1-3 John - 1st John 4:11-13 Redeeming Love - part1

We're going through 1 John 4, 11-13, and I just want to start out with verse 10-14, and could I get someone to read that? And this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the appreciation 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 professed 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 testified that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

Beloved. This is a word that came up last week with Jim. Who are the beloved? Who is John addressing here? Who is the beloved? Believers. We are his beloved. We are believers. John is talking to believers. This word comes from agapeo, to love, and it's used of Christ as love by God. So this is the way that God loves his son. And it's the same love that he tags to believers. sort of an identification with Christ. We have this connection in the same way that Christ is connected with God.

Matthew 3.17, And behold, a voice out of the heavens said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. So this is God speaking of His Son, and this was because of the work he did on the cross. Romans 1-7 To all who are beloved of God in Rome, call us saints. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So here's this word beloved again and it's about believers. And it also refers to believers as saints. And this is pretty significant to be called as saints because we are identified with Christ. of the work that Christ did, we can be called saints. And it's not just the Pope in Rome or all the saints that have to go through this extreme process and extreme work their whole lives, like Mother Teresa.

1 John 4.7, so this is what Jim went through last week, and this was the first verse that he went over.

Beloved, listen very closely, you divinely loved ones. That was a phrase that Jim came up with to kind of define beloved in this case. Listen very closely, you divine loved ones. Divinely loved ones. Let us love one another for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God So It's like a It's like an invitation He's he's reminding John is reminding believers of who they are they're divinely loved ones and he's saying listen to what I have to say and Craig, I was just thinking that the term Beloved, it's a family term, right?

We're part of God's family, we're identified with Christ. So, just like you might say to your children, you talk to them tenderly, and children listen to you, this is important. He does that so much in 1 John. This is not the first occurrence. Over and over again, he constantly wants to inform them about some marriage that's really important. We see this throughout the Gospel of John and 1st John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John. And as far as it being a family terminology, we'll see that develop even in these verses that we're going through here, the fellowship that we have with the Father.

So, if God so loved us. Beloved if God so loved us. If, this word if, it's a first class condition of if. So it's if and it's assumed to be true. So we could say, Beloved, since God so loved us. And Beloved just got done saying that, that we are divinely loved. And then it says, since God so loved us. It's a fact.

1 John 4.10, this is the first 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, this is stating that God loved us and He did something to demonstrate that. and that we didn't do it, that we couldn't love God.

So propitiation means appeasement or satisfying. I think that's a really important word. It's to understand the meaning. When I first understood this, it was amazing to me to know exactly what it meant. And I understood this to a degree, but it's basically the work that Jesus did on the cross to satisfy God about sin, about the sin issue.

And this is something that only Jesus could do And God could do. Only Jesus could satisfy God in this way. And there's no way that we can. And it just shows how, I guess if we get caught up in works, or I know that I've heard this saying before, if we can trust God for salvation, then why do we not trust God for our growth and conforming to His image? Why do we have to get involved and start doing works on our own to try to satisfy or please God?

So in 1 John 4.19 it states, we love because He first loved us. And that's saying that we can only love because He first loved us. Can anyone love God first? rhetorical question, I guess.

Romans 128. And this is, I don't know if this fits real well, but it just reminded me of this verse. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness. So if we had our way, would we love God? And this verse is saying that we wouldn't. Humankind wouldn't. If we had a choice, we couldn't love God.

Let's go on. aspect of this is that man tries to make, you know, man outside of Christ, outside of the revelation of God's Word, tries to make God in his own image. He makes up some kind of system or rules or whatever that will satisfy himself that he's pleasing God. But, you know, it's all about his own doing, his own making, his own rules, his own system so it can't please God. But that seems to be very popular. In the inner world system that's very popular. They make up some kind of system. Usually it's a torturous system. People don't, somehow it's not an easy system.

God provides grace, but man, if I'm going to make this work hard, I've got to do something to show God that I'm really sincere about this. It's so upside down from what God has provided. What would I do, I think of that, what would I do if I had to come up with a system of dealing with, if I was God and I had to deal with humankind, I would probably give everybody the axe. I would come up with a really harsh system. I wouldn't come up with love, I wouldn't come up with grace. I was saying the other thing too is this kind of mindset, how do we come to know the Lord with this kind of mindset. This really shows me the work of the Holy Spirit.

Because our natural and the command is this. And the only reason is God for His gracious Because otherwise, we're all like this. And so, you know, He convicts us, focuses on Him, and that's the only way, because, you know, they're the worst. We're desperately wicked. You know, everything about us in Adam is terrible. So, you know, it's totally through God's grace, working through the Holy Spirit, we come to know the Lord. Again, think of the scripture, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And we'll see that develop a little bit this morning, how God's grace motivates us and convicts us.

So this is the, I got this from Mike, this is the Grace Circle. I kind of redid it, it kind of looks like the Grace Recycled. So, on the top here it says, God's grace, His love for us. 1 John 4, 7-9. And then it kind of cycles down to our love for Him. As a result of His love and grace, we love Him. 1 John 4, 19. And it's interesting, all these verses are in 1 John and John. They're all written by John. So, because He loved us, we can respond and are motivated by His grace to love Him. And then, as a result of His loving us, we will obey, John 14, 21.

And then, Mike had a, I kind of simplified this, Mike had another one in there, a fourth one. I think it had to do with God, in return, God is glorified. So God is interested in being glorified and He does that through us. He's interested in using us to glorify Him.

Just a thought on that. I think that is really important to understand that because He loved us, we love Him and we're obedient to Him motivated by anything but the life of Christ and his love for us. I think too many times that I've done things out of perhaps obligation, and I don't think that's critical for them to do things because you want to do them, to do them because they're motivated by grace. Yeah, that's a good point.

And we'll also see that develop this morning. God's love through us is, basically we can only love Him with His life living through us. And we can only obey with His life living through us. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. That word Ot, it means that which is due, the dead, be bound.

And I know Courtney is probably thinking law. Is this the mosaic law? So why ought we owe love to one another? It's supposed to be funny. One, because we are divinely loved by His grace. Two, because God loved us first. Three, propitiation. Jesus satisfied God about us, about our sin. Grace is not results oriented. Matthew 6, 14-15, this is the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus is talking to Jews, and He's saying, you must forgive to be forgiven.

So this is results oriented, this is Mosaic Law, that you must do or not do something in order to receive certain consequences. in Ephesians 4.32 it says forgive because you already have been forgiven so this is just a reversal of that we have been forgiven so forgive because that's who you are and that's this is what John is saying here We owe love to one another because that is who we are, that is our life, because we are beloved and because God loves us.

5. God is love, we are sourced in God, therefore motivated by grace we love. So here's a good one, Ephesians 5.25. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. So Bob isn't here, but he always likes to say, so how are you doing with that, guys? Are you loving your wives as Christ loved the church?

And I heard that in Mary's counseling. Vern went over that. And yeah, when we got to that, I was trying to find the back door. Because it's impossible. The way that Christ loved the church, that's how husbands are to love their wives. yourself. Correct. But in your new life in Christ, the best part you can figure out is that you can't do it yourself. Right. That it's only through Him, because you can't do it in yourself.

That's, you know, after 30 years of marriage. See, I don't have to worry about it, it's going to last me the rest of my life. to keep his wife from getting mad at him and at the same time wondering where is the love in all of this? It's all self-effort. It's all for nothing.

You should have called me so I could put a cartoon up here. I want to go back. 1 Corinthians 15 34 when talking about this ought word, become sober minded as you ought and stop sinning. So it just demonstrates, it's something we ought to do because it's who we are. Jim brought it up a little bit last week. It's spiritual insanity as a believer to be in sin, to be practicing sin. And it's just not our nature, it's not who we are, because our nature is Christ. Yeah, Craig, I'm sorry to keep going on. See, I'm supposed to be in the nursery, so I'm just hanging out. and yeah, you think it's a law and you have to do it. It's kind of expanding what Jessica said. I always put in Christ's perspective. He didn't get up every day and say, I'm going to love God. I'm going to love God. That's what I've got to do. I'm bound to do that.

It's who he was. And if our life is his life, it's not a law. It's not an effort. It's just who we are. As we manifest our life in Christ, I think if they are, it's just like breathing. It's like a dog barks. That's who they are and what they do. So it's not a big requirement stipulation or anything like that. It's just part of who we are. Yeah, we are in Christ and we'll see in a little bit here the fellowship and the relationship that Jesus had with the Father. So who does the living? Paul said, it's not I who live, but Christ does the living in me. Paraphrase. Something like that.

Galatians 2.20. Verse 12, no one has seen God at any time. It's going to be a hot topic. Oh, I hope not. Who has anybody seen God or no one?

And this is Mona. Incidentally, this is the same job. He's there. Transfiguration. Now, there was a way to claim that you saw God then that would come the closest. Right. But you had to be honest and say, If I was really in the full presence of God, I wouldn't be here. I'm dead. Right.

Yeah, some have seen portions of God, I guess you could say it. Manifestations. Manifestations or Moses, burning bush, Mount Sinai. We just read. We have a word that fully explains Him. He did ask for his soul. I was blown away. I can't even imagine. John uses this language. John 118. No one has seen God at any time.

The only begotten God. And this is interesting. Just a side note. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father. This is talking about Jesus. This is a divinity issue. It explains that Jesus is divinity. And He is God. And He is in the bosom. It shows that deep relationship that Jesus has with the Father.

And like Jack said, Jesus expresses, you could say expresses God. John uses this language so it's pretty consistent. So you can find, like in Revelation, you can find areas where he talks about overcome and you can understand what he means by overcome by looking in the Gospel of John. In here, this is John 1, and he'll repeat that no one has seen God at any time in 1 John. So, we see physically, with our eyes, that God is spiritual.

1 John 4.14, we have seen and testified that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. So John is testifying of the person and work of Christ who expresses God, whom no one has seen.

So in this passage, in 1 John, even in the Gospel of John, how many How many ins, abys, nos, and ofs are there? These explain relationship, they explain fellowship. It's everywhere. And John will speak in kind of a circular pattern. He'll explain something, go back, and he'll come back to the same thought. But as it does that, it moves forward and it advances in understanding. And it's like a snowball. And it starts to roll downhill and then it builds and just gets bigger and bigger. And I think that's what's happening here. It's this constant verbiage of the deep relationship that we have with the Father.

So is John all about intimacy with Christ? In this series of verses he sure is. Yeah. Does John think that we can know God with certainty? That word no comes up quite a bit and it's an experiential knowledge. It's a deep understanding relationally. So who is an expression of God's love? That's a question. Probably a believer. I've got a question on this. It says God abides in us. If we love God, if we love one another, God abides in us. So is that abiding like a fellowship thing? This if thing seemed like kind of a, you know, conditional issue. So, the fellowship thing? Or is that not possible for us? It seems like it's possible for us to not kill one another.

Which verse are you referencing? This one. You haven't gotten to that part yet. Oh, yeah, we're on 12, right? If no one has seen God in any time, if we love one another, God abideth in us, and so on. You're always thinking ahead, Pat. If we love one another. Nice segue. 13 kind of explains what happens. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. So this word, if, Pat, is a third classic addition of if.

And it means if and it might or might not be true. And there's a condition of uncertainty or possibility. So it's possible that some of us are loving one another. Sure. Well, we could probably translate this as no one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, and we probably will, then as we do love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

So this might have to do, your question might have to do with, Jim brought up last week the idea of the way John speaks is that he'll use one word and it has a whole ton of explanation behind it that Paul actually goes into detail and describes. And the idea that we can, if we're, the word is practicing that he brought up.

If we're practicing it means a, I can't think of the word, a habitual state. But believers are in a habitual state of being in Christ and being in God's love. And I think conditionally, yeah, there can be times where we don't love one another. But the position is in Christ and in his love and habitual state of loving and loving other believers. Because that's what this one another is talking about. Tom? or translate that into hate of the other person.

God's grace, I can still love him, but be honest with him and say, I really care for you, I want to see you grow, but I can't agree with you on this one point. It doesn't mean I'm going to end a new relationship. Uh-huh. Okay. To put Todd's question in a different way, could you say if I'm not loving another believer, I'm not in fellowship with God? You could say that. Because we can conditionally be out of fellowship and therefore not demonstrating the nature of Christ on a day by day basis. Go ahead. So is this abiding of fellowship? Where God abides in us?

A lot of times in this class we'll say, oh that's conditional and that's conditional. Same thing in the service. So is there some thoughts on what this is? All the other versions that say we're a new creation in Christ are those things. can't get out of Christ.

Well, but God abiding in us is conditional, isn't it? Isn't the first part conditional and the second part is? I mean, we're probably not tapping into him, but he's still abiding in us. No, I understand that, but the God abiding, it sounds like that if you don't love each other, God's not abiding in you.

Are you walking by a kid in flesh or are you walking in the Spirit? They are like two natures. And I would say too that conditionally we are still children of God. That relationship never changes. God's fellowship does. And as we mature our condition starts to matter. It's not a law, it's not a requirement.

This is one, if you're loving one another, God abides in you, or you're manifesting. Who is your life? If I'm not, I'm manifesting. Who would be anemic life? So you could say, even if one does not love another, God's still abiding in him. Well, your life is still in Christ. That's the positional point. I can't get out of his life. But my manifestation of that you know, leads your person or whatever. Yes, that doesn't happen. That doesn't, but the fellowship leads. I mean, if I turn and walk in flesh, I'm not having fellowship with Christ. Roger? I think part of Marilyn's question is actually about the construction. There's two cases.

For us to love one another, two things have to be true. We have to be, A, God has to be abiding in us, and that's a given. And his love is perfected in us. So those two things are evidence as we love one another. We can flip it around. So he's trying to say, I think, basically, that to love one another, we have to be in fellowship with him. And God will be abiding in us, and his love will be perfected in us. I think that's what's trying to be said in this verse. It's true that God always abides in us. Regardless of where we're at, we can be all of the map. To love one another, those two things have to be true. And the Greek kind of structures it that way. And that helps me a little bit.

The word if there, it does show uncertainty, but the possibility that we can love one another. And it wouldn't be possible unless we had the life of Christ. You can't possibly abide in God and not love each other. If we are in fellowship with God, we are loving one another. We are demonstrating that love.

Gail? kind of interprets or explains the abiding as being at home, being comfortable with together, and you could say intimacy if you want. And it seems to me that when we're walking in fellowship, when our condition matches our position, God, like you say, he never leaves us, but at that time he's comfortable with us and we're comfortable with him and we have this intimacy going on, and in another place it says something about the spirit lusting against the flesh, and I'm thinking that when we're out of fellowship that's what's happening, is the spirit is trying to bring us back into fellowship, and there's a conflict with our old man, and in that sense the abiding principle of intimacy and comfortableness is not there.

Maybe for us we aren't aware of it, but God is always aware, I think. of where we are spiritually in our relationship to him, and he maybe isn't comfortable with that. Well, not maybe, he isn't. According to what Gail was saying here, sometimes God is not comfortable with us, and we feel that anxiety. So in that sense, it's not that we're out of Christ, but it's a sense that things aren't quite right.

And I like Roger's point, if we turn this around, God is abiding in us, then we're going to love each other. It's kind of the result, cause, and effect. If we just switch them around, God abides in us, Getting back to Gail, it seems like abiding is, can be a comfort or not comfort. Whereas in Christ, we're always in Christ, saved. But God is not always comfortable with what we're doing. Is that not right? I would disagree, because God is like, how can we be separated from His love?

He's always full on 100% loving us. that we turn away from him. He's always full on, you know, in these conditionals, I think it's grace. Grace is unmerited. Anything related, based on us, it fails. So from his perspective, he always loves us and is full on trying, wanting that intimacy.

We're the ones that turn away, the conditional part, because we turn away. We don't abide. We don't grace on us all the time and Jesus is he's standing at the door and he's knocking you know he's he's not uncomfortable he's not just he goes back to the construction your goddess is doing the abiding here, not us. We're not abiding in Him. It's that He's abiding in us. It seems like He's the one in this verse doing that work. We'll see that there's a lot of abiding. Us in Him and He in us. And we'll see coming up here, the Trinity abides in us. Go ahead.

Because he just kind of says, this is the way it is. So he's just saying, we know that God abides in us. And so you ought to love one another and have fellowship. That's just a given. He just says it like it is. The Jews understood their walking around life was directly related to their relationship with God. So they just automatically understood that.

We're running out of time. His love is perfected in us. John 17, 23. I in them and you in me. By the way, this is the true Lord's Prayer. This is Jesus praying to God. I in them and you in me and that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you have loved me.

So this word perfected, I like two definitions here. To carry through completely, to accomplish, finish, bring to an end. and add what is yet wanting in order to render a thing full. Is our love full? Physically, is our love full in God? It is. Does it have some work to do here on earth conditionally? Does God...

Yeah, when our condition is going to line up with our condition. Our state and standing will be the same. John 17, 23. So he talks about unity. So God's love is perfected in us and he prays that we will be perfected in unity. This is such an incredible prayer that Jesus is asking God that we share the unity that He had with the Father before time began and eternity passed. Verse 13, by this we know that we abide in Him and He in us. So how do we know? Because He has given us of His Spirit. So here's where we are in Him, and He is in us, abiding. And it's demonstrated by the Spirit. John 16, 12-15.

Can I get someone to read that? I have many more things to say to you, but you can't say them now. But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, He will take of Mine, and He will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has on Mine, therefore I So we think of not abiding and not loving and what do we see in this verse? That there's more reality than our condition here on earth. There's more a reality of that not abiding and not loving.

I highlighted these words. Jesus is communicating, say truth, speak. disclose all these things glorify God and and it talks of in the in the blue the words there the the spirit spirit of truth Jesus God this is the Trinity that is being disclosed to us So this here, I didn't do that intentionally. It's not some artsy typography thing. But maybe it was the Holy Spirit. This word needs to be highlighted. I don't know. My computer just did that. I couldn't control it. So, how do we know with certainty that we have relationship, fellowship and unity with the Trinity? This is the God of the universe.

And John says in the Gospel of John, so that you will believe. I write these things so you will believe constantly. He talks about knowing and abiding and in and out of. Out of means sourced from God, out of God. He says, and he testifies of what Jesus did on the cross. So he's explaining with certainty, we can know these things. John 14, 20-26 is a really incredible verse and it's on your handout.

We're kind of out of time here. It just demonstrates what the Lord wants to share with us. He wants us to share in the relationship that He had with the Father from eternity past. So is God love? And who are we sourced out of? We're sourced out of God. And His nature is love. And the last one is kind of expanded and explained by Lise.

I'll let you guys read that for homework. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for for bringing us into the unity and the relationship that You have with the Father. We just thank You that You are disclosing these things through Your Word and making them known to us. We pray for the message today and we ask that you reveal more of yourself through your word. In Jesus' name, Amen.