The reading of this text of scripture. Reading from 1st John 4 verses 7 through 21. Let's give our attention to the reading and listening of God's Holy Word. Apostle John writes and he says, 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 that we might live through Him. And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us. 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 His Spirit. If we have seen And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God. and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. Fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother. Please be seated. Let me just stress again verse 4 and 8. It says, verse 4, God is love. Okay? And verse 16 also repeats the same truth. God is love. Let's pray together. Holy Father, You're high and exalted, far above us. You're the God of supreme love, yet you've not been stingy with your love. As we go through your word today, guide us, enlighten us to learn more of this great love that is active within your own being and which you share with your beloved people through your son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. There's no more useful activity for earthly creatures like us to do than to study the person and being of the eternal God. We live in a material world that is decaying and changing, but we need to know about the one who is spiritual. He is a spirit and he's not decaying. He is unchanging. He's bursting with life and vitality, and he wants to share that life and vitality with his people. It's kind of like a soda pop bottle. You know, when you shake it up and you flip off the top, it sprays its contents all over the place. So God is erupting with love for his people, like a volcano bursting forth with hot lava that runs down the mountainside and into the valley. What's the purpose of our sermon today? Well, it's to acquaint us with some of the vital information in the sacred scriptures about our God, about His love, so that we can come to understand something better of Him and of His love. So what are we doing here in our local assembly in the summer and early fall of 2024? We're studying about God, not so much about His particular commands or about certain aspects of His will, but about Him, about God Himself, who He is, what He's like, what are the essential characteristics, at least some of them, of His being, of His nature. You may remember in our studies so far the last several weeks that we learned first of all that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is eternal. He's always existed and He always will. He's also almighty, that is He's omnipotent. There's nothing that He cannot do that He wants to do. And we also learned that He has perfect knowledge of Himself. such knowledge that we could never know except for the fact that he chose to reveal much of the truth about himself to us and he did that primarily through the coming of his son Jesus Christ who came to make known the invisible attributes of God, his power and glory in a new and fresh way such as had never happened before. Had he not done this we would have remained ignorant, and wandered through our lives, cooped up only in what we could learn about the creation, about God through the creation around us, but very little about the nature and attributes of God. So today, let's launch out into another new adventure, studying about God. You may remember that Columbus, Christopher Columbus, launched out in the three ships, the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria in 1492 to seek a trade route to the East Indies, the riches there, the spices, and so forth. He was looking for a worldly empire for the King of Spain, but we're looking for a spiritual empire to enlighten our minds and fill our hearts with divine truth. Based on our text today, which is a rather long text, I want us to consider three things about God's love. First of all, that God's love is fundamental to His being. Secondly, God's love is revealed in Christ. And thirdly, God's love is the prime cause of our love for one another. So first of all, let's think about God's love is fundamental to His being. Verse 8 says, anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. There are two other things about God that are fundamental to His being besides the fact that He is love. The scripture says in John 4.24 that God is spirit. Those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. So God is a spirit. He's not material. You can't see Him. You can't touch Him. He's invisible. It's hard for us material creatures to imagine a being like that. This is what has been revealed to us. Another fundamental truth we see in the Scriptures is that God is light. 1 John 1.5 says, this is the message we've heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. In other words, there's absolutely no sin in God. You cannot find the slightest taint of evil in God. Evil and wickedness are totally contrary to the being of God. even as a fish must have water to live, so God must have absolute holiness and purity of character to be the God of pure spiritual light that He is. So God is spirit and God is light. The third fundamental truth revealed in the scriptures about God is that He is love. Let me ask you a question. Where did God get this love from? This may sound like an arrogant question for mortals like us to ask the Holy and Almighty God, where did you get your love from? But I think it's a very important question and as we seek to answer this question, I believe we'll understand a crucial aspect of the being of God. Let me ask you this. What does it take for a person to know and experience love? Well, it takes the presence of another being who is of equal knowledge and sensitivity and emotions like you or like me. You can't love a rock or a tree because they cannot respond in love to you. You can admire them. You can love a pet like a dog or a cat to some degree, but they cannot really love you back the way a human can. Let me ask you this. Did God have another being who was equal in knowledge and feeling and sensitivity and spirituality as himself? What do you think? The answer is yes. If we look at the divine being, at the creator and sustainer of the universe, what do we see? We see one God. Yes, that's clear. But within the being of the one God, we see three persons. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How can God be one and yet three at the same time? Well, this is what makes God, God. He's greater and more involved and more mysterious than we can totally comprehend. Each of us here today is a self-contained unit. Each of us is one person and one being. This is the totality of our being. But God is very different from us. He is one being, but He eternally exists in three persons. These three persons are equal in power, glory, holiness, all that makes God to be God. Yet we do not have three gods, but we have one God and the mystery of His eternal being. We would never have known about God in this way if it had not been revealed to us in the Scriptures, in the Bible. When we look up at the magnificent clouds rolling before us on the horizon, we have a sense of the artistic beauty of the hand of God. But we never can learn from the clouds, for example, that this one God, his creator, exists in three eternal persons. But it's been revealed to us in the scriptures. How do we know that God is love? You can't look at the clouds and see that. But we can look at the scriptures which reveal God's nature as love. The Father perfectly loved the Son. And the Son perfectly loves the Father. And the Father and the Son perfectly love the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit perfectly loves the Father and the Son. How do we know this? It's because it's revealed in the Scriptures. For example, John 3.35 says, Jesus is speaking, He says, The Father loves the Son. He has given all things into His hands. John 5.20 For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all that He Himself is doing. And then in John chapter 10 verse 17 Jesus says, For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. The Father loved Jesus because He was obedient to go to the cross. So do you see it here? This great love the Father has for His Son. This is an anchor of the nature and being of God. The love within Himself. We also read of the Father's love for His Son in four different versions of the Gospel at Jesus' baptism. For example, in Matthew 3.17 As Jesus came up out of the water, behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son, with whom I'm well pleased. God just didn't say this is my son. He said this is my beloved son. This is the son I love. Well, let me mention a few other things about the love of God today. One of the key texts that reveals to us the being and nature of God is found in the Old Testament in Exodus chapter 34. Remember, Moses wanted to see God's glory. And so it says in Exodus 34, 6, Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood with him there. This is amazing. Yahweh stood with Moses. Did you hear that? That's what it says. Yahweh stood with Moses. God's very presence was right there next to Moses and he proclaimed the name of Yahweh. He says, Yahweh passed before him and proclaimed, here's what Yahweh said, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Not stingy in steadfast love, but abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Those two go together. You see it often in the scriptures, they're joined and linked together. Keeping steadfast love, there it is again. Not fickle love, but steadfast love. Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, that's our problem, right? Iniquity, transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. So God is a God of judgment. Also, we have to keep the balanced view of God in mind. Now, the word that's used here, saying he's, and this is the ESV I was reading from, steadfast love, what we were reading from in our earlier translation today is called loyal love, same idea. It's based, comes from the Hebrew word chesed. The most precious words in the Old Testament, used about 250 times in the Old Testament, God's Chesed. Alright, this is what Professor Daryl Brock says, Daryl Bock says about this word Chesed, that in that word it wraps up in itself all the positive attributes of God, love, covenant faithfulness, mercy, grace, kindness, loyalty. In short, acts of devotion and loving kindness that go beyond the requirements of duty. God freely gives this to His people. His chesed, His loyal love, His covenant-keeping love, His steadfast love and faithfulness. A.W. Pink on his chapter on the attributes of God. He talks about love. He says, this is the first attribute of God's love, the first characteristic of God's love that he says. He says, God's love is uninfluenced. Uninfluenced. Now what does that mean? Well, you read sometimes, more often, than we would like about politicians who are influenced by money. And they'll do things to buy votes. They'll manipulate legislation to get donations to their campaigns. So they're influenced. They're influenced by money. But God is uninfluenced in his love for his people. In other words, this is what Mr. Pink says, there was nothing whatever and the objects of his love that is in his people to call his love into action. Nothing in the creature to attract or prompt it. The only reason God loves anyone is found in his sovereign will. Now he gives, here's a text that reveals that, it's Deuteronomy 7, verse 7 and 8. Yahweh speaks to the nation of Israel and says, it's not because you are more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you because you were the fewest of all peoples. Because what? The Lord loves you and is keeping the oath he swore to your fathers. That's why he's brought you with a mighty hand, redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Well, why did God love the Israelites? Were they a great and glorious and strong and handsome and beautiful people? No. There was nothing in them to attract God, except His will to save them, to rescue them. See, this is God's will. This is God's decision. He can love anyone that He chooses to do so. That's his sovereign prerogative. Did he set his love on you? On me? Did he do it because you or I were better or less sinful than somebody else? Or more beautiful or more handsome than somebody else? No! There was nothing in you, nothing in me that attracted God to us. In fact, we were an offense to God because of our sin, because of our selfishness. But He chose to love us. If I can put it a little bit more bluntly, we were a stench in His nostrils because of our sin. We did not smell like roses to God. But he had a vision of what we could be. 1 John 4 says, And 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. Brothers and sisters, it's very clear in the Scriptures that we did not love God first. It was the other way around. He loved us first. We did not have the capacity to love God because of our inborn sin. We were chained by our sin. Our sin would not let us reach out and love God, but it kept us chained up to ourselves and to our selfishness. The holy God himself had to come and break the chains of spiritual bondage that held us captive. It's the only reason we ever come to him. How could God do this? How can he turn the tables on a sinful people? It's only because of his nature. It's only because of his love. He cannot help but love his people because this is his nature. You cannot chain down the love of God, he will burst out every time. Now this inter-trinitarian personhood of God is crucial to understanding why God is the God of love and where this love comes from. We have to know this. Understand the origin of love It's been there in all eternity It's a new thing to us but not to God Let's do a little comparison here to show you how important this is if we look at the God of Islam Who's called Allah? He is one being one person and one entity. There is no trinity. There's no one except Allah. There's no one for him to love who is equal with him. Therefore, Allah has not really experienced love. He's not given it. He's not received it. He's inexperienced and unacquainted with love. How then could he even love his creatures? How can he teach them about something he's never experienced himself? This is a deep fundamental problem in Islam. That's why we believe that Islam is such a cold religion, devoid of love and often marked by cruelty. as followers, as we know. Well, you see, people become like the God they worship. If you worship a God of love, you become loving yourself. If you worship a God who has no love, you become like your God. So the fact that God is triune, has tremendous practical realities within the inner communal life and fellowship of God and it naturally spills over into his people, his followers, his worshippers. Does God really desire to bring us into his fellowship? Let's listen to what Jesus said in John chapter 17 verse 22 and verse 24. In his high priestly prayer there, he's speaking to the Father, and he says, the glory you've given me, I've given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, that the world may know that you sent me and love them, even as you love me. Father I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you've given me because you love me before the foundation of the world. What Jesus is saying here is almost too amazing to believe. When I read this text, I have to go over and read it again. Jesus, are you really saying this? He wants us, His people, His beloved ones, to be in unity among ourselves and in unity with the Father and with Him. He wants us to be with Him, the ones the Father has given Him, so that we can behold His glory The glory which the Father gave the Son because He loved the Son before the foundation of the world. Can there be any doubt that this great love of the Father for His Son existed before the foundation of the world? No. It's so clear. It's always been there. Just as God is eternal, so His love for the Son and the Spirit is eternal. It's living, active, eternally. As if all this were not enough about God, He wants to bring us, His people, into this loving fellowship. Can you imagine that? God wants to bring us into this kind of fellowship? That's what the scriptures reveal. That's grounds for shouting hallelujah. God's love, He is loving, wants to bring us into His love. What more could sinful, hell-bound people like us ask for? God through Christ has done it all for us. Hallelujah! To this great God of love and mercy be glory in Christ Jesus and in the church forever. Ephesians 3.21 So the point that's being made here is first of all that God's love is fundamental to his being. Now let's consider secondly, that God's love is revealed in Christ. Verse 9 and 10 of 1 John 4 says, And 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. And 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. Look what we have here. God's love in Christ is historically verifiable. It is documented in time and space, historical documents that are irrefutable. We see that God's love for us was revealed when the Son was crucified for our sins on the Roman instrument of capital punishment outside the city of Jerusalem about the year 34 AD. Four reliable witnesses wrote about it and the Holy Spirit preserved the record for us. And the four Gospels, as well as other places, Romans 5 verse 7 says, For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would even dare to die. But God, God shows His love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Galatians 4 verse 4 says, When the fullness of time had come, when it was the perfect time in the history of the world. God sent His Son, His Son from heaven, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. We've been adopted into the family of God. One of his sermons on the Book of Galatians, John Calvin wrote this, He said, although God demonstrates tokens of His love toward all mankind in general, the whole of Adam's lineage, everybody descended from Adam, has been cut off from God until they are reunited through Jesus Christ. Although the love of God is shown to all men by virtue of the fact that we were created in His own image, And although he causes the sun to shine upon all, provides food for all, and watches over all, yet there's nothing compared to that special love which he reserves for his elect, his flock. This is not due to any merit found in them, but rather because it pleased him to make them his own. Amen, Brother John Calvin. How do we know that God loves His people? It's because He sent His Son from heaven to live and die in their place on Calvary's cross. Why would God give up His Son? Why would the Son submit to the humiliation of being born in the womb of a Jewish virgin and then dying a criminal's death on a Roman cross? Why would the eternal God take all the trouble to do this? Why would the God-man Jesus Christ be willing to bear human sin, its guilt, and its punishment under the wrath of God the Father? It was because of love. Love was the driving force behind the cross. It was the son's love for his father and wanting to carry out the father's will. That's why he went to the cross. And it was the son's love, love for his elect people that he wanted, he was willing to go and die and suffer in their place so he could save them from their sins and bring them into everlasting fellowship, communion and love. All glory be to God. This is a blessed gospel, this is good news, the best news ever hit the human race that we read about in the Bible, which we confess as a church, which we declare to our neighbors, relatives and acquaintances. That's why the Apostle Paul couldn't keep quiet, even when he was in prison. In Rome, in Philippians 1.12, he says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. What are we going to do if we get imprisoned for Christ? Are we going to mope and whine and say, oh, woe is me? Well, we may weep, but also by God's grace we are going to declare this blessed gospel to our fellow prisoners and to the guards. We're going to say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. This is the message. So we see here that God's love is fundamental to his being and God's love Revealed in Christ is coming his death Resurrection ascension and thirdly That God's love for us is the prime cause of our love for one another Says in verse 11 first John 4 beloved God so loved us. We also ought to love one another Verse 19 and 21 says, We love God because He first loved us. If anyone says, I love God and hate His brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from Him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. No option there. What does the Lord's Prayer say? the disciples model prayer. It says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. There are two sides to this coin of forgiveness. Yes, God forgives us in Christ, but we in turn must also forgive those who sin against us. Jesus told the story one time about the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18, verse 21. Peter came up and said to Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven, says Jesus, may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And since he could not pay, the master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had in payment be made. So the servant fell on his knees imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. And seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, Pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, Have patience with me and I will pay you. But he refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. But when his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed. And they went out and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay his debt. And so also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. So what are we talking about here? Here it is. Here's the principle. When the greatest thing is done, then the lesser things fall in place. When Jesus died for our sins, which are great, He did the greatest thing. So we need to forgive those who sin against us, who offend us, maybe rub us the wrong way. Jesus loves us greatly. And so we need to love our brothers and sisters in a similar way. We were so unlovely in the eyes of God, He loved us anyway. He loved us because He determined to love us. He set His eyes upon sinful men and women and said, I'm going to save them and cleanse them and even put my Holy Spirit within them and I'm going to make them new men and women. I'm going to do what all these psychologists and psychotherapists and behavioral drugs cannot do, although we may need some of that help sometimes, but he says, I'm going to give them a new heart, a new heart, so they will love me and begin to hate their sin and forsake their former sinful behavior and instead pursue holiness and righteousness and self-denial with gusto and joy. And they will pursue the high calling of God in Christ Jesus and be a glory to Him and the earth. And then says Jesus, I will at last receive them into my eternal kingdom at the last day and say, well done, my good and faithful servants, enter into the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. You remember that last supper celebration in John chapter 13. Jesus went around and he washed the dirty feet of his disciples from the dust on the roads. And then he said, verse 34, John 13, a new commandment, I give you that you love one another just as I have loved you so you are to love one another. By this all people will know that you're my disciples if you love one another. We're supposed to follow Jesus in serving one another. Washing one another's feet. Now we don't do that literally too much this day and time, but there's other ways that we can serve one another. Paul said in Ephesians 5 to walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. Fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Paul said walk in love. He also said in Philippians 2, don't do anything from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility. Count others more significant than yourselves. that each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Here's the great motto, who though he was in a form of God himself, did not account equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. So here it is. Jesus did the greatest thing. He loved us, died and rose for us. Therefore, we need to respond to Him and love, express that kind of love to others. Paul said in Galatians 6.10, So then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are the household of faith. So we have an obligation to the world in general, but especially to the brothers and sisters in the church. Well, On that day when we come to the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ for the throne of God, will be a day of worship. We see this doxology in Revelation 1, 5, and 6. It says, to Him who loves us and freed us from our sins by His blood, to Him who loves us, There it is again, love. That one attribute, Apostle John pulls it out and he says, he doesn't say to him who is eternal, to him who is omnipotent, but he says, to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priest, to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. May Christ be worshipped for his love and his sacrificial sacrifice for us, his people. So what are we seeing today? That God's love is fundamental to his being. That God's love is revealed supremely in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that God's love for us is the prime cause of our love for one another. Paul ends up his letter in 2nd Corinthians 13 and 11 and he says, Finally brothers, rejoice. This is his final word. Rejoice, aim for restoration. Restoring one another, right? Comfort one another. Agree with one another. Live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. This is how Paul describes God. the God of love and peace. This is the Christian God, the God that we worship today. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that in all eternity love was fundamental to your being, to your nature. You love the Son and the Spirit They loved you. Love was fundamental to the inter-Trinitarian relationship. We thank you, Lord, that your love for your people was revealed in Christ in His coming, His death and resurrection. We thank you that Jesus' love and sacrifice is the prime cause of our love for one another as Christian people. So Lord, thank you for your love revealed and shared to us through Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.