Well, thank you for being here. We are in 1 John, chapter 4, and we've got a subject of verses. It's chapter 4, verses 7 through 21. The topic is love, and it's not a new topic. We're going to see that it's been talked about. This is the third time of three times. There's three times John's going to go off on a discussion of love, and this is the third of three times. And again, this is not a book, or yes, the subject is not a book of rebuke or correction or saying, you guys better start loving. It's more of a teaching, more of an explaining, saying, there's a group that's gone astray. They've gone off and started their own group. They've separated from John's group. And he's saying, this is what we're looking for, and you are here. This is what you'll see. Kind of helping them identify. who they are, what they're going to produce, and encourage them to do more so, which would probably indicate clearly that that group that's gone astray isn't like that. They've gone a different path. And so this is more of an encouragement than it is a rebuke. Again, when we talk about 1 Corinthians or Galatians or something, there is clear rebuke there. He's clear that Paul is clearly rebuking the church for an heir. Here he's rebuking a group that's gone astray, but he's not writing to them. He says, they've gone astray. He's encouraging them. Now, in chapter 4, verse 7, we return to love. But as I say on the first point there, chapter 4, verses 1 through 6, we'll read that quickly again. He starts talking about the spirits do not believe every spirit. But that seems to come out of the end of chapter 3, where he ends up saying, at the end of chapter 3, the very last line, we know it by his spirit. Verse 24 says, those who obey his commands live in him and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us. We know it by the spirit he gave us. So he's giving some facts. He's talking about there's supposed to be love. There's supposed to be obedience to the commands. And the commands there, as we remember, going back to chapter 3, he uses the word command singular or plural, uses it in two commands, and then calls the two commands one command. So he goes from commands. excuse me, goes from command, then he goes to two commands to one command. And it's all one package. So it's talking about, basically, that is to believe. And so love is one way of manifesting the nature of God. The second one is you're going to obey the command, which is going to be believe in Jesus Christ. And he says, we know it by the spirit that lives in us. That's one way of knowing it. So now he gets off on the spirit there at the end of chapter 3, which sends him the beginning of chapter 4, verse 1. Now, just because we say spirit doesn't mean spiritual, everything that's supernatural, because there are spirits that are bad spirits. And so chapter 4, verses 1 through 6, dear friends, do not believe every spirit, because he just referred to you can know it by the spirit that lives in you. But understand, don't believe every spirit. There are evil spirits. And talk about spirits there. He's talking about the speakers who are empowered by the spirit, or whatever spirit they're speaking for. But test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Because many false prophets, these would be the teachers, the philosophers, the leaders that have gone out inspired by these spirits, have gone out into the world. And that's that group over there. They've gone astray. They've got their own teachers, their own spirits. and they've gone astray. They're all very philosophical, they're very articulate, very intellectual, but they're very wrong. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. And again, that's the big test always. But in this particular case, they are over there denying the deity of Christ. They're denying that the eternal Son of God became a man. So that's the test on their particular group. It's always true. But of course, there's going to be other ways of knowing. But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist. This is the beginning. It's the root of what's going to eventually produce the Antichrist. The spirit of the Antichrist is already at work in John's day. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. The Antichrist is coming, but the spirit is already at work back in John's day. You, dear children, are from God, and have overcome them, because the one who lives in you is greater than the one who is in the world. The spirit that's in you is greater than the spirits that are in them. So you hold the truth. You don't need to be intimidated by all their philosophy, all their intellectual explanations, all the things that are detracting. They are from the world, and therefore they speak from the viewpoint of the world, or the cosmos. And of course, the cosmos, the world, Listen to them. So one thing you're going to see is that group is going to be gaining momentum But that traction they're getting is just temporal. It's just in this age We are from God And whoever knows God listens to us. And so even John himself was experiencing, of course, that people leaving him, and we'll get there in 2 and 3 John, where they won't even let John talk to their group. Or people God, John, sends to churches that he once controlled or led, they're blocked. They're out because they've gone beyond John's teaching. knows and listens to us. But whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. So I am going to say, again, this is just me teaching it, that he's talking about the commands and how he's telling his readers, you're fine, you're at the right place. He says, you know it because you're following the commands. You know it because of love. And you know it, he says, because the spirit itself testifies to you that you are at the right place. Don't change. Now he's just said spirit at the end of chapter 3. It's like, well, OK, I better talk about the spirit. So he says, now not every spirit is of God. And so he identifies the correct spirit. And that's verses 1 through 6, saying not everyone is from God. And now that, I don't want to say, was a sideline. But he stopped to explain spirits. And now in verse 7. He returns to this topic of love and how you know you're in God. Again, this is not him reprimanding them. He's telling them, you know this. You look at yourselves. He's exhorting them. If anything, he's going to tell them, so now that you're here, do more of it. He is going to use some negatives. You know you're in God because you love. Now, if you don't love, and he's not telling them, it's not so much to check yourself. Paul does that at other places. He's talking about probably the negative is over there. So chapter 7. I'm going to read chapter 7 through 21 Very quickly and as we see that if you don't mind I'm going to look at the notes on page 1 in chapter 4.2 chapter 4 verse 7 John returns to continue discussing love as the character trait of a true mature believer and And the topic is going to be, you are born of God. God's nature is love. So you're born of him. You should produce and have the nature of love because you're born of God. You know God. You have fellowship with him. You know his word. You know his truth. And knowing God is going to produce love. And so these are the two things. Born of God and knowing God is going to create love. And that love in this topic throughout the book of 1 John is love for each other. I'll just write the word other. each other he is not addressing the love for the world for God so loved the word God does love the world but that is not the ties and that's not saying we hate the world John's focus he always you know you love one another meaning They have gone over there and they love themselves. They love the world. In fact, John has told them, do not love the world. Do not go over there and love that cosmos system. We love each other. And that's not a separatist group. That's not like us versus them. It's like we are in the truth. God is here. We love what we are doing because we're in the truth. We do not love what they're doing. And so the sign of this love is you love each other in the group as far as being the believers in the truth. Not separatist because again you understand God loves the world and so we are sent to love the world but we don't embrace the world for what they're doing. We're showing them grace, we're showing them mercy, we're giving them the message of love to come join the truth And now over here in the truth, we are now a family. We are now loving each other. So that's what John's writing about. He doesn't say you love everything. You love everybody. You love those who are in the truth. You love each other and encourage each other because we're all going the same direction. Again, understand that is not saying We are terrorists going after the opposition, trying to destroy them. It's saying that we are in this group. So, chapter point three, for page one, chapter three, verses eleven through twenty-four, discusses loving one another. John's focus is on loving other believers. Now, point four. What develops in chapter four, verses seven through twenty-one, is consistently about love. That is, it's about love. But individual thoughts that can build the topic, for example, here they are. This is what you're going to see as I read this. Chapter 4, verse 7, is exhortation. Love one another. 4, 7, and 8, the simple formula. Those who love, know God. Those who do not love, do not know God. 4, verses 9 through 11, God's demonstrates love towards us and the whole world. Jesus was sent by God as an atoning sacrifice to save us, so we are obligated to love other believers. Chapter 4, verses 12 and 13, our love is evidence. If we love, we prove we live in God. If we love, we prove that God lives in us. These are just breaking down the simple verses. Chapter 4, verse 14 through 15, a qualification of the God kind of love is, excuse me, A qualification of the God kind of love is given. Love is demonstrated merely by the world is not the same thing as love demonstrated by a born-again person. Now, we will mention here tonight what is called common grace. And common grace goes back to the fact that all men are created by God. And so all men are created, they are in a sense made in the image of God. And so there are some things that God, because God is the creator, there are certain things he's going to do for all mankind. He's going to give them life. Jesus refers to it. It rains on the just and the unjust. God's going to give them rain. God's going to give them family. God's going to give them friendship. They've got the ability to love. And again, this is challenging and something you should deal with, you should think about, because you can see people that reject God. And I work with all kinds of different people. and so do you, that you admire. They reject church, they reject Christ, they reject even sometimes the existence of God, but yet, wow, what a great person. If you want to have a picnic, come on over. But it's like, Where is this coming from? They demonstrate love for their family. They demonstrate a variety of things that we would admire. That would fall under this thing called common grace. His mark is on everyone. He provides for everyone in a general sense. That is common grace. Some people would want to say that's what John's referring to here because they're from God. But he's now talking about something beyond just everybody. He's talking about someone who is. born again. They are born again. They've received the life. They've received Jesus. They've received the Christ and His life, and they're growing in their knowledge of Him. And this knowledge, combined with the life, combined with the Spirit that lives in them, is generating in them the nature of God, which is love. And so, this is, again, Again, we've got to allow this word love to be defined by scriptures. You can't let it be defined by the Beatles or something. Because again, love, and we mentioned this, love in the world is just tolerance. Anytime you confront somebody, why don't you love me? This does not mean tolerance. This does not mean everybody's right. There is a right, there is a wrong. This is love. It has to fall under the category of truth. It has to fall into the category that if there's truth and there's love, there's going to be wrong. There's going to be an opposition. And these are things to avoid. These things will lead to just the opposite of where this comes from. The opposite of life, it will lead to death. The opposite of Jesus is going to be the tyrant of the cosmos, Satan. Knowledge is going to be foolishness or ignorance or some kind of false philosophy. The spirit, obviously, is going to be false spirits. So again, truth and love are going to go together. And so this is not the world's kind of love. And sometimes the world's kind of love is just almost like survival. Just be passive. Everybody just get along. Let's not accuse each other. And just see if we can keep the lid on the boiling kettle. It's kind of like, well, eventually it starts to boil and things fall apart. This kind of love will generate peace. Well, going on to 4E, a qualification of God kind of love is given. Love demonstrated merely by the world is not the same thing as love demonstrated by a born-again person. Point one, underneath that, the Father sent the Son to be a Savior. Confession of Jesus as the Son sent by the Father means the love you demonstrate is a result of God dwelling in you and you dwelling in You dwelling in the world, meaning you live in the world until you're manifesting God's love in the world. The world can show love, but the world cannot confess Jesus. So this is going to be the breaking point here. Let's say they both have love, the world and the Christian. They both have this thing called love. And you can't tell the difference because they're both performing. Let's say they're feeding the homeless. Both are feeding the homeless. Again, that's a good thing to do. They're both feeding the homeless, but now the test of this love is, who is Jesus? Well, this love is not of God because they will not accept the Son. This love from God is going to say they will identify Jesus. They won't try to explain around Him. They will embrace Jesus, the one and only Son of God. He's the one who gave them life. that gives them the ability to love. The world will produce some kind of character traits that we would, well, they look the same. And this is where churches can get into problems. You can imitate all of this. You can build buildings, get organizations, get yourself a real good CEO, call the pastor or something, organize all these things, and start doing these good works. It's like, wow, what a great church. But what about Jesus? Well, it's kind of divisive. We don't want to go there. We just want to love people. And there he begins right here. Now this is of the world, because you've just failed the test. You deny Jesus. Now, one more step. You can still say, well, we do believe in Jesus. Well, now describe Jesus. Well, Jesus loves everyone. Jesus is tolerant. He would never judge somebody. He was always going around forgiving people. Well, wait, wait. No, he didn't. I mean, he was accusing everybody. He accused his own disciples. Jesus was very accused. It's like, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. The only thing Jesus didn't accuse was the Word, the Scriptures. He embraced the scriptures and challenged everybody with the scriptures. So now your description of Jesus has to match what's written in the scriptures. So if they love, OK, they're the same. Now, do you embrace Jesus? Well, we don't really think Jesus is just a good man, a good teacher. Well, you failed the test. You're not Christian. Or you do have Jesus, well now define Jesus. Well, Jesus, and then they need to define Jesus in their own image. Well, you failed the test because Jesus was the word. And so this just continues. John is on a very, I don't want to say simple, I don't definitely want to say simple, but it is very basic, is he's talking about what he says right here. Confession of Jesus as the Son sent by the Father means the love demonstrated is a result of God dwelling in you and you dwelling in the world. The point, the world can show love, but the world cannot confess Jesus, which means their source of love is not God dwelling in them, and them dwelling in some other source. You could say it's under common grace. It's something that naturally they love their family, want to provide for their family. They may feel empathy for someone and want to help them out, but it's not the love of God. we're talking about, John's talking about here. Point F, chapter 4, verse 16, mature believers begin to know and believe the love God has for them, which results in them loving because they are in God's love and God's love is in them. So right here, by chapter 4, verse 16, when we get there, you're going to start seeing people maturing, or the more they mature, the more they understand the love God has for them. Now, we know God loves us, but the more we're in the word, the more our mind is, the more we begin to understand that love, the more impressed we become with that love, that wow, I mean, obviously God loves us, but the more, you know, the more you're understanding the depth, what Paul writes in Ephesians, the depth, the width, the breadth, it's like that God, God loves us. And so this love now begins, the more you understand it, the more confidence you have in God and in this relationship. So the mature believer is going to understand more, understand the depth of God's love, which gives them more confidence in their life with God. Again, someone that does not understand is going to be what we'd say immature. They're not going to be developed. They're going to be shaken easily off the foundation because they don't have, in a sense, the knowledge. Again, we're not talking about Gnosticism. It's just an understanding of what God, who He is, and what He's done. G, chapter 4, verse 17 and 18. Love in a believer. and understood by the believer gives the believer confidence before God and now we're talking about two times now and at judgment. Now in time, when you're praying, and John refers to that, when you pray, you have confidence, and he also uses the same term, we saw that, when he appears, you'll have confidence in prayer, meaning you'll, the word means free to speak, you'll feel free to speak in prayer because you have confidence. When Jesus appears, you won't shrink away, you'll have confidence and freedom to speak when Jesus appears because you have confidence, because you understand what's going on. It says, love in a believer and understood by the believer gives the believer confidence before God now and at the judgment and drives out fear now and at the judgment. So we begin to see a contrast between love and fear. In other words, if you do not If you do not mature, it means you don't have understanding. You're not going to produce love. You're going to produce fear. You're going to be in the unknown. You're going to be afraid to pray. Meaning when you do sin, you're going to like, oh, let's not tell anybody. Let's hide from God. You're going to be afraid to pray to God because the only thing you think God wants to talk about is how bad you are or how worthless or how you've got some failures. Obviously you do, but that's why you go to Him for strength. You're afraid to go to your source of life because you've somehow failed, because you are not mature, because you don't understand. So, you're living in fear, which is the opposite of love. Love is going to build confidence. Lack of understanding is going to lead you to fear. And then, of course, when he returns, there's going to be fear because you know there's a lot to be dealt with. And again, that fear can go both ways to the unbeliever and even to the believer who has not responded correctly or grown correctly. And that's what chapter 4, verse 17 and 18. I'll read that so you can hear that. Chapter 4, verse 19, we love now because God first loved us. Now again, this is important. The reason, and we see this in all the epistles, we just finished in Ephesians chapter 2, the good works that we do because we are in Christ, we produce good works. We do not do good to get into Christ. We are in Christ, which empowers us to do the good works. Well now, we're supposed to love, and it's not if we love, then we get to go to God. It's like, no, God loved us first, and because He loved us, we now can love. It's not something that we're going to get God's love because we produced this. It's very clear. Because God loves you, you're going to be able to produce love. In other words, you don't necessarily love God. You don't necessarily have the nature of love. You're a sinner. You're in the world. You're part of the cosmos. God loved you. You came to Christ. He brought you in. And once you understand that love, you begin to produce the love. So again, there's no hope in trying to attain and earn God's love. You've got God's love. What's supposed to be attained is you producing love because you've been loved. Again, it can be a statement. You can make it a bumper sticker. But it's got to be something that is understood. And that takes time, takes study, takes experience. Chapter 4, verse 19, we love now because God first loved us. Chapter 4, verse 20, if this love, every time, there's that fear of the compressor. Chapter 4, verse 20, if this love you have from God and for God does not manifest towards your brothers, you really do not love God either. And so John is going to say, if this is true, If God loved you, then you're supposed to love others. But if this is breaking down, there's some kind of a problem. It can be that you don't have fellowship with him. Maybe you're not born again. Maybe it's you don't understand. But there has to be some kind of understanding of this love for you to love others. If you do not love others, and the others he's talking about is the believers. And we'll see that. And chapter 4, verse 21, if you love God, you love your brothers. So if you, again, it's going to be a cycle. And John is presenting a basic symbol, a basic cycle, God, you, others, If you love others, you love God. God loves you always. But if you don't love others, you really aren't loving God. You aren't following through with this. This is going to be a cycle. To love God, you're going to have to go through others. You can't just have this relationship right here. This is not the biblical relationship right here. God loves you. You love God. And these others, well, This love you've got has to go this way for you to love God. It's got to go through others. Now, that's the breakdown of chapter 4, verses 7 through 21. I'm going to read it now and see if you can kind of hear these things. I'm reading NIV, of course. In the notes, I've got the English Standard Version. Chapter 4, verse 7. Dear friends, that's a very positive thing. Let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. 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 No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another God lives in us and his love is made complete in us We know that we live in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. There's your world. They're loved also. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." Again, perfect would be complete. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command, whoever loves God must also love his brother. And that is, again, that section of verses Chapter 5, then John moves on to another topic. Now, before we start breaking these down, each of these verses, I've got this list. I found this in one of the commentaries, kind of just an assumption that the nature of God, this is one of those key verses that is in here in the basic concept, God is love. And again, this is what it says. This is not reversible. This is not an equal sign. Doesn't mean, like, two equals two. That means two equals two. You can read it either way. This is not written like this, obviously. God is love, but love is not God. In other words, there's going to be this love that can exist in some fashion. Just because someone can say, I love, or I produce love, doesn't mean love that comes from God is from God. But love can exist, like we talked about in common grace, and it may have nothing to do with identifying with God. So again, because God's nature is love, Let me write this back up here, God is love. Another thing just to say, and you know this from other studies and just other things you've seen, is God is love does not trump God is justice, or God is righteous, or God is holy, or God is merciful. Or there's these character traits that God has that they exist in this God is love. So being God is love, well, some of these things are necessary for God to act in love. Some would say, and this is one of the problems with the Western church, because people want to make it simple, too simple. They want to make it convenient. They want to make it like the world. Everybody wants to go to the world, because when you speak like the world, the world comes, the world listens. But for God to be God is love, God is going to have to be just. There's going to have to be some kind of justice served in a world that is evil. For God to be righteous, or to be loved, he is going to have to be righteous. He can't be unrighteous. He can't be wrong. Holy. He's going to have to do things the right way. To be loved, love requires things to be done the way God intended. And it goes on like that. Love does not trump everything else. Meaning, you can say, well, at least we're acting in love. But if you're acting in unrighteousness, that's not God's love. You've corrupted something. Something is wrong. We're unrighteous, but at least we love. Well, you've redefined love. And so here's some things that, again, these points, I got them out of a commentary. I just thought they were interesting. I'll see if we can go through them. God is love. Love explains the why of creation. In other words, just interesting thoughts. Some of these are maybe abstract. But you've often, I have too, and I come up with the same conclusion if it's right or wrong. Some of these become a little philosophical, if you would. Why was there a creation? I mean, why did all these things happen? Why did God do this? And the answer is, creation is necessary for the love of God. Why is there creation? Because God is love. And love is going to require, if God is love, you can't love alone. You can't be alone and love. Love is going to require something to express itself to and something to receive love back from. Now, just a little side note on this coming out of the Titanic faith book. God in his self-existence before creation existed as the Trinity. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And so within this Godhead, there was love. There was fellowship. The Father has always loved the Son. They've always been. And that is why we know the Christian God is Trinity. We know that the Bible is true. This is God's nature is love. Now, if you don't mind, Allah, there is no Trinity. Islam mocks the Trinity. Islam mocks the Son. It mocks people who embrace the Trinity. This is ridiculous, they say. They have one single God. And what is His character trait? His character trait is judgment. How do you spell judgment? In other words, He is absolute. He is one. He is the controller. He is the dominant. He dominates. There is no love in this Godhead so it's People its followers cannot would they're not that doesn't even make sense in the in the Christian faith in the Christian teaching God is love even his the Godhead has three people there's love fellowship happening here and this being this Godhead desired creation to express itself and Allah to make creation would have made creation simply to dominate it. There was no love. He was absolute everything and He's singular. And so if you read, again I got a little more detail on that in the Titanic Faithbook, it falls in this right here. Point two under A, if God is love, he cannot exist in isolation. Love must have someone to love and someone to love it. So it always comes back to this question on why creation. And again, you've thought about that before. Why did God ever do this? He is creating. And notice what he did. He created man. And again, I don't want to get too stretched out here, because this goes off the deep end real fast. He created man. And then man fell into sin. And then he sent Jesus Christ to take man. And man was not restored to the Garden of Eden. Man fell. But man was then created, born again in Christ, and seated with Christ in Christ in heavenly places. So he went from being a dirt creature with fellowship with God. He fell. But upon the resurrection, upon being born again, you don't go back to being in the garden. You now have become unified with Christ. I don't want to say part of the Godhead, but Christ is here. You're in Christ. You're in the beloved. This is Ephesians. You've gone from the garden being a creature out of dirt to being part of the Trinity or the love triangle from eternity past. And so what is going on right here in a real simple sense? It's like, was God surprised by the fall? Did God cause the fall? Those are all kind of abstract questions, but this fall All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord, is this right here. It takes us out of creation to a place of fellowship with God that follows the pattern, if you look at it that way. Again, that's a huge topic. Well, let's go on. It gets more complicated. Point B, love explains that there must be free will. Now again, this would say, if God was only law, The world could be a machine, much like nature functions on principles. If God is just law, God is law. And God is law. God is order. There's a system. And if God was merely law, he could have created nature. You've got gravity. You've got the seasons. You've got things to plant a seed. It grows. You could create man. This is what man does. And he could have just created systems. But in these systems that he created, he took man and gave him free will. Because God is not just law. Again, if you're playing with I don't know, I teach shop. And if you're making robots or machines or projects or something, you want things in order. You don't want to just create a project and you're not really sure what it's going to do. You can grade that way. You can grade kids' projects or at least evaluate them. This is what it's supposed to do when it's done. It didn't do it. That's not right. Well, my project decided to do something different. No, you failed as the creator. God, if he was just law, could have made basically machines that just kept doing the thing that he created them to do. But some reason, he gave man a free will. And man now could actually, God says, don't eat from the tree. And man did. This is the part that Tyler doesn't like. Man ate from the tree, and now All hell breaks loose. It's like, why? Because God is not law, God is love. God wants to create something to demonstrate his love to, but he also wants something to respond back to him. And that makes sense. Now, free will, man has to have some kind of ability to respond. And this could be considered an attack on Calvinism. And who wants to go down that track? Because then you've got the next 10 years of people trolling you on your post and stuff like this because they're out there. But Calvinism would just simply say, God chose some and didn't choose others. And you really can't do this. And they try to explain all this without actually saying you didn't have a choice. But the love of God, to me, is a huge strike against the concept of predestination, of God just choosing some and rejecting others, for example. If God was only law, the world could be a machine, much like nature functions on principles. God made men who must have free will to respond. If you don't have free will, you're not responding. You can't respond, or else you're just being made to respond. God created man by limiting his own will and giving men a chance to respond. And that for me, again, everyone's going to have to see this and study this on their own, come to their own conclusions. But for me, it is not difficult. God is not giving up his sovereignty. by limiting his own will by saying, I will give man the ability to respond to my love. And what is God's love? Well, in creation, it's his revelation in nature. It's general revelation. Here's God. God reveals himself in nature. And man can look, even Romans addresses this. If man seeking God is seeking immortality and righteousness and glory, God will give him eternal life. If he's looking For God, God is going to meet him where he's at. The other way God demonstrated his love is through, of course, Jesus Christ. We can go through the scriptures to the Jewish nation, God revealing himself to mankind through special revelation. But he reveals himself. He reveals his love to man. And now man has seen God's love. Now what are you going to do with it? If you've seen it in general revelation, if you've seen it through special revelation, what is your response? And if man goes away, says no, going back, going after the darkness in the cave, Well, that was his free will but if man responds God's love now, he loves God He responds in love towards God and now you've got your love relationship man's responding in love And that's God not giving up his sovereignty. It's in his sovereignty giving man free will to respond to his love. So that is indeed truly love. I think you're challenging the concept of love if man does not have free will and God does not limit his sovereignty or his own will of what's taking place. Again, you can bail out of this whole conversation by saying, well, These are mysteries and things are more complicated and they're spiritual beyond things we've never seen. And that is a true answer. How can you combine all this? I'm doing it on a little whiteboard with a blue marker on a Tuesday night, trying to explain it. And it's like, have I completely captured the essence? It's like, no, it's more complicated than this, and this, and this, you see. And so there is, again, something, I can't even explain the Trinity, that there's three people, but there's only one. And it's like, that's where, again, people that are critical of the Trinity have a hard time, because like, one plus one plus one is one. Now again, just to defend that, that's exactly what Adam and Eve were told, the two will become one flesh. They didn't lose their identity as Adam and Eve, but they became this new unit, this new... they were married. I mean, again, that's sometimes more than we want to imagine this new unit of marriage. This right here, you have the Spirit, the Son, the Father, but they are the Godhead. They are a unit. They are never in disagreement. They're always in harmony. They are one. That is the same phrase used when Adam and Eve, they didn't dissolve. Adam and Eve didn't dissolve into each other and become, you know, Ad-Eve. They were still Adam and Eve, but they created this new unit and they became one. Not dissolving the one-two, but creating this new one. So there is still the Father, the Son, the Son, the Holy Spirit, but there is this unit of, so it's again, That's right there. It's amazing. That's right there in the Jewish texts if the Jews would want it. Because the Jewish traditionally don't accept the Trinity either, since they reject Christ. Point C. Love explains providence. If God were mind, order, and law, then theology of the deist would be correct. Now remember, the deists are the ones who believe in God, but they do not believe he's involved in creation. He created the world. It rains. The sun comes up. There's people born. The seeds are on the earth. Harvest. It's just running its course, and God is up here. And this is just going its own way. That would be a deist. A theist, which would be what I think the Bible's teaching, God is going to be involved. He's going to manifest. He's going to be imminent in his creation. Love explains providence. But love demands that God interact with His creation with constant care. A deist, prayer to a deist is just self. Maybe you're praying, but you're telling yourself about God. You're reaffirming your faith. It's some kind of worship, but it's not two-dimensional. You can go to church. You can talk about God. You can talk about these things. But a theist is going to believe that your prayer, when you pray, You're praying to a God who is here and listening and is going to respond to you individually in your prayer. And so providence. In other words, God is interacting, intervening in his creation. And I think it's obvious. You see, many times, just in the Old Testament, of God, like we said last night in class, that the cry has gone up to God. And God either sends an angel or comes himself as a theophany, as the second member of the Trinity, comes down to see if this were true. If it be Sodom, we came down to see if this were true. The cry has come up. Let me go see. Tower of Babel, let's go see this thing. You've got Ezekiel and the God comes in and he's going through the city. He's coming down to see. That's not the deist. This is God looking over his creation. He's watching and he's responding. And so that would explain providence where God is constantly caring. And that explains prayer. Why would God, if God is a deist, He's just up here, you're just a machine trapped in this pattern, what is prayer? Well, it just gives me confidence that God is in control. Now you're just, it's basically you're teaching yourself, you're encouraging yourself, you're praying, but it's motivating yourself. Prayer in the Bible is actually speaking to God and Him responding to your prayer. That is because God is love. He's not just law. He's not just the machine. He's not just order. In fact, imagine how chaotic it is with everybody praying. I mean, if God were just order and not love, it'd be, don't pray. Just stay there like an animal, like the ocean, like the seasons. Just do this thing. But man can respond in prayer, and God will respond back, because God is not just about order. God is also about interacting with his creatures. Point D, love explains redemption. And again, some of this becomes almost redundant, but it's worth mentioning because when it says God is love, if you just let that hang there in the Western mind, God is love, it becomes very, very shallow. God just puts up with stuff. He doesn't get mad. He's loving. explains redemption if God were just law and justice then man would have been left to his fate a deserved fate because there's no doubt the Bible indicates that when Adam sinned and Men or seed was produced and there's now man on the earth man is now a condemned creature for God so loved the world He gave his only begotten Son whoever believed is saved whoever does not believe is Condemned already. He is a condemned being and if God were just justice This man had a chance the human race had a chance. Here's your garden. Here's your place eat from all these trees Don't touch this one or don't don't eat from this one Eve added the part about not touching it. Don't eat from this tree Well, he did. Sorry. We have laws in this kingdom and you vital violated the law And so you're going to receive spiritual death death dying thou shall die and that's the way it is And so yeah, the law kicked into action, justice was served, but God is love. For God so loved the world, he came and gave his only begotten son to redeem this man out of his situation. If God were just law, why would he intervene? The very fact that God is love means he's not going to set aside the law. Notice what he did. Again, I've mentioned this before. is he didn't just look down from heaven and say, OK, I forgive you. See, a lot of times you say, God forgives. Here's man on the earth. He's a sinner. And God says, OK, that's been long enough. I've been mad long. I'll just forgive you. Say you're sorry. I'm sorry. OK, you can go back. Here's a go back to the garden. No, God could not just forgive. God couldn't just say, it doesn't matter. I am love. I'll just overlook it. Because God is also law. God is justice. God is holy. God is righteous. And you have sinned. The price must be paid. So his way of demonstrating his love was what? Not just say, oh, I'm just going to pretend I'm not holy. Let's just let it go. He says, no, I got to do something about this. There, the cross. The cross is where he demonstrated his justice, his righteousness, his holiness. It was poured out on Christ. And now in Christ, there is now forgiveness. But that forgiveness is not just, OK, we'll just let it go. The forgiveness is right here. It's through the cross. And now there's forgiveness. But there's got to be a price paid. So God's love sent Jesus. to make atonement by satisfying God's justice, God's holiness, all the things that were taken care of on the cross. And so now this, without love, there would not have been a cross, there just would have been justice for man. So God's love demands some kind of redemption or explains that cause right there. And the last one, Love explains life after death because no matter what and this goes back the Greeks came up with this concept, too They just said there had to be some kind of God or some kind of afterlife I'll just write afterlife Because the world is not fair and no matter how good you are and how things work out things don't always work out as Equally what you put in is not the way it always comes out but They decided that life has to be for there has to be some way of balancing everything and so their concept was there has to be an afterlife which is in control of God or the gods or something that's the Greeks well the same thing out of Christianity we know God is love there is an eternal God and there are things God is asking us to do today including the apostles including Jesus Christ asking them to do things that it's like like give up your life give up your your own ambitions your own careers your own dreams and go off and serve and Or even if it's, you know, instead of you keeping all that you've earned, give. Like if it's feeding the homeless, well, that's their problem. Well, no, God's asking you to give. It's part of our whole conversation tonight, love. Because God is love, He's demonstrated love, He's going to ask us to serve, which would be love. Serve the church would be demonstrating service to each other. Or giving to others, if it be the homeless or whoever needs money. Well, John has already said, whoever has the world's needs and sees someone in need and doesn't share with them, how can the love of God be in you if you've got extra and you don't shared to someone that needs it. So these are things he's asking us to do because he's loved us. So a lot of times the things we do, the Apostle Paul, you know, or many of them, you know, decapitated. How was that? He served God. He loved God. He gave his life to God. Then he gets his head cut off. Well, God is love. And the fact that God is love, that's not a good way to end the story. He should have ended up on some Greek island resort, you know, living happily, going off and fishing and skiing and stuff. Thank you for your service. And here's your retirement island. But instead, he ends up in prison with his head getting cut off. Where's my retirement? I'm sorry. Thanks for serving me. We're going to cut your head off now. It's like, what? It's not fair. And so love would indicate there has to be something as an afterlife, and God is going to take care of that. And I think it's very clear in Scripture. Jesus calls it rewards. He says several times, whatever you give up, it will be paid back. We talk about a hundredfold. People talk about a hundredfold. A lot of times they want to make that into the world today, you give $1, you get $100 back. I think in the context, these things are, again, in the afterlife. And there's no doubt about that. The Bible promises things to you for your service in life. And so again, God's love will demand that there be not that we've got God over a box and are demanding of something, but God is asking us to commit. And that's what makes it easy for us to commit, or at least gives us the start of it, is that if we commit to God here in this age, He's committed to us a kingdom in the future. And why is that? Because God is love. OK. That is what's there on those notes. Any comments, thoughts on that? I'm going to read a few verses here and get started breaking these down. Going once, twice, and here we go. Page two. We've got the first verse. Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God." Several things here. You can see right there, born of God. Two things, born of God and knows God. One is going to be an event that happened in the past with results in the future. In the past, it's still affecting your born, and you're there. Knows is going to be a process of growing. So this is done, and it's going to continue. Knows is you don't know everything. When you get born again, you don't know all that you need to know, but you continue to grow. So this is a state that you're in. You're born of God. You have his nature. This is going to be a process. Now, to deny either one of these is going to be a problem. If you just say, well, I'm born again, I'm going to heaven. Right, we agree with that, but you're going to have to know God. Well, I know God. Yes, being born again, you know God at this level, but there's more. That's why God said, if there wasn't more to know, That's why the Spirit came. The Spirit came to take from what is Jesus and give it to us. Jesus said it himself. He's going to reveal. The Spirit is going to come and help reveal. That's just not sitting on a mountain having revelation from God. That's understanding the revelation that's been given, starting back with Genesis, going through the Jews, all the history of the Old Testament. You're going to know God's nature. So that's part of that verse right there. I'm going to go back and look at it again. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. So again, God's nature is love. He's going to give us these things. We'll be able to love others. But it goes back here at the beginning. It says, Beloved. Beloved. And the first point I've got written down there, or it's the second point, it's translated Dear Friends or Beloved, indicates John is encouraging, explaining, and teaching. Once again, we know this. John is encouraging, explaining, and teaching these people. They're struggling. They're struggling with the fact that they are a community that have seen a lot of their people leave. They've succeeded and gone to another group. They're growing. They've got terms and knowledge. They've got academics. preachers, teachers, philosophers, and they're feeling like they're left in dust. The group that is left seem to have progressed. They seem to have progressed to the next level. They're re-explaining the deity of Christ. They're re-explaining the Incarnation. They're re-explaining what the Resurrection means. They're denying the Scriptures, but they're taking John's teaching and building on it. They're going, in a sense, deeper. But they're not going deeper, they're going further away. And so John is writing this. All that is within that word, beloved, meaning right here. John is not reprimanding them, rebuking them, or warning them. You better be careful. You better stop. He's telling them, you are at the right place. I'm encouraging you to know this love of God. You are born again. Continue to know it. And then begin to share it with others. Get that circle going. You don't need to go over there to that other group with the bad teaching and the false philosophy to complete the circle. Your circle is you've received the love of God. You know God. You grow in love. You demonstrate love. You demonstrate your love for God by loving each other. This is where it's happening. Well, what should we do? It's like this. Stay with this. The third point there, let us love, or we should love, occurs three times in chapter 4, verse 7 through 21. Actually, in chapter 4, verse 7, 11, and 12. And here it is right here, ABC, chapter 4, verse 7. You can see the Greek word. It's up there. It's the second word in. Let us love is an exhortation. Let us love. He's encouraging. He's not reprimanding, but exhorting them. Let's do this, because it's available. It's right here for us. Chapter 4, verse 11, we'll get there. Let us love is presented to the readers as their duty. And here's the verse right here underneath there. Beloved, if God is love, we also ought to love one another. So in that one case, he's exhorting them to love, but if God is love, you ought to be loving each other. And the third point, chapter 4, verse 12, let us love is a hypothesis. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. So here it is. If we love, if you're loving, that growth pattern is happening. You're demonstrating it, and you're growing it. So those are the three times it is used right here, where if we love, and it's put in right after it, we should love. Notice there, one other. Every case, it's we should love one another. I'm not saying anything that we should not love the world, that we should hate the world. What this is saying here, the focus here, is that in your group, you're going to be serving each other, loving each other. Your love is made complete by loving those in the Christian fellowship. As a fellowship, as a church, the mission is the world. They're going to go off and minister to the world where God has sent the message. But John is talking about them as a community holding each other together with love. Point four, since God is love and love flows from God, our nature should be one of love if we have been born of God. And again, here I go, point A. I start talking about common grace, we've already done that, point B. If this is true, then this should be more true of the person. And even if common grace is true, and John is not talking about common grace, if because you're made in the image of God, just a general man in the image of God, you've got love, then if you're a born-again man, You should manifest God's love even more. There should be an emphasis on it. John is clearly talking about the born-again person who's got the life and the Spirit of God in them. I've said this before. There it is. Born of God is present tense. Born refers to the moment of rebirth and the continuing effect it has on the believer. Those who know God is the present tense also, stressing the continued growth in the knowledge of God in the believer's life. Chapter 4, verse 8. John restates the same thing, but he states it in the negative. As a form of explanation, he states in the negative, anyone who does not know God, excuse me, anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. And so again, if you're saying, you don't need me to draw this, but God is love, and if you're saying you know God, you should be loving. If you're not loving, your statement that you know God is incomplete. The circle is not complete. There's something missing. Now, is he saying they're not born again? And they need to be born again? Or is he saying they maybe are born again, but they don't have any knowledge? It seems that he's talking about you have no knowledge of even being born again. You do not have the seed in you. Earlier, he talks about the seed, the seed of the new birth. And so it should be almost a natural thing. There should be some kind of love produced. And then John is focusing on this. The absence of love proves the person does not know God. And that not knowing God may be even to the place of not knowing him for salvation. We'll pick up this verse next week. But there is a verse. I've got it word circle. I want to look at that, kind of introduce it right here. Chapter 4, verse 9. We'll pick this up next week. But here it is. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us. And how was it? He said, this is how God showed us love. Remember, we talked about man is here. Man is worthy of judgment. And God is not just going to say, I forgive you. He's going to somehow show his love. And he can't show his love by just saying, I forgive you, because he's got to deal with justice. The list there, so he's gonna show his love by not just saying I forgive you because that would violate justice He's gonna show his love by Sending Jesus Christ to the cross and who he's gonna send in the cross. He's not just gonna send a man or an animal He's gonna send well here it is In this the love of God was made manifest meaning it was revealed. It was seen it came to us It's not a mystery long in the old testament. It might have been a mystery in the new testament. It's manifest It's right there in front of your faces again that that's got to irk john that that group that's gone away from his teaching is over there and they're teaching salvation by another means and about another jesus and they're over there and some of the people that were with him Have gone over there and he didn't he said the reason they went over there was they were never really with us They were with us. But the reason they left was they were never really here They were here for a moment and they didn't really understand they never embraced the truth. That's why they left which is a good test But in this love of God was made manifest. It was seen among us here It is that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him again not just be born again, but that we might live and through Him. We're going to find life in Him. And this life is going to be not our own life, it's going to be the life of God. It's going to be Zoe. And that's important because that's going to include God's nature. We are born of God, and John is big on that. Being born of God means we have His nature, and His nature is love. You're going to have a change. The word where it says right there at the top of the page that God sent his only son into the world, that's how the English Standard Version translates it. And I'll talk more about this next week. But a lot of times it says his only begotten son and different things like that. And there is this debate of what's the correct translation. And what you see right here is the word monogene. It's written out right there. I've got it circled. Mono, of course, means one. And the idea here is it's speaking about the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. There is only one. There's no one else that can do it. The other thing that you see right there, where I've got the word circled, monogenic, Go before that, you can see the word tan for the, and then you see of him, son of him. So he's saying this, the son of him the one, the only. So it's him, son of him, the one. There's only him. He's only got one son. It's not like there's a group. It's just there's only one chance. There's God, him, and he's only got one. And we'll build on this more. There's interesting here that I've got three translations pasted in there. The word monogeny is used nine times in the New Testament. Three times in Luke. Luke 7, 12, a man who had died was being carried out, the only monogeny son of his mother, and she was a widow. Luke 8, 42, for he had an only daughter, about 12 years of age, and she was dying. Luke 9 38 teacher I beg you to look at my son for he is my only child where you see only son only daughter only child that is the word translated monogenic and so it's saying son of him only Only one, emphasizing the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. And again, that's a big term in the New Testament. We'll talk about that more. But it emphasizes, again, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, that there is only one way to do this. And it's going to have to be Him sending His Son to take the place of man's being punished. Again, understand this. We'll talk more about this next week. But you've got the Trinity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. They've always existed together in harmony. They've always existed together in this state of love, because there's more than one. There's a love triangle there. And a love triangle, what we're talking about there, is they are selfless, serving each other in this circle. Now, God creates man. Man has fallen. When God sent His Son, He did not just – again, I don't want to get started on this too far. But I remember, and I've shared this before, I remember being a kid, hearing this in church, that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and how sad God was. He's weeping. His son is dead. He gave his son. And I'm listening to the story, and it's like, good. It's good preaching, very emotional. But the guy was dead for three days, OK? And then he came back to life, and then he goes back to God. I mean, vacations last longer than that. He didn't die. He came back. You're getting me all stressed out because he died. He's gone forever. I remember sitting there as a kid. It's like, OK, I'm getting this. But it's like the weeping, the crying, the sadness. He came, He died, paid for sins, and then He came back to life. Why is God upset? Why is He crying? Why is He not over this yet? It's like, He's back. He's alive. And the thing is, as I grew up and thought about it, because I continue to think about that, it's not that emotional of an issue. The issue is he left this Trinity and united. He didn't just come down here and die and pop back up. He came down and united. He became a man. Thus John's whole book. The Son of God was Jesus. And so this is the Christ right here. The second member of the Trinity as a man fulfilling the role of the Christ. And when he Resurrected he was resurrected back into a physical body and then he ascended into heaven with a physical body as a representative of Mankind so coming back into this Trinity or having never really left but having ascended back into heaven He ascended to heaven like something he had never been before he came back in the body of a man I mean, that's what the essential was. He's in his body. They touched him. They they saw him eat food He's there and then he leaves right there. It's like do not miss this watch and he ascends physically and so there is a physical body up here he didn't yet but the shock was now that he didn't come back the shock was that he was born in a manger as a man was then going to suffer as a man for the sins of all of mankind and when he did come back to get alive he came back The body of a man he has been united for God so loved the world He took his one and only son and gave him to us So he is now one of us and now we are in Christ. It's like oh my gosh the story just gets better We are now Jesus Christ came down and got us and took us back in him if you want to say it that way we are now in Christ who put us in this Trinity and we are not God, but we're in Christ clearly and so That is the love of God. He could have, if he didn't have love, he could have just said, well, that's justice. Man dies. Father, Son, Holy Spirit right there. But because this triangle, because this Trinity nature is love, they are driven to do something for their creation that they made. The Son becomes one of us. And it wasn't like, well, that's an option. We know from the Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus was praying Is there any other way? OK, meaning, I know we talked about this in eternity past. We went through this in all the eternal ancient consoles. But it's like, before I do this, has anybody got one last idea they want to put on the table? Is there any other way? He said, if there be any other. Let this pass from me. Meaning, Jesus wasn't like, you know, the joy set before him. He was looking forward to his reward. But he was also in the Garden of Gethsemane thinking, if there is another way. Think, guys. Think, is there another way? And it's like, And then he went and did it. Why did he do it? Because the nature is love. But he knew the justice he was going to receive. I will pray, and then we're done. We'll pick this up next week, especially this about monogenies. And you've got to think about that. Look for that word in different verses. You see the verses there. Father, we do thank You again for Your truth. We thank You for Your Word. We ask that we would hear these things, that we would understand them, that Your Spirit would allow them to grow in our hearts, that we would indeed manifest the very nature that You placed in us, that we would mature, become the people of God, that we would be able to manifest the love of God, the mercy of God to the world in our words, in our actions, in our very lifestyles, that they would see the hope that we have. Father, we do pray for our nation. We pray for our culture. We pray for churches that, again, we may see revival in our time, that Your Spirit would pour out Your truth and Your love in this generation. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for your time.