Making God Visible

1 John 4:11–12 | Pastor Christopher Powers

What is Kingstree Sermons?

The official audio library of sermons preached at Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio.

Christopher: 00:00

We Christian must be continually breathing in the love of God in Christ at the cross, the beauty of God in Christ at the cross, the mercy of God in Christ at the cross. Do you think you can get through a day with one breath? Do you think you can get through a day with one inhalation of Christ? We need to be receiving him over and over and over again.

Caleb: 00:27

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: 00:42

So we're back now in first John. As I said earlier during the announcements, we're gonna finish up a segment of first John today, and then my next two sermons are going to be specifically looking at the Lord's Supper as we consider what we understand to be happening as we're taking this together. So that'll be for my sermons for the rest of November. But today we are finishing up a section in first John. Coming here after pastor Sean gave us his overview introduction to first Samuel, looking at the concept of the Christ.

Christopher: 01:18

Now we're back to John's letter where he's writing to his churches, to his churches that have been infiltrated by some degree of false teaching, if you remember the context. And what we've seen over the last few weeks is this transition where John was calling them to discern the truth from the lie, discern the truth about Christ from the lie about Christ, and then he moves from that call to discernment to a call to live out that truth. So discern the truth, know the truth, and then live the truth in love. Live the truth of the crucified and risen Christ in love. And so for John, there's this unbreakable connection between discerning and holding to what is true.

Christopher: 02:08

We might call it doctrinal accurate doctrinal accuracy or living out that truth. There's there's a bond between those that is indivisible. Understanding, discerning, holding rigorously to the truth, defending the truth, and living the truth in love. These two can't be divided for John. You can't say, oh, I just I just do the life thing.

Christopher: 02:30

I don't really care about like the specifics. And you can't say, well, I'm just about the theology and like getting it accurate, but the life, you know, that doesn't quite come. The two are bound together in John's mind. A place we see that pretty clearly, you know, we're in the first John right now, but in John's second epistle, he says this in a way that's kind of startling. I want to just read it for you.

Christopher: 02:52

It's second John verse six and seven. It says this, You can tell this is written by the same person. He says this, and this is love that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment just as you have heard from the beginning so that you should walk in it. And he says or up right above that, that we love one another.

Christopher: 03:13

So verse five, he says, I'm writing you a new commandment, but this is the commandment that you have from the beginning that we should love one another. And this is love that we walk in his commandments. This is the commandment you've had from the beginning. So he says love one another. Then in verse 70 transitions and says this, for many deceivers have gone out into the world.

Christopher: 03:36

Those who do not confess the coming of Christ in the flesh. So John's logic here in his second epistle, which informs what we're doing today in his first epistle is this, love one another because many false teachers have gone into the world. You see that logic? Love one another because many people are teaching falsely. So in John's mind, there's no division between understanding the truth, guarding the truth, and loving one another.

Christopher: 04:05

In fact, our love for one another is part of what protects us against believing the lie. Our love for one another is part of what defends us against the false teaching. The false presentation of Christ. You could think of it like this. We love one another because many false teachers have gone into the world.

Christopher: 04:26

Holding holding to the truth about God revealed in the love of Christ, holding fast to that truth leads to living that truth out in love, and living that truth out in love helps us to hold fast to that truth. So knowing and holding to the truth is like a big stone. Living the truth in love is like a big stone, they're leaned against each other like this. And you lose one, you lose them both. They're leaning against each other.

Christopher: 04:53

So that's why John in first John has moved from discern the truth to now live in love. It's not a different category. It's how we do it. It's how we it's how we discern the truth. So do I do I want to to hold on to what I believe?

Christopher: 05:11

Live what I believe. Live what I believe in love. Now today, we're gonna finish up this section in John's thought process, and we're going to see one of the effects that this life of love has. So look with me. First John chapter four.

Christopher: 05:26

That's where we are this morning. First John chapter four verses 11 through 12. Here's what the text says. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God.

Christopher: 05:43

If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. Let me pray. So father, we've sung about this love. We've heard texts about this love this morning, And now we see this passage from John's epistle about this love. And Father, we pray now for grace to receive it.

Christopher: 06:07

We pray for grace to understand it. Father, I pray in Jesus name for the anointing of your spirit to be able to faithfully communicate these words, and the spirit of these words to your people to communicate what is here. And I pray for grace for your people to receive it in a way that is life giving and transformative that Christ be given through his word now. And in that, father, that you be exalted, that you be glorified, because whatever else we need, whatever else we're missing, whatever whatever else we're facing, we need Christ as our all, and he's the one I pray for this morning that he'd be given to us afresh. In his name.

Christopher: 06:56

Amen. So there's our text verses 11 through 12. Beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Let's start with that first verse, and the the most reasonable question is what's the love in view? In when he says, beloved, if God has so loved us or if God has loved us like this, well, then we ought to love one another.

Christopher: 07:20

And we're jumping right into the text here. So what does he mean when he says, if God has loved us like this, or if God has so loved us? What is the love that's in view? Well, jump back one verse where we were two weeks ago. Verse 10.

Christopher: 07:34

In this is love. Here's the love he's talking about. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation, the wrath bearing sacrifice for our sin. So when John says, if God has loved us in this way, if God has so loved us, we ought to love one another. The love he has in mind is the love that appears at the cross.

Christopher: 08:00

The love declared in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ at the cross. That's the love in view here. And that might seem simple. You might say, well, of course. Right.

Christopher: 08:09

I I know that. I think that's what you've been telling us for the last many months, but it's important for us to see that again here for this reason. If John's logic is this, if God has so loved us, we ought to love one another. That's his logic, which implies if God has loved us in this way, we should be loving one another in that way. So the the love that we've received is not only the reason we're to love, but it's the shape of our love.

Christopher: 08:44

It's the character of our love. It's the kind of love that's being commanded from us. We saw that earlier in chapter three verse 16. By this we know love that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and our sisters. So it's important to see this because the love declared in Christ at the cross is the character of love that we are now called to show.

Christopher: 09:12

That's the kind of love we're called to show. It's not whatever makes sense to me. What kind of love seems reasonable to me? The kind of love that is being called for from us is that love shown at the cross. Our love is defined by what Christ does and who he is at the cross.

Christopher: 09:33

That's where love is perfectly given, and so that's where love is perfectly defined, perfectly explained. And the Christian life, think about it like this. The Christian life largely consists of this, learning to receive that love from the cross into the fibers of our soul, and then learning what that love looks like in every aspect of our life. That that's really what the Christian life is, and you say, well, it makes it sound simple. Look at that first part.

Christopher: 10:05

Learning to receive the love of Christ into the depths of our soul. That's not a simple thing. You I don't get that. I I don't get the love of Christ, and I I spend a lot of time thinking about it, and I'm not I'm not there. We don't get the love of Christ.

Christopher: 10:25

It's not something you say, okay. Okay. He loves me. What else? There there's there you don't get past that.

Christopher: 10:32

You don't get past that. It's a labor to learn this love. It's like you've got dry ground and you pour a waterfall on it, but it's dry and the water's just rolling off the top until it's been pouring and pouring and pouring for days and days and days, and it breaks through the dryness and starts to soak down, down, down, down all the way to the depths. That's what has to happen. Don't just come and stand under His love for a moment and it hits and it rolls off the dry soil of our soul, and we say, Well, that's nice, but it doesn't really answer my questions.

Christopher: 11:08

It doesn't really fix the problem. Stand under it until the dry surface is broken down and melted away, and then it sinks down in. This is why Paul says in Ephesians three, he prays, God strengthen us to know the love of Christ. We can't know it apart from being strengthened. We can't know it apart from his grace, and so the Christian life is largely about learning what does it mean that he's loved me like this, that he's loved us like this.

Christopher: 11:41

Let that soak down not just on the surface, but let it soak into the groundwater of my soul. That's what the Christian life entails. And then once I'm set as I'm being saturated, because there's no once, this happens forever, happens for eternity, but as this is soaking to my soul, then, okay, what does it look like for this to work itself out in my life? That's the Christian life. Stand under this.

Christopher: 12:10

Be saturated by this, and let it work itself out. That's the that's the labor of our life. You could think, like I said a few weeks ago, think of Jesus's death, his passion as the palette of colors from which we're to to draw every every part of our life. This conversation, this suffering, this difficulty, this day, I'm to be looking to that palette and say, okay, how do I draw from the palette of his passion to paint this moment now in my life? And to know to do that, of course, we have to know those colors very well.

Christopher: 12:47

We have to sit before his cross. We'll come back to that at the end. So all this to say, what have we been talking about? All this to say when he says, If God has so loved us, we ought to love one another. The love he's talking about is the love of the cross, and our task as Christians is to know that love.

Christopher: 13:06

And as we're knowing it, as it's happening, as it's pouring out, what's he say? We're to love one another. So that gets to the second point. The love he's talking about is the love of the cross. The love he's talking about is transformative.

Christopher: 13:18

It doesn't leave us the same. It can't leave us the same. Beloved, he says, if God has so loved us, we ought to love one another. A change ought, he says here, to happen, but the implication is it must. If it's happened, the change comes.

Christopher: 13:38

If the love is here, the change comes. Think of the love of God in Christ like fire. You don't just put fire somewhere and expect no change to happen. Where there is fire, change is going to come. It's going to heat up, or it's going to be purified, or it's going to be consumed, but fire changes things.

Christopher: 13:58

You don't just say, oh, let me put a little fire in here and keep going. No. You can't do that because we know fire changes things, and the love of God is like that. If it's true for created fire, how much more when the God who is surrounded by the burning ones, the Seraphim, worshiped by the burning Seraphim, whose eyes, the God whose eyes are flames of fire, the God who says he is a consuming fire, how much more when this God gives himself to us in love does it transform? If created fire changes things, this does too.

Christopher: 14:38

You cannot I cannot receive this and remain unchanged. I can't. You can't. We can't, and that's John's point here, and the change that it brings about is both one that God works in us sovereignly and one that we work out through the obedience of love, through the obedience of faith. That's that's embedded here when John says, if this love has happened, we ought to do this.

Christopher: 15:07

There's the double idea that if this has happened, the change is going to be there, and if this has happened, we need to bring about that change. We need to work. We need to we need to grow in likeness to him. So think about this this transforming effect of the love of Christ. Think about it like Lazarus being raised from the dead.

Christopher: 15:26

If you remember that story. Jesus goes to the tomb. There's a dead man in the tomb. Jesus says, Roll away the stone. And then to the dead man, he says, Lazarus, come out.

Christopher: 15:40

And what happens? The man who is dead, who has no capacity to choose or act or do anything, he is brought to life. He's made alive. But then on the basis of that grace given life, he sits up. He gets off his stone bench and he walks out.

Christopher: 16:02

So he's raised up by the word and he acts out the change that word has brought about in him. Similarly, we could say this. Receiving the love of God in Christ is like being raised from the dead. Having this love pierce us like an arrow of grace fired from the cross. It pierces us.

Christopher: 16:24

We're brought to life. We've been loved, and so we cannot but be beloved ones. But if that change has happened, if we've been raised to life like that, then there's a moral obligation that's upon us. Then we act out this love. We live out this love.

Christopher: 16:41

We're called to change. We've been changed. We're called to change. Always dependent upon grace. If we've been made alive by the love of God in Christ, then we have to, and we will, get up from the sepulchre of our self centeredness and walk out into the light of his love.

Christopher: 17:02

That will happen. And so that's what John is saying here. He's saying, if God has so loved us, then we must love one another. If we're alive, then we must come out of the tomb. If we've been loved this way, then we must love.

Christopher: 17:21

That's what the spirit is saying to each one of us today, and it's gonna work differently for each one of us. It's gonna develop differently for each one of us, but there's no receiving this love and not being conformed to this love. Beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Now see two other things here briefly. This love is both received and carried out in community.

Christopher: 17:47

So the love we're talking about here, it's the love from the cross. It's transformative, and it's received and carried out in community. Let me show you that here. You can see that in the plural that John is using. Beloved, if God so loved us, he doesn't say you, individual, or me.

Christopher: 18:08

If God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another. We ought to love one another. So this is a community vision here. Yes. 100%, God loves you individually.

Christopher: 18:24

Me individually. There's an individual intimacy with God in Christ. He loves you. Amen. But that individual love of God for you exists within, flourishes within, has its being within his love for the church, for his bride, for his people.

Christopher: 18:44

So it is an individual love, and it is a communal love. And we can't again, we can't divide the two and have the one without the other. The love of God in Christ is received in community as we worship together, as we hear the word together, as we break bread together like we will here in a little bit, as we see baptisms together, as we live together, we're receiving his love together. We we are being loved as we're here together. We're being loved as we have a bond of community together.

Christopher: 19:15

We're being loved as we sing together and worship together. We're receiving together this love that's poured out from the cross, and this love is carried out together. Talk about love all you want, but try to love by yourself, and you can't. Love only exists within relationship. This is one reason if if God is not triune, he's not love.

Christopher: 19:42

Because if there's not relationship from eternity, love can't exist. So so I can't love without another person. Our love is like a chord on the on the piano. If you a chord is a thing, but it exists only as you play multiple notes in harmony. You or at least together.

Christopher: 20:03

You play these notes together, an accord exists within the harmonious unity of those notes. So too, the love of God exists. It is shown. It is displayed only in the harmonious unity of the notes of his people, our fellowship. So if I sit up here and talk about love all the time, but I'm never in relationships, there's no place for that love to manifest, for it to be shown.

Christopher: 20:32

So this is a this is carried out as well in relationship. So John says, beloved, if God has so loved us, let us love one another. This love is the love pouring down from Christ on the cross, the risen, crucified and risen Christ. This love transforms those who receive it. This love is received together in community, and this love is carried out together in community.

Christopher: 20:58

That's what we can say about this love at least. Now the second half of the text, the second verse, he begins to show the effect of this love. So this love has been received, and we're showing it to one another, and he says, now here's the effect it has in your community. Here's the effect it has in your midst. Look at verse 12.

Christopher: 21:22

No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. Now you might say, wait a second. What? What?

Christopher: 21:34

Okay. Help me follow you. We are talking about love. Love one another. You've been loved.

Christopher: 21:39

Loved one another. No one's ever seen God. Why? Where does the where does he even begin to talk about God being unseen or God being invisible? Why would he right here say, oh, by the way, no one's ever seen God.

Christopher: 21:53

I mean, scriptural authors think. You know, sometimes you come to scripture, you might think, well, I don't know. It's just like a religious thing. Right? No.

Christopher: 22:01

They're thinking. They have a reason for what they're saying. Why does he say this here? To understand it, we need to hear a parallel that comes back in the Gospel of John in the first chapter. Remember, it's the same John writing both, so we can let them speak back and forth and help us understand what's going on.

Christopher: 22:22

Back in John, the Gospel of John one eighteen, here's what we read. Listen for the echo of our text. Our text says this in one John, No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. Okay.

Christopher: 22:40

Listen for the echo here in first John one eighteen. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the father's side, he has made him known. Okay. So you heard that.

Christopher: 22:54

You heard the echo. No one has ever seen God. No one has ever seen God. That's a recognizable phrase. John's audience would have been familiar with that from his gospel.

Christopher: 23:06

When he when they're reading his letter, they would have said, oh, no one has ever seen God. That's what he said in his gospel because he's like he's their special teacher. They would have been aware of this, and it would have been familiar to them. Just like to us, I'm guessing the phrase, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth is familiar to you. Probably, for most of you, as soon as I said in the beginning, your mind thought, God created the heavens and the earth.

Christopher: 23:31

That would you just fit it. You finished it because you're familiar with it. They were familiar with this as well, which means changing the second half becomes a statement. Not just, oh, I'm just echoing things. He's saying something by changing the second half.

Christopher: 23:49

Here, listen to this. If I said, in the beginning, Jesus created the heavens and the earth, I'm not just changing words around, I'm making a statement when I say that because you know God is the name that goes there. And by saying in the beginning, Jesus created, I'm affirming Jesus is God. Together with the Psalms, which say he laid the foundations of the earth and set the stars in place. So I'm making a statement by switching around a familiar statement or a familiar phrase.

Christopher: 24:20

That's what John is doing here too. Now consider what what statement he might be making. This is what they would have been familiar with. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the father's side or the only begotten God who is at the father's side, he has made him known.

Christopher: 24:36

That's what they're familiar with. They're reading this epistle and here's what they hear. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. Do you hear what he did?

Christopher: 24:50

In the gospel, the answer to God being invisible is Jesus Christ. The the the word made flesh, the crucified and risen one. That's the answer in the gospel. No one has ever seen God, but the only begotten God has made him know. In the epistle, the answer to God being invisible is the church loving one another.

Christopher: 25:16

No one has ever seen God, but if you love one another, he abides in you, and his love is perfected in you. In other words, the revelation of the invisible God perfectly achieved in Jesus, no one has ever seen God, but the son has made him known, is now continuing to happen in his body. The church, no one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, he abides in us. That's what's going on here. That's what John is saying here.

Christopher: 25:47

The God cannot be seen, but the son has made him known. Okay? God cannot be seen, but those who are united to the son, those who are his body on the earth, as they love one another, he's made known. That's the implication here. That's the implication.

Christopher: 26:03

How is God made known? As we love one another. So this is really John's version of Paul's theology that the church is the body of Christ. That's Paul's language. The church is the body of Christ, but we can say John is working with the same idea here.

Christopher: 26:20

The same spirit is inspiring them both. It's Jesus who makes the unseen God known to the world. That doesn't change, but we are united to him, and that is so much more than just a figurative statement. It's so much more than I've got my AAA membership, or I've got my membership to that. We are united to him.

Christopher: 26:46

We are his body such that if Jesus is the one who makes God known, you and I as his body become the visibility of Jesus to the world. We become the picture, the showing forth of Jesus to the world. Just like if I was down here and I reached out, you don't see my head. You see my arm. You guys don't see my arm.

Christopher: 27:11

You guys see my arm over here. Okay? You wouldn't just say, you know, oh, I I see your body over there. You'd say, I see you. I see you.

Christopher: 27:20

Maybe I don't see your face, but I see you. I don't see your head, but I see you because I see your hands. I see your body. Similarly, similarly, though the world does not see Christ our head because he's ascended to a spatial and temporal plane beyond our present perceptive abilities, they don't see him, but they see his body. They see his nail pierced hands in the suffering love of his people.

Christopher: 27:49

They really do. They see him in you. He's not ashamed to say, I'm in you. And he's also not ashamed to say, the world sees me in you. The world sees me in you.

Christopher: 28:01

So no one can see God, but he's revealed himself in the crucified and risen Jesus. Right, someone might say, but no one can see Jesus either. Yes, they can. Yes, they can. They see him in his body.

Christopher: 28:16

They see him in those who are united to him. They see him in you and me, and specifically as we love one another with his love. If Christians are a bunch of people who stay behind their protective suburban gates and in their comfortable worlds and never come into one another's life, never pour into one another's life, never lay down for one another's life, if we say just like the world, boy, I'm sorry that's happening to you. I'm glad things are okay for me. And pause.

Christopher: 28:49

A lot of the world doesn't say that. A lot of the world loves pretty well. Like we we've got there we're we're being called to something here. A lot of the world can love better than some Christians do. But if the Christian is not showing the love of Christ, then what are we we're obscuring the image of Christ.

Christopher: 29:08

It's like we go to an image of Christ and take out charcoal and scratch it all over, so people can't see him. He is seen as we're loving one another. As you give yourself up for one another. As we pour ourselves out for one another, and that's what it means when it says his love is perfected in us. You see in verse 12, his love is perfected in us.

Christopher: 29:30

It doesn't mean there was something bad about his love or it was broken. Our love for one another perfects the love of the cross in the way that a waiter perfects the work of the chef by bringing it out and showing it and setting it on the table so that people can eat it, and he's perfected the chef's work. The the feast has been prepared at the cross, and whenever we love one another like waiters, we're bringing that feast out and showing it. We're giving it. We're setting it before others.

Christopher: 30:04

And in that sense, it's being brought to its fulfillment. It's being brought to its completion in our life. As we love one another with cross displayed love, that same love, that same cross, that same Christ, that same God is being manifest in us because that same spirit dwells in us. That's really happening. Lift our vision of this world out of the mundane because when you give your time up to serve someone, when you lay down your preferences to help someone, when you spend yourself to build another up, when you interrupt your schedule to meet with someone or to make sure someone has the food they need or the care they need, when you open your home and it's inconvenient, or when you supply needs.

Christopher: 30:53

When we're doing this, it's not just, oh, here's another thing to sketch off the schedule here. It is a participation in the life of God to do that. It's a participation in the life of God when we love in this way, And he is seen in us as we're loving in this way. In his name, by his spirit, he's seen in us. And he's seen in us.

Christopher: 31:18

Why? Because look, if we love one another, he abides in us. He's seen in us because he's abiding in us. As we love one another, God really is present in our midst. You take a meal to someone.

Christopher: 31:34

You visit someone. You stop and pray with someone. You write a letter to someone. You you you help someone out with a financial need. You let someone borrow a car even though you're not sure of exactly how it's all gonna work out, whatever it might be, and you forgive someone for goodness sake.

Christopher: 31:53

You forgive someone. You release someone from holding them in bitterness. You cover over an offense. Okay? You cover over an offense.

Christopher: 32:06

You welcome and support one another as we're doing this. God is in our midst, living in our midst by his spirit as we're loving one another. So would we meet with God? Would we have fellowship with God? Would we see God?

Christopher: 32:20

Then let us love one another with a love displayed at the cross, and he dwells in our midst. And as we do that, as we're loving in that way, God abides in us so as to be seen in us because we are becoming the body of Christ. We're being shown to be the body of Christ in the world around us. And in this way then, our love becomes a witness. Our love becomes a witness.

Christopher: 32:49

That's the implication here when he says no one has ever seen God, and then he echoes the coming of Christ. When he says no one has ever seen God, but when you love one another, he abides in you. The implication is he's he will be seen in you. The world will see him in you. Others will see him in you.

Christopher: 33:08

This echoes something else we find in John's gospel back in John chapter 17. Let me turn back there briefly. As Jesus is praying at the end of his earthly ministry, the very end of this prayer, he it's all you ever if you're reading through this passage, at this point, it's almost like Jesus turns from the historical moment of the upper room and looks at you through the ages out of the text because he says he says, I do not ask for these only, the ones I'm with right now in this moment of history, but for those who will believe in me through their word. That's you and me. That's awesome because when you read that, you know he's thinking of you as he speaks those words two thousand years ago.

Christopher: 33:57

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. What's what's Jesus pray for us? What's Jesus pray for King's tree, for the church in America, for the church in the world. That they may all be one just as you father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. So the that they may be one so that the world would believe in me.

Christopher: 34:28

That's what he's praying. And that oneness that oneness Jesus is praying about right down at the center of it is our love for one another by which God abides in us and we in him. As we love one another so that God is in us and is seen in us, the world is shown a glimpse of Calvary. The world sees Christ in the self giving love of his people so that they are able to come to a point and say, he's the son of God. He's sent from God.

Christopher: 35:01

Now that's that's not something we have to stir up. That's something he works in grace, but but we're to pray toward that and realize when you're loving, when we're serving one another, we're becoming in that moment to a greater or lesser degree, a manifestation of Calvary. The resurrection illumined Calvary. We're becoming a picture of Christ and may it be that the world sees it and says, Jesus was sent from God. Jesus is the son of God.

Christopher: 35:31

So yes, we have to speak the gospel. We have to know what we believe. We have to contend for the faith, but an indispensable witness beneath all of that and without which all of that becomes hay and stubble to be burned up is loving one another. Loving one another. As pastor Sean preached for us a number of months ago, without love, we're a clanging gong or a sounding symbol.

Christopher: 35:57

Everything's empty if this is not here. So that's the call. Let me end our study with what John says to us right here. He says, let us love one another. Let us love one another for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Christopher: 36:17

So as we wrap up this section thinking about the call for us to love as we've been loved, hear those words. Let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. To know this love, to be satisfied in this, to be transformed in this, to show this love that is pouring over us from the cross. That is the Christian life. That is the Christian life.

Christopher: 36:47

All the the righteousness and the growth in holiness and the the standing on what is true and the everything is this. Knowing this love, being suffused by this love, and showing this love in our life. And we can sum it up here at the close with a single analogy that I think is quite helpful, and that's the analogy of breathing. Breathing. God didn't need to make us creatures that breathe.

Christopher: 37:14

You ever think about that? We didn't have to breathe. He made us that way. Breathing is a lesson woven into our flesh that God said, there's something in this so important. You're going to do it millions of times over the course of your life, and you're going to be unable to do anything without it.

Christopher: 37:31

I'm going to weave a parable into your flesh that you are repeating to yourself every moment of your existence. And when you're done telling yourself that parable, I'll tell it to you again forever in my presence. That's what breathing is. What do we do when we breathe? We breathe in our life.

Christopher: 37:52

We let that life go down. It goes down into the brachii and all these things and suffuses our whole body, and then we breathe it out. We breathe it in, and we breathe it out. That's that's our life. We breathe in.

Christopher: 38:06

We are filled. We breathe out. That's the parable in our flesh. And this is an image at least at least of this. Our soul exists.

Christopher: 38:17

Our soul has its life, its true life by breathing in the love of God in Christ at the cross. Breathing in God given to us through Christ. Breathing this in and letting it suffuse our whole being. Like I said at the beginning, this is that we got to work to learn to breathe deeply. Breathe deeply at the cross.

Christopher: 38:40

Let it get into all the fibers of our being. We breathe him in. We are suffused by this love, and then we breathe out this love in acts throughout our life. So that is what we're called to do and just like physical breathing, you don't do this once a week. You don't even do this once a day.

Christopher: 39:06

You do this continually, and we Christian must be continually breathing in the love of God in Christ at the cross, the beauty of God in Christ at the cross, the mercy of God in Christ at the cross. Do you think you can get through a day with one breath? Do you think you can get through a day with one inhalation of Christ? We need to be receiving him over and over and over again. The cross is our oxygen mask through which we breathe in the midst of the choking vapors of this world.

Christopher: 39:43

The vapors of fear and lust and selfishness and idolatry and distraction. The cross is an oxygen mask we're breathing through in the midst of all this. You take that off, you start to choke, you start to have trouble breathing, and the oxygen we're breathing through this mask is God himself given in love. We breathe him in through songs, through memory, through reminders throughout the day, through scripture on the page and in our mind, through habits and patterns of life, we're breathing him in. And if we're breathing him in, we must breathe him out in service, in selflessness, in mercy, in patience, in humility, in love.

Christopher: 40:29

The main place we do this, breathing in, breathing out is here. Not here just in this room, not here just in this service, but in this body. The people the Lord's put around you. The Christians you're in community with. Those are the ones we breathe together with as we care for and serve and encourage and exhort and worship together and love one another.

Christopher: 40:52

And one of the central places we do this, one of the central places this communal respiration happens is right here at the table, which we're about to come to now. Because here in these elements set before us, by the authority of God is born witness this love. The first John four ten love. The love of God that sends the beloved son to be a wrath bearing sacrifice. Why is the bread broken?

Christopher: 41:24

Because his body is broken on the cross under my damnation. Why is the is the juice poured into the cups? Why is it poured out? Because his blood is spilled to forgive, to cleanse, to wash, and to satisfy. To satisfy us as the good wine of our eternal joy.

Christopher: 41:45

Here is the love of God on display. Here is represented to us in the spirit, represented to our eyes of faith, the love of the cross. Here is the wellspring of that love which runs through all the veins of the branches of Christ, the vine of Christ. This here's where the wellspring is of all the love that's filling any vein, any branch of his body, of his people. So Christian, as we're coming to this table together, may we breathe in breathe in the love of God in Christ and receive again God himself given to us given to us without remainder from the cross to bear away our sin, to bear away our guilt, to bear away our condemnation, to cover you with his own life.

Christopher: 42:41

He covers you with his life blood. His life becomes the covering, the purity, the holiness, the veil under which you are covered. He pours himself out to satisfy you in himself and to unite him to himself. Come again to this God. Breathe in again this love.

Christopher: 43:00

And breathing it in here and being filled here, may we be equipped to breathe this out to one another and to the world around us so that they would see Jesus Christ in us. Let me pray as we come to the table. Father, words fail us. Our own minds, in fact, fail us, but we know enough to say thank you for the love of Jesus Christ. Thank you, father, for opening to us the well.

Christopher: 43:33

Just as the sheep could not drink from the well until the stone was rolled away and Jacob came and rolled the stone away, so too, father, the stone over the well of your grace, of your mercy, of your love has been rolled away in the resurrection of the crucified Christ, and we now are drinking, drinking, drinking deeply. And I pray that we would, Father. I pray that we would go to no other well, that we wouldn't go to the broken cisterns of entertainment that we've dug out for ourselves or or addiction or whatever it might be. Lord, bring us to this well, satisfy us in this love, and having thus been loved, give us grace to love one another in the same way so that the world would see that Jesus Christ is your only son and the savior. Father, as we come to the table, may this be a fresh reception of love for your people, a fresh taking in of these truths, and in a fresh equipping that we might go out and love in the same way.

Christopher: 44:36

We look to you, father, in Jesus name. Amen.

Caleb: 44:40

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.