Fundamentals of the Abundant Life in Jesus - 1st John - The Fundamental of Knowing love and loving all people.

GREET AND INTRO

Good morning everyone!! Good morning on everyone worshiping this morning through live stream.

If I have not had a chance to meet you either in person or through live stream;  My name is Scott and I am a follower of Jesus and have the privilege of serving Him as the Lead Pastor among the people of Stonewater Fellowship. 

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Opening Prayer

Ephesians -

For the persecuted Church

Prayed to the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant US ALL, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in OUR inner PERSON, so that Christ may dwell in OUR hearts through faith; and that WE, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that WE may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

LETS GRAB OUR BIBLES

either electronic version or the actual book kind -

Open it to 1st John Chapter 4 as we will look at vs 7 through 21 this morning as we Continue in our Fall series understanding the Fundamentals of living the abundant life that Jesus came to give us - walking together through the 1 st letter of John the Apostle and very best friend of Jesus.

OPENING QUESTION

What is the fullness of God?

With that question and request before God for all of us - LET US LOOK AT OUR TEXT

TRUTH

1 John 4:7–21 NASB95

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

ENGAGEMENT

How many of you have heard the wisdom of the Dash

Some of you are going “The Dash?” Like the 50 yard dash 100 yard dash.

Well its sort of like that - IT is the dash between the two dates.

THE TWO DATES? some of you are asking.

Yes the two dates-

You see when this life is over as your remains are stored - on the marker where your body is laid or on the box in which your remains are stored - Or at the minimum during the memorial service in which people will stop for a couple of hours of their life to honor or pay tribute to the 60-70-80 years of your life -

There will be two dates mentioned at that memorial service - There will be two dates on the box of your remains - There will be two dates Etched or Inscribed on the stone that marks the place where your body lays.

The Day you were born and the day that your life here in the physical world ended and you stepped into eternity.

The day that you were born is the day that God brought to fruition the life that He gave you in the womb of your mom - The day your took your first breath -

The day you used your eyes in the fullness of their design - The Day your ears heard the fullness of sound - the day your lungs too their first breath of air and began working for the purpose that God had designed them to work.

This is the day that you were born- But the day you were born is not like the day you die - The day you were born is just a step in the life that God gave you at the moment you were conceived 9 months previous.

The Life that God gave when He began to nit you together and first gave you the soul that is from God and returns to God!

The Day your body stops working - the day you step into eternity - of your death - is the day that all of your physical functions stop and the life that God has given is taken from your physical body and you are returned to God -

The DASH - is what happens in the middle of those two moments

The dash stands for the 50-60 70 80 years or how ever long we have -

This wisdom of the dash asks this question -

What did we do with the dash?

What is the Narrative of the dash?

What is our Story that is encapsulates by the dash?

TENSION

But what if the dash was not a dash but an Underline - Or what if the dash were really a blank line that was filled in by the people who came to memorialize you.

And what they did was filled in the blank with ONE WORD -

What would thy write in in the Blank? Would they say:

Good, Kind, Nice, Polite, Gentle, Peaceful, generous, Giving, Steadfast, Faithful,

OR would they say -

Angry, Firm, Stubborn, mean, leagleist, disciplined,

What is the ONE word that God would fill in the blank with?

One of the things that we should all ask ourselves is how different would our answer be from the answer of others and most importantly the answer from God -

As we unpack these verses this morning - Let us ask these questions about the Dash?

BEFORE

We have spoken before and IT is important to remember that even though 1st John is considered a letter in our Bibles, it is important to remember that it is not written like the other new testament letters - It is not Systematic - Meaning it does not make a truth claim and then build on those claims going from one subject to another - It has no greeting or salutation and in general it does not take the form of the other new testament letters.

the 1st writing of the apostle John is written like a memo that - A big note - to the churches through out the area - that He is helping lead while He is in Ephesus - With Timothy

This 1st writing of John was meant to be spread and understood by all of these churches and beyond.

We must also remember who John Was - John was the very best friend of Jesus - and the Only Remaining Apostle and original leader - All of Johns Contemporaries had been killed off becasue of their faith. All of them!

The Other thing that we must remember is that The Holy Spirit of God, through the pen of the Apostle John has written this to us.

In this spiral fashion of this letter John will come again to the subject of Love for the 3rd and last time - And He will drive home the meaning, Source, eternal Importance and severity of Love.

In these 15 verses John will use the word Love 21 time. This is the most concentrated use of the word in all of the Bible. IT is no consequence that it is written by the Holy Spirit, through the very best friend of Jesus.

UNPACKING

VS 7

John begins this section of His letter with again a term of love and endearment - Beloved -

IT is interesting that John Has no idea the individual persons who would read this but begins with a term that would normally be used by someone who was speaking to someone special and directly -

But He does not, he uses the term to identify ANYONE who would read this as some one whom He loved and Had active affections for their souls.

John, Immediately jumps into Instruction, Identification and Importance

“Let us Love One another. - Instruction

Love is from God - Identification of the Source and Originator of Love-

Everyone who loves is BORN of God and Knows God. Importance of Love

Love is used three times in this passage alone -

AS we think about what John has just said we must grab onto the fact that the way that John is describing this love as from the source and when he uses the term “Loves” What He is referring to is and ongoing continual love that does not eb and flow - That does not wax and wane. But a love that is continual never ceasing.

Every one who LOVES continually and in and ongoing never ending consistent way is born of God.

VS 8

John then gives the counter - The one who does not love in a continual and on going way - does not know God?

WHY? Because God is LOVE - The Central character and nature of God is LOVE - Every things that God does and Every thing of who God is flows our of the fact that He is the very Essence of Love and Love is a the Center of the Nature of God.

Love is inherent in all that He does and all that He is and even His judgments and wrath are perfectly harmonized with His Love.

God never stops His love, His thoughts of Love nor His actions of Love.

In vs 7 and 8 John has laid out this truth of God -

VS 9

Then He lays our proof in -

WE must understand and remember that it is the Love of God that is displayed so openly and so severely in the Gospel.

This is how we know what Love is and what God intends for us in the aspect of Love -

That what john Means when He says “By this the love of God was manifested”

manifested - In the Original language f the new testament the words that comes to us as manifested - Means to make visible - Shone to, To Appear or To make real or to disclose -

The Love of God was made visible to us - The Love of God was disclosed to us - The love of God was made real to us and shone to us -

That god sent His only begotten Son into the world/

Why was He sent? So that we might live though Him -

This is the Gospel - Re-instated again - God sent Jesus into this world so that those who are born dead - dead in their trespasses and Sin can Live -

VS 10

John then describes How the Love of God - This love that we are called to have for each other and to declare is available to the whole world

- He then describes How this love really works -

In This - pointing to the actions of God - In This “is love” John then puts conditions on how love is supposed to be Love ORIGINATED 0

Not that we loved God but that He Loved Us -

You see this is how you know love is love -

Love - The Kind and Type of Love that Originates with God and is following in the very essence of who God is and What God does - Originates in Choice not Deservedness or Equality -

Here is what I mean by this - God Loved us - God does not love us becasue we loved HIM first - In other words we are not doing something that would indicate that we deserved to be loved or that we are doing something that would call for love to be returned to us becasue after all it is only fair that if someone deserves to be loved that we love them or if they love us it is only fair that we love them -

This is the severity of The Gospel - God loves us FIRST!

Church - We need to totally understand this - If we don’t get this we will not understand a great many things about God -

The Effect and the Actions of The Gospel are Severe - They are the most severe occurrence in all of human history and it is and should be and is certainly described as the most severe thing that can ever happen to a human being -

We are not born with, we do not acquire in this world or from this world, We are not taught by the philosophies of this world or the principles of this world, becasue we have no capability in our natural selves to Love ANYONE but our self and that is Including God.

Romans 5:6–10 NASB95

6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

You see God loved us - While we were His enemy - While we were rebelling against Him - While we Hostile in our minds against God - Living according to the desires of our flesh and giving our selves every desire of our flesh and our minds - by our very nature Children of Wrath-

What did He do to demonstrate this - He sent Jesus His son to be the propitiation for our sins -

Propitiation - Payment for our Rebellion - Saved form the wrath of God -

Jesus said on the Cross IT is Finished - Our debt is paid - The Judgement is satisfied - The Wrath is quenched -

And this is the Love that God has for us. This is the Severity of God’s Love -

VS11

John Then Says in

If this is the way that God loves us - This is how we should love one another -

But you see this is opposite of the world -

We love this way becasue God loved us this way -

We start loving people becasue God is the beginning of Love -

We love the unlovable becasue God loves the unlovable

We love the unloving becasue God loves the unloving

We love the undeserved because God loves the undeserving

We love this way becasue God loves this way -

VS12

John then begins to unfolds for us THE Spiritual reasons we are to love like this -

He begins by saying that No one has seen God at any time - And that is true - What John is implying here is that Jesus is no longer here - This is time of this letter is 50 some odd years after Jesus was with us - 50 years after His Assention into heaven - 50 years after Pentecost.

So when John is saying that No one has seen God at any time - He is referring to the fact that Jesus is not Here with us any more and none that John is writing to was one of the people who saw Jesus - Jesus said to Philip as Phillip was asking to see the father - You have seen me you have seen the father -

But here is how people can experience God - Through US - God remains in us - and His love is perfected in us - John is using the term US to refer to the collective - as in all of us together - US as in the Body of Jesus -

Perfected - This does not mean that we will be perfect nor will our loving other be perfect - What this means is when we love this way and God is revealed in our lives to the lives of the people around us and most pointedly to other believers - John is saying that God;s love is bring brought to a completion in us - Meaning we are finally getting it.

VS 13

John then steps into the assurance we have of our salvation when this kind of love characterizes our life -

BY THIS - by These descriptions - By the evaluations - By These standards - If we love Like God loves - Then By THAT we know that we abide in Him that we remain in Him and he in us.

VS 14

John says in We have seen this love in action - We have seen the Son - and we testify - and Here is what we testify

VS 15

Whoever confess that Jesus is the Son of God - God remains in Him

VS 16

John continues the thoughts of Salvation - That wen we believe that Jesus is the Son of God we believe that He is the fullness of the Son of God we believe that He is the manifestation of the Love of God -

When He says We have come to know the Love of God - the Love that He has for Us -

John then says on of the most familure statement of the whole bible - God is Love -

The Person or the One who Remains in love - continual love - Remains in God

VS 17

This is how the love of God is made complete in us - So that we may have confidence in the day of Judgement -

WHY - Because as He is so also are we in the world - Because how Jesus is - WE also are in the world - How was Jesus in the world - Jesus was sent - Jesus loved - Jesus herelded - and Jesus sought out the lost and the desperate for God and he spoke so the one who though they didn t need any more of God could know they might be missing out.

VS 18

John then makes an interesting turn that not only marks our relationship with God but can also mark our relationship with each other. He says there is not fear in love and He says that Perfect love - Casts out all fear - Here is what it is important to understand when the bible uses the word Perfect in this context - It means brought to completion - it mean fully developed - Love that is fully developed becasue of the understanding of God’s love - That love cast our all fear - Fear of Judgement - Fear of punishment - Fear of insecurities - Fear of abandonment - Fear of Discrimination - Fear of loss - Fear of self - Fear of change - Fear of correction -

Completed - fully developed love that is brought about by understanding and walking in the truth of the love of God the kind that Loves first - That kind of love when brought to completion on our lives - Casts our fear from our lives and from the lives of the people around us -

And if we have fear - We are not brought to the fullness of God's love-

VS 19

john the wraps it all up and says - We love - becasue God loved us first.

VS 20

John then comes with a warning - A warning that is intended to be spoken in Love - If you say you love God but hate your brother - and Remember the word Hate is not initially how we fell about someone but rather how we treat them - Hate meaning rejecting them - John Says - Its not true, you do not love God becasue you cant love God - You don’t love our brother you see who can you love Jesus who you cant see -

VS 21

John them refers to the greatest command ment that Jesus gave - And John was sitting there when He spoke it - love the lord with all of your heart soul mind and strength and love your neighbor as your self

APPLICATION -

You might be here this morning and you might be saying - Pastor OK I get it - But do you have some practical was that we can live this out - I don't but Jesus does -

BE the Samaritan who care for a hurting man totally and completely -

When you are invited to a place - Go recline at the last place not the place of honor

when you have a luncheon or a dinner party - Don’t invite your friends your brothers you neighbors or your rich friends fir they can pay you back. But instead Invite the poor, the blind, the lame and the crippled -

Make sure that when Jesus come again, and He divides the people groups of the world - And He says to those on the right - My sheep you clothed me when I was naked - You fed me when I was hungry - You came and visited me when I was sick and imprisoned - Come and inherit the Kingdom which has been prepared for you since the beginning -

Pay and attend to the needs of the widows and the orphans of this world.

Love your neighbor as your self -

Do what Jesus did - Set your life on the agenda of taking the love of God through the Gospel to the world around us in Deed AND in word -

Abide in Jesus and Bear fruit - Be the good soul that Jesus intend us to be and bear eternal fruit from among the lost in this world 30x60x100x storing up treasures for the next part of life which is for all eternity

COMMUNION LITURGY

Acknowledgement of our need for Jesus to prepare for the table of Jesus–

The Scriptures tell us that when we come to the table of Jesus it is a time of remembrance – A time of thinking about what Jesus has done and accomplished on the cross – A time of remembering why Jesus did what He did. And So as the people who have been called out of darkness, we take time to contemplate and to repent –

Repentance is a turning to Jesus again and again and again – In the life of a follower of Jesus it is never a once and done thing. The Bible tells us that if we agree with God “we confess” in the ways we have rebelled against God “our sin” He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and clean us from all unrighteousness.

So, to prepare our hearts to come to the table of Jesus, as a community, we spend time in prayerful contemplation, agreeing with God trough confession, the areas of our life where we have rebelled against Him, where Jesus still needs to do some work and touch us and heal us.

When we do this we encourage you to take a posture of Humility, as we spend the next minute or so in silent contemplation.

A posture of humility to you might be to stay in your seat with your eyes closed and your head bowed, you might stand with your eyes lifted to heaven and your arms and hands raised as Solomon did when he prayed, you might come and kneel here at the front or there Where you are seated – whatever that is to you, let us take a posture of humility, agreeing with God through prayerful confession the way where we have rebelled against Him as we prepare our hearts to participate in the table of Jesus.

Pause for 60 seconds in prayerful contemplation

Assurance of our forgiveness through the table.

As we come to the table of Jesus together, we are reminded of the assurance of our forgiveness. Because we openly and actively declare the Gospel as we participate in communion together. The poured out blood of Jesus and the death of His body as he joyfully took upon Him self the wrath of God that was due us.

Unity of the Table

When we come to the table of Jesus, we are spiritually united together. Paul says in this letter to the Corinthians “that Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.”

So as we come to the table of Jesus we are spiritually united together as brothers and sisters in Christ. We are also united with Jesus in his death and resurrection at His table.

Participation at the Table

BREAD: On the night He was betrayed, He gathered His disciples for a Passover meal. While they were eating Jesus took some bread; after He blessed it and gave thanks to the Father: He broke it, gave it to His disciples and said: “Take this all of you and eat of it, for This is My body, which is for you; when you do this, do this in remembrance of Me.”

Eat the Bread with Everyone

CUP: After the meal, in the same way He took the cup, again gave thanks to the Father. He took the Cup and gave it to His disciples saying, “Take this all of you and drink of this cup. This cup is the cup of my blood. The blood of the New and Everlasting covenant. My blood which will be poured out for the forgiveness of sins for many; when you do this, as often as you drink it, do this in remembrance of Me.”

Drink the Cup with Everyone