Everyday Church
Love Is in the Air
(upbeat music) - Hello, friend. Welcome to today's podcast, Everyday Church, with Pastor Jason Kiefer. Everyday Church is a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. - Hey, my friends. It's great to see you today. Be with you today on the Everyday Church podcast. Man, I hope you're having a great day in the Lord. And as always, I just want to invite you to join us at astuteobaptist.com. That's a great place to get connected and find other ways to grow in the Lord and get connected with people so that you can grow together in Christ. And so that's always important. But as always, I'm so glad that you're joining us and with us, and I want to invite you to subscribe to this, hey, like it. Be sure to share it with somebody. I want to encourage you with that and let's get the gospel message out there. Let's work together, right? We can only do so little when we work by ourselves. But working together can make just such an impact and really, really make a difference in the life of somebody. You don't know who might listen to this, and it just makes a difference in their life. And the message is Jesus. It's not me, it's not anybody. And so anyway, I just want to encourage you in that. Maybe you would help us with that. Hey, so the last few times we've been together in 1 John, we've been talking about discernment, the ability to know truth through the power of the Holy Spirit. And today we're going to continue, and we're gonna be in verses eight through 11 today. And I want to, have you ever heard this phrase before, love is in the air. Love is in the air, right? You, maybe somebody starts dating somebody and sometimes we have a school. So sometimes at school, you know, kids, they like each other or whatever, you know, they call it going out. I always laugh when they say that. I'm like, where are you going? You went out to the classroom or something like that, you know, where are you going out to the lunchroom? But you know, we'll say this, who loves in the air? And so you see people start dating, people get married, stuff like that. So we've all heard that phrase before, love is in the air. What do we mean by that? Well, it's obvious that this guy and this girl, they like each other and it's maybe a little more serious than just the like and maybe it's gonna turn into marriage or something like that. Love is in the air. We identify, we identify a relationship by the interaction between two people when we say that. It's real, right? You might, man, it's tangible. You can almost feel it and it's fun to watch when we see that. So what do we mean when we say that about our relationship is Lord, well, in these verses today, first John, for eight through 11, it says this, "He that loveeth not, knoweth not God, "for God is love, God is love." So there's that statement there. He's gonna, he makes that statement there emphatically in verse 16 where he says, "And we have known and believed the love "that God hath to us." And he just says, "God is love, God is love." And so that statement's made. So, "He that loveeth not, knoweth not God, "for God is love." Watch this. In this was manifest or made known, the love of God toward us. So one of the things that we can know about love is love is displayed. It's displayed towards something or someone. If I love my wife, it's gonna be evidence. You're gonna see it the way that I treat her, the way I talk to her, the way I talk about her, the way I interact with her. Like you're just gonna be like, man, he really loves her. You can identify a love that a dad would have for his kids. By the way he identifies or the way he interacts with his kids, the way he talks with them and communicates with them. The same thing with God, you can identify our love for him or his love for us in a certain way. So in this was manifest the love of God toward us. So because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. So how do we know that God loved us? Well, we know that he loved us because he gave us only begotten son, John 3 16, for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but I've everlasting life. We read over there in chapter three, a first John, "Behold, brethren, "behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, "that we should be called the sons of God." And so the Lord displayed his love for us by giving Christ on the cross. So what do we know, what does Romans say? God commended his love toward us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And so no greater love hath any man than a man laid down his life for his friend. And Jesus did that for you and I. And so what do we know when we talk about this love is that God's love for us is displayed in the giving of his son on the cross. And it's a permanent love, death is permanent. His death on the cross was permanent. It's inexhaustible. God would not have given his only begotten son if it was something that we could exhaust and run out of. But we know it's inexhaustible. You can exhaust the love of God. God, love is who God is. God is love, right? And so in fact, he says that in verse eight, we already mentioned that. But toward, I love how that John says it this way. In this was manifest the love of God toward us. God's love is drawing us into him. God's love was initiated by his own will and his own act of grace toward you and I. Not of anything we've deserved. Not of works lest any man should boast, but only by his grace and his great love where with he saved us. And so we know this, that God, God's we see God's love for us. And I wonder maybe today you're just easy to get discouraged. It's easy to think that life is just more than you can bear and how men go through this. And we forget about God's love for us. God loved us first, God loved us first. That's why we love him. And so we read on in this was manifest the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live, that we might live through him. So the purpose, so the purpose of God's love wasn't simply so that we could skip out on the payment of sin. That's part of redemption. That's part of restoration. But the purpose of God's love was so that we could live through him. There was a reason for him to love you. See, sin had broken the original design that God had there in the garden man destroyed it and destruction has been the repercussion ever since. And it was never gonna change. And so God commends his, he gives his love to us. He displays his love toward us. He brings us into this relationship upon believing in him and he gives us life and enables us to live through him, through the power of Christ. So like Paul said that I might know him in the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death. Paul wanted to live like Christ, for me to live as Christ, to die as gay. So Paul wanted to live as Christ and he wanted to live for Christ. And so that's what the love of God does. It provides the righteousness necessary for you to live as Christ and he lives through you. So, verse 10, here in his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sin his love to be the propitiation for our sins. So we do love him, we do love him, but he loves us first, he loves us first. And so I think the key is that when we live through him, it brings us into this relationship where we can love God, but we can only love him out of his love for us. He's not calling us to initiate love for him. I think sometimes we feel like we've got to dig deep and love God, you know, check your love for God, you know? And maybe it's not there and you need to go find it or something like that, it doesn't work that way. God's love for you gives life and from that life, you can now love him, you can now live for him, okay? And then, look what he says in verse 11. Well, go back, here in his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sin his son to be the propitiation or the payment for our sins. We've already talked about that, the redeeming power of his love. Verse 11, blood, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. If God loved us in a way that he give his only begotten son to die for you and us on the cross and friend, we ought to love one another's, what he's saying there. We ought to love one another. He says, no man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us. His love is perfected, his love is complete in us. You can know the maturity of a believer by the way that they love each other. Man, think about that. And that's really the whole premise behind everyday church, if you think about it. It's kind of getting us into the mindset of, man, how am I loving other people? How am I reaching out and helping other people? How am I engaging in the mission of the gospel with other people, right? Am I, do I see the needs of other people and think, well, you know, I hope somebody will help them. Even maybe today, you know someone that's discouraged and you know if you were to pick the phone up and just have a conversation with them, it would encourage them. Maybe you know today that if you were to take a few minutes and pray with somebody, don't just pray for them, maybe pray with them. That's loving someone. You know someone today that is discouraged and if you were to sit down and write on a note and take them to coffee or take them to lunch or just do something nice for them. Love somebody, right? Man, there's so much hate in the world. God's people ought to be loving each other and we ought to be growing in our love for one another. We ought to be seeking out ways that we can be a blessing to other people, right? Our God's been such a blessing to us and I wanna encourage you with that today. I wanna encourage you, let people know that you love others by the way you interact with them, the way you encourage them, the way that you pray for them, the way that you pray God's blessings upon their life, the way that you would pray with them. And I promise you, there's enough people that need love, there's enough people to go around. We can all stand to love one another a little more. Hey man, so I wanna encourage you in that today, okay? When you get off here, when you get finished listening, hey, go help somebody. I know somebody's coming to your mind. Somebody you can think of, look, if you don't have anybody to pray for, pray for me. I need all the help I can get, amen? So let's do that. Could you imagine if we would do that, if we would just focus on loving other people and put aside our differences, our petty, petty differences, that I'll be honest with you as believers, probably do more to harm the kingdom of God than they do to help the kingdom of God. And so maybe if we put those things aside and focus on loving one another, encouraging, helping, edifying, lifting up, building up one another, man, what a blessing we can be to one another. Do that today and I know God will bless that. Hey, be sure to like this, share it, help somebody out, amen? And let's grow together in God's grace and let's grow together in faith. Hey, let's go to the Lord in prayer and pray for you today. I pray that you just experience God's blessings in a very, very real and great way today. Father, thank you, thank you so much for your love for us, for your goodness for your grace that you bestowed upon us. Father, help us as your dear children, to walk in love, to demonstrate your love to those around us, we pray. We love you, we thank you and praise you to the precious name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening to Everyday Church, a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. If this episode was an encouragement to you, be sure to hit like, share it, and subscribe for future content. (upbeat music)