1 John: Manifesting Love

I thought we would begin with a game.

I'm gonna show you a few pictures up on the screen.

We'll see if we can guess who these people are.

Here's the first picture jumping up.

So maybe you know the guy on the right.

If you know the guy on the right, did you say it?

Shakil.

Shaq, Shakil.

Now, does anybody know the guy on the left?

Spud Webb, a few of you knew it, right?

So if you met Spud Webb just out on the street, you wouldn't think much about it, right?

You'd think, you know, no big deal.

You wouldn't know, keyword, the principal attribute inside of him that he has the capability of.

But if you were back in 1986, and I was seven years old, watching it, the NBA dunk contest, you saw this.

And he was dunking along with the Giants at the NBA, and he won the NBA dunk contest that year, and I did a backflip off the couch.

I was so excited, couldn't believe what I saw.

And what I saw was a manifestation of something that was already true about him, but if I saw him on the street, I would have never known it.

But it was manifested out for everybody to know.

So something was true, and then it's manifested for us to know.

Now, here's another picture.

This lady here.

Does anybody know who this lady is?

Adele, very good.

It's hard to tell in that picture.

Now, if I showed you the next picture, this picture, much more likely you would guess who she is.

Now, Adele, probably one of the most famous singers in the world, probably one of the best singers of all time.

If you met her in a Chili's, you probably wouldn't think much about it.

You wouldn't know, right?

You just wouldn't know something that is already true about her until she stands on that stage and she stands behind the mic.

She doesn't dance around, but she sings.

Right?

Something was true, and then it's manifested for it to be known.

And here's what John says in this passage that David read for us.

John says, God loves you.

God has a principal attribute that is manifest in the world for us to see.

And then John goes a step further, even than saying, okay, God has a principal attribute of love.

John goes further and says, God is love.

Now I ran into this quote this week when I was studying.

This was in the Concordia commentary, theologian Donald Burdick, I'm sure you're very familiar with his work.

Here's the quote.

The quote's great.

The declaration that God is love has been taken by many to mean only that God possesses the attribute of love and so loves and is loving.

However, this is to alter and to reduce the meaning of John's statement.

As it stands, the declaration says that love is not merely one of God's characteristics.

Love is what?

He is himself.

God in his essence is love.

So here's our passage.

We'll work our way through it.

1 John 4, verse 7, as we've been working through this entire letter of 1 John written by John.

1 John 4:7

And verse 7 starts out with beloved.

We don't have to go any further.

John actually uses this term for these people.

He's writing to this church filled with Christian folks.

And he says, Beloved, this is who you are.

You are beloved.

He writes it six times to these people.

So our first point is just off that first word.

And it's the thing that we get to say to ourselves over and over again, at least we say it into our church, and it's that you are beloved because he loves you, not because you love him or merit anything.

So this is what we say every week.

It's almost like a playlist in our church, and hopefully it's becoming more of a playlist in your life.

I have a playlist I like to listen to at night when I do the dishes, the arrangement in our house, or the arrangement at your house.

Arrangement is Christy Cook's, I do the dishes.

And so when I'm doing the dishes, I like to play my playlist.

Now I don't always get to play my playlist because sometimes my daughters take control of the music, and that goes to a Taylor Swift playlist, and that's fine.

We can have fun to that, right?

That's okay.

But if it's my playlist, it's going, it's distinct.

Zach Bramban to Eric Church to Mumford and Sons to Coldplay.

I don't want it on Shuffle.

I don't want it to change.

It is set songs, it's been there for years.

I do not want it to change at all.

Zach Bramban, Eric Church, Mumford and Sons, Coldplay.

That's the way I like it.

It is my playlist for the dishes.

Here's what John is saying.

Belovedness is your playlist.

It's the thing you should wake up to, even if you don't feel it.

You wake up and you say, I am, I am the beloved.

Not that I'm not enough, I'm not enough, I'm not enough, I'm not loved, I'm not loved.

I need to do a little more, I need to do a little more.

These are familiar playlists, right?

But the playlist that we receive over and over again, the name given to us is beloved, beloved, beloved, beloved.

Beloved, let us love one another.

Verse 7.

For love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

So point two, hopefully to no surprise, our calling could be a surprise.

Our calling as Christians is to love others.

Now that's not new, but it is easy to forget when we are so concerned about being right.

And here's this context here.

Right?

If you remember the context of this letter, John is writing to a church.

This church is going through a difficult time because what's happened in this community is there's been a group, so say, I don't know, there's 200 people in here, say 40 of us, I don't know the percentages here in this context, but say 40 of us decide Jesus is not really God, not really the Savior, like I'm not really believing that.

So 40 of us leave, right?

Church split.

Happens a lot.

Church split.

So now John is writing to these people, and he's saying, you know what?

They are wrong.

And he's very clear about that.

He doesn't pull punches in that way.

He says, they are wrong.

But here's the thing is these people, not only are they wrong, but they're causing chaos.

They didn't just leave and leave peacefully and go start their own thing or something like that.

Like they're leaving and they're causing chaos, they're causing problems.

I mean, they are they are difficult.

And this would be the point where you would think John would say, cut them off.

You wouldn't think this is the point.

He starts doubling down about love.

You would think this is the point where he says, you know what?

Demonize them more and more and more because they're difficult.

But no, John says, no, no, no.

We can disagree with them and still love them.

Right?

Jesus said it this way: love, your, which presumes they're your enemy.

Like, we kind of forget that.

Like, if they're your enemy, it means there's some disagreement here.

And Jesus says, love them.

Love them.

Yeah, they're your enemy.

We're not saying they're not your enemy.

We're not saying they're not difficult.

We're not saying you don't disagree with them.

Just saying, even in that, you and I get to love them.

And I wonder, question I've been asking myself this week, would have you disagreed with a group of people?

Probably that group of people you're thinking about right now.

Or a person.

And allowed it to limit your love for them.

That's easy to do.

And John says, hey, like we don't have to do that.

Like we get to disagree with somebody and love them.

What I said two weeks ago is that this is incredibly freeing because we don't have to agree with a person to love them.

That's unbelievably freeing.

And we don't have to stop loving somebody to disagree with them.

We get to disagree with people and love them.

1 John 3, 7, the second part of that verse, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

So point three is this love is from God, and as we are born of God, love flows through us.

And so here's what this means.

I think it means two things.

Here are the two things coming up.

As we are already beloved, as we are already beloved, we don't have to judge people as to feel we are better than them.

So our judgment can be transformed into compassion.

See how your security as the beloved starts to affect how you sit in judgment or pride or whatever, just self-righteousness over somebody, but all that gets dissipated because you're already loved.

And now that judgment can be transformed into care and compassion.

Now, whenever I get judgy and I do already on most of you this morning, you didn't know it, a lot of you, I mean, what you said and what you did, and you walked in and how you walked in, you know, that car you drove, right?

I mean, we all do it, right?

What she said, did you see, did you hear what she said, or what they're doing with their kids?

I can't believe they're still supporting him, blah, blah, blah.

You know, like we get judgy on all of that, right?

But when I am in, first off, usually when I'm judgy, it's because I am insecure.

Or I don't understand.

It's usually one or the other.

But what I have found is the more I'm aware of how lavish God's love is for me, my belovedness, I'm still kind of judgy, I mean, I'll be honest.

Still there.

But a good bit of that judgment starts to transform into care and compassion.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my best friends he texted me.

He asked if I could go fly fishing with him and a couple other buddies in North Carolina at the end of this month.

I looked at the calendar and looked at, oh man, like there's a couple of my daughter's activities, and oh, that's gonna be difficult on Christie if I go.

So I just text her and I said, like, hey, here, here's the offer, and I'd like to go.

What I I you know, I saw we have this and we have that, and you know, I know it'd be more complicated for her.

And I just said, you know, like, hey, what do you think?

And she replied, you should so go.

Right?

For me, that is like love manifest.

That's spud web dunking, is what it is.

It's like Adele was singing just to me.

It was manifestation.

I already knew Christy loved me, right?

Like objectively.

I knew I knew she loved me, but man, that was manifestation, right?

Permission for me to go fish with some buddies and stand in a river and then sit on a porch in the mountains.

I mean, it's permission for that, right?

This is the manifestation of something that was already true.

Her love was already true, but you should so go.

This is manifested into my life.

Have you ever gotten sick and someone cared for you?

Right?

Like they held your hair, you know what I'm talking about?

Like that, kind of say?

Or they slept at the hospital?

Or like you you you are only moving from the bed to the toilet back to the bed, and we've all been there, and and they they brought Chick-fil-A soup over, and maybe they even dared to walk into the house to give you the soup.

Right?

A manifestation of love.

1 John 3, 8 and 10.

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.

I hope you hear that.

In this is love, not that we have loved God, but he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

So this word propitiation, big, big word, right?

Like use that one out in public.

It comes from the word halasmos, and it means the removing of sin, which repairs the relationship.

So God manifests himself into his creation, into reality, so we can know something.

That's always been true, that he loves us.

And this manifestation is Christ Jesus.

And Christ goes to the cross and he takes on all of our sin and he gives to us his righteousness, and so we're beloved.

You're beloved.

Not that we have loved him, but that he has loved us.

Verses 11 and 12, beloved.

Again, beloved, in case you missed it in verse 7.

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.

No, that word perfected doesn't mean that if you're not loving perfectly other people, all of a sudden God's love for you is not whole or complete.

That phrasing there, his love is perfected in us, it means that God's love is carried through us.

This is the point in the sermon.

If the sermon ends, you're going, okay, I'll nod along.

We're gonna love our neighbor, we're gonna love, we're gonna love our enemy, we're gonna love the city, we're gonna transform the city, we're gonna be on mission, we're gonna be, we're gonna have a calling to love, right?

Like all these great things, and we're not alone.

We cheer, we're gonna you know, we raise our hands to it, and then we go out in the parking lot and we go home, and on the way home, you yell at your spouse, you yell at your kids, you're reaching in the back, right?

Or you're selfish, or whatever, right?

It's just life.

Or you try really hard for this and you start to get exhausted along the way.

It's just a burden, right?

Like mission without belovedness is a burden.

It's law without grace.

And that's why John is weaving all of this together for us.

He's saying, Yeah, you are called to love.

That's our calling.

But the way that it is inspired and began and empowered is out of your belovedness.

Not that we have loved him, but that he has loved us.

That's why John keeps saying, beloved, beloved, beloved, beloved.

I read this quote this week, and it's about verse 10.

This is Martin Luther, 16th century theologian.

He he said this about verse 10.

I don't want to hear or know anything else about God than that he loves me.

I don't want to know anything about a wrathful God, about his judgment and anger, about hell, about death, and about damnation.

But if I do see God's wrath, I know that this drives me to the sun where I find refuge.

If I come to the sun, I also have a merciful father.

For Saint John tells us in his epistle that the Father loved me before I ever loved him or knew him, that he remitted my sin and gave me salvation.

As you've probably picked up the last few weeks, ever since Scottie Smith preached here about a month ago, I've been a little obsessed with Rembrandt's return of the prodigal, this painting, the prodigal son painting.

This is Rembrandt's painting, is actually hanging in St.

Petersburg.

One of our parishioners was there.

He's Russian, and he returned home with his son.

And this past week he sent me a picture of him standing in front of this painting, the real painting in Russia, and he's holding his hands around his son.

I don't know if he meant to do it that way.

I'm gonna talk to him about that later, but it was pretty amazing.

And if you look at this painting, what we've been talking about is how one hand is masculine, one hand has this uh this representation of the strong love of God that holds you.

And then the other hand is feminine, and it represents that tender love of God that holds you.

And then there you are.

And there I am.

You're worn out.

And you could be worn out by a religious mission or religious calling.

You could be worn out from hiding, from escaping, from performing, from pretending.

You're just done.

And Luther says, I don't want to hear anything else.

I don't want to know anything else about God than that he loves me.

Right?

He's saying that I just want to keep seeing that embrace.

I just want to behold that love.

That's what that's where chapter 3, verse 1, behold the lavish love of God.

We keep revisiting that.

That word, right?

That that word for me this week, the imagery was like arriving into a mountain village at night.

You ever arrived at the mountains at night, right?

And you don't get to see the mountains at night, and you go into your hotel or condo, wherever you're staying, little hostel, I don't know where you're staying, and you get in there and it's dark, and you go to bed and you go to sleep, and then you wake up the next morning and you're gonna walk outside, you open the door, you're going to get your coffee, you open the door, and those mountains are shooting up to a perfectly blue sky, and the sun is shining down on the snow, and you stop.

You have you're not thinking about coffee anymore, and you're just standing, you're like, whoa, whoa.

And you say, Behold.

Right, you know, you didn't say that, you never said that again.

You just go, wow.

Like a lot of times you go back in, you're like, hey, Christy, you can wake up.

Come like, come on, like, look, we gotta get out of here.

We gotta look at this.

I mean, behold this.

Wow, this is amazing.

That's that word.

That's where John is pulling all this idea of God loving us and us loving other people, is all coming out of behold, the lavish love of God.

And it is manifested for us to know in Christ Jesus.

My brothers and sisters, behold, not that we have loved God, but that He has loved us.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for this beautiful imagery in 1 John.

That is the truth.

Behold.

That helps us see, that we don't need to move on from seeing and gazing upon your beauty.

That all that you have called us to be comes out of what you have called us.

That we are your beloved, and that you have loved us long before we have ever mustered up some love towards you.

And you have loved us long before we sat in judgment on other people or we cared for them or we had compassion.

You love us when we are so caring and compassionate, and you love us when we fall short of that.

God, would you help us to set our hearts more and more and more upon the lavish love of God that all of our judgment would be transformed into compassion?

That such a difficult calling like love your brothers, love your sisters, love your neighbors, love your enemies, would begin to make sense in our hearts and minds.

God, thank you that you don't just love, but that you are love.

In Jesus' name we pray in all things.

Amen.