It is a privilege to open up God's word with you tonight. So if you would turn to page 1023 with me, we'll be going back into 1 John. We're looking at chapter four, verses seven to 14. And as you turn there, every passage in the Bible is great, but this is particularly a great passage. So I'm excited to get into it with you tonight. Let me pray for our time real quick and then I'll read it. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that you would give us focus, that you would open the eyes of our hearts so that we might hear it, Lord, and that we would walk away knowing how loved we are by you. And would we walk away desiring to love each other all the more. We thank you for who you are. We pray, amen. All right, so this is 1 John chapter four, verses seven to 14. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have 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. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Well, if you have been with us on these Sunday evenings walking through the book of 1 John, you have seen that John is constantly answering the question, how do you know that you're a Christian? He's constantly providing various tests and answering that question, how do I know I'm a Christian? And he has two answers for us tonight from this passage. And he asks those questions, first off, to give assurance to the Christians, and secondly, to draw non-Christians to repentance. And so tonight, his two answers to that question are, first off, Christians love one another. So that's our first point, we'll look at that. It's verses seven through 12. We'll spend the majority of our time on that tonight. And then the second answer is Christians testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. And that's verses 13 to 14. So those are the two sections that we'll look at from tonight's passage. And we'll start, so moving on to that first one, Christians love one another. I first want to understand the purpose behind that command before jumping into a couple ways that we can apply that. So Christians love one another. Three times in seven verses it's mentioned that we are to love one another. Verse seven, let us love one another. Verse 11, we ought to love one another. And verse 12, if we love one another. Verses seven and eight answer the question why. because love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. So John right here is saying two drastic things. First, it is impossible to be loving if you don't know God. If you are not in relationship with God, it is impossible to be loving. That's one drastic thing that John is saying here. And then the second thing that he is saying is the opposite of that. It is impossible to be without love if you know God, if you are in relationship with God. Those are the two things that he is putting front and center here in this passage. And this is true, verse eight goes on to tell us, because love is from God, meaning God is the source of all love. So if you are loving, it could only come from one place, the God of love. And so if he is the source, if you are loving, that is the only place it can come from. And even more than that, John adds, not only is love from God, love from God, God himself is love. It is a very part of his nature. In the same way that John can earlier say that God is spirit and God is light, here we see him saying that God is love. So that provides even more justification to those two drastic statements that he gave us. Now I want to provide one caveat to each of those statements. The first one, so the connected to the source of love. If you are connected to the source of love, if you know God, you will be loving. The caveat is practically we all have seen in our own lives and in the lives of those around us that that is not always the case, right? Christians are not always loving. We fail in this time and time again. So John right here is not saying you will be perfectly loving all the time. It's not what he's saying. But he is saying if you know God, if you're connected to the source of love, there will be a real measure of love flowing out of you. There will be genuine love manifesting in your life if you know and are connected to the source of all love. So that's the first caveat to that one. The second caveat to the other statement, it is impossible to be loving if you don't know God. This is not saying that non-Christians are incapable of any sort of virtuous action or any sort of virtuous deed in the world. Because by God's common grace and by their general knowledge of God from Romans 1, they are able to do a measure of virtuous deeds in the world. It's still from God, ultimately. Any virtue that they do is still from God, but it is not true love. It is not biblical love because it's not done out of faith in God, it's not done according to the commandments of God, and it's not done to the glory of God. So we can affirm that unbelievers are able to do virtual deeds in the world. We can affirm that, we can thank the Lord for that, and we can encourage them in that. But we wouldn't say that it is true biblical love because they're not connected to the source of that love. They're not connected to the God of love. To give an example, so a lot of my non-Christian friends that are virtuous people, that tend to be really, really good people that do a lot of deeds in the world, one temptation I've seen them fall into is because they do virtuous deeds, they start to think that they are then a good person, and then if they think that they're a good person, they don't think that they need a savior. So they no longer need God if they think that they're a good person and they get that being a good person from their virtuous deeds. And so one loving way that I've tried to challenge them is by throwing a scenario at them. So if, I give them this, if they were in a desert, and they came across someone who was dying of thirst, and they were super kind to that person and stayed with that person in their dying moments. That would be a very virtuous thing to do, right? We can affirm that that would be an amazing thing to do with that person. But if in that same desert, there was an oasis of water where that person could have been saved if you drew them to the source of life, but you didn't, It doesn't really look as virtuous anymore. You don't look like a good person anymore if the source of life is there and you don't point people to the source of life. If the God of the Bible is real and you are not steering people to the source of life, to the source of all goodness and all love, yes, you can still have a measure of virtuous deeds, but at the end of the day, what does it really matter? What does it really matter if you're kind to the person in the desert, but you don't draw them to water? Now, I don't use that scenario to beat up my non-Christian friends. I use it to try to draw them to Christ, that we're not good people, naturally, that we need a savior. And so yes, non-Christians can still do a measure of good, but they need to be connected to the source of all love in order to be saved. In order to do genuine good, genuine love, they've got to know this God. And so that's one way that you can think about kind of what John is saying here. So we've seen that love is from God, and God himself is love. Now, God is love is a beautiful statement, right? True and beautiful statement, but sometimes can sound a bit like an abstraction. So verses nine through 11 are almost answering the question, God is love? Prove it. Because if verse 12 says no one has ever seen God, how am I supposed to know that God is love? Prove it that God is love. Verses nine and 10 say, okay, I can do that. In this, the love of God was made manifest, made clear, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. So we are to love one another, not only because God is love, This is fascinating. We are to love one another also because God has loved. Look at the past tense switch in this verse here. God has loved. So John here is drawing us to a particular moment in history where the love of God was put on display to the whole world. In more than a particular moment, he's drawing us to a particular person where the love of God was put on display for the whole world. How do you know that God is love? His son. That's how you know that God is love. His son. Because he sent his son, his only son, into the world, to be the propitiation for our sins. So because of our sins, the wrath of God was against us. But Jesus, by his propitiation, turned away the wrath of God, appeased the wrath of God for everyone that believes in him. And as we saw, if you were with us when we went over 1 John 2 when it talks about propitiation for the first time there, it's interesting how this verse doesn't say Jesus propitiated our sins. Because that would imply Jesus offered up something for our sins. But it says, rather, that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. meaning he didn't offer up some thing, he offered up his very self. He gave everything for our sins. A perfect God sent his perfect son to an imperfect, rebellious, wicked people so that they might be forgiven and so that they might have life. That is love. And that is the love of God made manifest for all of the world to see. In Jesus Christ, God gave what was most dear to him so that we might have life. A word I skipped over twice in this passage, but I think conveys everything, is the word beloved. So verses seven and verses 11, beloved. It's really easy to skip over that word, just kind of as a greeting. Loved one. By who? By John? I mean, yes. Yes, by John. But if John is loving them, again, where is that coming from? Who's the source of all love? God is. So this passage is saying, beloved one of God. We could stop the sermon and just focus on that one word for the rest of night, that God in Jesus Christ can look at you and look at me and call you beloved. It's the same word that God uses to refer to his own son at his baptism and at his transfiguration. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. We live in a world today where there are so many people going through an identity crisis. And a lot of that is driven by people craving to know that they are loved, craving to be accepted. And unfortunately, many people look for that love and that acceptance in all the wrong places. But here God is saying that in Jesus Christ, we are loved beyond measure. Our fundamental need is solved. We are loved by God. That is an amazing truth that we can spend the rest of our lives dwelling on. So I encourage you, if you remember one thing from this passage, remember that word, beloved. and go home and sit with that, that in Jesus you are a loved one of the God of the universe, of the source of all love, beloved. I love reading biographies and something I've noticed as I've read more and more Christian biographies is a lot of missionaries and pastors that a name, a couple I've seen in David Branyard, Charles Spurgeon, and D.L. Moody all noticed at one point in their ministry that preaching the love of God in Jesus Christ changes people unlike anything else they taught. The love of God in Jesus Christ transformed hearts in their ministries unlike anything else. Now it's not to say we never talk about God's wrath, Because in fact, the reality of God's wrath makes His love all the more, right? That Jesus would take on the wrath of God for us, so we don't do away with God's wrath, but the love of God should be at the front and center of all of our ministries. So for anyone here, if you are involved in any sort of ministry, have the love of God in Jesus Christ be the center and the focus of everything that you do and teach and live, because this has power. It has amazing, amazing power. So to sum up kind of this section, God is love, Love is from God and God has loved us beyond measure in his Son. And in light of that, let us love one another. So I wanna close with two applications in this section about the love of God. So our love is simply meant to reflect his love for us. So two things I wanna call out about his love from this passage. God's love pursues and God's love is sacrificial. It pursues and it is sacrificial. So looking at the first one, verses nine and 10, tell us that in love, God sent. His love pursues, it is proactive, it takes initiative. He didn't wait around. God saw his people in need and he sent his son. He did something about it. And our love is meant to be the same. We are to pursue people. We are to take initiative and be proactive. For my men here, it has been commonly observed throughout history and all the way back into the garden with Adam that men have a fundamental sin tendency toward passivity. Well, God is the opposite of that. Pursuing people in love, taking initiative, being proactive is the complete opposite of passivity. And so we are meant to be a people that pursue one another in love, that don't sit and wait around. In college, I fell into this mindset where I thought that being a good Christian meant that I was just to be kind and be approachable. So that's all I thought that I had to do. Be kind and approachable, and if I do that, people might come to me with their problems, and I can try to teach them the gospel, I can try to give them encouragement, I'll try to be a nice guy. But that's really all I have to do. Be kind, be approachable. Now love is kind, and being approachable is a great thing, but that's not it. I remember reading the Great Commission at one point in college, and being struck by the first word. Go, therefore go. Don't wait around and be approachable and wait for people to come to you, go. And so love pursues. 10th Church, may we be a people that pursue one another so well in the name of love because our God pursued us well and continues to pursue us well. May we get after each other in love. So I just wanna ask you, are you pursuing anyone right now? Are there people right now that you are seeking to build up in the Lord? And if not, there should be. So let's be a people that are pursuing one another in love. Second point, God's love is sacrificial. and our love is to be sacrificial in return. So our love is not to be and to bear the propitiation for others' sins, right? Jesus took people's ultimate burden, but we are called to take one another's lesser burdens. We are called to sacrifice for one another because of the sacrifice that was made for us. Some of you have heard me go on this soapbox before, so I apologize for any repetition, but it drives me up a wall when I hear people using spiritual gifts as an excuse for not loving people. Oh, that's not my gift. I can't do that, I'm sorry. What? There's no world in which we can use our spiritual gifts as an excuse to not love people. If love is to be sacrificial, it doesn't matter if you're getting to use your spiritual gifts or not. If you're getting to serve the living God and build up his church, yes and amen. That's an amazing thing that we get to do. Our love is called to be sacrificial. So instead of the first question being, what are my gifts and how can I use them? which can be used in very selfish ways, I would encourage you to first ask, what's needed? What's the need and how can I help? In the majority of time, I guarantee you, God will use your gifts as you seek to help and fill needs. But even if he doesn't, glory to God that you're getting to serve him and love your brother or sister. And frankly, even if you're not using your gifts, having you there is better than nothing. It truly is better than nothing. One more point on gifts. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we are stuck with the current gifts that we have, and nowhere does it say that we can't grow in our gifts. So a lot of the times that you figure out that you have gifts is because you've stepped into a need. and you see God work mightily through you, and you learn that way, oh, I do have a gift I never knew that I had. And so let's be a people that are driven more by that question, what's needed and how can I help, as opposed to what are my gifts, and how can I use my gifts in the church? So our love is to be sacrificial. And if you are at all confused about where to start in the endeavor to love one another, something that has been really, really helpful to me is by learning from the people around you. I love moments when I think like, oh, I'm doing something pretty good, I'm pretty loving, and then I see one of you do something, and I'm like, ah, that's love. I thought that I was loving and then I saw you do something and you showed me what true love is. And so let's learn from one another. We got a guy in our congregation, does not matter if he has a two month old at home, if you are moving on a Saturday morning, he is there and he will help you move. It's unbelievable and so convicting. and we got a woman in our congregation, does not matter if she is at all associated with the event going on, I can guarantee you she is one of the last two people in the kitchen cleaning up afterwards, every single time. Both of them have been incredible examples to me of what it looks like to be sacrificially loving and to serve one another. And so let's learn from one another, let's convict one another and call each other to more and more and teach each other how to love one another well. So moving on to the second point, and I'll just spend a minute on this one or a couple minutes. I want to hit on verses 13 and 14, kind of that second test, and I'm just covering it in a passing manner, not because it's not important, it's really important, but we've covered it in previous weeks and it's only a couple verses here. But the second test is that Christians testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. So as we saw in verse three of chapter four last week with Tim, You cannot be a Christian if you do not confess that Jesus is from God and has been sent by God to be the Savior of the world. Christianity is an exclusive religion. Jesus is the only way. He is the truth and the life. We must believe that in order to be Christians. So if you are here tonight and you are somewhat confused about what Christianity is, Here it is. God so loved the world that he sent his only son so that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life. And that gospel offer is out to you. You can be called beloved by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus as your savior. This is a message that goes out to all. And I wanna close this section in this passage tonight by mentioning the undercover hero of this passage. So we learn a lot in this passage about the love of the Father. We learn a lot about the sacrifice of the Son. But notice who's mentioned in verse 14, the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is all over this passage, and yet we only see him mentioned one time. So in verse seven, how do we become born of God, meaning born again? By the Holy Spirit, John 3, Ezekiel 36. Also verse seven, how do we know God? By the Holy Spirit, giving us faith to receive him as Lord. Verses 12 and 13, how does God abide in us? By the Spirit. Verse 14, how do we testify that the Father sent the Son? By the Spirit. The Spirit is all over this passage, and yet in a classic fashion, is self-effacing. The Spirit lives to give glory to God the Father and Jesus the Son. He lives to give glory to them. And so as we love one another, as we pursue one another and sacrifice for one another, may our love be like the Holy Spirit in that we're seeking to bring the glory to God. We're not trying to take it ourselves. We're simply trying to point people to the source of our all love. I don't know if it is because I am a middle child or because I'm just prideful, but I love the spotlight. I love getting attention. So anytime, anytime I do any sort of good deed, loving deed, my first thought is, man, I hope somebody saw that, right? Man, I hope somebody saw that. And my second thought, if they didn't, is how am I going to bring this up into conversation so that I can tell someone what I did, right? My flesh just so badly wants the glory. I'll tell you what, some of the coolest God moments in my life were when the Holy Spirit showed me a need, the Holy Spirit gave me the conviction to go love that person, and then afterwards, the Holy Spirit gave me the conviction, don't tell anyone. Those are some of the coolest God moments I've ever had in my life. because I walk away with that truth of it's not about me. I am here to glorify my God in heaven who has done everything for me, and it's not about me. I simply want to point people to my Lord and my Savior. And so may we be a people that love one another so well, that pursue one another so well, that sacrifice for one another so well, and do it humbly, do it for the glory of God, because that is what God has done for us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your love. God, that we can be called beloved is something that will never get old. Lord, it is something that continually brings us amazing joy and gratitude that you would love a people like us, your enemies naturally. Father, would all of us tonight just be struck by the love that you have for us and the love that you showed us in your Son? And might you show us tonight by your Spirit people to love? Would you help us this week to pursue one another, to sacrifice one another for one another, and to seek your glory in all that we do? Father, we thank you and we praise you for who you are. And it is in your name that we pray, amen.