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God has Loved us and Abides in us

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1 John 4:7-12 gives us three reasons we are to love on another. We explored the first reason in this post and today we will explore the others.

Love one another because God loved us.

God is love, therefore “all of God’s action is loving.” God works are by His love. We should love one another because God has loved us. This is hard for us to understand at times.

The other day I was rocking our 9-month old daughter to sleep. She was fighting hard, trying to push me away. If you did not know better and saw it you would assume I did not love her. But at that moment I was fighting her to sleep because I did love her and sleep was the best thing for her at that moment.

I think many of us, myself included, treat God that way. He loves us and He is holding us close to His chest when we are in a trial. He tells us this is for our good and He is with us during the trial but we push Him away not understanding that all of His actions toward us are driven by His love for us in Christ.

Verses 9-10 are a beautiful explanation of the gospel. Let’s slow down for a moment and focus on these verses for a bit.

How do we know God loves us?

God’s love was made manifest among us, it was revealed among us first in the sending of His Son. The Trinity had perfect communion and experienced perfect love before the creation of the world. God would have not lacked any love if He had not created us. That He has revealed His love at all is astounding. But that He showed his love by sending His Son, whom he had loved for all time. Praise God!

I need this reminder often. Jesus was sent by the Father because the Father loved sinners. Jesus did not come to secure or to make the Father loving. Jesus came because the Father loved. There is a world of difference there. God is not a curmudgeonly miser who is tight-fisted with His love. He gives liberally and he gives that which is precious to Him.

The depth of God’s love is seen because He sent His only Son. God sent what was precious to Him. We think it strange that God would ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac not thinking that God did sacrifice his only precious Son. He had no other Son to send, He sent His cherished Son. John is saying that Christ “is the Supreme one. There is none greater than Christ.” (MacArthur) If you are ever tempted to doubt the love of God for you brothers and sisters think of this one truth. God sent His only begotten Son because He loved us.

Christ Reveals the Love of God

Christ reveals the love of God for sinners. God sent Jesus so that we might live through Him. God sent Jesus for dead people. We were dead and God the Father sent God the Son so that we might live. Christ came so that we might have eternal life. Jesus said in John 10:10 that He came that His sheep might have life and have it abundantly. God’s love is revealed among us in sending Jesus and at the cross. The cross is the pinnacle of the love of God. Here we see the Father’s love for us and the Son’s love for us. Jesus came to die.

First, John tells us that at the cross God loves us, not that we have loved Him first. When it comes to God’s love we are not dealing with a situation like which came first the chicken or the egg? No, God loved us first and sent Jesus and sent Him to the cross. God loved us first. Later in chapter four, John says we love because He loved us first. God loved sinners and sent Jesus to die for those who were His enemies. God loved those who hated Him. We hated God and God loved us and sent Christ to die to atone for our sins. Why would someone go to such great lengths for their enemies? Because they love them.

Second, we see the love of God in Christ absorbing the wrath of God. He is the propitiation for our sin, the atoning sacrifice for sins. Jesus is the only way to avoid the wrath of God. If you come to Jesus, if you are God’s child you will never, ever face the wrath of God. There is no other way to escape the wrath of God. All other attempts will fail. You can try to earn your way out from under the wrath of God and you will fail. You can try to be the best person that ever lived, and you will not escape the wrath of God. Jesus is not a way to be made right with God, He is the way to be made right with God. (John 14:6)

Our Atoning Sacrifice

This word propitiation is full of meaning. It means that Christ has taken the wrath we deserve atoning for our sins and purchasing our forgiveness. What drove Christ to do this? His great love for sinners. Friends, if we want to see love we need to look to the cross.

          1. See your Savior with pierced hands and feet.
          2. See the Savior shedding His blood for you and me atoning for our sins and taking the punishment and wrath we deserve.
          3. See your Savior’s anguish when he is forsaken by the Father who had loved Him for all time. See His love for you in His cry My God, My God why have you forsaken me? He was cast out for our sin. This is your loving Savior.

The Son of God out of His great love for sinners came and fixed the biggest problem we will ever face. Think of all the problems you have faced this week. They pale in comparison to the problem God out of His love has solved for His children. We were under the wrath of God, deserving of His wrath and condemnation. But, God sent His one and only precious son to be the propitiation for our sins, to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins, so that the relationship with God we had broken could be restored.

The hymn writers help us grasp these wonderful truths

"And can it be that I should gain, an interest in the Savior’s blood? Died He for me who cause Him pain, for me who Him to death pursued. Amazing Love how can it be, that thou my God should’st die for me. Amazing love how can it be? That thou my God should’st die for me." The hymn goes on to say: "He left His Father’s throne above, so free so infinite His grace. Emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam’s helpless race. Tis mercy all immense and free for O my God it found out me. Amazing love, how can it be? That thou my God should’st die for me!"

How Deep the Father’s Love for Us contains a verse on the cross. "Behold the man upon the cross, my sin upon His shoulder, ashamed I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers. It was my sin that held Him there, until it was accomplished. His dying breath has brought me life, I know that it is finished."

"Oh, that rugged cross my salvation, where your love poured out over me. Now my soul cries out Hallelujah! Praise and honor unto thee."

Loving One Another is the Only Proper Response

If God has loved us in this way we ought to love one another. Our love for one another is a gospel energized love. We love because God loved us and saved us. We love others because of the great work God has done for us in the gospel. Therefore, when we lack love for God’s children it is appalling. If God loves sinners in this way why would we not love those same sinners He redeemed? Are we better than God? Do we have a higher standard than God?

When we intentionally withhold love from our brothers and sisters we are acting out of character, we are sinning. Everything we do for our brothers and sisters should be immersed in love. How might we unintentionally be withholding love in our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ?

Diagnostic Questions

      1. How do we talk about them when they are not around? Do we speak well of them? Do we question their motives in secret, but maintain a facade of love in public?
      2. How committed are we to them? When trouble comes or there is a rift in the relationship do we want to reconcile or jump ship? I think this can be one of the reasons people church hop. They never seem happy anywhere because they do not love the believers God has placed in their life, showing a lack of commitment.
      3. How do we converse with one another on social media? Is our speech sweet or sour? Many people will never step foot in this church, but will they see the love of God by how we interact with each other on Facebook or Twitter? Would our interactions make them ask, what do these people have going on? I need in on that!

Let us love one another because God has loved us.

Let us love one another because God abides in us.

Last, we should love one another because God abides in us.

Verse 12 opens in an odd fashion so we need to remember the context. John’s theme for this chapter is that we are to love one another. If no one has ever seen God how then will they see God’s love? One can hardly say it better than John MacArthur “People will not see God’s love unless believers love one another. Love is our strongest apologetic… The church is the collective representation of God in this world. That’s why our testimony is critical. Our love is that testimony.” The world will see God’s love in our love for one another. What an amazing privilege that God would use us as ambassadors of His love.

If we love one another we show that God abides in us, the Spirit is dwelling within us working in us so that we might love one another. Love can be overwhelming. After all, we are trying to live with sinners and will get messy. But we have the Holy Spirit working within us so that we can and will love one another. We are not alone and we cannot do it in our own power.

And as the Spirit is working in us God’s love is perfected or completed within us. The commentators are not completely sure what this means but I think if we look at verses 17-18 we can get an understanding of what John is saying.

Perfect love casts out fear so we have no need to fear judgment or punishment. If we fear then we have not been completed in love. Therefore as we strive to love one another we should not become discouraged when we fail. We do not need to fear punishment because God is working in us through His Spirit to reassure us of the love of God and to drive us to love one another.

Love One Another

Friends, let us love one another because our great God is love, He has loved us and through His Spirit, He abides in us. Let’s love each other so that outsiders look in and crave what we have so that we might have an opportunity to tell them about the depths of God’s love. If you’re not a Christian this love can be for you. Jesus says come to Him if you are weary and He will give you rest. Do you know why He will give you rest? He is a God of love.

Walk as Wise

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This Sunday we continued our series in Ephesians. You can view the sermon here.

Paul, in Ephesians 5, is looking at our identity in Christ from different angles. It is as if he is slowly turning a diamond and observing the different facets of it.

If we are in Christ, then we are beloved children of God and we should imitate Him. We do this by walking in love, light, and wisdom.

Verse 15 calls God’s children to look carefully at how we walk. We are not to live as those who are unwise but as those who are wise. Our union with Christ is the most important truth about who we are. In Christ, we have been given His wisdom (1 Cor. 1:30).

If this sounds foreign to you, you are not alone. We tend to view our salvation from the standpoint of forgiveness or justification alone. That is a wonderful truth, but that is not all God has blessed us with in our salvation. He has made us wise in Christ.

A Cause for Humility

This is a cause for humility, not pride. We were unwise. Unwise in the biblical sense means foolish; we were not following God, we were in active rebellion against God (Psalm 14:1). The Holy Spirit changes our hearts so that we see Christ as beautiful where before we wanted nothing to do with Him. If we are puffed up by this truth, it is evidence that we do not understand the work of grace which God has done in our hearts.

Foolishness is the denial of God (Romans 1:18-32). What, then, is wisdom? Wisdom is the proper application of biblical knowledge. It is bringing our biblically informed intellect and common sense to a situation and applying biblical knowledge to it.

The Bible’s view of wisdom is incredibly freeing!

One example is choosing a spouse. God tells us the kind of character we should look for in a potential spouse. We can easily sum it up with the character Paul has been expounding on in Ephesians 5. Therefore, we can take biblical knowledge and apply it to a person we think we might want to marry. Do they meet this criteria? If yes, then you can pursue it in wisdom. But if not, you should move on because it would be unwise and foolish to pursue something God has forbidden.

Wisdom is Practical

When we walk in wisdom, as those who are wise, then we will know how to make the best use of the time in these evil days (5:16-17).

Using the wisdom God has given us will help us have the right priorities in life. Wisdom tells us that every time we say yes to something, we say no to something else. There are wise activities we can do to make the most use of our time, and there are unwise activities.

How do we know the difference? We need to use the wisdom that God has given us. Ask yourself: what responsibilities has God given to me? This is a simple question, but it can really help us apply our biblical knowledge to a specific situation.

A personal example may help here; God has given me the privilege (responsibility) of being a husband, a daddy, and a pastor. These are my priorities. Therefore, if there is something that comes up which will interfere with me faithfully obeying God in those areas, I don’t need to do it. Even if the thing might be good and not sinful, I still need to say no.

Wisdom is meant for the nitty-gritty of life. God has not given us the wisdom of Christ to win arguments, or so that we might know really big words and sound smart. Rather wisdom is for us to use in our everyday life, so that we might grow in imitating our Father and glorify Him.

Love One Another Because God has Loved us

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There is not a better feeling than to hear someone you love tell you they love you. It is wonderful to know that you are loved and to hear it. But you only have this feeling from someone you know loves you. If you do not know they love you they can say it all day but the impact won't be there.

When my wife tells me she loves me it's amazing! I know Victoria loves me. Or when Carson or Nora walk up to me and say “Daddy I love you” that makes me feel good because I know she loves me. Or when dad sends me an email often times he will close the email out by telling me he loves me.

We have an innate desire to want to be loved. The Apostle John reminds us in this passage that we have been loved by God and God placed us in His family to be loved. We are doubly loved. We are loved by God and loved by our brothers and sisters in Christ. God has placed His children in a loving family, a family that loves because God loves them. I don’t know about you but that is something I want to be a part of.

John’s main theme in 1 John 4:7-12 is that we should love one another, our brothers and sisters in Christ. The Apostle gives us three reasons why we should love one another.

      1. God is Love
      2. God has loved us.
      3. God abides in us.

In this post we will look at God is love and will review the last two points in another post.

Let us love one another because God is love.

What do you think is the distinguishing mark of God’s children?

Love is what sets us apart from the world. Jesus told his disciples this in John 13:34-35: 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. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

In Mark 12 when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was he answered: “Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

God’s children are characterized by their love. We will be known and the world will know we are disciples of Jesus because of our love.

John does not leave this in the theoretical realm either. The way he writes shows he loves those he writes too. Verse 7 starts with the word beloved. He loves them much. These people are his dear friends. We can trust then that when John writes that we should love one another he is doing this as one who is loving. William Tyndale said that John “singeth his old song again.” John wrote often of love. He penned perhaps the most popular verse in the Bible, For God SO loved the world. In chapter four of First John alone he uses the word love 26 times. John has much to say about love, because he loved much.

Why does John command us to love one another?

Two reasons.

First, we should love one another because love is of God and the one who loves has been born of God and knows God. Our love for one another is an evidence that we have been born again and that we know God. This is evidence that we have been born again because God is the source of love. Love finds its origin in God. Therefore when we love one another we give evidence that we have been born of God and know God.

Second, we should love one another because the one who does not love does not know God because God is love. If God is love and we claim to know God but we don’t love then we don’t know God. Simple as that. You have to love the simplicity of John. He deals in black and white. He is not concerned with the gray areas.

If you love one another, if you love God’s children, then you have God as your Father because your Father is love. One writer told of a time when a member in his church came to him and said they were not sure if a member of the church was a Christian. Like any good pastor, he was alarmed and asked why they thought this. The member replied that there was no evidence of love in their life. The pastor responded by saying “I don’t know whether the person is a Christian or not, but it’s certainly hard to tell when love isn’t present in his life.” He went on to say it is hard to tell “because love is the manifestation of the indwelling of God.

Verse 8 and 16 of this chapter make the wonderful statement that God is love. This deals with the very nature and essence of God. God is love, therefore, He defines love, love does not define Him. This means that if we wish to know what love is and what love does we must look to God. This is the second statement of this nature John makes in this letter. In 1 John 1:5 he says that God is light and John records Jesus in the gospel of John saying that God is Spirit. Hebrews also tells us that God is a consuming fire. How do these fit together? John Stott wrote: “He who is love is light and fire as well. Far from condoning sin, his love has found a way to expose it (because he is light) and to consume it (because he is fire) without destroying the sinner, but rather saving him.” God is love and we should praise Him for His infinite wisdom that all of His wonderful attributes work together for His glory in the salvation of sinners.

This is a perfect transition to verses 9 and 10 which will be our starting point in our next post.

Walk as Light

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This Sunday we continued our series in Ephesians. You can view the sermon here.

Paul, the author of the letter, never gives a command without grounding it in the reality of who we are as Christians. Ephesians is structured this way. The first three chapters deal with the realities of who we are in Christ; then Paul moves to the implications, or the actions Christians should take because of this truth. In Ephesians 5:8-14 this pattern continues.

We were darkness but now we are light in the Lord (5:8). The text does not say we were in darkness but rather we were darkness. Our lives were characterized by sin and ignorance of God’s truth. But that is not who we are now. Now we are light. We are holiness and we have been given knowledge of God’s truth.

The implication of this is that now we are to walk as children of light. Remember, in 5:1 the command was to be imitators of God. That thinking continues here. God is light and there is no darkness in Him (1 John 1:5). Therefore we are to walk as the children of light whom we are. This is our identity.

We live from the identity that is most important to us. This can range from the role we have at our job to being a spouse or being a student. Paul is calling us to live out of a higher identity than we could ever give ourselves. God, our Father, has made us children of light, He has placed us in Christ. This is the identity that should drive our behavior.

How do we know if we are walking in light? Paul says the fruit of light is all that is good, right, and true (5:9).

Is the action good, is it holy? Then it is walking in light.

Is it right? Then it is walking in light.

Is it true? Then it is walking in light.

Walking in light is pleasing to God. For those who are in Christ, Christians, we have the ability to please God. Jesus said if we love Him we will obey Him. Our obedience, walking in light and holiness, pleases and glorifies God. Our obedience tells God that we think the identity He has given us is the most important truth about us.

Children of light will not take part of the unfruitful works of darkness (5:11). This is the negative prohibition. Those who are darkness are not to be imitated; rather God, who is light, should be imitated. It is not even proper to talk about the shameful things those who are darkness do in secret (5:12).

The Holy Spirit, through the words of Paul, is calling us to a higher standard than we normally hear. Not only are we to do what is good, right, and true; we are not to take part in the unfruitful works of darkness. Not only are we to not take part in works of darkness; we are not even to talk about them. This is a fully encompassing holiness. Every aspect of our life should be holy.

Notice I said this is about your life and not someone else. It is easy to read a passage like this and think about the sins of the culture and call those out. But Paul is mainly concerned with our walking in light. The darkness can’t walk in light. That’s the point. Why would we be surprised when darkness acts like darkness.

We should be more surprised when we who are light take part in the unfruitful works of darkness. Are you surprised when you sin? Does it grieve you when you sin? That is the most shocking thing, not the sins of the culture.

Rather our good works, our lives of holiness, can be a rebuke to the culture around us. Who have your actions rebuked lately? This is a consequence of walking in light, not the reason we walk in light. We walk in light to glorify God and please Him. That is our driver, that is our motive.

May God be gracious to us this week to help us walk as children of light. We have a great Father who has given us a new heart so that we might imitate Him. Why would we want to do anything else?

Your Place in God’s Plan

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John Anderson wrote our sermon application post this week.

This week, per our Pastor’s request, we turned our Bibles to Esther 4. The book of Esther details the account of Esther and Mordecai, two Jewish people living in Susa, of the kingdom of Persia. Persia conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., and the enslaved Jewish people then began their return to the land of Israel. Some Jews, however, stayed behind in Persia, thus setting the backdrop for the book of Esther. Persia functioned as a world power in the 5th century B.C., which is when the details of the book of Esther took place.

Our Pastor focused on God’s providence. Specifically, he keyed in on one very famous statement made by Mordecai to Esther: “who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” This statement references Esther’s position as Queen of Persia and the genocide awaiting the Jewish people. Surveying the events in this book, it is difficult to explain the circumstances and outcomes without pointing to the providence of God! Esther, an exile in the land, became queen only because the previous queen was disobedient, leading to a vacancy in the position. Esther was then considered for the role due to her natural beauty, something God given. Mordecai raised and counseled Esther only because she was an orphan and he was her cousin. If any one of these circumstances had not been true, Esther would have never ascended to the throne, and she would not have been able to help save her people! These events point to God’s providence.

Providence is God’s sovereignty (His complete rule and reign) in action. God providentially works out all circumstances, big and small, to accomplish His purposes. No event occurs outside God’s providential scope. This doctrine provides the foundation for amazing promises such as Romans 8:28— “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Without a powerful, ruling God who ensures results; promises such as Romans 8:28 are not promises, but rather empty babble. Believers should take great comfort in the fact that God moves history and events in His direction. He directs them to the grand purpose of redeeming sinners, thus bringing Him glory.

When the stage seemed set for God to save the Jews (Esther being the chief instrument), Mordecai displays one of the healthiest views of God’s providence ever recorded. He states that even if Esther were to wrongly stay silent, “relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place.” Mordecai understood God’s saving and compassionate nature. So even if the details showed impending doom, Mordecai knew that God would be at work behind the scenes (from a human point of view) to bring salvation to the Jewish people. Undoubtedly, Mordecai knew the history of his people, a history of God raising them up against unspeakable odds to become a great nation. The accounts of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and so many others prove this point. Because Mordecai knew God’s will, he trusted Him with the details.

Some things we can learn from God’s providence and the story of Esther are as follows:

  • Know God’s ultimate purpose. His purpose is to glorify Himself by redeeming a people through the shed blood of Jesus. By knowing this fact, we know where God is directing history, events, and circumstances.
  • Know God’s plan for the believer. All we know for sure is that if we are in Christ, God is working out or lives to conform us to the image of Christ and, one day, live in glory with Him. We must know the end of our story to trust that God is working out the mysterious details in our favor.
  • Know God’s revealed will for our lives. This will is what he holds us accountable to. To be sanctified, to love Him and our neighbor, to be conformed to Christ’s image, etc. This will is what we are to worry about and pursue. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matt. 5:6).
  • Admit that we cannot figure out God’s secret will. God’s secret will is the unfolding of all life events based on His eternal decree. His secret will somehow works to accomplish salvation for many and conform them to Christlikeness. Since we know God’s purpose (redeeming people) and his revealed will (follow Him), we can trust Him with His secret will.

Believers with a healthy view of God’s providence, then, will stay away from the sinful boasting recorded in James 4:13-14—

‘Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.’

As we look back at the account of Esther and Mordecai, we learn that Mordecai, though imperfect, knew God’s heart. God loves His people and brings salvation when they cry out. It turns out that the Lord used Esther to approach the King and plea for the deliverance of her people. The plot of evil Haman was revealed, and the Jews received a decree to defend themselves from any future attackers. God saved the Jewish people! The events unfolded this way because God maneuvered them toward His ultimate purpose: glorifying Himself by saving His people.

Prayerfully, we can continue to grow in our knowledge of God’s ultimate purpose, plan for the believer, and revealed will. If we know these and trust God’s good character, we can function as faithful followers even amidst the soul-wrenching chaos of life’s circumstances.