A Love that Is Evident

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Well, over the last several weeks, it’s come up more than a few times in conversation just how easy it can be to let yourself get confused by emotions, especially momentary discouragement. You know, you just kind of get down because of circumstances, and it can confuse you. It can make you think all sorts of things that are not true.

You’ve probably been in a situation like that if you’ve ever gotten sideways with a family member, and you’ve started to think, well, he or she doesn’t appreciate me. They don’t really care, that sort of thing. You ever been there?

I know when you’re a little kid, I remember doing this, but it’s easy when mom and dad get mad at you because you haven’t been cleaning your room like you’re supposed to, or when they come get on to you, they don’t really love me. Have any of the rest of you ever felt that? My parents are not here tonight like they were this morning.

so I can say that. I felt that at times. I’m sure my kids feel that.

They don’t really love me. They got on to me. We got on to you because we do love you.

If we didn’t love you, we wouldn’t care how you acted. It’s easy with your spouse sometimes to have not even an argument, but cross words. And you think that thought starts to pop in your mind.

As a matter of fact, my wife and I have discussed this recently. Somebody starts to put that thought in your mind. You know, if she cared about me at all, she wouldn’t have said that.

If he really loved me, he wouldn’t, you know, he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t leave this much tea in the fridge. But we have those thoughts.

I think that’s normal. I won’t say it’s a good thing, but I think it’s normal that we have those thoughts. You know, there are people that we know, love, and care about us. We know it.

If we look at the evidence, we know it. But in the moment, we can let our feelings lie to us. We can let the circumstances lie to us and convince ourselves that they don’t care much at all.

And we can easily, easily do that with God. And the reason I know we can easily do it with God is from personal experience, number one, but also from the fact that Scripture takes so many opportunities to remind us of the love of God and to reassure us of the love of God and to point us to the evidence. for the love of God.

Scripture would not take all those opportunities. Scripture would not look for all those moments to slide that point in there if it weren’t for the fact that God knows our human nature is to begin to doubt things. And we see it recorded all through Scripture.

Look at the Israelites. How many times just in that 40-year period of wandering, and really a lot of them took place, I think, in the first year after they were led out of Egypt. They would get into some sticky situation that we know from hindsight God can handle, and they should have known from the evidence God could handle it.

All they needed to do was ask, but they’d get in some sticky situation where they’re a little hungry, they’re a little thirsty, or maybe they’re not even all that hungry, they’re just bored of the food they’ve got to eat, and they start whining and saying, God, if you really loved us, you wouldn’t have led us out to the desert to die here. You’re being just a little dramatic. If you were in my home acting like that, we’d call you Tallulah and say you were being dramatic.

Some of you all know who Tallulah Bankhead is. Some of you don’t. But we use that name in our house.

You’re being just a little dramatic now. Calm down. But they let their circumstances convince them God didn’t care.

God was so uncaring that He set them free out of Egypt just to lead them into the wilderness and let them die. Okay, come on. You’ve got all this evidence to the contrary.

But we see it all throughout Scripture that we are reminded of God’s track record. Nehemiah. We’re going to look at this in the near future on Wednesday nights.

Nehemiah goes through a list of all the things, or I shouldn’t say all the things, but Nehemiah goes through a list of many of the things that God had done for His people up to that time as a reminder to them that He has brought us this far. He is not going to abandon us now. And we see that approach taken all the time in Scripture.

And it’s easy for you and me to get into a situation where our feelings and our circumstances lie to us. We feel like God is distant. Now, I’m speaking to those who are believers.

When we’re not believers in Jesus Christ, we feel like God is distant because He is, or at least because we’ve distanced ourselves from God. But to the believer, even, we can let our circumstances and our feelings convince us that God is distant, He’s uncaring, He’s not concerned, but we need to do what Scripture points us to and look at the evidence. Because if we just stop, there’s plenty of evidence.

With my wife, if we have some crosswords over tea, that’s happened a few times. If we have crosswords over tea and I start to think, well, if she really cared about me, she wouldn’t have said that. I have to stop and think, wait a minute.

She puts up with me every day. She takes care of me when I’m sick. I have ample evidence.

I won’t go through and list all the evidence because we’ll be here all day. But if I stop and think about it, I have ample evidence that my wife cares about me, all right? As a child, when I think, oh, mom and dad yelled at me because I didn’t clean my room, they must not love me.

If I stop and think about it, there’s ample evidence that my parents love me. And when we start to think God doesn’t care about me, God’s distant, God’s not concerned, we have ample evidence to the contrary if we’ll just look at it. So if you would turn with me to 1 John chapter 4, some of you may already have done that from what’s on the screen.

But we’re going to be in 1 John chapter 4 tonight. This is just one of many areas that we could have gone to. But this is the one that I happened across this week, and I thought, I feel like this is something God’s put on my heart to talk about.

1 John 4, and we’re going to start in verse 7 tonight, if you’ll stand with me, if you’re able to, without too much trouble. And we’re going to read together from verse 7 to verse 16. 1 John 4.

It says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time.

If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit, and we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and He in God.

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. And you may be seated.

And the very first thing I’d want to show you tonight out of this passage is that love will always provide evidence of itself. And we make this point with the kids all the time, especially when they say, you know, we love you, we love you, and then they act like they don’t. Because kids do that.

Kids rebel, kids disobey. But we tell them, you know, God said we would demonstrate our love for Him through our obedience to Him. And in every case where there’s love, there’s some demonstration of it.

And I pose the question to them all the time. They’re probably sick of hearing it already, and we’ve got years to go. But I say, if I were to come home every day and just terrorize you all, if I were to come in and be mean to you and beat you, but then I tell you afterwards, I sure love you, which carries more weight, which is more convincing?

the words that say I love you or the behavior that says I do not love you. You know what? They get the right answer.

And I say, if I were to come home every day and berate mama and scream at mama and beat mama, but I said I just love you, which would be more convincing? They understand. They have understood from very early on that our actions and the evidence we present speaks louder than what we say.

If we love someone, we will back it up with evidence. Now, not all of us are equally demonstrative. Some people are just better at expressing it, but it’s going to show up somewhere, right?

If you tell your spouse, I love you, I love you, but you never pay any attention to them, you never show them in any way, is it convincing? It’s just words. Love is always going to give evidence of itself.

The whole letter of 1 John deals with the matter of evidence and our ability to know things about God. It’s one of the reasons why I love 1 John so much It deals so much with evidence, and that’s where my brain goes. I want to see evidence.

It deals with our ability to know things about God, and this passage in particular deals with evidence of love, God’s love and our love. So in this letter that’s written, he says it so many times. John says it so many times throughout 1 John.

He’s written these things that we may know. One time I went through and counted for a sermon the number of times he uses the word know or some variation. That’s K-N-O-W, not N-O.

but uses the word no in the book of 1 John, and it’s just an astonishing amount. I didn’t go and look that up for this time, but he uses it all the time because this book was written so that we would be assured of some things about God, so that we would have some confidence in some things about God. And this passage in particular wants us to know the evidence of God’s love.

As I said, love is always going to provide evidence because the way the Bible describes love is different from the way the world expresses love. If you watch the movies, it’s easy to get into an idea, love is a feeling. Love is a feeling.

You know, you got shot by Cupid’s arrow and you just feel L-U-V, right? And then eventually, those feelings kind of fade or they change. And that’s why we hear people say, well, we just fell out of love.

Okay, you might have fallen out of the feelings, But the way the Bible describes love is something different from what we see modeled in our society. It’s not something that’s merely felt. It’s something that’s acted on.

It’s something that we demonstrate. It’s not just a burning in the heart or a nauseousness in the pit of the stomach. It’s something we do.

It’s not something that’s completely internal. It’s something that’s demonstrated. And it’s not something that is fleeting, but that is committed to. One of the ways that my wife shows love in our family is she gets up every morning and makes the kids breakfast and gets them started with the day, and I help where I can, but let’s face it, she does the heavy lifting there.

For her to accomplish that, she has to start her day earlier than I think is decent for any human being to have to start their day, because she’s got things she’s got to do before they get up or they don’t get done. And so my wife gets up at 4. 30 in the morning to read her Bible and get herself ready before Charlie starts waking up demanding attention at 5.

30. And I know, I know, I know, I know, because she’s human. There are days my wife does not want to get up at 4.

30 in the morning. There are days my wife does not want to get up at 5. 30 in the morning and does not want to be down there in the kitchen making breakfast and making the gallons of coffee it takes for our family to run.

She doesn’t want to be doing these things early in the morning. There are days you just don’t feel like it, right? And she does it anyway.

And that’s love. Love has very little to do with feelings. Love has everything to do with a commitment.

Some days you may just be overflowing with love for your spouse. Other days you may say, oh, you again, right? Not me, I never feel that way.

But you know what? You don’t stop being married to them and you’re not supposed to stop loving them just because one day, oh, they’re the sweetest thing, and the next day you left your shoes downstairs again. No, you’re committed to each other, and that’s what love is.

And that’s the way the Bible uses it. And the Bible talks about God demonstrating His love in this same way, in this way that’s demonstrated, in this way that gives evidence, in this way that is a genuine commitment, not just a fleeting feeling. Romans 5.

8 says that He demonstrated His love in a visible way when we were at our most unlovable. It says, God demonstrated or commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He didn’t wait until we were cleaned up and lovable.

God looked at us and saw us even though we were sinners. He decided to demonstrate, to prove His love to us by sending His only begotten Son. And that’s what this passage talks about tonight.

God has given ample evidence of His love for us. I’d go so far as to say He can’t help it because it’s who He is. Verse 8 says, God is love.

Now, some people have expanded that to mean more than what it means, and in so doing have taken away what it does mean. To say God is love does not mean that God is just okay with whatever we want to do and however we want to live. To understand God being love means it’s His nature to love us even when we’re unlovable.

It’s not because of anything we’ve done. It also doesn’t mean that everything we’ve done is okay, but it means that even while God is holy, it’s His nature to love us. It has nothing to do with anything we’ve earned or deserved.

It’s who He is. We’ve talked about this with our kids when they get in trouble. We still love you.

As a matter of fact, I’ve stopped saying we still love you because that makes it sound like there’s something they could do to make us stop. I will always love you. Do you know why?

No, because I’m your daddy. It’s in my nature. It’s in the way God has wired me.

It’s in the nature of who God is to love us. It has nothing to do with us being lovable. And He’s shown us that love.

We see some of the evidence listed in here. So if you’re ever thinking, well, how do I know God loves me? He’s given us some evidence that’s spelled out here starting in verses 9 and 10.

Look at this again. In this, the love of God was manifested or demonstrated, displayed toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Now what that means, He said, here is the evidence of God’s love for us in the Son. He took His only begotten Son, the only Son that is His Son by nature. Now we are adopted as believers in Jesus Christ. We are adopted into His family as sons, but His only begotten Son, that means the only one that is His by nature, He was willing to send Him and to sacrifice Him.

for us. He sent Him into the world that we might live through Him. So people who were sinners, people who were rebels against God, people who shook their fist at God and said, we’re not doing what you want.

God loved us enough and was willing to demonstrate it by sending His only begotten Son so that we could live. We didn’t deserve that life, by the way, but God loved us enough and He proved it by sending Jesus Christ. And not just sending Him into the world, but it says in verse He sent Him to be the propitiation for our sins. He sent Him to be the sin offering.

He sent Him to be killed, for His blood to be shed like the bulls and goats and lambs of the Old Testament, for His blood to be poured out, for His life to be given up for ours, so that our sin could be wiped clean. Only in this case, this sacrifice works once for all. You didn’t need a second one.

You didn’t need another one next year. You didn’t need another one next time you messed up. God loved us enough that He sacrificed His only begotten Son, pay once and for all for the sins of those who had sinned against Him, so that we might live.

Now, if you ever get to a point where you think, if God really loved me, I wouldn’t be in this situation. And I’ve been there. That thought enters in.

God, this is a really unpleasant situation, and if you were paying attention, I wouldn’t be in this. Whoa, wait a minute. What more evidence do I need?

When I think God doesn’t love me, when I think God doesn’t care, He’s provided more than enough evidence. He was willing to send His Son for me. And He was willing to send His Son for you.

And we need to understand that. We need to really understand what He sacrificed there. I love you all in this room, but I can’t see sending any of my children to the cross for you.

I love you, but I couldn’t do that. But God loved you enough to do that. The Father loved you enough to send His Son.

And it’s not like He was me with three more at home. This is His only begotten Son. So if you ever get to the point of thinking, how do I know God loves me?

Or if somebody ever asks you, oh yeah, you say God’s love, but look at what’s going on in my life. What reason do I have for thinking God loves me? He’s given us the evidence of His Son.

The cross is the ultimate evidence of the love of God. Because He could have left us to endure the penalty that we deserve for our sins, but instead He sent His only begotten Son to be the offering for our sins. Now that right there is enough.

That right there is enough evidence. if we understand the cross and we understand what the Father did and what the Son did, we have more than enough. If we really understand that, we have more than enough evidence right there in front of our eyes demonstrated for us that God loves us.

That’s plenty. That’s enough. But wait, there’s more.

If I were a salesman, but wait, there’s more. Verse 13, by this we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit. You ever think, well, He did that once, but I feel like He’s so distant now.

And maybe it’s not that you think, well, He doesn’t love me, but maybe you think He’s not paying attention. Maybe you think He’s preoccupied with other things, and He doesn’t notice what you’re going through. He says, by this we know that we abide in Him.

By this we know that we have this relationship with Him, that we continue in this with Him, that we are able to rest in Him. That word abide means to rest, that we rest in this relationship with our God. So by this, we know that we have this connection with Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit.

He’s given us His Spirit. And if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit of God lives inside of you and has taken up residence inside of you. And I know the skeptics would say, well, there’s no proof that the Holy Spirit lives inside of you.

Every time, maybe there’s not proof that I could show to somebody that they could touch, taste, that sort of thing. But every time I look at my own life and I think about the things that I’m inclined toward and the attitudes that I’m inclined toward, and I think about that voice that I hear tapping me on the shoulder and saying, uh-uh, and I think about the change that that influence has made over time in my life. And even now, my wife tells me, you are too nice to people sometimes.

And I say, it’s the Holy Spirit. Take it up with Him. All right?

Because I didn’t used to be this way. I know that that’s not just me getting nicer over time. People don’t usually, don’t we as a species generally get crankier over time?

that’s what I’m told people don’t generally get nicer over time it’s the Holy Spirit and that’s not to say that I’m just this perfect wonderful person but the Holy Spirit’s there tapping me on the shoulder all the time saying change course no don’t go that way and if you’re a believer you have that same Holy Spirit now do we always listen to him no but you know that voice is there you know he’s telling you you know he’s directing you and that’s another evidence that God’s still there God’s still paying attention. God loves you. You’re in a relationship with Him because He sent His Son so that you could have the relationship.

And He sent His Spirit there to lead you in that relationship. And this passage also teaches us that our relationship is secure because of Jesus. Sometimes we just get to a point where we convince ourselves that God doesn’t care about me anymore because I’ve messed up so much or because I’m not where I ought to be by this point in my relationship with God.

We might feel at times like God is unseen and distant. He even says this in verse 12, no one has seen God at any time. You know, we can’t just look right there across from us and there He is.

He said, if we love one another, God abides in us and His love has been perfected in us. His love has been perfected in us. It is still possible, even though we don’t see God, we don’t smell God, we don’t taste God, it’s still possible to have the confidence that our relationship with Him is secure, to have the confidence that His love has been perfected or completed in us.

It’s still possible to know that we walk in His love and we abide in this relationship. If we ever doubt the love of God for us, if we ever doubt that we have this relationship with Him, all we need to remember is that He gave us His only begotten Son to be our Savior. The basis for our relationship with Him is not our feelings.

The basis for our relationship with Him is not what we’ve done to deserve it. The basis of our relationship with Him is not our performance. The basis of our relationship with Him is what Jesus Christ did on the cross.

If we confess Jesus, verse 15 teaches us that we know God abides in us and us in Him. We know we have this relationship with Him if we’ve confessed Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Because it comes down to this, the Father did not send the Son to die for people that He was just going to abandon.

If at any time, if at any time, God was just going to turn His back on us, then I don’t understand why He would go to such great lengths at the cross to reconcile us to Him. Think about that. Have you ever had something that you’ve paid a tremendous price for?

Something you’ve invested a lot of money or time or work into? Anybody? Anybody years and tons of money building a house?

I mean, do you move into it and just leave the windows open and let nature take its course? Make sure, you know, here in Oklahoma, you don’t have tornado insurance and all the. .

. We’re just going to let it go. No.

No, you intend to keep that. You paid money for that. You intend to take care of that.

Well, God paid for us with something more precious than money. The Father sent His Son. He would not have invested the time and the effort and the blood of Jesus to redeem us if He was just going to turn around and abandon us later.

He wouldn’t do that. And so if we get to this point of thinking God doesn’t care, God’s not paying attention, and I think we all get there at some point or another. Even I get to points where I feel sorry for myself and think, God, I don’t know that I’ve felt like God didn’t love me, but I’ve certainly felt like He wasn’t listening to me.

He wasn’t paying attention. God, do you even care about this? My relationship with Him is not based on something I think He ought to do that He maybe has or hasn’t done.

It’s not based on how I feel. It’s not based on what I’ve accomplished. It’s based on what Jesus Christ did.

He sent His Son to be the propitiation, the offering for our sins. You know, I’ve got more in my notes tonight, and I really just want to drive that point home. That there will be times for each of us.

There will be times for us as a people, as well as times for us as individuals, that we feel distant from God. tonight you may be sitting there saying I don’t feel that way you will you probably have or maybe you’re sitting there tonight saying I feel that way right now I hate that for you if you feel that way because I know what it feels like folks just like with our spouses and we know that we look at all the evidence of the way they treat us and the the way they take care of us and we say okay one one little argument doesn’t mean she doesn’t love me or with our parents as children okay they got on to me. That doesn’t mean they don’t love me.

Folks, it’s the same way with God. Don’t let momentary feelings or your circumstances convince you that what God said is true is not true. Because God said that He loves us.

He said He is love. But God also went to the ultimate lengths to prove it. And if you ever think, how can I know God loves me?

How can I know God cares? You don’t have to look any further than the cross of Jesus Christ.