1 John 4:7-5:5
Notes
Transcript
1 John 4:7-5:5
1 John 4:7-5:5
We have a massive statement made twice in this section, that the rest of the section and even the rest of the book is drawing out the implications of.
In fact we are going to spend a couple of weeks looking at the implications in this passage here of this weighty theological statement. So this will be our passage this week and next (2 weeks)
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
So we have 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.
There are 6-7 Implications in this passage of GOD IS LOVE, we will look just at the first 2 today.
LOVE ORIGINATES IN GOD
LOVE ORIGINATES IN GOD
Of course it does. Love means far too much to us to simply be something that we created or that our DNA sovereignly produced.
Love is above us, love is not from here, its as if love is from another universe, love is a gift to us from the realm of eternity.
What is it that makes your life meaningful?
Is it your health? Partly. Is it your Wealth? Partly . . Success. . . but what if you had all those things but didn’t have love, noone to love you, noone for you to love.
Why love is the most important thing to us, why do we feel like love is the greatest of all things? Because God is Love.
It-s crucial that you see that God didn’t BECOME love when humans were created, He IS love by his nature and so he has always been love, even when there was nothing and noone.
This is a strong argument by the way for why God must be triune, if he was only 1 in every sense, he could not be love. To love is to give oneself for the sake of another, that is only possible if there IS another.
The story of creation is not that God created the universe and humans so that he could have someone to love, it is that FROM THE BEGINNING, BEFORE CREATION, GOD THE FATHER, GOD THE SON, GOD THE SPIRIT HAVE BEEN IN PERFECT LOVE, The Father loving the Son, the Son . . . and creation flows out of that eternal perfect love.
You and I are not the main character in the love story of the Cosmos, God is, you and I are the gift and expression of the eternal love of the Godhead.
We get glimpses of that eternal love that is the ground of everything several times
and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
John 1:18 (ESV)
No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.
The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.
For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.
Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
What does that have to do with me? Just disconnected theology?
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.
If the Bible didnt say that, I couldn’t believe it. . . WHAT . . . the way the Father loves the Son!?! You are more greatly loved than you could possibly imagine
I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
WHAT INFINITE LOVE
I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
THAT’S THE WAY THAT YOU ARE LOVED
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
We love because he first loved us
We love because he first loved us.
John doesnt love me . . .
God is the initiator in this relationship, He is the pursuer, He is the one who set His heart upon us, who came after you, who kept calling, who has carried you
LOVE MANIFESTED IN CHRIST
LOVE MANIFESTED IN CHRIST
That eternal love, was made flesh
Christ displays not just God’s love, but LOVE: sacrificial agape love, most clearly
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.
It isn’t only that Christ manifests the love perfectly because he comes to drink the wrath of God so that we might drink his joy . . . gospel
Christ is the perfect display of LOVE because of who he sacrifices himself for.
Romans 5:5–10 (ESV)
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. . . For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son...
The highest form of love is not to love the lovely, but to love the unlovely. Everyone loves the one who is deserving of love, there is nothing particularly special about that. . .
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
Christ doesn’t come to die for his friends, he came to die for his enemies (which is what we are before salvation), he came to die for those who rejected him, for the only creatures . . .
Titus 3:3–5 (ESV)
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy
It is difficult to know if you really love someone, or if you just love what they do for you. It is difficult to know if you love your friends for their own sake, or because they make you feel good about yourself. That is difficult to distinguish.
That difficulty doesn’t exist when the person you love brings nothing to the table for you that is good. If the person only brings you headache, heartache, frustrations, difficulties, NOTHING good, and you still sacrifice for them, that’s love.
I’ve said before for many of us the closest picture we get is infants. . .
The case with us and Jesus was more extreme, it is true that we offer God nothing that he needs, nothing good, but we weren’t just not beneficial to Him, we were against Him, we hated Him, we turned from Him, we rejected Him, and it was then, that he gave everything for you in love.
THAT IS LOVE
Luther said“God didn’t love us because we are valuable, we are valuable because God loves us”
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
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LOVE MADE VISIBLE IN US
LOVE MADE VISIBLE IN US
We make him Seen
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
TRUE LOVE CASTS OUT FEAR
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.
Bad Dream, its ok, I am here
Coen been coming in our room lately - play a game - safest - in bed with mom and dad
Rom 8 - no condemnation, no separation
FAILING TO LOVE YOUR BROTHER IS FAILING TO LOVE GOD
Have seen, have not seen
TRUE LOVE OBEYS
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
Parent Child
Not Burdensome
TRUE LOVE SACRIFICES
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.
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Supplies physical needs - sacrificing my things
Christ’s sacrifice
Jn 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he GAVE
Rom 5:8 - God demonstrated his love
John 15:13 - greater love has no man than this . .
Eph 5:25 - gave himself up for us
Jn 10:11 - Good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep
Matt 5:43-47.
OVERCOME THE WORLD
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Faith
John 16:33.