So congregation this afternoon for an applicatory sermon. Just to remind you, it has long been the practice of historically confessionally reformed and even Presbyterian churches to have preparatory before the Lord's Supper and then applicatory following it. We want to continue that practice as much as we can. And so to 1 John 4 this afternoon, 1 John 4, 9 through 11, Our council when we meet the first Tuesday usually the first Tuesday of the month we read Siri Adam that is section by section sometimes verse by verse through Books of the Bible. We've been working through first John for a while now. We've come nearly to the end of it and uh... so the brothers of the council have uh... had some exposure to these things again and it's a great blessing a great help uh... to the church for us to have rich familiarity in the word of god we want to continue that especially so first on four we're just going to take this afternoon verses nine through eleven that the reason for that should become clear first on four verse nine this is how god showed his love among us He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. As far as God's holy and perfect word, I would implore you as always to keep your Bible nearby and we'll pay very careful attention to the word. But let's ask the help of the Holy Spirit as we continue this afternoon. Our Father, we thank you for the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ who said he would send another counselor, a comforter, the Holy Spirit. whose significant labor it is to grant understanding to your word to weak sinners such as we are. We pray, Lord, this afternoon that he would have unfettered access and work in our hearts and minds. So, Lord, we pray for any distraction or encumbrance in our hearts, our eyes, ears, what it is about us, all those to be removed. And rather, Lord, might we have a clear perception of spiritual matters by the Spirit's work into this word, which glories in Jesus Christ come down for sinners. Help us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, there are very many possible facts and details, truths to know in this life. And each one of us, because of our personalities and proclivities and experiences, we become sort of experts in certain things. I could ask some of you about a particular pattern, habit, skill, historical event, something about your life, and you would immediately be able to recount facts and details and truths about those things. And all of that is good, it's normal, it's part of our human experience. But I want us to press ourselves in asking the question, how much do we know about what Jesus Christ has done for us? How familiar are we with the facts and details and truths of the gospel? And then to ponder in our own minds, and you'll have to assess yourself this way, as I have to assess myself this way. Nobody can do it for us. What things do we know best? Is it our own family lineage? Is it a history of some event or a sports team? Do we know its facts? Is it governmental information? Is it details about that skill or that trade? What do we know best? Or is it in comparison to all of those things that what we know best is the gospel? How well versed are we on the core matters of biblical truth? What are you most sure about? What's at the center and the core of who you are? Well, people of God, we find comfort, comfort and assurance in knowing what God in Christ has done to save us from our sins, giving us eternal life, And no other knowledge means more to sinners, no other knowledge means more to sinners than this. So let's grow. Let's grow in the gospel. God sent his son to make us the accepted in him. Now again, reminding us that we're dealing with an applicatory sermon, we want to draw in many of those things that we noticed this morning, the things that we experienced this morning. We're gonna get to that, but I wanna move to this and help us to consider this. What do we know of the Trinitarian nature of our salvation? I wanna pick on something, I'm not sure if it's familiar now to us as it has been familiar to Christians over the years or if we're at all versed in this language, but do you know that there are still today many so-called Christians who want to say that the son had to convince the father to send him to save us? that though we understand something broadly about the love of God, that there is this argument, and it's actually an ancient, I'll use the word heresy, that today still some Christians want to hold on to, that there had to be this work of convincing by the second person of the Trinity, convincing the Father, to allow him to be sent to save sinners. And that is an absolute, abhorrent heresy. But more than that is a complete contradiction, look with me if you will, to our text. Verse nine. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. It gets even more clear in verse 10. This is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son. Now why, and it might feel this way, why does it seem as though I'm coming a little bit out of left field, introducing a heresy for us to consider and answer? Why is that important at all? It is important, beloved, because we need to understand that at the core of our salvation is a Trinitarian love, which is what the text makes so very clear to us. You see, you cannot argue with the simple and clear language here of the text, which the Bible is so clear, makes it certain that you are loved by God the Father. He loves you. Sometimes we think about saying that, sometimes we maybe kind of work it in our brains that maybe this is true, but do you often say it to yourself so bluntly like this? The Father loves me. If we're ever gonna understand why it is that the Son arrived, why the Son came down, as we say in the Creed, we'll get to that in a minute, to save us, we have to be convinced, firstly, that it is so because the Father loves us. He, notice the language, He sent His Son. So dearly beloved, we know from the Bible that the Father sent the Son because He loves His elect, His act of sending his son reveals that love. We can expand on that a little bit and say it this way, that the act of the father is in a sense a creative act. Sending the new Adam, Jesus Christ, to secure a new humanity elect for the grand purpose of having a perfect people in the perfect place of the new heavens and the new earth for all of eternity. Doesn't this show us something of the grand scheme of the big picture of salvation for us? He came down from heaven. Well, then that sort of begs the question, and it does give us a certain responsibility, and that responsibility, and the answer to the question goes something like this. We need to know the Father. That will become even more important in a moment when we come to our third point. We need to grasp, as much as we are able, who God the Father is, especially in terms of his salvific ways. As I am teaching the men in Kenya early Sunday mornings, I said to the council last week, and I did just begin this morning, the book of Jonah. And I impressed upon them the significance of the fact that the book of Jonah is not really about Jonah at all. You've heard this in preaching through Jonah here. Though we use that title commonly, and it's a part of the Hebrew text, and so we know it's the book of Jonah, really what the book of Jonah is, and what we're dealing with this afternoon is, the answer to the question, who is God? I challenge you this afternoon, if you want something enjoyable to do in the afternoon of the Lord's Day when you're at home, pick up the book of Jonah, four short chapters, and notice how many times it speaks of what God does. God did this, God did that, God did the other thing, God did this, he did this, and you'll see the amazing truth, which is so clear in all the Bible, that what we need to know best is who God is. What has he done? The catechism in Lourdes Day 9 says we ought to trust him so much that we, Lourdes Day 9, trust him so much that we do not doubt that he will provide whatever I need for body and soul. Do you trust him? There's a preliminary issue, isn't there, to trusting him, and that is the issue of knowing him. You can't really trust unless you know. So why would God provide everything that we need? Because as our Father, He loves us. People of God, then, people of God, we only know a beneficial application of God's attributes to us sinners by the overarching love of the Father. He is good to us because He loves us. The attribute that we want to think of in that fill-in-the-blank is the love of God. Why should we receive the love of God? We should receive the love of God because He loves us. The goodness of God, I should say, because He loves us. Now let me press you one step more before we go on, and it is to invite you To assign to yourself as a follow-up of these things, this morning and this afternoon, to assign to yourself a follow-up study. I mentioned Jonah, that's a good one, but you can also read in the Heidelberg Catechism, or you can rather now more broadly ponder one of the attributes of God. Assign to yourself this week to think long and hard prayerfully, remember the sermon on meditation a while ago, to think about one of the attributes of God and to just turn it over and over in your mind. Think about his perfection. Think about his holiness. Think about his goodness. Think about his power. Think about his wisdom. You could pick any one of these, something of the character and the nature of God, and let it grip you. Lest I fear what we do on Sunday, and I'm not being negative here, but lest I fear what we do on Sunday can become just good tradition. I came and I heard a sermon. Great. What do we do with it? So secondly then, the sun came down from heaven for our salvation. Or as we just said in the Nicene Creed, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven. The delegates to the Council of Nicaea 325 saw fit to apply such verses as 1 John 4, 9. The council, what we call now Nicaea, the council met in what is today Iznik, I-Z-N-I-K, you can look it up on a map, Iznik, Turkey. Then it was Nicaea of Bithyny. They began their council meeting in May, and they met through August of 325. And as they wrestled with what it is the Bible teaches, they would have turned to a passage like this one and they would have said, look, what does the Bible say? Well, this is how God showed his love among us. He sent. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. And they begin thinking of a formulation of, well, how do we put this biblical language together from a passage like 1 John 4 and many others into kind of memorable language that people could recite together? And they struck an agreement about what kind of language should be used. And we think of it in that phrase that we say. He came down from heaven, right? Came down from heaven to save us. Now, when the Council of Nicaea agreed to a particular formulation in 325, it didn't end there. The little historical introduction to our Nicene Creed that's in the Psalter Hymnal reminds us that another council met in 381, the Council of Constantinople, and they agreed to the language that was already agreed to at 325, so you've got a progress of 60 years. The language seems good. But later, 451, A larger, probably the largest ancient council, they got together, they examined the language, and they said, this is exactly the kind of language that the church needs. The church needs to be able to recite these things and agree to these things and state these things out loud. Now, is that helpful for us? I sort of asked that as a question. Because we stand, usually, every Sunday, Can we recite the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed? Is that good for us? Does it help us? Well, beloved, you already know my conviction, and I'm sure it's a conviction that you share. Yes, it's helpful. Yes, it's good in the sense that it reminds us of what the scripture says. Notice again verse 10, and we're gonna get to this more fully in a moment, but verse 10, this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us. Philippians 2, we just read it. He came down to save us. Well, dearly beloved, in all things you know, be sure that you know well that the Son came down into the world to give us life. Dare I say it again so I'm not repeating myself, but I'm gonna repeat myself on this. There is no other knowledge in this life more important than that knowledge, that He came down so that we, verse nine, would live through him, which implies another thing. Had he not come down, dare we even think about that, we would remain dead to this day, though physically alive, because the first Adam failed. There is not life in the continuing line of the first Adam. That line had to be interrupted by the second Adam, the new Adam, come down from heaven to pick up, and as we'll see in the text, finish and complete successfully what was called for. What did we hear this morning? Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. In remembrance of who? Of the one who came voluntarily down. Do this as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, and as you do, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. His death, how did that happen? What led to his death? His coming down led to his death. Sometimes we think and you might have just been thinking this as I kind of posed the question what led to his death You might have thought well, it's my sins that led to his death. And of course, that's true. But beloved do we understand more significantly That what led to his death was his voluntarily choosing by the father sending and the delight in that agreement to come down and What do we think of when we see the elements that we saw this morning? When we taste the bread and the drink, what is it that we are remembering? Well, people of God, part of the value, part of the value of the means of grace, preaching, and the sacraments, part of the value comes from what you knew before the sermon and sacrament. You yourself are at least partially responsible. What do you know? You see, we're going back now, we're picking up that theme. What facts do you have ready at hand? Can you spew off facts about, I'm just guessing here, I don't know anything about our hobbies, but golf or football or baseball or the stock market or what? What body of knowledge do you hold on to? What's meaningful to you? What can we say about the work of the Lord Jesus Christ? What kinds of facts flow out of us? You see, we are at least partially responsible for the benefit that we receive from a sermon and from the sacraments. We don't come in expecting the pastor, the preacher to do it all, and we're just kind of there, but there's something within us that connects to these things. Now to that, if you won't mind me asking you another thing, to connect with that, I'm gonna encourage you another direction in how you can spend one of your 24 hours each day this week. You know, of course, that we each get that many, that's it, no more, no less. So I'm gonna give you a suggestion, to myself as well, about how we can spend one hour each day this week. It leaves you 23, so it's not a huge ask. But an hour a day, and here's how I would encourage you to break it down, 45 minutes of one hour each day, spend reading something in the Bible. Doesn't matter that much what it is, whatever you're reading, if you're reading for five minutes, stretch it out a little bit. If you're not reading at all, here's a great opportunity. I know it seems like a big ask, but follow me on this a minute. 45 minutes a day reading something in the Bible. Then add an additional five minutes, an hour to 50, an additional five minutes reading something in one of our confessional standards, our doctrinal standards. Heidelberg, catechism, canons, whatever it is. Just five minutes, which leaves, if I'm doing my math right, 10 minutes. for prayer. Now maybe you are already praying more than that, great, wonderful. An hour a day, turn the screen off, mute the phone, close the door, or go outside, the weather's turning beautiful, it's nice, you can do that outside in great comfort. Whatever works for you, an hour each day, so that we might come to recognize when we read, for instance, 1 John 4, 9 through 11, that I know something of Jesus Christ. I know something of him come down out of heaven for me, and I can say with all confidence and boldness that this is the love of the Father. This is why he loves me. He shows me. He sent his Son for me. Well, then as you dig into the text more, the Bible in various places, number three will become also very obvious. Number three, the Son, came to bear God's wrath against our sin. Love, divine love, is without precondition. It is without precondition. There is with God in his sending his son nothing of the sort of this, of I'll love you when you do this, or I'll love you more when you stop doing that. Our text in verse 10 makes this very clear. There's not I'm gonna love you because you've done or because you stopped doing. There's nothing of that in the text. Do you see what it says? He loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice. Now that language in the NIV is good, it's readable. The older language says propitiation, propitiatory. That's a very valuable word. It means a wrath absorber. The father sent his son as a wrath absorber. Now, do you understand, beloved, in that comes this amazing truth that God sent his son to receive the punishment that should fall on us. That expands or dare we say it explodes in our minds the definition of the love of God for us. He sent his son for God haters. That's who we were. He didn't send his son because he looked down in the corridors of time and said, oh, I see this one is going to love me, so I'm going to send my son to accomplish their salvation. No, no, that's called semi-Pelagianism. It is clearly unbiblical, anti-confessional. It is not Christ-glorifying. He sent his son to save us when, what does the scripture say? We were his enemies. God-haters. We did many things. We said many words. We thought many actions. We acted in particular ways, all deserving of punishment. This is why verse 10 is so significant and so weighty. He didn't send his son as a good moral example. That's not what the Bible says. But he sent his son as a wrath absorber, an atoning sacrifice for our sins. As God haters, We acted in hateful ways, which should have been punished. We should have received the punishment. The punishment fell, just not on us. Dearly beloved, verse 10. Jesus as our wrath absorber, Admits of the reality that we did all those things deserving of wrath we earned wrath But instead of receiving the punishment that we deserved out poured wrath God so loved us that he sent his only begotten Son into the world who is able to take our punishment and Knowing that it would kill him. Knowing that it would kill him. In Jesus being our propitiation, our wrath absorber, our guilt is removed because the punishment for the crime has been satisfied. Sadly, in our American practice, we've gotten away from the death penalty, because in understanding the death penalty, people reckon with, they have to wrestle with, there is actually a punishment that requires death, sins, crimes, which require the punishment of death, and when that's removed from a culture, sanitized out of their minds, we have a hard time with the reality of Jesus Christ as our propitiatory sacrifice, our wrath absorber, But I want to think with you a minute about it in terms of the way we prayed this morning. We prayed this morning words like this. Almighty God, with one accord, we give you thanks for all the blessings of your grace. But most of all, we thank you for the unspeakable gift of your son, Jesus Christ. You remember that prayer? You've heard it countless times. Why? Unspeakable gift. Isn't it that we can barely put into human language the blessings of what we have received in Jesus Christ? Isn't it that we can, we're like toddlers. Getting our first words. We're talking about this with our grandson Blair. He's getting words. Our other grandson Carson's getting words. They're starting to connect concepts and words together. But love, that's what we're like when we're trying to speak about what we've received from God. Isn't it we're sort of babbling? Because the language is limited. We don't have enough words. Unspeakable gift of his son. Our Lord Jesus Christ was sent by the Father into the world to take upon himself our flesh and blood to bear the wrath of God on the cross for us. That language in the prayer is so significant. For us. Which us? Which ones? Did he come down to save? Don't be careful. Good Christian people. No, he came down to save terrible sinners. God haters. And beloved, this is the beauty of the Gospel. Isn't the joy of this text so so rich he sent his son as an as an atoning sacrifice? Because that's what we needed. People of God. We enemies didn't choose to be saved. We enemies didn't choose to be saved. Rather, he chose to send his son to save his enemies. God determined to save us by pouring his wrath on his only begotten son. And so what we did this morning, hearing the language, is do this in remembrance of him Fourth, the father sent his son in love, comma, for love. I think I bolded that or underlined. Maybe I did both. Why? Verse 11, dear friends. Since God so loved us, that so is the quality both of the, that was required, but also that which was accomplished. Because the Father so loved us, that love was so painful, so demanding, but accomplished so much, we also ought to love one another in the same ways. So go back to the Lord's Supper. After we have done this, eaten bread, consumed drink, heard the sermon, then what? That's kind of what I was sort of teasing us about a few minutes ago. What kind of life follows from it? What should we do with it? Do we just say, well, I heard a good sermon, or it was an okay sermon, it was hot, I was tired. Or do we do more? And of course, you understand by that sort of rhetorical thinking that you're being expected to say, no, we do more. That's right. What more? A whole life more. I thought of Amazon and its good advertising a couple of years ago when they started putting on their trucks, there's a whole lot more, you've seen it, to Amazon. What does it say next? A truckload more or something like that. Ask Lucas, he probably knows. There's a whole lot more to the response of thankfulness that we are to give to God than what we sometimes think about. Or maybe I'm just being negative, but what does the text say? What does a life of remembering and responding, verse 11, look like? What has God done for us and what should it bring about? Loving your brothers and sisters. Good theology is not truly good if it only remembers. Good theology, godly theology, because it remembers, it also does. Be hearers of the word and also doers. And so there is in the text, you see, a link between verses 11 and verse 9. Verse nine, he sent his son into the world. He made Jesus Christ to be the sacrifice which we needed so that he might, verse 11, make us to be the sacrifices that are needed. This is what Paul says in Romans chapter 12. Offer yourselves a living sacrifice. He sent his son into the world so that you might send a card to somebody who's been in the hospital so that you might say to somebody at church on Sunday when you meet them next week, I was praying for you, how are you doing? Isn't that what the text says? Since God, quality of love, so us, quality of love for one another. And the result is glorious. The picture of God's love is marvelous when it's seen one to the other, shared, reflecting, portraying. Dearly beloved, here it is, dearly beloved, our response of loving one another copies, it copies his action of sacrificially loving us. Or if you like the old computer programming language of BASIC, that was a fun one, verse eleven is a biblical logical flowchart it's an if-then statement or better as our NIV translates it a since-then statement since this here's the result the precipitating cause is the work that God did in sending his son and the resulting life is look around you it's us together now There's a little bit of humanity that we need to confess to, and it goes something like this. We have a hard time loving lovely people. God loved most unlovely people. Remember him. Back to the prayer we offered a few minutes ago in which we said in the prayer this morning, listen to this again. Unite us more fully with our blessed Lord and so also with one another. Isn't that beautiful language? There's the vertical and the resulting horizontal. There is what I have received, and now what I am enabled to do. And that word enabling is again in the prayer, enable us in newness of life to pledge ourselves in service to Christ and all your children. We prayed that this morning. A new life. shaped by, guided by, ruled by the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have new eyes with which to see, new ears by which to hear, new minds to understand information that has come to us, a new heart to be able to respond biblically, sacrificially, new priorities so that we can make choices with our time and money and energy to the glory of God. People of God, we know, we know, people of God, that we are remembering him Doing this in remembrance of him when we don't forget to help another person. Notice the glory of this. It is unworldly. I don't mean outer space like, but I mean we live around people who are worldly. The Christian gospel and the resulting life that flows from it is an unworldly way of thinking and living and doing. So if I might leave you with this, let's be unworldly this week so that we can be new worldly. To God's praise, amen. Oh, Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the richness of your scripture and the application of the Lord's Supper, what we have received in Jesus Christ to us now. Lord, it's sometimes a heavy task. We get tired, we're busy. Help us, enable us in newness of life to love you first and one another as the reflection. Lord, grant to us a Christ-like love for one another. Continue to build that in us. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Let's respond this afternoon, beloved, at 329. Oh, love of God, how strong and true. And then after the benediction, 231. So let's stand and we'll begin singing at 329.