Tonight, we continue our consideration of the first epistle of John, closing out the fourth chapter. Before we turn to our text, verses 19 to 21 of 1 John chapter 4, I'd like to ask you to turn with me to Romans chapter 5 as we read in connection with this text, the first 11 verses of Romans chapter 5. Romans 5, verses 1 through 11. Hear now the Word of God. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance, character. And character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us. You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through Him? For if when we were God's enemies we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life? Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. And turning to our text, 1 John 4, verses 19-21. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command, whoever loves God must also love his brother. Love at first sight. Beloved of the Lord, I wonder how many of you here would dare say that when you first laid eyes on your husband or wife, that it was love at first sight. Now, of course, that's a pretty bold statement, especially when we stop to consider what love is and how love is to be acted out, especially as we have considered it from the teaching of John. The truth is, it's probably much more accurate to say that some experience attraction at first sight. Yet I trust we would all agree that it is easier to love one whom we have seen, whom we have laid our eyes on and can look at or even gaze upon them again and again. It's easier to love one whom we have seen than to love one whom we have never seen. Now John is coming to the close of his discussion of love. He will talk a little bit more about love in the first few verses of chapter 5, but we might wonder after everything that he has said and everything that we have considered, what else can he possibly add to what he has said? But in a sense, he concludes this section on love for Christian brothers and sisters by bringing our attention back to the beginning, back to the origin of love, the unseen one, God Himself. And John gives us in this text, I believe, a summary statement of Christian love as he sums up what he has said up to this point. And the first thing that John considers is the sovereign source of Christian love. Verse 19, we love because He first loved us. A short statement, but really a very powerful statement. And there are a number of things that we can talk about with this verse. First of all, the first two words that we read are amazing. We love. Think about that. This statement of fact, you see, it's a statement of fact. Not we shall love, or we could love, or we would love, or maybe we can love. No. We love. The statement of fact that we love is really unbelievable, especially when we remember what Paul says about man in Romans 3, when he says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And in that same chapter, he gives a description of natural man. There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. ruin and misery mark their ways and the way of peace they do not know there is no fear of God before their eyes and this includes you and me but John says we love what we read there is a whole lot different than love it fits more with the hate of Cain that John talked about in the chapter before and then what's even more amazing to see is the reason that we love it's not because of ourselves. It's not because we are able to. Not because of something that we have performed. It's because He first loved us. And I hope that we all see, even the boys and girls, I hope that we all see that in these few words, because He first loved us, that in these few words we have an account and a summary of the whole Gospel. Everything is packed right into those words. Again, our lack of love apart from God is also implied there. And therefore, verse 19 includes our need for God's love. By nature, we didn't know anything about love. Only hate. Titus 3, verse 3 says, At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. Why is this true? Because as Paul says in Ephesians 2, verse 1, we were dead in trespasses and sins. The truth is, beloved, if not for the love of God, there would be no love. There would be no Christianity. There would be no Christians. But the beauty of this verse, these words also reminds us is God's sovereign love, first of all. He chose a people for Himself to love because God first loved. It was God's sovereign initiative to seek and to save the lost. It's not we who sought Him because we felt a need for love and maybe thought that He could provide it for us. And as well then, it was God who sent His only begotten Son into this world for those whom He had sovereignly chosen. We didn't ask for Christ to come. We didn't think we needed Him. We didn't even want Him. God demonstrated His love for us, as Paul says in Romans 5, in that while we were still sinners, while we were still dead, Christ died for us. Beloved, God's love for us in Christ Jesus is seen in both what we call the active and passive obedience of Christ. Boys and girls, by active obedience, we mean that Jesus actively obeyed God's law perfectly with all of His heart, with all of His soul and mind and strength. He actively obeyed God's law. The best we can say about us is that we actively try to obey God's law, but Jesus actively obeyed it perfectly. He never sinned. But Jesus was also passively obedient, and that means that He endured all the suffering and the shame of ridicule and arrest and beating and a crown of thorns and being spit on and crucifixion on the cross. He didn't fight against it. He didn't try to run away from it. He didn't try to stop it in any way. Instead, He willingly faced it. In fact, He orchestrated it. And He took it all in order to do for us what needed to be done. And God's love, God's love with which He first loved us is seen in that the Father accepted that payment for sin from the Son so that all of our sins are forgiven. And God's love is seen in that Christ the Son freely gives to us His righteousness as if it was our very own. And God then accepts us as righteous for Jesus' sake. You see, not guilty are beautiful words to hear. And that's what each of those who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ by grace through faith hears from the very mouth of God Himself. Congregation, what love. But that's not all. Not only did God sovereignly elect some, not only did He send His Son for us, but the reason that we are able to believe is because of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised His disciples that He would send the Comforter who would lead them into all truth. And because of that, because Jesus kept His promise, because that took place, we still have that truth today. recorded on the pages of Holy Scripture, and we believe it. Why? Because the gift of the Holy Spirit of God continues to give new birth today and continues to teach and apply to born-again hearts the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Romans 5, verse 5 says, God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us. And new life in the Holy Spirit because of God's love includes not only a new spiritual direction with new beliefs and desires and motives and thoughts and words, but also new affections. The believer's hate is turned to love. We love. A fact. God loved us in spite of ourselves. He loved us in spite of who we were and what we had done. Again, a verse that we ought not be able to get enough of. Romans 5 or 8, but God demonstrates His own love for us in this while we were still sinners. Christ died for us. And the effect of God's love, the effect of God's love, you see, was to create love in us. Love for Him and love for our neighbor, especially our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. One commentator said, in taking the initiative in loving us, He not only showed us how to love one another, but He imparted the desire and the power to follow this example of His. Now, people of God, we must give this some thought. We can only do it for a few moments here together, but in our daily lives, we must give this some serious meditation. God did not and does not love His people simply so that our sins might be forgiven and that we might be rescued from the punishment of sin. In other words, that we might be saved from hell. Not simply for that. Now, I don't mean to minimize this at all because that's what the crucifixion of our Lord is all about. And what a life-changing gift that is. But there's more. Just as we needed to be righteous in addition to having all of our sins forgiven. You see, not only did we need something taken away from us, which we could say infected us. We needed something given to us. Christ's righteousness. But that righteousness is to be put to work. It is to be put to work. And that includes love. God's love poured out on a particular people was for the purpose of making us new creatures, new creations. That's what Paul says we are. We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds more and more after the image of none other than Christ, our elder brother. He is to be our pattern of love. He is the firstborn among many brothers according to Romans 8, 29. And Peter says, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. And because of that, as John says, we love. because of that. Because God first loved us. We love God. The One who loved us when we were so unlovable and unloving and loved us at a price greater than gold or silver which we cherish, and that is the precious blood of His own dear Son. And our love then is in response to His love. And that response includes loving our brothers and sisters in Christ and doing this after the pattern of God Himself through Christ. And beloved, that means unconditional love. Love that's not determined by the object of love or anything in that object of love. Love that's not determined by one's worthiness to be loved, but love that is motivated only by God's love in me that desires to reproduce that love towards others. Beloved, that's how we can know if we indeed own God's love and His gift of salvation? Is my life characterized by true godly love that is demonstrated in my conduct, in my life, in my walk, in my talk? You see, I can only love if I am first an object of God's love and if I have received His love in Christ Jesus. And then, as we have considered before, Christian love includes visible proof. Verse 20 says, If anyone says I love God yet hates his brother, He is a liar, for anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And James gives a similar example of contradiction when he says in James 3, which we read this morning, with the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God's likeness. And as he says in verse 10, we said this morning, James says that that should not be brothers. That's not right. You see, John uses a false claim here to make his point. Basically, he is saying, if you cannot do what common sense says is easier, namely, love that which is visible, love that which you can see. If you can't do that, then it is impossible to do the more difficult, which is to love the invisible, love that which cannot be seen. Simply put, it's impossible to love an invisible God while hating the visible image or likeness of God. One who says, I love God. But in daily life, practices hate by not speaking to or being annoyed with or having nothing to do with or simply having an entire attitude of hate toward his brother. That one is a liar, John says. He not only tells a lie, But he lives the lie. He's deceived. He does not know the truth. He cannot see the truth. This was part of the problem with Gnosticism, again, which John was combating here. Since only in Gnosticism, since only the spiritual was good and the physical, that which is matter, was evil, this life and the deeds of the flesh didn't matter. In their quest for achieving higher knowledge, nothing else mattered. Therefore, they could treat their fellow men and church members like trash, especially if that helped them to achieve that higher knowledge, which they thought would get them closer to God and salvation. We said a couple of weeks ago in connection with verses 12 through 16 that one of the proofs, or we might say one of the tests of abiding in God along with a true confession of who Jesus is and along with being a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, One more proof or test is love for believers. I hope that you have been able to begin to see how John cannot stress this enough. How this must be in place for a child of God. Love for believers. It's one of the tests of abiding in God. Now here in verse 20, John is not saying that our love for fellow believers will result in loving God as if loving others comes before loving God, but our love or hate for another is evidence of the nature of one's relationship with God. Jesus said in John 14, verse 21, Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. Whoever obeys My commands. Verse 21 of our text reminds us of the new command to love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. That's the new command John spoke of in chapter 2. referring back to our Lord's words in John chapter 13. The command is to love one another. And Jesus says, whoever obeys My commands is the one who loves Me. The case is clear cut. Whoever loves his brother gives proof that he loves God and that he knows the love of God. God's people can't help but to be humbled because of God's love for them when they were still sinners. And they also can't help but to live joyful in God's love and grace while demonstrating at the very same time gratitude and thanks to God by loving others as God has first loved them. Congregation, our love for God cannot be separated from our love for one another. It's impossible. That love flows from the very same heart. It's impossible to be a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when it comes to true godly love. And when the believer looks at another believer, what does he see? What are you to see? What am I to see? He is to see another like himself who has experienced the love and the grace and the compassion of God and he can't help them but to unconditionally love that one who has also been loved by God. And by loving his brother, he also loves God. And that is then an important part of the believer's demonstration of obedience to the great commandments of Christian love. Verse 21, And He has given us this command, whoever loves God must also love his brother. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is an echo of the summary of the law of God which we know so well. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Again, broadly speaking, your neighbor is anyone who crosses your path in life to whom we are called upon to show Christian love. But as we have said a number of times before, John is dealing specifically with fellow believers in his epistle. Those with whom we will share heaven. Love for the invisible God is made clear. made visible in love for visible brothers. All of God's people are a part of the body of Christ who is the head. And Paul reminds the Corinthian believers that the parts of the body, even though they all may have different tasks, they all work for the same goal which is for the benefit of the body. And that goal is in danger when God's people hate each other. But that body presses on toward that goal when members of the body deal with each other in love. As we have studied the second table of the law in our morning services as summarized by the Heidelberg Catechism, we have been reminded what love looks like in everyday life. What it looks like as you go from day to day. What it looks like as you walk down the street. You shall honor your father and mother. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. And as we will come to in a couple of weeks, the Lord willing, you shall not covet. And we can summarize it by saying that love for my brother or sister in Christ means to work for their benefit, to work for their good, to work for their spiritual advancement. It means not taking from them, but it means giving to them. Last week, we read together Matthew 25, verses 31 to 46, the familiar story of the sheep and the goats. And there in that passage, our Lord teaches us that He will consider actions toward His people as actions toward Him. Whether actions that are good or bad. We said before with regard to this command to love that it doesn't mean that we will always like each other. That's an unfortunate consequence of sin. We may not always like each other. We may not always like the character traits of each other. We may not always enjoy doing the same things or being in each other's company, which of course makes it hard to chum around together. But love is not about feelings, remember? It's not about feelings. It's about dealing with my brother for the sake of Jesus Christ and seeing him as God sees him. Love for fellow believers is not a choice. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. It's a command. But this command doesn't offend the true believers. It doesn't offend them. Because it's natural. When John said whoever loves God must also love his brother, he's not only saying, in a sense, do this or else. There's a little bit of that implied. He's saying that this must be done. This is how it is. But he is also saying love for the brother cannot be avoided. It will be natural. It will be automatic along with love for God. And beloved, ultimately love means, godly, true godly love means being in a saving relationship with God. Apart from that, there is no love. John's entire letter, as we have seen so far, calls for self-examination, to ask ourselves questions such as, am I in fellowship with God? Am I walking in the light of God's truth? Do I walk as Jesus walked? Do I love my brothers and sisters in the Lord? How do I know that God lives in me and I in Him? How do I know if I truly love Him? And we know that John has considered a number of pieces of evidence to help us along the way. But self-examination can begin right here. Right now. Right in this place. As you look beside you, and I'm not talking about your spouse or your children, as you look beside you, outside of your spouse and children, as you look behind you, and as you look in front of you, and as you look across this room at each other, Do you love all those here who also professed their faith in the triune God earlier tonight? Do you love them, each and every one? Those who hate others, like Cain, will suffer Cain's end. Cain was cursed of God. But the beauty here, beloved, is that we can love one another with God's love in us first. Or our love for one another is not perfect. We hurt each other at times, whether it's by our words or by our actions. But just as God's mercies are new every morning, each day of life we are given a new opportunity to more faithful love to God and one another. Because God first loved us. And may that be your comfort today and every day. And may our confession and demonstration be, I'll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death, and praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, in this day You have reminded us and taught us that we are to speak the truth in love. as well you teach us and remind us and command us that those who love you must love our brothers. It's something that is natural. It cannot be helped. It's something that as well we are to delight in. It's something we are to practice. Father, indeed, we pray that you would make us as individuals and as a congregation more loving toward you. toward each other, toward all those whom You have to cross our path. Lord God, we know that we have a long way to go in this. And that's why we are grateful for the continuing work of Your Holy Spirit who continues to prepare us for that day in glory, in Your kingdom of love and truth. Until that day, O Lord, May we continue to strive to love You and confess our love for You and demonstrate that in loving one another. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray these things. Amen.