it will abound more and more. In Colossians, he said, this
is the bond of perfectness. All right, let's go on and look
at that. Verse 17. Hearing is our love made perfect. Now, I can't say this enough. I can't say this strongly enough.
We cannot make ourselves love. Only God does that. And the only
thing that will make us love is seeing Christ crucified, looking
to Christ and Him crucified. When he said, husbands, love
your wives, was that an option? No, it's a command, isn't it?
Do we need to? Should we? Why, yes. Do you? Here's a good illustration. You see, we're going to talk
about perfect love, casting out fear. Would you like living with your
spouse if you didn't know they loved you? Could you live like
that? It'd be torment. But if you can
ascertain that she loves you and you really love her, you're
not going to leave. You're not going to leave each
other. You don't have to worry about
her leaving you. Or you're not going to have to worry about
you leaving her if you love. That's what this is all about. What if your spouse asks you,
honey, do you love me? Well, I think I do. Huh? Would you want to live like
that? Or you wouldn't confess? See, this
thing of love for Christ is clearly seen, really. And I gave example, I hope they
don't mind me using this dear couple over here, but they are
a good example, aren't they, of those that love each other
and love the Lord and love His people. They're a very good example.
And there's others in here. Faithful. They that are with
Him are called, chosen, and faithful. Right there, Sid, two good examples.
Love the Lord, love His truth, love these people. Haven't they
proved that? That they love? This church,
not a person in here hadn't been in their home countless times,
and they love each other. Irene got to love John, she wouldn't
be with him. And vice versa. Men and women
are just Venus and Mars. That fellow down at Donnie Bell's
church, Bruce Daley, he said, women ain't hardly like other
people at all. You men know what I'm talking
about, don't you? Well, you'd have to love or you'd
kill each other. A fella said, have you ever thought
about divorce? No. Murder? Yes. But divorce,
no. Isn't it so? You love this person. Well, you need to understand.
We need to ascertain. It's a whole lot more than we
know. Do I really love the Lord or not? If I can find out, if
I can believe that he loved me and Christ died for me and I
see my need of him, Christ in you is the hope of glory. If
I can find, and if I really can, I love this worship. I love his
word. I love his truth. I love his
people. I love these people. I really
do. Not like I ought to, not like I want to, but I do love
these people. There's nobody I'd rather be with. Nothing I'd
rather do. If I can ascertain that. And you don't have to convince
yourself. Will you go away? To whom? This is life. Christ is my life. These people
are my friends, my brothers. Right? All right? We have boldness in the day of
judgment. Because as he is, so are we in
this world. I'll never forget. I was there
when Scott Richardson first preached this and opened this up. It was
a 13th Street and he preached it. That was his text. As he
is, so are we. Brother Scott used to take a
nail and just drive it, and drive it, and drive it. And if you
didn't know the truth, you'd think, man, he sure repeats himself.
And if you know the truth, you're glad he does. He just kept driving
it home, driving it home. As he is, how is Christ? Accepted. Loved by God. Holy, unblameable,
unapprovable. with the Lord. As he is, so are
we. Now, right now, beloved, now
are we the sons of God. And does Christ love his people now?
So we're told he will. Well, a pastor preached a message
one time, Brother Bruce Crabtree, and I was on the phone about
45 minutes the day before yesterday, preaching one night. Iron sharpens
iron. I love that man. And he was telling
me about a message dad preached that this is true and so is this. He said, he didn't say this is
true, but no, this is true. And he said, and God loves his
people and they love him as he is. And so are we in this world. They love his people and love
him as he is. So are we. Verse 18, there's
no fear in love. No fear. Do we ever quit fear
in God? No. Except when we get the glory,
I think. I don't know, but in this life
we never quit fear in God. But there's no fear in love.
Perfect love casts without fear. This is twofold. This is true
and... If I can ascertain, if I can...
believe that he loves me and cast out all fear of being cast
out. I have boldness in the judgment
that he's not going to cast me out. Why? Because Christ died. I believe that. Died for sinners. I believe that. I love it. I
love that truth. Never get tired of quoting it
or hearing it quoted, 1 Timothy 1.15. Do you? I really do. If I love Him, I'm not going
to leave Him. If I know He loves me, if I know
He loves me, I know He's not going to leave me. If I can believe
that I love Him, I'm not going to leave Him either. I'm not going to. You know, there's some few I
preach to that I don't really know if they love the Lord or
not. or me, or you. And I fear that
someday they may leave. But not if they love the Lord.
If they love Christ and if they love me, the preacher, and you,
his people. No, they're not going to leave.
Charity won't leave. It won't fail. It just won't. Cast out fear. Fear hath torment.
You know, this love, this love for his people, I meant to bring
this up a while ago. He said, husband, love your wives
as Christ. How do we, what motivates us
to love as Christ loved the church? You want a better marriage? Love
as Christ loved the church. That's the only way that marriage
is going to grow, is seeing his love, right? the love of Christ
for an unfaithful woman. Right? Husband, love your wives
as Christ loved each other. And, alright, it says, he that
perfect love cast out fear, his perfect love, and if our love
grows, if we can believe that he's truly put this love in us. We won't be tormented by doubts
and fears and all of that. We won't be. He that feareth
is not made perfect in love. His love for us and our love
for him. It's both, brethren. It's both.
Listen to me. truly love one another. And if
I believe, let's say Brother Kelly here, I believe he loves
me. If I really believe he loves me, it will cast out my fear
of him cutting me off someday. I really believe he loves me.
I don't believe he won't cut me off. It will cast out my fear
of him gossiping and slander. Have you ever thought that a
brother or sister is talking about you behind your back? It's
torment. It's torment. It'll kill you. If you can believe, and we need
to repent of that, and this is why the Lord tells us to reconcile
one another and forgive one another and all that, because God hates
that. But if I can believe he really
loves me, I'm not going to be tormented with the thought that
he's going to hurt me. You see what I'm saying? And
we're all human. And it wouldn't, we're all sinners,
but wouldn't a good prayer every single day, wouldn't it be, Lord,
let me love thee more and more, and Lord, let me love the brethren
as I ought. Let me love them like you've
loved me. Please, Lord, because that will
cast out all fear. You understand? I learned something
in there. I learned this from my pastor
and other men. All right, let's go on. We love
him. Verse 19, we love him because... No believer has a bumper sticker
on his car, I love Jesus. No sir, wouldn't do it. Anybody
does that, I don't believe they love the Lord, they're bragging
about themselves. Or I love my wife. You seen that? I love my wife and down below
that I love my black and tan coonhound. Which one? Seriously, you just don't do
that, do you? You don't do that. That's bragging on yourself.
That's a man who says, I love my wife. He's trying to convince
her. If he loves her, he won't have
to do that. She'll know. Right? He'll be home every night. He'll want to be with her. Right? He'll choose her over his old
companion and all that. Right? That's love. So it is with God's people. Love of God. We love him because
he first loved us. And you remember this illustration,
Stephen, you liked it. Sophie wrote me a little note
and put it on my desk. And it said, I love you, Pawpaw. Sophie, seven years old, second
grade. That was a couple of years ago.
Left me that little note on my desk. I framed it. I still got it on my desk. She
meant it. She didn't have to do that. She
doesn't have to impress me. She's not trying to get anything out
of me. I give her everything it went in. Love has to express
itself, doesn't it? She told me that. I looked at
that and I thought, And you need to hear that note.
You need to hear it privately. So I left the Lord a note on
my desk. And you know I'm not bragging.
It's just a good illustration. And I'm in it. I love you, Lord. Paul, 64. First grade. Right? Do you love the Lord Jesus
Christ? Huh? Yeah. It's because God first loved
you. If any man say, I love God and hates his brother, he's been
dealing with this, hasn't he? He's a liar. That's strong language,
isn't it? He that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, he cannot love God. He's a liar. And this
commandment, you see, we have from him, that he who loveth
God loveth his brother also. When he goes on, he doesn't quit.
That's a bad chapter division right here. Whosoever believeth
Jesus as the Christ is born of God and everyone that loveth
him that begat loveth him also is begotten of him. Okay. May the Lord increase and perfect
that love in us for him and each other. Okay. Thank you.