“Love Changes Everything!”
Sermon Series: Walk in Faith (part 8 of 10)
First Baptist Church Family Life Center
New Castle, Indiana
Pastor Jerry Ingalls
March 7, 2010
We are continuing in our sermon series "Walk in Faith". In this series we have been learning deep theological truths of who God is and what it means to be in relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ. We have been learning that there are implications to this faith we call Christianity that affect who we are and how we relate to one another both in the church and to the world. We are in our 8th teaching time on First John. Please open your Bibles, pull out your sermon notes, and grab a pen. Let's dive in!
1 John 4:7-21 (NIV)
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. [Prayer]
Love is a word that is often overused, if not misused, in our culture. This is a word that when used should carry with it a depth of meaning that requires of the one using it and the one hearing it to be different and to think/act/speak differently than before they encounter love. Love changes everything !
Our first teaching point this morning is declarative of this rich theological teaching: LOVE IS REALITY!
In today’s Scripture lesson, John declares twice the most theologically rich statement about God found in all of the Scriptures—“God is love” (4:8 & 16). This is a statement of such great magnitude that we order our thoughts around it; it shifts our reality! This God who is love is reality and getting to know this God changes everything!
Let’s read again the first 2 verses of our Scripture lesson (1 John 4:7-8): 7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
These revolutionary statements about God and what it means to be a child of God are expanding our minds to the reality of this life. All that is good and beautiful and lovely find its origin in God and God alone! All love comes from God; in God there is nothing that falls short of perfect love; therefore, this perfect love is our reality as Children of God, born again through Jesus Christ!
Love is not only the core nature and character of our God, but it should be the defining attribute of our lives as His Children. The follower of Jesus Christ should be known by his/her love! John makes it clear that if your reality is not defined by love than you do not know God!
John teaches that anyone’s ability to love comes from God! What does that mean then for the many good people in our community and world that do not know God but are some of the most loving people we have ever met? Where does the ability to sacrificially and selflessly love come from when a person is not a Christian?
The answer to this question can best be explained by understanding God as the paternal father of all humanity.
God is the Creator, the Father of all Creation! We learn in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
If “God is love” then it follows suit that those created in His image will have the capacity for love! You do not have to be a Christian, a regenerated Child of God, to have the capacity to love, but as we will learn later in this teaching time love is only perfected in one who has been born again through the Spirit of God!
The point is that all men and women have the capacity to love because God is reality for all. In the marquee sermon by the Apostle Paul at Mars Hall found in the Book of Acts 17:28, Paul states, “'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'”
Paul is quoting Greek pagan poets who grasped the reality that we are God’s children. Paul meets these pagan philosophers where they are (he is engaging the culture!) and in their own language proclaims the love of God that transcends all philosophical and even theological systems. It is in God that “we live and move and have our being”! Therefore, it is in love that “we live and move and have our being” because God is love!
John continues in the next 2 verses of our Scripture lesson (1 John 4:9-10): 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
John clearly has the triumphant declaration of the Christian faith, John 3:16, in mind in these verses: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
God’s character and nature is most clearly seen and defined by His decision to enter the mission field in order to save humanity. It is true that we can love because we were created in the Image of God, but because of our rebellion, we each have been corrupted and blemished. This rebellion is characterized by sin.
Let me go a little deeper. The Apostle Paul states in Romans 5:9, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
What is sin? Sin is the blemish (the corruption!) of our rebellion. It is when we miss the target of being God’s image bearers. It is when we are selfish rather than selfless. It is when we make mistakes that cause us to not be the best fathers or sons, mothers or daughters, brothers or sisters. Sin is what separates us from God!
And according to the ancient covenant initiated and established by God between God and humanity, the penalty for sin is death and the only way that sin can be atoned for (or forgiven) is by a blood sacrifice of an unblemished animal. The sins of the people would be symbolically placed on a perfect unblemished animal and then as an atoning sacrifice to God, the people would slay the animal and the blood of that animal would appease the wrath or the curse of the covenant. This animal was the propitiation of their sins!
God’s love was proclaimed to the world when God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be the final atoning sacrifice for all of our sins! Rather than an animal to symbolically take on our sins; God sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world to become fully human so that a man who was without the blemish of sin could take on all of humanity’s sin therefore fulfilling the Law's requirements. This time it wasn’t symbolic. Jesus Christ drank fully from the cup of wrath so that all of God’ s wrath (the judgment for sin!) would be on him and not on us. This imputation of sin occurs when we confess our faith in God’s Son as the One who stood in our place on the Cross of Calvary!
And this time, we are not the one’s who bear the loss of the sacrifice by giving up part of our livestock, it is God who bears the great cost of our salvation. He bore the cost on the Cross! For you and for me! Love is reality!
We have been bought at a price! This is the love that should define our lives and define how “we live and move and have our being”!
LOVE DEFINES OUR LIVES!
Building upon verses 9 and 10, John continues in the next 3 verses of our Scripture lesson (1 John 4:11-13) to build his argument for how we should live our lives as Children of God: 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
With God as our paternal father we have the capacity to love, but when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and accept the free gift of our salvation, then we are born again (we pass from death to life).
This happens because in God’s great love for us God does not stop with sending His Son Jesus Christ to take on the penalty of death for our sins, but He continues by sending His Holy Spirit to live in our hearts. We are born again not through a one way imputation, but by a double imputation. God imputes all of our sins (past, present, and future) once and for all onto Jesus Christ, the perfect unblemished atoning sacrifice. He then imputes His perfect presence (Jesus’ righteousness) onto us through the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives! We are covered by the blood of Jesus and our spirit, which was dead in sin, is made alive in Christ by the Holy Spirit.
Paul declares the implications of this reality in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."
We are welcomed eternally into an intimate love affair with God as His beloved children. In this reality of God’s love everything changes! We are to relate and behave differently because this love is to define our lives!
John continues in the next verse of our Scripture lesson (1 John 4:14): 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
Here is some of the most amazing good news of God’s love; this love is not for one nation, one generation, or any one group of people throughout time. Jesus Christ is “the Savior of the world.” God’s love knows no boundaries and God will stop at nothing in order to reconcile the entire world. For God so loved the world he gave...
Paul teaches in Colossians 1:19-20, "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."
Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God and as the Son of God he came as fully human and fully God so that through the Cross all of Creation can be recreated and restored back into its original design--to the perfect fellowship between God and humanity that existed before the Fall and before sin entered the world through the devil, who introduced rebellion against God.
John moves from a theological teaching to its implications for those who believe and live in its reality. He states in 1 John 4:15: 15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, if you confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, then you are welcomed into God’s perfect presence and made a part of God’s mission to reconcile all of humanity. We are defined by the love of God most clearly seen in Jesus Christ; therefore, our purpose for living becomes one with the purpose for why God sent His Son into the world.
Paul states in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God."
Let me break it down for you because if you miss this then you miss everything! We have been bought at a price for a mission! Love now defines our lives because we are no longer our own…we are the “temple of the Holy Spirit”!
God has committed us to the message of reconciliation! This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ that John is so clearly laying out for us in this book and that I am striving to teach to you. We are Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal of love through us. That means that we are to love one another as God has loved us! We are to embody the same love that defines reality!
If we are truly new in Christ because of our faith then we are to prioritize our relationships because love should be our lifestyle!
In 2 Thessalonians 1:3, Paul makes this connection so clearly for us, that not a one of us can ignore this reality: "We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing."
Do you see it? As we grow in our faith it is manifested in one clear way, our love for one another should increase! Our ability to forgive should increase! Our ability to show grace and to turn the other cheek should increase! As faith grows so does our love!
God is calling us to let go of past hurts, to let go of past wrongs, to let go of the revenge that we feel entitled to take, and to let go of the pettiness and jealousy and bitterness and resentment that does NOT find its origin in the reality of God’s love and light!
God is calling each of us to love one another and to bear with one another in all things so that His love will perfect us! Because it is in God’s love demonstrated to us through Jesus Christ that “we live and move and have our being”! Does love define your life? [pause] Our church?
THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST IS OUR CONFIDENCE!
John continues to take us even deeper in the next verse of our Scripture lesson (1 John 4:16): 16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
Anchored in this truth that “God is love” John teaches us that we now should have confidence in this life and the next. If we know this is the reality of life, then we should rely on it; we should trust it!
We have this great confidence in God’s love and are to model our human relationships after God’s love. We are ambassadors of Christ’s love and deliver the message of reconciliation to all people by the way we love them and by the way they see us loving one another in the church, around the community, and beyond.
How can we do this in such a broken world? [pause] I don’t know if you have noticed, but it’s hard to love people sometimes!
We can love this way because God lives in us! We have been given the imperishable seed of the Holy Spirit!
The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1:22-23 teaches, "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God."
As our text states in verse 16, “whoever lives in love lives in God”. We are to live a habitual lifestyle of love empowered by the Holy Spirit! This is beyond each of our capabilities to do through will power or self help methodology! We are God’s and He lives in us! We have been given a God-sized mission and He will never let go of us! His love is our confidence!
Jesus stated in the Gospel of John 10:27-29, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand."
Jesus declared that those who follow Him and know His voice cannot be snatched out of the Father’s hands! You cannot be snatched out of your Father’s hands! That is why John triumphantly declares in the next 2 verses (1 John 4:17-18): 17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
The love of Jesus Christ not only gives us the confidence to love difficult people and to be loving in difficult situations in this life, but the love of Jesus Christ gives us the confidence to face the Day of Judgment!
It is only in this kind of security that we can be completed in love. The confidence we get from God’s love allows us to have complete unity because our eyes are on Jesus, not ourselves. Our hearts are anchored in the truths of God, not the deceptions and schemes of the devil. Our identity is in Christ, not in this world! We find unity when we put the mandates of the mission of God before our personal preferences!
Jesus prays to His Father for us in the Gospel of John 17:23-24, "I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world."
Jesus’ prayer gives us great confidence! He prays for us and continues to intercede that we will be where He is; to see His glory face to face; to experience this great love that God has for His Son, who has always existed with God from the very beginning. Jesus is assuring us that on Judgment Day we have nothing to fear as His disciples! His perfect love drives out fear!
John continues in the next verse of our Scripture lesson (1 John 4:19): 19We love because he first loved us.
God has a perfect love that compels us to love!
As a body of believers, as families, and as individuals, our lives should be defined by love and gratitude for the great love that God bestowed upon us so that we could be called Children of God (1 John 3:1).
The God who is love sent His One and only Son so that we would love in the same way that God loved us. Jesus Christ commanded in the Gospel of John 13:34, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."
This is the imperative of our life! To love like Jesus!
John concludes this section with these last 2 verses of our Scripture lesson (1 John 4:20-21): 20If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, there are everyday implications of our confidence in Jesus’ love. And we can easily deceive ourselves and others to think that we are Children of God! John returns us to his simple and uncompromising test to ensure we are not deceived by the evil one and that we are not deceiving others! Do you love your brother? How can you say you love God if you do not have love for your brother and sister in Christ? John is saying that the reality of God’s love must change who you are and how you treat other people. Love changes everything! Jesus changes everything! All is new!
Why is this so urgent? Why does John emphasize this in such a black and white way?
Because John is joining with Jesus and the Apostles to declare that the Day of Judgment approaches!
As real as God’s love is so is God’s holiness and justice! The Day of Judgment is a reality. Paul states in Romans 14:10, "You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat."
No one blemished by sin can enter Heaven and be present to God’s perfection! God will not allow imperfection in His perfect presence so unless you receive the forgiveness of sin through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ then you have not been perfected in love and there is reason to fear! The good news is that God has your attention today to declare that it is not too late for God’s Love to perfect you!
Peter declares in 2 Peter 3:9 regarding the coming judgment, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
Who do you say Jesus Christ is? How do you love your brother? Examine your relationships and how you love people! Are you ready for the day of judgment?
RESPONSE TIME: Pastor Ken and his team are now going to lead us in a time of response.
Let's pray together. [Pray]
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