FBC Morning Light – November 9, 2022

Hope Beyond Election Results

Well, a good Wednesday morning to you. How are you feeling this morning, this Wednesday morning after election day? Are you elated because of the election results, or are you deflated because of those results?

Honestly, I hope neither one. I trust that your hope and confidence regarding the future is not determined by the outcome of an election. Certainly, those who are in office have a great deal of influence and effect upon perhaps our everyday comforts, and so on and so forth, and maybe the welfare long-term of our state or our country.

But in the end, our hope must be in the Lord. Our hope must be in the Lord because, as we even mentioned yesterday, He is the sovereign one who has control over the ballot box and has control over the spirit beings that have some measure of influence over what's happening in the world.

He has His purposes in allowing for the outcomes that we experience in this physical world. Think of it like this. If the election didn't turn out the way you wanted, then be confident that it turned out the way the Lord wanted for His purposes that may be totally mysterious to us and unknown to us and indiscernible to us at this point in time.

Well, anyway, I didn't intend to get hooked down on that because it doesn't have anything to do with our scripture reading passage for today. What I want to zero in on today is what we read about in 1 John chapter 4.

Love as Evidence of New Birth

John emphasizes a great deal in this book, in his little letter, the responsibility that Christians have, believers in Christ have, to love one another, and it certainly comes out here in verse 7 of chapter 4.

He says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. Now notice this, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. So here's the deal. The expression of brotherly love is an indication of the genuineness of a profession of faith in Christ.

If you profess to be born again, then that's one of the ways that's going to show itself is you're going to have a love for your brothers and sisters in Christ. That love is an evidence of that. It's an evidence that you actually know God.

You know what God is really like. You know what God likes, and you respond accordingly. This is what God likes. He likes his children to love one another, and if we know him, we know what he is like, God of love, then we are going to love one another as well.

God’s Love Shown in Initiative and Sacrifice

What does that look like? Glad you asked. John tells us as he continues on here in the next couple of verses. He says, in this was manifested the love of God toward us. Here's how God showed his love toward us.

What did he do? First of all, he took the initiative. He saw our need, he saw our helplessness, he saw that we needed him completely, utterly, and so he took the initiative. This is the way God manifested his love toward us.

God sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him. What God saw is that death came into this world because of the fall, and every man is doomed to an eternal death. The only way that anybody could not experience that eternal death is if God took the initiative, and so he took the initiative.

This was his love toward us, taking the initiative to meet the need. Not only did he take the initiative to meet the need, he made a tremendous sacrifice. It continues, God sent his son into the world that we might live through him, and in this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins, to satisfy divine wrath for our sins.

How did Jesus do that? On the cross. On the cross. God demonstrated his love to us in this way. He took the initiative to meet a need that we could not meet, and he made the sacrifice necessary so that that need could be supplied.

Then he says this, if God loved us in this way, then we ought to also love one another. We ought to love one another by seeing the needs that they have, taking the initiative to meet those needs, and then sacrificing what we have to sacrifice in order to help meet those needs.

This is a demonstration of love for the brethren. Sometimes that need is a very personal thing. I don't mean material, I'm talking about relational. Things happen between people, and we get into these little tips and so forth.

Well, if I have a love for my brother, I'm going to see the need to reconcile with my brother I'm going to do what I have to do to take the initiative to meet that need, and then make the sacrifice. Maybe a sacrifice of time, maybe a sacrifice of ego or pride, whatever it is.

I need to take the initiative. I need to make the sacrifice. I need to love my brother. I hope that challenges us today in our own relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ. If there is someone in the church family, someone in the Christian community with whom you have some conflict that has not been resolved, it's somebody whom you're supposed to love, what do you need to do?

What initiative can you take to bring some restoration and reconciliation to that relationship? How can you show that you love that brother in Christ? Good questions to ask ourselves today. So, Father in heaven, help us to be obedient to this.

We want to love our brethren as you would have us do so. I pray that we would be faithful in demonstrating godly love toward our brothers and sisters in Christ. This we pray in Jesus' name. All right, well have a good rest of your Wednesday.

I trust the Lord will bless you richly in it. Good day.