All right, as we continue our study of the book of 1 John today, please turn with me to 1 John chapter 4 in God's word. 1 John chapter 4, and let's stand together, brothers and sisters, as we read now the word of the Lord. Let us pray. And now, Lord, quiet our hearts and give us attentive minds to listen and to consider well these holy words of Holy Scripture. To take the teaching of John, not merely as the teaching of John, but the teaching of God's Holy Spirit, which is not for others, but for us. And we pray, Lord, That as we believe in Jesus Christ this Sunday morning, that truly His will for His people would become more and more a reality in our lives. That we would understand His works and His ways, and as His followers, take up our cross to follow Him. We pray, Lord, that And as a part of this, our own thoughts about God would be elevated this morning. That we would be able to see and enjoy, but also to take seriously and take with us great thoughts about the God who has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ, his son. All this we pray in your name, amen. So our sermon text this morning is 1 John chapter four, verses seven through 11. 1 John chapter four, beginning at verse seven. Listen now to the word of God. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live through him. In this is 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 also ought to love one another. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you, Savior God. Please be seated. So the Apostle John, you know, has sometimes been called the Apostle of Love. And so called not primarily because of the great works of love that characterize John's life, or because John was something like the great love poet of Christianity, but it really is as a theologian that John distinguished himself as the Apostle of Love. In both his gospel and his epistles, John exhibits a very definite theological agenda. He writes to teach us about God, that we as readers might better understand God and his works and his ways with men. And there really are just a few, a relative few theological points that John is most determined to make, and he makes sure that those points stand out in big, bold letters in his writings. And as has been recognized for a long time now, one of those points is the importance of love in true religion. As I said, John is not really a poet. He doesn't make this point about love with a wordy flourish. Rather, John impresses upon us the importance of love by bringing it forward as the critical thing in the most critical moments in his teaching about God. For instance, it is John, as we've seen, who taught us the so-called New Commandment. One new commandment that Jesus taught his disciples before he left the world. Obviously, that's important, right? So what is it, John? In a word, love. According to John, this is what Jesus said, as I have loved you, so you now love one another. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples. So one final commandment from Christ, one outstanding mark of true Christians in the world, love. That's how important love is. in true religion. And that's the sort of thing that John does that has earned him this designation as the apostle of love. So if John's theology is a temple, you can think of love as the massive foundational stone that is laid in the gate. There's no missing it, there's no avoiding it. If the question is asked of John, what is Christianity? His clear answer is, Christianity is a religion of love. The other apostles certainly make their contributions to Christian theology. Paul is the great apostle of salvation. Peter is the apostle of suffering. But John is, in fact, preeminently among his peers, the great apostle of love. So this passage in 1 John 4, 7-11 is certainly all about love. The Greek word agape, which means love, occurs 13 times in these five verses. The first verse, verse seven, begins with a double reference. Agape toi agapomen is how it begins. And the final word of the final verse is the same word again, another version of it, agapan. So in Greek, these five verses are literally love from start to finish. You'll notice that John's purpose in this passage, however, is not to teach us what love is. He doesn't define it. Whatever these first century Christians understood by the word agape, or love, John felt it was good enough, he could work with it. So the real question addressed in 1 John 4, 7 through 11, is rather, where is love? Not what is love, but where is it? What is the source of this thing that we call love? Where does it come from? Where have we seen love most gloriously displayed in human history that we might know it best and glory in it? And among what people should we expect to find love in the world, even in those sad times where elsewhere the love of men has grown cold? These are the theological questions that John addresses in this passage. And I'm going to spend three weeks exploring the answers. If that seems excessive, then you may not appreciate just how important love is. And if that's your problem, then John is definitely the apostle for you. So today we'll address the first question. What is the source of love? Love must come from somewhere, right? So where is the fountainhead? Where's the spring? of all love that we might at least say thank you and honor the source of something that is so good. What John says, as many religious people would, that love comes from God. That's what John means when he says in verse seven that love is of God. Love comes from heaven, all of it does. And to that, all of God's people would say amen. But this is where John sets himself apart from the rest of us as the great theologian of love. Because John's not content with that merely. That love is of God is true, but not true enough. There's a deeper truth here, and John wants us to hear it. So John goes one further in verse eight, and he adds this. For God is love. Now that's not a lot of words. That's not poetry. But that is a profound theological statement about God. What J.I. Packer calls one of the most tremendous utterances in the Bible. God is love. It sort of reminds me of that moment when Judas Iscariot and the Roman guard came to Gethsemane looking for Jesus of Nazareth to arrest him. They asked where he was and Jesus invoking the words of God from the burning bush answered these men simply, I am. And you remember that when they heard him, all those men amazed, drew back and fell to the ground because they were over So 1 John 4, 8 is a moment like that in scripture. John's words are few, but they are theologically tremendous, a tremendous utterance. When you hear them, they land like the fist of Thor right here in the chest. God is love. God is love. What does John mean? I think he means three things. First. And foremost, God is love in himself. God is love in himself, apart from other things, independent of the world and its creatures and what we know of God's love for them. Eternally, absolutely. all of his infinite being from everlasting to everlasting, God is in self-love. What a position to be in as a pastor. How else do you express the inexpressible, the ineffable? What metaphors can I offer? Love is the color of God's Royal soul. Love is the Mozart symphony of God's divine life. I don't know, none of these seem to be quite as forceful as John's simple statement that God is love. But John definitely intends that love is not merely something that God has. Something that God doles out like sweets to trick-or-treaters who show up at the door of his house. Love is something that God is, and always has been, and so has enjoyed in himself long before we ever came knocking at his door. That's what John wants us to understand. God is love. And what does love do? It loves, right? So what did God love, you might wonder, before he loved us? before he blessed us with his love? And the answer, the profound theological answer is he loved himself. The God of the Apostle John's theology is the triune God, one God in the three persons of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And in John's gospel he shows us that the relationship among these three divine persons in the eternal Godhead is one of glorious eternal love. As the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, God is love. What is God? God is the Father loving the Son. What is God? God is the Son loving the Father. What is God? God is the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son in love. In this Holy Trinity is love perfected in God himself. So you can see I hope why Packer would call these three words in 1 John 4, 8 a tremendous utterance. A statement, simple as it is, concerning God that looks into the deepest mysteries of the divine majesty and discovers something wonderful. Christians, love is not just something that God does. Love is what God is. That's one thing that John is showing us here. God is love in himself. But secondly, and consequently, God is also love in all of his works. John doesn't say this in his passage, but the Bible says as much elsewhere that all of God's works are done in love. When the Lord declares his name to Moses in Exodus 34 6, we hear that God abounds in love, abounds in it, overflowing with love. When the psalmist sings of the Lord in Psalm 145, we hear that God is good to all. He bestows his tender mercies over all his created works. And when our friend the apostle of love comes to the good news of the gospel in John 3, 16, what's the first thing that we hear? For God so loved the world. So God is love. And he also loves in all of his works. And of course he does. It just makes sense. As God is, so God does. God is love and abounds in love. And as God's love overflows in all that he does in the due course of time, quite naturally and inevitably, God's love reaches to us. Maybe an illustration would be helpful. So consider that great star at the center of our solar system that we call the sun. What is it? The Sun is a massive heavenly body, over 300,000 times more massive than the Earth. Its gravitational force single-handedly holds all the planets in their orbits. The sun is made of blazing gases like hydrogen and helium in the form of plasma, which are constantly undergoing nuclear fusion. At its surface, the sun's temperature burns at a staggering 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. With our telescopes, we can actually see great waves of molten fire rising from the sun's surface and crashing back down again. Human spacecraft have never and will never approach the sun. We dare not. We would be totally incinerated long before we ever reached it. And yet, something of the sun does reach us. And it does so every day. And that's something for which we should be grateful. This glorious anatomical energy is continuously emitted from the sphere of this great blazing star and radiates through space in every direction and some of it comes our way. And the wonder of it all is that what is in itself terrible and inapproachable to us becomes gentle and benevolent as it finally reaches us. We all experience the sun's energy as sunlight, golden light of the morning sun, for instance, that illuminates the beautiful hills of Georgia and awakens the songs of birds. And in the sun's light, there is warmth, which warms us and is a welcome thing as it falls upon our faces. Without the sun, the planet Earth would be a desolate stone, a dead world of ice. Nothing would breathe here, nothing would sing, nothing would think or feel at all. But thankfully, the sun does rise and shine upon the planet Earth with each new day, and we recognize that it is the good that it is to us because of what it is in itself. The sun would still be what it is if we were not. It doesn't need us. But being what we are, we absolutely need the sun. Life depends upon its continuing to be what it is, and it's continually sharing itself with our world. So, God is love. What then is God's work of creation? When this eternal God suddenly explodes with this universe creating energy and purpose, what can this be but love? A joyous act of divine love. And indeed, that's what creation is. The Apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 1.16 that God the Father created all things through the Son and for his Son. that in all creation the Son of God might have the preeminence. The world is for him and for his glory. And when Jesus Christ was at last revealed at the Jordan River 2,000 years ago, the voice of the Heavenly Father was heard in the clouds announcing to the world, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. So God is love. And in an important sense, God's world is also his love. Stars and planets, earth and sea, animals and people, all of it, the created world is a work undertaken by God in his great love for his son. As John Clark and Marcus Johnson have written, Quote, the mutual love of the Father and the Son is the blueprint of creation, and that creation is an overflow of the effulgent love of God, a celebration of the Father's love for the Son, that the Son might be the firstborn among many siblings. And all that God does now in his providence to care for and guide this world of his creation, unto its glorious end is of the same Trinitarian love. As Jonathan Edwards once observed, quote, God created the world for his son that he might prepare a spouse or bride for him to bestow his love upon, so that the mutual joys between his bride and the bridegroom are the end of creation. And people say life has no meaning. That is a gospel denying lie. Of course life has meaning. And like all things in creation, it is all about the creator's love. So God is love in himself and God is love in all of his works. One more point. Thirdly, I would also add that God is love in all of the love that is in the world. God is love in all of the love that is in the world. When the Apostle John declares that God is love, we can anticipate the objections. Then why is there so much evil in the world? Why so much sin and suffering if God is love? And the Bible's answer is, of course, that we ourselves have corrupted God's good world by the evil of our sin and all the suffering that comes with it. Sad, but true. But here's the thing. Our corrupting God's lovely world with our sin doesn't change God. We corrupted the world with our sin. We haven't corrupted God by our sin. It doesn't change God. It doesn't change God's purpose in creating the world. It doesn't change God's determined end in upholding the world and entering into the world to redeem it. God is unchanged, God is love all the same, through and through. The Father's love for the Son, and the Son's love for the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeding in love from the Father and the Son. That's who, what God is. And as Paul reminds us in Acts 14, 17, ever since the fall of man, the entrance of sin, and shuffling into the world, nonetheless, God has not left himself without witness in the world. The rays of his goodwill still reach us every day. And among many other undeserved gifts of God unto this fallen sinful world, this is why there is still some love in it. So don't blame God for the suffering, but do thank God for the love. We all experience it at times when we love other people in our lives, when others love us. It's never perfect, but it's there. The love of true friends, the love of people in love, the love of parents for their children and children for their parents. Do not think, Christians, that there is not something of true love in them. And that I think is why John doesn't really have to define love for us. We know what it is well enough to know that it's beautiful. Beautiful like the light and the warmth of the morning sun. And that's why there's a word for love in every language among every people in the world. Agape, amore, love, it's all the same human experience. And Christians, there would be none of it if God should turn his face utterly from us and our planet. All would grow cold and dark. Every last heart among us would be as dead as a stone if God should cease to love us in his love for his son. One point that John is making in this epistle is that when you look at people and see that there is no love among them, then whatever it is that they are about, you can know that it is not of God. If God were in it, love would be in it. The Gnostics, we've talked about the Gnostics in the sermon series, were all about knowledge and power. But John, for the life of him, could find no love in the Gnostics. He watched and turned their backs upon the Christian poor, indifferent to their needs. So whatever this is, John writes to the Christian churches of the first century, which has arisen in our midst, this thing called Gnosticism, and drawn away some of our own members after itself, it is not of God. You see that, right? You follow the logic of the apostle of love in verse seven where he says, everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. So remember that when movements take hold of churches, when there's excitement about things like new revelations and power among people in these places, ask, but where is the love of this thing? You should ask yourself that question. And if you can't find it, if it's missing, then God is not in it and you don't want any part of it. So in conclusion, Three words, God is love. It's a tremendous utterance, as Packer said. John has taught us something about God this morning that is true and that is incredibly important. And when we discover this about God, that God is love, we can also draw further conclusions, I think, about other things. So that's where I wanna end with a few observations. First about love itself, then about the nature of reality, and finally about the witness of the church. So first a conclusion about love itself. If God is love in himself and in all of his works, and if he is the source of all the love that is, then love is something divine. It's divine. And it's divine everywhere that you find it in the world. Trace the tributary to its source and you'll discover it. That love too is the love that God is and gives. What I'm saying is we probably all underestimate love. Love is eternal and enduring as God is eternal and enduring. That great star that is the bright sun of our solar system, it will someday pass away, but God's love will never pass away. And this thing that we know as love is in God allied with divine omnipotence and divine wisdom. So what can love not do that love would do? It may very well be the most potent thing in the world. That's something that comes through theologically. when we hear and consider John's tremendous utterance, God is love, and love is of God, and therefore love is divine. The ancient Greeks, and later the European peoples of the Enlightenment, were just sure that there was nothing greater in the universe than reason. The reason was the highest human faculty. The reason would lead us to all the answers. That's what these men believed. And that's why the French revolutionaries, for example, when they brought down the church, erected in its place the cult of reason. But ask yourself, might not reason, if given total sway over the course of human events, conclude quite logically that the pitiful lives of widows and orphans and handicapped people is not worth the trouble that it takes to take care of them. And that it would be most reasonable, really, for the rest of us to just let them die. Or even lead them to their deaths for the sake of expediency. As they say, you know, for the most good of the most people. exterminate these few undesirables who can do nothing for us and are a drain upon us. I mean, seriously, might not reason conclude precisely that? It's a matter of historical record that the reign of the French revolutionaries turned quickly into a reign of terror. Why? Because human reason without love is monstrous. It's all head and no heart. So the Greeks were wrong. The Enlightenment was wrong. Reason is not the greatest thing in the universe. It's not the highest human faculty. Love is. And the Bible said it all along. I'm sorry if love's not as easily mastered as mathematics, but that's the truth. John never says God is reason, but we have all heard him say that God is love. Without love, we can calculate, but we cannot be godly. We cannot be our best and highest selves as creatures made in the image of God without love. Without love, we will reason ourselves right into disgrace and ruin. You can count on it. There's nothing greater than God and his love. So revere it. Revere love. That's my point. Rejoice in it. Wherever you find it, this is the source of being, the sum of the law, the one enduring gift of the Holy Spirit, and the end of all things in Christ Jesus. Love it. And I would add, fear as much as you fear anything in this world, what will become of us and all of our reasoning without it. Second, I wanna draw a conclusion about the nature of reality. I'm talking like a philosopher here. The nature of reality, what is the world? We're in it, we're part of it, but what is it, really? Photons, protons, neutrons, electrons, big bang, billions of years, and voila, a stunning, albeit meaningless existence. Is it all a big dream? Is it all a tragic play? What is the world? When the Apostle John leads you through this world, you get a very different answer to that question, which is a question about the nature of reality than you get, say, from National Geographic. As you walk through a meadow with John and you ask a blade of grass, why do you exist? The answer that you hear is, I exist for the sake of love. And all the grass is in agreement, as are the buttercups and the blue sky, everything is. According to John, everything that is is for the sake of love. Everything that is is conceived in God's love to blossom and bear the fruit of God's love. That's what it all is. That is the true nature of reality according to the Apostle John. Now, if you can't see that right now because of sin, then I encourage you to believe it anyway because of Christ. As a Christian, walk by faith. and not by sight. Why should you as a believer not enjoy this Johannine understanding of reality while you live your life in this world? Even if others around you don't get it, even if they deny it, even if they seem determined to oppose it, yet by faith in Jesus Christ, we can and do live in that reality. So Christian, take it for the truth on good authority. and take it with your cup of coffee every morning and savor it. Build your life upon it. There's wisdom in it and a reward that comes of it. Believe it with all your heart and believe it all your days. There is nothing more ultimate than God's love. And my final point is about the witness of the church. People who know the Reformed Church have some idea of what that is, know us here as Calvinists, and expect to hear from us, above all else, one thing about God. And what is that? That God is sovereign. That's what they believe about God in the Reformed Church, that He is sovereign. That's what people think of us. And that's true, we do believe that God is solemn. God is in control, he's working all things according to the counsel of his eternal will and everything, including salvation. It's what the Bible teaches, it's what we believe, we're not ashamed of that. But why are we known for that? For that portion of our Christian faith. I'll tell you why. It's because of our historic controversy with the Armenians who deny it. In the eyes of many, that controversy defines us. And as a Reformed pastor, I think that's unfortunate. So I ask of you, is that all that we believe about God and the Reformed church? That he is sovereign? No. Is it even the most important thing that we believe about God here? Again, I say no. But somehow that's what people think we think. And maybe it's because that's what people hear us say. Have we in the Reformed Church become more zealous to be known for our theological alignment with John Calvin than we are with our theological alignment with the Apostle John? For sure, John pays all due respect to God's sovereignty in his writings. He's as much a Calvinist as Calvin was. And lots of Calvinist proof texts are taken right from the Gospel of John. I can show you if you'd like to see them. But the great theological point that John wanted to make with people about God was not that God is sovereign. John wanted the world to know that God is of, right? He wanted them to know about the love of the Father and of the Son. He wanted them to see how everything that is is about that love, and especially true religion. So certainly there is in God's sovereignty comfort for us and glory for him. I'm not saying it's not important. It is something that we believe. But we also believe that God is love. And you have to admit it, love is beautiful in a way that bare sovereignty is not. There's such hope for this world that is shared when we share with the world that God is love. And being assured of God's love is absolutely prerequisite to anyone's coming to God and trusting him with their life. And that's why John, being an evangelist, I think, thrust it to the front of his theological agenda. So in the Reformed Church, let us not be afraid to sound as much like the Apostle John as we do like John Calvin. Yes, let them hear from us that God is sovereign, but with even greater volume and insistence, let them hear from us that God is love.