Love’s Benefits

Benefits. We all love benefits. Just think of all the benefits we have right here at Robson. We have all kinds of Pickle Ball and Tennis Courts to enjoy. We have two swimming pools where you can get in shape or just work on your tan. We have two workout rooms and a huge new dance studio. We get to enjoy a decent grill and restaurant and this lovely Ballroom where we can worship on Sundays and enjoy concerts throughout the year. We have a coffee shop, a library, a softball field, a pool table room, a woodworking shop, crafters shop and around 80 different clubs to get involved in. There are tons of benefits available to us living here at the Ranch.

In fact, just recently, I finally started working out in the workout rooms. And I know that if I keep it up, I’ll reap benefits from lifting weights and walking on the treadmill. I’ll get healthier, build muscle, lose weight and maybe even hit the golf ball further. I already know that I sleep better after working out.

But then I started thinking about all the benefits of just being retired. Not that I’m thinking about retirement yet. But there’s all kinds of benefits that most of you already enjoy: No more alarm clocks, less stress, more exercise. And all kinds of freedoms: Freedom to pursue your passions. Freedom to travel. Freedom to spend more time with your kids and grandkids. Freedom to nap whenever you want. And freedom to make new friends, learn new card games, read more books and the freedom to take advantage of all those senior discounts.

So, I think it’s safe to say that many of you are enjoying all kinds of benefits right now. Life is good. But did you know that as great as it is to enjoy so many benefits here at the Ranch, benefits of being retired, or just benefits of being an American… there is no greater benefit than being loved by God?

And that’s precisely what John wants us to see in his letter as he continues to explain God’s love to us from 1 John 4:13-21, our passage today. For if you were here last week, we learned that God is love. In other words, God is the source of true love, real love, unconditional, no strings attached love. And His love was demonstrated to us when God sent His Son to die for us in order to remove the punishment we deserved. But we also learned that God has made it possible for us to love like He loved us. Now, when anyone trusts in Jesus, you are born again, Which means God gives you His DNA. And since the core of His DNA is love, we now have the ability to love others just as God has loved us.

And yet, John is not done talking about God’s love. So today, we’re going to look at three benefits of God’s love that belong to you because God has loved you. So, if you’ve found 1 John 4:13-21, let’s begin by looking at the first of those benefits:

God’s Love Will Assure You: This is how we know that we live in Him and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so, we know and rely on the love God has for us. 1 John 4:13-16 God wants us to be certain of our relationship with Him. He wants you to have the full assurance, the full confidence that He truly lives in you. So, He gives us evidence of your new life in Him. The first proof that God lives in you, is that you received the gift of the Holy Spirit when you believed. Today, God’s Spirit indwells every believer. And the Bible tells us that His Spirit in you witnesses with your spirit that God is your Father. He’s no longer some distant unapproachable deity, but a Father who loves you as His child. This is how the Spirit assures us that God lives in us. The Holy Spirit in us, helps us know we have a Father who loves us with a steadfast love.

The second evidence of our new life is our confession that the Father has sent His Son to be Savior of the world. We would not, nor could not make that confession without the Spirit of God. For God’s Word tells us that ‘no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.’ 1 Corinthians 12:3 We have also learned that this is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of every believer. Jesus said as much when he said: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.” John 15:26-27 So whenever you bear witness of Jesus, whenever you speak of Jesus as the Savior of the Word, this confession is the proof that the Holy Spirit is alive in you.

Thirdly, whenever you confess Jesus is the Son of God, this also reveals that God lives in you. When you acknowledge that Jesus is from God, you confess that Jesus is both fully God and fully man. When you do this, you are speaking truth about Jesus that was revealed to you by the Spirit of truth. This confession proves the Spirit of God is living in you.

Fourth, whenever you rely on God’s love for you, your trust in God proves that you live in Him and He lives in you. This term “rely” literally means ‘believed.’ Once again John uses the perfect tense to make a point. The perfect tense speaks of a past act that has continuous results. In other words, you trusted in God’s love by trusting in Jesus as your Savior, and you are still depending on Him to love you today. Therefore, your ongoing trust in God’s love is proof that God lives in you.

This last proof may just be the most important aspect of our relationship with God today. In other words, the heart of an intimate relationship with the Father is to depend on Him for all things. We don’t do this very well. We want to rely on our own wisdom, our own strength and our own resources. We often leave God out of the picture. And that may be why God allows you to face difficulties in life. Why? So, you will learn to stop trying to fix everything yourself and begin to trust God with your problems.

This hard for us. We’ve been taught to be responsible, resourceful and not dependent on anyone but ourselves. But God’s love for you doesn’t end at the cross. He wants you to keep relying on Him to love you in the midst of anything you might be facing, even today.

And sometimes that means relying on Him when everyone else tells you to abandon Him. This then is one of the great benefits of God’s love for you. For when you learn to rely on His love when things are hard or when life looks bleak, that’s when God’s love for you can carry you through anything. If there is one area that most of us need to trust in God’s love for us today, it’s here. That’s when God’s love will assure you that He lives in you and you in Him. That’s the first benefit of God’s love. God’s love will assure you that He is always there for you. Let’s now look at the second benefit:

God’s Love Will Free You: Look at the middle of verse 16, God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:16b-18

In these verses is two of them most important truths you will ever hear. First, God is love. Love comes from God because God is love. Love flows from God. So, God gives love, not judgment. Too many people go through life thinking that God is just waiting in the wings with a big stick, to clobber you when you get out of line. For many of you, growing up, you learned to be afraid of God. He was the God of fire and brimstone. You mess up, God’s going to let you have it. But that’s not true. God is love.

And the second truth is this: There is no fear in love. Now, that doesn’t mean that God’s love conquers all earthly phobias. The perfect love that casts out fear is not casting out the fear of the unknown, the fear of public speaking, or the fear of man. No, the context is quite clear. The perfect love of God is what casts out the fear of eternal judgment. That’s why God so loved the world: God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 God sent Jesus into the world to die for us so we would not have to die of our sins. When you trust in Jesus, the good news is that you are instantly removed from the realm of judgment. That’s how God’s perfect love drives out fear. He sent Jesus to forgive us to free us from the fear of judgment.

In fact, Fear and love are mutually exclusive. David Jackman who helps us understand the liberating effects of God’s love, “If we are afraid that God is going to punish us, we cannot yet be aware of the fullness of His everlasting love. Often the problem is that we transfer the model of parenthood derived from our experience directly on to God. If our parents withheld love as a means of conditioning or disciplining us, or if we never had the security of knowing that nothing could shake their love, we can easily regard God with a mixture of fear and gratitude, always wondering when the blow will fall. But that is not love.”

“How many Christians are caught up in this web of fear? Often, they are the most sensitive and lonely people, but they live in the anticipation of some calamity being visited upon them for their past sins, or retribution for not making more progress in holy living. The result is usually paralysis. They imagine that God is waiting with a big stick to beat them every time they fail. They precondition themselves to do just that. Not surprisingly, the devil is all too ready to pile in with his accusations and whisper that they cannot expect God to spend any more on such hopeless, useless specimens.”

So, the good news for all those who have been afraid of God: The God who is love wants you to have complete confidence that He loves you completely! And the way you receive this confidence is by receiving His Son, who shed His blood for you. For when Jesus shed His blood for you, he made it possible for you to be forgiven of every sin. And once you’re forgiven, God fully accepts you. He adopts you as His very own, gives you a new heart, removes every sin and buries them in the deepest sea and promises to never bring up your sins ever again.

I’ve said this before, and I will say it again. God’s voice is not an accusing voice. That’s the voice of Satan. He is the one who wants to stoke fear in you. But the moment you receive Jesus as your Savior; God sets you free from the penalty of your sin once and for all. Therefore, His perfect love drives out all fear. There is no fear in love. That’s one of the greatest benefits of God’s love. Whoever trusts in Jesus is set free from judgment. So, live in the love of God. God’s love will free you, if you rest in what Jesus did for you. That’s the second benefit John wants us to embrace every day! Here’s the third benefit:

God’s Love Will Change You: We love because He first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. 1 John 4:19-21 Verse 19 is one of the most simple and straightforward verses in the Bible. The theological order is important. “We love.” Why? Because “He first loved us.” God took the initiative, not us. Our love finds its origin in God’s love. He loves us, and when His love takes hold of us, it begins to work a number of changes in us.

First, His love for us gives us a model of how we are to live out our relationships with others. To love a neighbor, a son, a brother, a friend all begins with dying to self. We die to our pride, we die to our time, our schedule, our plans, we die to our resources. For God’s love is sacrificial. Not only that, but God’s love is unconditional. We seek a person’s best seeking nothing in return. In this way, it doesn’t matter if such a person is worthy to be loved. That’s what it means to love unconditionally. God loved you when there was nothing about you to make Him love you. He chose to love you when you were unlovable. He chose to love you when you did bad things. He chose to love you when you had a bad attitude. That’s what we learn from how God loved us. And when we follow His model, we treat people differently. We don’t keep a record of wrongs. We don’t give up on someone when they let us down. We never say, “I’m done with you.” Because God’s love never gives up. Not only that, but we lovingly put up with a bad attitude. We believe in them when no one else will. We serve them. We are kind and generous to them. We give them far more love than they deserve. And the good news is that we actually can love people this way, because God showed us how. He is our model for loving.

Second, His love for us gives us the desire to love others like God loved us. This is one of the amazing transformative effects of Gods’ love. He is not casually in love with, or warm-hearted about you; God is deeply in love with you. He loves you with a passionate and affectionate love. His love for you has never been half-hearted, but all consuming. For whatever God is, He is to the fullness. And since God is love, there is no limit to God’s desire to love you.

My favorite picture of this love is seen in the Father’s love for the prodigal son. After the prodigal son squandered his Father’s inheritance on wild living and found himself eating pig’s food, he came to his senses and decided to go home, with the hope that his father would take him in as a hired servant. So, he got up and went to his father. Then Jesus describes the father’s deep love for His lost son saying this, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” Luke 15:20 What I love about this description, is that the father not only ran toward him, but when he got to him, he hugged him and kissed him. This was no ordinary kiss of greeting. The term for kissing here is to kiss fervently, which is the sign of forgiveness. This is the desire of God’s love for us. Such love lavishes forgiveness on us.

The other picture is of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet as recorded in Luke 7. One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!” Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.” “Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.

Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”

“That’s right,” Jesus said. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.

“I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Here’s the truth of God’s love for you: When you experience God’s love in forgiving your sins, such love will give you the desire to love others. God’s love will transform you into person who gives much love.

Now, the third way God’s love changes us: God’s love for us gives us the power to love like Him. This final truth is what we all need. In and of ourselves, we don’t have the power to love like God loved us. But once God has loved us, and now lives in us, it is the power of His love in us that will enable us to love others. This is where faith comes into play. This is where prayer comes into play. There are many people who will cross our paths who are difficult to love. It will cost you something to love them. Left to your own strength and resources, you may find that you just can’t love them. You may say, “she’s impossible to love.” That’s when you need to step out in faith and ask Jesus to love her/him through you, to love them with His love in you, not your love. Remember, when God loved you through Jesus, He didn’t just forgive your sins, but He put His life in you. God loved you, so that now, He might love through. He’s given you His power to love others.

And that is why John concludes by saying, For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. 1 John 4:20-21

These then, are the benefits of God’s love.
God’s love will assure you that you will always be loved.
God’s love will free you from fear so that you will be free to love. And God’s love will change you so you will be able to love anyone with God’s love. That’s the good news of God’s love for you. You can now love like God, because God first loved you.