Alright, if you will, open your
Bibles with me to 1 John chapter 4. 1 John chapter 4. Alright,
1 John chapter 4, verse 9. 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, hearing His
love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us. and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God
so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath
seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth
in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know that we dwell
in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. Back here in verse John, chapter
four, I'm going to deal with verses nine through 13 and talk
about the love of God manifested in three ways. God's love manifested
three manifestations of God's love. And we see them here in
these verses before us. And you know, John, the rest
of this chapter, he mentions love so many times. The rest
of this chapter is on love. It's about the love of God. And
then verses two and three of chapter five deals with love
again. And he talks about God's love
to us, God's love to his son, and then his love in us, his
love in us. And he talks about what it means
for God to love us and the fruit of his love toward us. If one
thing the Bible teaches us is that life is given. God gives
life. He has to give us life. And where
He gives that life, where He brings that truth to our hearts
and to our souls, and it comes to us in power, that truth affects
our lives. Where the life of God is in us,
it affects our lives. It affects Christ in you as Christ
lived out in you. Grace in you is grace lived out
in you. God in you is God lived out in
you. And it changes the way we think
about God. And one way it dramatically changes
the way we think, dramatically changes the way we think about
ourselves. We used to think we was pretty
good people until God showed us there's none good, no not
one. And there's not one of us that we'd have an argument over
who's the worst here in this service tonight. Who's the worst? Who's the weakest? Who's the
frailest? Who's the coldest? We'd have
an argument over those things tonight. But I'll tell you what,
I do know this, that where truth is, where Christ is, where God
is, there's life, and life is manifested in us. And that's
what he says. Here's the first manifestation.
It says it like this in verse 9 of 1 John 4. was manifested the love of God
toward us, not toward everybody, toward us. You know, when it
says they changed the truth of God into a lie, one of the truths
of God they changed into a lie that God loves everybody. And
here he says he manifested his love toward us. He's John saying
toward me and towards you that I'm writing to, towards those
who know God, those who are born of God. Those who know that God
is light, those who know that God is love, those who know God. And he says, and this is how
we know he manifest his love toward us, the love of God toward
us, because that God sent his son into the world, only begotten
son into the world, that we might have life through him. So that's
what I'm talking about. He came, God sent him into this
world, his only begotten son. that we might have life through
Him. There's no other way for us to have life except through
our Lord Jesus Christ. God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him, on
Him, hath everlasting life. God commendeth his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And this has manifested God's
love with us and it leads me, I don't know if it does and I'm
sure it does you, when we begin to consider and think about it. Not just when I'm preaching or
you know when you're all alone by yourself and you begin to
think or you're reading the scriptures or you're praying and you just
get overwhelmed with the fact that God loves you. That there
was nothing in you or me or anybody else that would cause God ever
to love us. And He manifested that blood toward us. How do
we know that He loved us? He gave His Son. He sent His
Son. And what did He do send His Son
to? Who did He send His Son to? He didn't send Him to good people.
He didn't send Him to fine people. He didn't send Him to strong
people. He didn't send Him to mighty people. He didn't send
Him to rich people. He didn't send Him to educated
people. He sent Him to sinners. and four sinners and all in this
and that this that god hit this every one of us in our lives
we've absolutely wondered how in the world how in the world
god could possibly love me how could he do it and i tell you
what this is what's amazing about it is because he who he loved
who he loved who he loved if he loved you why would he love
you If He manifested His love and gave His Son for you, why
would He do that? You were sinners, you were vile,
you were wretched, blind, deaf, and dumb. They even had religion,
which that made it worse than ever to have religion and God
to overcome your religion. He manifested His love, but all
because of who He loved, sinners like ourselves, and the evidence
that He gives of His love. Now God, when He says He loves
someone, you're going to experience that love. He ain't going to
tell you that He loves you. without you experiencing that
love. And that's what John is saying. We've experienced the
love of God. How do we know we've experienced
the love of God? Because He gave us life. He gave
us life. And you people say all the time,
well, I love this one, I love that, and I love everybody. That's
covering too much territory when you say you love everybody. When
God Himself doesn't do it. But here's the thing. If God
loves, He actually loves, and you're going to experience that
love, you're going to enjoy that love, and you're going to stand
in wonder at the love of God in Christ. And it says He sent
His only begotten Son into the world that we might live for
Him. He subjected His Son, He subjected His Son to this world. Now you and I, we want out of
this world lots of times. And our Lord said we're not of
this world, but He sent His Son into the world. and subjected
his son to this world, subjected this son to hatred, subjected
his son to enmity, subjected his son to grief, subjected his
son to sorrow, subjected his son to suffering, all the suffering
of the son of God. suffered all that nobody before
he went to the cross the sufferings that our savior went through
in the garden of Gethsemane just the sufferings he went through
there before he ever went to the cross he said my soul is
exceeding sorrowful unto death and then he gave him over to
suffering subjected him to suffer and then subjected him to death
And then He told us that when He was striped, that His stripes
would heal us. And that He would restore us
to life. Now you keep 1 John, look over
here with me in Psalm 69. That He would restore life. He
would restore life that was lost. We didn't have life. And He comes
that we might have life. And not only might have it, but
might have it more abundantly. But look what it says here, starting
in verse one of Psalm 69. This is our Lord Jesus Christ
praying here. Save me, O God, for the waters
are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there
is no standing. I am come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. I'm weary of my crying, my throat
is dry, my eyes fail while I wait for my God. Now listen to it. They that hate me without cause
are more than the hairs of my head. They that would destroy
me, being my enemies, wrongfully are mighty. Now listen to what
he says then. Then, after all these enemies,
all of this hatred, all of this crying, all of this weariness
of waiting on God, he said, then restore that which I took not
away. He didn't take life away. He
didn't cause us to sin. He never caused God to be angry
with the wicked every day. He never caused God's justice
to come down hard on us and God's wrath to come down on us. But
He restored the standing with God that we lost. He restored
that lost fellowship and the peace that we didn't have. He
restored life. that we lost in our father Adam.
Everything that was against us, our Lord Jesus Christ restored
it. He restored it. And here's the
second manifestation of it. Back over here, first of all,
that He sent His Son that we might have life through Him.
Here's the second manifestation in verse 10. Herein is love,
not that we love God. He loved us and we didn't love
Him. We didn't love him. We love him
because he first loved us. He loved us, but we didn't love
him. We didn't love him. You know, the scripture says
that we were dead in trespasses and sins. And the spirit of disobedience
worked in us. The spirit of the world, the
spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. We
ran according to the course of this world. But here comes God,
there we were, dead in these trespasses and sins, mad under
the control of the spirits and powers of the air, a spirit of
disobedience is in us. And here comes our Lord, here
comes God, here comes our Lord Jesus Christ who said, but God,
but God, who is rich in mercy for the great love wherewith
he loved us, even when we were dead in sins and trespasses,
hath quickened us together with Christ. And then it says, having
forgiven us all our sins. You see, beloved, and this is the thing about it.
He freely loved us when there was no love in return. He freely
loved us when there was no love in return. When we had no love
on our part, that He got no love back from us. Our Lord didn't
start loving us when we became believers. We became believers
because God did love us. Our God didn't start loving us
when we repented. We repented because He did love
us. God didn't start loving us when we got the new birth. That He loved us is why we got
the new birth. It's why we have the new birth.
And I tell you what, he said over in Hosea 11, verse 4, he
said, I will love them freely. Freely. You and I can't do it, but he
can. He can do that. How much, let me ask you a question.
This is, this is, this is, you know, this is a rhetorical question.
Nobody's going to answer it. Don't expect you to. But how
much love did each and every one of us manifest toward our
Father today? Toward our Lord Jesus Christ
today? Did that affect His love toward us? That's what I mean,
it overwhelms you. It just overwhelms you. We'll
go and not think of him, and that don't have any effect at
all on how he loves us. When we don't love back, when
we don't manifest love back, when we don't reach out our hearts
and our hearts to him and our souls to him, it has no effect
on his love for us. Hearing his love, not that we
loved him, but that he loved us, loved us. And not only was
we, there's so many things that's freely given us. Freely we're
justified by His grace. Freely He loved us. Freely He
gives us all things through our Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll tell
you something, not only did we not love Him, but we didn't love
Him and couldn't love Him till He gave us life. You know who
we loved until He gave us life? Self. That's what Timothy says. The first thing he said about
fallen man is that they're lovers of self more than lovers of God. Lovers of pleasure. And I tell
you what, if there's one word, one word that describes the old
man and our old nature is described by one word, I think it's the
best word to describe us. S-E-L-F, self. That'd be the
best word to describe our old nature and our old man. Wouldn't
you say that, self? Huh? And oh, self, self causes
us a world of trouble, don't he? Self causes us a world of
trouble. Self-will, self-love, self-trust,
self-exaltation, and self-love, oh. There's a song, and my favorite
singer sings it, and I just despise it. And the title of it, Thank
God for Self-Love. And that's what, thank God for
self-love. That's what we want to get away
from. We want to get away from self-love. We want to get away
from self. Self-love manifests itself in
so many ways. It manifests itself in self-centeredness. The world revolves around you
and your needs and your worries and your thoughts and your feelings.
That's what self-love is. Self-love is self-assertion.
You're going to have the last word. You're going to get the
word in. You're going to stand up for yourself. You're going
to stand up for your rights. That's what self does. And then
self-conceit. Oh my, we're head and shoulders
above other people. Self-conceit is self-indulgence. Oh, I ought to myself. I've got
it coming. I've worked hard, I've got this,
I've got that, and I've done this, that, and that. So I owe
it to myself. That advertisement has absolutely
made the world think that they deserve the best of everything
in this world. Every magazine, every... You
deserve this today. And that's what's self-indulgent,
self-pleasing. Don't care whether it pleases
anybody else. Don't care how it hurts anybody
else, as long as it pleases me. Self-seeking and self-pity. Oh, I don't understand why people
would treat me so bad. I don't understand why people
think of me so hard. Self-pity. Self-sensitiveness. Oh, sensitive, sensitive, sensitive.
Imagining things that's not there. Self-defense. I'm going to defend
myself. I tell you what, you say something
to me or something about me, I'm going to defend myself. Our
Lord never defended himself. Our Lord never pleased himself.
And there's old self-sufficiency. Oh my, I can do it. I can do
it. And then self-consciousness.
The only person you're conscious of, the only person you're happy
to think of is about yourself. Self-righteousness, self-glorious.
And this is us. This is us. I know it and you
know it. There's no sense in us trying
to deny it. This is us because of the fall. And that's why we say, oh wretched
man, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I know that
in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. May God write,
may God enable us to just, if we could forget self and self
would take, be the last one involved. And I honestly believe this is
the way it ought to be. I'm not saying it is this way,
but the last person that has any rights in this building is
myself. I'm the lowest man on the totem pole. Our Lord said,
if you want to be great, be a servant. I'm the lowest man on the totem
pole. And that's the way it ought to be. Every one of y'all ought
to come before me. And everybody else's thoughts,
everybody else's feelings, everybody else's well-being, everybody
else's privileges ought to come before mine. And if we would
get to the place where instead of being so sensitive about ourselves,
and think more of what somebody else is going through, and what
somebody else is enduring, and what somebody else is going through,
and get outside ourselves, then we might actually be interested
in what somebody else is doing. And I say that most of you are
that way. But oh, listen. for sinful man
to possess life and happiness. It was absolutely necessary for
their sins. Their sins has got to be paid
for. And atonement has to be made for them for these sins,
this old self. God's justice has to be honored. God's justice must be satisfied. Peace and righteousness has got
to kiss one another. They got to be reconciled. And
Christ's death did that very thing. Oh, it did that thing. It put away sin, brought us life,
made atonement for us, upheld God's justice, satisfied His
justice, brought peace and righteousness and made them kiss each other.
And they were reconciled and now we have peace with God and
we have the righteousness of Christ. And Christ's death did
not make God love us. He loved us because it was the
death of Christ that proved His love for us. His coming into
the world was the effect of God's love. Now let me give you the
third manifestation. The third manifestation, verse
11 and 12. And he uses the love of God here
to show this again. Love is of God. Everyone that's
born of God knoweth God and loveth. And He says, Beloved, if God
so loved us to be our propitiation, if God so loved us that He gave
His only begotten Son that we might have life through Him,
if God so loved us even when we didn't love Him, if God so
loved us freely, then we ought to love one another. And He uses
the love of God. If God loved us like this, surely,
surely, He says, you can love one another. If God so loved
us so freely, and so sacrificially, and so infinitely, how we also
ought to love one another. I tell you, it shouldn't be so
hard, it shouldn't be so difficult for one who's the object of such
love, such love, to manifest that love toward others. It shouldn't
be difficult for one who has been forgiven so freely, so freely,
ought not be difficult to forgive? And it shouldn't be difficult
for one who has received such mercy to show mercy, should it? He's talking about this life
in us, and then he says in verse 12, God manifested His love,
and we all love one another. And no man has seen God at any
time. Our Lord says, no man has seen
the Father, saith the only begotten of the Son, who is in the bosom
of the Father, and declared Him. And the Scriptures tell us that
no man has seen God. But look what He says here. None
of us has seen God, except by faith. By faith, with the eye
of faith. But then how can we know then
that God loves us, and how that God is in us, and how that the
love of God's manifested toward us? He says, if we love one another. We ain't seen God at any time.
None of us ever have. We've been born of God. We have
the life of God in Christ in us. But none of us seen God. Well, how then we can know that
God, he said, if we love one another, then God dwells in us. God lives in us. It's that simple
that if we love one another, God's in us. You know, if God's
in you, God dwells in you, He dwells in a heart that has love
in it. That's what He's saying here.
If we love one another, how do I know I love somebody? Does
God live in me? Does God dwell in me? Does His
Spirit dwell in me? And then if He dwells in us,
look what He says. If we love one another. If He
dwells in us, look what He says. And His love is perfected in
us. Now why in the world do you think He's talking about His
love perfected in us? Huh? That means, beloved, that
we have confidence. That means we have assurance
that God does love us and we love one another because God's
in us. God would not dwell in a heart
or in a person that cannot love and will not love. He can't do
it. And so how do we know God dwells in us? Because we love
one another. And his love's perfected in us.
What does that mean? That we love one another in spite
of one another. Now would you agree with that?
We love one another in spite of one another. If you love me, you got to love
me in spite of me. You got to. There'd be no ifs,
ands, or buts about that. But would you agree with that
statement? And that's why His love is perfected
in us. We're not looking for perfection in one another. We
know what we are. We're not what we're capable
of. But we love in spite. And, oh beloved, assurance of
God's love to us by our love to one another. And that's three
manifestations of the love of God. Our Father, in the precious,
blessed, glorious name of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, thank
you for allowing us to be here tonight. Lord, we thank you for
your word. It just flows, it's just so free,
and your love is free, and your word is free, and your spirit
is free, and life is free, grace is free, everything we have from
you, you freely gave it to us. And Lord, I know I would be a
fool to think that we're perfect in our love. But Lord, it's in
our heart to love, it's in our heart to forgive, it's in our
heart to understand, and hopefully be kind and gracious and forgiving,
hopefully to bring glory and honor to you, not only by what
we say, but what we do. God bless these dear saints as
they go on their way home to their jobs, their children, their
troubles, their sorrows, their heartaches, their griefs, their
burdens. And Lord, we pray for those among
us who are not here tonight through your poverty and through sickness,
weakness of body. God bless them, strengthen them,
encourage them for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen.