The script reading tonight is first John 4, verse 7 through 21, be loved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. And 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 the propitiation for our sins. Be loved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If 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 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. By this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment. Because as he is also, or he is so also, we are 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. He loves because he first loved us. If anyone says I love God and 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 command that we have from him, whoever loves God, must also love his brother. Let's pray. Father, I just thank you for this opportunity you've given us to come and worship you, Lord, with our brothers and sisters. Father, I thank you for your love. Thank you that your word promises that your steadfast love will endure forever, Lord. We thank you for your faithfulness. You have been faithful up to this point, and you promise that you will continue to be faithful. And we thank you for that, and we're humbled by that, Father. Father, I pray for Robert, as he preaches your word, Lord, I pray that you will give him the words to say. And I pray that you will give us as a body, the ears to hear, Lord. Thank you because you are the creator and sustainer of all things. And Jesus name I pray. Amen. This worship service with you, and if you got your bibles, turn to first John. We've been working our way through first John this summer, and we are continuing until the Lord comes home, or we finish it, and move on to the next book. As long as it's, as long as we're gathering on Sunday nights, we're going to finish first John. And it's been a pleasure to do this book, but I wanted to, I had a game day change this afternoon as I'm going over my sermon, I realized that I was trying to tackle too much in one sermon. And so there's a great benefit that if you're here tonight, you'll hear the first half, and next week you'll hear the second half. So tonight we're going to be looking at the beauty of God's love that is so clearly expressed in this passage. I wanted to start by just telling you a story of a backpacking trip that I went on with my wife at time. We had gone out to Yellowstone to work for the summer, and we went up to the most beautiful place. I haven't been to Alaska, but the most beautiful place, in my opinion, in the lower 48, the Grand Tee Tons. If you've been to the Grand Tee Tons, you were probably in agreement with me, but we were hiking a day into this canyon. I don't remember the name of the trail, but I remember we came to a split and two canyons went off, one to the left, and one to the right. We went to the right, set up camp in this cool little area, hiked up to a lake, and then came back down, and it was about time for sunset. So we set our stuff down, walked down a little ways into this meadow where these fields of flowers and the stream running through, and we just sat there, and all of the sudden through the canyon on the left that we didn't take this massive rock canyon, the sun starts to set, and Jeff, do you have that picture up there? The sun starts to set on the backside of the t-tons, and as the sun is setting the whole what is usually just gray, and dark rock is illuminated by the sun, and it turns this orange color. And as you can see by the picture, it was just an incredibly beautiful site to sit there, and I can remember all of us just kind of sitting there gazing at these mountains. And as the sun set further and further, the orange rock started to disappear at the bottom until the last thing remaining was grand t-ton, and the very top of it was orange, and then as the sun set it went away. And it was just amazing to sit there and gaze at the beauty of God's creation. And this text tonight, we come to the point at which the whole book of first John culminates. This is kind of the summit, if you will, if you're to climb to the top of grand t-ton, this is the summit that John is coming to, and it's the most beautiful for us to just sit and gaze upon the beauty of God's love, because John makes this pinnacle statement, right? The pinnacle of all of scripture, the pinnacle of all of history, is God is love. And how does that play out in our lives? Let us gaze upon tonight. I want us to just simply take time to gaze upon the beauty of God's love. Next week, we're going to gaze upon that love in summary fashion and then see how that love transforms us. So tonight, the beauty of God's love, right? John's been hitting on this theme of love over and over and over again, all throughout this book, and he does it again here in chapter 4. This theme of love just keeps hitting every time. And he keeps hitting on this central theme of love one another, right? Look at verses 7. If you've got your Bible there, if you look at verse 7, it says, Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God, and then go down to verse 11. He says it again, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another, verse 12. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us, and then you skip over to verse 21, he says it again, in this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother, right? This theme of loving your brother and loving one another, God has surely given us the command to love one another, but he hasn't given it without reason, right? It's not as if God, just all of a sudden, creates the world, creates people, and then just shows up and says, hey, by the way, I want you guys to love one another, right? God gives grand reasons for us to love one another. He gives us reasons beyond what we could really comprehend, but beyond what we can really grasp even tonight. I had trouble with this text because it's kind of like describing, it's kind of like Ginny, right, describing that she got engaged recently, right? Ginny just got engaged to Riley, and Riley put a ring on her finger and you know, you come up to Ginny and you're saying, Ginny, what happened to him, what's going on? And she just can't describe what she's feeling, right? Sorry, Ginny, for picking on you. But I remember given my wife that ring and then getting engaged with my wife and looking at the diamond on her hand, we got to go in and look at it in a jewelry shop under a microscope and all the fragmented light that goes in a diamond as you look at it under a microscope and it just goes in a million directions, it's the most beautiful thing you've seen. And it's kind of like describing God's love, it's very difficult to describe and grasp God's love and describe it to you tonight. So I've wrestled with it in very complex ways and simple ways. But I think the first thing that I want you to see is that when John says God is love, he is not talking about God's attribute of love, right? You often times hear the three grand attributes of God, right? The one pinnacle attribute is always love but you hear about God's holiness, his justice and his love, right? So this one is kind of the grand one that you always hear about God's love, but it's not his attribute that John is talking about, right? He said, God is love. If you ever thought about that statement, he says it twice in this passage. It is love and what he means by that, his very nature of who God is is love itself. It's not a characteristic of God necessarily, but it's who God is. The very nature of God is described as love. So I want to describe to you three aspects of this love tonight. One is, his love is beautiful because it is eternal. Dr. Douglas Kelly kind of explains it like this and I've gone over this with you in not in the greatest detail before in a previous passage that John's covered, but I want to cover it with you tonight. He says in order to have love, there must be relationship, would you agree? In order to understand love, you have to have relationship, right? Think about the relationships that you have in your life, right? If we were to be isolated by ourselves with no relationships, we would never understand love, right? I don't care if it's like relationship with your brother and sister, right? It might be, might help you understand love. Maybe it's a relationship with a parent, maybe it's a relationship with your dog or your cat, right? It's a relationship, right? Not on the same level, wouldn't it? But there's a relationship there of why you cry when your animal dies or why you get upset when you lose one of your loved ones because relationship is grounded in love. That's how we know what love is because of relationship and Dr. Kelly goes on to say that he proposes that John's statement, God is love, is expressing a communion of love, expressing relationship among the Godhead between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When he says God is love, he's really talking about how does God know love, how is God love? It's because God has been eternity past and into eternity future, God has been in relationship with himself, okay? Our minds are starting to explode a little bit because we're talking about trinitarian concepts, right? We're talking about the Trinity, but the love of God the Father, for God the Son has existed for eternity. The love of God the Father and the Son for the Spirit has existed for eternity. This communion of love, right, if you're to make a triangle in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit has existed for all eternity in a perfect, untainted relationship of love that we could hardly imagine. It is an eternal love known as a communion of love, and it's hinted at, as a hinted at it earlier in the study, God is love because He is, has been in relationship with Himself for eternity. For anything existed, right, before anything existed, love existed because God Himself is love, right? Love's not an invention of man, right? There's millions of songs written about love. Man didn't come up with love, God is love, and God has always been the eternal source of love. John 17 kind of gets at this idea of the triune God and communion of love within the three persons of the Trinity when He says, Father, our desire that they also whom you have given me, maybe with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Okay, I didn't preface that any, but this is Jesus praying in the garden. Okay, I want you to hear this. This is Jesus, and I feel like I'm a long ways from you all, so I'm going to just come down here. Is that okay? We can do that. I want you to grasp this, okay? Jesus says He's praying in the garden, and He says to the Father that He wants you to be where He is to see His glory, the glory that God the Father gave Him before the world existed, and He says it this way, He says you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world, love existed, and then He goes on to say at the end of that section He says, I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, listen to this part, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them. The very love that exists with the Father and eternity past is yours in Jesus Christ. And Jesus is praying for that. He's saying, may the very love that you have given me before the foundation of the world may this love that we have had since eternity may it be my peoples, for you've loved me from the beginning, and that very love I want them to have, right? His love is eternal, and therefore it's beautiful for us to gaze upon, right? Just as Rebecca and I are sitting gazing upon that mountain in the beauty of that sunset, why is it that we sometimes could just grow cold and not gaze upon the beauty of the love of Jesus for us, the love of God the Father that is eternal that's set upon us? Well, there's a second aspect to this I want you to see that His love is beautiful because He is the source, right? Briefly, verse 7 says, Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God, right? God is the source, and it makes sense that He would be the source of all love, right? If it's existed for all time, then it makes sense that God Himself would be the source of that love, right? It's kind of like going to the headwaters of a stream when we go to Minnesota on a mission trip, we would go up to northern Minnesota where the headwaters of the Mississippi River are, and I task a state park, and you can walk across the headwaters of the Mississippi River. We went to the very source of the Mississippi River coming and flowing the thousands of miles it does dividing our country, right? We go to the source of all love who is God Himself and chapter 3, verse 1, and it also says that see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. God is the source of all love, and therefore it's worth us gazing upon in His beauty, all right? So, there's the first two quick points, that God's love, we should gaze upon God's love because it is eternal, and we should gaze upon God's love because He is the source of it, the last thing that we're going to spend the majority of the time on is His love is beautiful because He gives it by grace. His love is beautiful because He gives it by grace. How do we know what love is? How do we know to what great length, height, depth, breadth would God go to show us love? Okay, I want you to think for a moment, here is God, eternity past with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How is God going to show love, this communion of love that has existed for all time? How is He going to reveal that to people? How is He going to reveal that to His creation? How's He going to show it? He's going to show it, and John makes it very clear in verses 9 and 10. In this, the love of God was made known among us, 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 loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. See, it's the reality that God showed love and ordained before the foundational world, right? This wasn't some random decision that God just decided one day to go, oh, my creations in trouble, I better send Jesus to rescue them all. No, this was a plan that was set before the foundation of the world, the Father speaking with His Son and making a covenant with His Son and making a covenant with His Son to go and redeem a people for Himself. And Jesus said, I will, I will go and redeem a people for myself. I will go and I will buy them back. I will go and I will provide a way. I will go and show them love. And this is how I'm going to do it, right? He becomes a propitiation, right? We talked about this before, right? Propitiation, I gave the illustration of the Star Wars droids coming out, rolling out on the floor, and they set up right, they're the coolest death droids that Star Wars creators have made, right? They roll out and they just destroy everything, right? They got like six guns going at one time and they got this force filled around them, so people are shooting at them and it's bouncing off, right? Unless you're a Jedi and then you can get through that. But that's a picture, right? This force filled, Star Wars always has these pictures of force fields that are protecting people, are protecting their settlement. And propitiation in a sense is like a force filled, but it's a force filled against the wrath of God, right? That you and I hide in behind Christ who is our force filled and the wrath of God is being poured out upon us, but Christ doesn't just deflect it like their shields and Star Wars, right? Jesus Christ absorbs every bit of the wrath of God that you and I deserve. He absorbs it upon himself, so that you and I don't experience it, right? It's kind of like Laura, come here a second. Or can't, will you come up here? Come here, somebody, one of my children, come up here. I'm going to grab somebody else, Tyler. All right, Tyler, come on. Gosh, he's bigger, so it's going to be harder to do, okay? So let's say that Roy Erick that Tyler has done something to Mr. Erick. And it's a very bad thing that Tyler has done to Mr. Erick. And Mr. Erick, we don't know what it is, we're just not going to make something up, okay? Mr. Erick is ready to unleash every bit of his wrath on Tyler, okay? And Mr. Erick comes to unleash that wrath and here is what, I'm not Jesus, this is just an illustration, far from it.
Far from it, but as he comes to unleash that wrath, Jesus steps in front, right? And protects and the wrath of God never touches. The wrath of Roy Erick will never touch my son because I would step in front and take it. That's what Jesus has done for you. Thank you, Tyler. Very good. That's what Jesus has done for us. The wrath of God being poured out upon you and at the cross, Jesus says, no, I'll stand here and I'll take it and I'll take it from my people. And that's what propitiation means. And now I've gone over before but I wanted to give you a different illustration to understand it. So this eternal loving God provides love for us and propitiation for us. It begs the question, why did God do it? Why did God love? Why did God decide an eternity past before the foundation of the world and covenant with the Son that I would come and that Jesus said I would come and be the propitiation? Why did he do it? Why did he do it for you? Love? Was he compelled? The interesting question, was there anything in you? Was there anything in me that compelled God before anything existed to say, I'm going to set my love on them because fill in the blank. Deuteronomy 7, 7 and 8 says, the Lord did not set love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fiest of all peoples.
It is His love for us, not our love for Him. Verse 16 says, we have come to know and believe, I'm sorry, verse 19, we love, sorry, let me get back. Verse 16, 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. It's His love that has given to us that is unconditional. This eternal loving God has loved His people because it was His purpose. It was the purpose of His will to do it. It wasn't any preconceived notion, it wasn't anything that compelled Him. There was nothing in me to compel Him to love me and reality. There was everything in me to repel Him, right? And He showed love. There was everything in you, right now, there's everything in you to repel the love of God.
What was it that was in you that drove God's heart to be attracted to you to give you love? What was it in you? Kids, are you listening? What is it in you that causes God to love you? I want you to hear me very clear. You got to listen? Absolutely nothing. There is absolutely nothing in you that would compel God to love you. That's why we learn from other passages, right? Not only was there nothing good in us, but to make His love even more beautiful to gaze upon us, He set His eternal love on His people before they were even born. Do you realize that, this is a huge concept, right? Romans 9 verses 11 through 13 makes it very clear when it states this. It says, though, they were not yet born. Where were they? Were they born yet? Kids, are you listening? Are they born yet? Who's talking about Jacob and Esau? Were they born yet? They weren't born yet. And He says, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose and election might continue, not because of works, because of Him who calls. She was told, the older were served the younger, as is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Before the foundation of the world, Jesus Christ set His love on His people because it was His good purpose. It was the purpose of His will to set love on Jacob and not Esau. We can grapple with that whole doctrine of election, right? But in the end, right? Romans answers it. What do we do with it? Can we who are clay say to the potter, why did you make me this way? For God will have mercy on whom He has mercy and God will have compassion on whom He has compassion. God set His love on you, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, not because of anything in you, but because of His good purpose. Who receives the glory? God does, right? It goes on further and Ephesians 1 says, even us, He chose us in Him, right? He elected us. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. Listen to this two words, in love He predestined us for adoption, as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which with which He has blessed us in the beloved. This really blows our minds that the eternal love of the God had, the source of all love, has set His children before the foundation of the world. He set His love on you. Doesn't it change your whole view of history? A love, the doctrine of election and predestination. Because it does for me, it does for us, it changes my whole perspective on God's purpose and what He created this world. Why did God create the world? We hear many answers, He was lonely, He was bored, He wanted to have relationship. Why did God choose to create the world because of love? Why did He give the promise of a Savior in Genesis 315 to Adam and Eve? Because of love. Why did He rescue you them out of Egypt? Because of love. He sinned as only begotten Son, Jesus, to redeem His people because of love. Doesn't it change your whole view of life? That Christian before the foundation of the world, God said His love upon you, choosing to love you with the very same infinite eternal and unchanging love that He has had with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So whenever you struggle to remember God's love for you, remember the cross, remember verse 10, right? In this is love. This is what love is, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sinned His Son to be the propitiation, the wrath, takeer, the satisfaction for our sins. It is God's purpose and God's love that is set upon us. Why did Jesus create you? You ever thought about that? Why did Jesus create you?
Because of love. Why did He put you in the family that He put you in as a struggle that that might be? He did it because of love. Man, I fully get that in the midst of it. Why did He give you siblings? Because of love. Why did He give you marriage? Because of love. Why did He give you children? Because of love. Why did He save you? Because of love. On and on, His love is overwhelming. Just to tell you to close with this, to give you a little bit of a testimony of my own life, right? My parents were divorced when I was one year old. I didn't have never known until now what it was like to have a mom and a dad sitting at a dinner table, right? Why did that happen? I've asked that question all my life. Why did that happen? Why did my parents split up? Ultimately, I trust in what we read earlier over and over again for His steadfast love and doers forever. Some reason, beyond my ability to comprehend, my parents were divorced when I was one year old because God loves me and He cares for me. Why did God take, I don't like that phrase, erase that? Why did God and His providence decide to take my three and a half months old, Rebecca and I's firstborn child to die of heart defects? Why did He do that? We can come up with 10,000,000 reasons. We could all sit in here and complain about our lives and talk about the misery and the difficulty and the struggle of life. We could all come up with them. I can look around this room and say, the Dowlands, why did that happen to our son? You could go on a million things and you could come up with them and you can't really answer totally those questions but the one answer you can always come to is because God loves me. And I can't fully answer all the intricacies of why that happens but I know that love is behind it all because His love is eternal, His love is unchanging, He is the source of all love and His love is given to me in grace through His Son Jesus and that love is a love that I hold on to through everything because you know what, when all those difficulties hit in my life there was nothing else that I could hold on to. It was nowhere else to run. It was the only option. Run to Jesus in His love and gaze upon the beauty of the love of God for you. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thank you for the reality of your love or it is beautiful to gaze upon. It is beautiful to contemplate in our lives Lord if we could ever just fully grasp the eternal love that you have set upon us through your Son Jesus Christ. Oh Lord we thank you for that and we pray that you would help us to love one another because we have first been loved so deeply by you and Jesus name we pray. Amen.