We turn now to 1 John and chapter 4 and we are going to read verses 7 through 12. 1 John chapter 4 beginning at verse 7 and reading through verse 12. 1 John 4 beginning at verse 7. Again, please give your careful attention to God's words. 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. Amen. And so far again, God's holy, inerrant, and infallible words. John begins this passage in 1 John 4 beginning at verse 7 by urging believers to love one another. Beloved, let us love one another. Such love involves cherishing, valuing one another. doing good to each other as God commands, and seeking the best welfare of each other, putting their best interests above our own. And so John is urging us here to show the kind of love in our relationships with one another that indicates that we are truly God's saved and forgiven children. those who are partakers of that love which He has shown to us in His Son, Jesus Christ. Now earlier in 1 John 3, 16-18, John told us that Christians are to have this self-giving, self-denying love that makes us willing to even lay down our lives for the good of brothers and sisters in Christ. Such love that John is speaking of, then and again here, is willing to empty itself for the good of the family of God. So, as we come to this section, what is here? We find this. In 1 John 4, 7-12, John gives us three reasons to motivate us to love one another. It's a very short and simple summary this evening, but I hope we will give it our usual attention as God helps us this evening. For here is something very profound, even though it can be summarized in few words. In 1 John 4, 7 through 12, John gives us three reasons to motivate us to love one another. Well, as we seek to consider that this evening, we're going to do so by looking at three things. First of all, God is love. Secondly, God loved us. And then thirdly, God's love is perfected in us. So, firstly, God is love. Secondly, God loved us. And then thirdly, God's love is perfected in us. So, first of all then, God is love, verses 7 and 8. 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. So the first part of John's argument for love of one another is based on who God is. on God's eternal nature. John says, let us love one another for love is of God. And then adds in this emphatic way at the end of verse 8, for God is love. So, love is not something that God simply does. It is what God is according to the inspired Word of God Himself. It is His eternal being and nature. God is love. So, we have a variety of other statements in the New Testament that tell us what God is. This is not the only thing that God is. So, for instance, in John's Gospel, chapter 4, verse 24, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that God is spirit. That is, He does not have a body like men. He is unseen in the essence of who and what He is. In 1 John 1 verse 5, the Apostle John tells us that God is light. And we thought about that in our earlier exposition. Light portrays that He is a God of knowledge and wisdom and undiluted in holiness and purity. Hebrews 12 verse 29, the writer there tells us that God is a consuming fire. He's holding us, burns with an intensity that will either purify if it is manifest towards us in Jesus Christ, or in fact will consume us if we are yet rebels in our sins. So, the Scripture describes God as many things. He is spirit. He is light. He is a consuming fire. But here, John says, God is love. Now, as we bring these things together, many people find this difficult. They think that love and holiness and burning purity are simply incompatible. But love and holiness are not contradictory in God. Nor do any of His other perfections, as we call them, or sometimes they call His attributes, conflict with Him being love. All that God does is love because He is love. All that God does is holy and pure because He is light and in Him is no darkness at all. God's love is a holy love. It's not a blind love. It's not an indulgent love as we often think of it in our own experience in a fallen world. Equally, God's holiness and justice are not called arbitrary, but rather they are loving. It's a loving holiness, a loving justice, There is no incompatibility in all that God has revealed Himself to be. So, God is a God of love, as well as being a God of holiness, of purity, of justice, of power, and all of the things that He has revealed Himself to be. Of course, as we consider God as He has revealed Himself in the Holy Scriptures, His glory is the ultimate end of all that He does. If we were to find one way in which we could bring all of this together, then we would say that God fulfills all of His degree through His own glory. That is the ultimate end of all the purposes of God. God delights in Himself. There is love in the heart of God and within the persons of the Holy Trinity. Love flows between each person of the Godhead. And so, the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. The Son and the Spirit have that mutual love expressed one to the other. The Father and the Spirit and so forth. That's the love that's expressed within the Godhead. But God's love is also manifest outside of Himself. He loves His elect. those whom He has chosen from all of eternity to save in His Son, Jesus Christ. He loves them with the same love that He has for His own Son, Jesus Christ. As we read in Jordan chapter 17. God is love. His free, sovereign, gracious love takes that initiative in loving us. And so when we think about what John is saying here, let us love one another, we are to see that God's love is the source of all Christian love. All love is of God. It has no other ultimate source. Now as John is exhorting here the believers to love one another, again we are to understand clearly he is not speaking about something here that is natural to us. This is not mere human love by nature. It's often said when two young people get married they think that their love for each other will conquer everything. They have what we call still the stars in their eyes, rose-tinted spectacles. But they're not married long before they realise that human love does have its limits. It is a glorious and beautiful thing as the gift of God, but it is not the love of God itself. It's prone to failure. At times it can be weak and faint. What John is talking here is a much deeper love than simple, natural affection in this world. We need the love that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13, in that great chapter on what love is expressed in the believer's life. The kind of love that does not live in us naturally. We need to draw from the love of God as it were that eternal spring from which we can draw and draw and draw and it will never run dry. So, John here is arguing that because God is love, it follows that everyone who loves is born of God. and knows God, speaking of love as we have spoken of it. And conversely, after saying that in verse 7, he says anyone who does not love does not know God. For God is love. It's a natural consequence. If this is what God is and we claim to know him in his son Jesus Christ, then it naturally follows that we will love one another. In other words, what John is saying here is If you claim that you belong to God and know him and are part of the family of God, yet have no love for God's people, you are simply deluding yourself. That cannot be the case. All through his letter here, John teaches that likeness is the proof of relationship. There is a consistency, he has said, in what we say with what we do. And so the great proof that we are truly related to the eternal God and belong to him is that we are like him, especially in exercising love. And so the Bible here does not allow us to rest in some merely formal relationship, either with God himself or with other brothers and sisters in Christ. we can go simply through the motions of things. It is possible to attend every church service that has ever held, to attend every prayer meeting that's ever conducted, to read the Bible regularly ourselves, even for those who are called to teach and preach the Scriptures, and yet, tragically, to not know God. What John is saying here is very challenging, isn't it? If our lives do not manifest, even in an imperfect way, for we know it will never be perfect, but if our lives do not manifest in some increasing way, something of the love of God in Jesus Christ, then we simply cannot claim to be Christians. That's what John is saying here. The first great motivation is because God himself is love. And if we are united to our Saviour Jesus Christ and claim to know Him, then we too will love one another. Well then that brings us in the second place to God loved us. Verses 9 through 11. God loved us. 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. And so the second reason that we should love one another here is that God first loved us. We think of that word that is so small here, but is so important to what John is saying, where he uses that little word, soul. If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another, verse 11. John here is probably echoing his own gospel. Remember where he wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit in that famous verse of John 3.16 and used that very same word, God so loved the world. He goes on to tell us here that God's love sent his one and only Son to redeem the world. We might put it in this way, God bankrupted heaven to send the very best in order to redeem lost sinners like we are. He sent His only beloved Son. One of the Puritan commentators puts it this way, He emptied heaven of its pristine glory because He so loved us. God sent His Son as that propitiation for our sins. Most of us are familiar with that word. A very technical word in the Scriptures. It's a theological word. It means to turn aside the wrath of God. Remember, we thought about that this morning from 1 Thessalonians. Jesus, the one who rescues us from the coming wrath. Well, how did He do that? He did it by actually turning it aside from us by enduring it Himself. God so loved us. It wasn't that we first loved Him. And so, God did it out of response to something that we had given to Him. But rather, He sent His Son to be that one who would turn aside the wrath of the holy, consuming fire that God is, in His essence of nature, as He responds as He must against sin. God sent His Son to turn that aside from us by enduring it Himself. So that is why John can say, in this is love. At our best and highest, at our finest and purest, we're still sinners, brothers and sisters. We deserve God's wrathful judgement, but He loved us. And what God has done for us here is the primary incentive for us to love one another. If sin turns us in upon ourselves, and that's what sin does, isn't it? It's self-centered rebellion against the God of heaven. Then the cross of Jesus Christ turns us outward. Turns us first of all to God himself, pleading for mercy and forgiveness. And then as we receive that, it turns us outward from ourselves to others. And here the focus is on brothers and sisters in Christ. And so by these truths, John makes the doctrine of atonement the foundation for our living the Christian life. Again, you cannot simply motivate people by giving them the pep talk to do what is right and to live godly lives in Jesus Christ. The motivation ultimately must come first from what God has done for us in Christ. In this is love, the love of God was made manifest, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, he said. And then he goes on, if God so loved us in that way, then we must love one another. Again, John wants to make it absolutely clear here, doesn't he? And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us. Paul says exactly the same thing, doesn't he, in Romans 5. God loved us not after we had improved ourselves sufficiently, not after we had reformed our lives to make us good enough for God, made ourselves better. But when? While we were yet sinners, Paul says, Christ died for us. So, in many ways, we only begin to appreciate the manifestation of God's love when we begin to understand how bad we really are. So often, we can forget that, brothers and sisters. We forget the blackness. the ugly nature, the depravity of our sin. We can be lulled into a sense of thinking, well, yes, I wasn't perfect, but I wasn't really that bad. Certainly not bad as some. But again, we need to be brought back to the law of God, which exposes our sin, that we might understand again the great grace and mercy of God in Jesus Christ. so that we did not love him, he loved us. What do we deserve, brothers and sisters? We deserve death and hell. Nothing more, but nothing less. And yet God manifested his love to us, to such as us, hell-bent, deserving sinners. Does that not make us marvel again as we think about that? Does that become so familiar to us, brothers and sisters, we go, yeah, I know that. Who can comprehend the wonder of God's love towards us in Christ Jesus when we truly understand who and what we are by nature? And this is love, verse 10, not that we loved Him, but that He loved us. It's true, isn't it? If you remember anything of what you were like before you came to God and He granted you that new heart. We did not love Him, did we? We were not seeking after Him. He was not the object of our devotion. By nature, we hated God. We hid our faces from Him. We didn't want to know Him. We despised Him. We wanted to do our thing. We certainly didn't want Him telling us what to do. It's only by grace, by mercy do we love God through Christ. We love Him because He first loved us. We need to be reminded again and again and again that there's nothing in us, nothing that we have done or can do or might do that prompts God to love us. Let me repeat that again so that it sinks in. There is nothing in us, nothing we have done, nothing we can do or might do that prompts God to love us. He loves us simply because He chose to do so. Love is His sovereign attitude towards us. We might put it this way, He loves us not because we are lovable, even though we in our own simple nature think we are. After all, who could not love me? That's our attitude by nature, isn't it? I think I'm wonderful. How could not anybody love me? But when we see ourselves as we truly are in the sight of God, it's a wonder that anyone, and in particular the God of heaven, should love me. By nature, our sins repel him. His holy righteous anger burns against our sins. They move him to confine us to judgment. Forever and ever in the eternal fire. That is what we deserve. But God's love is so great that he took what was our just deserts and took it upon himself. A condemnation. A punishment that we might be saved. And so, in Jesus Christ, God gave the supreme object of His love so that He could love sacrificially to the uttermost. Who is the one who deserves the love of the Father? The Son in whom He delights. And with the words of the Father again and again, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. If there was anyone who could expect as we might speak of it. The love of the Father to be His by right. It is the Son, isn't it? And yet God gave the supreme object of His love, so that He could love in this sacrificial way, without compromising who He is, in all of His holiness and righteousness. Again, one of the commentators puts it this way, He gave the best He had for the worst he could find. That does bother sisters. We are the worst that God could find. Hell deserving sinners, like us. John says, when you understand that, that God loved you when you were like that. If God so loved us, we also ought love one another. And so this gracious undeserved love motivates us to show love to others. That brings us in the third place to God's love is perfected in us, verse 12. God's love is perfected in us. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us. and his love is perfected in us. So here we have the third reason given, the third motivation for us loving one another. Now John again, back in his Gospel in chapter 1 verse 18 says this, No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. So God in his essence is the unseen God. But he has sent us his Son who was born of a virgin, became flesh of our flesh, born of our born, taking to himself a true human nature. So that in Jesus Christ we see the glory of God revealed. No one has seen God in his essential being. But if we love each other, John says, we know that God lives in us. And what is more, God's love is made perfect in us, perfected in us. That is, it comes to a fullness, comes to a fruition, comes to a ripeness, a maturity, when this is evident, the love of believers, one for another. John here is using a term in Greek that refers to something that's living, that grows and matures and bears fruit. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. It's something living, it's organic. It grows and matures and bears fruit. Now, he does not mean to say that this love is not imperfect. at any point in the process. Again, we ought to remind ourselves we are still yet with imperfections in this world and we always will be. But John is saying that if we love each other, others will see God in us. If we love one another, God abides in us. And that will be evident. And His love is perfected in us. Others will see God's love brought to this fruition, to this maturity in us, because God has chosen in his sovereignty to reveal his love in and through his children. Now again, we need to be careful how we express this. But there is a sense in which, by the sovereign choice of God, his love is unfinished until it radiates from his children in the way that he intended. That that love being shown to them has an impact, has a result, us loving one another. That's why God, that's why John says here, his love is perfected in us. His life is brought to a fullness in us. Or perhaps more accurately, it should say among us. We might illustrate it in this way. Think of a circle. If you break the circle at any point, it's not complete, is it? You may guess that that's probably what the person intends, but if you miss a piece out or you break it, it's not a circle. what is defined as a circle, if it's broken at any point. Of course, a completed circle is useful for many things, but an incomplete one is good for nothing. It's not what it's meant to be. So, in that sense, we can think of God and his people and his children as we witness to the goodness of God to us in Jesus Christ, as that circle that is complete. When God does that work, he has purpose to do. such that when we know his love, even though he is the unseen God by nature and essence, God is seen in the lives of his people. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in, or perhaps better, among us. And so there is a sense that if Christians do not love one another, the love of God manifest is in some sense yet unfinished. Often this is very evident to the world around us. They look at unloving Christians and to some extent that does cast some doubt in their minds upon the great gospel message of the love of God for sinners and the great power of the gospel, as we thought this morning, to transform lives. They see that incomplete nature of what ought to be according to what God has said. But when the Holy Spirit prompts God's people to grow in the grace of loving one another, God's love is perfected, brought to that complete expression as he intends among his people. We ought not to underestimate, as we thought this morning, brothers and sisters, the impact this has, both inside the Church and outside the Church. The work of the Spirit of Cause is absolutely critical to bring this about. It's not something that we can manufacture. It's not ours by nature. But often if we think of the world outside, a world where many are so far removed from the knowledge of God, They don't read the Holy Scriptures. They perhaps have never heard the preaching of God's words. Here is an expression of the love of God, that God is pleased to use, not in the absence of other things, but perhaps somewhere in the process. Often in a preliminary part of the process, perhaps in God's purposes of bringing someone to saving faith. if they have no contact with Christians. But what does it do if the first time someone experiences and sees Christians and there's no love amongst us? What reality is there to this message? If we bring them to the Holy Scriptures and they read this and they see no reality, is it any surprise to us that these people say, well this is Word but there's no reality. They may say this, they may even believe it, but actually it makes no difference. Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth. Paul was not a man to not stress the importance of the preaching of the word. You know that. But he said concerning the Christians in Corinth, you are a letter, an epistle from Christ. So, in this sense, Paul was not a verse, to saying our very lives and the way in which we live them in response to the message of the gospel does have an impact. So much so that he could describe it as a letter, an epistle written from Christ himself to be read by all those who observe how we live and particularly this evening as we think in loving one another. as we come to a close this evening, what is our motivation for loving one another? Brothers and sisters, we will never do it if we start from the wrong place. If we start from, well, do I think my brother or sister deserves for me to love them? Or, have they loved me first and I'm going to love in response? John doesn't mention any of those things, does he? He gives us these three motivations We must love one another. We ought to love one another for these three reasons. Because God himself is love. It is incompatible if we claim to know God and do not love one another. Because God has so loved us, then we ought to love one another. Because in this, God's love is perfected in us. Our love must be an evidence of the great love of God towards us and must be the great motivation, as we have seen, so that we do what he commands. Beloved, let us love one another. Let's pray.