Well, good morning, and by the way, this is just a thought because I'm seeing the light blazing through the windows there. By all means, feel free, if it gets glary, you can put those curtains down there on the side. You're more than welcome to do that. Our scripture text this morning is, again, from the book of 1 John. Moving on into the next section, beginning at verse 7. 1 John chapter 4 and verse 7. And we'll read to the end of the chapter. And I'll, since you've been standing quite a while, You can be seated on the outside, but standing on the inside. Please give your attention to God's holy word. 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 ought also 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. Let us we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit. And we have seen and testify that the father has sent his son to be the savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we've come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother. The Lord adds his blessing to the reading and hearing of his holy and infallible word. Now sticking with a thing or a project or a person, even, to the very end, is often hard to do. And when it comes to your soul's end, it is, in fact, impossible to do without divine help. Again, I would direct your attention to chapter 5 and verse 13, where John gives this reason for writing this entire section, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. That is the end that we have in mind and yet for many it is very clear in this world that we live in there is, as the Lord said, there would be a falling away in the end. And that's grievous. But John doesn't want us to fall away. John wants us to be able to know that we have eternal life and to be able to endure to the very end. Now in this section, which began in verse one of this chapter, John began with encouraging the proper confidence in the source of truth. And now, He moves on because he wants us to be assured that we are abiding in the love of God, an intimate relationship, a loving, mutual presence. You may remember that abiding has been a recurring theme running throughout this epistle. Take a look at chapter two, for example, verses 27 and 28. where we read, the anointing that you received from him abides in you and you have no need that anyone should teach you, this is speaking of the spirit, but as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it's been taught you, abide in him and now little children, abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence. John is repeating actually and bringing something even a little more clearly into focus. that he's already spoken about before. We may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. So John wants us to walk confidently in this life because we're confident of the source of where our truth and knowledge comes from, and also confident in the relationship that we have with our Lord, a relationship of love. To abide is used throughout the book, very simply means to remain, to stick with it, to not fall away. And so my encouragement to you, coming from John's encouragement to the believers of his day, is to abide in God's love. There are several things about this passage as I was going through it that jumped out at me. And because when I first looked at it, This is not the first time that God's love has been talked about in this epistle, nor is it the first time that loving one another, loving the brethren has been talked about in this epistle. So I had to ask myself, why is he repeating it here? Is there something different about it? I would say that the difference is how he's using similar things, just as we often do in conversation. Some of us are known, me being one of them, that have been known to repeat themselves from time to time in a given conversation. But we do that often with the same kind of, the same material, but we make different applications with it, right? I mean, that's a pretty common thing. And that's what John is doing here. So as we've talked about these things, the need to love one another, the need to love God, absolutely there. That's a general context here, but let's see the specific application, which in this case has an eternal everlasting life focus to it. as we look at where our confidence is in terms of our relationship with the Lord. I'm telling you right now, we will not finish this section today. I have no intention of doing so. I just gave up right at the beginning and didn't even, I'm going to try. So we're just going to cover about half of it. And not surprisingly with John, who loves the chiastic development of ideas. I believe that this fits very nicely. I think that's what John is doing here. So we'll begin at the beginning and the end and then begin to work our way towards the middle. So first, as you can see that in your notes, if you're looking at those verses seven and eight and then 20 and 21. And then, God willing, we will also look at 9 and 10 and verse 19 as we start to move our way towards the end. And we will finish the end in a couple of weeks when I get back from Synod, God willing. All right, so what we see here in this development, John is looking at God's love from a lot of different angles, a lot of different perspectives. here as he's describing some of the characteristics of God's love. And the first characteristic here that we are to be abiding in and finding our confidence in is abiding in God's genuine love. Now this is, I think you're gonna see there's a genuineness not only of God's expression of love, but as he works in us, then we reciprocate also with a a divine love, not that we're God, but that our love mirrors his kind of genuineness in its character. So, verse 7. I'll get to the very first phrase in a moment, but I'm going to jump to the second phrase there. Verse seven, love is from God. And then in verse eight, if you do not love, you do not know God because God is love. God's love is genuine in its source. He is sufficient in himself. to love and love eternally and love perfectly and love absolutely. His love did not have to be dredged up for us, did not have to be concocted out of something or talk himself into a relationship or anything else. God in his very nature is love. And as I was thinking about this, I, uh, just did a real quick search, uh, put those two words, uh, love and God in, in, uh, my search engine, uh, for, uh, my study software. And an interesting thing popped up that, uh, honestly, I never really seen before. I hadn't really looked at it in this quite this way before, I guess. Over 200 times in the Old Testament, you know that Old Testament that's full of the God of anger and blood and vengeance and judgment and all that other stuff that is often characterized by, over 200 times in the Old Testament, God's love is described as steadfast. And there's a phrase that is the same phrase in different forms, grammatically, depending on the context, but the same root words. And the second part of that phrase is a Hebrew word that I've used often here and we should all be pretty familiar with, and that's the word chesed. Remember, I've used that word quite a few times. Chesed is about God's covenant loyalty. It has to do with his faithfulness. It's often translated faithfulness or his loving kindness or his mercy in the Old Testament. It's used again and again and again, and it is used almost exclusively, almost exclusively, you'll see a couple of exceptions, almost exclusively of God's love and being faithful to his covenant. And the first word of the phrase is a real simple one. It just means to do or bring something about. Um, and so this phrase is when it says that God's God's love is a steadfast love over and over and over and over again in the old Testament. It's referring, it literally could be saying he does, kindness, he does faithfulness, he does loyalty. This is the nature of God's love. Covenant faithfulness is at the very essence of his being. This is not a fickle love, in other words. That's why this love is absolutely genuine because of the source that it comes from. It's the very one whose very being, is about being faithful. If he ceased to be faithful to his promises and his people, he would cease to be God. It's that big of a concept. This is the love in which we are to abide. And this is the love in which we are to find confidence. Do you think you could find some confidence in that kind of love? Do you think you could find joy and peace in your heart unto eternity in that kind of love? Indeed, that's the only kind of love in which you can have that kind of confidence. And that is our God. He is absolutely genuine, and this is where we need to abide. Not wondering, does He still love us? Not approach Him with the daisy approach to wondering about God's love. He loves me, He loves me not. He loves me, He loves me not. Sometimes we go through that kind of mentality in our hearts and minds, don't we? Because of the things that are happening in our lives, afflictions, challenges, difficulties, disagreements, whatever it might be, we can start to wonder, hey, does the Lord really love us? Does the Lord really care for us? Why isn't he speaking to us right now? I don't get it. Lord, where are you? Do you really love me? I assure you that he does. If you believe in Him as He reveals Himself in His Word, you have to come to the conclusion that if what He's saying about Himself is true, then He is absolutely dependable and He will never leave us nor forsake us. His love is steadfast. And in the New Testament, though of course that Hebrew phrase isn't there in the Greek New Testament, nonetheless the same concepts are there as Jesus speaks of God being love, and here, of course, in the book of John, we see that very predominantly, and in many other places throughout the Old Testament, as God's love and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ is put front and center as something upon which you and I may depend. So let us remain, let us rest in his genuine love, genuine in his source, but also genuine in his object, You know, on the human level of things, we can place our love in various places and in various people. How can I put this delicately? There's probably no delicate way to put it. We can place our love in other people or other things with an agenda. as some, in a strategic way to advance our cause, advance our situation. Now, and I'm making it sound really bad. Okay, I'm going to make a confession here. This is actually going to go out on the internet now. Okay, I'm not sure where this is going to go. But, all right, I watched Jane Austen movies with my wife. Okay, I said it. Pride and Prejudice. Yeah, we watched it more than once. It's confession number two. Pride and Prejudice, there's a scene where Elizabeth is being proposed to by her cousin, who is a complete social dweeb, okay? But in the middle of his proposal to her, as he's going on and on about how much he loves her, he goes on and says, oh, and I'm also convinced that it will make me happy. And she's like, not really thinking about her, but he's going to be happy if she says yes. He's happy to place his love there. Of course, when she says no, it becomes really clear that he doesn't actually love her at all. He goes and marries her neighbor. But we can do that. Even in human relationships, we can look around and we can say, yeah, well, this will make me happy. So if I show love and I show compassion and all of that here and develop this relationship and whatever, this is going to improve my life. Unfortunately, that's all too common. But that kind of love can be suspect. And granted, when we are young and in love, Sometimes our love can be placed upon the object of our affection simply because we think they're beautiful or handsome or they make us laugh or something else, right? But hopefully as we grow and mature, we come to understand that loving somebody else is not just about, I'm going to love you only if you make me happy. Genuine godly love places that love sacrificially without condition upon somebody else. And that's the emphasis here in chapter four, verse seven. Beloved, let us love one another. At the end there, verse 21, you must also love your brother. In chapter five, which I didn't read yet, And everyone who believes that Jesus is a Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. We are to love one another. If we say that we love God, verse 20, and hate our brothers, we're liars, John says. Needs to be genuine. That hatred is an interesting word. If I would ask you to define hate, you might find it a little harder to actually pin down than you might think, because it's such a strong emotion. We tend to associate it with certain people or certain circumstances, certain physical feelings that come up. But let me give you what this, at least in the dictionary, Greek dictionary, what this word is actually talking about. It has to do with hostility towards somebody else. A desire for their harm. But not just in a cold calculating way, but with a genuine detesting of them. a rejection of them. That kind of thing puts a whole different cast on it. Because if we just think of hatred as being this kind of rage against somebody, that's not what's in this work. I mean, there might be that that goes along with it to pump up the fires of the hatred. But we can detest somebody, we can loathe somebody, we can reject somebody, and that is an act of hatred, without being angry and yelling or whatever else. And suddenly, we start going through the list of people that we have issues with and going, how do I really feel about them? Yeah, I do. I'm not going to go up and punch them out. but in my heart I rejected them as being worthless, of having no value, not worthy of my time or effort. That's hatred. Toned down in its externals, but it's still hatred. And suddenly we look at this and go, cool, okay, let me rethink this. I say I love God. Do I walk around detesting people in my heart? They're those that I've decided are not worthy of not only my love, but probably the Lord's love or anybody else's or my care. The Lord says, if you have that kind of thoughts in your mind, particularly towards brethren, you're not a God. So we need a love, actually, to abide in a love that is genuine in its object, genuinely loving one another. Leviticus chapter 19, verses 17 and 18 says, You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. We live in an imperfect world. As much as lies within us, we should live peaceably with all men. We will have difficulties. We're not going to be best buds with everybody out there. It's just, that's the way it is in a fallen world. However, when you have those difficulties, there ought to be the willingness to actually have a frank, reasonable conversation with somebody and not just reject them out of hand because of something that they did or said or something that you perceive that they did or said. you don't want to incur sin, you don't want to walk in hatred and hostility toward that person. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh. And again, your God is basing this command to love people with that kind of selfless love in his character. So this love that we're abiding in, this love for God that's expressed in love for others is something that you need to be abiding in. And then, of course, abiding in God himself. And here again, in verse 20, if anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. If you can't love the brethren around you that you see, how can you possibly love God whom you haven't seen and can't see? Perhaps you've noticed as I've read through this passage that it was referenced a couple of times. Nobody's seen God. This is not about being able to just say, because I've seen God in all his fullness and I know what he's about, I'll love him, but not the rest of you. No, loving God is really an act of faith, is it not? And that's something, of course, that the Lord grants to us as well. So we need to be loving God with integrity. Proverbs 19, I ran across this in my reading, and then also one of the occasions I mentioned that that phrase steadfast love is almost exclusively applied to God's love particularly, but the same phrase is applied to man in Proverbs 19.22. What is desired in a man is steadfast love. And a poor man is better than a liar. We are to be steadfast in our love for God himself and thus mirror the love that he has for us. Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 6, when he was summarizing the law for God's people, put it this way, and I think all of you could probably quote this with me, you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. We are to love God himself and abide in that love, really place our divine, genuine love where the Lord has commanded us to place it. in one another and in his own person. This genuine love in which we are abiding is not just a concept, it has practical ramifications, practical effects. So if you want to be simple you could say genuine in its effect, if you want to be more whatever, you could put ramifications. This love is lived out, and it's lived out in a couple of ways, particularly in this passage. Notice the emphasis here about if you are in God, if you're loving God, that's an evidence that you've actually been born of God. And so you have this idea of being born of God mentioned numerous times here in this passage. And so God's genuine love in which we are to abide brings about a genuine new birth, a genuine new birth that shows itself in a change of heart toward God and others that is particularly encompassed in this word and the actions of love. John 1, verses 12 and 13 points this out. You know, if it's the will of man, or the will of the flesh or blood, if that's our birth, then we're stuck back in the first birth that Nicodemus was. We were talking about this with the kids this morning in the communicants class. Nicodemus astonished when Jesus said to him, you know, you must be born again. How can this happen? You know, you can't go back into the womb and come back out again. What's going on here? And Jesus was like, you know, you're a ruler of Israel. You really should know this stuff. You have to be born of the water and of the Spirit. It's called regeneration for a reason, because new life is necessary. But God's love brings that about. If your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ by His grace, and you're resting in there, in that work of His, that completed work on the cross, you have new life because of the Spirit of God working in you. Rest in it, abide in it. Don't go back like the dog to his vomit. Don't go back and return to the old way of life. But remain in that new birth, in that new life that he's given to you. And that will show itself in this particular context, specifically in your love for others, your love for the brethren, and your love for God. But of course in many other ways too, as our works reveal. the real change of heart that's in us as we're able, more and more, to do those things that are right and pleasing to Him. And that brings me to the second effect here. The Lord's abiding love is genuine in the new relationship that it brings about. So, let me go back to chapter four, verses one through six, just a little bit. here where John commands us to test the Spirit, to try them, to see if they're really of God, and he talks about these tests about who Christ is and what the world is speaking. And the fact is that we must have a relationship that is built upon that source of truth. I think John's Of course, John is working under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit here, but the thought is brilliant as he begins us with the foundation of the source of truth, of who God really is and what God has really said about the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's live in the light of that relationship. This relationship is based upon confirmed knowledge, but also experiential knowledge. In other words, we know what it is, and we've lived it out, and we've seen it's true. This love that God has for us, he's not content just to love us as the popular song from some years ago, from a distance, that God's watching us from a distance, like he's really kind of detached. He's not detached at all. He's engaged in His creation, and He's engaged particularly with His people. I will dwell with you, and you will be My people. I will be your Father, you will be My children. I will dwell with you. I mean, over and over again, these thoughts of the Old and the New Testament, that we had this relationship that is based upon knowledge, not just wishful thinking. And so here in verses 7 and 8, take a look at at these verses again with these thoughts in mind. Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. There is knowledge here. There are religions, even religions that claim to be Christian that doubt whether you can really know all that much about God. Or maybe I just say doubt that you can really know him or at least have assurance in your relationship with him. And yet, John, you see none of that here. You see utter confidence in this relationship with God where love is governing what's going on. And in verse 8 we read, anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. We've already talked about God being love and this steadfast love. This is his character. Just let's put it in human terms, shall we? Think about the relationships that you have in your life. I would just put that you have had. Think about your spouses, think about your children, think about co-workers, think about friends from college or school. I have friends that I still converse with from college days, and those relationships have just gone on and on and on. There are others that have come and gone in my life, and we were friends for a time, and it wasn't that we became unfriendly, it's just life parted. Our ways parted as life went on, and every once in a while someone will give me a call. It just happened about a week or so ago. A guy called me up out of the blue that I haven't spoken to for over 40 years from New Hope. A couple years younger than me, but he was like, hey, you remember me? No, I didn't right off the right off the right off the bat, but then as we got to talking it's like oh, yeah Yeah, we started talking we reconnected and started sharing some memories and things and and it turns out he lives in Sandpoint So we're gonna be getting together and it's an awesome thing and we'll renew that renew that friendship there and this is a friendship really that more than anything else is I will say, is being renewed because of a connection, a mutual connection of Christian service under the Lord, that he's met some people that know me, that we're in ministry stuff that we do up here, and he's working with them, and it's because of the love of Christ that that relationship can be restored, and be restored fully. And that's because God is love. If it was just dependent upon our walks in life or our personalities or, you know, do we really remember, you know, we'd be kind of doomed when it comes to any sort of long-lasting friendships. But because God is love, we can have genuine relationships with God and with those who are his children as well. And we should be abiding in that. I look around this congregation and it's just, I love you people. But you're all very different. We have different levels of relationship depending on how well we connect on an individual level and how much we do outside of church together and all of those kinds of things, family experiences, education, whatever else. But we have this love relationship together as a body that as we love one another as God loves, it's a genuine relationship. How does the world know, according to the Lord Jesus Christ, that we belong to him? That we love one another? What is probably the number one or two reason why people abandon church? Because of the bickering and what, I don't know, the general term of hypocrisy that they see in the church when people don't live according to this relationship in which we are to be abiding. This genuine relationship that we possess but tarnish its reputation when we don't love one another as God loves us. That doesn't mean excusing sin or anything like that, but it does mean selflessly sacrificing for one another and being devoted to one another, even as we claim we're devoted to the Lord. Let our claim be genuine with integrity that we love God. Let it be seen in the love that we have for one another as we live out this genuine love. Well, I'm looking at the time and I'm not going to get to point two. So anyway, we'll see how long it takes to get through this passage. It's okay. Genuine love. You can, if you look at your notes there, you should be able to guess what goes in that main point blank there pretty easily. But take a look at that word preemptive and, Go look it up if you don't already know what it means. And even if you do know what it means, go look it up again anyway and explore it a little bit because we're going to be talking about the preemptive love of our God for us that comes out of this genuine nature that never, never changes out of the one with whom there is no shadow of turning. Our God loves us. He has shown it and he calls us to love one another. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word, for this precious passage that you've given to us. We thank you for the reminder of your character, your steadfast character, your steadfast love that flows out of that character. We thank you, Lord, that you will never leave us nor forsake us. And we thank you that on the basis of that love shown to us in your word and pictured for us in the person and work of Jesus Christ, Lord, that we can then love one another in this same way. And that we can love you by your enablement with integrity. We thank you for the new birth that is ours because of your love. And we thank you for the relationship that we have with you and with each other because of this precious love. Help us to live, abide in this love that is genuine and seek for no other love that this world might choose to offer. For Lord, there is truly no other place where we can put our faith and trust and not have it disappointed. But in you, we are safe. Thank you, Father, for your love. Help us to love you all the more. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.