All right. We've been in a time of Bible
study. We're calling this current
series that we're in right now the Gospel course because we got
some delay with the thing, but the Gospel course.
And my hope is that with this series, we all get equipped with
the fundamentals of what the gospel is.
It's so critical. This is the thing that saves us
and we need it for ourselves and we also need it on our lips as
we go into our life. So we started this course
describing what the gospel is. The gospel, the Word, means good
news, and the good news we saw from our first week in First
Corinthians chapter 15. The good news is a death.
It is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for
the forgiveness of our sins. That's the message.
But we saw in the week after that that the reason why that is
good news is because there's also some bad news.
And that's the part that we mostly struggle with.
We like telling people good news.
And we saw that statistic while we were together, that almost
half of clinical physicians that were surveyed in that survey
struggled to give the bad news to their patients because of the
emotional cost of telling somebody something bad.
But that's what we really need. We saw in that second week that
we're all sinners. We, we don't like that word sin.
But really we need to know what we're saved from in the gospel.
And today we're going to ask this question.
We're going to see, why does God want to save me at all if I'm
really a Sinner? And if he had to go through all
of that to save us, why? Why would he want to do that?
I think that's a great question. I've wondered that question
myself. Why would you do this?
I don't deserve this, why would you do this?
And that's what we'll answer today.
We're going to look at our big idea is that God wants to save
us because he loves us. We're just going to give you the
answer right up front. He wants to save us because he
loves us. And today his love will be our
theme. We're going to look at 5
evidences of God's love in First John chapter 4.
So if you have a Bible, you can turn to 1st John chapter 4.
We'll be in verses 9 and 10. First John chapter 4, verses 9
and 10. The Bible says in this was
manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent
his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live
through him here in his love. Not that we loved God, but that
He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Let's take a moment and pray.
We're going to spend some time in these verses.
God, we come before your word and we confess that it's true
whether we always believe it or not.
We believe that you gave your life for us today.
We ask that you, you teach us in the Holy Spirit the things we
need to learn as individuals, as a church, and perhaps even that
we can be equipped for a conversation this week.
We give you permission now to speak to us.
Change us. Use this time for your glory.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen. All right.
Well, with love being our theme, it it's only fitting that you
should know that John, the the apostle John is really the love
guy. He is love, truth and light.
If you read John's gospel, if you read first, second and third
John, you'll see that he uses the greatest mention of the word
love and all the Bible, that's the books of the Bible it with
the word love being used in the the high ones are John and 1st
John. So it's only fitting that we're
hanging out with John for this particular theme.
So today we're going to see five reasons why God loves us and
wants to save us. And the first one we see from
our text is that God's love is evident.
His love is evident. If you look at first John
chapter 4, verses 9 and 10, it says in verse 9, and this was
manifested the love of God toward us.
And if you look at verse 10, it says herein is love.
So it's possible for us to know, to be able to see some kind of
evidence that God loves us. And if we're being honest, we
won't always feel like God loves us.
Feelings are not the metric for truth.
So if we are only looking for a feeling to validate that God
loves me, we're going to be really disoriented.
God says there's something that we can look to that proves that
He loves us, and He uses this word manifest.
So if you're taking notes, I gave you the definition that it
is to be made visible or known. Like if you have a manifest on
an airplane or on a ship, that tells you the contents.
It reveals what is inside. So to manifest is to make
something known. There's another word that's used
here that I told you. It's used a lot in John's
writing, the word love. I want to give you a definition
of love because you know as well as I do love is, it's a pretty,
it's a pretty crazy word in our world today.
But in general, this is from Google.
So this isn't like my created definition.
Google says that love is an intense feeling of deep
affection. You felt that before, right?
You're like, man, I just have all these feelings for you.
Or it's a great interest. I really love something or
someone. It doesn't have to be a feeling,
but I'm just, I really enjoy this thing.
And it can be difficult maybe for us to think that God feels
that way about us. And honestly, he doesn't feel
that way about everything about us.
He doesn't like sin, there's no question, but he chose to have
this feeling toward us. It's manifested.
We'll see in a moment what that is.
But you know how relationships work, right?
If you say you love somebody, there needs to be some proof.
Otherwise, it's just talk. It's just words.
Can you really say that you love somebody but never spend time
with them, you never seek them out.
There's no display of affection is beginning to not sound like
love. We know this from John 316 for
God so loved the world. John also says in first John 316
hereby perceive we the love of God.
It's perceived as an interesting word we're able to see and
understand. It's perceptible.
I can tell that God loves me. And the way that we do that is
that it gets really, really personal as any love
relationship does. So #2 is that God's love is
personal. If you look at first John
chapter 4 verse 9, and this was manifested the love of God
toward us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the
world. See, when it came to fixing our
sin problem and saving us, God did something very deeply
personal. And that song, the last song
that Jay wrote, sang it. It's from Philippians chapter 2
that he stepped out of heaven and into our world.
We see this word here, begotten. It's a very important word, so I
think I have it for you in your notes as well.
The definition that the word begotten is the only one of his
kind, the only one of his kind, or to be out of, to be borne out
from. Now the reason why this is
important here is because your King James Bible is more
accurate than any other English translation of the Bible.
All other modern translations remove the word begotten here
and in the famous verse John 316.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
Because it would not actually be true for you to say that God
sent his only son. According to the Bible, Israel
is the Son of God. Adam was the son of God.
Christians are sons of God. First, John chapter 1.
If we believe in him, he gives us power to become the sons of
God. So it's actually erroneous to
say that God sent his only Son. We need a qualifying word to be
borne out from the only one of his kind.
God has other sons. There's no other son that's
within the Trinity. So this word is important.
In fact, the sonship of Jesus Christ is so important that you
cannot be saved without believing that He is the Son of
God. He is the only begotten Son.
We see this again for like as I just quoted John 316 and even
into the Old Testament, we see the same concept in Psalm
chapter 2. Psalm 2 and verse 7 says I will
declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, Thou
art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.
And you can read Psalm 2. It's all prophetic about Jesus
ruling the world one day in the future.
He is the only begotten of the Father.
I think I put it to you this way in your notes, that God did not
outsource His love for you. He did not outsource His love
for you. I mean, Can you imagine this,
that you say that you love somebody, perhaps your kids, but
you can't make it to any of their sports games, so you send
your assistant to go and watch them for you.
That's, that's outsourcing right there.
That's not very personal, right? Or if you just think about Jesus
coming to earth to pay for our sins.
I mean, honestly, it would make more sense to the human mind to
take a wicked person and put them on the cross and put the
sins of the world on them. Like what if we just hung up
Hitler and poured out all of God's wrath on him instead of on
his son? That's what makes sense to me.
That's not how God did it. It was very personal.
And I tell you what, as a father, I can't imagine.
I have three sons. You guys know my kids.
I couldn't give any one of them. As much as I love you, I will
pick my sons over you. If it's life for life, I
wouldn't know how to do that. God loves you that much.
His love for you is not based on a feeling, it's based on what He
did for you. Thirdly, we see that this love,
this love, this live, it's supposed to be love.
This, this live is sacrificial. This is the kind of love that
we're talking about. Look at verse 10.
Herein is love not that we loved God, but that He loved us and
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins,
propitiation for our sins. We're going to look at that word
in just a moment. But this sacrifice is important.
This is a critical issue for how love works, is it not?
We sacrifice for those that we love.
And this would be like, could you imagine you have an
important date with somebody? Let's just say for me, maybe
we'll project out to 20 years being married.
Hey, that's a really cool time. We better do something special,
right? Like you can't blow it on a big
one, right? Yes, my wife is in the room.
You can't blow it on a big one, but imagine cheeping out on
something like that. Hey, it's 20 years.
We're married. You know what?
I got you some of those Dollar Tree flowers that are made of
like, vinyl. Could you imagine here?
Don't you feel loved? You know, I I got us something
special to eat. We're going to go get McDonald's
tonight. I would think that's probably
not a good idea, right? And maybe you're going to go
out, you're going to spend some time together and you just look
at your phone the whole time. That also would probably not go
over very well, would it? See, this is not how love acts.
Love is willing to pay the cost, and relationships come at a
cost. For us to have a relationship
with God, He paid the greatest cost.
He did not cheap out on us. So I want you to see this word
propitiation. It is appeasing God's wrath
against sin. That's what that word is.
It's a big word, but you can handle it.
It's used just a couple times in the Bible.
John uses this word again in first John chapter 2 where he
says that he is the propitiation for our sins.
He is the satisfaction of anything that God is angry about
was taken out on Jesus. That was a significant cost for
him and John 15. Jesus in his own words, said,
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his
life for his friends. This is, as Ephesians says, the
great love wherewith He hath loved us.
It is with the laying down of His own life, as he says in
Matthew, that it was a ransom for many.
It was literally a payment so that somebody else could be
free. I think I put it to you this way
in your notes that you really have to love someone to take
their consequence for yourself. This is what Jesus did for you.
You deserve to die and go to hell because you're a Sinner.
But Jesus took your sin upon himself.
He took your consequence away for me.
This makes me think of I have a first cousin.
I have a picture of him but I could not find it on my
computer. His name is PJ and PJ is serving
a 17 year sentence in prison. He's about 7 or 8 years in, so I
think he's got a little bit less than a decade left maybe.
And PJ and I ran around. We did all the same stuff
together, but he got caught for it and he's serving a long
sentence. This kind of sacrificial love
that takes the consequence would be like someone saying, I want
to take his consequence so he can go free and I'll go be
locked up for him. I mean, Can you imagine a free
person saying, well, just put me in his place and let's let him
out? We would do that for people we
love, maybe. Would you?
Bible says in Romans, for scarcely for a righteous man
will one die. Yet per adventure for a good
man, some will even dare to die. We may lay our lives down for
people we love, but even that's going to come at a struggle.
We're trained in our military or the Secret Service.
Protect the important people. I'll die for them to live.
But this is a sincere kind of love.
There's only one. That's a one time event.
I can only die for you once. What I'm doing is valuing you
more than myself. And exactly what that is, is
your next point. Point #4 is that God's love is
life giving. We see in verse #9 And this was
manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent
His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through
him. His love gives us life that we
might live through Him. This is what Ephesians says in
Ephesians chapter 2. And you hath he quickened, who
were dead in trespasses and sins to quicken us to make alive.
The word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any 2
edged sword. It's alive.
And So what Jesus did for us is he gave us life.
This kind of life is a spiritual life.
You already have a physical life.
You're living, you're breathing, you have a pulse.
But that we might live through him is that we would have
eternal life, as John 316 says, everlasting life.
This life begins not at some time in the future when you die.
This life begins, as John 316 says, whenever you believe, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life. So you have life when you
believe. I want to ask you a question
today. When was it in your life that
you understood what I'm talking about from up here?
That Jesus died for you and you chose to believe it?
If you haven't had a time in your life that you said, I'm
putting all of my faith in what Jesus did on the cross.
Today can be the day for you and we will rejoice.
It will be our great joy to help you come to saving faith.
But I put it to you this way in your notes.
Real love denies self so others can live.
This is what Jesus did. He said I will die so that you
can have life. And we see this example in
marriage Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 25.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church
and gave himself for it. So what Jesus did to for the
church to purchase for himself a people, he lay down his life and
if you want to be a husband, welcome to the rest of your life
when you get married. This is God's example for you.
The highest sacrifice that anybody could make is your
example. And we are called now to deny
ourselves and to love sacrificially for another person
that says, man, I don't really want to do that, but my wife
does. So we've got to figure out how
to do that. If you're not married yet, this
one might be backwards, but parents also have a great
sacrifice that they make. They invest in people before
they're really worth a whole lot to society.
Christianity has intrinsic value in humans because we're made in
the image of God, no matter how far born or how old you are.
But we invest in people, we pour out our energy and our life to
grow and develop them, and we end up exhausted and they just
have more energy. We see the same thing in
discipleship here in our church. We have a one-on-one
discipleship relationship where a disciple maker will meet with
the disciple, they'll be prepared, studied a lesson,
they'll be praying, they'll be leading and guiding and caring
for somebody else. And it is a sacrifice outside of
the other things you do with your life to be thoughtful and
considerate and lead another person and pour out your time
and energy for them. This is a Christian kind of
love. It says in verse 9 again that we
might live through him. This Christian love gives to
others so that they benefit. And lastly point #5 God's love
is first. I love this point.
I think this is the anchor to our time today.
This is in verse 10. Hearing is love, not that we
love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son.
So did you know that your relationship with God, you can
never say you took the first step towards Him.
It's impossible for you to say that because God already decided
before you were even born. I love you.
Check this out Revelation chapter 13 and verse 8.
It calls Jesus the Lamb slain from the foundation of the
world. You see, before creation even
happened, God had a plan. God and all of his foreknowledge
knew that what he would design would become flawed because
that's what happens with free will.
And he said before it's even broken, I have a plan to redeem
it. I will do it myself.
I know the cost. So God loved you before the
world even existed. He made a way for you to be
redeemed even into your life. If we Fast forward to the
present day and where you currently are, you were not
really worth dying for. Romans chapter 5 says that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
See, we did not clean ourselves up and present ourselves to God
and say, OK Jesus die for me. He did not die for the
righteous. He died to make you righteous.
He died for sinners. There's never a time in your
life that you can. You have nothing over Him.
He did everything for you and before you, all you did was
accept what He's already done. Romans 3 says that none seeketh
after God, and if it were not for God himself at work in your
life, drawing you to Himself, you would never know God.
Thankfully he does this. He reveals himself because He
loves you. He made a way.
He died for the world, not just a few certain people.
John chapter 16 tells us that the Comforter, the Holy Ghost,
would come and reprove the world of sin.
So the fact that we even understand our sin and we even
see Jesus on the cross is proof that the Holy Spirit is working
in our life. This is not a thing that we
would come to in our own senses. We need God's help to understand
His Word and the Gospel and to believe and be saved.
So you really can't boast at all in your salvation.
You didn't really do anything but believe He really helped you
all along the way and had a plan.
Doesn't that make it so simple? I put it to you this way, that
God seeks you out before you ever considered Him.
I know this is true of me. Can you remember when you were
lost? You were doing whatever you were
doing. You weren't thinking about him,
you weren't trying to be holy. You were distracted.
But there came a time in your life when he intersected your
life and you, your eyes were open to see and understand, and
you chose to believe he was at work the whole time.
He is all across the world at all times, by the way, for all
people. He's not willing that any should
perish. This isn't we're not a Reformed
Church. This is not a select elect.
He's not willing that any would perish.
He is drawing all men to himself.
John chapter 12. And man, is he not
long-suffering to us. Word.
How long did he wait for us so that all would come to
repentance? Praise the Lord.
That's wonderful. I think I have a few things at
the bottom of your notes. We usually conclude with the
time of prayer and we'll have a final song.
But before we get there, I'd like to just think about a
couple of these things. If you're here today and you
haven't had that time in your life that you chose to believe,
today's the day. The Bible says in Romans 10 that
if you believe in your heart and then you confess with your
mouth, you pray back to God that Jesus rose from the dead, you'll
be saved. That's all you have to do.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
See me afterwards. If you have any questions, I
would love to talk to you. But I would say the majority of
us have already done that. So now we get to take a moment
to consider how much Jesus really did for us.
He did more for us than we would do for anyone else.
Have you been thankful for that? Have you still been playing
around with sin like we know better?
Do I believe that He loves me? Maybe I need to remember herein
is His love. How do I perceive it?
It's the cross. Maybe you've lost the goal post
of God's love and you need to be reminded.
John 316 But as a church, I saved one verse for us.
And verse 11. The Bible says, beloved, if God
so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
Seeing the example of what Jesus did, we now turn to each other
and we have this responsibility towards other people.
We cannot die and atone for the sins of other people, but we can
love like God did. We can demonstrate our love.
It can be evident. Do we love each other?
There should be some evidence. We can make it personal.
We can't outsource it, that hey man, I'll just AirDrop you
something. We have to be in each other's
lives. We have to be willing to
sacrifice and do things that take our time and effort for
each other. We have to be willing to give
life to others the same man, let me help you.
Let me do something for you so you can be better for it.
And we have to choose love first.
I think this is critical of have been married for 16 years,
right? 16 years.
And I can tell you the Bible says a lot about removing
bitterness and unforgiveness. And what love does is it chooses
to love before the other one does.
I'm not waiting for you. I have to choose to love you
before you were worth being loved.
That's what Jesus did for us, and that's what we've got to do
for each other if we're going to function together as a church.
We in honor prefer each other. And we say, man, that person
offended me. And I don't really like that,
but I can respond in love. And maybe later I can address
that, but I can first. I can love.
The world will watch on. Jesus says that all men will
know that we're his disciples by the love that we have.
One for another, even thinking about evangelism, we're going to
have a lot of evangelism this summer.
If you're doing any evangelism at all with us on the street,
you're probably going to have somebody very upset with you at
some point, not all the time. You'll have people argue with
you and disagree with you, and you can do it just like Jesus
did it for you. How long did it take you?
Were you worthy when you got saved?
No. And we can just lovingly tell
people the truth. All right, man.
Well, have a good day. We need to live this kind of
love. Share it with other people.
So I want to give us a moment to pray.
There's those three things at the bottom of your notes.
I'm going to give you just a moment of silence and then I'll
lead us in a prayer and we'll have one more song.