A Child is born... The Love of God Manifested Toward Us
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7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein 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 ought also to love one another.
12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
*Open prayer
The first question we need to ask is why?
Why would there be a need for such a savior?
Why would God send his son, pay the price for my sins?
Why would He even want to have fellowship with a wretch like me?
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
When we speak on the love of Jesus Christ, we need to make it clear, it is a deeper love than anything we can even imagine.
We think we have an idea the extent of the extent of God’s love toward us....
We don’t!
Jesus Christ, God in the Flesh, in a world of sinful men...
Before we get into this text today, lets look at the birth of our savior.
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: And the government shall be upon his shoulder: And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Right away, we see a prophecy regarding the birth of Jesus.
God gives His Son, and already the government is upon his shoulder.
Man resisted and even hated God long before the birth of Christ.
Its not hard to see why a jealous men would...
Look at the next verse.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, To order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice From henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
This is the kind of things that empires were built over, and fell over.
True, everlasting peace.
A kingdom with no end...
A man with that to claim would be loved and respected for all of time...
The problem is of course, that no man has ever, nor will ever be able to accomplish such a task.
People have given everything in the hopes of such a kingdom, but all have failed.
Think about the lives that were killed and destroyed over such things.
How many attempts were there at conquering the world?
A one world nation could not, by definition, be at war with another nation.
Peace could then be legally enforced.
That was the theory anyways.
In fact we see in the book of Revelation that the anti-christ give the final attempt to bring peace… Peace without God.
Even the antichrist fails...
So if there is a rumor of a coming messiah, born to us as a man, that is prophesied to accomplish this otherwise impossible task, its going to attract a lot of attention.
Perhaps unwanted attention.
For those in the final days of looking forward to such a messiah, could it be true that one was born in Bethlehem?
Do we see how evil rulers would want to deny such claims?
The first part of 1 John chapter 4 gives warning about this.
1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
There are no shortages of people, even today, 2,000 years later, that deny the Christ was born to us.
In spite of all that, Jesus came to us in the ultimate act of love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John Love Has Its Origin in God (1 John 4:7–8)
The word love (Gk agape) dominates 1 John 4:7–5:3. It appears over 30 times. Some have even said John is the expert on the subject. Paul is the apostle of faith. Peter is the apostle of hope. James is the apostle of good works. And John is the apostle of love.
There is little doubt we need an expert on love. In our culture love is too often understood in selfish and sexual terms. The Word of God paints a completely different picture. Here the words “sacrificial” and “supernatural” jump out at us. Ultimately love comes from God and is seen most clearly in the death of Jesus on the cross as He takes on Himself the sins of the world.
But back to our question...
Why?
Does God not know what I have done?
The depth of the sins I have committed against Him?
Why?
Why would a loving, perfect, and just God want to love a filthy sinner like me?
We need to appreciate this fully, and receive the Fatherly love God has to give us. Some of us, for whatever reason, have come to think of God the Father as mean, perhaps the so-called “angry God” of the Old Testament. In this wrong thinking, many imagine they prefer the nice and loving Jesus instead. But the Father loves us too; and the love Jesus showed in His ministry was the same love God the Father has towards us. We can receive the healing power in our Father’s love.
I have to admit something to you.
There were times in my life when I would ask myself this question.
Even after I was saved...
There are moments in time when we all stop and examine ourselves.
We have an “Adam and Eve just ate the forbidden fruit” type of moment.
The sin....
Our sin...
It suddenly becomes clear to us how wicked we can be...
We think is there a limit to just how
Unloving I can be?
How ungracious I can be?
How impatient I can be?
How unkind, anti-peaceful, and wicked I can truly be?
And in those moments we ask ourselves...
Can Jesus really save me?
Can he really love me even with this disguised of sin I have in my life?
I take comfort in the words of Paul in Romans 8.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Who can separate us from the love of God?
I am in awe when I think about this...
Lets look at verse 10.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
In spite of the worst crimes against God that I can commit, He still loves me.
It is one thing to talk about love. It is entirely something else to demonstrate love.
Our God does not just tell us what Love is, He shows us!
Often there are hurting people who are wondering, “Does anyone love me?”
People that have been abused, abandoned, betrayed, lied to, mistreated, and deeply wounded.
You may be like this, where you can barely ask the questions but still you do, “Does anyone love me? Will I ever be loved?”
If you ever ask yourself this question...
The answer is Yes....
So much more than you even know.
Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John God Sent His Son that He Might Die (1 John 4:10)
This is one of the most wonderful and important verses in the Bible. It notes the initiative God took in loving us, and it addresses the magnitude of that love in the gift of His Son. God did not send an angel; He sent His Son. God did not send His Son to live; He sent His Son to die. And this was not an ordinary death. Nor was it simply the death of a martyr. It was the death of a Savior dying in our place and bearing our punishment.
God gives us more love than we can even comprehend....
We should not attempt to contain it!
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
That same love inside of us should be gushing out into the world around us!
Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John Love Is Perfected in Us When We Love Others (1 John 4:11–12)
It is too often the case that Christians are not known for their love of others. Sometimes the criticisms are unjustified. Unfortunately, at other times we are guilty as charged. Recent research by Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman reveals we are often seen by the lost as “hyperpolitical, out of touch, pushy in our beliefs, and arrogant”; in particular we are viewed by young Americans who do not attend church as antihomosexual (91%), judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), and insensitive to others (70%) (White, The Church in an Age of Crisis, 175). And yet, Jesus said love for others is how people know we are His disciples (John 13:35). He also says to love our enemies and to pray for those who hate us and would harm us if they could (Matt 5:44).
The great and challenging application to these commands is that we must go to those who don’t want us there. We must share a gospel they don’t want to hear. We must love those who may hate and even kill us in return. Because we are connected to Jesus through the new birth, we must go and live like Jesus among our friends and our enemies.
12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
When the world looks at us they should see God in our lives.
God’s love inside us should inspire us to love others!
As believers of the Gospel, we are compelled to.
It should come natural to us...
The Highest level of love was demonstrated to us....
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Being that we are all sinners, this is amazing.
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
God manifested His love to us, in giving us His only begotten son.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
If we have the love of Christ in us, verse 14 tells us what we must do…
14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
Testify!
If you don’t know Christ as Lord of your life...
You don’t even realize what you are missing out on.
12 As far as the east is from the west, So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
The Christ is waiting....
Come to him today!
*Closing prayer