1 John chapter 3, we were closing
out at approximately verse 16. And this is where we'll start
again in your outline, extended outline. The overarching statement
that will kind of drive our thoughts tonight is given in the title
of our outline. The antithesis of covetousness
is giving. The antithesis of covetousness
is giving. John is going to illustrate for
us how that giving speaks to the nature of God in the context
of love. And that's where we're moving
to. Remember I said that when you actually get a handle on
the framework of 1 John, that there are three basic themes
that run through 1 John. The first theme is light. Light,
that's chapter one. Chapter 1 flows over into chapter
2 with light merging with love. Love. Chapter 2, 3 and parts
of chapter 4 is where we are now having love and light merged
for the purpose of manifesting what it means to respond to the
gospel and obedience and affirm our sonship as believers in Christ. We will see the conflation of
those two concepts again tonight. Light and love as they flow from
the nature of God. And then the third theme that
runs through the book of John is faith. Faith closes out first
John in chapter five. And we will touch on that too
tonight. John knows where he goes. He's
going as he tells the believer that we are to walk in the light.
that we are to walk in love and that we are to walk by faith. Those three concepts all have
their origin in the nature of God. God is light, God is love,
and faith is a gift of God to us by which we might know that
light and know that love. So we're in the heart of a very,
Very interesting portion of development. And again, what John is dealing
with is the nature of giving in a very important construct. We're getting ready to work this
through. Notice what he says over in verse 14. We know that we have passed from
death unto life because we what? Love the brethren. That is the
theme that's flowing out of chapter three and four is love. And John
is saying there is an assurance of knowledge that takes place
in the life of the believer when he recognizes or they recognize
that love is manifesting itself in the life of the believer towards
their brethren. Now that's going to become for
us a grid of self-examination and also a prism by which we
might once again see the glory of God in Christ. Let me say
that so you can grasp that. Biblical love in terms of the
gospel is a grid by which we can affirm our own relationship
with Christ as well as see the glory of God in Christ in terms
of Christ being the ultimate expression of God's love to us. It is a fundamental principle,
a prima facie fact that love is at the heart of the relationship
between Christ and the believer. We can know that we have passed
from death to life. Isn't that a profound statement?
The radical reality of what it means to be a Christian is to
pass from death to life. And John says you can affirm
that passage from spiritual death to spiritual life by understanding
Biblical love and how it works itself out in the life of the
people of God I want you to just receive that you can you can
identify the marks of spiritual life in the in the life of the
believer in the ethic of the believer in the conduct of the
believer and by virtue of biblical love. Biblical love then becomes
a litmus test by which we can determine the character and manifestation
of the grace of God in our life in terms of the confession that
we are believers. And so it is a critical truth
that we need to work through and we will work through it tonight.
And notice what he goes on to say. I want us to get to verse
16. Whosoever hates his brother as a murderer You know that no
murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Do you guys see verse
15 verse 15? Actually is more of a in It's
an enforced view of verse 14 verse 14 Affirms eternal life
on the basis of a love for the brethren verse 15 affirms eternal
death on the basis of hatred of the brethren Whosoever hates
his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer hath
eternal life abiding in him. So you see one affirms life and
the other one affirms death. Can you see that? One affirms
that when we say that we have passed from death to life, it
will be evident by the presence and power of biblical love operating
in our life. The other one says, if hatred
is dominating the core of your life, if it's the principal motive
of your life, then you know that eternal life is not abiding in
you. Now, again, we have to hurl the
scales of hatred. Terminology and biblical concepts. I don't want to assume that you
understand what love is in a biblical context I don't want you to assume
what spiritual life is or spiritual death You and I must be diligent
about asking these questions. What do that? What does this
mean if we don't particularly know hopefully as we work through
the study tonight? We can explain some of these
things but verse 16 is going to be a pivotal point for us
hereby Perceive we the love of God because he laid down his
life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. So John has been talking about
love. Now he's going to talk about love in its relationship
to God. And he says, we perceive God's
love. We recognize God's love. We interpret God's love. We comprehend
the love of God in this unique way, the manifestation of God
in the person of Christ, in his sacrificial life for our sins. We interpret the love of God
through the revelation of Jesus Christ, not particularly by his
revelation that is in terms of his incarnation, but the life
he lived that ultimately summed up in his death and sacrifice
on Calvary. John says, this is how I know
God loves me. I know that God loves me because
he gave his son to die in my stead. Are you guys? Understanding
that so far what he's doing for this section is narrowly defining
biblical love in the context of the revelation of Jesus Christ
and more particularly in the Sacrificial life that Christ
gave for the church to make sure that our theology doesn't become
sloppy and all over the map in some opaque fashion and the Christian
is obligated to recognize that when we talk about love, we are
not merely talking about some emotional tangent or some ethereal,
gobbly, sensual idea with respect to how we feel about people. That for the Christian, biblical
love is centrally manifest in a lifestyle that's depicted by
Christ who is himself God so revealing himself to his people
that he he he lives a sacrificial life of humility and service
and then a substitutionary death by which that love he embodied
can be experienced by all of us who trust Christ in other
words a gospel informed understanding of love says this is how I know
that God loves me because Christ died for my sins. You don't know that God loves
you just because he gives you every day to live. You don't
know that God loves you just because he allows you to have
good health. You don't know that God loves
you just because he allows you to prosper economically. That
is not the telltale sign of the love of God. You don't know that
God loves you because you experience certain earthly blessings and
favorable dispositions in life. That's not a gospel oriented
love. Ladies and gentlemen, are you
hearing what I'm saying? And so for the Christian, our theology
demands that love have its ultimate termination in the expression
of God with respect to his son, Jesus Christ. This is what makes
us Christian. Christians are people who pour
everything with regards to the revelation of God into the person
of Christ with respect to how God views me and God deals with
me. I don't get to just talk about love and righteousness
and good words and all the other characteristics that might be
communicated to us from God apart from Christ. I really don't get
to do that. For we might even say this, that God may be benevolent
to us on a lot of earthly levels with regards to reigning upon
the just and the unjust and giving us a world filled with blessings
on a material level. But should we still end up perishing
in hell because of our sin? We cannot say that God has bestowed
his love upon us in a saving way through Jesus Christ. Am
I making some sense? You are speaking in vain. to
say that God loves you when that love of God towards you does
not ultimately deliver you from sin, from hell, and from yourself. When what you and I need most
of all is deliverance from sin, from hell, and from ourselves.
So then when you have the power, I wanna just make sure this comes
home so that when we get back to the text, you will be, I hope,
persuaded to see love confined in a person and that person is
Jesus Christ. If you have the power to exercise
love towards someone that you have stated that you loved, and
the exercising of that love is designed to deliver them or relieve
them of their burden or bring them out of harm's way or secure
them for the bliss of whatever favors that love can win for
them, but you don't do it. Can you tell me that you really
love them? Am I making some sense to you?
If I have the power to execute the love I say I have for you
in order to do you good because love when it's executed, that's
what the verb form of love is giving. When love is executed,
it's designed to do the object of that love its highest good. When love is executed, it's designed
to do the object of that love is high school. This is why we
would assume that parents love their children. We will assume
that the parents would love them in a very expressed and overt
way. If I say I love my children,
but I leave them homeless and I leave them in despair and I
leave them in a scandalous state. If I leave them to themselves,
when I can help them, I have the powers to put them in a favorable
state. I have the power to do it, but
I don't. They have both the right and
others looking on to say, I don't think your dad loves you. Are
you hearing what I'm saying? In other words, love is just
not an emotional sentiment that is rooted in a feeling that has
absolutely no capacity to express itself on the object that it
loves. Love is always active. Love is always active. It's not
just an emotional predisposition of the flesh. of the mind it's
always active and in this context what John is really saying is
when you have the love of God in you it's going to manifest
itself a certain way in the same way the love of God manifested
itself in a certain way in Jesus Christ do you guys see the parallels
I'm driving it home so that you can make sure that as you work
through your Profession of faith remember that's what first John
is all about first John is about dealing with people who say they
are Christians But may not be and we are going through the
test now So I want to work through our outline because our outline
will help us get through some things The antithesis of covetous
is giving and the reason why we want to actually now deal
with that proposition is because what John says in verse 17 after
giving us a this survey of the love of God manifested in the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which is a theological truth critical
to our salvation. He says in verse 17, whosoever
has this world's what? And seeth this brother have a
what? And shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth
the love of God in him. See that? Now watch what he does. I want you to see this. On the
basis of verse 16, he gives us a view of God in the person of
Christ, declaring to us that we can perceive, listen now,
not the static, theoretical, philosophical love of God, but
the real spiritual dynamic love of God in the person of Christ.
We can know confidently that God loves us, not because God
says He loves us, but because He showed us He loved us. In
the same way then we are allowed that truth to penetrate our thoughts
with this idea. If God so loved me that way,
ought I not also to love my brethren that way? Is that a fair response
to that proposition? That's really where John is going.
So look with me again at verse 17 so we can work through some
things. We're going to get practical here in a moment, but I want
to make sure that you understand it's critical that your theology
be rooted in a revelation of God in the person of Christ,
because he is the revelation of the invisible God and everything
about who we are to be in Christ is revealed in him. And the motive
for which we do anything has to be rooted in a revelation
in God and Christ so that what flows out of our obedience to
God is rooted in Christ's obedience to God in our behalf. Verse 17,
whosoever has this world's good and sees his brother need and
shuts up his vows of mercy or compassion from him, how dwelleth
the love of God in him? In your outline, it says 1 John
3, verse 14, then it says verse 10, and then it has chapter two,
verse five. The reason why is because John has talked about
this theme of love before. Now notice what he says over
in chapter three, verse 10. Here's what he says. In this,
the children of God are manifested, made known, revealed, and the
children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness
is not of God, neither he that, what? Loveth not his brother. See, so he's making love a litmus
test for the manifestation of the sons of God. Now look in
chapter two, verse five. I just want you to see the other
place where John uses it before we go on. 1st John chapter 2
verse 5 but whosoever keepeth his word in him verily is the
love of God what Now watch this hereby know we that we are in
him So John opens up chapter 2 after giving us chapter 1 talking
about light I'm gonna talk about that again tonight and then he
talks about love by saying when we say we have God in us and
but it doesn't manifest itself by the love of God working through
us in our obedience to God's commandment, we are not telling
the truth. So John is stuck on that principle
and he ought to, he ought to be stuck on that principle. Proposition
given in your outline. John's argument is that the believer
cannot operate from a principle of evil and be called a child
of God. John's argument is that a believer
cannot operate from a principle of evil and be called a child
of God. His proof is Cain. Isn't that
what we saw? He gives us as an illustration,
not as Cain, verse 12, who was of that wicked one and slew his
brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because
his own works were evil and his brothers were righteous. We developed
that fully over the last two weeks, didn't we? We have the
illustration of the only two boys on earth, Abel and Cain. Cain was the firstborn, Abel
was the secondborn. Abel knew God, Cain didn't. Abel worshiped God appropriately,
Cain didn't. Cain despised Abel because Abel's
sacrifice was accepted before God and Cain's wasn't. Cain ultimately
killed his brother Abel. Isn't that true? And what John
does is captures that as a pattern that runs through the scripture
that there are really two kinds of people in the world. the people
that are children of the devil, who are manifested by a heart
of hatred, who, if they could, will always kill the children
of God. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And then the children of God, who would, if they could, change
the attitude and change the disposition of their hateful brother, but
all they can do is render to their hateful brother what God
has given them, and that is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Because
that's all that Abel could give Cain, was Jesus. But when a person
is of the wicked one, Jesus becomes not only a stumbling block, but
an offense by which that person who is of the wicked one now
wants to execute judgment on the messenger, let alone the
message. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Very important to understand that concept. And then in your
outline, here's what I say. I say that not only does John
use as his proof Cain, but he is really alluding to Judas Iscariot. as he gives us this basic sort
of axiom in 1 John 3, verse 11. For this is the message that
you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another,
not as Cain, who was of that wicked one and slew his brother.
And wherefore slew he him because his works were evil and his brothers
were good. Now, if you guys know Judas Iscariot,
Judas Iscariot was among the band of the apostles. until he
was discovered to not really be a believer in Christ. And
Jesus said in John chapter 6, I think the verse quotation is
there in verse 60, 68 through 71. In fact, go there because
I want you to see that. Jesus is telling the disciples
in the presence of Judas Iscariot, even though the disciples will
not understand what Jesus is saying, Jesus is prophesying
beforehand by the appellation or by the terminology that he
is going to now attribute to Judas Iscariot. He's going to
warn the disciples. Here's what he's getting ready
to do. He's getting ready to warn the disciples that this brother
sitting right next to you, that you cannot discern, doesn't see
me. the same way you see me. That's
what Christ is saying to the disciples, that the man that's
eating at the table with us and enjoying fellowship with us and
talking with us and also has the sign on the door of his office,
Apostle Judas, Bishop Judas, even though he has the title
and he possesses the office, apparently he is not like you
because he does not see me the same way you see me. Are you
guys following what I'm saying? And here's what Jesus says. I
would hope that he would never say this about me or about you. Verse 68. Then Simon Peter, I'm
sorry, verse 69. And we believe, this is Simon
Peter, and we believe and are sure that you are the Christ,
the son of the living God. You understand the context of
John chapter six. Jesus preached a hard message
about the sovereignty of God and the exclusivity of Christ
as the only way to the father. And he told them, Now that I've
revealed to you that I am the way, the truth and the life.
I am the bread of life. If a man doesn't eat me, he won't live.
If he doesn't drink my water, he can't live. And you need to
know this also. You may assume that you can come
to me on your own strength, but you can't. No man can come to
me except my father, which sent me draw him. So I want you to
understand this. Now, if you're coming to me,
it's because my father gave you to me. And at that point, the
vast majority of those people walked away. And Jesus turned
to his disciples and said, is this hard saying going to drive
you away too? This was a time of winnowing. You know what winnowing
is? It's when you take the wheat
and you put it in a big old sheet and you toss it up in the air
and you allow the wind to blow through the wheat in order to
separate the wheat from the what? That's right, from the chaff.
The wheat falls back down because it has substance. The chaff flies
away because it has none. But before there was a separation,
the chaff looked just like the wheat. At this point on this
day, Christ preached a winnowing message and it separated everybody
and he challenged his disciples. This is why in this present generation,
when you're going to a church that's not designed to challenge
you, you are in danger. The master challenges everybody.
And this is how you can know whether or not the love of God
is abiding in you. When the hard things of Christ
come to you, can you say, where shall we go? You have the words
of eternal life. Or will you just go away? This
is the challenge that people are facing every day when it
comes to the church and when it comes to the truth of the
gospel. Now watch what Christ says. Jesus answered upon Peter's
proper response of the identification of his messiahship. Jesus answered
and said have not I chosen you twelve and one of you is a what? Now he said that to all of those
disciples there in a very confrontational way Only he did it in veiled
terminology because he didn't expose Judas Iscariot He had
his own reasons for it. But all twelve of them would
have been alarmed and apprehended by that statement Have not I
chosen you 12 and one of you as a devil? At that moment, what
he's doing is disclosing to the disciples his awareness that
the heart of one of the 12 is against him. And he wanted the
disciples to know when it's revealed who it is that's against me,
I want you to know that I knew all the time who it was. Because
it's gonna be to your comfort to know that the shepherd knows
the sheep from the wolves. That's this is why he says it
and we read in verse 71 who it is. He spake of Judas Iscariot
The son of Simon for it was he that should betray him being
one of the twelve Now the reason I share that with you is in order
for you and I to understand what John is saying John was sitting
right there The one who's writing 1 John chapter 3 was sitting
right there when he heard the master give that veiled warning
about the fact that Cain and Abel can be in the same church
at the same time, apparently worshiping the same God, but
one heart is for Christ, the other heart is against Christ,
and eventually it manifests itself, right? Now remember the context
in which we are having our senses exercised is around the subject
of what? Love. It's around the subject
of love. So we got to stay there. Because
what was not in Judas Iscariot's heart was the love of God. What was not in Judas Iscariot's
heart was the love of God. Go to chapter 8 of John, just
one chapter over. Let's read verse 44 through 47.
In John chapter 8, 44 through 47, Jesus is dealing with Judas's
spiritual colleagues. And these would be the Pharisees.
Quite an interesting way to put it, right? Now, Judas is supposed
to be an apostle of Christ, but I'm saying his spiritual colleagues
are the Pharisees. Now, what Jesus knew about the
Pharisees, and he explained that to them explicitly, is that the
Pharisees did not love God either. And he told them over and over,
I know that you don't love God because if you loved God, you
would love me because I proceeded from God. It's impossible to
say you love God, but not love Christ. That's tough, isn't it?
But it's the God honest truth. So we read in chapter 8 verses
44 through 47 these words and I want you to grasp this for
the exercising of your senses Here's what Jesus says to the
rulers. You are of your father the what got it. That's tough. That's tough It's tough on two. It's tough on two levels. The
first is the mirror the mirror indictment That you would be
of your father. The devil is penetrating. It's
penetrating For one to be discovered to be the fruit and product of
the devil is absolutely penetrating. And then secondly, to have God
say it to you. There's only one appropriate
response when that occurs. God have mercy on me. That's the only response. Not
a theological debate not an argument not a not a trying to persuade
Christ Otherwise you're dealing with the man who sees darkness
as light They're both the same to him and he's saying to these
rulers you are in a bad way and on our part We would call that
mercy wouldn't we wouldn't we say to tell somebody? What the
true nature of their heart is at that moment is to be merciful
to them when we say that because whatsoever is manifested is what?
At that moment light has been given to them concerning their
true nature but see Because they do not have the love of God in
them They're not going to be willing to receive that light
the same way with biblical preaching and biblical teaching People
do not like receiving biblical preaching and biblical teaching
if they're not walking in the light So now look with me Let
me go down to verse 47 and then I want to go over to chapter
5 verse 42 before we go back and work through and flesh out
the practical implications of the love of God verse 44 We continue
you are of your father the devil in the lust of your father You
will do you see the phrase lust that's the desire of your father
the will of your father the plan of your father the goal of your
father and He was a murderer from the beginning and he abode
not in the truth because there is no truth in him. And Jesus
here is prophesying that these very rulers who call themselves
of God claim to be Abraham's children, having one father called
God. Jesus said, no, you are of your
father, the devil and the lust of your father. You will do in
a few days from now. You're going to kill me. Right. This is how you'll know that
you don't have eternal life abiding in you. Because if you had eternal
life abiding in you, going back to 1 John 3, you would not kill
your brother. Are you with me so far? It's
very important for us to see the connection and the relationship
between the ministry of Christ and the ministry of John as they
expose the nature of false religion versus true religion. Because
there's no truth in him. And when he speaks a lie, he
speaks it from his own heart, for he is a liar and the father
thereof. And because I tell you the truth,
you do not believe me. Which of you can persuade me
or convince me or prove to me that I am sinning? And if I say
the truth, why do you not believe me? He that is of God hears God's
word. You therefore hear them not. because you are not of God. Go
back to chapter 5 and look at verse 42. And mark what he's
saying now. These Pharisees, they woke up
and had a bad day that day, didn't they? Not only did the true and
the living God in the person of Jesus Christ tell them that
they were spiritually dead, that they were of the father of the
devil, that their father was the devil, but that they could
not hear God's word because they were not of God. He completely
demonstrated to them all of the evidences that affirm a person
not being of God. They don't believe Christ. They
don't hear God's word. And murder is at the core of
their heart. They are liars by nature and
the will of their father, the devil they will do. Now, here's
the reason why I want you to see this. Here's the reason why
all that we just read in John chapter eight is true. John chapter
5 verse 42. Here's what Jesus is now watch
this now But I know you he's talking to the same group the
Pharisees that you have not what the love of God in you See at
the ground of the problem of the leaders of the church was
an absence of the love of God in them Here's what he says as
an explanation. I am come in my father's name
and you do not receive me. If another shall come in his
own name, him you will receive. How can you believe which received
honor one of another and seek not the honor that comes from
God only go back to first John. Now this is the material out
of which John by the spirit of God is formulating his doctrine. His material is his own experience
with Jesus Christ in the days of the gospel, in the days of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is where John is framing
his theological presupposition, his doctrinal truths, his gospel
message, and then the practical applications of the gospel message
are coming out of John watching listening and observing carefully
how Christ functioned amongst the leaders of the church what
he said and what they did to him the disciples comprehended
that that's what we learned in first John chapter 1 verses 1
2 & 3 and we have seen and we have known and we have heard
and we have handled and we have touched the word of life and
we are persuaded that we know him that's what he says we know
God He was with us. He manifested his glory in a
multidimensional way. We are certain that we have the
truth. That's what John says. And so
he goes on to develop what we're getting ready to deal with now.
Verse 16, we've just looked at that in your outline. It says
the cross centered expression of divine love that serves as
our model. Is that a good way to express
verse 16? Hereby perceive we the love of
God because he laid down his life for us. We ought to lay
down our lives for the brother. The cross centered expression
of divine love in the person of Jesus Christ serves as a model
for us Is that a legitimate proposition? I just want to make sure you
guys aren't asleep. I know it's friday. I know you're coming from work
But what john is basically saying is when a person has been impacted? By the atoning work of jesus
christ, which is god's expression of love to you that the natural
consequent of that impact is going to be in like manner loving
the brethren. You guys see that? That's critical
to John's following and subsequent argument. So now look at verse
17 and 18, because this is where we're going in terms of giving.
Here's what he says. Whosoever has this world's goods
and sees his brother have need and shuts up his vows of compassion
from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children,
let us not love in word, Neither in tongue, but indeed, and in
what? Let us not love in word, neither
in tongue, but indeed, and in truth. Verse 18 is kind of an
elliptical. I want you to see how this works.
I'm going to give you basically another axiom that will help
you with this too. John is saying, don't just love
in words only. We do love in words. You do know
that, right? If I tell you the truth, I love
you. If I lie to you, I don't. Is
that correct? If the truth has the capacity
to do for you what the truth says it does, if I tell you the
truth, I'm loving you, right? So you can love people with your
words. Don't fall prey to this false
dichotomy that exists in our culture, that words don't constitute
love unless they are designed to make a person feel good. If
the doctor didn't love you when he examined and found out that
you had four stage four cancer and you didn't have long to live
and he lied to you, he just told you you had a cold just to make
you feel good. You have a faulty love that's
not based on reality and that doctor did not love you. If that
doctor really loved you, that doctor's whole practice would
definitely be rooted in the, what is it called? The Hippocratic
Oath, the Hippocratic Oath? Hippocratic Oath. The Hippocratic
Oath is a ethic that says the goal of doctors is to pursue
the wellbeing of a person, even to the point of restoring them
to life. that the objective of the doctor is not to contemplate
or negotiate whether or not the person lives or dies. The goal
of the doctor is life. His objective is to aid and abet
the well-being and health of his patients. to see to it that
his patient recovers. That's the goal of the doctor.
If the Hippocratic Oath, Hippocratic Oath is something that we are
still observing. And that would indicate that the fundamental
premise upon which the practice of medicine is rooted, watch
this now, is the preservation and the wellbeing of life. That's
another form of love. Is that true? It's another form
of love. So he's obligated by an ethic to love you. He can't
just let you die when he has the power to save you. This is
critical to our thought too. So when John says, brethren,
let us not love in word, neither in tongue, what they often don't
do in the Greek is give you those qualifiers. It should be, let
us not love in tongue, what? Only. But let us love in word
and in tongue, but also in what? Deeds. Let us love in word, let
us love in tongue, but also let us love in deed and in truth.
And I actually like the way John is using the term truth here,
because what John is saying is when we love in the truth, then
that love is going to actually manifest itself or express itself
in deeds. Did you get that? What John is
saying, equating is the deeds that flow out of a knowledge
of the truth that motivates and obligates a person to act in
the welfare of the person who is the object of his love is
going to be a deed in truth. See, if I just tell you what's
right, but I don't execute what's necessary to help you experience
the rightness of that right, then I may not be loving you
in deed and in truth. Right. So the parallelism is
word and tongue, deed and truth. And here's the axiom. You can
just take this deed. I mean, a doctrine. And this
is important. Doctrine preserves. And deeds. Perfect. Doctrine preserves and deeds
perfect. I know that came home with some
of you. Doctrine preserves love, but deeds perfect that love. Doctrine preserves true, but
deeds perfect that true. Did you get that? Get that axiom?
It's very important. Doctrine preserves love. You can't have love predicated
upon lies. If we have a whole system of
theological facts that are rooted in lies, I don't love you. That's
why a false gospel is not love. Someone lying to you every Sunday
is not love, no matter how it makes you feel. It is critical,
however, that our love be codified in a set of propositional truths
by which we can understand the origin of that love, the basis
of that love and the goal of that love. Right. As Christians,
the origin of that love is God. God is love. The basis of that
love is the manifestation of God in Christ, giving himself
for our sins. The goal of that love is that
by that love he might save us from our iniquities And bring
us into an everlasting relationship with him as sons and daughters
of god. Did you guys get that? Love has a goal to rescue to
rescue and so doctrine preserves but deeds what perfect and and
this is what john is really saying and it's in it's in first john
chapter 4 Listen to what he says in verse John chapter 4 verse
12. Let me start back at Verse 10 and go through 12 and affirm
this statement that I'm making doctrine protects our preserves
The love of God Codified in biblical truth, but deeds Perfected it
brings it to maturity. That's what the word means to
bring to maturity Herein is love Not that we love God, but that
he what? Now we can say first, right? Because that's what that
means. See now what we have is a theological truth establishing
the priority of the love of God as it relates to God and as it
relates to his people. God doesn't love me because I
love him. I love him because he loved me first. That's biblical
truth. He's the first cause of everything.
If I respond to God in any way, it's because he has actually
stimulated me to respond. Am I making some sense? So we
are establishing and codifying a truth concerning the love of
God. God's not jumping head over heels for me because I love God. No, God loved me first and that
love in me has manifested my love for God. Does that make
some sense? Please understand that. Here
it is. here in his love, not that we love God, but that he
loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sin.
Do you see again, the crystal center, cross center, Christ
exalting interpretation of love that you don't get to simply
talk about God's love in a gooey fashion outside of Christ and
really be talking about God's love. So now watch this children
of God. What God has called you and I
to, if we are really children of God, is to boast in that kind
of love that God has displayed to the world exclusively in his
son, Jesus Christ. We are to boast in that love,
like a man boasts in the love of his wife, like a woman boasts
in the love of her husband. That love is boasted in by declaring
that love for exactly what it is. Got that? When someone loves
you and you respond by declaring how they loved you, now you are
responding appropriately. But if someone loves you a particular
way and you respond by saying they love you, but they love
you in a different way, then you are not respecting that particular
way in which they loved you. Am I making some sense? Let me
again, hone that in. One of the reasons why people
do not embrace the gospel is because the gospel is exclusive. And that when the gospel is faithfully
proclaimed, what it does is it tells people you cannot know
God outside of Christ. You got that? And now that becomes
intolerable to the creature because the creature actually thinks
he has the audacity to tell God how to love him. Did you get
that? And then In that arrogance, he
has failed to realize what God did in loving him the way he
did. In his arrogance, he's saying,
I don't need you to love me by sacrificing your life for me.
I need you to love me by giving a brother $10, $50, or $5,000,
or saving me out of this problem, or saving me out of that problem,
or delivering me from this and that and the other thing. Now
you're wiser than God. Now you're telling God how to
love you? Isn't that absurd? But this is
what I'm getting at when religions erect a system of worship and
veneration towards the deity and tell the deity that they
swear is a true God. This is how you are to love me.
And God says, no, this is how I love the sinner. And this is
how the sinner will love me back by acknowledging the love wherewith
I have loved them. They will acknowledge that love.
And it will be the basis upon which they respond to me in everything. That's what it means to believe
on God. You guys got that? That's what it means to believe
on God. So let's work this through a little bit more. John says
in verse 17, don't love in word and deed. Verse 18, don't love
in word and deed, but in word and tongue, but in deed and truth.
verse and in your outline I want to work through this just briefly
verses 17 and 18 now gets into the concept and I think we'll
we'll be able to finish up here even though I want to get into
verse 19 beware of what covetousness okay so now what John does he
doesn't explicitly state that covetousness will evidence that
you don't love God but in fact a matter of Covetousness is the
telltale sign that you don't love God. See, covetousness is
the last principle or law in the Decalogue. Thou shalt not
what? Covet. Thou shalt not covet. That is to inordinately lust
after something that is not rightfully yours. Stay with me now. That
is to desire in an unlawful way that which does not belong to
you. That is to be driven by a passion towards something that
is out of bounds. We've been talking about that
for a long time lately, lately, haven't we? In terms of our world
and our culture, developing a whole premise of a philosophy that
is really rooted in God, don't put any boundaries on me. That's
been going on since the fall. This is how you can know people
have not received the love of God, because they keep breaking
through the boundaries that God has set up. And that's rooted
in covetousness. Well, it has to be. Because if
God puts boundaries around you, he's going to always provide
for you what is necessary within the framework of those boundaries
for you to be able to exist. Am I making some sense? When
God puts boundaries on us in the context of marriage, that
was the first primary boundary that God established. What God
was saying is, men, you don't need another woman besides your
wife. What God was saying to women, women, you don't need
another man besides your husband. You don't need to be looking
outside of those parameters for your domestic satisfaction. You are to operate within those
parameters. But we have a world full of adulterers today. You
know why? Because they break through the
boundaries. He set up another boundary. He told them, Adam
and Eve, as you operate as my stewards in this world, I have
given you all the trees of the garden to eat freely, but do
not touch that other tree. The tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. That's a boundary. Don't break through that boundary.
Eve broke through that boundary. Her husband broke through with
her. That's called covetousness. Are you guys hearing me? She
coveted that tree. She coveted that tree. And the
legacy of the human race ever since the fall has been breaking
boundaries and pursuing things that are not lawful for them.
Now, the reason why I exercise your senses on this is because
you and I have latent in our heart that spirit of covetousness
right now. and it is a battle that we have
to fight every day. It is a battle we have to fight
every day, but it is designed there to teach you and I something,
or at least to help discover some things. Do you know that
if a man or woman is in relationship with the true and the living
God, and that relationship is healthy and vital, covetousness
will be at a minimal because of the presence of the vitality
of love which is designed to sustain and furnish and supply
the believer with everything necessary for life and godliness. Let me say it again so that you
can grasp this. When God says, I love you. And he doesn't say it in those
direct terms. Nowhere in the Bible does he
say that to us individually in those direct terms. But when
God says, I love you, and he means it, what he does is furnishes
you with what you need to get the job done. That's because
by definition, the term love equates to what? Giving, giving,
giving. Does anybody argue with that
proposition? The term love equates to giving. I'm going to start
with one verse and then I want you to go to Luke six with me.
For God so loved the world in this way. He loved the world
that he gave. Got it. That is a fundamental
doctrine. He sent you to the gospel. When
God loves, he gives because love by nature does what? I told you
that in a relationship to parents and children, we are giving ourselves
to our children all the time. And that's how they know that
we love them. And that proposition then has
certain prerequisites or antecedents to it that I want us to think
through. When God. Gives you his love. He gives
you his love with the expectation that you will first. Are you
hearing me? Be satisfied. with God himself. And then from the relationship
that you have with this infinite being called God, the well of
grace that's his is freely given to you by which you can now demonstrate
love to others without exhausting that direct supply of love needed
for you. In other words, when God loves
you, he expects that love to manifest itself in your life
and mine by giving. Got that? I'm gonna use the children
as an example again. One of the things that drives
me crazy about my kids is that I have raised them by
the grace of God and some of, in comparatively a very favorable
state. They never have gone hungry in
their life. They have never gone without
a roof over their head in their life. They have never seen one
day of insecurity in their life. They don't know what other children
around the world experience because they have been so thoroughly
taken care of by the exertion of labor on the part of their
mom and dad which is called love, that they have had every need
supplied all the days of their life up to this point right here.
Are you ready? And it ought to necessarily translate
itself in the life of my children by example, to love others by
giving. Is that true? Is that true? But they will act Like you ain't
never gave them nothing in their life. They starving and broke
and discontented and agitated and disjointed and discombobulated
and cantankerous and rebellious. And that's how we act towards
God. Got it. Now, when we act that way towards
God, what we are saying to God is, you don't love me. Are you hearing me? It's just
flat out like that. It's flat out like that. Just
flat out like that. See, when my kids say that to
me, they have failed to connect the dots. They are operating
in a cognitive dissonance. When they act as if I never loved
them, They are disregarding a whole life of effort on my part towards
them. And when I act that way towards
God, I'm on the verge of blaspheming him. So I want to exercise our senses
for a few minutes. I'll open the floor for the mic
if you guys want to talk about anything for a few minutes here.
I want to exercise your senses and we're going to come back
next week and deal with assurance. I want to make sure we take the
proper time to work through assurance. But the idea Loving is to prove
that covetousness does not dominate our life in a life that gives
So noticing your outline verse 17 18 beware of covetousness,
right? because love does what and Love
addresses what? That's exactly right now. I have
in your outline John 10 10. I don't want you to go there
But in John 10 10 the character of the devil is to steal to kill
and to destroy as John 10 10 Which means the devil is the
epitome of the entity in the universe who has failed to experience
the love of God and he goes all around the universe to get angels
and humans to get on his bandwagon of hating God and and therefore
becoming thieves themselves and stealing God's glory. Am I making
some sense? The human race steals God's glory.
It's still God's glory. You know you're stealing God's
glory when you breathe God's air, eat God's food, live on
God's planet, live in God's body, operate with God's mind that
he gave you and act like God didn't give you that. You didn't
stole his glory. Am I making some sense? You have
stolen God's glory. When you use the mind that God
gives you to make war against the very God that upholds your
whole being, your nostril, the breath in your nostril is from
God. We live, move and have our being
in God, don't we? And we act like God doesn't control
us, doesn't have the right to tell us what to do. And we use
his breath to tell him, don't tell me what to do. We're lost. We're lost. We're lost. This is why being under sound
biblical teaching is important, because it purifies our mind,
doesn't it? For a moment, it helps us see things clearly. For a moment. 10 minutes after
y'all leave, you're going to be jacked up again. You're going
to have to come get another hit. And I'm going to talk about that
next week, too. The process. You have to understand this is
a process. And it's gonna be critical because this is where
the subject of assurance comes in. And hereby we know that we
are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. I don't
want you to go there yet. Hereby we know that we are of the truth
and shall assure our hearts before him. But here's what we have
in verse 19 through 24. The gospel produces love. Do
you see that in your outline? Let me back up to verse 17 and
18. I have some statements there. Beware of covetousness, love
gives, Love addresses needs and there are four things that I
want us to note under that proposition Love addresses needs first of
all point eight the people of God always have what? Is that a legitimate proposition?
So I want you I want you to stay with that now the people of God
always have needs so if God furnishes you with resources and Don't
say that I don't know what to do with my resources as if there
are needs The people of god always have needs now see what this
line of teaching is doing Is gradually nudging you out of
your lazy disposition from sitting around contemplating biblical
truth on a didactic scale to applying biblical truth in a
way that glorifies God and serves others. That's where we're going. Are you hearing me? That's where
we're going. And watch this. If we don't go there, we're gonna
suffer the condemnation of verses 19 through 24. Biblical truth
is designed to connect you to God in such a way that it moves
you out into obedience for God. It cannot not do that. It cannot not do that. The people
of God always have needs, including the need for conversion. You
guys see that? Hebrews 13 verses 1 through 3
go there for a second. I want you to see this Hebrews
13 verses 1 through 3 I want you to right now. We're contemplating
the love of God given to us by Christ by which we now are givers
ourselves I'm going to Explicate that a little bit more in in
the statement says before us and we're gonna come back next
week and deal with the outworking of that but in Hebrews chapter
13 Here's what the writer says Here it is in verses 1 & 2 Hebrews
13 1 let brotherly love what that encompasses the whole of
our study tonight doesn't it let brotherly love continue the
writer to the Hebrews is saying you guys have been taught a thoroughly
comprehensive gospel from chapters 1 to chapters 12 Now, let that
gospel work itself out in your loved one towards another. Remember
the axiom, doctrine preserves the truth, but deeds perfect
it. Doctrine preserves love, but
deeds perfect it. Now, if that axiom is true for
us, it was first true for Christ. You got that? See, Christ came
and executed the deed Because he was under the obligation of
the doctrine The doctrine motivated him to the deed Are you hearing
what i'm saying? Now what you and I are really
getting ready to work through watch this now is not only the
incarnation of the word of god in the person of christ Executed
in the full display of love for us but the subsequent incarnation
of the truth of the love of christ manifesting itself through us So we read in chapter 13 verse
two, but forget, but be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby
some have entertained. What? Yeah. Now for most people, they would
think to believe that what, uh, what the writer to the Hebrew
was saying is you better be kind to everybody. Cause one of them
might be the angels of the Lord. You can live on that all you
want to believe me. If they ever manifested themselves
as a true angel from heaven, Your life will change forever.
But the word angel there means messenger. And that word messenger
can apply to the servants of God. Now, I want you to follow
this now. The servants of God who ministered
the gospel in all of the various offices in which the gospel is
ministered. Watch this now. I want you to
hear that. I'm going to shut this down right here. Watch this. You and
I don't ever know when we meet a real believer who is functioning
in a ministerial position or posture, whether that be them
doing benevolent work, feeding the poor, or whether that be
them working in the hospital, or whether that be them working
on some apparently secular mundane job, but they are operating under
the authority of God because they are a believer with the
purpose of benefiting their fellow man. And here you now are brought
providentially into their life with a purpose to bless them
by being hospitable. Are you hearing me? You don't
ever know when you go run across a believing messenger of God
in all of these various contexts in life wherein you can be a
blessing to them, therefore remain hospitable. charitable, kind,
and giving. Isn't that good? That's one truth.
The other truth is this. Every believer is a messenger
in the making prior to their conversion. Got that? Every believer is a messenger
in the making prior to their conversion. Hospitality becomes
a door of evangelism to the lost sinner who is one of God's elect
who upon conversion becomes a messenger of Christ too. You don't know
that until God converts them. But here you are the means by
which God wins his elect to him. Y'all work together in the same
cubicle. They going through a storm of a mess. You've been through
it already. You bought the t-shirt. You got
your degree in that mess. Now, out of a charitable disposition,
you start ministering to them. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And all of a sudden, they revealed to you that they believe the
gospel that you have preached to them. They have become to
you a messenger now who formerly was unaware. They did not appear
to be a child of God, because we don't look like a child of
God. We don't act like a child of God when we are in our unregenerate
state, though we may be one of God's elect, right? But upon
conversion, we expose ourselves to have been part of the family
of God in the making. And so once they come to Christ,
now they're messengers just like you and I are. I'm so thankful. that God granted me grace to
put my best foot forward with that brother or sister so as
to preach the gospel to them so that that conversion resulted
in a manifestation of their angelic status just like mine. Are you
hearing what I'm saying? You know how to I'm going to
work this just for a few more minutes and stop. You know how
there are people that you don't like. I'm gonna work this. Can I work this for a minute?
Because I can tell people not persuaded by this particular
proposition. You know how there are people that you have already
assigned to hell. Tell the truth. There are some
people that in your book, they are reprobate. Ain't no way God
gonna ever save that person. Well, with that kind of thinking,
he probably won't save them through you. Right, right. Cause see, you
have, you have no door of evangelism, no predisposition to love them,
no predisposition to give to them because you don't see them
as a potential prospect for angelic service. Are you hearing what
I'm saying? This is why you got to see things
the way God sees it. You look at that person. There
ain't no way he's an angel in the making. No way. Not the way
he act. You have forgotten. who you were
before somebody preached the gospel and revealed you to be
one of God's angels unawares. Isn't that good? This is why
our ethic has to be rooted in the knowledge of God in Christ. And I just want to say what's
in our outline, and I'm closing here, verses 19 through 24 puts
it this way. Oh, no, there are three others,
two others in verse 17 and 18. The people of God always have
needs, including conversion. Giving is actually the ministry
of the gospel. You accept that proposition?
I can demonstrate it. Fourthly, it assumes a constant
resource. I want you to read those verses.
This here gets back to defining love, as I said. The people of
God always have a need. Here's the basis for which God
gives me his love and gives me a call to give, including conversion. Giving is actually the ministry
of the gospel and it assumes a constant resource that you
can read Philippians 4 verses 14 through 19 But we'll come
back here. I'll make sure we come back here next week Here's
what I said before and here's what Philippians 4 14 through
19 says When you have experienced the grace of God he puts you
in a place Where now you become the recipient of the resources
of his grace by which now you can be the means by which others
can experience the resources of his grace. You got that? Every believer is put between
the bountiless chasm and infinite resources of God's grace and
people that need it. So that I don't have an excuse
not to draw from the source of grace to give to those who are
in need of grace. And I don't have to ever worry
about in my giving, exhausting my resources so that I am so
depleted that I don't have nothing for myself. See that, that too
is a, as a real twisted thought because my resources come from
God from whom all blessings flow and his resources are inexhaustible.
If I believe it, See, that's the last category in the book
of John in first John. I told you that first John has
three categories. We're done here. The first category
is light. We'll talk about that when we
deal with the assurance before God. The second category is what?
And the third category is what? That's right. The person that
comes to God must believe that he is. and is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek it. You have to believe it. Let's
close in prayer. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for your word. Thank you for the saints. Thank
you for hearing. Thank you for the grace of receiving.
May this word sink deep down into our soul. May it manifest
itself in the fruits of love towards you first, your word,
the truth of the gospel, and then towards others for your
honor and your praise as we go our way. Give us traveling mercies.
Prepare us Lord to worship you on Sunday in spirit and in truth. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you.