FHBC Sermon Notes

Scripture: 1 John 4:7-21
The question of the day, "Do I love the church, do we truly love one another?"

1. We love others because God is love. (4:7-8, 16)
Love is not simply an action that God does, it is an attribute of him. The way that God acts and reveals himself, he does in love, because it is him. This does not override his other attributes. He is still holy, therefore his is a holy love. He is just, his is a just love. He is merciful, his is a merciful love. He is steadfast, his is a steadfast love.

So what exactly is love?
Culture might say, love is a feeling. We describe it by how it makes us feel. We say we are in love by how a person makes us feel. But this is not love. God's love is a giving of oneself, which is always for the good of the other.
John 17:4, 14:31 - Love is first demonstrated to us in the trinity. In the love of the Father for the Son, and the Son for the Father.

2. We love others because God has shown his love to us. (4:9-11,19)
V. 9-12 He demonstrates this love to us, in his Son, and in turn we are to love one another.
The bible speaks of the incarnation as a humility. Jesus gave up all to be manifest among us. He became a servant to us that we might know truly the love of God.
But the greatest act was that he became our propitiation for all the evil that we had done. God could not just set aside his holiness and overlook all the evil of the world, he instead loved in the most sacrificial way, laying down his life for us.

3. We love others because we have an abiding relationship with God. (4:12,16)
We have been born anew as children of God. We have a new relationship with him. One that abides or remains, dwells in with Him, and he with us. We live with God, and he lives with us.

We think of love is such selfish terms, that this is difficult for us. But the only way we are in him is to love him, to serve him, that our joy may be the pleasure of being with him. We are to love what he loves. Which means we are to love one another.

4. We love others because the Holy Spirit is actively at work in us.
We accomplish nothing outside the power of the Holy Spirit.

5. We love others because we confess Christ as Lord. (4:14-16, 20)
If we confess, then we are pledging to walk in his way. That way is that we are to love one another. Jesus lived so that he might give his life for his friends,

6. We love others because God's love is perfected in us. (4:17-18)
We are not yet fully complete, but we do know that he is working in us to conform us to his image. We do see the fruit of this.

How does God's love perfect us?
V. 17 It gives us confidence. Not because of our own work, the quality and value we give it, but because Christ has down the work, and it using that to transform, to present us as clean and righteous before God for those that rare in Him,.
V. 18 It purges fear. We know longer have a fear for one another.

7. We love overs because God has commanded it. (4:20-21)
No matter how strange, weird, difficult, annoying are fellow brothers and sisters are, God has commanded us to love them. When we do is, we are making a statement about our love for God. How it is possible for us to say to God, "no Lord." In that moment we make ourselves lord.

20 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.
21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

This challenge is from God. Point 4 give us the how, the strength.

So here is the question, "Do I love the church, do we truly love one another?"