This Is Love - Part 1

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Well, I invite you to take your Bible and turn with me again to 1 John. It has been a joy over the last couple of weeks to step away and look at some events surrounding our Lord's Passion and His resurrection; I enjoyed that very much, but I'm also excited to be back with you this morning in 1 John. It's my intention and goal to finish 1 John by the time we get to the fall. Go ahead, laugh, I know, they laughed in the first hour too. But no, I think it's doable, and that's my plan. I think, as I've laid it out, that's going to work, and I'm excited about what we have to learn yet in this wonderful letter.

Now, as we begin a new section, let me step back and for all of our sakes, but especially for those who may be newer with us, just remind you of the big picture. The theme of 1 John is “The Tests of Eternal Life.” You can see this if you look at chapter 5, verse 13, “These things I have written to you (John says.) who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

You know, often we use this book to encourage somebody who claims to be a Christian but whose faith we honestly doubt, we say, “Go to 1 John.” And that's right, because there are also the tests for those who aren't true believers, but that isn't the point of this letter. It's written so that true believers may know that they have eternal life. In other words, the book of 1 John was designed by our Lord Jesus Christ, was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and was written by the Apostle John to help true believers gain personal assurance of their salvation. That was the goal, and we're discovering that that, in fact, is what happens as we study this wonderful letter.

Now, the book of 1 John is notoriously difficult to outline, but as I pointed out to you, two images help us understand the structure of this book. The first image is it's like the musical themes in a symphony that the composer returns to again and again, but each time with distinct variations. 1 John is like that. It's also like a spiral staircase with the tests of eternal life hanging down the center, and the Apostle John keeps walking around that spiral staircase, looking at those same three tests from different vantage points. There are three movements or cycles, either way, in 1 John, and each of those movements contains the same three tests.

The three tests are “Obedience to Jesus Christ and His Word, Love for God and His People, and Faith in Jesus Christ and His Gospel.” Those three tests occur in all three movements or all three cycles of this letter. After the prologue in chapter 1, verses 1 to 4, we came to the first cycle which begins in chapter 1, verse 5, and runs through chapter 2, verse 27. All three of those tests occur in that first cycle. Then the second cycle, that we just concluded, begins in chapter 2, verse 28, and runs through chapter 4, verse 6. The third cycle begins in chapter 4, verse 7, and runs through the end of this letter.

Now you'll notice, if you look at the outline that I have on the screen there, that in this last movement, this last cycle, John changes the order. So today, we come, for the third and final time, to the test of “Love for God and His People.” As William Tyndale, really the father of our English Bible, once put it, “John singeth his old song again.” Let's read it together, 1 John 4, verses 7 through 21.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 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. 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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 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. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is (literally, as Christ is, as that One is), so also are we in this world. 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. We love, because He first loved us. 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. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

Now, when you look at that passage, the theme of it is very clear because it's actually the very first line at the beginning of verse 7, “Beloved, let us love one another.” This exhortation is a common refrain in this paragraph: in verse 7, it's an exhortation, “…let us love one another;” in verse 11, it's an obligation, “…we…ought to love one another;” and in verse 12, it's a condition, “…if we love one another, God abides in us.” So, the theme then of this section, this paragraph we just read together, is found at the beginning of verse 7; look at it again, “Beloved, let us love one another.”

John begins this section, as he often does, with a familiar term of endearment for his Christian brothers and sisters, “beloved.” You see, John practices what he preaches. In this section, he's going to urge us to love our Christian brothers and sisters, and he begins this section by saying, “Brothers, sisters, I love you!”

Now, John has addressed this test of love twice before in the other movements in this letter. And let me just remind you the message of those particular passages and how this passage adds to that. Let's go back, first of all, and think about chapter 2, verses 7 through 17. That was the test of love as well, and the focus in that section was on the call to love other Christians for this reason, Christ has commanded us to love. He's given us a new commandment, which in fact, is an old commandment, the command to love. That's the focus of chapter 2, verses 7 to 17.

The second time this test appears is in chapter 3, verses 11 to 24. And the focus in that section was on explaining exactly what kind of love for others shows that, in fact, we have a regenerate heart. It's not just any kind of love; it's a particular kind of love, and John explains it there. It's not the talking kind of love; it's the doing kind of love–it's not just talk, but action.

Now, in this third form of the test, the third time we come to this test of love in chapter 4, verses 7 to 21, this final call to love other believers focuses on God's love, both in His nature, who He is, and in what He has done in sending Christ, His Son. And God's love serves as the motive for our love. So, John begins this third section on love with a clear statement of its theme, and it's “The Exhortation to Love” in verse 7, “Beloved, let us love.”

Now in Greek, this construction is used to exhort or to command both oneself and others to the same action. In other words, it's like an imperative given not just to others, but to yourself as you speak. That's what it's like. So, John is including himself here. He's saying, “Let us (me included) let us love.” And by the way, as he has throughout this letter, he urges us here to consistently love. It's in the present tense; this is not just a one and done–this is habitual, continual practice. We are to express that kind of love to one another, meaning our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Now, let me just remind you, this isn't natural, human love. In Matthew, chapter 5, verse 46, Jesus says, “…if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” He says, “Listen, there's a kind of love on this planet that's normal, natural human love; it's reciprocal love.” It's like, “Look, if you love me, then I’ll love you.” That's not the kind of love he's talking about here. Or as Jesus says in John 15:19, “The world loves its own, because they are of the world.” (Paraphrase.) There, again, is a kind of love, a natural, human love that's in this world, that is a reciprocal, more selfishly prone love. That's not what he's talking about. This love is a love that the Spirit has to produce in our hearts, Galatians 5:22, you have the Holy Spirit, what's the first thing he begins to produce in your heart, and that is love, “…the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Bruce defines love this way, “It is a consuming passion for the well-being of others,” a consuming passion for the well-being of others.

But remember back in chapter 3, John explained exactly what kind of love this is. First of all, just to remind you back in chapter 3, verse 16, this kind of love is expressed sacrificially. “We know love by this, (Here's how we know this kind of love.) that He laid down His life for us.” It's sacrificial love like the kind of love Jesus showed when He laid His life down for us; we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. The kind of love John's talking about here is not normal, reciprocal kind of love. It is sacrificial love like that Jesus displayed in dying for us–it's expressed sacrificially. Biblical love is when you put yourself out for others; it's when you intentionally put the needs and interests of others before your own. You sacrifice yourself in order to care for someone else. That's the biblical kind of love.

In chapter 3, secondly, John tells us it's expressed practically, look at verses 17 and 18.

But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in Him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.

Biblical love for others is measured in how we treat them in very practical ways. In fact, you remember at the end of Matthew 25, at the Judgment of the Nations there at the end of the Tribulation, Jesus is judging those who stand before Him, and he says to the believers, those who came to faith during the Tribulation, he says to them, “Look, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was hungry and you gave me food, I was naked and you clothed me, I was in prison and you visited me, I was sick and you came and cared for me.” (Paraphrase vs. 35-36.) In other words, real Christian love is practical boots-on-the-ground kind of love. It isn't talking on social media about how much you love a certain group or certain people; it's deciding to do something for their good in spite of what it costs you. It's the kind of love that makes the phone call, that takes the meal, that has the discussion, that meets the financial need, that keeps the kids, that visits them in the hospital, that attends the funeral of their loved ones, and so forth. It's very practical caring for other people.

And then thirdly, we learned that this love, we're talking about here, is expressed relationally, or we could say personally. I won't take you to 1 Corinthians 13, but you remember in 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 to 7, we're told a lot about love. We're told that love is kind, it's patient, it's not easily provoked, it doesn't keep record of wrongs that are endured, and on and on it goes. That's love, that's Biblical love. That's God-originated love. It expresses itself relationally! It's not enough that you just do good works for other people; love expresses itself in your relationships starting with those closest to you and working out to everyone you interact with. Lloyd Jones writes:

There are people who are unloving, unkind, always criticizing, whispering, backbiting, pleased when they hear something against another Christian. Oh, my heart grieves and bleeds for them as I think of them. They are pronouncing and proclaiming that they are not born of God. They are outside the life of God; they belong to the world; the murderous spirit of Cain is in them. God is love, and if I say I'm born of God and the nature of God is in me, then there must be some of this love in me.

So, true Christians then are called to, commanded to, exhorted to love God's people, not with normal human love, but a divine love implanted in us by the Holy Spirit that's expressed sacrificially, and practically, and relationally or personally. That's the nature of the love that John exhorts us here to have for our Christian brothers and sisters. So, the first part of verse 7 is the exhortation; the rest of this passage in chapter 4 explains why that is a moral imperative, why that is our Christian duty.

So really, the middle of our 7 down through verse 21, John explains several reasons that we should love fellow believers. What makes this passage unique from the other sections on love in this letter is that here, the reasons he gives are all based on God and on God's love. It's one of the richest passages in the letter.

Today, we're just going to consider the first reason that we should love our Christian brothers and sisters. Here's reason number one, “God's Unchanging Nature of Love,” God's unchanging nature of love. Now, if John the Apostle were the Apostle Paul, he would have begun with the theological statements, and then he would have developed the application from it. That's how Paul's mind works; that's not how John's mind works. But it is how my mind works, and so we're going to look at it that way, alright?

So, we're going to start with the explanation of God's unchanging nature and then we'll look at the application. So, let's start then and see God's unchanging nature of love “Explained” at the end of verse 7 and the end of verse 8. First of all, he explains to us that “God is the only source of this love.” Look at the second half of verse 7, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.” John exhorts us to love one another “for (or because) love is from God.”

Let me read it to you literally from the Greek text, “The love (meaning this kind of love) is out of God,” or “The love I'm talking about is out of God.” God is the only source of this selfless kind of love that expresses itself sacrificially, practically, and relationally. As one renowned commentator, Westcott puts it, “This love flows from Him as the one spring and in such a way that the connection with the source remains unbroken.” In other words, it comes from God, and if you're continuing to display this love, it's only because you're still connected to God and it's flowing through you because of Him.

All expressions of this love derive from and find their origin in God. You see the selfish kinds of love that are common in our world, common in human relationships, those selfish, reciprocal kinds of love, those don't come from God. And even when unbelievers demonstrate some form of selfless love, it is only because of the residual image of God that's still in them, marred at the fall but still there as a residual image, or because they have somehow heard of what God requires in the Scripture, and they are attempting to do it, however imperfectly. Love is from God. He is the only source of this kind of real biblical love.

Secondly, John explains that “God is love in His essence,” God is love in His essence. Look at the end of verse 8, “…for God is love.” This is one of the Mount Everest’s of biblical revelation, God is love. Now, let me be clear, don't be confused, neither the Greek text in this passage nor the rest of Scripture allows you to reverse those two words and make that statement opposite. In other words, it is not true, that love is God. Love alone doesn't describe the nature of God; there's more to God than love. And we're monotheists, not pantheists, which is where that statement really leads. You have to really understand the statement, “God is love;” you have to put it with the other statements that John makes about the nature of God. In fact, there are three statements in John's writings about God's nature that are constructed exactly the same.

Let's consider them for a moment. The first one is found in Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman in John 4, verse 24. There, Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman, and he says to her, “God is (What?) Spirit,” God is Spirit. That is God's metaphysical nature. He doesn't have a body; He is Spirit. The second one appears in 1 John 1:5 there, and we looked at this, we studied it at length; there John says, “…God is Light,” God is Light. That's His holiness; that's describing his moral nature. And then in chapter 4, verse 8, and verse 16, John says, “…God is love;” that's His personal nature. His metaphysical nature–He is Spirit; His moral nature–He is Light–He's holy; His personal nature–He is love.

Now John's point in verse 8 is that love is an attribute of God; it is one of the aspects of His essence or nature. Now put on your thinking cap with me for a moment because there's a whole lot of sloppy thinking among Christians about the character of God. Perhaps a better term than attributes, and I use the term ‘attributes, ‘there's nothing wrong with using it. But perhaps a clearer term than attributes to describe the aspects of God's nature is the word ‘perfections.’ Because when we think of attributes, sometimes we can be tempted to think that “Here's God, this is God's nature, and sort of added to God is this attribute, and here's another attribute added to God, and here's a third attribute added to God. That's absolutely wrong! The term ‘perfections’ reminds us that the characteristics or attributes of God, first of all, are each perfect, and collectively, they describe the God who is perfect.

Here's a definition of God's attributes or God's perfections from Biblical Doctrines, “God's perfections are the essential characteristics of His nature,” the essential characteristics of His nature. Because these characteristics are necessary to His nature, all His attributes are absolutely perfect, and thus rightly called ‘perfections.’” In other words, if you remove any one of these things from God, He ceases to be God. So don't think of His attributes or His perfections, or whatever word you use, as parts of God. His essence, who He is, is identical to the sum of His perfections. And each perfection, including His love, characterizes God in His complete essence. Let me put it to you this way, “God doesn't possess love; He is love, eternally, fully, and completely, and that's true with every attribute of God.” Wilder puts it this way, “God's nature is not exhausted by the quality of love, (In other words, that's not all God is.) but love governs all its aspects and expressions. God is love.”

Now how does God manifest this love? Well, first of all, God manifests His love within the Trinity. And this is important to understand; God manifests His love within the Trinity. You remember at Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3:17, a voice comes out of heaven, and says, “This is My (What?) Beloved Son,” this is the Son I love; the Father loves the Son. And he says, “…in whom I am well pleased.” John 14:31, Jesus says, “...so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.” But another text takes us back to before creation. John 17:24, in the high priestly prayer of Jesus, Jesus says, this:

Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, (That's us, Jesus is praying for us.) I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, (Jesus wants us to be with Him.) so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, (Listen to this.) for You (Father) loved Me before the foundation of the world.

Before there was anything, before there was anything but God, there was love within the Trinity because this is God's very nature. The love within the Trinity is eternal, self-giving, self-sacrificing love. God's love within the Trinity is what theologians would call necessary. It has to be because that's who God is; He has to display that within the members of the Trinity. His love for His creatures is free, voluntary, and unobligated. He freely chose to direct His love outside of Himself. So, there's love within the Trinity.

Secondly, God loves every human being individually. I don't have time to fully develop this, but one of the clearest texts is Matthew 5. If you want, you can go back and listen to when I taught through the Sermon on the Mount, but Matthew 5:44 and 45, Jesus says, “…love your enemies…so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” In other words, love your enemies because your Father in heaven loves His enemies. And then He says, “How?” He says, “He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” And guess what? The sun doesn't just shine on your yard, believer, it shines on your neighbor's yard who hates God. Why? Because God loves His enemies.

But God also loves His own. That is those on whom He set His eternal electing love. He loves them with a unique love, a special saving love. Go back to chapter 3, verse 1, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God.” That is a special different kind of love.

Think about that for a moment believer. God loves all humans; God loves every person that He's made, but He loves you with a unique, special, redeeming love, so that He's made you His child, He's adopted you as His own son, His own daughter. John 13:1 says, “…having loved His own who are in the world, He (Jesus) loved them to the end.” That doesn't mean to the end of His life. The Greek text there is to the ‘telos,’ to the nth degree, to the maximum, to the end means completely, comprehensively, perfectly. In fact, here's a shocker, and every time I read this passage, it just jumps off the page and overwhelms me. John 17:23, Jesus is praying, and He says, Father, “…You…loved them, (My followers) even as You have loved Me.” The Father loves you, Christian, just as He's loved His unique one-of-a-kind only begotten Son. God is love.

But what exactly does it mean when we say that God is love? Let me give you “A Theological Definition of Love.” This again is from Biblical Doctrines:

Love is God's determination to give Himself to Himself (That is to the other members of the Trinity.) and to others and…is His affection for Himself (again, the other members of the Trinity) and His people.

You see, it is part of God's nature to give of Himself to bring about blessing or good for others, whether that's the members of the Trinity, whether that's all human beings, or whether it's His own special people. This is God's nature.

So, what is “The Character of This Love of God?” Let me just give you a couple of characteristics of God's love to think about and meditate on. First of all, it is “Sovereign Love.” Deuteronomy 7, verses 7 and 8:

The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the LORD loved you.

The Lord loved you, because He loved you. And by the way, that's not talking about all the ethnic descendants of Abraham. How do I know that? Romans 9, listen to Paul, Romans 9:13 and 15, “Just as it is written, ‘JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED’…for He says to Moses, ‘I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.’” In other words, God says, “My saving Love is a sovereign love, I decide.” 1 John 4:19, “We love, because He first loved us.”

Think about this for a moment, believer, God's decision in eternity past to love you was based on absolutely nothing in you. This is a humbling thought. God could have justly passed me by and left me to my sins and to His justice. And so, He could have you as well. But for nothing in you, but solely because of what is in Him, He chose to set His love on you and made you His own. He loved you because He decided to love you. His love is a sovereign love!

Secondly, it's an “Infinite Love.” There's no boundary to God's love in terms of its ability to work its purposes. Exodus 34:6, God declares His name, and He says I am “abounding in lovingkindness (steadfast love).” I've got more than enough; I never exhaust My love; I never run out–there's an infinite supply. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world (To what extent?) that He gave His only begotten Son.” Ephesians 2:4, “God…because of His great love with which He loved us…made us alive.” It's sovereign love; it's infinite love.

Thirdly, it's “Eternal Love.” You know, one of the saddest things in human life is to hear a person say to another person, “I just don't love you anymore.” That never happens with God! Psalm 103, verse 17, “…the lovingkindness (steadfast love) of the LORD (Yahweh) is from everlasting (That is from eternity past.) to everlasting (To eternity future.) on those who fear Him.” It never had a beginning, and it will never have an end–it's eternal. The end of Romans 8:38-39 puts it this way, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing…” You see what Paul's doing? That's a very long way to say, “There's absolutely nothing which will be able ‘to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.’” It's an eternal love. God's love for you is the same today as it was an eternity past, and it will never waver, it will always be there.

Finally, it is utterly “Unselfish.” You remember 1 Corinthians 13? “Love is kind and patient and not easily provoked and believes the best and all of those other qualities.” (Summary paraphrase.) Guess who is the standard for that kind of love? It's God Himself. That's what His love is like, and that's why we're commanded to display it. So, John has explained then that “God is the only source of love,” and “He is love in His essence;” that's “The Explanation.”

But he goes on to explain how God's unchanging nature of love is “Applied.” We've seen it explained; let's look at it applied in verses 7 and 8. John's exhortation to love is grounded in, is based on, it flows from the very nature of God Himself. Because God is the only source of this love, and He is love in His essence, we do, in fact, love God and one another. Now, John states this in verse 7, “Positively,” and then in verse 8, “Negatively.”

Let's look at positively in verse 7. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God;” there's the statement about the nature of God. And here's the application, and that means “…everyone who loves is born of God.” Now, this is not like the first line in verse 7. This is not an exhortation; this is a statement of fact. This simply is reality; this is how to determine your real spiritual state. Everyone who is loving, meaning as a pattern of life, “everyone,” this is a universal affirmation; there are no individual exceptions, not me, not you, “everyone who is continually expressing biblical love for God and for other believers, he says, is born of God.” (Paraphrase.) Literally, the Greek text says, “out of God has been born,” out of God has been born. In Greek, the word ‘born’ is in the perfect tense which points to a past event, the new birth, at the moment of salvation, with continuing results.

So, listen carefully, here's what John's saying, “A professing Christian who is manifesting real biblical love for God, and his or her brothers and sisters in Christ, that includes me, that includes you, if that's true of us, has truly been born again in the past, and the results of that new birth continue. We now belong to God's family.” This is why the believer loves, because love is from God who is love, and the believer has been born of God, now related to God, he or she will necessarily demonstrate the family trait of love.

I have nine siblings, ten of us, and one is with the Lord. But if you could see all ten of us, and you could be with us for a few hours or a few days, you would see that there are plenty of differences between us. But there are these traits, these family traits that just come out whether we want them to or not. The same is true for your family. That's exactly what John is saying here. Since God is love in His essence and is the only source of this kind of love, anyone who consistently displays biblical love could only have received that capacity (Where?) from God, only from God. As God's child, he or she now shares certain family traits. And what is the very first fruit of the Spirit? If you have been born of the Spirit of God, the fruit of the Spirit is love.

John adds in verse 7, “…everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” This is the result of the new birth. Everyone who's experienced the new birth literally “is knowing God.” True believers know God as ABBA, as Father, and they have a growing understanding of, and a growing relationship with Him. True believers know God. And since God is love, everyone who truly knows Him will consistently, habitually demonstrate love for God and other believers.

Listen very carefully, “You cannot truly come to know a loving God without being transformed into a loving person.” Let me say that again. “You cannot truly come to know a loving God without being transformed into a loving person.” Why? Because that's what it means to be born of God. It means you now begin to manifest the family traits. The Spirit produces those in you starting with love. That's positive.

Verse 8 presents the same reality applying it “Negatively.” Verse 8, “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” The one who does not consistently manifest in attitude and practice, real biblical love for God and for his fellow Christians, does not know God. And the tense of the Greek verb here implies they don't know God now, and guess what, they never have known God. They just don't know God. Why is this universal negative true? I like the way John Stott puts it in his commentary. He says:

The argument is plain and compelling. For the loveless Christian to profess to know God and to have been born of God is like claiming to have been born of parents whom we do not in any way resemble. It is to fail to manifest the nature of Him whom we claim as our Father, we say, “We were born of God,” and our friend, we say, “We know Him.”

Now, I think the most troubling thing in verse 8 is, the clear implication is that this person John is talking about claims to have been born of God, they claim to be a Christian, they claim to know God, but the absence of love for God and others shows his or her profession to be a lie. This person is sadly deceived about the state of the soul. You can't know God who is love and not love.

So let me just ask you to really apply this to yourself for a moment. Listen carefully, and don't listen for the person sitting next to you, your spouse, your kids, your parents, your friend, ‘you’ take this test yourself as I've had to take it. If you are unloving, if you are consistently unkind, critical, always tearing others down in your mind and with your words, if you aren't consistently overcoming the temptation to selfishness in order to love and care for others, sacrificially, practically, and relationally; if instead your life is marked more by the hateful, murderous spirit of Cain, you have never been born of God. That's what John is saying.

So, what are the implications of these verses for us? Let me first of all, talk to you if you're here this morning, and you know in your heart of hearts and you knew when you came in, that you're not a Christian; I'm sure there's some folks like that with us this morning, you know you're not Christian; you need to understand that God is light, that is God is perfectly holy and that is what He demands of you. And your failure to do that is called sin, and your sin comes with a penalty, it comes with punishment, “The wages of sin is death”–spiritual death, physical death, and eternal death in what Jesus called “Eternal Punishment.” That is what the fact that God is light means for you. God, in His justice, must and will punish your sin. He is light.

But the same God who is light is also love. And His love compelled Him to act. Look at chapter 4, 1 John 4, verses 9 and 10, “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 (Spiritually) live through Him.” We're dead; we're not born of God; we don’t have new life; we’re dead to God. But He sent His Son so that we might live through Him. How did he do that? Verse 10, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and (He) sent His Son to be the propitiation (the satisfaction of God's justice against) for our sins.” In other words, on the cross, God punished Jesus for the sins of all who would believe in Him so that God could still be just and holy and light and forgive sinners because His justice had been carried out on His Son in the place of those who would believe in Him.

Today, this is an invitation from Christ Himself to you; He offers Himself to you in this gospel message. My plea to you is repent of your sin and put your faith in Christ who is the expression of the love of God to you. Repent and believe. John 3:16, “…God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

Let me talk to you if you're here this morning, and you say, “Tom, I'm a Christian. I think of myself as a Christian.” But if you're honest with yourself, you don't consistently love God and other Christians. What's the message for you? Look at verse 8, “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

You know, in a Bible Church, I think we can all be tempted to hang our confidence on what we know, on our orthodoxy, on our theological knowledge, on our biblical knowledge, and that's important, that's crucial. But listen to what Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, I think he's absolutely right when he says:

The ultimate test of our profession of the Christian faith is loving one another. Indeed, I do not hesitate to assert that it is a more vital test (the test of love) than our orthodoxy. It is possible for men and women to give perfect intellectual assent to the propositions that are found in the Bible, to be interested in theology, yet to be utterly devoid of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God in their hearts. The test of orthodoxy, while it is so vital and essential, is not enough. (He goes on.) Likewise, this test of love is a more thorough test than conduct and behavior. Conduct is essential and all important, and yet the fact that many men and women live good, moral, and highly ethical lives does not prove that they're Christians. The ultimate test of our whole position is this question of love.

If your life is not marked by real, sacrificial, practical, relational love for God and for other Christians, you are not a Christian. And you need to turn in true repentance and faith today and cry out to God to change you, to give you the new birth, to plant His Spirit within you Who will produce love within your heart.

Let me speak to the third group. If you're here this morning, and you say, “Tom, I really do believe in Christ, I've repented, I’ve believed in Christ, and while I look at my life, and I'm not everything I want to be, and I don't love as well as I ought to love, I can honestly say before the Lord that my life is marked by a consistent pattern of love for God and for my fellow Christians, not just in word, but in action. I see that in my life.” What is the message for you? Look at verse 7, “…everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” This isn't my assurance to you. This is ultimately our Lord's own assurance to you. As you take the three tests in 1 John, is your faith in the biblical Jesus and the biblical gospel; is your life marked by a pattern of obedience to Christ and His Word; and chief among those patterns of obedience, is your life marked by love for God and love for His people? If so, be assured, be encouraged. You share your Father's DNA.

Let's pray together. Father, thank You for Your Word. We're so grateful. Thank You that You would care about us enough to give us a Book to help us gain real assurance of our salvation. And yet, at the same time, care enough about us to make sure that that's a genuine faith and a genuine profession.

Lord, I pray for those groups that are here this morning. I pray for those who know they're not believers; Oh, God, help them to see that they will face You who who is light, You who are light itself, who are perfect holiness, and perfect justice, unless they turn and throw themselves on Your mercy, Your love shown in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. May they repent of their sins and believe in Your Son today.

Lord, I pray for those who are here who claim Christ, but Father, honestly their lives are not marked by a genuine love. Rather, they're consumed by selfishness, critical spirit, unloving, bitter, vindictive. Father, help them to see that they've not been born of You; there's been no change, no new birth, and may they cry out today for You to do what only You can do–give them life, give them Your Spirit.

And, Father, I pray for the rest who are here who claim Christ, and, LORD, while we look at our lives and we're not perfect, we don't love perfectly, we're tempted to selfishness all the time, and yet when we look at how we live and how we think, there is that genuine biblical love, real, relational, practical, sacrificial love for the people in our lives, LORD encourage us and assure us that we have, in fact, been born of You and know You. Thank You for Your grace even in this text, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.