Wrath and Love

1 John 4:7–10 | Pastor Christopher Powers

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Christopher: 00:00

How do you survive the wrath of God? One thing. The love of God. You survive the wrath of God through the love of God. You survive the tornado of wrath that is barreling towards you by somehow passing through that tornado itself into the eye at the center.

Christopher: 00:20

You don't run from the tornado. It's gonna destroy you. You stand there and say, okay. Somehow in there is mercy and you are brought through the raging wind of wrath into the heart of mercy. That's the only way to survive.

Caleb: 00:34

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. We

Christopher: 00:50

are going to be back in first John. So this is my last sermon of the month. Pastor Sean will be beginning a new series for his his series next weekend. So we were today we're going to be kind of wrapping out a certain area of John's thought in first John chapter four. So if you recall, the last few weeks, the main thing we've been looking at is this idea of discernment.

Christopher: 01:21

So John has been calling his readers to discern between the truth about Christ and the lie. That's what we've seen the last few weeks. Discern between the truth about Christ and the lie. And now John's going to shift to talking about what it looks like to live that truth. Because as we see all throughout John's gospel and this epistle and really throughout the New Testament, truth is not merely a matter of discerning which one is right or wrong.

Christopher: 01:52

Truth touches upon how we live. There there is no knowing the truth apart from a living of the truth because if it's not being lived out it's not truly known. And so John now is moving from this concept of discern between the truth and the lie to the necessary element of okay and live the truth that you've discerned to be true. Live that in your life. So it's going to be first John chapter four looking at verses seven through 10.

Christopher: 02:22

Let me read it for you this morning. So he says this, beloved let us love one another. So he comes right off of discern the truth into live the truth. 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.

Christopher: 02:50

And 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. So unsurprisingly if you've been following along with John, the way we live the truth to which we're called is through love. Now before you say, oh we've heard that before.

Christopher: 03:26

I've heard that a number of times in this series. That's true, but it's because John's emphasizing it. It's because we need to hear it. And if you follow John's logic today, you can find some interesting things. So just to lay out the logic of the passage, here's what we see.

Christopher: 03:42

He begins with a call to love. You see that pretty clearly in verse seven. Let us love one another. So there's this command love. And then he grounds that call in who God is.

Christopher: 03:54

Love. Why? Because love is from God and God himself is love. So he first commands love, and then he says here's why. Love is divine.

Christopher: 04:05

Love is from God. And in fact, God himself is love. And then he presses down to say, okay. Now let me explain to you that love that God is. What's the love that God is looks like?

Christopher: 04:17

Well, two things. It is shown in the sending of Jesus Christ so that we might live, and then deepest of all he says, in fact this is love. Here it is. This is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as a propitiation for our sins.

Christopher: 04:37

So the central command, that's the main thing for today, is the command to love as we've been loved. And then he digs down, digs down into this deeper and deeper and deeper. Now first to say, I hope we know from the sermons that have come before. When John says to love as we've been loved by Jesus, he's not saying we need to go and die for the sins of the world. We can't love in exactly the same way.

Christopher: 05:05

But what he is saying is consider the passion of Christ to be the palette, the palette with the paints on it, the palette of your life. And all that you do should be drawn from that palette. We should paint the images of our life, the images of our day. We should paint our life from the palette of Christ's passion. That's where we're drawing from.

Christopher: 05:29

I do these things. I live this way. I act this way because I'm drawing from the colors of his passion, the character displayed in his death and his resurrection. That's what we're called to do. But then John, that's what we've seen a lot of times during this series, then John presses down deeper and he grounds that command in who God is, and he passes through these unfolding layers.

Christopher: 05:54

You could think of it as this opening of doors. Love one another because love is from God. In fact love is God, and love is seen in the sending of Christ. And in fact love is this reality that we see in first John four ten. So it's almost like when the high priest would pass into the holy of holies, he would go through these veils entering deeper and deeper in until he got to the holiest place, the inner sanctum.

Christopher: 06:22

And that's kind of what we have here this morning. We're passing into the inner sanctum, the holy of holies, opening every veil and seeing at the center, this is what love is. This is the character of love. This is the love that God himself is. Now since we've already talked quite a bit about John's command for us to love, what I wanna do this morning is press into that concept of love.

Christopher: 06:49

Go with John as it were into the holy of holies where he says here's what love is. Here's the essence of what love is and in fact this love is who God is. So that's what I wanna look at this morning because whoever God is is what we're made for, what we're hungering for, what we're seeking after, whether or not we know it. What we're going to see today is the character and the quality of that for which we were made. He for whom we were made.

Christopher: 07:19

So let me pray for us and then we'll look at this more closely together. Father we thank you for your faithfulness to us. Lord I thank you that you are here present, not dependent upon how deeply your people feel you to be present, not dependent upon how well the worship songs are performed or how well my words come across, but you are here in the gathering of your people and we know father that it is your will that you would be exalted, that you would glorify your name. We know that it is your will that where we are holding rebellion and unbelief that these things would be overturned and you would bring us to faith and you'd bring us to dependence upon Christ and that your excellence father, your surpassing beauty would be known in Christ and so father we ask that this is what you would work in our midst this morning. Here as I preach, downstairs as your as the children are receiving your word taught, afterwards Lord as fellowship takes place, meet us we pray and glorify your name.

Christopher: 08:37

And come now and give me grace father to unfold these words with a clarity, a specificity, a weightiness that is fitting to the truth that they reveal. We look to you for all that we need father. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Okay.

Christopher: 08:55

Well, let's look. Let's go with John into this deepest place and ask the text, what is love? What is love? I don't wanna ask Hallmark. I don't wanna ask Disney.

Christopher: 09:08

I don't wanna ask my own ideas. What is love? That's what I wanna know. And we see it there in first John four ten. In this is love.

Christopher: 09:20

What? What's he say? Not not that we love God, but that he loved us. Okay. That's where I wanna stop to begin with.

Christopher: 09:32

Now you might say, that's obvious. We're talking about God's love. Of course, it's that he loved us. But think about what John's doing here when he says, in this is this is the essence of love. Not that we loved, but that he loved us.

Christopher: 09:48

What John is saying here is that love is fundamentally not something that begins with us. Love, the essence of love, does not start with me or with you. Love doesn't originate in us. Love's native soil, you might say, is not our soul. It's been planted there.

Christopher: 10:09

It's been brought there. We are not the sources of love, and that's good news because think if this was switched around. Imagine if John said, in this is love that we loved God. That would then put the weight of love on our shoulders. We're the ones who start it.

Christopher: 10:30

We're the ones from whom it comes. We're the ones with who it begins. And if that were the case, love could only go as deep as our own souls could reach. If this said, here's the essence of love, that we did something, then love can only be as deep as we can go. If it said, here's the essence of love, that we did something, then the existence of love would depend on us, and love would become a burden that we had to carry.

Christopher: 10:57

If love begins with here's what you did, then love is on your shoulders and you're carrying it. You're carrying the weight of it. And I think many people do labor under such a burden of love. Whether knowing it or not, whether it's concerning God or based on how we think about God concerning the love of others for us, think many people would, whether they say it or not, believe that love needs to start with something I do. Love need if I'm going to be loved, I need to do something.

Christopher: 11:32

I need to prove it. I need to earn it. I need to show that I'm worthy of it. In this is love that I did something. I got it started.

Christopher: 11:42

I got the ball rolling. That could be that's kind of a natural way to think about it. But this says, no. Exactly the opposite. In this is love, not that you did anything.

Christopher: 11:53

It it it didn't start with you at all. It started with God. Not you, but God. Not me loving God, but God taking the initiative and loving me. So one implication of that for us, if we really take that into our soul, okay, love, this thing that we're made for, this thing that humans need to run, love in its most essential form isn't something that I do, but it's something I receive.

Christopher: 12:24

If we get that, if we get that, one thing that it does is is changes how we think about ourselves. We are not primarily those who do something. We're primarily those who receive something. We we are not primarily those who go out and love and make other people love us because of what we've done. We're primarily those who first receive love, first receive fullness, first take in what is needful, and only out of that are able to love.

Christopher: 12:57

So this teaches us not to think of ourselves mainly as a person who does this, this, and this. Like if you were just to say, who am I? You know, in your mind, who am I? Do you start thinking of the things I've done or what I've received. And this would say, here the essence of the love that we live for and and therefore the the way to think about ourselves is not primarily I'm the one who did this, this, this, this, and this.

Christopher: 13:27

Therefore, I have this. We primarily think about ourself as I'm the one who received this, this, this, namely the love of God. That's who I am. I'm I'm not one who did so that they were loved. I'm one who has received love.

Christopher: 13:44

That's my essential nature because that's what love is because that's who God is. And it's only from that humble posture of receptivity. I'm first a receiver. I'm not first a doer. I'm not first an earner.

Christopher: 14:00

I'm first a receiver. And it's that humble posture that is able to find love and actually be loved. If I start with I'm a doer, I make things happen, I I earn, I'm going to miss love. Like a man looking for a waterfall in a desert, I'm going to miss it because I'm starting with a presupposition I earn. But if I start with a presupposition I receive, then that puts me under the waterfall pouring down from Calvary.

Christopher: 14:35

And that's where we are loved and that's where we're able to be filled up so that we can love. So the first thing we see about love, which is who God is, which is who we exist for, the first thing we see about it is it doesn't begin with us. It begins with him. Everything's beginning with him. We receive and he pours out.

Christopher: 14:57

So love begins with God, but then what does it look like? What does this amorphous concept we've been talking about called love look like? Well, look again at verse 10. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us. Okay?

Christopher: 15:15

Now he's gonna start clarifying what this love is like. And sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. So the the essence of what love is is located there in that word sent. God loved us, and what did he do? Sent.

Christopher: 15:36

Sent. That's the idea. Okay? What happens when you send something? Just think about it on a human level.

Christopher: 15:44

When we send something, it goes away from us. It goes out from us. We're we're releasing it, and we're releasing it to someone. It's not just out there who whatever. It's sent.

Christopher: 15:58

It's going from me to an object, to someone. And this says God has sent. The love of God sends. It it gives. This is confirming something we've seen all throughout this epistle so far.

Christopher: 16:16

Love is defined by an outward motion, a going out, a sending out, a pouring out, a spending, or here a sending. So there's this irreducible outward motion to love. Okay? So love begins with God, and it begins with God pouring out. It begins with God sending out.

Christopher: 16:40

Sending what? Sending what? In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son. His son. We saw this morning a beautiful picture of a father with his sons and the preciousness of that, the weight of that, the love a father has for his son.

Christopher: 17:04

And so it's already staggering to think the father this is love. The father sends his son. Anyone, any father's heart would say to send a son is to send my whole heart. To send to send my whole self. But we see that even more so in this sending because who is the son?

Christopher: 17:29

If we're talking about our faith, when we talk about Jesus Christ as the son of God, who is he? He is the fullness of the father. So don't think in your mind, you know, there's God, the the the glorious kind of distant man up here, and then he sends his son to go kind of do his dirty work and get his hands dirty and suffer and God stays back here. No. That is the wrong way to think.

Christopher: 17:56

The son is fully God. That's that's what we confess as Christians. The son of God is the fullness of his father. Such that Jesus is able to say in John sixteen fifteen, all the father has is mine. Everything in the father is in me.

Christopher: 18:19

He can say in John fourteen nine, if you've seen me, you've seen the father. There's there's there's if you've seen me, says Jesus, then you've seen my father. His fullness is here. Or in John fourteen ten, I am in the father and the father is in me. So in other words, when God sends his son, don't think of him as sending something even even the most precious of all his possessions, the most precious of all his relationships.

Christopher: 18:50

When the father sends his son, the father is sending all that he is. That needs to be clear in our mind. When God sends the son of God, all that God is comes. There is nothing in the father except for being a father that is not in the son. All that the father is is in the son.

Christopher: 19:16

So when God sends his son, he sends all of himself. Don't think. Don't have that vision in your mind where it's like God is the mean grumpy one who wants to destroy us and he sends the nice Jesus to come and do the work that he wasn't willing to do. No. God is fully in the Son.

Christopher: 19:34

So in sending the Son, he sends all that he is. In this then is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and gave everything he is. Gave his very heart. Gave his whole being in Jesus Christ.

Christopher: 19:56

Nothing. Just may the Lord give us grace to recognize this. He has withheld nothing. There is nothing that God is or has that he has not given to us dustborne, rebellious, hellbound creatures in Jesus Christ. He gives all that he has.

Christopher: 20:21

Look up at the night sky and see the beauty radiating above us that just dwarfs us to nothing. That's something that God said. But what is greater? What someone says or their very self? Certainly themselves.

Christopher: 20:40

The whole universe is what God says, but in Jesus he gives his very self. There is nothing that he withholds. Nothing that he holds back. Nothing that he keeps and says well not this. All is given to us when Christ is given to us.

Christopher: 20:58

That's that's a staggering thing to consider. And it reshapes a life if we hold fast to it, if we understand it. If you are loved with that kind of love, if the creator of the universe loves you with that kind of love, what can we not weather? What can we not walk through? What can we not be supported through?

Christopher: 21:21

Not that it's easy. It certainly isn't. But if such love is for us, when we look to God, we meet that love, What can he what can that love not carry us through? Trust in it. Depend on it.

Christopher: 21:37

Find it to be able to support us. And it says he sent his son, how? As a propitiation for our sin. He sent his son to be the propitiation for our sin. Okay.

Christopher: 21:51

Propitiation. What? He sent him as what? Propitiation is a fancy word. It's a theological word.

Christopher: 22:00

It basically means atonement or more specifically here, wrath absorbing sacrifice. Propitiation is the idea of a wrath absorbing sacrifice. So just as a shield is lifted up and it bears the arrows that were coming at us so that we are preserved, so too a propitiation is lifted up and it bears the wrath that was coming at us so that we are preserved. That's that's the idea of a propitiation. Now I'll give you a quick example from the Old Testament.

Christopher: 22:39

In Exodus chapter 32, Moses is up on Sinai receiving the 10 commandments. And while he's there, the people make a golden calf. Remember you maybe remember this story from Sunday school. You see the flannel graph of the golden calf. But it was a deadly serious thing because they were making a false god and worshiping it.

Christopher: 23:03

And Yahweh sees this and here's what he says to Moses. Exodus 32 verse nine. The Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people and behold it stiff is necked people, rebellious, going their own way like our verse says we all have done. It is a stiff necked people. Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you.

Christopher: 23:34

So God essentially says, Moses get out of my way. I'm going to destroy these people because of their sin and in wrath. And then a few verses later Moses goes down to the people and he says to them, you have sinned, this is verse 30, you have sinned a great sin and now I will go up to the Lord. Perhaps I can make atonement or propitiation for your sin. That word atonement is just the verb version of the word we have in first John.

Christopher: 24:04

So Moses says, God is wrathful against you for sin, but maybe I can go up and make a propitiation for you. Okay? So what's this propitiation look like that Moses wants to do? Next verse. Verse 31.

Christopher: 24:23

So Moses returned to the Lord and said, alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold, but now if you will, forgive their sin. But if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written. So Moses says, take me. Let me be damned.

Christopher: 24:44

Let me be condemned. If if if if you aren't going to forgive them, then let me be counted with them and die in their place, is the idea that Moses is saying here. Now Moses isn't able to do this. The Lord doesn't accept it. The Lord says, look, I will blot out of my book those who sin against me.

Christopher: 25:03

Don't worry about it Moses. God does in fact forgive the people, but it's because in that forgiveness he's looking forward to what Jesus is going to do. But the point of the text here is look at the shape. This is the shape of propitiation to say I will be counted among the condemned people and condemned for them. That's this idea of propitiation.

Christopher: 25:26

I will bear the wrath that they are due. We see that here. We see that in the sacrificial system and John tells us that's what that's what the fullness of God comes to do in Jesus Christ. Now to understand this we need to take a brief detour here. We need to take a detour into the concept of wrath.

Christopher: 25:48

Because if a wrath, if propitiation is a wrath absorbing sacrifice, if Moses goes up and says I will take the wrath they are due, if Jesus comes as a wrath bearing sacrifice for us, And if that's where love is found, then we need to ask what's wrath? What's wrath? What's this concept? So take a moment to look at it. We could say without doing a full bible overview here, a simple biblical definition of wrath would be this.

Christopher: 26:23

Wrath is God's intentional and personal opposition to all that opposes him. Wrath is God's intentional and personal opposition to all that opposes him. I'm take that briefly piece by piece. Wrath is intentional. So when humans get angry typically there's the experience of being carried along by anger.

Christopher: 26:52

You snap and you're just like taken along by it. And then eventually, you know, your head clears and you think, well why did I why would I do that? And and it's like being jerked around by this passion. That's not how God's wrath works. He it's it's not that he's just overwhelmed by it and he can't handle it anymore, and he's moved by his passions.

Christopher: 27:10

His his wrath is intentional. It's purposeful. His wrath is not a 10 car pile up that's just going all over the place and you might get hit by it, you might not. His wrath is a locomotive running on the rails of his holy character. And we as sinners have stood ourselves on those rails standing like this against him.

Christopher: 27:34

That that's what his wrath is. It is purposeful. It is aimed. It is directed according to his character. It's purposeful, but it's also personal.

Christopher: 27:46

Wrath is not like a if then situation. If you touch a hot ember, then you will get burnt. The Lord has built the universe in such a way where if you live in opposition to him, your life is going to slowly fall apart. That's true. But wrath is personal in nature.

Christopher: 28:04

It is it is directed toward us as sinners. So wrath is not like an ember that burns you impersonally when you touch it. Wrath is like a father who has personal anger toward the invader in his daughter's bedroom, And he has anger at this person for coming into the place where they have no right to be. And God's wrath is anger at me, at you, at us as sinners for doing what we have no right to do, for insulting what we have no right to insult, for claiming for ourselves what we have no right to claim. And there is a real personal wrath turned against sinners.

Christopher: 28:54

And that gets to this last point, it is God's intentional personal anger against that which opposes him, which is to say me and you as sinners. Not talking about us in Christ. In Christ, wrath has been removed. I'm saying you and me as we were as sinners or perhaps as we still are for some of us as sinners. Because this is what sin is really.

Christopher: 29:23

Sin is not just, oh, broke a rule or I did something I shouldn't have. Is saying to God, not your will, but mine be done. When I sin, that's what I'm doing. And before we were in Christ, and if there are any here who are not in Christ, that's that's the pattern. Not your will, mine.

Christopher: 29:44

Not your kingdom, mine. Not your name exalted, mine. I choose what I want. I love who I want and what I want. I live for what I want.

Christopher: 29:59

I make my own rules. I choose my own path. That's what sin is saying. And there's a very true sense in which that life is essentially just one extended rebellion against God. That life is one extended flipping off of God.

Christopher: 30:18

When I live him in when I live in that way, I'm saying, not you, me. Not you, me. That's what that's what sin is. That's what I'm I do. You do.

Christopher: 30:29

That's what we're born in. And to live in that way opposes God. And it opposes not just God but everything in the universe. Everything is is opposed by me. The good of everything is opposed by me when I oppose God.

Christopher: 30:47

And you might think, well, it's just my own sin. It's just me. You know? It doesn't hurt anybody. No.

Christopher: 30:53

The universe is built with God at the center. God and Christ at the center. And when I say I'm not going to live that, I make myself a destructive force in my own life and the lives of those around me. I'll give you an example. I enjoy this example.

Christopher: 31:11

I use it a lot, you've probably heard it before, but I find it incredibly helpful. Think of the solar system. You've got the sun at the center, the planet's orbiting. It is good for the sun to be at the center of the solar system. The sun loves the other planets by saying, I need to be at the center.

Christopher: 31:29

I need to be at the center and you need to orbit around me for your own sake. It's good for the sun to be at the center. But imagine if earth says, I'm gonna go my own way. I don't want I'm not gonna hurt anybody else, but I'm gonna do my own thing. I don't I don't follow the sun.

Christopher: 31:44

I don't orbit the sun. I do what I wanna do. I follow my own heart. Okay? So the earth starts going all around.

Christopher: 31:52

Not only does the earth destroy its ecosystem. Right? Because it needs to be exactly in relation to the sun. If the earth starts going wherever, ice it freezes over or it burns to a crisp. So not only does it destroy itself, but it starts running into the other planets destroying them.

Christopher: 32:11

So the earth says, oh, it's just me. It's just my thing. It destroys itself. It destroys others. So too, so too for us, when we live with something other than God at our center, not only does it set us in opposition to him and destroy the ecosystem of our own soul, but it also causes us to harm the other people in our spheres of influence whether we see that or not.

Christopher: 32:36

If I'm not living with him at my center, I'm harming those around me whether I know it or not. So okay. The wrath of God. The wrath of God we can say is all that God is set in intentional and personal opposition to all that opposes him. To me, to you, to sinners who are set against him.

Christopher: 33:00

And this wrath is not just something pouring out in this life, it's supremely something that pours out finally in damnation, in hell. Let me read for you a passage that shows that. Revelation chapter 20 verse 13 through 15. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. No hiding.

Christopher: 33:24

Death doesn't hide you. You ever been hiding, hide and seek, and somebody shows says, here they are. Here they are. Brings you out, and you're like, oh, come on. I was trying to hide.

Christopher: 33:33

Death is gonna do that to everyone. Death is going to say, here they are. Here they are, God. They couldn't hide. Here they are.

Christopher: 33:41

There is no hiding. Death doesn't hide you. Someone who died three hundred years ago and is decomposed into dust has not hidden from the eyes of God. They are going to be brought before his face to give a reckoning. There is no hiding.

Christopher: 34:01

So death gives up the dead who are in them and all were judged, each one of them according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire, which is the second death, and if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. And here's a picture of that lake earlier on in Revelation fourteen ten. They will drink the wine of God's wrath poured full strength into the cup of his anger and they will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. That's serious.

Christopher: 34:44

That's serious. That's in the bible and that's serious. So guilt in the back of our minds, this voice of conscience, this unquieting sense that I'm running from something, I've gotta deal with something, I've got some kind of thing I've gotta deal with, some accounts I've gotta settle, That is the shadow of God's wrath falling on the human soul. And I call you if you're not a Christian. Don't don't run from it.

Christopher: 35:10

Don't keep putting it off. We will deal with it. We will be brought before him. So that's what the wrath of God is. And we have to say, how do we survive that?

Christopher: 35:19

What? That's at the end? That's where we're going? How do you survive the wrath of God? One thing.

Christopher: 35:26

The love of God. You survive the wrath of God through the love of God. You survive the tornado of wrath that is barreling towards you by somehow passing through that tornado itself into the eye at the center. You don't run from the tornado. It's gonna destroy you.

Christopher: 35:45

You stand there and say, okay. Somehow in there is mercy, and you are brought through the raging wind of wrath into the heart of mercy. That's the only way to survive. How do you how does that happen? Because the love of God has sent the son of God as the wrath absorbing sacrifice for our sins.

Christopher: 36:06

This whole detour into wrath, this whole gazing into the pit of hell has been so that we can say this. Everything we just described, hell, hell itself, that is what the beloved son swallows up on the cross for his enemies. That is what Jesus Christ bears in himself for you and for me, for anyone who would trust in him. He becomes the wrath absorbing sacrifice for our sin. Do you remember we just read it says they will drink the wine of God's wrath pulled poured full strength into the cup of his anger and be tormented day and night?

Christopher: 36:49

Do you know what Jesus says before he goes to the cross? Shall I not drink the cup that the father has given me? This cup of wrath, which is the the fullness of God against us, God himself in Christ receives it from the hands of God and drinks it to the dregs on the cross for me and for you. In this is love. Not that we loved God because in fact we hated him.

Christopher: 37:20

We mocked him. We opposed him. We dragged his name through the dirt as we were pursuing the fleeting passions of our heart. We did not love him, but he loved us and gave his son as the wrath absorbing sacrifice for our sin. And remember the sun is the fullness of God.

Christopher: 37:41

I wanna read this for you. I read this passage a lot but I want you to hear this and realize as I do, the he here is the kindler of the stars. The he here is the one who fashioned the earth. The he we're about to read about is the one who formed your soul for himself. He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions.

Christopher: 38:15

He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. Every one of us has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Look up at the night sky sometime and say, this, the one who made this was pierced for my transgression, bore away the wrath that I deserved.

Christopher: 38:48

And this is done, why? Verse nine in John in first John four says, so that we might live. The love of God does this so that we might live. And for John, living means knowing God. John seventeen three, in this is eternal life that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he have sent.

Christopher: 39:11

So John says God has done all this, all that we've just talked about, this wrath bearing. God has done this so that we might know God. That's why he's done it. So that we might know who he is. Everyone has some idea.

Christopher: 39:27

We all have some idea of who God is. Is he angry? Is he judgmental? Is he boring? Is he an imaginary friend for the weak?

Christopher: 39:34

Is he a kindly old grandfather? Who's God? And the answer is given at the cross. Because it doesn't matter at the end what I think about him. It matters what he says about himself and that word is declared at the cross.

Christopher: 39:49

So look to the cross. See your sin in the body of God. See your damnation swallowed into the open heart of the maker of heaven and earth. See that by faith. See the burning cup of hell, your hell, my hell, drunk to the dregs by the mouth of our maker.

Christopher: 40:16

See the whole wreck of your life, just all of it, embraced unto death by God, and see him doing that in love. Look into his eyes as he does it and see nothing but love for you. And consider if this is who God is, how can I despair? How can I despair? How can I be afraid?

Christopher: 40:43

God help us believe these things. And we can only believe it because this one who died is raised. This one who was crucified is risen from the dead such that his cross is now shown to be his throne. His death is now shown to be his victory, and his agony is now shown to be the harmony of love that beats at the heart of all things. So look to this cross.

Christopher: 41:06

Look to this God. I wanna end by saying this. In this is love. In this is love. The love of God swallowing up the wrath of God.

Christopher: 41:19

So don't hear this as God did this and somebody else did this. It's the love of God swallowing the wrath of God. No one else does it but God. The love of God swallows up the wrath of God for the enemies of God so that they might know God and become children of God. That's the love that God is.

Christopher: 41:43

That's the love pouring over this room right now. That love is pouring down over this room right now. And any who will can lift the cup of their soul and find it filled with this love. Find it filled brimful with this love and we lift it up by faith. And this is the love we must receive, Christian.

Christopher: 42:11

We have to live here. This isn't like, gospel, that's great. Okay. Now let me go do other things. We have to live here.

Christopher: 42:19

Because unless I'm living under this love, what about when suffering comes? What about when everything falls apart? What about when I have no strength left? What about when temptation is right in front of me? What about when I need to love someone and the last thing I wanna do is do anything for this person?

Christopher: 42:35

What about then? We need to be living under the love pouring over us from the cross. Only as we are holding up the vessel of our soul and having it filled is it able to overflow into those around us. So in this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as the wrath absorbing sacrifice for our sins.

Christopher: 43:02

And I end with this appeal. And I've said it before, but I say it again and I'm saying it to you and to me. Our answers are here. There is nothing greater that has happened in all of existence than what happens on the cross. We will find no deeper trove of treasure.

Christopher: 43:24

We will find no sweeter fulfillment for our soul. We will find no richer banquet than the one spread on the cross. Don't believe the lie that there's the thing I really need is out here just a little bit further out here. The thing I really need is in this person. The thing I really the thing we really need is here where God is poured out over our heads for nothing we've done.

Christopher: 43:53

Our peace is here. Our rest is here. Our relief, your relief. It's here. It's here.

Christopher: 44:00

You're not gonna come to the cross and have God say, oh, sorry. I can't do that. I don't have enough to help you with that. There's not enough here to to to no. Our deepest need is a thimble, and he is a Niagara pouring down.

Christopher: 44:17

Our satisfaction are here is here. Our wonder and our joy is here in this love. God, give us grace. Give us desire. Give us ability to come here again and again and again and be filled up in this Christ.

Christopher: 44:34

So come to him. Come to him for the first time. Come to him for the thousandth time. Come to him for eternity and receive the love of God in Christ at the cross and in receiving this love behold your God. That's my prayer for us and let me pray it now.

Christopher: 45:00

So father, words, our words are so insufficient for these things. Your depth is beyond our conception, but I pray father that thankfully I know that it's not the strength of our words, but it's the working of your spirit. So father I pray now that what has been said would just be the merest scaffolding upon which your spirit would now build a a palace of faith in the lives of your people. Upon which your spirit, Lord, would would show the glories of Christ, would display to us the excellence, the height, the depth, the length, the breadth, the fullness of your love for us in Jesus Christ. And I pray, Lord, that every heart here would come to him and find in him satisfaction, fullness, forgiveness, salvation, and life in you.

Christopher: 46:01

And all of this father to the glory of your name because there is no God, no God like you. We praise you father in Jesus name. Amen.

Caleb: 46:11

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.