First John 4:11-13 Redeeming Love part 1
1 John 4:11-13 · Roger Henderson · Aug 28, 2022
Letters of John (2022), No. 29
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261928187260

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay. Well, today we're down to, um, we're still in chapter four. You see, we have quite a few sections in chapter four. And actually, you know, when I, this division I did back the last time I taught this, which I forgotten when it was, but anyway, it was back in the 2010s, 11, 12, something like that. Anyway, so I, I tried to intentionally do it in small little chunks because John has so much in each of his sections. But today, I would like to go back and kind of review briefly 7 through 10, the previous set of verses.

And so I want to do that. But I just am really amazed at how much there is. And I think we all have been blessed by how much there is in 1 John. And we thank the Lord for the wonderful teaching that there is. OK, so let's go on here. So let's look at last week. And actually, most, I guess, who was here last week? So Bob taught last week, right? Yes. So I'm just gonna, I'm just going to read the verses and just make a few comments and just beautiful verses.

Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and everyone who loves is one 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 love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

So just so many wonderful things. I didn't get a chance to listen to Bob's teaching, but I know it's just some great things. Love one another is going to show up twice in the verses for today. We're going to see that again. We're going to see, and what you kind of, one of the takeaways you see, you know, true love, divine love is from God as a source. There's no other source but God. But we're going to see that the believer is to manifest that love. And we're going to see that in a wonderful way that he'll talk about here. And I really like verse 10. It kind of gives you, this is what love is all about.

Don't ever think that man in his and his fallen state from Adam can really reach up to God. I mean, he can't do that. It's impossible. God has to reach down to him. And he tells us right here, right? In 10, he says, and this is love. And actually, there's a definite article there, I believe. It's the love. Not that we love God. That's not what the story's about. It's but that he loved us. And what did he do? He just didn't say, I love you, world. He sent his son to be the propitiation or satisfaction for our sins.

So with that as a beginning, we go into the next set of verses, which are just even more neat. Any comments from last, thoughts from last week, or if not, I'll just, we'll move on here. Okay. So then today's verses. Notice he starts with Beloved again. And Beloved shows up, I'm going to mention that a little bit later, but Beloved, if God so loved us, and he did, we also ought to love one another.

So we're going to find, right off the starting gates here, we got this word ought. And how do we handle ought? Ought sounds like law, right? I'm going to get the law out and I'm going to walk around and see if you're oughting. Are you oughting very good? Is that even a word? It's not, but never mind. So we're going to see about that. And it's not, it's, believe it or not, it's gracious.

No one has seen God at any time. What's neat is in the midst of all this, he's going to talk about man being able to see God. And you think, wow, that answer has a bunch of questions in it too. 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's given us of his spirit. So we're going to learn a lot about God's love, a lot about actually the character of God.

And it's just really, it's just a neat section. Okay, so that's the beginning point. So as we usually start off with the first verse, start the first phrase here, beloved, and it's divinely loved ones, divinely loved ones. And actually, that's showing up, if you do a search, you can see that's showing up six times. And actually, this is the sixth time. Actually, we have four in chapter four.

For beloveds beloved in verse 1 beloved and not believe every spirit then we have verse 7 which I read earlier Beloved let us love one another and then we have beloved if God so loved us. So this is this is the sixth time and And if here is assumed to be true It can be translated sense So it's it's true that God has so loved us and And the verb is loved, and it's a verb form of the noun agape. And that's God's love, his divine love that has no equal. It loves and expects no return. It comes out from his very nature. But what's neat about this one is it has a modifier. It has this little so in front of it. So loved. So we're looking at God so loved us.

That's the idea here, and it's Aorist. And so what I kind of learned, you know, I've been, I listen to Macaulay a lot, and he, he likes to look at the Aorist. You know, I, I learned from, you know, here at Hall of Heroes and other places that, you know, about the Aorist tense, but he likes to bring it forth. The Aorist tense is an event. I think this is just so beautiful. The Aorist tense is an event.

So we're going to look, God so loved us in an event. And we all know about this event. We're all very familiar with this event. But thinking about it in this way, then he adds that so modifier. And it's a word that means in this manner or in this way. So he so loved us in this manner and in this way. Isn't that really cool? So God loved us in a particular event and in a particular way. So two aspects, particular event and a particular way. Okay?

And we see that earlier, we say this, we know love by this, that he laid down his life for us. So the event we're talking about is the cross, right? He so loved us at the cross. And the focus here is on the way in which he loved us. He loved us in a way of sacrificing his son on the cross.

Okay. So I'm just going to keep going here. Go ahead. I like what the Holman Christian Standard Bible has to say about Hutos. They say it's in back matter 68, you know, as the end notes in their Bible. The Greek word Hutos, commonly translated in John 3.16 as so or so much, occurs over 200 times in the New Testament. Almost without exception, it is an adverb of manner, not degree.

For example, see Matthew 1.18. It only means so much when modifying an adjective.

Manner seems primarily in view in John 3.16, which explains the HDSB's rendering. And that's just what you're saying. Right. That's exactly it. It speaks of the manner. This is the way God loved. I was thinking about it. Man's love is so shallow. Out of Adam. It's so shallow. But God's love is so stark. He's going to give. God is going to give his son. God's deity is going to die.

I mean, we're talking about something that blows your mind. So and that so really brings that across and it is in this manner or you could say in this way But I think the way it's translated in John 3 16 and here normally people People people misinterpret as so much right God loved the world so much But it didn't leave it love it that way you loved it in this manner right excellent excellent well actually I I learned the same thing you learned I didn't go back I I was tempted to go back and start looking at all the other ones. I said, no, I'll get, it'll be, you know, too much. But anyway, but that's exactly right. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. So that's the first part. So now we come to the fun part.

We believers also ought to love one another. And so here we have another case where we have, um, have a word that's going to stress the stress. Another word, the also stresses the word ought. So it's also ought is the idea. So the idea is to owe, it's translated ought, and use it with a pronoun. We ought also. We also ought, I'm saying there, flipped it around. Anyway, in its present tense, continuous action. So that's something that should be part of the Christian life.

So you're beginning to see here, this is going to quickly build into something that we can't do. Thank you, Lord. We can't do that. ought to love also, 24-7. And we know it, and it doesn't work out that way. I mean, we don't have to go very far to know we can't do this.

And that's what's wonderful, because we're going to show here that it's God, it has to be Christ in us doing this. God's action toward us is to motivate us in our actions toward others. God only operates under grace. So this has to be part of Christ's life in us. That's the only way it can happen. The ought to love one another also ought to love one another. It has to be Christ's life in us.

And I'm going to expand on that a little bit more later on. To love one another. And this is expressed five times. I'm going to show you the five times here shortly. The idea here is to be constantly loving one another, since love is in the present tense. So once again, we begin to see the magnitude of this. When he says, you also ought to love one another, you say, well, OK, I can love my brother occasionally. My sister, I can do that occasionally.

But you're telling me 24-7. You're telling me all the time, even when they're not nice to me or when I'm not nice to them or we have issues or, you know, like with me, I have terrible restaurants. With waitresses, oh, I've had so many. The Lord has taught me a lot through that. Anyway, that's my, but anyway, and maybe you have your issues that where you see your Christ love isn't going out. Something else is going out. The old man's going out. So we all are there, but. It fits in the way so often. It does. It does. You cannot love anybody that way. Really, it's just, you know, we're so selfish. We are. I keep thinking I have a, Bonnie can tell, I have a grumpy love. Yeah, that's right. You have to love them too? Oh my goodness.

Anyway, but you see the magnitude of this. It's just, it's beyond us. And we see, well, and when it's beyond us, we have to come back and say, Lord, then you have to have provided for this. And he provided for this by his life living in us, by yielding to his life in us.

Okay, so here's to love one another. We don't have to spend a lot of time on these, but just kind of good that there are five of them in 1 John. For this is a message which you have heard from from the beginning that we should love one another and then 323 this is this is his commandment that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another just as he has commanded us and Then we started and then we have the three the three that are in chapter 4 I read in fact I read two of these already and In verse 7, it's, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Then the verse we're talking about now, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. And then we're going to see in the next verse, No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. It's a wonderful set of verses that talk about loving one another.

Okay, so now we go on to 12. So now it seems like, it seems like that almost he steps back for a second and he says, well let's, and it seems like, well is this, is this on topic, God? John, are you on topic here? Have you, something? But it is on topic. So he, he poses, he makes a statement.

And we see this in the gospel as well. No one has seen God at any time. Anyone over the years, I have gone back and forth, and I've struggled with this verse. And one in the Gospel of John, you know, it's very similar, no man has seen God at any time. And I think it's because I didn't really think about what was being said.

So hopefully this will be helpful here. So first of all, right off the bat, we know, we read our Bibles and we see, well, man saw Christ on earth. They saw God, God in the flesh. And what did he say? Did he say that he wasn't God? On the contrary. Jesus said this, he said to Philip, Jesus said to him, Philip, he who has seen me, and the word, it's going to be important to distinguish words here. Seen here in this one is harau, which is a physical seeing. He said, if you've seen me in the flesh, Philip, you've seen the Father. So you say, well, how in the world can John say no one has seen God at any time?

It seems there's a disconnect here. What's going on? And that's kind of where I was at for many, many long time period. So there must be something, this is my words, there must be something that God has not revealed to us or cannot be revealed to man. Okay, so now let's look at the word scene in this verse. The particular word for scene here is, I wrote it down, I listened to my computer. Okay, it's, let's see, it comes from the word for theater.

They are all mine. They are all mine. Thank you. Thank you. I'll have you pronounce my words for me. Thanks, Jim. They are all mine. OK. And it comes to the word for theater. And then when you go to the theater, what do you typically do? You kind of get immersed. What do you do? You do what it says here. You behold. You look upon. You view attentively. You contemplate.

So he's saying here that no one can really totally contemplate God at any time. No one has fully contemplated God at any time. But you say, well, wait, we've got tons of scripture, Lord. You've given us so much. You've given us the Holy Spirit. We can't do this? Well, apparently not. Okay. But here's another piece of the puzzle.

The word God here is without the article, indicating this is a character or essence or nature. So this is talking about not seeing God in his essence. or his true nature. And you begin to say, well, maybe that's something that man, a created being, cannot be. We cannot see the very essence of God. And I think that's what actually is being stressed here. And seen is in the perfect tense. So it's past completed action with abiding result. So it's a permanent state. with the result that no one has the capacity to behold God. To me, that was pretty satisfying.

And what we're going to see here, John's going to make a great point. He's going to say, we're going to see God in very practical ways. We're going to see him as brothers and sisters love one another. We're going to see God's love in that. That's how we're going to see God's love. But we can't really see God in his essence. But we will see God in the love that believers have for one another. Go ahead. Will we ever see God in his essence?

From this verse, it does not seem that's the way. That's the case. I mean, I'm just hanging my head on the scripture right here. I mean, you know, Jesus said we will behold him as he is. Right. I know. I understand. We will see Jesus as he is, but will we be able to really see his essence? I don't know. This verse tends to argue against that, I would say. I know. Well, the question is, can we find a verse somewhere? And what you're talking about, maybe that's an indicator that that might be changed.

I don't know, it seems like what John teaches, he taught it in his gospel, in chapter one of the gospel of John, he taught it here, that no man has seen God at any time. But we have seen God's love in action, and we have seen it in the lives of people, and we will see it, it seems like, in eternity, but will that be seeing him in his essence? I guess that's the question. Yeah, you know, we will continually learn about his grace, we'll see his grace, but that's something that we'll be continually learning about as Verne taught, you know, throughout the rest of the ages. We won't ever see all of his grace. And you could argue maybe his essence is all of who he is, his infinite... I don't know, it raises a lot of questions, it really does. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, sure, sorry. Go ahead. Oh, OK. Yeah, I like what Jim said about VRT.

You know, he always said it's going to take rolling ages of ages to sort of and maybe we'll get a bigger glimpse. I was kind of noticing in Revelation 22 in the end times, or when we are in heaven, it says there will no longer be any curse and the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it and his bondservants will serve him. they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads. But I mean, that sort of mentions the idea of seeing his face.

Now, I don't know. Yeah, I understand. Okay. It does say something about seeing him, I guess. Right. Right. That's good. Well, I'm not going to worry about it. Because in the eternal state, we'll be perfectly happy. It's not something that will make us unhappy.

Right, right. Well, Bob and Mark, we're talking about seeing God in his essence. That's the question. Right. Anyway, so maybe a little bit. Okay. All right. So let's go. Let's go on here. If we have more time, I backtrack and try to, but we better go. Okay.

So now the other part of the verse, if we love one another, in this case, it's a, it's a third class condition. If we probably will love one another, So we're going to see here that loving one another is going to manifest God's love. So what must take place for that to happen?

So we know from Galatians 5.16, when I say walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh, we have to be walking by faith and letting the spirit control our lives. And another way to look at that is abide in me and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me." So we can look at that, the walk of faith as abiding.

So the remainder of this verse is going to tell us about what is going on in the believer's life as he's loving one another. Two things are going to be going on in his life. And this is in contrast to not being able to behold God in His true essence, as the first part of the verse says. So John's going to contrast. He says, well, we cannot see God in His true essence, but we can see His love in one another in two ways here. OK.

So as we're walking by the Spirit, it says, God abides in us. And abide is minnow, could continue, remain, dwell, is the idea. So whenever we love one another, it makes it possible to abide in close fellowship with us. God abides in close fellowship with us. We're going to see this duality. We abide in God, and God abides in us. So this is addressing the God abides in us part. So he's abiding in us. We can't see his essence, but if we love one another, God is abiding in us. That assumes that we're abiding in him. And so that's how his That's how this abiding fellowship happens. God's love can be seen as we love one another. And that's kind of the thrust of the next two verses here, God's love being seen by others. But there's another part to it. God's abiding in us, and now God's love is being perfected in us.

And actually, Vincent, this is from, I think, Weiss quoted Vincent. This love, God's love, which is uniquely his own, which answers to his nature, is in view in this verse he's saying. And it's this word, so it says, his love is being perfected, or actually it's the idea, it's a perfect, perfect passive participle, I'll say it closely, carefully. It's to bring to completion, we use it to reach maturity, God's desire is that His love reach maturity or reach its goal in our lives.

And He's doing it. God is doing it. Not us. He's working through us as we abide in Him. Okay? Okay, so here's just some additional thoughts. Actually, I thought this was really good. I was reading through Constable and he had a kind of a stair step here, if you will.

He says there are three stages of God's love in 1 John. Stage one, God's love manifested to the world. And that's in 4.9b, God has sent his son, God has sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him. So that's God's love to the world. Then he has back in 1 John 3.1a, See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us that we would be called children of God? So he constantly sees that as God's love within the family.

And then the third one is, the one we're studying here, God's love is perfected. And he says, I'm not really super happy with this smaller group idea. It's perfected in a smaller group within the family, those who abide, I would say, Anyone who is abiding who is a believer Can his God's love can be perfected because it takes us abiding in him for his love to be perfected So a couple other statements the love of God does not reach perfection until it finds our completion until it finds The objects of love beyond itself and that's the idea of loving one another When it does God whom no one has seen I would add in his essence will be visible in his manifestation of his love.

And this is all, this little dissertation is all from Constable. Okay, so any questions about, up to this point? Okay, if not, we'll carry on here. Okay, now, verse 13. So if you look carefully, verse 13 is almost Almost a carbon copy of a verse we had earlier 324 be 320 so our verse reads by this we know that we abide in him and he and us because he has given us of his spirit 324 be says we know by this that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us very very close a few more ideas here Okay, so I'm just going to go.

I just want to point that out to you Okay, so it's by this or in this so now we're going to learn something really neat here We're going to learn something the role of the Holy Spirit in this And what's going on here and God's working in us? It says by this By what he has received of the Holy Spirit We know this is good. Oh, let's go and experiential knowledge to be taking in knowledge it's a present tense continuous action so by this we're knowing we're continue to know that and you could say we're presently knowing this by experience we've experienced what's going on here so and two things are going to happen and that's the remainder of the verse two things are two things are going to we're going to know first That we abide in him. You know it seems like you go through it seems like we approach it from one way then he turns around comes back the other way because we talked about God abiding in us and we're doing things and now he and he then kind of flips it around now we're abiding in God he's going to go down that path so he covers it both ways he covers it from God's way and he said flip it around now that we abide in him we're going to this is our part okay he says um that we abide in Him.

So let's get back and read the context again. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us. Okay, we haven't got that. This is we abide in Him. Again, it's Mano, Mano, the same word. Continue, remain, dwell. Continuous action. And once again, I pointed this out earlier.

This is talking about the Christian life is an impossible life because it talks about us continually, moment by moment, remaining and abiding in our Savior. And we know that we are not there all the time. One of the neat things about this rapture is that His love for us is unconditional. Right. Absolutely. We all can and don't. Exactly. Right. Abide in Your love. Right.

So from our view, we're going to see we're abiding in Him. The next part, He's going to, it's the flip side, He's abiding in us. And His part never stops. One of the important things you've mentioned is the role of the Holy Spirit. Right. And we're going to see that. And we're going to see another one of these cases where a little preposition of is going to be real important here. Of His Spirit is going to be real important here. Well, aren't we positionally always in Him and in us? That's true. That's true. But we have these wonderful truths about us.

I mean, we have the Holy Spirit you know positionally we have him but do we do we walk by the spirit continuously i mean galatians spends a lot of time admonishing us to do that right so we position and condition uh discussion right do you you agree oh yeah i i see that yes okay good so i'm i'm we're we're talking here about our condition right and positionally we we have the holy spirit positionally we are in him But conditionally, will we remain there? Will we hang out with him as Brother Hal would like to say? Okay. So note, this is abiding.

Key again, God is a person, right? We're abiding in a person, in our Savior, Christ. And as we walk by faith. So our part in all the Christian life is to walk by faith. That's our job. If you have to ask, what's my job as a Christian? Walk by faith. Don't have to do gymnastics. You don't have to do all this stuff. Walk by faith. That's what he wants us to do. You don't have to struggle. Exactly. Exactly. But we do. We struggle all the time, right? Unfortunately. But then sometimes we stop.

I like our little grandson. His name is Fisher. My son named him the Fishers of Men. Anyway, that's another story. Anyway, Fisher Andrew. Anyway, So, Little Fisher is a sweet little guy, so we had a little problem in one of our downstairs bathrooms, the toilet. I had changed the toilet seat and didn't do a super good job and the little bolts were falling off. So, we thought our grandson took them off.

That wasn't the case. So, Ronnie comes in. I'll let Ronnie tell the story. Don't take the bolts off the toilet seat. And then later on I sat, and Roger put him back on, and then later on I sat down and BING! Both of them went flying. So then I realized that he didn't do that, you know. But when I asked him, I said, Fisher, don't take the bolts off the toilet seat.

He goes, okay. Right, it's a sweet little thing. Okay. So what do we do now? So whatever we're, you know, whatever we're... But his sweet disposition was just so it kind of shows you a soft answer turns away rat. It just was so disarming. It's just like, okay, I guess, you know, maybe we were too hard. Okay. All right. No, not at all. Not at all. Not at all. Okay. All right. So let's go on here. Okay, now here's the flip side, and he and us, this is God's side, and he abides in us, God abides in us. So we actually, we just covered that back in verse 12, right? And 12 said that Christ abides in us is linked to loving one another, right?

That has to be, we can't be loving one another unless Christ is abiding in us. That just can't happen because we can't demonstrate God's love without God being the source of that love. And then and also it's linked to I found also it's linked to his commandments to keeping his commandment so I thought I'd just do a slight digression here and kind of justify why Keeping his commandment is really not a law for the Christian.

So my digression is here And here's the verse that says the one who keeps his commandments abides in him and he and him so very similar idea about abiding as we see I have in our verse and But I think some of the key points here, tereo, that's a word for abide, is to observe, to watch, to keep. Christ's life abiding in us is the only way we can keep his commandments.

It can't happen any other way. Go ahead, Bob. Well, you know, he was challenged as to what can we do to do the works of God. Right. Remember what he said? Yes, exactly. Believe in him whom he hath sent. Right. in a sense that really carries through this. Right, and we have to continue to do that, to live the life that is keeping His commandments. It has to be a life centered in abiding in Him. And just to come from what Jim said, I mean this all begins with a rest, doesn't it?

And then abiding becomes much more capable. Right. Amen. Amen. I constantly find that we need to rest in Him constantly throughout the none but the hungry heart. It's constant rest. That doesn't speak of struggling or works or anything. It's just rest by faith.

Right. That's why we always say, okay. You know, it's like something you'll hear on TV or somebody speaking to you. Somehow that is so effective, you carry that in it. It kind of calms you down. So if I have a problem, I say, okay. Rather than say something back and I shouldn't have bought it, I say, okay. The interesting thing there is... Actually, not always, not always. I know, I know.

Okay, okay, and then I thought, you know, we just, and here's the anchor verse for all this, you know, the anchor verse for all this is what's a Christian life about? I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That's the only way that we can have this abiding love for one another. The only way we can keep his commandments. It has to be his life in us because the life from Adam cannot do any of this. There's a terrible mess of it. Okay. That's my slight diversion there. Okay. So now this last part is pretty cool here because Haki This is the reason we have this abiding relationship.

He has given, dido mei, dido mei, to bestow, to give, to bestow upon, and it's a perfect tense. It's spoken of, so Vincent Vine says, spoken of God or Christ as the author or source of what one receives. So he has given us, he gave it in the past and he continues to give us now, of his spirit. Here's what we're going to see. Of His Spirit, you look at that and you say, okay, well this is going to be a discussion about the giving of the Holy Spirit. Well, without that little, I think of as a preposition, without that little preposition, if it just says, He has given us His Spirit, the of really changes the whole ballgame here. So let's see if we can kind of dissect that.

Of is this word, ek, out of. It has the idea, out of the Spirit as a source. So it's saying that God has given us, past completed out he gave it in the past it continues to be out of his spirit as a source he's given us um i gotta lose my mind here he's given us his spirit out as a source okay so the focus here is not the giving of the holy spirit but of what proceeds from the spirit and what proceeds from the spirit we know from many many scriptures we know actually we have a class that's studying that The fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, that's of the Spirit. What comes out from the Spirit is the fruit of the Spirit in our lives and the spiritual gifts and all the blessings we see. The blessing after blessing after blessing. He shows us, He reveals to us the things of Christ. The guidance of the Holy Spirit, the whole ministry of the Holy Spirit is what's in view here. By this we know that he abides in him and he in us because he has given us of out of his spirit as a source.

So that's what's being talked about here. Okay. I want to finish a little bit early, but okay. So now last thoughts here. So God's love for us is perfected only or brought to completion to maturity when it's reproduced in us or among us in Christian fellowship.

And I like this, this is from Constable. Constable gave the example, the same phenomenon occurs in human families. When a child says or does something just like one of his parents, we see the parent in the child's behavior. And then I like this last statement he makes, the love of God displayed in his people is the strongest apologetic that God has in this world. And I say that's true. And I think you see that. People look at you, they look at your lives, and they know what's important to you. And that speaks volumes to them. And in God's time, some of those people may come and ask you, what are you about? What are you about? What are you guys about? And we get the opportunity to share with them about what we're about.

And that's what So if you go back to the whole premise here, no one has seen God at any time in his essence. But God is saying, you know, that's something that really no man can see God in his true essence. But we can see God's love in fellow believers. And that will be sufficient to bring many to the Savior, to change their minds about.

I've been watching this thing on YouTube. Actually, Bonnie got me going on it. It's called One for Israel. It's a testimony of Jews who've come to Christ. And it's out of Israel. And actually, they've been sued by the Orthodox Jews because of their impact. And so it's a testimony. It's one Jewish person, men, women, ladies, young, old, scientists, the whole realm. And they go through and they talk about.

And one of the things they say, I never realized that Jesus was Jewish. I thought he was Catholic. Epic, yes. And then the other thing they say, what's the other thing? Bonnie, help me here. I just had a mind loss here. Well, they don't think the New Testament Well, yeah, and they're amazed. They start reading the New Testament and they say, well, this is a Jewish book. It talks about rabbis. It talks about going to the temple. Wait a minute, this is a Jewish book. The rabbis have deceived us. We've been deceived about this. He's the Messiah. No, not at all. Not at all.

So and it's it's it's been really it's really been a blessing and so if you have a chance look on YouTube type in one for Israel. Yeah, actually that was the point it linked into this and they they testify that they saw Christians just like that displaying God's love and they said that person was just so I just was so attracted to that person I don't know why I wanted to get to know what they're about what they're doing why are they acting that way Sometimes they weren't converted initially, but that made a difference. And down the road, they eventually came to the Lord. And sometimes they resented it, too. Oh yeah, sometimes they resented the Christians.

Well, it works both ways, right? Because that's what Paul used to tell us all the time. Many times you're the only Bible anyone ever reads. And it's your day-to-day walk. It's getting in the grocery store line, and somebody's having a terrible day. You are able to just have a conversation with them. in a different manner than they're used to. And people notice that you're something different. Right. Right. All right. Okay. Any last thoughts or comments? Hey, Roger? Yeah, go ahead.

That last thing that you put up there on final thoughts, the love of God displayed in his people. the strongest apologetic or the argument that God has in the world. The proof of God's work is what we just had in that verse. By this we come to know because he has given us his Holy Spirit to know it. Right. Isn't that something? Yeah, that's a good one. It's just the apologetic that you put there. to the unbelievers is magnificent.

If you look at Birkhoff and his life, he went to death under Hitler's regime, but he led many to know the Lord in the process, because the love of God was seen through him. Right, right. And his doctrine was terrible, but... Who was that? even though his doctrine was bad, the love of God used him anyway.

Yeah, you know, it seems like, that's a good point, why it seems like, you know, we often wonder why are there so many different flavors of Christianity and some seem to be so, you know, why is the Lord, why is he allowed that? It seems like, you know, Uh, his love shown is a tremendous, you know, life changer. And I don't know, who are we to, you know, say why we have so many, you know, um, factions or whatever, but, um, but they're out there. And if a person like my mom said that she listened to Jimmy Swaggart, she met the Lord. I talked to her, uh, on and off for many, many years and before her death, short before her death, she said, well, Roger, I, I was watching Jimmy Swaggart on TV. I used to send her tapes. This is back when we sent these little cassette tapes. I sent her tapes. Then she started sending me tapes.

Whoa, mom, that's pretty cool. So I listened to Jimmy Swagger. Okay, well, you know, give the gospel out, tell about God's love. Hey. Yeah, I know. Go ahead, Joe. My brother listened to Joel Osteen a little while before he passed away. He brought him to the Lord. I know. What can I say? I know. And so you scratch your head and you think, well, Lord, I don't know these people.

If your love reaches them, just like this apologetic, you know, loving one another is so, so powerful. And that being displayed is just life changing. Roger, I came to the Lord. I read about it too in Acts that the men and women that came to believe in Acts became known as Christians. because they acted like Christ. They loved people.

Right. Exactly. Right. Exactly. That's great. That's great. We're going to have to actually, someone has to play the piano here in a bit. Practice. We need to pray for Bob here right now. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. So let's close that. We thank you, Father.

We thank you for our time today, Lord. Thank you for your Your marvelous love, Lord, that even though we can't have the capacity really to see you in your essence, but we know that your love is sufficient living in the lives of men and women who know you, that it impacts and changes people. And your spirit uses that in their lives, Lord. We thank you for that. Thank you. We pray for the musicians today, especially Bob. Thanks to Go Well and for the service ahead. In Christ's name, amen.