The Indicting Nature of Incarnational Love | Advent 4

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Manger is like a feeding trough for animals.

And so he came into the world as incarnation.

And that's pretty, and it's got this ambient glow about it and everything.

But in reality, that's a very indicting thing, as we'll get to in just a minute.

So when I say the indicting nature of incarnational love, one of the things I love about you and preaching to you every week is that you come up and say stuff to me between services.

Like one person said to me after the first service, I don't like that word indicting.

And I said, Well, it just makes me feel guilty.

And I said, just because you're indicted doesn't mean that you're guilty.

When you get indicted, that means you're going to go on trial and get a chance to prove your innocence.

And by the way, the world indicts us every day.

The world says things like, Oh, you Christians, a bunch of hypocrites.

I mean, that's all church is a bunch of hypocrites.

Bible is just a book written by a bunch of men, blah, blah, blah.

Those are indicting things, and don't be put off by that.

They're giving you a chance to prove your innocence, to prove that you are guilty of being a Christ's follower by the way you live, not just by what you say.

So when I say the indicting nature of the in of incarnational love, the way God loves us, He came into the world, and the Bible unpacked this.

It leaves us the way God came into the world and the way God chose to love us, it leaves us with no excuse for not knowing how to love other people.

That's where the indictment part comes in.

And that's what I want to get at this morning.

But before I get at it, that sounds all somber and serious.

I want to paint you a picture of what I'm talking about.

It's not labor, so relax.

I'm not going to give you a list of uh things to do this morning.

It's reflex.

Last Sunday, right outside this door, I'm standing there talking to two young ladies in our church, Julie Foster, 26-year-old single woman.

She's a school teacher here in our city.

She heavily invested in our student ministry back here.

And she's talking to one of her students that graduated, Amelie Fuchs, last semester.

She's now at college.

She's an athlete, softball player.

They're sitting there talking, and I'm talking to them.

I'm like, hey, how was school?

Good.

How long are you home?

Until mid-mid-January.

Oh, enjoy the break.

And Julie, Julie, I'm still ready for a break.

And about the time the outside door opens, and Alexis Elder, one of the other girls, it was a senior last year that Julie invested in her small group, walks in, and I and I heard the door open.

I was down the hall.

They were right there.

And they turned and looked, and when they saw each other, they all three ran together and started hugging and going, I missed you, I missed you, I missed you, I missed you, I missed you.

Jumping up and down in a little circle like this, and there I was with my coffee, going, okay, I was done talking.

Y'all just go ahead.

And then not one of them looked up and looked back at me.

And I walked down to my office, and somebody that saw it kind of said, That was kind of awkward.

And I said, No, no, no.

That was beautiful.

Because I knew what I was going to talk to you about today in the sermon.

And I wanted just to say, that kind of love is not labor, it's reflex.

You cannot teach people to feel that way about other people.

But let me tell you this: the Bible says you were created by God to have some relationships with people that feel that way about you.

You should ask yourself, who jumps up and down when they see me?

Who misses me when I'm not around?

Now, if you're a guy in the room right now, you're thinking, yeah, that's like chick talk right there.

Because I saw some of our senior guys that graduated last year.

They all went off to college and grew beards.

And they were down after the first service.

And more of the girls were hugging each other.

And I looked at the guys and I said, Why don't y'all give each other a hug?

And one guy went like this.

Air hug.

I know some of you men are that way.

You're kind of like, there you go.

But what the Bible calls us to is not labor.

It's not just another, oh great, dude.

It's Christmas.

Lighten up.

It's a reflex.

Here's what the Bible says.

1 John chapter 4, verse 7.

1 John 4:7

Beloved, 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.

In this, if you got a pen or pencil, underline those two words in verse 9.

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, there it is again.

Tangible, demonstratable, stake in the ground reality.

In this, he says again.

And this is love.

Not that we have loved God, but that he's 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.

If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

There's three things the text says this morning that I want to point to for your consideration.

The first one is this right here is that love is evidence of conversion.

Love is evidence of conversion.

Look at verse 7 again.

He says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.

And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Now stop right there.

Now, if you're not careful, you'll hear that and kind of go, Well, everybody that loves is a Christian.

Not necessarily.

That's not what the Bible teaches.

That's not what John's saying right here.

You got to note that not everybody that loves in whatever way they prefer, because here's what we do: we love in a way that according to our definition.

But God loves according to his example.

Let me say that again.

We love according to our definition, and our definition is kind of rooted in our willingness.

But God loves according to his example.

That's why the Bible says, hey, let us love one another, for love is from God.

And whoever loves has been born of God and knows and knows God.

You see, it's not that, hey, if you're a loving person, that must make you a Christian.

No, the Bible says it has, it uses this little phrase, whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Now, when the Bible was originally written, it was not written in English.

It was written in Greek.

That was the what that was a language they spoke, they wrote and spoke in back then.

And so it was a common form of Greek called Koine Greek.

Just kind of like plain, plain talk, basically.

And so why do I tell you that?

Because just like in English, you have past tense, present tense, future tense, future participle.

The Greek language has different tenses, okay?

One of the tenses in the Greek language is called the perfect tense.

And I brought the definition for you, put it up here on the screen.

Here's why I'm telling you this.

Because when he says, hey, let us love one another, for love is from God.

And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Look at me.

God's not saying go out and try to be more loving.

He's not saying try harder.

He's saying this, hey, whoever loves has been born of God.

That phrase has been born of God is perfect tense in the Greek, which refers to an action that's completed at a specific point in time in the past with results that continue into the present.

Let me say that again, then I'll give you a visual.

How about that?

Okay, some of you are auditory learners, some of you are visual learners, some of you just don't care.

Amen?

I'll see you after church, punks.

Anyway, the Bible says, hey, that the perfect tense, where he says, hey, whoever loves has been born of God.

Past tense.

It refers to this specific completed action that took place back in the past, but its consequences continue into the present.

My Greek professor in college at one of my in seminary said, think if you want to understand the perfect tense of the Greek, it's like marriage.

And we were like, say what?

And he was like, it's like marriage.

It's that there's this thing that's a completed action in the past when you got married, and it continues to have consequences into the present.

And he used to say to us, we were like not like we're like young guys, hardly any of us were married.

He goes, Men, you got to ask yourself, do you want to get married or do you want to be married?

What you talking about, Willis?

Because I didn't I didn't understand when it's like, well, that's kind of see, see, it's this completed action in the past.

That's your wedding day.

You got married, and then you're gonna be married for the rest of your life.

And that beloved has consequences, amen?

Yeah, and it's not bad, it's just it's just is what it is, all right?

I'll get to that in just a minute.

So if you're an auditory person, you can write that down and go, man, but if you're a visual person, I want you to do this.

Because if you some books that are written, some Greek books that are written, the perfect tense schematically is illustrated by a dot and then a line after it.

So if you see in some Greek textbooks they'll have a dot, then they have a line, that's a perfect tense.

It means dot means there's a specific event, this completed action took place, but it continues to have consequences and ramifications into the present.

That's what the perfect tense is.

And he says, hey, love is evidence of conversion.

So you you you should ask yourself two questions this morning.

Number one, when did your dot happen?

When was that moment?

If your life was like a map, where would you kind of put the dot and say, hey, this is where I was converted.

This is where I became a Christian.

For me, I would go back to 1982.

Anybody alive back in 1982?

And on July the 5th, I'd put a little dot.

That's when I became a Christian.

That's when I stopped living for myself and started the process of being fit for heaven, of learning what it looks like to just kind of move to the warp and woof of what the Bible teaches.

And so there's the dot, but the line continues all the way to this present.

Allow me to demonstrate, okay?

Uh this past week, had a crazy busy week, which that's just life in ministry, okay?

If you're lazy, ministry is not for you.

Do the church a favor.

And so I was kind of looking forward to Saturday, having nothing to do all day.

Like all day.

And and well, I say nothing.

I was gonna watch high school football.

I like watching high school football.

I don't care for pro football.

Cowboys are sorry.

Stop apologizing.

They're just not good.

Take that back to Richardson with you.

They're just not good, okay?

They're not good.

You need to get a new quarterback.

Tony Romo's fragile.

Get over it.

Uh so I didn't watch them.

So I was going, oh, fantasizing about having a Saturday all of myself where I just lay around, watch high school football, relive the glory days of yesteryear.

And then my wife and I have a friend of ours, a single lady, lives in one neighborhood over from us.

She texted and said, Hey, do you guys know any yard fairies?

Because I have some tree limbs going over my roof.

I need to get them trimmed up.

I called a tree service company.

They want like$800.

My crazy why?

She texts back.

Neil will take care of it.

Neil's not a mechanic.

He's an arborist.

He's a landscape engineer.

So I'm thinking limbs, get some pruners over there, snip, snip.

Oh no, they're about that big.

And they go out and they fork in like nine different directions.

And so instead of laying around watching TV like God intended men to do on Saturday, four hours yesterday.

I wasn't counting or anything.

I wasn't bitter for the most part.

I was kind of like, uh, almost died a couple times.

One time a big old limb, I solved it off with a chain.

I got to run a chainsaw just covered in dust.

One time a big limb came down, my wife grabbed the end of it, was twisting it, the other part came loose from the tree, hit the ground, knocked her down.

In my mind, I thought, that's what you get for making your man work on Saturday.

Here's what I'm saying.

Shh, this will be our secret.

She's not here.

Look at me.

Here's what I'm saying.

Once the dot goes down on the map, you don't get to tell the line where to go.

The line tells you where to go.

You understand what I'm saying?

You can't just kind of say, and we'll get to this more in just a minute.

You can't just say, oh, well, because the Bible says, hey, 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.

The Bible says God is love, but love is not God.

You can't see, what we want to do, we want to kind of switch them around and get them out of order.

We'll get to that in just a minute.

But see, once the dot goes down and you say, hey, that's why you've been born of God.

This has been born of God.

This completed accident took place in the past.

It's like getting married, but it continues to have ramifications into the present.

That's what has been has been born of God.

That's not just something you said eight years ago, 28 years ago, and then you live like you want.

No, that continues to have ramifications.

Otherwise, it wasn't real.

It just wasn't.

The Bible cannot fathom a non-fruit-bearing Christian.

That's why John 15, 8 says, It is to my Father's glory that you bring forth much fruit.

And in so doing, you prove yourself to be my disciples.

Proof that I'm a disciple is not that I prayed a prayer in July of 1982.

One of the ways I bear out the fact that I'm a disciple is I have to explain to the guy who's in the backyard, who's cooking, firing up his barbecue grill.

And I said from the tree, hey, what's for supper?

And he's like, hey, we started talking.

And then he said, So you don't live here?

Who lives here?

And I'm explaining to him.

And he says, So what are you doing here?

And I'm like, well, this lady comes to my church, and you know, oh, so what are you doing?

Alright, I'm I'm the pastor.

Don't tell anybody because I don't want you to start acting weird and everything.

And he goes, Oh, he's knocked out some pickets in the fence.

He's like, You inspired me to come fix the fence.

And he's got an opening about that big.

He sticks his head through it and says, Well, I'm a Mormon.

Let me get this chainsaw cranked back up.

It was great.

Idaho is a good guy, everything.

It was just kind of like, and I'm driving back and I'm exhausted, and my wife says to me, I know you're really tired.

And I think this in my head.

If you know I'm really tired, why do you make me come do stuff like this?

My wife doesn't make me come do stuff like that.

The line makes me come do stuff like that.

That I was converted in July of 1982, and the reality of that hasn't left me alone, and it won't leave me alone till the day I die.

That's Christianity.

So if you're here today and you're kind of like, you know what, I don't know about all this, all this stuff, you've not been around a real Christian.

Because to be around somebody that walks to walk and talks to talk is the most compelling thing you will ever see in your life.

That's why I say that love is evidence of conversion.

That's what it is.

So two things you gotta ask yourself.

Number one, when did the dot happen?

Number two, where's the line taking you these days?

Because see, here's what we want to do.

The line wants to take us certain places, and we all think, hey, well, the line's great.

I'll do whatever God.

Except when it comes to certain people.

You don't get to kind of draw the line and say, I love everybody but this person.

That's not your that's not your privilege.

Joyce Landorf wrote a book years ago ago called Irregular People.

And in the book she says, we're all gonna have people that are hard to love.

Let me break something to you, okay?

Some of you, how many of y'all in this room, you know somebody that, hey, I there's somebody I know that's kind of hard for me to love.

Can I see your hand?

My hand's up.

Hold it up real high.

No, above your head is high.

This isn't high, you baptist.

Hold it up.

Look around, leave it up.

It ain't that heavy.

Look around.

Bunch of unloving weasels.

Put your hands down, look at me.

You know why I had you raise your hands?

Because somebody's raising their hand thinking about you this morning somewhere.

Yeah.

I love this church because one of our men stopped me and he said, Yeah, I just talking about love.

He said, after the service, he said, Yeah, I used to have a boss that, man, she just, I just did she didn't like me and I didn't like her back.

And one day I was just praying, and the Lord helped me to love her and have a right attitude, and God just kind of said, Man, just shut up.

Don't you love that God says that when people are praying?

Man, come on, oh you kidding.

You don't mean it, you're just saying that'cause because you think I you you feel like you're supposed to say this.

And my friend said, Back, you know what, God, you're right.

I don't love her.

Matter of fact, I wish you would get hit by a truck and I was there to see it when it happened.

And he said, Yeah, whoa.

Yeah.

Hey, stop trying to put lipstick on your depravity.

You're as jacked up as you think you are.

And you're as jacked up as God knows you are.

And so here's the best part.

He said, after I admitted that and I just confessed that, God said, Okay, now let's pray.

See, God's not afraid of the honesty and the depravity and the darkness, the dark, dark thoughts that you have.

You're just like, Oh man, are you serious?

Yes, I'm serious.

But see, what my friend was saying, you know what?

I want to draw the line there and say, love everybody but her, because she gets on my last nerve, and I hope she gets hit by a truck and I'm there to see it.

And the gospel takes that and turns it into beautiful, authentic prayer.

Why?

Because love is evidence of conversion.

Secondly, love is demonstrated.

Verse 9, the Bible says, in this, underline or circle those two words, 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.

Now, John repeats twice those two little words, in this, in this.

Why?

Because without demonstration, we try to define God by human concepts of love, which only lead to heresy.

Without this tangible stake in the ground, that God says, I want you to understand this.

I don't want you to think about it.

I don't want you to wish it up.

I don't want you to conjure up something that satisfies you but doesn't glorify me.

I think it was John Calvin that said the human heart is an idol factory.

And when it comes to love, beloved, we manufacture idols.

As a matter of fact, we would gladly trade the abstract quality of love for the concrete deity of God who is love.

Does that make sense when I say that?

We would trade, we we prefer this abstract, fuzzy, well, just love and just love, and you know, and just well, what I'm saying is just love.

But what the Bible says is that God is this self-described, self-defined, self-sustaining deity who says, I am love.

And I'm going to give you a tangible frame of reference for what this looks like.

Because love to ourselves, and this is what we come up with.

I came across this as I was studying for today.

This is a man named Bob Barber, not Bob Barker, the guy that tells you to have your pet spade neuter, that guy, Price is right.

Don't be hating on Price is right guy.

This is Bob Barber.

He hosts a religious talk show.

Okay?

He says this.

Somebody asked him about his conversion experience about coming to Christ, and he said, Quote, I once had an experience with what is defined by love or oneness or God.

Ultimately, our faith and deeds give us an experience of love and connectedness.

The more good we do, the more experience we have with God or love.

We are all made of love.

God is love, and we are God.

That's heresy, beloved.

The Bible says the exact opposite of that.

But you see, when it comes to love, this is what I mean.

We would rather have the abstract concept of love because then we can say goofy stuff like that.

And Oprah says, rock on.

The Bible says, in this, in this.

I'm not going to leave it up to you because left up to you, you will consume love upon your lust, what you want it to be and what you prefer it to be.

And so he says, in this, the love of God was made manifest among us.

God hung flesh on love so we wouldn't waste our time trying to come up with this Messi's definition of love that ultimately glorifies me and satisfies me and radically misrepresents God.

John says three things that God did to demonstrate love.

The first thing he did was presence.

Presence.

He says right there in verse 9, he says, in this is the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world.

Just presence, that God sent his only son into the world.

If you ever struggle with the thought or the fact that God could love you or might love you, ask yourself, why did Jesus come?

Because that's what the Bible is saying.

That's what John is saying right here.

Hey, and this is the love of God.

That God sent his one and only Son into the world.

Presence.

By the way, the world wasn't a safer place back then for God than it is right now.

It's not like, well, now we got ISIS and we got the stock market, and you know the rate went up 0.25% and the interest rate.

I mean, it's just really crazy.

Can Jesus come back already and let's just all go to happy place and have Christmas forever?

No.

No.

Because it's just in such a dangerous world like this that the incarnation took place in the first place.

And John says, hey, this is what God did to demonstrate his love.

He came to be with you.

He put on flesh and moved into the neighborhood so we could get a tangible expression of what love looked like.

And by the way, the way Jesus loved people was so indicting to the religious, especially to the religious people of his day, there were numerous occasions they took up rocks and they wanted to stone Jesus.

Because if they could just kill Jesus, then they could get away with love in the way they wanted to love.

Second thing John says is possibility.

It's the next phrase.

He says, In this with the love of God made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.

That's the possibility.

He sent his son into the world, presence.

Secondly, possibility so that we might live through him.

Let me ask you a question, beloved.

What if Jesus came not only to give us hope when we die, but to give us a different way to live?

Think about that.

What if Jesus came not just to give us hope when we die?

Because we always talk about Christianity in terms of, well, I want to go to heaven when I die, and yes, that's part of it.

But what if the core focus of Jesus' coming was to give us another way to live, to change the fundamental orientation of our life?

What if that's what it's really all about?

And what if going to heaven is just a byproduct of living this way?

How much of your thinking would you have to reverse or turn over to kind of go, now wait a minute.

I gotta rethink all of this because if it's just presence and it's possibility that we might live through him, ask yourself this question while you're driving, wherever you're going for the holidays.

What would it look like going into the new year if I begin to think more concretely about living through him instead of living through me?

And by the way, Jesus models this for us.

Don't turn there, but in John chapter 12, Jesus is getting ready to go to the cross and he says, What shall I say?

John 12 · chapter mention

My heart is troubled within me.

What shall I say?

Save me?

No, it was for this very reason that I came.

Father, glorify your name.

Do you hear the subtle difference?

What shall I say?

God get me out of this?

God save me?

No, I want to live through Him.

So I want God to get glory for my life.

You go further into the garden, He's in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Praying after this.

And he's got his disciples, all 12 of them, and he takes a couple of them further away from the rest of them.

And he says, Stay here and pray.

And he goes and he kneels down and begins to pray.

And what he says is, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

If it be possible, if there's a plan B, if there's another way to do this.

But nevertheless, see, God's not afraid of the honesty of your heart.

That's why my friend David said earlier, Yeah, I just want her to get hit by a truck and I wanted to be there.

I didn't go, oh, you shouldn't talk that way.

That's manners.

That's not Christianity.

Christianity peers into the depth of your heart and says, Man, whoo, that is jacked up.

Jesus said to his father, If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.

See, that's Jesus demonstrating what it looks like.

Hey, there's a possibility of what it looked like if we live through him.

Third thing he says is we read on here in 1 John, he says, in this is love.

Verse 10, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

That's a big word.

Or a simpler word is just payment.

Just payment.

You say, What do you mean?

And he sent his son to be propitiation, the propitiation for our sins.

That word propitiation means that the wrath of an angry deity has been satisfied.

The wrath of an angry deity has been satisfied.

In other words, God's not mad at you, and he's not looking for the opportunity to take it out on you.

He's not waiting for you to realize just how stoked he is.

In 2015, I couldn't tell you how many people that I sat down in pastoral counseling situations with who live with this deep sense of fear that one day God was going to figure out all the bad stuff they had done and he was going to get them for it.

And you know what's even sadder?

I will meet with more people in 2016 who feel the same way.

And yet the Bible says that, hey, in this, this is one of the tangible expressions of the way God loves us, that He that we haven't loved God, but that He loved us and He sent His Son to be the payment for our sins.

Let me say something crazy, okay?

Everybody who's not listened up to this point, listen.

Look at me.

The best thing you could do today is walk out of this room and stop trying to love God.

One of you got it down here.

It's like, you say crazy stuff, Kimo Sabi.

Yes.

I'm not trying to be shocking.

The best thing you could do is walk out of here today and stop trying so hard to love God.

Okay, well, why do you say that?

Here's why I say that.

Because you're incapable of loving God.

The Bible says not that we've loved God, but because you're incapable of loving God until you realize that He loved you.

He sent His Son into the world as the wrath-satisfying sin-atoning sacrifice for your sins.

And once you get this into your head, then the issue says, hey, not that we have loved God, but that he's loved us.

So if the Bible says not that we have loved God, why do you spend so much time trying to convince everybody that you really love God?

But the Bible says, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us.

When I say stop trying to love God, I'm not preaching heresy.

I'm saying get your head and your heart around and get immersed in the fact that He has loved us.

And then what happens is that you loving God is reflex.

It's not labor.

It's the girls outside the door here jumping up now.

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.

Like, okay.

Nobody misses me.

My work here's done.

Say, what do you mean?

Let me just read to you from Isaiah chapter 53.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

You don't have to turn, it'll come up on the screen.

This is Isaiah 53, starting in verse 4.

This is now, Isaiah is a book in the Old Testament, and this is a prophecy, which is a kind of the Bible kind of painting a picture of what's going to happen before it's happened.

And this is listen to what the Bible says.

It's talking about Jesus going to the cross.

Isaiah 53, verse 4.

Isaiah 53:4

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way.

Hey, beloved, look at me.

Stop acting like that, isn't you?

All of us, like sheep, have gone astray.

Every one of us has turned to his own way.

And what did God do in response to that?

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

That means that God looked and saw that I turned and went my own way by nature and by choice.

And God could have just crushed me under the weight of my sin, but instead he took my sin.

And the Bible says, and he has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

When he made payment for my sin, that's been eradicated, and God no longer sees me through the lens of my sin.

He sees me through the lens of Christ's sacrifice, which was atoning and sufficient for all my sin.

So if the Bible says, beloved, hey, that the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all, then it stands to reason that he laid on him all of our iniquity.

And so what are you afraid of?

What do you fear?

In this, the love of God was made manifest among us.

So when I when I say, hey, he didn't just come into the world to be present, he came to make payment.

And he placed upon him the iniquity of us all.

That means everything you've ever done that you knew was wrong and did it everywhere, that's been paid for.

There's a way to feel differently about that, and it's been provided by Jesus.

Let me ask you a question.

Any of you, when you were growing up, did you ever get whipped as a kid?

Anybody?

I know it's a crime nowadays.

Uh anybody?

Yeah, yeah.

I got whipped and I got whipped and it hurt.

And because it hurt, I would cry.

And my dad would say, he was old school, he said, quit crying, boy.

Give you something to cry about.

And I would think, you've already given me something to cry about.

You're the reason I'm crying.

Can't you follow the logic of this experience here, Leon?

Wouldn't say that, but I would think it.

And I would try and quit crying.

You try.

And then there's that magic moment, you get that first deep breath.

And it's over.

Why did I tell you that?

Because the Bible says propitiation means that God placed on Jesus all of your sin so you could live from the place of that first deep breath.

Not what if God finds out He knows.

And you know why He knows?

Because we've all turned aside and gone to our own way.

Every one of us, me at the top of the list.

And what did God do?

He placed upon Jesus the iniquity of all of us.

That's payment.

So when I say, oh, by the way, the indicting nature of incarnational love is that love is demonstrated.

We can no longer say, I don't know what it's like.

Matter of fact, having this experience helps with discernment because you can discern who now loves you and who doesn't.

You should grasp the love of God and you should have people in your life that love you the way you were created to be loved.

So if you're a young lady going off to college, some guy's like, hey, what's your name?

You should have a frame of reference for what love looks like and feels like.

So when this person starts making overtures towards you that don't line up with the way you experience love, you realize, hey, this is not what I was created for.

It's very liberating.

Third thing the text tells us is that love makes us responsible.

Love makes us responsible.

You still with me?

Look at verse 11.

He says, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

What do you mean?

Love makes us responsible.

When God moved into the neighborhood, it was a glorious occasion, but it was also the most indictance humanity could ever have because now we're without excuse what it looks like to love or to be loved or to love other people.

We can't say, I don't know what that's like.

It's men, we can't cop out and say, because by the way, when it comes to love, the way my wife defines and experiences love is different from the way I define and experience love.

And sometimes I think she would be happier if she thought about it the way I do, but she doesn't.

After 23 years, she won't conform to my standard of love.

And I'm just like, hey, like she'll say stuff like, hey, what are some goals you have for our marriage going into the new year?

And I think this thought, I'm here, aren't I?

I'm not going anywhere.

I get up and go to work every day and pay the bills.

What more do you want?

The answer is everything.

And she doesn't feel bad about it.

She just looks at me kind of like, Yes, yes, I want more.

I want more.

What are you thinking about these days?

How are you feeling?

I don't have a heart.

I don't feel.

I don't do any of that.

It's not true, Neil McClendon.

Use this my first and last name, which means 30 more minutes of talking.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Sports center's on.

My love language is gifts.

Just give me a gift, honey.

That's great.

Thank you.

Hers is quality time.

Words of affirmation.

Which means think of a way today to tell me what you've always told me in a way you've never told me before.

Just go to Walmart and buy me something.

So much easier.

Don't you wish you were more like me?

She said to me one time, by the way, I've never wished I was like you.

Well, that is your loss.

But here's why I tell you all that.

I can't cop out and say that's not who I am.

I can't think that way about meeting your needs.

Here's the deal, man.

You want to kind of refresh your marriage going into the new year?

Do this.

You can't say anything to your wife about your relationship with her that God doesn't say to you about your relationship with him.

If God says to you, well, I just can't think about meeting your needs in that way, then you can say that to your wife.

But I don't know what page that's on.

It's just not.

It's just not in there.

Since God so loved us in loving us, God has not just given us an experience, He's also erecting for us a standard which is undeniable, which will be held accountable.

And it's the height of hypocrisy to claim the love of God for ourselves and then not give it to others.

So much so that the Bible, if you're in chapter 4, just look up to chapter 3 about verse 16.

John says, By this we know love.

See, how many times, if you wonder what love is, just read 1 John.

Over and over, by this or in this, these tangible, expressible stakes he drives in the ground.

1 John 3, 16, by this we know love.

They laid down his life for us.

And we ought to, well, we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.

Let us not love and just word and talk.

Let us not just say one thing and do another, but indeed and in truth.

Why does the Bible tell us that?

Because that's the way God loved.

Indeed.

He did something.

He saw our greatest need and he made payment for it.

You're not loving people if you see what they need and you refuse to give it to them because it's inconvenient for you.

That's not love.

That's selfishness.

And I would just say again, since God so loved us, if you have the experience of being loved by God, then you have the responsibility to give that to other people.

Does that make sense?

Let's pray together.

Father, we understand today that the love of God is both an experience as well as a responsibility.

And so we don't shirk back from that, for it is our privilege.

The world indicts us on a daily basis.

That doesn't mean we're guilty.

That means we've been given the opportunity to prove our innocence.

To say I'm not what whatever bad experience you had with religious people is.

I am guilty of being a Christ follower.

That doesn't mean I'm perfect, it means I'm forgiven.

It also means that the line is compelling me.

The love of God has influence and sway over me.

And it sends me to places that I wouldn't by nature go.

And it causes me to do things I wouldn't by nature do.

It gets the better of me.

Translation, I did what I did because love has come to town.

God, we understand that the Bible teaches this as an experience.

Because of that, it's also a responsibility.

We embrace both of those.

And I pray for people in this room who've never had this as their experience, that they would think about that today.

And we think about it in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Hold your hands out and speak a blessing over you.

Because Jesus did it, you now have to do it.

And by it, he came to this earth.

And he loved people.

So, in the words of that great theologian Kid Rock, you gotta get in the pit and try to love someone.

Depart now and get busy doing that.

And in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you, you're dismissed.