Life in God's Love

My name is Richard. Good morning, Good morning. I am

one of the pastors here. I overseen membership and assimilation.

So if you don't know me, hopefully you'll get to

know me soon. Oh. We've got ushers here with Bibles, bulletins, pens.

They were just dutifully waiting. Fantastic job, guys. If you

need a Bible, bulletin or pen, please see them. They

would be happy to help you out with those things.

I also want to say, if you haven't filled out

a connection card, go ahead and take just a minute

during the service to fill that out sometime before, you know,

before the service ends. We would love to know that

you're here. You know, if you're a member, you know, hey,

we do this every week. We fill this out. We

let them know we're here by name. But then also

if you're not a member, it's a great way for

us to know how we can pray for you. Whether

you're a member or not, let us know how we

can pray for you. We have a team of men

and women who genuinely love to come before God and

say I pray for my brother in this way, I

pray for my sister in this way, in this way

that they're needing help. And then if you're somewhat new here,

please come to the step one table after the service.

There's some men and women there who would love to

hear a little bit about you and then hopefully tell

you a little bit about us. Welcome you into the

life of this church body. All right, I think that's

all those things you are loved. Okay, good job. That's

how we close every service that we have, and so

often when we say that, the next thing to do

is to be dismissed. Happy to remind you of that

every Sunday. It's not just our way of telling you

you are dismissed, although you are dismissed, not right now,

but when I say it later. And I can't speak

for anyone else, but when I say you are loved

for me, it is me wanting to remind you of

God's love for you. The fact that He loves you

is not meant to be a minor footnote, just kind

of at the end of our lives. But it's meant

to define who we are. It's meant to be an

actual motivating factor for how we live our lives. And

who better to talk to us about God's love than

the apostle, the apostle John John, he loves love. If

you take the first two books that bear his name,

or at the Gospel of John and First John, that

accounts for about one third of the times that the

word love is actually used in the whole New Testament,

and the passage that we're going to read in First

John four this morning, he actually says it thirty times,

he crams it in thirty times, he nouns it, he

verbs it. John loves love. And as we'll see this morning,

John loves God, and John loves the love that God

revealed in Jesus, and he'll end up using love here

and First John to actually distinguish who is of God

and who is not. Five times in his gospel, John

refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He

walked with Jesus for three years, and he saw him

model this love perfectly day in day out, And he

was there when Jesus taught about love, right before going

to the cross and putting that love on display. So

when John is talking to his readers about love, he

is not talking from just theory. He has seen this

lived out. He's talking from firsthand observation. Now, right now,

if I were to say, where does the Bible talk

about love the clearest, he'd probably be like, oh, one

Corinthians thirteen, Right, that's the love passage. But maybe after

the sermon, maybe you'll think about First John if you

haven't been with us. We're wrapping up a three week

mini series on the Book of First John. We didn't

cover every passage, but it's centered on the verse one

John five thirteen, where he says, I write these things

to you who believe in the name of the Son

of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

John gives three tests that are meant to bring clarity

to seeing the false teachers and seeing who they were,

and then giving assurance to those who actually remained in

the church, who remained in the faith to say that

you have eternal life. Two weeks ago we looked at

the fact that we can have confidence that we have

eternal life if we have a right relationship with the

truth of who Jesus is. First John two twenty one

says I write to you not because you do not

know the truth, but because you know it, and because

no lie is of the truth. Last week we saw

the we can have confidence that we have eternal life

whom we have a right relationship with sin, and if

we live in the light. Chapter three, verse nine says this,

no one born of God makes a practice of sinning,

for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep

on sinning because he has been born of God. In

First John, these these there are three big truths that

show who is of God and who is of the devil.

These tests are not to be are They're not meant

to be independent, but they're actually connected. And if you

don't recall from week one, John writes very symphonically, which

means that he will stay to the theme, he'll kind of

move away from that talk about something else, and then

he'll go back and talk about it again with some

with some variations. So though we will be reading First

John four seven to twenty one, today we will follow

John's big idea as he develops some throughout the whole book.

Today we're going to be looking at how we can

have how we can be assured that we have eternal

life when we have a right relationship with love. We

can be assured we have eternal life when we have

a right relationship with love. We'll see that this love, sorry,

that this right relationship isn't independent of God's love, but

it's actually based on God's love and is meant to

be lived out in response to God's love. That's the

title life in God's Love. If you haven't yet, please

turn with me to first John four seven to twenty one.

This will be a good representative symphonic passage today. This morning,

we'll have a couple of sub points in each section,

but we will see what God has to say about

love in two big pieces. First, we will let God

define love, and then in the second we'll see how

we are to live in a response to his love.

So point one, God is love. Point two love In response.

John wants us to see that God's love is the

foundation for the love that we are meant to live out.

But Loot's start by reading first John four seven to

twenty one. 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 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, 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 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 of his 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, so also are we 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. We love

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 whom

he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God

must also love his brother. This is God's word. Before

we get to our part in this right relationship with love,

we need to see it not based on our definition

right as we might want to define it, but with

how God defines it. And with that we'll see point

one that God is love. God is love. John proclaims

this incredible truth explicitly twice, once in verse eight and

once in sixteen. This is not the only character quality

of God, right, but there are only a few places

that we get this kind of in depth information where

they're so explicit about God's character who he is. God

is Love. Let's get into what that looks like. The

first way we see God being love worked out in

this book is that God is love defined. Right. God

is love defined. Everything that God says, and is and

does is done out of a heart of love. Now,

there are a couple different Greek words that we translate

into love, so it's not every time you see the

word love in the New Testament. But every time that

we talk about God's love, and every time John uses

love here in First John, he's talking about this word agape.

Now there's no textbook definition, but this is how C. S.

Lewis thought of it, as a divine love characterized by

sacrifice in pursuit of the good of another person. So

those three parts of the definition of a gape love

are going to be very important for us this morning

as we move forward. Number one, it originates from God.

Number two, it is an action at one's own cost.

And number three, it is for the benefit of someone else.

One of the most beautiful truths that we will look

at today is that God has eternally been loving, unlike

every other kind of lowercase g god who who presents

presents himself. Those gods are are singular, right, But the

God that is revealed in scripture presents himself as a

god in three persons, the Trinity, as we call him.

If the stories from all these other gods are true,

then then there was a time before they were loving,

because at some point eventually humanity came around it, and

maybe then they become loving. But that's not the way

love works. Right. Love cannot be directed inward. Love has

to be shown outward, and so they cannot be eternally loving.

But God was loving from all eternity past as John.

As Jesus was praying in John seventeen, he brings up

that the Father has loved him since before the foundation

of the world. But before creation happened. God was a

father who was for all eternity a loving God. It

is at the core of who he is. It is

at his foundational nature and character. And when he does create,

to quote Michael Reeves, we see that creation is about

the spreading, the diffusion, the outward explosion of that love.

Think about how loving it was for God to create us.

He did not have to do this, There was no

obligation for it. He did it out of the abundance

of his love. And then think about every covenant that

God made with mankind. Think about his covenant throughout the

Old Testament, to Adam to Noah, to Abraham to David.

There was never anyone who had put God under their obligation.

Zero of the covenants were made by man. Never. They

never actually negotiated the terms of this covenant. To even

say that would be crazy, right we can't hold God

to something that he doesn't hold himself to. But out

of his love he made these promises. Wayne Grudom says,

although there may have been many additional details specified in

the covenants that God made with man throughout the history

of scripture, the essential element at the heart of all

of them is the promise I will be their God

and they shall be my people. Though our sin separated

us from him, his heart has always been one of

love towards his people the whole time. Everything God does

he does in love. No no one activity has been

defined by anything but his perfect love. And for all

the agape love in the universe, we see in First

John four seven that God is the source of all

that love. John says, Beloved, let us love one another,

for love is from God. Love is the character quality

we get after him after we have received his love.

But He is the fountain. He is the source. He

is the wellspring from which all of our love comes.

And since God is love defined and the source of

all love, it it's really important that we look to

Him to define what love actually is. I've got to

remember those three parts from God. An action at one's

own cost for someone else's benefit. Is this how we

define love? Often we we let other sources define what

love is. So we're going to spend just a minute

looking at how how God defines love. First thing, love

is an action. Love is not primarily a feeling. Now,

we should have affectionate feelings towards those who we love,

right who we are are acting in affection for. But

love can't spring from our feelings because what happens when

those feelings aren't there anymore? What happens when you say

I don't love them anymore. That's a sand castle version

of love. It may look great for a moment, but

the moment the tide comes in, it's gone. And that

is not God's love. God set his affection on us.

He did not choose us when we were lovely. No,

he loved us, and that made us lovely. He set

his affection on us, and his love is the most

sure thing in the universe. Romans eight thirty eight and

thirty nine makes this eternally and abundantly clear. As Paul

made a list of all the things that cannot separate

us from God's love. What cannot separate God's people from

his love? Death, life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth,

literally anything else in all creation. Once he has set

his love on you, it is impossible for you to

be separated from that love. His love is an action,

not a feeling, and he wants you to find rest

in his love for you. It also means that he

sets the standard for what is loving, and the fact

that love means that something is for someone else's benefit.

We all have friends and family who say loving me

means approving of everything I do and celebrating me for

who I am. But does God say that that is

the definition of love? Let me ask this. Is it

loving to tell someone? To warn someone that they have

a malignant tumor? It won't make them feel good, but

that is the most loving thing you can do for

someone in that moment, in that situation. To do otherwise,

that's malpractice. Is it loving to warn someone that they're

walking apart from God, that they're harboring sin in their heart,

that they're treasuring that sin? Now, loving someone means not

approving of what God doesn't approve of. We need to

be careful. These conversations need to happen in love right.

We need to exemplify love, and how we have these conversations.

Love is humble, it is patient, it's kind, it's everything

that First Corinthians thirteen says it is. So do it

in a winsome manner. Right, do not be offensive in

your speech, be loving, but have heard conversations. Do love

as God defines love, and directing our hearts away from

our own natural desires, away from our own lusts, away

from our own idols, is always going to be the

most loving thing we can do. So ask yourself, am

I calling things love that God doesn't call love? Am

I letting God define love and then seeing it in

that way and seeking to love in that manner. So

God is love, and we looked at how, oh how

God is love defined. The second way we see this

worked out is that God is love's perfect example. God

is Love's perfect example. First John four nine puts it

this way. In this the love of God was made

manifest among us. That God sent his only son into

the world that we might live through him. Jesus coming

into the world put God's love on full display. And

John is very clear to say that. He doesn't say

that the wrath of God was made manifest in Jesus. Coming,

or the holiness of God, or the omniscience of God,

or any other of his attributes. It was God's love,

God's self giving, sacrificial love that acts on behalf of

the recipients. John uses the words we and us and

are here in these passages because we are the recipients

of God's love, of God's life defining love. This isn't

a new idea that John is trying to communicate here

in this passage. He also wrote John three sixteen right,

which is the most famous verse in the whole Bible,

gets held up on signs at Super Bowls and during

the World Series. But have you ever thought about how

it starts. It starts with God and his love. For

God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

We didn't compel him with our amazingness. It wasn't that

we earned Jesus coming. It was done out of his

love for us, for lost humanity. He came after us,

He pursued us, He initiated the restoration of this broken

relationship that we had. And if there was any question

about which direction this love originally flows from, he clears

it up in verse ten 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. Man,

there's that word propitiation again. If you weren't here a

couple of weeks ago or native refresher, propitiation means that

God the Father sent Jesus, God the Son, to satisfy

the rightful wrath against our sin and moved us from

being under God's judgment to being under his favor. And

this offer is still open to us today. Right. John

three point sixteen ends with that whoever believes in him

should not perish but have eternal life. Jesus is God

incarnate and came to put God's love on display. That

love was demonstrated not just in his coming to earth,

but in his sacrificial and substitutionary death so that we

could have eternal life with him. And if you're here

today and you don't know, you don't love this message,

then you need to understand that today his arms are

open wide to you. We want to share the good

news of the Gospel with you. So if you have

questions about this, maybe ask the person you came with

or go to the Step one table. We'd be happy

to talk to you more about this good news. So

so far we have seen that God is love and

that God defines love and he's the perfect example of it.

But that's not where it ends for us. John says

that God's love is the power generator that we have

with love in our lives. Verse eleven says, beloved, if

God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

We are not meant to be the termination point for

this love. It is meant to flow through us, all right.

We are meant to be conduits of his love, not cubs.

And this is ultimately where John points us to our

to our assurance of salvation. This week, we can be

assured we have a right relationship with Uh, that we

have eternal life when we have a right relationship with love.

So what's the right relationship with love? We we love

in response. That's a second point this morning. We love

in response. As we have been changed by God's love,

our nature, our character who we are changes as well,

and now we reflect we we mirror God's love. In

this mini series, we've talked about how knowing the truth

leads to walking in righteousness, and this leads to our

assurance of salvation. In the same way. John sees love

in the same direct connection to our assurance of salvation.

Four verses seven and eight says, 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.

John directs our attention to the fact that for God's children,

we will reflect God's character. Like I said last week,

at our core, every person will reflect their Father, whether

they are a child of God or not. And John

is saying that we cannot. We can't love God and

not reflect his life changing love to others. One hundred

percent of his children will be changed. So in this

point we'll focus on the two loves that Jesus says

are the greatest loves, the two greatest commandments, right, loving

God and loving others. John has a whole lot more

to say, but we're not going to be able to

get to that this week, or we're going to focus

in on those two. The first way we show love

in response to God's love is by obeying his commands.

It's by obeying his commands. Now you might be like, oh, man,

I thought this was going to be a sermon on

love to talk about obedience. For well, now I get

to quote Josh, who's quoting Tony Stark when he says

is it too much to ask for both? In his Gospel,

John records Jesus himself connecting obedience and love in John

chapter fourteen, where Jesus says, if you love me, you

will keep my commandments, and then a few verses later

he goes on to say, whoever does not keep my word, oh, sorry,

whoever does not love me does not keep my word.

So when we get to First John, as John is

faced with trying to clearly lay out who is from

God and who is not, he is writing these things

so that he could strengthen the church in what is

true about God's love. He writes about this in chapters two,

chapter three, chapter five. He writes about this all over

the place. But in chapter two he says this, and

by this we know that we have come to know

him if we keep his commandments. He wants them to know.

He wants them to have biblical confidence and assurance that

they know that they are in him, and he points them,

with no ambiguity, says, by this we know again, John

is laying it out in black and white, and know

that we have been changed by him if we keep

his commands. But then on the other side, He's also

very very clear, very black and white about this about

what the false teachers are saying in chapter two, verse four.

They claim to have special knowledge from God, and yet

their lives showed otherwise. And so he says, whoever says

I know him but does not keep his commandments as

a liar and the truth is not in him. I

don't think I could come up with more damning words

than those for the false teachers. There is no doubt

in John's mind that if someone claims to know God

to follow God and he does not do what God says,

then he doesn't actually know God. John and Jesus say

that it's not just someone's words alone that should give

them assurance of their salvation, but that it's their words

accompanied by a lie life that demonstrates that they know God. Now,

to be clear, trying to keep God's commands cannot save you, period.

This is what the Pharisees did, and he called them

children of the devil. But all who know God will

love him. They will obey him in response to his love.

It won't be done perfectly. Right. We talked about this

last week, and this isn't perfect obedience. But what's the

pattern of your life? What is the practice of your life?

What is the dominant color on the painting of your life?

Does your love for him demonstrated by your obedience to him?

Say that you know him? The second way we show

we love and response to God's love is by loving

one another. There are other passages in the Bible that

say that we need to love our enemy and that

we need to love our neighbor. Right. John is not

saying those are not true. Those are absolutely true. But

John is making a very specific point here. He's not

telling the church to love just people in general, but

he's talking about specifically, how are we showing love to

those within the church, loving the brothers, loving one another.

He's emphasizing what Jesus said in the Gospel of John

chapter thirteen, A new commandment. I give to you that

you love one another. By this, all people will know

that you are my disciples. If you have love for

one another. Jesus says that loving one another is a

distinguishing marker for his disciples. So as John is again

talking to this church, trying to distinguish who is of

God and who is not. He brings up this in

fifteen different verses over chapters two, three, and four. No,

don't worry, We're not going to go through all the

places where he brings us up. But I want to

encourage First. John's not a long book, so this week

read through First John. Right. See how John talks about

these things. He's so clear. He uses this very stark language.

Listen to how to how emphatic John is in chapter four,

verses seven and eight, Beloved, let us love one another,

for love is from God. And whoever has been born

of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love

does not know God. Because God is love. So because

love is from God, and because we have been born

of God, that we have gone from being in Adam

to being in Christ. Like we saw last week, we

show that we have been changed by God's love by

showing that same love and exhibiting it to others. John

couldn't be clearer that this is how we show that

we have been born of Him. Now, John has plenty

of things to say in the positive, but I do

just want to quickly run through some of the negative

statements that John says as he sets up this contrast, right,

he shows that there's no room for indifference. Right, that

anything that is not of love is actually of hate.

One John two nine. Whoever says he is in the

light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Chapter two,

verse eleven. But whoever hates his brother is in the

darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know

where he is going because the darkness is blinded his

eyes three point fifteen, Echoing Jesus in the Sermon on

the Mount, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.

And you know that no murder has eternal life abiding

in him three seventeen. But if anyone has a world's

goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his

heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

In Chapter four, verse twenty, 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. See when

Jesus saves us, yes, he reconciled us to God. But

he also reconciled us to one another as well. Yes,

God saves us individually, but now those individuals, those who

have put their trust in Him, are now one collective.

We are now one body and have been united as

the bride of Christ, and we've been born again to demonstrate,

to actually reflect God's love and his character to those

around us that we're in community with. If our loves

don't show that love, if our lives don't show that love,

then then John says that we are not in him.

And this is actually one of the reason why we

come together as local churches is to live out this

one another ring. If you're here today, well, if you're

here today as a guest, thank you for being here.

But if you've been here for a while and you're

here today, I want to ask you, where are you

living out God's commands to love one another? How are you?

How are you living out your command to love your brother? Right?

Maybe through your family, through a Christian neighbor, a Christian coworker.

There absolutely are some relationships, but John is talking about

the relationships we have within the church. He's talking about

this as being the primary context for us living out

this love. The local church is the perfect place to

live out these one anothers, because there are plenty of

one anothers in the Bible for us to live out,

and there are plenty of opportunities to live those out

within community, within this church body. And again remember those

what is love from God? An action at one's own

cost for someone else's benefit. Love requires action. Chapter three,

verse say teen, Little children, let us not love in

word or talk, but in deed and truth. It's just

not possible to demonstrate this kind of love when you're

not in community. You can't love the brothers and sisters

when there are no brothers and sisters for you to love,

to show love too. But it's not just that it's

impossible to do on our own. John is also saying

that we grow in our assurance of our salvation when

we show love for one another. Chapter three, verse fourteen

says this we know that we have passed out of

death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does

not love abides in death. John is seeking to give

the believers in his church assurance that they can know

they are in Christ and something they can see and

hold on to. And John is pointing to the truth

of a chain life of this love as one of

the fruits of a changed heart. My job here at

this church. I'm employed to help guide people through the

process of joining this church. But I don't just do

it because it's my job. I do it because I'm

convinced that being an active member of a healthy local

church is the best thing for each and every Christian.

This is the kind of place where God's love gets

put on display, and I personally my life has been

changed because of seeing this love and experiencing it. I

grew up in a Christian home. I was saved at

a young age. We went to church multiple times a week.

We were involved, we served, and even when I was

growing up, I wanted to be a pastor, But ironically

I didn't actually love the local church. After high school,

I moved across then to Indianapolis, and for the first

time in my life, I had the opportunity to look

for at church. I didn't know what to look for.

I bounced around between a couple different churches for the

first two years of living there. I would end up

at whichever church I thought served me best at the time.

I liked the Sunday school class here. I like the

people that are here at church was like a spiritual buffet,

and I was happy to just kind of pick and choose. Then,

after two years of that, a friend invited me to

the church that he had just joined and kept badgering me.

So then I went one Sunday and I never left.

That church was not perfect by any means, but it

was my first experience with a really healthy church. The

people showed genuine love. There were older godly men who,

now that I look at, were probably the age I

am now. I thought they were super old at the time.

But these older godly men, they answered my questions about

how to live out these things about and they actually

wanted to disciple me. They wanted to invest in me.

The preaching was clear and biblical. I was challenged to

fight sin in a whole new way. My pastor gave

me some of the books that we still give out

here at Crossway at the Step one table. For the

first time in my life, I started to love the

local church. I saw that I had spent years just taking,

just taking from my brothers and sisters. So I joined

that church. I started serving, I started giving intentionally. I

joined a small group. God had given me a heart

that wanted to show love to others, to my brothers

and sisters, and by his grace, he was helping me grow.

I was growing way more than I had in the

two years when I was just bouncing from church to church.

They loved me well for twelve years as I was

there going through Bible college and seminary. They loved me

as I was, as I got married at twenty two

and tried to figure out what that looked like, as

we had kids, as I lost jobs plural and the

other thousands of challenges that just come up in life.

I didn't leave that church until we moved here in

twenty twenty, and I can say that I would not

be who I am without that church body. They invested

in me. They helped me grow in a way that

I never could have before. I before when I just

treated church like a buffet line. For the first time

in my life, they showed me what it meant to

live out this God defined love. Why am I saying

all this. I'm the product of a healthy local church

that loved me well and taught me how to love

my brothers. This conviction didn't come when I got the

job here. I got the job here because I had

this conviction I'm passionate about this because this is the

kind of love that John wants us to have, that

John wants for every Christian to have, and I want

this for you. So, if you aren't a member here,

we got a Step two class coming up in two weeks.

Sign up for it. Go to the step one table.

If you have already been to step two, what are

you waiting for? We want to welcome you in and

in a very real way, we want to show you

what it's like to love and be loved by this

very amazingly beautiful and yet imperfect people, this church called

Crossway Bible Church. And now in a similar way, if

you are here today and you are a member of Crossway,

my question to you is the same, right, how are

you living out God's commandment to love one another? You've

taken this step to join, that's great, But what does

your interaction with the church body look like? Get here

late and then just kind of run out as soon

as the service is over? Are you or are you

investing in relationships? Are you using your gifts to serve others?

Are you on the lookout for how people need help?

Are you helping people fight their sin? And if you're older,

and if you look around this room, you might not

think I'm older. But if you're older, honestly, I'm talking

about anyone born in the nineteen hundreds. At this point

you're considered older. Just accept Then, if you're older, are

you looking for someone to disciple, to help grow, to

pour into You might look at me and say, Richard,

I don't know everything. That's fine. Start with what you

do know. We're happy to help you grow in those things.

But God can take what you do know and help

grow you and grow others within this church. If you're married,

are you looking for ways to fold in some of

our incredible young adults into your family life? And as

we love our brothers, something beautiful happens. Chapter four, verse

twelve says, no one has ever seen God. If we

love one another, God abides in us, and his love

is perfected in us. That is, as Pastor John Stott says,

the unseen God, who once revealed himself in his son,

now reveals himself in his people. If and when they

love one another, we have the privilege to be like

Jesus in how we embody, in how we incarnate, in

how we live out God's love to one another, a

love that is from God, a love that is an

action that one's own costs and for the benefit of

someone else. There is no higher calling that we can have.

There is no greater opportunity for us to experience and

to help them experience life in God's love. Jesus says

this in his in the Gospel of John, chapter fifteen.

This is my commandment that you love one another as

I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this,

that someone laid down his life for his friend. As

we as we wrap up this mini series on John

on First John, I want to invite the band up

as we as we consider what John has been saying

in these three weeks. Right, it was centered on this

verse first First John five thirteen. Right, that you may

know that you have eternal life for some here. If

you were unsettled by what John said, I want to

encourage you to actually evaluate the state of your heart.

This was just a diagnostic tool, right. This is like

a cardiac machine makes no value judgments. It just reads

what's going on. And if there's a problem, don't be

mad at the machine. All the machine is doing is

telling you what Sayah. Underneath I would encourage you to

take a look at your heart. God has given us

measurable ways to see if we are in Him and

if we are not in him. His arms are open

to you today his love. He is inviting you into

a relationship with him if you found that your life

doesn't match up, he says, here, don't wait to get

it right before coming to me. Come to me and

I will make you right. I will make you brand new.

I will change you from the inside out. Hopefully, for

most of you, this series gave you assurance of your salvation.

That you were encouraged that you can know in God's word,

from God's word, I am in Christ. But again, we

don't look to the diagnostic tool for our salvation. That

a cardiac machine doesn't make someone's heart beat. Don't look

to any of the things we've talked about over the

last three weeks to save you. To be your savior.

We can't look to a right relationship with the truth,

or with sin, or with love for our salvation. There's

only one place where we can find our ultimate hope.

What can wash away my sin, what can make me

hold again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus