Our Love Reveals Our Truth

1 John 4:19–21 | Pastor Christopher Powers

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Christopher: 00:00

There's no biblical category for love for God that is marked by disobedience to God. There's just no category for that. Now, of course, we all sin. We all disobey. We all fall into that.

Christopher: 00:14

John knows that. But the point is the character of love for God is marked by the pattern of obedience to God. So that's the first very simple connection. God says, love one another. And if I love God, then I say, yes, Lord.

Christopher: 00:33

I want to obey that. I want to do that.

Caleb: 00:36

The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

Christopher: 00:51

Well, perhaps you discerned the theme of love in those songs that we were just singing, or maybe you missed it because it's one of those things that's so common for Christians to talk about. But that is what we're looking at this morning, and I pray that we would be able to break through the veil of familiarity and consider again this morning something of the love of God in Christ and its implications for us. And if you think, boy, we're talking about this a lot, that's because that's what John emphasizes as we're working through the first epistle of John. He is adamant that the love of God in Christ is the main thing for us to know about who God is, and the main response that is required from the believer, from the Christian. That's what the Christian life is.

Christopher: 01:54

So we're returning to the first epistle of John, first John chapter four. It's been one week since we were here. Pastor Sean returned us to first Samuel last week, so it's been a little bit of time since we've been in John. And just to recap briefly for you, what we looked at last time we were in this book was the concept of abiding in love or remaining in love or living in love, and we said that that had three components at least. There's the idea of abiding or remaining in God's love for us as it's displayed in Christ, abiding or remaining in our love for God, our desire for him, our longing for him.

Christopher: 02:41

So we remain in his love for us, remain in our love for him, and remain in, abide in our love for one another, our going out love toward the people around us, our practical, tangible, one another love. And we said that each one of these is interwoven and inseparable. You can't really have one of these without the other two, and that this is what it looks like to have love perfected among us. This idea of staying in God's love for us, staying in our love for him, staying in the reciprocal love for one another. And as we live in this kind of love, fear is driven out, mainly the fear of judgment, because if we are living in God's love for us, we are not afraid of judgment, which is being separated from that love, being driven away from this God, and this love also drives out ultimately all kinds of fear, because at the root of fear, as we looked at it two weeks ago, is this idea of God being against us.

Christopher: 03:49

Ultimately, when we're afraid of a future scenario, what is being left out of that future scenario is that God will be for us in it. God will be loving us in it. He will be enough for us in it. Fear conveniently leaves that element out, and so fear is driven out when we are dwelling in the love of God for us. And if we still fear, if we still have fear in us, if you're one of those strange people that still gets afraid sometimes, which is most of us I'm willing to guess, then that means there's more love to know.

Christopher: 04:25

There's deeper fathoms of love to sink down into and be and and to find for our comfort, for our peace, for the driving out of our fear. That's what we looked at last week. This week or two weeks ago. This week we're going to continue following John's thought as he lays out the necessity of love in the life of the Christian, and specifically how our love, our acted out love reveals an invisible truth about us. What I'm doing, my love, my life reveals an invisible truth about our soul upon which our lives depend, presently and for eternity.

Christopher: 05:12

So where we're gonna be this morning is in First John chapter four, starting in verse 19, and then going through to the end of the chapter. So we're gonna, Lord willing, finish the chapter this morning. This is what John writes, starting in verse 19. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar.

Christopher: 05:39

For he who does not love his brother 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. Alright. Let me pray for us. We'll look at these words together. Father, we are here in complete need of you.

Christopher: 06:12

Each of us has varying degrees of of a sense of control over different areas of our lives or our our families or situations. But, ultimately, father, all control is a grace from you and can be taken by you at any time. We are utterly in need, and we are absolutely dependent upon you whose continued and merciful word is the ground of our entire existence and every good thing we receive. And so, father, we come needy coming to you, carrying who knows what burdens, you know what burdens, carrying them before you father. And we lift them to you believing that you exist and believing that you are the one who is ready, generously ready to meet your people in their need wherever they are as they draw near to you in Christ.

Christopher: 07:16

And so, father, I pray that you would give me the grace now to speak your word faithfully in a way that is pleasing to you, in a way that is right and honoring to you, in a way that is directed by your spirit, and that you would give your people, Lord, the grace to receive it with discernment, with with the proper conviction, with the proper ability to receive what you have for them. And I pray that in all of this, father, Christ would be lifted up and given to his people as our all in all, that you'd give us Christ afresh, and that you'd conform us, father, to him afresh. Grant my words now to be the means that you would use to form Christ in us, to stamp Christ upon the wax of our soul that we would be made like him. So we look to you now, father, and we pray all these things trusting your heart is ready to do this and more because we've seen the heights and the depths and the lengths and the breadth of your overflowing generosity in Jesus Christ crucified and risen. We pray it all in his name.

Christopher: 08:34

Amen. So let's begin this morning by revisiting a text that we ended on last time, which is verse 19. This is a fundamental paradigmatic verse. It establishes principles by which we understand things. Look what it says in verse 19.

Christopher: 08:53

We love because he first loved us. That has to remain as a foundation under everything we're going to say this morning, everything we think. Because what this is saying is that any true love, any real love, any lasting, eternally significant love is sourced in, and is an expression of, a response to God's love for us in Christ. Any love that's coming from us that's real is a response to his love for us, and only exists because of his love for us. So that's critical for us to see that.

Christopher: 09:35

The entire Christian life, because remember, this Christian life is summarized as love God with all, love neighbor as self, and this is saying the entire Christian life flows from the single reality of God's inexhaustible love displayed for us at the cross. All that we're called to do, all that you are called to do in life, all that we are called to be as humans begins there, starts there, is sustained there, has its source there. So what do I live for? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do?

Christopher: 10:14

What am I supposed to be? It all begins there. The love that we're called to do that is the fulfillment of our existence, that happens because we're loved at the cross. We're loved by God at the cross. So the Christian's existence begins with the love displayed in Christ at the cross, And out of this, receiving this, out of this comes our love for God and our love for others, which is the totality of human life.

Christopher: 10:47

Love for God, love for others. Out of his love for us, these two are born. These two come forth. Now you notice I highlight those two different loves. There's the love of God for us, and then there's two loves that respond.

Christopher: 11:04

Love for God and love for others. And those are the two we're gonna be thinking about today. Those are the two that John brings before our mind and asks us to consider how they relate to each other. Because they both flow from the wellspring of God's love for us, but they're not exactly the same. They're not exactly symmetrical.

Christopher: 11:25

Love for God, love for others. In what ways are they not exactly the same? Well, think. I mean, God is uncreated, invisible, transcendent. He's beyond our conceptions.

Christopher: 11:38

He's holy. He's perfect. Loving him is one way. People are created, visible. They're not transcendent.

Christopher: 11:49

They're just like us. We're just like each other. They're sinners. There's many differences here. Loving people and loving God, it's both love, but it's different to love God and to love people.

Christopher: 12:04

There's distinction here, and we could draw out many of the different distinctions, but the one that John sets before our eyes literally in verse 20 is visibility. Oh, I'm sorry. In, yeah, the second half of verse 20, He who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And so John's saying, We can see people. We can't see God, and that makes a difference.

Christopher: 12:36

We can see people, and we can't see God. That's the distinction John's gonna work with this morning. And you might say, Well, what's the big deal? We can see people, we can't see God. Why is that a big difference?

Christopher: 12:50

Because, and we'll see this unfold as we go forward, in this visible, tangible, physical world that we live in, very often it is the case that the visible reveals the invisible. The visible reveals the invisible. If there's an invisible reality, it will be revealed through some impact or effect in the visible world. That's a principle of this created existence that we live in, and you see this with Jesus forgiving the paralyzed man. Do you remember that story?

Christopher: 13:29

A man is brought to Jesus. He's paralyzed. He can't walk, and they bring him before the Lord, and Jesus looks at him and says, My son, take heart. Your sins are forgiven. That's awesome.

Christopher: 13:42

Your sins are forgiven. But the only problem is nobody can see that. Nobody can see that the sins are forgiven. And you might say, well, this guy's just a charlatan just saying your sins are forgiven. It's easy to say your sins are forgiven because that's invisible.

Christopher: 13:58

And then Jesus follows up and says, That you might know that I have authority to forgive sins. And he says, Rise and walk. Stand up and walk. And the paralyzed man is healed, and he stands up and walks. And Jesus says, What's easier?

Christopher: 14:16

To say your sins are forgiven? That's invisible. Or to say, Stand up and walk. That's visible. You see it.

Christopher: 14:26

And so Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven. I've done the invisible healing, and now I will prove it. I will reveal it. I will show it by bringing about the visible healing, by raising this man up and giving him the ability to walk. The invisible healing of his soul is revealed through the visible healing of his body.

Christopher: 14:50

That's what Jesus does there when he heals the paralytic. And that's just one example of if a thing is there invisibly, it appears visibly. Think of James where he says, You say you have faith? Show me by your works. Same kind of idea.

Christopher: 15:03

You say there's this invisible thing here? Show me with the visible actions of your life. The visible in this world is revealing the invisible, and of course, this principle is grounded in the incarnation where the invisible God is made visible in Christ. Now John's thinking along these same lines, and what he's saying here is it's easy to say, I love God. Very easy, dangerously easy, honestly, to say, I love God, to sing about loving God.

Christopher: 15:36

Not too hard to do that. Not too hard to feel like we love God when we're listening to worship music or sitting over our Bible studying in the morning with a cup of coffee, you feel like, boy, I just love the Lord so much. That's not that hard, but that's proven. The reality of that is revealed by the actual lived visible love for other people. My love for the invisible God is revealed by my love for visible people around me.

Christopher: 16:10

That's what John is saying. And he's saying, if that love for the visible person around you isn't there, don't tell me about your love for the invisible person. It's not true, in fact. See what he said? He goes further and says, It's actually not even true.

Christopher: 16:28

If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. It's just a principle. You can't do it. You can't do it.

Christopher: 16:44

So if I'm saying I love God, the proof of that, the test of that, the revelation of the truth of that will be love for other people in our lives. And John essentially says, Don't come to me telling me how much you love God if you aren't loving the people around you in your life, because the invisible love is revealed and shown in the visible act of loving. Again, one more time, verse 20. If anyone says, I love God, I love God, and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

Christopher: 17:30

Now, one clarification here, and you've probably heard this in biblical things before. When John says hate here, whoever says I love God and hates his brother, he's not so much thinking of this active animosity just like, ugh, do I hate that person? That's not so much what he's thinking of. He's thinking more of withholding love from them, and we see it in the way he follows up. Whoever says, I love God, but hates his brother is a liar.

Christopher: 18:03

For he who You'd think he'd say, For he who hates his brother. But he says, For he who does not love his brother whom he has not seen cannot love God whom he has seen. So when he says hate, he's not thinking of this active animosity. Rather, he's thinking of this cold withholding. He's thinking of the one who is able, able to love, sees an opportunity to love, has the capacity to do it, and yet closes his or her heart, that's the hatred I'm talking about.

Christopher: 18:40

That's the lack of love that I'm talking about. We have the time. Of course, it's a sacrifice, but we've got the time. We've got the finances. We've got the energy.

Christopher: 18:49

We've got the fullness, and there's the need, and we say, No. No. I'm not gonna inconvenience myself. And John says, That is not loving our brothers. That's hating our brother or our sister.

Christopher: 19:03

And if that marks us k. We we all do that. Not saying it doesn't happen, but he's saying if that marks us, if that's our if that's our character, then don't say you love God. Because if you're not loving your brother whom you do see, you can't love God whom you cannot see. And he goes further, and he says, in fact, the one who's speaking that way is a liar, is a liar.

Christopher: 19:26

To say, I love God, but my life isn't loving others, John says liar. And that's a heavy word. That's a heavy word nowadays. If you say, You're a liar, that's weighty. But it means even more for John, because when John talks about a liar here, he's not just thinking of somebody who twists or distorts or hides the truth.

Christopher: 19:50

He has a very technical concept in mind, and you find it back in chapter two verse 22. This is what he says. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. So in John's vocabulary, liar means denier of Jesus Christ.

Christopher: 20:21

Somebody who is denying that Jesus came in the flesh, died on the cross, rose again, and is Lord and God. When John says liar, he means denier of Christ. Denier of Christ. And so denier of God. And here he says, If you say you love God, but you don't love others, you're that.

Christopher: 20:47

You're a liar. You're a denier of Christ. And you might say, Woah, okay. Wait a second. That's a bit much, right?

Christopher: 20:57

That's a little intense. To say I love God, and yet not love other Christians means I'm denying Jesus Christ? If I just told you I love him, how could I be denying him just because I don't love other people around me? And John says, That's exactly what I'm saying. If we are not loving those around us, we are in fact denying Christ.

Christopher: 21:23

We're denying him. So if you might say, perhaps you've heard this, perhaps we've said this, I love God. I love the beauty of the gospel. I love theology. I love truth.

Christopher: 21:37

I love just getting into it. I love it. I can't stand the sinful, frustrating, inconvenient people who are around me, ungrateful, unglamorous. I just I can't stand people, but I love God so much. That is a very easy thing to say.

Christopher: 22:01

And John would say, if you say that, you're a liar. Meaning, you're denying that Jesus is the Christ. You're denying Jesus is the Christ. How could that be? How could that be?

Christopher: 22:14

Well, think about this. The true God the true God is the one who reveals himself in the death of Christ for whom? Why? Remember the center of what we believe is the death of the risen Christ. Why is Jesus on the cross?

Christopher: 22:34

For the sinful, ungrateful, frustrating, inconvenient people, for you and me. That's why he's on the cross. That's what he's doing on the cross, and a Christian confesses that that moment is not just peripheral to God. A Christian confesses that that moment is not just one of the things, incidental. A Christian confesses that moment is where God declares, I am this.

Christopher: 23:08

I am this. That's what we confess, Christian. We don't pass the cross on our way to theological glories. We live at the cross where all the theological glories orbit the glorious one revealed in his beauty. So we're confessing God is the one revealed in and as the love for tangible broken sinners on the cross.

Christopher: 23:38

And if in my life I'm saying, I love that God, but I'm not loving the people around me, My life is denying him. My words are saying Jesus died for us, but my life is saying, actually, no, he didn't. Actually, I don't believe that. I don't believe I don't believe that God is the one who is displayed in love for the needy because I'm actually not loving the needy. That's what John's saying.

Christopher: 24:12

A life that does not reciprocate, that is not reflecting the love of the cross is actually denying the cross. That's why he calls them a liar. That's why he calls them a liar. So we all rightfully recoil from someone who would stand up and say, Jesus is just a man, and he died, and he didn't rise again, and he's not Lord. We would all say, You're denying the faith.

Christopher: 24:43

Rightfully so. But if somebody says all the right things, and yet stays behind the security blanket of their own comfort, and does not love the brothers and sisters, does not give and serve and love those around them, their life is making that same denial. Their life is actually saying, God did not take on flesh. God did not pour himself out. My God is not the one defined by love for those who are in need.

Christopher: 25:16

He's not that. If my life isn't reflecting it, I'm denying it. So there's a saying perhaps you've heard, and it's true orthodoxy, which means right belief or right worship, right faith, true orthodoxy is declared through true orthopraxy, which means right practice, right living, right actions. So the right belief is displayed through the reciprocal action, the right action, and John is saying your love for God is revealed in your love for others, and to claim we love him and not love others is to deny that he is the one revealed at the cross. Now when I got to this point in preparing this sermon, all I could really think was, Lord, have mercy.

Christopher: 26:16

Have mercy. Because I know my heart to an extent, and the little bit I know of it makes it clear to me that if this depended on me, I'd be without hope. I'd be lost. I'd be damned. If it all came back to me, if I heard all this, and my response was, okay, I've got to go out and try to love harder, try to love harder to prove that I love God, that's a self defeating loop that we might get into when we hear this.

Christopher: 26:52

We should feel the weight of it, but the weight shouldn't be, I gotta go work. The weight should be, God have mercy on me. Lord have mercy on me. And it should drive us back of course to his love, because remember, what's being commanded of us here is love others. That's what John says is necessary.

Christopher: 27:15

We've got to be loving others, and that love for others starts with knowing his love for us. So this should drive us back, drive us back to the cross where the love of God in Christ mercifully says to us, you know what? You're worse than you ever thought. You're worse than you ever thought. You're more of a mess than you ever thought.

Christopher: 27:39

Your situation is more dire than you ever dared imagined, but you're loved beyond what you could possibly grasp. You are loved beyond what you would dare to hope by a God who excels beyond your wildest understandings of greatness and power and glory. That's what the love of the cross does. It tears us to the ground and says, it's okay, because that's where that's where I'm able to gather you to myself. That's where I'm able to gather you to myself.

Christopher: 28:18

Coming to the cross, the love of God at the cross, this phrase kept coming to my mind of dying into his love, dying into the love of God in Christ at the cross. What do I mean by that? I mean just the whole thing we're trying to build, the whole thing we call myself, that we're trying to keep polished, and trying to prop up, and trying to make sure it looks good enough, and trying to make sure everybody knows the right things about it, and this facade of self, let the whole thing collapse into Christ. Just let the whole thing die into his love and rest in the statement, I'm worse. I am.

Christopher: 29:08

And beneath that, I'm loved. I'm loved by this God, and therefore all is well, and all will be well because of this love. And then living there, living there, being done with trying to polish the self up so it looks good enough, and letting the whole thing just be overcome like a sand castle by the tidal wave of love pouring from the cross, then from that we love others. We can overflow into love for others. So we hear this, and we say, wow, what do we do?

Christopher: 29:46

Die into love, and secondly, pray for opportunities to love. Think of love like a muscle. It's got to be stretched. It's got to be broken down. It's got to be tested a little bit, and pray, Lord, give me opportunities to love that are going to stretch me.

Christopher: 30:02

Give me the chance to love someone that's going to When it hits me, it feels like that's inconvenient. That's not what I want to do right now. Give me those opportunities, Lord, and then give me the grace to do them, To do them. Pray for them. Pray that he begins to stretch that that ability to love.

Christopher: 30:21

Now moving toward the end, let me ask a question here that is John's assuming in his text, but I think it'd be helpful for us to see it more clearly. Why? Why is it the case that our love for others reveals the truth or the falsity of our love for God? Why is there even a connection there? Why does it even matter how I relate to you or how you relate to me?

Christopher: 30:47

Isn't our relationship to God personal and invisible and spiritual? It doesn't matter. Why should it matter how I relate to you, How you relate to me? Why should that have any bearing on my love for God? Well, two quick things as we're wrapping up.

Christopher: 31:04

First, and most simply, there's a connection between love for others and love for God because God commands that we love others. You see there in verse 21? This is the commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must love his brother or his brother and his sister. And then in John 14, we get something very similar to this where Jesus gives us this principle, John 14 verse 15, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Christopher: 31:39

So the first connection is just God commands us to love one another, and if we love God, we obey him. So if we're obeying his commands, it shows that we love him. If we're disobeying his commands, it shows that we don't love him. That's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. There's no biblical category for love for God that is marked by disobedience to God.

Christopher: 32:05

There's just no category for that. Now, of course, we all sin. We all disobey. We all fall into that. John knows that, but the point is the character of love for God is marked by the pattern of obedience to God.

Christopher: 32:20

So that's the first very simple connection. God says, love one another. And if I love God, then I say, yes, Lord. I want to obey that. I want to do that.

Christopher: 32:32

Help me do that. That's the first way there's a connection. The second way there's a connection is one we already touched on earlier, and we'll just press into it a tiny bit more here at the end, is this. Remember, in this world, the physical very often reveals the spiritual. The material very often reveals the immaterial, and this is all based upon the incarnation where the flesh of the word reveals the invisible God.

Christopher: 33:04

Because the visible Christ who is the revelation of the invisible father is at the center of all things, reality is such that visible things reveal invisible things. It's like this. Think about matter visibility as the road that the spiritual tire meets. You know, you say the rubber meets the road. Well, the spiritual tire meets the road when it touches matter, when it touches the physical world.

Christopher: 33:33

Think of a martial artist who's always talking about his skill. Oh, yeah, I'm really good at Oh, yeah, I have this many degrees. Oh, yeah, I can do this. Always talking about his ability and his advanced knowledge. Great.

Christopher: 33:46

But guess what? That's proven when the ethereal talk about how skilled he is comes up against the material reality of a sparring partner. That's when everything you said is going to be proven right here. The visible is going to be proven with the or the invisible is going to be proven with the visible. So too everything we say about love for God, obedience to God, affections for God, desire for God, that's tested.

Christopher: 34:17

That's tested in the arena of other people. It's proven to be true or false in the arena of others where we come up against each other. The the inconvenient reality of other people is where the love for God is tested, is proven, is shown to be true or not. How do I respond to others? And this is because, like I just said, God has become a human being.

Christopher: 34:50

You think about that? I mean, we all believe in the incarnation. We just came through Christmas. God has become a human being. God has become a man, which means the human being is the best picture of God that we have.

Christopher: 35:08

God is saying, you want to know what I'm like? Look at the people around you. That's I have made other I have made the human being my image by taking on flesh in Jesus Christ. Because of the incarnation, God has said of human nature, it's mine. I count it as mine.

Christopher: 35:33

In Christ, human nature belongs to God, belongs to God, and the human being is the true image of God. So when we look around people around us, we see images of God. When you look around at these people, sometimes we can think of people as one of the you know, they're they're everywhere. And my time is worth more. My money is worth more.

Christopher: 36:05

My job is worth more. My goals are worth more. My purposes are worth more. My plans are worth more. No.

Christopher: 36:13

One person, one person is worth more than all that. And you know that. We all know that. But feel it. One image bearer.

Christopher: 36:26

One human being is an image of God. A picture of God, one who has the same nature as God because God made human nature his own. And they, that, you, we, that not only are they valuable, but that shows our heart toward God. Imagine you walk along. Think about husbands.

Christopher: 36:50

You're you're walking, and you see a picture of your wife laying there on the ground. You say, step on it and keep going. That would not be a good sign. That would not be a good sign. You see a picture of your wife, and you say, what's doing it on the ground?

Christopher: 37:03

You lift it up, put it somewhere honorable. Well, when we walk around, we we're all pictures of God. And when you see another person, you think, too bad for them. Glad that's not me. Glad I don't have to deal with that.

Christopher: 37:18

We're saying that to God. That's his picture. That's his image. That's his face. And we're we're we're saying it's showing.

Christopher: 37:27

Do you really love God? Because there's his image. There he is. There's his picture. And the reason that's his image, the reason that's his picture is because of the incarnation.

Christopher: 37:37

Jesus made that true. Jesus showed us that that was true, and this is especially true for Christians. Okay. There's an application for all people, and you see that in the Gospels, but John is emphasizing this is especially true for Christians, because Christians, we don't just bear the image of God and the nature that God has made his own through the incarnation, we do, but we're also united to him by the Holy Spirit. You are members of his body, Christian.

Christopher: 38:10

Every Christian around you is a member of God's body, like his hands or his feet or his eyes, and what we're doing to one another shows our heart to him. I mean, his his look around you after service. Look at the people around you. These are members of the body of God in Christ, and I cannot, I dare not say to one of you, Not going to help. Sorry.

Christopher: 38:43

Too hard. Not going to do it. And then go home and say, Lord, I love you so much. He's going to say, Well, then why when my hand was crushed in that vice, didn't you loosen it for me? Why when my hand was freezing cold, did you not bring it in and warm it up?

Christopher: 39:01

Why are you here telling me you love me so much when you saw my body in need and did nothing? And that's the way our relationship to one another reveals our heart to God. And let me say here, I'm not a rebuking pastor right now. I think Kingstree does this well. I'm grateful for the love that I see here.

Christopher: 39:22

I've benefited from it so much. But I I want to call us to this continually to realize, and calling myself to it, that this is proven by this. This can often exceed this. We can run ahead with our idea of love for God and forget about this. And John says, hold on.

Christopher: 39:46

Love for God, it's proven by love for others. So may he give us grace to grow in these things. If we are truly in Christ, Christ like love for others is not optional. It is the natural and necessary fruit of the evidence of our love for God. It is the revelation that the love for God is actually there.

Christopher: 40:07

Now let's end back where we started in chapter four verse 19. This is what I wanna leave you with. We love because he first loved us. So every command to love ought to send us back to, okay. I need to know this love better.

Christopher: 40:26

I need to know this love better. Because the command to love, which we've all been given today afresh, is like taking a little dried out clay vessel and saying, fill up other vessels. Well, this one's empty. This one has nothing but dust in it. This empty clay vessel can't fill up other vessels unless it's been filled.

Christopher: 40:47

So imagine that clay vessel now underneath a spring of water that's just continually flowing. You put the clay vessel under it. It fills up. It overflows. It pours down into others, into others, into others.

Christopher: 41:01

That's the kind of love that we're called to do. Not, hey, try to invent some kind of water out of the dryness of your soul. No. Set it under that love. Let it be filled.

Christopher: 41:12

Let it overflow into into others. So may we bring the clay vessels of our soul first and continually under the torrent of love pouring down from God's open heart on Calvary. Remain there. Live there. Live there.

Christopher: 41:31

Live there. And then overflowing from this, may we love others. And how do we remain there? How do we remain under that torrent? Well, like we said last time we were here, his word, prayer, fellowship with others, song, meditation on the cross, but one of the main ways, coming to this table, which we're about to do now together.

Christopher: 41:59

This is a way to receive his love from which we love others. Because Christian, when you come by faith to this table, we are coming to the God who loves us in Christ from the cross. When we receive these elements by faith as by grace we're about to do, we truly are receiving afresh that same love from the cross, that same Christ given for us. By grace, he is here ready through the spirit to say, again, I am for you. Again, this is for you.

Christopher: 42:40

Again, my life poured out and my body broken for you. So in this is love. Here is that love that is the center of reality and the purpose of all things and the source and goal of our existence. Here is that love made manifest to us in this image of the bread and of the cup, which reflects the body broken and the blood poured out. So in this is love, on this table, which is also like the cross, which is also like the throne.

Christopher: 43:13

Here is our Lord and our God given for us in love, so may we come and receive. May we know and believe this love, and being loved here, may we increasingly love one another's one another, and so show that we do in fact love him. Let me pray for us, and then we'll come up and take the Lord's Supper together. Father, if it were our own strength, you know, Lord, every one of us would be proven a liar. Every one of us would be proven false.

Christopher: 43:55

But, Lord, it is your grace. It is your grace that begins this. It is your grace that sustains this. It is your grace that brings us through to the end because our love comes only from your love for us. So I pray, father, that I would be and that we would be a people who increasingly daily know the love you've displayed on the cross, the love you have given from the cross in Christ.

Christopher: 44:26

And, Lord, that we would therefore be made increasingly those who really do love one another, really do give themselves for one another. You are doing this in this church, father. Mercifully, you're doing this, and we pray continue to do it more and more for our joy, for your glory, and that the world might know that Jesus Christ is your son whom you've sent for the salvation of all. We pray these things, father, in his name. Amen.

Caleb: 44:56

Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.