Sermon Outline Oct 23, 2022

1 John 4:7-21

Learning to Love Both God & One Another

It is your Christian duty to love one another (vv7-12)
Because God is love and we are of God (vv7-8)

• God’s Attributes
• God’s love is His eternal giving or sharing of Himself.

Because God loved us and revealed His love in Christ (vv9-10)

• John 15:13; Rom 5:8
• Propitiation.  This is where God’s love and God’s wrath combine.
• God’s justice and His love are not opposed to one another or cancel one another out
• God’s love doesn’t exist apart from His justice.  
• There is no understanding of the good news apart from the bad news.  The good news is when God loves us particularly in salvation, His love is first to Christ and then to all who are in Christ.

It is your Christian faith that God abides in you (vv13-16)
By the Spirit (v13)

• 1 John 3:23-24.
• The mark of your faith is the Spirit.

By the Spirit we obey God’s commands (vv14-16)—

• The Spirit produces belief in Christ and love for one another (14-16)
• See the testimony (v14)
• By the Spirit we confess that testimony! (v15)

It is your Christian work that God’s Love is perfected in you (vv17-21)
By judgment (vv17-18)

• The fear of judgment and our confidence in the face of judgment is pushed back against by our love for one another. This is the distinguishing work for these early Christians.
• We love one another and our love is what God uses to perfect us, sanctify us, to help us stand firm in the face of judgment and tribulation.

By loving brothers (vv19-21)

• His love for us is not grounded in our obedience.  It is evidenced by it.  
• It is easier to love men than God (v20)
• No love for men, then there’s no love for God
• We think it’s easier to love God because He’s worthy of that love.

Application:
How can I learn to love Him?

• Learn to love God whom you can’t see (v12) by loving those you can see.
• John has made this practical in (3:17-18)
• We learn who & what love is at the Cross
• We learn how to love through one another
• By practicing sacrificial love for one another, we learn to love the one who sacrificed himself for us.
• Flows from 1 John 1:3—the coming of Christ is proclaimed so that those who hear of His incarnation and death might believe in Him and thereby learn to love both God and one another.