We Love Because God is Love

0:38Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God.

1:09If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.

1:44God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar.

2:21For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. This is God's word. You may be seated. I want to begin by saying that it's an honor to get to preach this morning. As Alan said, getting to serve as an elder and a staff member for a couple years. We loved always being here in College Station because we love our church so much.

2:58And over this past, year we have learned so much and it has been a great year for us in training. But as I was sharing in the prayer meeting this morning, we've had more lows than a normal year for us at least. More difficulties, more hardships to wrestle through. And I feel like coming to College Station, I don't think we quite realize exactly where we were at, but over the past two weeks I feel like it's already been emotionally and spiritually refreshing and healing for us. And so that is not just from one person or from one sermon or something like that, but sitting under the word, talking with so many of you, praying with so many of you, and just being known and loved by you is such a refreshment. And so I just want to say thank you. And just as I talk to other people who, other missionaries, and just what our church is seeking to do with those who are members of our church who have been sent out to reach the nations, y'all are doing such a great job at praying for missionaries, at keeping up with them. I mean, there's another garage sale that some members were hosting for some other, another missionary family who's wanting to be sent out. And just so, anyways, we are very encouraged to be here with you guys. And I think the other missionaries here would attest to that as well.

4:10This past year, our train that we're a part of has a lot of classroom training, but also has a lot of involvement in the field. And so a lot of I was in northern Mexico and southern Mexico quite a bit. And it was a huge year of learning for me. As someone said in the prayer meeting this morning, learning hurts a lot of time. Growth hurts a lot of times. And it was just so much that we learned for her head, so much that we learned in her character, and so much that I learned that I never expected that I needed to learn.

4:39And I think the number one thing that we learned this past year, and we're reminded of this past year, is the centrality of love. This is super basic, and it just so happens that this is the topic I'm preaching on this morning, but this is the number one way that I've been growing this past year. I'm not sure if it's resulting in me loving people more or just realizing how sinful I am, but something's happening, and I'm praise God for that. I want to share with you a passage that's been impactful to me this year. You've probably heard it before, it's in 1 Corinthians 13.

5:13And Paul highlights the centrality of love here. He says, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

5:45This was great for me as someone who was a pastor and now is a missionary trainee. This is good for any of us, but especially if you are a pastor here, if you are a life group leader here, or if in your peer group you are seen as a strong Christian or by your family as a strong. A strong Christian. Paul is saying, you can be the best preacher, the best theologian, the best life group leader, you can be the most generous person here at New Life. You can be willing to give your body up for the sake of the gospel, but if you have not love, it counts for nothing in God's sight.

6:21And John builds this point further in our passage this morning in verse 20. He says, if anyone says, I love God, and he hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. So I want to start off with a big point that I feel like Paul and John are saying here. And it's this: you can't be a Christian and be okay with not loving other Christians.

6:57There is no room to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus, and say, I don't love these people, and I'm okay with that. However, as we know from 1 John, every single one of us struggles to love other people. And so I'm not saying to be a Christian is to perfectly love other people, but to be a Christian is to never be okay with not loving other people because we follow a God who has love. And the main point I want to get across this morning is that to love others, we must first surrender to God's love for us.

7:28So let's begin by considering. The character of God with a question: when you think of God, His attributes, just who He is at the core of His existence, what do you think of? If He could say, if He explained God in a few words, what would you say? In this passage, John writes multiple times that God is love. In verse 7, He says, Let us love one another. Why? Because love is from God. And in verse 8, He says, Anyone who does not love does not know God. Why? Because God is love.

8:12Now, what does it mean that God is love? If I went around college station, I could talk with Christians and non-Christians, and they would probably agree God is love. And if we asked them, okay, but what does that mean? We'd probably get a lot of different answers. And so we might first think about who does God love? God loves people, God loves angels, God loves created beings. But I think the statement, God is love, is so much bigger than that. Because I don't think John means at creation God became loving, or that God is loving toward his creation. He says, God is love.

8:52And what I want us to get about God's character this morning is that before creation, for all eternity, God has existed. In loving community, Jesus says this in John 17, Father, you loved me before the creation of the world. Have you ever thought about how sweet that sentence is? Jesus in prayer saying, Father, you love me now, just as you always have for all eternity. They have always had this sweet, loving relationship for all eternity. Now, sometimes we might be thinking, so God created the world, but what was God doing before all of that time? We might have asked this question as a kid, or maybe you still ask this question: was God bored during that time? What did he do?

9:47And what we learn from this truth about God is that for all eternity, God was a father loving his son and a son loving his father. That's an incredible God that we follow. But we know that our God is three in one and not two in one. So what about the Holy Spirit? How does he fit into this? And I want to ask the question this morning: why is it good news that our God is three in one and not two in one? Outside of the unique callings and strengths of the different people of the Godhead, why is it good news that our God is three and not two?

10:22And it's that if God is two, when you have two people loving one another, that's a very insular love. It's almost a love that. I love you and I need your love and we don't need anyone else. But when it becomes three, it becomes a communal love, which might look like this. The Father loves the Son and the Spirit, and the Father loves that the Son and the Spirit love one another. Does that make sense? It's this other-centered, selfless love that delights so much in the object of its love that it loves to see them loving one another. I feel like in my life, the best example I see of this is in parenting. I love my wife, I love my kids, and I love to see my wife and kids have a good relationship. This is the type of relationship that our God has had for all eternity, and this is the type of community that all people are longing for. If you listen to any song on the radio, watch any movie, watch any TV show, there is this longing for belonging in this type of community, and this is who our God is.

11:29But more than that, we have been invited to join into this community. So let's see what John says about this in verse 9. How have we been invited to join into this beautiful community? In verse 9, John writes, In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be. Be the propitiation for our sins. Skip down to verse 13. By this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit. So we have this amazing God who exists in perfect loving community. And now we're going to consider how God has invited us into that community. And let me just say, it is dripping with love in such a way that doesn't make sense to us.

12:29First, God has initiated with those who do not love him first. God has initiated with his enemies. My younger brother is getting married later this summer, and as expected, I got an invitation because I'm his brother. That's who you invite to weddings. You invite your friends, people you like, you invite your family, whether you like them or not, and normally your parents' friends, whether you know them or not. But it's either you like them a lot or you are connected to them by some family relationship. But who do you not invite to weddings? Your enemies.

13:08Let's say if we were engaged and some man professes love to Rebecca that semester before, I'm not going to invite him to our wedding because he tried to steal Rebecca away from me. That wouldn't make any sense. But this is who God has invited into this community. Every single one of us, God created us and He said, I want relationships. With you. And we said, I think I'm going to find life and satisfaction elsewhere. Every single one of us turned away from God, and yet he still initiates, bringing us into this community.

13:43Secondly, he didn't just invite us into this community, but he has made it accessible through his Son. John writes that Jesus was sent to be the propitiation for our sins. That's a pretty big word. A lot of syllables. We probably have some idea, context clues, okay, this probably means that Jesus saved us. But what does it mean that Jesus is the propitiation? If you just look at a definition of that word, it means to appease the wrath of a God. So I'm going to give you an example that doesn't, it's not a perfect example because there is one true God and there are many false gods. But I want to give you an example from this past year. I was able to spend a month in southern Mexico working with an indigenous group called the Tlapanecos. So if you know anything about Mexican history, there were many different indigenous groups. The Aztecs became the strongest group. They were very brutal. So the Tlapanecos moved into the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico. Of course, the conquistadors as well. And that's where they live now. And so that's how they got into these mountain villages where you're just winding through mountains and all of a sudden there's a village of a thousand people. Every single one of these villages has a Catholic church. On the surface, every single Person in these villages is Catholic. Every single person in these villages also sacrifices to the rain god who's named Aku. This isn't just some people and some people. Every single person says, I'm Catholic, and they also make sacrifices to the rain God. At this point in time, I would say about 20% of these villages have a Christian in them, about 80% of them have zero Christians in them, which is just astounding to me because it's in Mexico. These people haven't even heard what it means to follow Christ. Now, every April and throughout the year as well, every single person in the village goes up on the mountain, think Old Testament high places. Every single village has a high place. They go up there, there's altars. I remember looking at the altar, and there's kind of this round rock in the middle of it. And I don't think there have been a sacrifice for a while, but it's covered in dried blood. Because what they do is they go up there, they bring food and drink, they dance, and they sacrifice animals to appease the wrath of Aku, the rain God, so that they would get on Aku's good side, and he would send them rain in the coming year. Because what they are is farmers, and they need rain. So that's an imperfect example, because that's not how our God is like that. We have to sacrifice animals so he won't be mad at us anymore. But in another sense, he is a holy and just God. And his community that he shares is perfect and holy. And so God cannot allow us to be a part of that community because of our sin, and he has to be angry. As a just God against our sin. And so, if you are sitting here today, that means that you have sinned against God. And the wages of your sin is that God is angry against your sin, and there is a punishment awaiting sin, which is an eternal hell. And so, Jesus stepping in as the propitiation means that when Jesus came and he lived a perfect life on your behalf, he fulfilled all the law on your behalf, and then when he chose to go to the cross, he didn't just die up on the cross as Jesus. Paul says that he became your sin, where for all eternity, Jesus has had this perfect relationship with his Father. But in that moment on the cross, God saw him as ugly, containing all of our sins, and he poured out all of his anger against our sins on Christ, so that instead of receiving his wrath, we would only receive his love and mercy and forgiveness if we're in Christ. So that's an amazing way that God has invited us to be a part of this community. And more than that, the Holy Spirit steps up. He says, okay, the Father's done his work, the Son's done his work, now it's time for me to do my work. And it says that we abide in the Spirit. The Spirit helps us to abide in this community. The Spirit helps us to persevere. So that not only is salvation accessible, but salvation is sure through the Spirit. Helping us to continue to abide in God.

18:04This is an amazing God, and this is an amazing invitation that we have to have fellowship with this God. So, how do we respond? What does it look like to join this loving community? John summarizes it nicely here in verse 13. He says, By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him and He in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him.

18:57It gets a little confusing there at the end. Who's abiding in who? But let's break this down a little bit. So, how do we come into this community? First, we see and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, God has acted toward us with love. All that's left for us to do is see the love that God has for us. Step two, it says that we confess Jesus as the Son of God.

19:28Confession means Meaning more than just saying the words, Jesus is the Son of God. Confession means more than just praying the sinner's prayer. This means that your life follows that Jesus is the Son of God. This means that allegiances have changed. We followed ourselves, we followed this world, we wanted to elevate ourselves. Now, by confessing Jesus is the Son of God, what we mean is that He is our King. We will follow Him. Additionally, John says that we receive His Spirit who enables us to abide. This is where we start getting into all the abiding. And then abiding in God means that we abide in love because God is love. And when we abide in love, we will be loving to other people.

20:19The more that we are abiding in God who is love, the more throughout our life that we will see God change us to be loving people. And I want to make a note here that there is a command in this passage: love your neighbor, love your brother. But there's also a statement: if you abide in God, if He has saved you, you will love other people. There might be times where you don't feel loving at all, but God will be faithful to continue to sanctify you, to help you to love those around you, which I hope is an encouragement to you if you're struggling to love others like me.

21:00Now, I want us to consider what keeps us from joining and walking freely in this community. So, this is pretty wonderful news. Who is God? He's a God of love. Even though we're sinners, God hasn't brought us in through the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We just see His love and confess Jesus as King and walk in that love. Why don't we walk in this love then? Why is it so hard for us to love other Christians, even in this church? It's a wonderful group of people, but my guess is that every single person here struggles to love at least another person here in this room because we're saved sinners and we're different and we have different personalities and we rub one another the wrong way. And at this point in the sermon, I want this to get really personal, and I want you to think, everyone needs to do this, I want you to think of someone who is hard for you to love. Based on the passage, I want you to try to think of a believer in particular, and if you can, praise God if you can't, think of someone at New Life that's hard for you to love.

22:11And keep that person in your mind the rest of the sermon. John talks about why it's hard for us to abide in this loving community. He says this in verse 17: By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence. For the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.

22:48Are we following John's logic here? Positively speaking, perfect love casts out fear. But I want to think about the opposite of that. And I think it's true. Fear casts out love. Fear is focused on self, love is focused on the other. Now, to define this fear a little bit, I'm not talking about phobias, that because I'm scared of cockroaches, I can't love other people unless they threw one on me or something like that. That's not what I'm talking about. Which I am scared of cockroaches, so don't do that, please.

23:25That's one of the biggest scary things about being a missionary: I have to be around more cockroaches. I'm also not talking about a good fear that we all have. If your house is on fire and you're sitting on the couch, God has made it so that you feel fear and run out of the house. Of course, we're not talking about that. I'm talking about an anxious fear, an insecure fear, and an unstable fear. John gives us a few clues. He says this type of fear lacks confidence on the day of judgment. This type of fear is focused on punishment. This type of fear is still trying to be loved by God rather than resting that He has already loved you.

24:12I heard Tim Keller talk about this type of anxious fear, not as a thunderstorm that rolls in real intensely and then rolls out and then growth can occur, but a type of cold, constant drizzle in your heart that never goes away. So growth never happens, but instead there's just this slow mildew in your heart. It might not be obvious at first, but over the course of time, this type of anxious fear, this type of insecure fear, takes away your ability to love other people well.

24:47Because in the absence of sin, in the absence of fear, we're free to love others. There's no guilt to atone for. There's no shame that we need to cover up. And there's no evil that we need to hide from. But when sin entered into the world and entered into our heart, our new posture became one of hiding, covering up, blame shifting, and not being honest with others about who we really are. See this example perfectly in Genesis 3. Sin entered into the world and entered into Adam and Eve's hearts. What did they do? They covered up, they hid in the bushes. They started to blame the other person and they made excuses to God. It immediately hindered their relationship with one another and with God. And this is what we see in the scriptures, and we respond in the same way. Fear expressed as insecurity, anxiety, and an instability not standing strong in the gospel ruins authentic relationships. Keep in mind here: the standard is the Trinity. Perfectly loving, perfectly vulnerable with one another. We're not okay with just it's okay on the surface. We want deep, vulnerable, open, honest, loving relationships.

26:13How has fear hindered your relationships? You might have thought that this person was hard to love because they're annoying or because I have an anger problem. But I think it's deeper. I think it's that we get angry with this person because we have this insecurity or because we have this anxiety that's deeper than that. So, how do we get rid of this fear? I'm going to give you a simple but complex answer. John writes this: Perfect love casts out fear.

26:53Nothing can take away our fears in a lasting way than the perfect love of God. God. Fear is cast out when no longer it's about my character and my identity and my performance, but it's about God and how Christ on my behalf has perfectly fulfilled all righteousness. And now, in my imperfection, I'm loved by God. That's one of the hardest tasks for a Christian to feel the weight of your sin and to believe in that moment, God loves me. God accepts me. He is glad that he adopted me.

27:33But this is complex because this takes a lifetime of letting that perfect love cast out that fear. It takes a lifetime of meditating on the scriptures to remember God's love, of praying your fears back to God, being honest with God in your prayer about your anxieties and insecurities, and a lifetime of living in gospel-centered community where people can remind you of the perfect love of God. I don't know where people in this room are at this morning, probably in different places. I hinted at the beginning of my sermon that this is the main area that I've been growing, and it's because I've been so faced with the fact that I struggle to love lots of different types of people, and I struggle to love people deeply.

28:19And many times this year, I've not only noticed that, but I have felt so burdened over my sinfulness. So burdened that, like, I'm trying to love, but I can't. Where it's harder to sleep at night, asking Rebecca to pray for me at night. It's hard for me to focus because I'm so aware of my brokenness in this area. And what's been meaningful to me this past year is to reflect on grace because grace is getting what you do not deserve in that moment. And so, if there is a person here in the room like me who's saying, right now, I want to love, but I don't know how, and maybe in another sense, and I don't want to love, just know that God's grace is that right now for you, you are accepted and loved by God. And there's nothing you can do to change that if you are in Christ.

29:14It's important that we grasp that at this point in time in the sermon because now I want to walk through what does love look like. So, in a sense, I want to walk through the law of love. How should we love? And if you are still trying to fulfill the law, still trying to be a good enough Christian where I love people as God's Word says, you will be crushed because none of us fulfills the law in this area. We have to be resting in the perfect love of God.

29:44But I do want you to consider: how do we love? There's lots of definitions of love out there. We're going to walk through three passages in the New Testament briefly. Each one focuses on Jesus' life, and each one is not just a description of Jesus. It's the New Testament author saying, you should think this way, you should live this way, you should love this way. Okay? So, in case you've forgotten, have that person in your mind. This person's hard for you to love. It's going to get really practical. Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 8.

30:20Paul instructs us how we should love. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. This is astounding. Jesus lays aside his status. He lays aside his comforts. He lays aside being insulated away from sinners. And what does he do? He empties himself completely. He humbles himself, and he doesn't just serve sinners. What does it say? His identity becomes servant. Do you understand the difference between that?

31:15You can serve someone just the action, or you can be their servant. Christ became our servant. So, with that person, that's hard for you to love. What would it look like if you emptied yourself and humbled yourself and said, I am their servant. What would love look like? Second passage, description of how we love. Romans 15, verses 1 through 7. Paul's writing again using Christ's example. He says, We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever was written in the former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.

32:16Now Paul gives this prayer. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another. This is for you with that person that's hard to love. Grant you to live with that person with such harmony in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Isn't that convicting? Paul says, it's not enough to keep things okay on the surface. From the heart, you need harmony, praising God with one voice with that person.

32:57If it feels impossible, I've been there. And maybe in some ways I'm still there. But this is our aim. Paul says that this is for the strong. He's not talking about pastors. He's not talking about apostles. He's not talking about missionaries. He's talking about normal believers who have an obligation to bear with the ongoing failings of the weak. It's hard to bear with the ongoing failings of the weak. It might even be harder if they're not seeing their failings. Or harder if you're seeing these as failings, but other people don't see this. Something like that.

33:38And in these types of situations, we have a hard time with not just keeping things status quo, but truly welcoming them as brothers. Truly wanting what Paul is praying for here. But Paul leaves us no room to dismiss, keep them at arm's length, the weak. Last passage is 1 Peter chapter 2. This has been the passage that has probably impacted me the most. In verse 21, Peter writes, For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. It's clear, you ought to follow in Christ's steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

34:40You can only obey this if you're resting in the love of God. If you are ruled by fear, you will retaliate. You will criticize based on your personality. You will criticize inwardly through bitterness. You will criticize indirectly through gossip, or you will criticize through passive aggression or through just the straight-up fight. Based on your personality, wherever you're at, or a mixture of those things. And when you're in the midst of conflict, it's very easy to say, I mean, this is all that I've done. They're the ones that are really at fault, and they haven't apologized yet. To put it on their shoulders, you are more at fault. You ought to take the initiative and making things right. But who's the example here? Christ, our king. He had no sin whatsoever, and he said, Let me take the initiative to bear this sin, and let me in the whole process not criticize or revile. Like I said, if you are trying to uphold the law in your own strength and be righteous by the law, you will be crushed because none of us do this perfectly. But this is what it looks like to love our brother. It's amazing to think about the love of God. He's existed for all eternity in loving. Community. He's invited us, even though we were his enemies.

36:07Rather than resting in his love, we many times operate under fear. But yet, in Christ, we have the Holy Spirit. He's not going to give up on us. He's going to be faithful to us, and he is going to help us to walk in love. And so, the last thing I want to ask you this morning is: how is the Holy Spirit at work in your heart this morning? It's going to be different for different people, but I want to ask you to not resist the Holy Spirit. If He's leading you to pray a certain way, if He's leading you to love a certain way, if He's leading you to forgive in a certain way, do not resist Him because He's not doing this to harm you, He's doing this for your good. Because it's only when we cast off walking by fear, but instead receive the love of God and submit to Him that we can truly find life. Let me pray for us.

37:10God, we thank you that you have loved us. God, it's amazing that you would love us. There's no reason that we could come up with for why you would love us. And yet you do. And Lord, you have called us to love in a similar way, and yet we haven't. And in the midst of our failings, you still love us and accept us and are smiling upon us. So, Lord, more than anything, we would just want to sit and rest in your love.

37:59We're never going to get to a point where we perfectly love, but we want to glorify you by having this type of unity and community. And, God, we thank you that you have called us into this. Lord, I pray for anyone who is struggling to love. God, that by the Spirit, for your glory and for their good, that they would cast off anxieties, insecurities, hurts, and that they would become a servant and love. Lord, I pray for any ways that an unloving spirit between members of this church has hindered the gospel, has hindered your worship. Lord, we ask for your forgiveness for that, and we also pray that you would help us to walk in a way that pleases you and that builds up the church. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.