He Loves Me. 1 John 4:7-12

He Loves Me. 1 John 4:7-12 Intro: Good morning Christ Covenant, my name is Jordan Lorow, and I am one of the assistant pastor s here at Christ Covenant Church, and I am honored to share the word of God with you this morning. Let me pause and wish everyone a Happy Valentine s day, and point out that there is an excerpt in your bulletin explaining the origin of Valentine s day. We are all aware that Valentine s day has become an enormous commercial holiday in America and before we dive into our text today, I wanted to share some fun facts regarding Valentine s day. Did you know: More than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are sold for Valentine's Day each year. About 8 billion candy hearts will be produced this year About 1 billion Valentine's Day cards are exchanged in US each year. That's the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas. Worldwide, over 50 million roses are given for Valentine's Day each year. In order of popularity, Valentine's Day cards are given to teachers, children, mothers, wives, sweethearts and pets. But with all this fuss over this holiday, and all the money and time we spend preparing to give gifts to our loved ones, I felt that this morning we ought to pause and look back to the origin, not of Valentine s day, but of love itself, and how God originally designed love to play out in our lives. Apostle and Epistle History The beloved disciple. Here the Word of God from 1 John 4:7-12 7 Beloved let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, 1

we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. T/S In today s text we read of the true origin and originator of love. I. The Creation of Love As we read in the earliest portions of scripture, Genesis 1, it is blatantly clear that the very character of God is centered on love. As the triune character of God is creating the earth, and all that is within it, He climaxes with His final act of creation, the creation of man. Follow along with me as read God s original act of love towards man. Genesis 1:26-30 26 Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. 29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. This is the origin of God s love for man; that we would be created in His image. And being created in His image, God imparts attributes of Himself into us: love, goodness, kindness, wisdom, etc.. Being created in His image means that we are able to commune with Him and have an intimate relationship with Him. The Creator of everything that has ever been made has created you in His image so that you may know Him and love Him and experience all the good things that are produced through that relationship. Illus: Pets So not only has God showed us love through creating us in His very image so that we may be able to have a relationship with Him, but we also read in that Genesis narative that He has shown us His love through His common grace in creation. 2

Common grace is the grace that is not salvific (or a saving grace), nor is it limited to the Christian. All of humanity is shown the love of God through His creation and restraint of sin. Psalm 145:9 9 The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. Acts 14:17 17 Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. Matthew 5:45b For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. These verses are referring to the common grace and love that is shown to all. Both non believer and believer. God preserves us and allows us to experience outrageous amounts of pleasure that this world can offer. Food taste good, recreation is fun, friends are awesome, children bring joy. These are general acts of grace that God has bestowed on man to show His love. It is God s nature to love, God is love, and it is God s nature to love mankind and fill the earth with His love. Psalm 119:64 64 The earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love; teach me your statutes! So we understand that God is love, and that He is the originator of love itself, but how does God desire for us to manifest or use the ability to love in our lives? This how to the apostle begins and ends our portion of scripture this morning: 1 John 4:7-8; 19-21 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. 3

We find that God s motive for man is to show His love towards them, and His desire for mankind is to then reflect that love to one another. Let see what else scripture has to say about loving one another: Jesus says in Matthew 22:37-39 37 And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 Jesus says in John 13:34-36 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Romans 12:9-11 The apostle Paul says 9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 1 Peter 4:8-9 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 1 John 3:11 11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. I think the Scriptures are pretty clear, that God desires for us to love one another. And God s instruction for us is always for our own good. He knows that this will bring us joy. Now I know a lot of you are saying, Oh, this is no problem! I love everybody! I love my mom, my dad, my wife, my son, my best friend etc. The problem is, scripture is also clear on whom we ought to love. Luke 6:35 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Listen to how Jesus describes this idea in Matthew 5:43-45a 4

43 You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. You see, it is easy to love those who love you! But, how are we doing outside of our own personal love bubble? The great theologian John Calvin, spoke of loving others in this way: There is nothing clearer and more certain than that when God spoke of our neighbor, he meant to include the whole of the human species. Since everyone is devoted to himself, and people are separated from others in the pursuit of their private interests, mutual communication, required by nature itself, is broken. Therefore, God testifies that any man whoever he may be is our neighbor, in order to keep us in the bond of brotherly love with which we are bound one to another by our common nature; for it is necessary that whenever I see another man, who is my own flesh and bone, I see my own self. 1 When the scriptures say to love one another, to love thy neighbor, to love thy enemy, it is pointing us back to the origin of love and it s original purpose and intent. If we truly were created in God s image, and have been given the ability to love, then we have the ability, in a very small and finite sense, to love like He loves. In our very passage today we read that 19 We love because he first loved us. But we are drawn to love only those who love us back, which is the complete contradiction of how we were shown love by God. We didn t love God when He poured out His love on us, and we certainly didn t initiate love with God. We couldn t because of our original spiritual condition. We didn t choose to love God, God chose to love us, even in our sinful state. Romans 5:8 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And listen to how the apostle Paul describes our condition and the act of merciful love God pours out anyway. Ephesians 2:1-5 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying 1 Haroutunian, J., & Smith, L. P. (1958). Calvin: Commentaries (p. 331). Philadelphia: Westminster Press. 5

out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved We were DEAD in our sin, and dead men tell no tails, let alone have the ability to love a perfect God. But HE loved the unlovable! So we ought to do the same. Let us take love and bring it back to it s original function and love one another, not just the people we know will love us in return. God s motive for love is to bring joy to those whom bear His image. The sick, the poor, the rich, the Muslim, the Jew, the Democrat, the Republican, the homosexual, the heterosexual, the black, white, brown, green, purple!!! It doesn t matter what the world may define God s image bearer as, the point is: we are all made in God s image! Therefore love! Can you imagine if THIS was the reputation of the church? Of Christians? Instead of what is, so poorly represented on social media? But we struggle to do this. Even in our own families, and in our own marriages, love has been tainted, and we often succumb to sin s definition of love and not God s. We believe that the love that this broken world promotes is true love. T/S: Unfortunately, we buy into this false love, because this wonderful gift of true love, which God has shared with us, was brutally corrupted. II. The Corruption of Love Due to the sin of the first man, Adam, a fallen world, corrupted by sin, began turning in motion. This gift of love and communion with the Father and one another was distorted by sin and would ruin the true nature of love. Selfishness and pride took over what should have been selflessness and humility. We began to seek love for ourselves first instead for others. We tear our neighbor down to build ourselves up. The way we show love is now flawed in our nature because sin hates love. So why are we constantly showing flawed love towards one another? How does they saying go? Love comes from the So what does that say about our hearts? Of course when we talk about the heart in this setting, or when scripture refer to the heart, it is referring to center, the soul, the very depths of whom you are. And without intercession, the condition of our hearts is critical. 6

Listen to Jeremiah 17:9 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? This sick and deceitful heart corrupts love. If you have ever been to any wedding ever, you have probably heard the apostle Paul s definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13 when he says 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends Maybe it is just me, but my understanding of love do not always align with God s definition of love. Love has been corrupted in a multitude of ways. There is a lie about love that our culture is whispering to us on a daily basis and we so often believe it. Our world whispers in our ear that love is cheap, love is bought, love is promiscuous and adulterous, love is found in money, possessions, and success. Love is found in acceptance and appearance. And the sad part is, we eat that up. The Bachelor Illustration This is what the world wants us to believe about love!!! The way this world has taught us to love has left us greedy and prideful, or lonely and depressed. We pull the pedals off the rose and recite, he loves me, he loves me not, trying to figure out ways to make people love us. They ll love me if I say or do this. I ll be loved if I look like this. So we search for it in all the wrong places. We search for love in the things of this world and we are left scarred, abused, abandoned and empty. We don t know where to find that perfect, satisfying, intimate, unconditional, and everlasting love that we were originally created to experience. We were made to love but we are also made TO BE LOVED PERFECTLY. T/S: With all this corrupted, false love swirling in our sinful chaotic hearts, God, in His TRUE loving nature, corrected it and showed us where to find that true love. 7

III. The Correction of Love In our text this morning the apostle John continues by saying in verse 9 and 10 9 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. 10 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. The Perfect Father Son Relationship - (Quick trinity review There is but one only, the living and true God and there are three persons in the Godhead; the Father the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.) The Father and the Son have had a perfect communing relationship, along with the Holy Spirit, from eternity s past. The Plan for His Only Son To save the sinners and restore love by perfectly obeying all of the Father s will. The Pain of obedience Jesus was obedient to the Father, even obedient to the point of death, for which, for the first time, the Father and Son were separated. This separation was brutal, yet necessary. (Brayden Separation Illus.) How deep and vast is God the Father s love for us, that He would give His only Son to make this wretch His treasure. How great the pain of searing loss the Father felt as He turned His face away from His Son, for the first time, as His Son cries out My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Can you even imagine what a catastrophic event this was as the Father and the Son, were for the first time, separated.. all for. You? Jesus became the propitiation for our sin. The Propitiation for our Sin Propitiation is the act of satisfying the wrath of God, satisfying the due punishment to uphold justice, by the offering up of a worthy sacrifice to endure the given sentence. We have read that God is love, but we also must be reminded that God is just. Our distortion of love, and the sin that we often delight in, is directly disobedient towards God and therefore deserves punishment. 8

The word of God tells that wages of sin is death. Not just physical death, but spiritual death, eternal separation from God. We do not deserve the love of God; we deserve His wrath. But God being rich in mercy offers us the free gift of eternal life found in His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. God perfectly satisfied His wrath, through the excruciating murder of His Son, Jesus, who offered Himself up as a sacrifice, in our place, and took our punishment, fulfilling our sentence of death. The wrath of God was satisfied, ushering all those who believe that Jesus was the Son of God, who was sent to be the propitiation for our sins, straight into a righteous, just, and innocent standing with God. Conclusion: The absence of the love of God is the absence of security, identity, joy, comfort, peace, and forgiveness. More importantly, the absence of the love of God is the absence of eternity with God. We have read that God is love, but we also must be reminded that God is just. And as the perfect Judge, He must justly punish a guilty sinner. But there is plea deal on the table. You have been offered a pardon. Jesus stands in your defense and takes the punishment for you so that you may be free!!! He is our advocate, our intercessor, our deliverer!!! Let us accept this pardon and turn our hearts toward Him and away from this world Every person in this room today is going through something. How are we looking to correct it, or remove it? Are we searching for the true love that God offers through His Son, or are we looking for the false love that the world offers through sin. If you are sitting in this room today, and you understand that you are a guilty sinner, justly deserving the wrath of God, know that God has offered you the free gift of eternal life. If you so desire this pardon, this gift of love, this security in life and now and the life after death, then you simply believe. There is no ceremonial procedure or exam that you have to take to receive God s saving grace, all you have to do is simply acknowledge your state as a sinner, and your need of a Savior and pray that the love Christ would reign in your heart! If you are longing for true love, if you are a spiritual orphan searching for that perfect love of the Father, then ask Him to adopt you. Romans 10:9 If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, YOU WILL BE SAVED. 9

If this is your heart this morning, then pray with me. Benediction: Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and [a]forevermore.. AND GOD S PEOPLE SAY. AMEN 10