Advent; God Is Love (1 John 4:7-14)

23/12/24 God Is Love; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20231224_advent-love.mp3

Advent

Today is Christmas Eve, and the fourth Sunday of Advent, celebrating the coming of Jesus. Each Sunday we light a candle to heighten anticipation, to fix our eyes on Jesus. The first candle symbolizes hope; hope in the darkness. Hope in my darkness. Jesus came into the world as light, and we loved darkness rather than light because our deeds were evil (Jn.3:19).

The second candle symbolizes peace, shalom, well-being, wholeness, completeness. Jesus is the only way for us sinners, with our fractured relationships, to have real peace, peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom.5:1). Jesus brings peace to my chaos.

The third candle symbolizes joy. Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Jesus brings a kind of joy that the world cannot produce and does not understand (Jn.16:20-22). Jesus, who changed water to wine, takes our sorrows and transforms them into indestructible joy.

The fourth candle symbolizes love. That’s what we are going to look at this morning.

What Is Love?

Love. What is love? Love is fruit that the Spirit produces (Gal.5:22-23), along with joy and peace and patience (which is a kind of hope). Love is that without which all eloquence, all wisdom, all knowledge, all power, all self-sacrificial giving, is nothing (1Cor.13:1-3). Love abides, along with faith and hope, but the greatest of these is love (1Cor.13:13). But what is love?

1 Corinthians 13 describes love as the still more excellent way.

1 Corinthians 13:14 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. …

This helps us understand what love does and does not look like, but it doesn’t define what love is.

God the Source of Love (1 John 4:7-8)

For that we will turn to First John. 1 John 4 nails down what love is.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, …

John calls us ‘beloved’; those who are loved, He stirs us, who have been loved, up to love one another.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, …

He bases our love on God who is the source of love. Love is from God. Love originates in God.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Love, the real kind of love, is produced in the one who knows God, because he has been born of God. Jesus talks in John 3 of being born again, born from above, born of the Spirit. Jesus tells Nicodemus ‘you must be born again’ (Jn.3:3-7). The world loves, but not the way Jesus loves. That kind of love is a fruit of knowing God, being born of God. It is fruit that the Holy Spirit of God produces when he lives in a person. The one who truly loves has been born of God.

And knows God. Notice, this doesn’t say ‘he knows about God’. God is personal. God can be known. I know things about Abraham Lincoln, but I’ve never met him, never had a conversation with him, never spent time with him. And he doesn’t know me. Knowing God points to relationship, friendship, intimacy.

God Is Love (1 John 4:8, 16)

1 John 4:8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Being in relationship with God produces genuine love in us, because God is love. We become like those we spend most time with.

God is love. Notice, it does not say ‘God is loving’. That would be true, but that is a different thing from saying ‘God is love’. Saying someone is loving describes their actions, personality, characteristics. They are loving; they do loving things.

Saying God is love says that, but so much more. It says that in his essence, in his very being, he is love. If you could take a picture of the invisible God, if you looked up love in the dictionary, you would find that picture. God is love. God defines love. God is the originator of love. He is the source of all love. Love is from God, because God is love.

This does not say ‘God became love’; it says ‘God is love’. He always was and always will be love. Love necessitates an object, someone to love. This passage addresses us as ‘beloved’; we are loved by God. But saying ‘God is love’ goes back before us, to who God is, in and of himself.

How could God be love before he created, if there existed nothing outiside of himself to love? This only makes any sense in light of the biblical understanding of the being of God as eternally existing in more than one person. There is only one God; God is one in being, in essence; but God eternally exists in three persons in relationship with one another.

When we read the New Testament, we see God in relationship. Jesus sought time alone to converse with his Father (Mt.14:23). The Father spoke his approval over his Son (Mt.3:17; 17:5). In John 5, Jesus said that he works alongside his Father, he does what he sees the Father doing, and the Father loves his Son and shows him what he is doing (Jn.5:18-20). Jesus sought to glorify his Father, and the Father glorified his Son (Jn.17:1,4-5). John 17 records for us one of Jesus’ prayers to his Father. The deepest agony of the cross was Jesus’ experience of being forsaken by his Father (Mt.27:46).

Jesus also spoke of the Holy Spirit as ‘the Helper, whom the Father will send in my name’ and ‘whom I will send to you from the Father’, who ‘will bear witness about me’ (Jn.14:26; 15:26). We read of the Father sending his only Son, and the Father and the Son sending the Spirit.

John began his gospel account this way:

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.

The Word who existed eternally with God, who was himself God; he existed in relationship with God. He was with him. John 1:14 leaps forward to a point in history when;

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus, who is himself God, who eternally existed with, in relationship with his Father, became flesh, became human, and came to live with us. This is Christmas.

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

Jesus, God incarnate, God in flesh, eternally in relationship with his Father, puts the invisible God on display for us to see.

One God, existing eternally in the persons of Father, Son and Spirit, enjoying relationship with one another; God is love.

Enfolded in the Love of the Triune God (1 John 1)

John begins his short letter First John like he began his gospel. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’

1 John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—

The Word, the Word of Life, the Eternal Life that existed in the beginnning, the Life that was with the Father was made manifest to us. We are eye-witnesses. We heard, we have seen with our eyes, we examined the evidence, we touched with our hands, we testify and proclaim to you. Why?

1 John 1:3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

So that hearing their testimony we may believe. Believe on the testimony of eye-witnesses who examined the evidence. So that we can have fellowship with them, with the apostles, with every believer, fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. So that we could be included in, enveloped into this love of the triune God.

Gospel Love (1 John 4:9-10)

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Now we get to the definition of love:

1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

This is Christmas; God sent his only Son into the world. This is how God made known his love. God is love, but God put his love on display by sending his only Son into the world.

But why? So that we might live through him. This says something about us. This tells us that we are dead and need to be made alive. We need to be born again. We are under the death sentence; the wages of sin is death, and we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Rom.6:23; Eph.2:1-3). God sent his only Son so that we might live through him. It is only by means of the Son whom the Father sent into the world that we can have life, be born again. How does this work? John explains;

1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

This is love; not our love for God, but God’s love for us. God’s love is displayed in Christmas, where God sent his only Son into the world that we might live through him. How do we live through him? How do we live if we are the walking dead? Propitiation. A wrath appeasing sacrifice. The wages of sin is death, and we are rebels against a gracious and kind God; we deserve to die, to be finally and forever separated from a good God (Is.59:2). Propitiation is the just and holy wrath of God against my sin being poured out on a substitute. In the Old Testament, a sinner would lay his hands on the head of an animal, and that animal would be butchered and burnt on the altar as a substitute, and it would go up as a pleasing aroma to the LORD (Lev.1:4-9). Hebrews tells us:

Hebrews 10:11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, … 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Jesus, my great High Priest, offered up himself. My sin was placed on Jesus on the cross, and the righeous wrath of the Father toward my sin was poured out in full on Jesus in my place. God sent his only Son to die so that we might live.

1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

That is love. The one who did no wrong, who owed me nothing, willingly took my place, took my punishment, so that I could have life, enjoy relationship with the one I had wronged.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 ​Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Put God’s Love On Display (1 John 4:11-12)

So John exhorts us;

1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

Because we are beloved, so loved by God, this ought to stir us to love one another. This verse is startling. In John’s gospel, we already looked at John 1:18

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

No one has ever seen God. In John 1:18 it is Jesus, the only begotten God, who makes God known. But here in First John, it is our love for one another, created in us by God abiding in us, that brings God’s love to completion, to its perfect fulfillment. We are invited to put God’s love on display in this broken and hurting world!

God didn’t need us. The Father loved the Son and the Son loved his Father, but love naturally (or should I say supernaturally) spills over to include others.

God’s love for us is different; the Father deserves to be loved by his Son, the Son pleased his Father in everything, and merits his Father’s love. We don’t deserve God’s love. We did everything to earn his wrath, we deserve condemnation, but he loves his enemies (Rom.5:5-10). This is the kind of love he creates in us, because he comes to live in us.

1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

God’s love starts with abundance and spills out to meet desperate needs. God is love. God put his love on display by sending his only Son to be the propitiation for our sins. God puts his love in us by giving us his Spirit, coming to live inside us. We are called beloved, so we can love others. We love because he first loved us (1Jn.4:19).

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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

Daniel 6:21-23; The Presence of God in the Pit

02/27_Daniel 06:21-23; The Presence of God in the Pit; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20220227_dan06_21-23.mp3

Daniel was conspired against by those who were envious of his favored position. They could find no ground of accusation against him, so they manipulated the king to mandate that all prayer go through the king alone.

Daniel 6:10 When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.

For Daniel, it was unthinkable to alter his habit of communion with his God. Every good thing comes from God, and it would be sin to fail to give him the thanks he is due.

Daniel 6:13 Then they answered and said before the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or the injunction you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”

The trap is sprung, the king is caught, Daniel will be the defenseless casualty.

Daniel 6:14 Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed and set his mind to deliver Daniel. And he labored till the sun went down to rescue him. 15 Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed.”

Despite his best efforts, king is cornered, helpless to effect any deliverance for Daniel.

Daniel 6:16 Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king declared to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” 17 And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel.

Daniel was beyond help. His fate was sealed. No one could intervene, for good or evil, except the Lord alone. The king knew that, so he entrusted Daniel to God’s intervention; “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” It is not clear if he was stating the desperate facts ‘your God must deliver you,’ expressing his confidence ‘your God will deliver you,’ or offering a wish or prayer ‘may your God deliver you.’

Daniel 6:18 Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him.

Whatever he knew of Daniel’s God, he spent a uncomfortably long sleepless anxiety filled night.

The Living God

Daniel 6:19 Then, at break of day, the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions. 20 As he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish. The king declared to Daniel, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?”

The king had hope. He didn’t stay home and assume the worst. Had he spent the sleepless night wrestling in prayer? What did he learn about Daniel’s God during this night? The day before he had said ‘May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you.’ Today he adds ‘O Daniel servant of the living God.’ Has he come to recognize, regardless of the outcome, that Daniel’s God is more than just Daniel’s God, that he is the living God? Daniel would only be alive if his God proved to be alive and active, at work, intervening on behalf of his servant. Jeremiah, some 50 years earlier said:

Jeremiah 10:10 ​But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

Job said:

Job 12:10 In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.

Daniel himself back in chapter 5 rebuked the wicked Belshazzar on the night Darius conquered him:

Daniel 5:23 but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. …but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.

Darius now acknowledges Daniel’s God as the living God. A king who understands that God is the living God, who understands where his own life comes from and who sustains his every breath, will be a better ruler than a king who does not recognize the God who gives life.

Higher Allegiance

Darius addresses Daniel as ‘servant of the living God …whom you serve continually.’ Daniel was his top administrator, put in a position of authority to serve the interests of the king. Back in chapter 2 the Chaldeans referred to themselves as servants of the king (2:4,7). Darius rightly could have addressed Daniel as ‘O Daniel my faithful servant.’ Why doesn’t he? It had become clear that although Daniel did faithfully serve the king and the kingdom, he held a higher allegiance. He faithfully served the king because he served his God, and this is what his God would have him do. When the edict of the king contradicted the will of his God, there was no question whom he must obey.

And this does not sound derogatory on the lips of Darius, as if he were frustrated by the fact that Daniel had a higher allegiance. Rather it seems to be a title of honor and respect, Darius recognizing the privilege and value of having a servant of the living God in his administration.

O King Live Forever!

The king’s voice was filled with anguish, but he spoke out loud, addressing his question to a Daniel he didn’t know was alive or dead.

Daniel 6:20 …“O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” 21 Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! 22 My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.”

The first thing the king heard from the lion’s den, and the first words recorded in this chapter that were spoken by Daniel was ‘O king, live forever!’ Not ‘help!’ Not ‘how could you?’ Not ‘hurry up and get me out of this pit!’ Daniel was more concerned about the life of the king than his own situation or safety. Daniel showed appropriate honor and court etiquette addressing the king even from the lion’s den.

Remember, his accusers had:

Daniel 6:13 …said before the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or the injunction you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”

Daniel demonstrates that he does pay attention to the king and is genuinely pursuing what is best for the king, even if that means disobeying the king’s own edict at great personal cost. To pray to God, no doubt praying for the king and for the kingdom, is what is best for the king, whether the king likes it or not.

Daniel states that he was found blameless before his God, and also before the king he had done no harm. Again, notice the persistent priority. It is more important to be found blameless before God than it is to be found to have done no harm to the king. But this is also cause and effect. It is precisely because Daniel was seeking to please his God above all else, that he had done no harm to the king. It was God’s command through the prophet Jeremiah to ‘seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile’ (Jer.29:7). His obedience to God resulted in seeking the good of king and kingdom.

The Justice of God

Daniel 6:22 My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him; …

Once the king saw through the conspiracy, he was much distressed and made every effort to protect the guiltless and bring about justice, but he could do nothing to deliver Daniel. He was constrained to execute the innocent. Murderous jealousy had won the day. But that was not the end of the story.

God is just. But so often justice does not prevail. We often ask ‘Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? (Jer.12:1). But God is just, and this is not the end of the story. ‘Leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord”’ (Rom.12:19). The Judge of all the earth shall do what is just (Gen.18:25).

Daniel may have cried out for justice like David in Psalm 7

Psalm 7:1 O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, 2 lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver. 3 O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, 4 if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, 5 let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. — Selah

The Presence of God’s Messenger

God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths. Is this one thing or two things that God did? Did God send his angel and that angel shut the mouths of the lions? Or did God shut the lions’ mouths, and God sent his angel to be with Daniel? We are told precious little about what actually happened that night in the sealed lions’ den.

But I think we can take some cues from what happened in the fiery pit in chapter 3; there it was Nebuchadnezzar who observed “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” (Dan.3:25). He concluded ‘God …sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him’ (3:28). Should we imagine the angel busily fending off and muzzling lions all night, or should we rather see Daniel enjoying sweet fellowship with the divine messenger throughout the night?

As we see throughout the Old Testament, the angel of the Lord or the angel of God often seems to be a divine person; God himself, not merely a created angel. Likely this divine messenger is the Word who was with God and who was God, before he became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn.1:1,14). God is with his people in the fire, and he is with his people when they are unjustly accused and thrown to the lions. God is personally with us when the stone is put in place and the tomb is sealed and we are left for dead. Jesus said ‘I am with you always’ (Mt.28:20). ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’ (Heb.13:5).

Isaiah 43:1 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 ​When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. …5 ​Fear not, for I am with you;

The king was worried, anxious, stressed all night, in anguish, at daybreak came in haste to the sealed den. But now we see why Daniel was not hurried or anxious to get out of the den. In the midst of his darkest night, he was experiencing intimacy with his God. The one he spoke to regularly three times each day was with him.

Daniel might have been singing Psalm 57

Psalm 57:1 Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by. 2 I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. 3 ​He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. — Selah God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness! 4 My soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down amid fiery beasts— the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords. 5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth! 6 They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it themselves. — Selah 7 ​My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody! 8 ​Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn! 9 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. 10 For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. 11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

Joyous Good News!

Daniel 6:21 Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! 22 My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.” 23 Then the king was exceedingly glad, and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.

The king, who was much distressed and had labored until the sun went down to rescue Daniel, the king who had spent a tormented sleepless night, the king who went in haste at the break of day to the den of lions, who cried out in anguish on the way, is now overjoyed at the good news that God was able and Daniel is alive. Finally, Daniel is taken up out of the den, and he is seen to be unharmed.

The Gospel

Do you see yourself in this story? So much of this story is about Darius. We see his circumstances, his efforts, his emotions. Proud, thinking the world of himself, he fell for flattery and was sold a bill of goods. You don’t need God; you can live for yourself, get glory for yourself.

But when their lie is exposed and you come to your senses, you realize the ones you thought were your friends were playing you, using you to accomplish their own ends.

But you’ve made foolish choices that can’t be reversed. Distressed, you labor to right your wrongs, to make up for what you’ve done, but you simply can’t. What you’ve done can’t be undone.

But you are undone. In your grief you recognize your foolish pride will cost an innocent person his life. You cry out to God as a last resort, hoping against hope that somehow he can rescue. In anguish you cry out, and surprisingly, you hear an answer. You find out that God can deliver. God can even raise the dead. This is grounds for exceedingly great joy.

This is the gospel. I’ve been lied to. My pride, my self-sufficiency doesn’t ultimately satisfy; rather it is an offense to the living God in whose hand is my very breath. I can labor and try, but I can never undo what I have done. And the wages of my sin is death. It is agonizing to see an innocent man die because of what I have done, but Jesus died willingly, in my place, he was sealed in a tomb, but he didn’t stay dead. He conquered death and rose from the grave and gives me real joy in his presence.

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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org