In our Sunday morning worship at the present
time, we are meditating on the first epistle
written by Saint John, and we came last
Lord's Day morning to the passage that begins
with verse seven in chapter four.
We dwelt only upon the first two verses
in that paragraph, namely verses seven and eight,
which refers to love and its relation to
the divine paternity.
May I read those verses to remind us
of the context of our message today.
Beloved, says John, let us love one another,
because love is of God, and every one
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth
God.
He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for
God is love.
Now there are two matters that remain in
this particular paragraph, we're going to come to
at least one of them today.
Love and its perfect expression in history, verses
nine and ten, and then love and the
ministry that it prescribes for us as people
continually in the last two verses, namely eleven
and twelve.
Now I want to turn to the next
one then, love and its expression in history.
What is love?
How do we know what love is?
So many people talk about love and sing
about love today, what do they mean?
Well, says John, herein is love, that's how
he starts it in verse ten, herein is
love.
Not that we love God, but rather that
he loved us and gave his son to
be the propitiation for our sins.
Or in terms of the previous verse, it
is in this that love was manifested, the
love of God toward us, because that God
sent his only begotten son into the world
that we might live or have life through
him.
Now we saw last Lord's Day morning that
this love of which the apostle speaks is
a very special kind of phenomenon, and it
has to be distinguished from so much that
goes by that name.
It's distinguished from erotic love, eros.
It has nothing really to do with it.
It is distinguished from that kind of love
that we sometimes see in those who are
desirous of showing a kind of nationalism.
They love their country to a very large
extent, perhaps more than much else.
It's not that kind of love.
Neither, indeed, is it the kind of love
that commonly obtains between parents and children, nor
between husbands and wives.
That very often is limited in its scope,
even if it is deep and warm.
This love is a very special kind of
love.
This agape love, as the apostle speaks of
it, it is something which is absolutely unique.
And in the verses before us today, John
wants us to see exactly the kind of
thing that this agape love really is.
In this, the love of God was manifested
among us, says John, that God sent his
only Son into the world so that we
might have life through him.
In this is love.
Not that we loved God, but that he
loved us and gave his Son to be
the atoning sacrifice or the propitiation for our
sins.
Now, there are three features of this kind
of love that John says we see in
the love of God.
Let's look at them very briefly.
The first thing is, this kind of a
love is love that is directed even unworthiest.
In other words, it is not love that
is attracted by the object, but it is
love that is propelled by the compulsion of
love within our own hearts.
If we have this kind of love, it
is in us, and irrespective of the deserts
of the object, we love.
Father or mother loves child because the child
belongs to him.
Husband loves his wife because he has chosen
her and the wife her husband.
But here it is different.
This love looks into the face of unworthiness,
and yet it loves.
Now, this is brought out in this passage
in two ways.
First of all, in this word in verse
nine, God sent his only Son into the
world so that we might have life through
him.
Do you notice the implications of those words?
The objects of God's love and concern are
without life.
Why are they without life?
Why were they without life?
Not with a natural life, this earth, providence,
and the mercy of God, but without the
hope of everlasting life and without a spiritual
life that is capable of fellowship with God.
Why were we in this condition?
Because we had come under divine condemnation.
Because sin had robbed us of life and
slain us.
The objects of God's love here, then, are
those who are condemned to death.
Men and women under sentence, as all of
us were by nature.
Now, that is the message.
God loved us when we were in our
condemned selves spiritually, dead in trespasses and sins,
and await the last, final doom of the
judge.
We needed life, we had it not.
We were dead.
God loved the dead.
If you go on to verse ten, we
have it in clear terms.
He sent his Son to be an atoning
sacrifice or a propitiation for our sins.
The word used in translating a Greek term
in the Revised Standard Version is very inadequate
here.
It says to be an expiation for our
sins, which means cleansing our sins away.
But we needed more than cleansing.
The term that John used means that God's
wrath was kindled against us, that he was
angry with us, that he was justly angry
with us, that there could be no peace
between us and God in our sinful condition,
and had sentenced us lawfully to be lost.
We were under his curse.
But he sent the Son of his love
to do all that was necessary.
He should just and the justifier of them
that believed in Jesus.
It reflects our condition as men who were
not simply dead, but who were cursed and
thus utterly and completely lost.
You remember the Apostle Paul's way of expounding
this same theme in Romans chapter five.
God, he says, commends his love toward us.
But while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us.
So the first thing this love is this.
It is a love that seeks to do
something for the unworthiest, the dead in trespasses
and sins, to condemn God.
God is doing something for his enemies.
For those who would crucify his Son, for
those who did not want him himself.
The second feature about this love is this.
It is not only a love that is
directed towards the unworthiest, but it also seeks
the highest good for the unworthiest.
It comes down to the lowliest, to the
meanest, to the outcast, and it desires to
elevate the outcast and the lost to bring
him to the highest loftiest place of all.
In this, the love of God was made
manifest among us.
God sent his only Son into the world
that we might have life through him.
Now what does that mean?
We can only elucidate it briefly by saying,
but let's add that it means more than
some life.
Life we have already, as we've indicated.
Natural life we have.
But the reason why the Son of God
was that we might have that kind and
quality of life that would enable us to
have fellowship with God in this life and
to enjoy him and serve him in the
next.
This is eternal life, and it is not
just a life adding up.
It is a new quality of life.
It's the quality of life that's seen in
Jesus of Nazareth.
It is the very life of God himself.
And insofar as that can be communicated to
his creatures, God sent his Son into the
world that you and I might have that
life.
You see, to have fellowship with God, we
must have his life.
We must have his spirit.
We must love what he loves, and we
must hate what he hates, and we must
will as he wills.
And that depends upon the quality of life.
So that you see, there is nothing greater
than this.
God could give, God could desire nothing greater
for his creatures than this.
That we should share his very life, that
we should have fellowship with him, that we
should be capable of enjoying his home and
his heaven and his love and his service
eternally, and serve him here and now with
joy.
There is nothing greater than this.
This prepares a man for glory.
This makes a man fit to live as
the representative of heaven upon earth.
This is eternal life.
Two elements, two features of this life then
that love comes to give is this.
It is a life that is different from
the life of man by nature.
It's a life of kinship with God, and
enables us to fellowship with him.
God's his love upon the unworthiest, and he
seeks for the unworthiest, the highest that he
almighty God can give his creatures.
The third feature that we must notice is
this.
It is not only desire that God desired
the highest for the unworthiest, but he procured
it at the greatest conceivable cost to him.
God sent his only son into the world
to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
My good people, we need the spirit of
God to help us to taste things in.
We become so accustomed to scripture and to
divine truth that it doesn't move us at
all.
God sent his son into the world.
Have you pondered the significance of that?
Out of the ivory palaces into this world
of woe.
Have you ever pondered the mystery of the
incarnation, what it meant for the Son of
God to take to his deity of our
humanity, to be contracted to a stand in
the virgin's womb, to be born of a
woman, to live under the law, to become
a mere man among men?
That's reflected in these words.
He sent him into the world.
God so loved us that he sent him,
and he cared.
My will, said he, is to do the
will of him that sent me.
It isn't only that I've been commissioned, but
I've come, I was consecrated to it, and
I've accepted the task of my own free
will.
For God so loved the world, he sent,
he gave his son.
Who is this, cries William Walsham, how so
weak and helpless, child of lonely Hebrew May,
rudely in a stable sheltered, coldly in a
manger laid?
And he answers, it is the Lord of
all creation, who this wondrous path hath trod.
He is Lord from everlasting and to everlasting.
God, great is the mystery of godliness.
God manifest in flesh, veiled in flesh, the
godhead see.
But my text goes even further than that.
God not only sent his son into the
world, God sent his only son into the
world to be the propitiation for our sin.
To send him to Bethlehem was a mark
of imponderable grace, but Bethlehem at best was
only a stepping stone to Calvary.
And the lamb was slain from before the
foundations of the world.
Calvary was in God's purpose before the incarnation.
He sent his son into the world that
his son in the world should bear our
sins in his own body to the tree.
These are the passages that come to mind
and illuminate the significance of John's words.
He was made sin for us who knew
no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him.
He bore our sins in his own body
to the tree.
He died the just for the unjust to
bring us to God.
He took the curse in our place.
He bore away our sins.
That's love.
Now listen, my friend.
God could give nothing that would cost him
more than that.
For he gave his son.
He gave his only son.
And he was so intimately related to his
son that in the giving of his son
he came himself.
For God was in Christ, reconciling the world
unto himself.
That's love.
Now what then is the quality of this
love that is revealed once for all in
human history?
That John says of it, here it is,
he says, not in anything else, not in
anything that we have or we show or
we do, but here it is.
Not that we love God, but that God
loved us.
There it is.
It was a love that settled upon the
most undeserving people in their most miserable and
lost estate.
It was a love that sought to bring
men from the lowest dungeon of despair and
of lostness to the highest experience of life
everlasting.
And it was prepared to pay the costliest
price to do that for the unworthy and
the undeserving.
Herein is love.
Men and women, brothers and sisters in Christ,
I hope there is something in your heart
this morning that rejoices that God so loved
you and loved me.
There is some dancing in our spirits that
acknowledges the wonder of this love.
Here it is.
And it is this that beckons us this
morning to the table.
Oh, wondrous love to bleed and die.
And bear the cross and shame that guilty
sinners such as I might plead thy precious
name.
To all who own Jesus Christ as Savior
and Lord, we extend a welcome to the
table today.
Join us.
This is his table.
If you have come to him whose love
is so great and unqualified and have tasted
and seen of his grace and salvation, come
and partake of the cup and of the
bread we thanksgive you.
Let our hearts together worship the Father who
gave the Son and the Son who gave
himself and the Spirit who made over the
things of Christ to us so that Christ
of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, redemption.
Let us pray.
Holy Heavenly Father, there is an awesomeness that
creeps into our souls as we realize the
depth of our misery outside of Jesus Christ.
Rarely do we dare to look into the
mirror of thy word and read the glaring
truth.
But here it is.
In our own blood we wallowed.
In the miseries of rebellion we wandered.
Far away from thee we enjoyed our sin
and were unlovely.
But while we were yet sinners, Christ, thine
only Son, well-beloved of thyself, died for
thee unlovely.
We thank thee, Father, for the measure in
which in our acceptance of him we have
begun to enjoy life in our souls that
we never had before.
And this morning as we come to the
table we see again the elements that remind
us of that stark reality that our life
could only be purchased at the price of
his blood.
His body was broken and his blood was
shed.
We ask now that thou wilt give to
each one of us the grace of gratitude
so that as we partake it is with
faith in him that will enable us to
live by his life even as we are
redeemed by his death.
Oh, to draw by faith the sustenance of
his everlasting life by the Spirit even at
this time.
Grant us now, therefore, the grace we need
and lead us in thy way for Jesus'
sake.
Amen.