God Love Manifested In Us 1 John 4:7-12 | Adult Sunday School

Beautiful day, especially to be in church, right? It's a beautiful day. Amen. Amen to that. Let's start off with a word of prayer before we get going this morning. Lord, we just thank you so much for your grace and mercy towards us.

That you sent your Son to die on the cross for our sins. What an amazing gift you've given us. Thank you for allowing us to be able to come into the house of the Lord and be able to hear the word of God and to hear the singing and just how you allow us the ability to come in, have fellowship, have joy with one another.

Thank you for all you do in our lives, Lord. I pray that you'll go before us this morning. Give us your wisdom. Help us to understand the scriptures at a deeper level. Help us to live our lives for your glory.

Help us to share the word of God with anybody that will listen. And just help us to give you all the praise and all the glory in Jesus name.

Amen.

The Church, Fellowship, and the Threat of False Teachers

We're going to be in 1 John chapter 4 this morning. If you'll open up your copy of God's word to chapter 4. We'll just start in verse 1 and read down through verse 12, which is where we're going to be this morning.

Looking at verses 7 through 12. But just for context, we'll read on down through from starting in verse 1. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

By this you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming.

And now it is already in the world. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them. Because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world.

And the world hears them. We are from God. The one who knows God hears us. The one who is not from God does not hear us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another.

For love is from God. And everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God. Because 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.

And 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 beheld God at any time.

If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. So our passage will be from 7 to 12 this morning. And kind of what I've gleaned a lot from these passages in John is that the importance of the church cannot really be overstated.

The church is a critical component to our lives. This place here, with all the saints, and maybe some unbelievers here, and maybe listening online, you come here to hear the truth proclaimed. That's why we come.

We come for truth. We come for fellowship. And I'm convinced through the scriptures that John is writing to proclaim Christ to all the churches he is addressing in this letter, to remind them to band together against any and every enemy.

Because a key component of any church is the fellowship of the saints. That's a key component. Fellowship is the sweetest thing you can have. Coming together with the body of Christ, I think, is an amazing thing, to be able to be around other people that love Jesus and get encouraged by one another.

I love that. The last living apostle is delivering a God-given wisdom to these churches. I mean, John saw serious opposition to the gospel message of Christ during the gospel of John. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, much opposition.

He saw Satan try to thwart Christ's effort to go to the cross by tempting him three times. And now he is seeing how the spirit of Antichrist is disrupting these churches in Asia Minor, these Gnostic teachers coming in, trying to disrupt the church.

And his encouragement to them is, remember Jesus. Remember the beginning of your faith and how it changed your life. Keep persevering in your faith. Perfect the church, is what he's saying here. Excuse me, protect the church, is what he's saying.

And how do you do that? You were dead, but then you had a heart transplant, and now you live. The nature you once had has been crucified with Christ, and you've passed out of death into life. You protect the church.

The saints protect the church. The church is where you find fellowship. Along with fellowship comes that sweet joy, doesn't it? Being around the brothers. The same joy as the shepherd who went after his lost sheep, and when he found it, he was overcome with gratitude for finding it.

What happens, though, when you face divisions in the church? These churches in Asia Minor were facing some opposition, causing some kind of struggle in the churches. And I think when false teachers come in, it changes the dynamic of the body.

The once loving church can lose its luster. That happens. There's nothing worse than getting a message like John delivered to the church in Ephesus when he said, but I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

Ouch, that hurts. Leaving your first love, what does that mean? Losing your passion and your joy for Christ and the love for the saints. That's losing your first love there, leaving it. When you forget about or don't practice the love of Christ, it can lead to a deterioration of the relationships in the body of Christ.

It can also happen when the body of Christ is being divided. This is happening across these churches in Asia Minor to some degree. False teachers were entering in, distorting the truth. And you have to think, well, what happens in the body when false teaching enters in?

Well, I think it causes division and strife. I experienced that firsthand myself in some churches that I've been in the past. When the absence of love happens through false teaching being brought in, when churches begin to take sides in theological arguments, it becomes more about being right than about loving the people or keeping solid doctrine.

It becomes about who's right, who's wrong. And I really love how John encourages these churches to root out these false teachers, to shore up their faith, to know who is and isn't a true believer, and to protect the integrity of the church, to remind the body where they have come from in their walk with God and how they are to act during these difficult and challenging times.

Because the absence of love in any church never comes from Christ. It always comes from the spirit of antichrist coming within to try to disrupt the body of the saints. Now we come to an extended section here in 1 John.

It's really the longest section where he talks about the love for one another. And it goes from verse 7 all the way to the end of the chapter. And verse 21 is kind of how far it goes. So you got to wonder if it's that long of a section.

Must be important for us to talk about love for one another here. It's got to be something we focus on as a body ourselves and look at it. And we've already covered some of this in this book. If you remember in chapter 2 verses 7 to 11, the one who hates his brother cannot be in the light.

We talked about the love for one another there. And then much of chapter 3 during our discussion about Cain and Abel, we talked about love for one another there as well. And now we're in verse 7 of our passage this morning.

So let's go ahead and read that again. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The word beloved, how many times have we seen that already?

We've seen that like five times already in this book. And it's a term of endearment. He is saying those that are divinely loved by the Father is what he's saying. Those that are divinely loved by the Father, you are loved by God.

And now because of that, you're to love one another. And look at that word there, let us love one another. Who's he talking to? Let us love one another. He's talking to all the believers, all the saints.

Let us, all the believers love one another. There isn't any other options for us. I mean, you can't say, well, Sally over here is way better at loving than I am. You can't say that. As a believer, we're all called to love, to be active in our application of it all.

And the Spirit's in you. You got no other choice but to love. And I love this part here in the verse. It says, let us love one another. That let us, it carries with it a direction of the will. It'd be kind of like, okay, let us go to the beach today.

Let all of us love one another. That's kind of the idea. Come with me, as he's saying. Let us love one another in the body is kind of the idea. Your love is not done begrudgingly. It's an active love and it's agape love.

It cuts across every color and every personality. The command is you love. Well, sometimes what happens is personalities don't mesh together all that well, right? It's easy to love somebody that you really get along with so much easier.

You're like, oh, I just really connect with this person and they're so easy to love. But what about the people that you don't connect with? The ones that are difficult for you, that your personalities just don't quite mesh.

Those kinds of people, those are harder, aren't they? And we're still called to love and reach out no matter what the situation. Even those that may have wronged you in the past. It's something that as brothers and sisters, we seek to reconcile, to try to overcome our differences and to forgive in the body.

That's how we hold it all together is that we come to one another and we seek that reconciliation if it's needed. And no matter what ethnicity they represent, it doesn't matter how much melanin a person has in their skin.

We're one race, one blood, and we have to love and get along with all people. And I think kind of like what we're talking about with the Gnostics in the church is that when this comes in, what happens?

It causes division. You know, Satan, the world, they want us divided. They want us divided. You can see it happening in our broader culture all over the place. They want division, but you know what the word of God says?

We're to be united in Christ. We're not supposed to be divided. He wants unity in the body. And so the second half of that verse is for love is from God. Let us love one another for love is from God. When I go up to the high country, there's this place that has a pipe coming straight out of the mountain.

The water runs continually out of it. You know, it's kind of an amazing thing, but it's clear. It's cold, fresh water. It's just beautiful. From the pipe, it flows directly out into a round cedar container.

And it's where everyone goes to fill their containers up. You can't see the water source because it's directly into the mountain, but just the pipe is coming out of the mountain. But you know it's there because the cool water flows so freely.

This is how it is with God. The Holy Spirit cannot be seen, but you know it's there because out of it flows the love of Christ into the lives of other believers. That's what it does. Well, some people may say, well, you know, the world has love.

The world has love. I mean, what's so significant about this? And unbelievers can love too, right? And here's what you have to understand about that idea. God provides a degree of common grace to all people.

Even unbelievers can show acts of kindness and goodness and things that they might be doing, but make no mistake about it. Agape love, yeah, that can only come from God. That can't come from any other source but Him.

Agape love carries with it the proper motivation and the ability for us to carry out that love to all people. It comes from God. He's the source. So we're down into verse 8 now. Let's read that. The one who does not love does not know God because God is love.

The contrast between believer and unbeliever can be seen in this verse. The unbelieving apostates in the church can't fake real love. That's not possible. When they try to emulate love, it always falls short because God is the only one who can produce that kind of love in a person.

He's the only one that can do that. Over time, anybody that is in the church that is an apostate, they're going to be manifested as such. The one who has no faith has no idea how to love others because they don't truly know God.

When you don't know the source, obviously that's an issue. They cannot, I think anybody honestly can look up at the stars and know there's a God. That's what he says in scripture. But unless they become born again, they can't really know Him.

You have to have the spirit inside of you telling you who God is and the love that He has. And these apostates are unable to glorify Him. They are dead in their sins and they have no regard for the gospel at all.

Many in churches make up this group that don't know Jesus. They do not love because they've rejected the life-giving, love-motivating gospel of Jesus. Therefore, they've rejected Him. They hate the truth.

They run to the darkness as we've looked at in 1 John 6 through 7. And I honestly wish this was not the case. I don't know about you, but I want as many people to come to know Jesus as possible. But because to know God is to know God is love, the deepest need that people have is to know God and to be loved.

You see that throughout the world. The very essence of His being is love. Out of His character flows love. I mean, the cross is evidence of that, that He loves us. God is the source of true love. Come to Him and you will never thirst again is the message once you get there.

The one who does not come to Him and taste and see that He is good cannot produce the kind of love that comes from God. It's not possible. You must know God to produce loving acts in the body of the church.

So that's verse 8. Is there any questions at this point?

I always forget that.

Any thoughts about it? All right, let's move on to verse 9. 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. I love this verse because when you have the greatest gift ever given to the world, you have an obligation to share that gift with others.

The greatest gift ever given was given by God in the form of Jesus Christ, the Son, to us. That's what this is. By this is what He's saying. By the fact that He sent His only begotten Son into the world, this is how we can live through Him.

The Holy Spirit manifested in us allows us to do that. The world needs to know God. They need to know His love for them. And it starts in us coming and accepting the Lord Jesus Christ, pushing that love out to others in the church and extends to the rest of the world beyond our walls here.

He wants to be known. Christ wants to be known. You ever thought about that? Why did He do all this? He wants to be known. Look up at the stars and the galaxies. They shout His name. Look at the complexities and varieties of animals and plants.

The intricacies of the human body tell of an amazing Creator who wants to be known. When we live through Christ under His power, loving, we make Him known. That's how we do it in the body and beyond. We show that.

You can know Him today if you don't already. Just come to Him. He has gone to great lengths so that you can know Him. Look at this verse again. The love of God was manifested in us because He sent His only begotten Son.

What happens when you send somebody somewhere? God sent His Son. If you send somebody somewhere, there's a mission. There's something that needs to be done.

Right?

God sent His only Son on a mission. And when you send somebody, they have a purpose. Jesus left a perfect setting in heaven, didn't He? No sin, none of that. To come down into a sinful, wicked world. The world's thorny.

It's got its challenges. He was rejected by His own people. One of His own disciples turned on Him. He was beaten, mocked, died on the cross. Where He was run through with a sword. What for? That's love, right?

For us. He took on the wrath of God for us. Our sin rightly deserving the penalty and punishment. But He took on the wrath of God for us. That's true love. That's an example for all of us to follow. The sacrificial love that He provided for us.

And He says it's His only begotten Son. What does this mean? He is one of a kind. There's no one like Christ. The only begotten. Jesus comes from God. No human origin. He was sent by God. Even though He always existed with God for a special mission.

He destroys the works of the devil. To set the captives free. To destroy sin. And to be the Savior of the world. To provide salvation. And when true believers have crossed over from death to life, they become the manifestation of Jesus on earth.

Christ was sent so that we might live through Him. That's an amazing thing. To live through Him. Third person of the Trinity inside of you. Makes Jesus known to the world by their love for one another.

I think about this. Mormons are very good at using their kindness and acceptance of others to get families into their churches. They're very good at loving people. They're very nice people at times. And their love shows.

But if you don't go beyond general acts of kindness and give people the real Jesus, you're damning them to hell. They need to know the real Jesus. You can't just do it on your own power, your own ability without Christ in you.

Brothers and sisters, you must make known agape love to the church and beyond. Because the love of God is in you. That's the reason. Verse 10. In this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

You're making visible a certain kind of love, aren't you? Not just any kind of love. God demonstrates for you what true sacrificial love is and where it comes from in this verse. In this is love. What is this?

Is that God sent His Son into the world. That's love. God is love is the same thing as saying His Son paid the price for your sins. It's the same thing. God is love. Demonstration of love on the cross as Christ died on there sacrificially for us.

And it's a reminder that God sent His only Son into the world so that you might have life. We might have life in Him. He came to be the propitiation for our sins. We talked about this back in chapter two, verses two.

The word simply means satisfy or appease. So propitiation is to satisfy or appease. So Jesus perfectly satisfied the demands of justice that God demands. He perfectly did that. And His death on the cross appeased the wrath of God for sins.

That's what that means. And don't miss what's happening in this verse. I think it's amazing to me. This verse should humble all of us. God moves first in bringing His love to us. Why is that important that God acts first?

Why does that matter? It matters because you don't seek Him first. You don't seek Him first. He finds you and draws you to Himself. Without God finding you, you never find Him. It just doesn't happen.

Romans 8, 7 says,. Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. People are not looking behind every door or uncovering every rock to find God.

They want all the benefits, though. They want health, they want their wealth, and they want all kinds of goodness from God, but they don't want to seek Him. Martin Luther said this,. The pagan trembles at the rustling of a leaf.

The uniform teaching of Scripture is that fallen men are fleeing from God. That's the reality of it, isn't it? The fallen men are fleeing from God. They don't seek Him. And my deepest desire in always being up here and talking about the Lord is that if there are any unbelievers hearing this, I hope that you realize that you must not flee from God.

You must run towards Him, get to know Him, turn your life over to Him. This is the time to do it, is today, right now. Don't wait. Repent of your sins. Fall down on your sword and follow after Him, because He's the one that can change your life, to turn it all around, to give you hope, to give you eternal life.

Learn from Him. Recognize how your sin separates you from Him, and how that God comes, He initiates that response. He sent Christ into the world to remove sin. What an amazing thing to think that we can spend eternity with Him, change bodies, just come to Him.

Verse 11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Can you hear John 3 .16 in that verse? For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

God so loved the world, He loved it. He sent Christ into the world way back then, 2 ,000 years ago, so that we might live. Verse 11. If God so loved us by sending His Son to die on the cross, then what does that mean for you?

What does that mean for us? Christ sending His Son on the cross to die. It means once you've accepted Him, it's loving Him and loving other people. The two greatest commandments that could ever be given, and we see that in a lot of places in Scripture, but in Galatians 5 .14, it says, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

That's what happens, right? Christ coming out of our lives as we live through Him. I love this verse, because when you're truly saved, how could you even consider doing anything else but loving one another?

There isn't any other options there. I think it's a call for an examination of our lives. How are we doing? How are we loving one another? Have we fallen back to our old habits, or are we pushing on and doing all that we can to love the brothers and sisters in Christ?

Consider the Son upon the cross. Look how much He sacrificially gave for us, and even in our deadened state, He loved us. We should be following after Him. Let's see, verse 12. No one has beheld God at any time.

If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. What difference does it make that you have never beheld God at any time? What does that matter, that we've never seen Him, but we know He's there?

Here's the real reason that I think makes a difference. All the world will see God when you love one another. No one can see God, but they can see us. They can see how we act, how we respond, how we handle ourselves on a day-to-day level.

And the world is watching us. They always are to see how we're going to handle situations in our lives, and it's the goal that we would manifest Christ to the world. That's how God is known to people, to glorify God and to love one another.

And I think, you know, cheap love is easy. Cheap love is easy. Many people say that they love others, but when it comes to real action, real motivation, sometimes they fall short. That can be a challenge.

How many times have you heard people say, you know, I love Jesus, but I don't really like the church? Yeah, I don't really like the church. Or I'd go to church, but man, there's so many hypocrites there.

I've heard that about a billion times. Or, you know, I love Jesus, but I really, the mountains are my church. You hear that? This shouldn't be. The scriptures say that we are ambassadors for Christ. We're on a mission, really, to represent Jesus to the world, to demonstrate why they need to come to him and how better of a way to do it than to love here first and get good at it and then go out into the world and show everybody else what that love looks like.

And how do we do that? In John 13, 34 and 35, it says, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

By love, all will know that you belong to Christ. His love is being perfected every day in you, making you more mature as time goes on. It's a process, right? When you're new in Christ, it's not possible to love 20 years later in Christ, because as you mature, that love grows deeper and deeper in a person's life as they know God better, as they start to digest the truth better.

Studying the scriptures makes you stronger. And it's demonstrated, I think, in how you speak to other people, the kindness of your words, not the cutting edge side of it, but how you treat them. All of these things are a reflection of how we love Christ.

And it's not to be done in harshness, but it's to be done in devotion to our Lord for what he's done for us. I think two reasons that this kind of love matters. When your love is displayed in the body of Christ, I think it resonates out to the unbelieving world that you actually are Christ's disciples.

There's meaning and value to it all. And I think as people see that, hopefully they'll resonate towards it. And second, that your love demonstrates a unity in the church, a unity among believers that we are loving one another, that your faith is real.

That's what it comes down to. It's not a cheap, hey, I will love, but I'm actually doing it with my actions. Authenticity of faith is what believers and unbelievers alike want to see in your lives. It is the proof you belong to the family of God, not just saying things.

So before I wrap up, is there any comments about this? So much there. Yeah, there's a lot to think about for sure. So if you'll turn to Hebrews chapter 10, we're gonna end there. Anybody ever watch that show alone?

10 people are dropped off in very remote locations, you know, like Mongolia or Vancouver Island. And they basically have 10 pieces of survival gear, right? And they're just left out there by themselves.

You know, at the beginning, of course, their spirits are always, you know, really good, and they're excited about it and everything. And it doesn't take long to find out that finding food on your own with only 10 pieces of survival equipment is really hard to do.

And they just can't catch any food. You know, they become forced vegetarians. I mean, there's no tri-tip or anything. I mean, this is definitely not a show for Jim, for sure. But most of them tap out reasonably fast within probably 30 days.

And it's not because of the hunger. It's because of the companionship. They can't deal with being alone in their own minds. And they struggle for that relationship. They realize that they need some help in life.

They need the support of family and friends, and they need relationship. And I don't think you have to go on a TV show to understand that you're not meant to be alone. Because when you're alone, Satan comes into play.

He likes to isolate people from the body of Christ and then work through your mind to say, well, you don't ever need to go back. What does it matter if you're around those people? They're hypocrites anyway.

And he separates you and tries to divide you from the rest of the body of Christ. Because even the devil knows that these kind of relationships strengthen one another. And he tries to divide. But you need the body of Christ serving one another, strengthening each other physically and spiritually.

Feeling alone in church should never happen. That should never happen here. Christ gives each of us gifts to serve one another, to do the best that we can to build up the body of Christ. Everyone needs help from time to time.

We do know that. And where do you find it? You find it in the word of God. As you read his word, study it, you find it there. We know that the Holy Spirit helps us, guides us into all truth. But you also find it in the body of Christ.

That's where you find the help and support. And this is where I want to draw your attention to Hebrews. Just let me draw an analogy, an example from it. And you've been learning about this, obviously.

We've spent a lot of time in Hebrews. So hopefully this isn't anything new to you. But remember that these Hebrews had just come out of Judaism into faith in Christ. The old sacrificial system going in their lives.

And now they've come out of that. And that's difficult, isn't it? You can imagine how hard that would be to come out of something that you've always known. It's common practice. You're doing it day in, day out.

And what was happening is they were beginning to suffer persecution for their faith. Not to the point of shedding of blood, the scriptures say. But there was a significant amount of pressure to get them to leave the faith.

They had accepted the seizure of their possessions. And they were questioning if they had made a good decision or not. Or if they had, you know, coming out of Judaism, did I really do the right thing?

You could hear their discussions at the kitchen table.

I could.

We left a comfortable way of life of worship. We knew how to do everything. And here we are. All of this has gotten us into nothing but trouble. Persecution everywhere. They've taken our possessions. There are people today with those same kinds of questions.

They may have left a false religion for the true church. When they do that, a lot of times they lose their families. They lose their relationships. They lose everything in their life that they knew to come out and to follow Jesus.

And they think to themselves, well, before I didn't have to do any of these things. Now I have all things that are different and new. I didn't have any accountability before, but now Christ calls them to obey.

They have to do what the word of God says to do now. And doubt can creep in. And the Hebrews were wondering, is it all worthwhile? Is it all worthwhile? And here's the answer. Yes, a thousand times yes, it is worth it.

Everything is better in Hebrews, right? Everything is better. We learned better sacrifice, a better way of doing everything. And it's well worth it. The answer is always yes. It's going to be new responsibilities with our new faith, definitely.

But there are also going to be new joys, new pleasures, new opportunities that we can do. There's purpose in your life through Christ. Before, Christ dead in sin, wandering generality, not anything meaningful enough.

Christ comes in, all of a sudden light bulb comes on. There's a new purpose, a new direction in your life. That's beautiful. And look at verse 20 of Hebrews chapter 10. We have direct access to God now.

Verse 20, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is his flesh. There was a temptation to leave Christ and go back to the religion they had before. The letter urges them to push through with endurance so that they will receive the promise, a land, a city, an eternal life.

Remember, we're not to drift from your faith. We're not to drift. When you know someone is drifting, they fail to come to church. That's one of the first things that they cut off is church. That's not an option for believers.

I had a friend of mine. He said, I asked him, I said, hey, how are you doing spiritually? He said, it's the best I've ever been. I said, oh, really? I said, where are you going to church? He goes, well, I don't go.

Like, well, how can it be the best you've ever been? He's like, oh yeah, my wife goes and my kids go, but I don't go.

Why?

Well, because I was hurt in the church and now I don't want to go. That's not an excuse. That's not an excuse to leave church. It's actually a reason to even go further in and be among the body, to work through the differences.

Because we're supposed to build up the body. We're supposed to encourage one another. Look at verse 25 of Hebrews 10. Not forsaking our own assembling together as the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

All the more as you see the day drawing near, each of you encourage one another. You're called to come alongside somebody else to comfort them. You encourage them and give them strength to do greater things in the body that they even maybe thought possible.

And then in verse 24, it says this. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. That word stimulate, the meaning of it is kind of like, it's kind of an irritant to what it is.

You're provoking somebody. You're kind of irritating them in a good way, right? You're irritating the present status quo is what you're doing. You should stimulate others to kind of stay awake in the body.

Let's pay attention to what's happening around here to keep them from becoming ineffective in their love for the saints. Things you are stimulating are these things. Good thinking, good thinking, good thoughts about the Lord, about serving others, good conversations, good ideas to further the gospel message.

How can we push this out even further? Instead of just staying in our own little cluster here, you don't want to stay the same. You know, people hate change, but change is necessary. And it's not a bad thing to try some new things, to get out and do the things that the Lord is asking us to do.