Experiencing God's Love

Intro:

Story of Japath - The consequences of bad theology.

There was a profound misunderstanding of God because they had mixed the truth with cultural understandings of how gods worked.

This bad theology was not contained to one family, but that community as a whole.

What we believe is what we speak.

We either spread the truth about who God is or we spread false ideas about God.

This is such a beautiful tie in to today’s passage because this is exactly the issue that John is addressing.

1 John 4:1–6 NLT

1 Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. 2 This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. 3 But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here. 4 But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. 5 Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. 6 But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.

How do we know who is speaking the truth?

This appears to be a simple question with a straight forward answer. Consider though what Jesus says in Matthew chapter seven.

Matthew 7:21–23 NLT

21 “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. 22 On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ 23 But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’

The title of this short passage is “True Disciples” and seeing this complicates the question.

Jesus points out that people can have the appearance and even power over spirits and still not know Him.

How, and just as importantly, why is this even a thing that a person can have all the appearances and power of a disciple of Jesus, but not know Him?

Consider the things these false disciples are claiming to have done. They cast out demons.

This is not junior varsity stuff, yet Jesus makes it plainly clear that He does not know them.

god like activity does not equal Godly activity.

If we take a moment and consider the culture, here in the bible belt, we all know without a doubt that we have either encountered these kinds of false disciples or have been one ourselves.

We talk the talk like a professional.

John is addressing a serious problem in the church and that problem is still prevalent in the church today.

However, John is not only making us aware of it, but he is also giving us the tools in which to deal with it.

God becoming real to me when I was in late highschool.

All of the sudden, He went from being an idea that I believed to a tangible presence that could be encountered.

I could feel the presence of God through the people that were in my life.

This passage is what brought me to that realization.

1 John 4:7-

1 John 4:7–12 NLT

7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

If you have been around me for any significant amount of time, you have heard me quote this passage.

John has presented the problem that the church is facing and gives us an incredible tool.

I read a statistic this week that 51% of people in our culture believe that they are right with God because they prayed a prayer, walked an aisle, went through confirmation, or whatever their tradition calls it.

More than half the people that make up this culture that we live in, are helping to shape what the church looks like and according to Jesus’ comments in Matthew seven, they don’t know Him.

At this moment, I know that all of us know people that are in that category.

This is not about judgment, this is about allowing God to reveal the truth.

Which I think requires that we also consider where we stand personally with God.

John is revealing some truth to the church that they haven’t experienced.

The very fact that they are having this conversation is a result of what is happening in their body.

Bad theology is prevalent in today’s churches.

Think about the transactional theology that caused Japath to kill his own daughter and then think about who most of professing believers today talk about their relationship with God.

Russ points out in his video that we so often pray these transactional kinds of prayers.

We joked about in our life group last week how many times I have prayed like this in the middle of the night and you can’t get the baby to go to sleep.

This isn’t something that is isolated to a small group of people, but rather, it has worked it’s way into the lives of nearly every believer.

This begs another question.

What is the solution to this problem?

John tells us in verse seven and eight

1 John 4:7 NLT

7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

1 John 4:7–8 NLT

7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

1 john

Love - that is how we know.

Now, I know what you are thinking.

“Will, I know people who don’t even believe in God, and they love people.”

John is not talking about just any love, he is talking about the love of God.

Look with me at Jesus’ words in John’s gospel.

John 17:26 NLT

26 I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”

John is repeating what he heard Jesus saying to God during prayer.

It is not our love, it is God’s love that is in us.

This is the mark of a true disciple, that God’s love is in them.

John continues to define what that means in verse nine and ten.

1 John 4:9–10 NLT

9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

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Think about how we as adults first experience love within the context of dating.

It is 100% conditional.

That is the purpose of dating. We are trying to figure out if the other person measures up to the standard.

Contrast that then with the moment in which a married couple becomes aware that they are pregnant.

That love is not conditional. It isn’t dependent on anything.

Those parents love that child regardless of anything.

That is unconditional love.

John is defining the kind of love that we will experience by giving us the example of Jesus.

God does not love us because we live up to a standard.

In fact, He loves us even though we don’t.

His love preempted our lives with the full knowledge that we would be born into sin.

Let that sink in.

What would it look like if we started all of our relationships like that?

Compare that with our current cultural view of what it means to love.

If someone wrongs us, it’s not only okay, but expected that we stop loving them.

But remember what Jesus said when asked how many times we should forgive someone.

In he tells Peter that we should forgive seventy times seven.

That is a ridiculous amount and that is exactly the point.

How different would our culture be if we loved like Jesus?

1 John 4:11–12 NLT

11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

Lunch this week with a former student.

His memory of Bethany and I as his youth minsters and how he is modeling his relationship and ministry after ours.

I can tell you with certainty that we were no where near anything that I want someone else to model.

You all know that I am far from perfect and I have grown a lot over the years.

I made the assumption that this guy is remembering twenty year old Will, but what he is actually remembering is the love of God.

God has been changing me for the last sixteen years and looking back, I know that I am far better for it.

Authentic relationships, universally, are something that all people desire and long for.

Love is the currency of relationships.

It is what gives them value.

This passage of scripture literally changed my life as a high school student.

It allowed me to see God for who he was.

God was no longer and idea, but at being, that loved me.

This happened because of the men and women in my life that loved me unconditionally.

They were the conduit in which realization of this verse came to me.

I understood it because I had experienced God’s love through His people.

God became real to me because I experienced His love.

This is what will change our culture.

Not a flashy sermon series, nice building, fancy coffee, or even a hip pastor.

My experience is not the exception, but in fact, according to John, is exactly what is supposed to happen.

It is this same kind of experience that God is going to use in your life and in the life of others to reveal Himself.

This is the proof of God.

Read this next passage with me.

1 john 4:13-

1 John 4:13–17 NLT

13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

God’s love, in us, is the proof.

To ourselves, to the church, and to the world that God is real, active, and loves them.

As we experience God’s love and live in the truth of it, we are changed.

1 John 4:18–21 NLT

18 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. 19 We love each other because he loved us first. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? 21 And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.

1 John 4:18-

J.D. Greer’s illustration of getting hit by an eighteen wheeler.

We cannot experience the love of God and be the same.

John ends this chapter with a defining statement.

It is one that we need to all take a very close look at.

It is utterly impossible for us to experience the love of God and not love one another.

Why I don’t like scary movies - They affect me for a long time. They add stress that I don’t need.

I think we often avoid God and His call, particularly to missions, because we know it will change us.

When we go to another country or outside the walls of this building and engage our hearts, minds, and souls in the lives of others, our hearts are broken.

You know why? Because God’s heart is broken.

Our generation wants to do things that matter.

We want to make a difference.

I can tell you from experience that if you are trying to do that through your own power and influence, it is like spitting in a fire.

It will have zero affect.

However, if we will go on this adventure of following God’s lead, allowing His love to be made perfect in us, we will be going forth with the power of God who spoke things in to being.

Remember that Jesus told the disciples that they would do even greater things than He.

This happens only as we let go of the past.

When we release the dead religion, the false notions of goodness, and control of our lives, and allow God to pour His love into us.

This is why this is my favorite verse.

It reveals to us and to the world the power of God, by us abiding in His love and choosing to love others as He has loved us.