Love that Lights the World // 1 John 4:9-10

In his sermon, Pastor Evan Bialk emphasized the profound truth found in 1 John 4:9-10, which reflects the essence of love as not merely an action of God but as His very nature. He conveyed that during the third week of Advent, which highlights love, it is essential for believers to grasp what it truly means when we say "God is love." Pastor Bialk contended that God's love is manifest through the sending of His Son, Jesus Christ, who became human to exemplify divine love and serve as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Unlike other belief systems that demand individuals to earn favor or navigate indifferent gods, Christianity reveals a God who actively seeks a relationship with humanity out of love, demonstrating that all of His actions stem from His inherent being of love.Throughout the sermon, Pastor Evan called on the congregation to reevaluate their understanding of love by recognizing that human interpretations often fall short and can be marred by selfishness. He shared cultural references, including popular romantic movies, to illustrate how society often celebrates flawed representations of love that diverge from God's definition. Additionally, he underscored the vital balance of knowing and experiencing God's love through personal engagement with Scripture and prayer, encouraging attendees to pursue an experiential understanding of God's love rather than relying solely on intellectual knowledge. Ultimately, Pastor Evan invited both believers and non-believers to seek a deeper relationship with God, emphasizing that through Jesus, we can truly understand and live out the fullness of life that comes from experiencing God's love.

Transcript

1 John 4: 9-10.

Let's read it together before we jump in, if you wouldn't mind standing for the reading of God's Word.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only Son into the world so that when might live through him in this love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Thanks be to God for the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

We're just going to be walking through this passage this morning, line by line, word by word, because we are in week three of Advent. And week three of Advent is the advent of love and the advent of the coming of, of love in the person of Jesus Christ. And what I love about this week is basically everyone who believes in God or everyone who believes in a creator God agrees to the sentiment that God is love. And so theologically, there's many times during the weeks where theologically there's no framework in 2024 for me to reference back to. But this week, everyone, almost everyone who believes in God or Creator God believes that God is love.

So there's a large framework for me to pull from. And I love that we're going to be talking about it today, and we're going to be talking about 1 John 4: 9-10, because we need to know what it means by the statement that God is love. And it's consistently agreed upon that God is love. Especially in today's culture amongst people that believe in God, you'll see people who have signs and marches and stuff that say God is love and, or he is loving. What that means is that what he does proceeds from love.

And they're not wrong. Culture is not wrong when they say God is love, because the Bible agrees with them. In fact, scripture, right before this scripture states clearly that God is love. But it is not something that he does. It's something he is, right?

It's not. It's not something that he does. It's something that he is. He is more than loving. He is love.

And he is more than loving. He is love. All of his actions are loving. All of his actions are loving. Whether we understand it or not, whether we agree with it or not, all of his actions are love because he is love.

And so I want us to look at this passage this morning. I want us to look at 1 John 4: 9-10 as we're studying the advent of love this morning as a way to shape and refine our understanding of what love is. Because if we're going to make the statement and know that God is love. We should know what love is. I want us to take a look at verse nine this morning as we see that love dwelt among us and was made visible to us.

1 John 4:9 says in this, the love of God was made manifest among us. And if you're, if you write in your Bible or circle stuff in your Bible or highlight, I would encourage you to highlight among us. That means that Jesus Christ, that God, that God was among us, he was here, he was present among us. And how did he do that?

He was manifest. Manifest just means to make something visible. And so he was made visible among us. The love of God was made manifest, made visible among us. And that is through His Son.

How? That God sent His only Son into the world. That God sent His only Son into the world. And that's referenced back. You probably heard that before in John 3:16, one of the most famous Bible verses in the world, that God sent His only Son into the world.

So he is the love of God. The love of God is made visible among us, living among us, through His Son Jesus Christ, who was sent into the world. But why, why, why is the love of God made manifest, made visible to us through his son? Verse 9 goes on to say, so that we might live through Him.

So we might live through Him. And this is what I love about the Christian story, the Christian story, because it stands out amongst all other religions, especially when you study ancient near east religions, it stands out against any other religions because what we have here is God out of love, the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, out of love, making, manifesting, making visible among us the love that he is portraying amongst himself to the world through His Son Jesus Christ, so that we might live through Him. That is so different than any other religion. If you think about all of the other religions and especially the ancient near east religions at the time time, you had gods fighting against each other, right? If you remember high school mythology, you had, you had.

Love was not present, love was not made manifest among us, right? You had gods fighting against each other. You had people revered their gods only because. And they felt they were indifferent to them. And if you think about the religions today, there are many religions out there where God is indifferent, the God that they worship is indifferent to them.

Or in order to achieve God's love, you have to work for it. You have to do some kind of acts of works to be good enough to earn God's love. And that's not what we're seeing here in First John 4. 9, right? What we're seeing is that out of the abundance of love that God has for himself in the triune.

In the triune God, out of the abundance of the love of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, he is wanting to show love to the world. And so he is wanting to make that visible among us. And so he sends his Son so that we might live through him, which is completely different than any other religion today.

Completely different. Out of love, out of unity, that love pours out. He becomes human. He condescends. He becomes human.

God becomes human. And God the Son, Jesus Christ is born as a babe. So we're celebrating and looking forward to this Advent season, this Christmas season, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. He becomes human. He.

He. He is co eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit and he becomes human. Think about that. The God of the universe that doesn't need anything, anything in the world decides to become human where he's going to need food, he's going to need to go to the bathroom. He's.

He's going to. As a baby, he's going to need to be burped, right?

I mean, he. This is, this is the God of the universe. And out of love he becomes human.

And I get that. Humanity. We think we're all that. We think we're all that and we love ourselves. And maybe some of you are in better shape than I am and you're like, yeah, I mean, human.

We wouldn't want to be human, right? I got a body, right? Or I enjoy food. I love the experiences that we have. I love that.

But he became human after, like he was God. He didn't need anything and he became human. And we get to experience the love of God through him. But we also get to experience the love of God through creation as well. Right?

We get to experience a good steak. We get to experience marriage and all that comes with it. We get to experience relationships. We get to experience the awesomeness of a sunrise or a sunset. We get to experience some really cool things.

And what this verse is saying is that Christ came so that we might experience those things in a full manner. And don't get me wrong that you can't experience those things and not be a Christian. You can experience those things. You can have a good marriage and not be a Christian. You can, you can be a good person in, in human standards and not be a Christian.

You can have great relationships and great friendships and not be A Christian, you can eat a great steak and not be a Christian and enjoy that. But, but first, John 4:9 says that. That he came so that we might live through him, experience the fullness of life through him. And so that as we enjoy the things that. That as we enjoy the things that God has created for us, there is a governor on our lives.

There is a governor of. On our lives until we acknowledge Christ. Because the difference. The difference is. Because the difference is that everyone worships something.

Everyone worships something. If you're an atheist in the room this morning, you are worshiping something. You are worshiping something. Everyone worships something. And the great thing of being a Christian is that we get to worship the almighty God when we eat that steak.

And we say, man, this is such a great steak. Not only do we get to enjoy the steak, but we get to worship the God who made that steak, who created that experience for us. When we get to. When we get married, we get to enter into a covenant and we get to experience all the pleasures of marriage and we get to worship God for that. It is different when you're an unbeliever because, yes, you get to enjoy it, but we get to experience it fuller because we get to know that there is a God in the universe that lives loved us enough to make that experience for us.

When we get to look at a sunset and say, man, isn't that a beautiful sunset? How it paints the sky? An unbeliever can sit there and say that, man, yeah, that is beautiful. And we get to say, isn't that great that we have a God that creates beauty like that for us to enjoy? We had to experience and worship God in a greater way than an unbeliever.

And that is why. That's why God came to give us life through him. John 1:4 says, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. John goes on to say in John 4:14, but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will.

The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. And in John 10:10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. And see, Scripture wants us to enjoy life. God wants us.

He created creation for us to enjoy it. Because as we enjoy it, we experience the love of God. The love of God, in His abundance, has created us and created creations for us to enjoy it. And in doing so, we get to do that in a fullness, knowing that there is a God who loves us enough to create those things for us. And so we have no reason not to enjoy life.

If you're sitting here today and you're a crusty old man or a grumpy old woman, or maybe you're a crusty young man and a grumpy young woman, and you're sitting there and saying, I just don't know how to enjoy life, man. God is love, and he wants you to enjoy life. And I want that to be an encouragement to you. I want that to be an encouragement to you. There's no reason that we should be walking around grumpy or crusty and hating life if that's how our church is.

If we can't find joy in life, if that's what we are as a church man, we need to do something different about our discipleship because we should be enjoying life. We should have joy. We should be overflowing in our worship of him because we get to experience the love that he has displayed to him to us.

In 1st John 4:10, we see that love is defined by Christ.

1 John 4:10 says that in this love, 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.

Love is defined by God. In 1997, there's a movie that came out called Titanic. If you. If you Google. If you Google top romantic movies, usually there's.

There's two that are always probably in the top 10, and that's. That's Titanic and the Notebook. And I'm going to talk about them today. And I remember in 1997, going to the theater to watch Titanic with my mom and a homeschool group. And I'm aware that there's one scene in there that you should skip over if you ever watch the movie.

And we left the theater during that scene. But in 1997, Titanic came out, and it follows two kind of main characters, Jack and Rose. And Rose is engaged to this wealthy man that seems to be giving everything to her, has bought her this necklace that's worth millions of dol. And is engaged to.

And Rose. Rose has this attitude that she feels trapped. And so while she is engaged to this other man, she starts a fling with this guy named Jack on Titanic. Okay? And they fall in love and they have an affair, even though she has committed herself by being engaged to another man.

That. And she said she loves him. She now loves Jack and has an affair with him. And then. And then toward the end of the movie, obviously, I'm not going to.

I mean, if you've read history, Titanic sinks and they're in the water. Sorry for the spoiler there.

Titanic sinks and they're in the water. And Rose is loving Jack so hard that she won't even let him on the door to float in the ocean. And then says, I'll never let go of you. And then lets go of him and he dies in the ocean.

I mean, what. And this is one of the top romantic movies that we have, the top romantic movie that we have and that we celebrate as romance in today's world. A woman who has committed herself, committed herself to another man, said, yes, I will marry you, and then goes and has a fling with a stranger on a boat, steals from the guy who is willing to be. Willing to be her husband, and at some point finds out about the affair and is okay and says, I will still marry you. And she says no, and runs off with this other guy.

That's the kind of love that we as humans celebrate. The same thing is true in 2004 when the notebook came out. Kelly is one of Kelly's favorite, and I might get in trouble for this. One of Kelly's favorite authors early on was Nicholas Sparks. And so when I started dating her, I read the Notebook and I went.

We watched it together. And this movie is a similar plotline as to Titanic. Okay, all right. So they. I don't even remember their names.

I'm sorry, but the girl. The girl and the boy, they meet early on, and then they kind of get separated. And then she, later on in life, gets engaged to this war hero, gets engaged to this war hero and is going to be married. And she, I guess, gets cold feet and runs off and has this fling with the other main character in the book. And then the war hero comes, who's willing to give her everything, and comes and says, hey, I know you had the affair.

I'm still willing to get married to you. And she breaks it off and she wants to get married to this other guy. And I think the reason why we look at it as the most romantic movie is because they die together. They get married, and at the end of the movie, they're laying in the bed and they pass away together. Isn't that so sweet?

But the guy that she was engaged to died 30 years earlier when she cheated on him with another guy and then broke his heart.

I mean, that's the kind of love that we celebrate today. The kind of love that we Say, hey, this is the top romance. And I'm sorry, ladies, if you love Titanic or if you love the Notebook and you hate me for ruining it for you. But that's the kind of love that we celebrate today. And that is a terrible view of love.

I mean, those are terrible stories. Those are terrible love stories.

And it's a terrible view of love. And yet. And so, as we approach human love, as we approach human love, we need to recognize that human love is broken. There is no version in which we should start with human love or our understanding human love. We can't start with us.

We have to start with Him. And that is why love is defined by him, by God. Think about the people that you really love.

If we start with love. If we start love with us, think about the people that you really love and think about how many times you have hurt them, like, really bad hurt them, like, betrayed them.

And the point is that we can't start with us. We have to start with him, because our love is broken. So love needs to be defined by God. And in John 3:16, we see this. John 3:16, 17.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 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. John 15, 13 and 14 goes on to say, greater love has no one than this, that someone laid down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.

We'll come back to that in a little bit, and then I'm going to walk us through Romans 5, 6 through 8 as well. Romans 5 6, 8 says, for while we were still weak. There's a lot of Awana people here, I expect you. For a while, we were still weak. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

At the right time, Christ died for. Not the righteous, the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare to die, even to die. But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners. Christ died for us, right? But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners. Still sinners, Christ died for us.

We define love by the perfect One, Jesus approaching those who were his enemies and laying down his life for them. We define love by him, not by us. It is different. It is a different love than we experience. It is a different love than we experience.

We feel when we say we love somebody. Usually it's connected to an emotion, right? We feel. We got butterflies in our stomach. Oh, I love them so much.

We lust after them. Oh, she's so hot. I just want to be with her, right? That's the kind of love that we have.

This is a different love than what we experience and that we. Oftentimes that plays out in the human experience. I want to go back to First John 4:10, where it says that God, that not that we have loved God, but that he loved us, right? We didn't love God. He loved us.

And he sent his son Jesus to be the propitiation, the propitiation for our sins. Now, I'm sure everybody has used the term propitiation this morning, right? On your way to church, you were like, oh, man. Talking, and you're like, man, that's a great propitiation, right? Nobody, nobody said that propitiation means to appease wrath.

So hold it. Let's go back. So God loves us. That in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us. And he sent his son, right?

So he loved us and he wants us to enjoy life. And he sent his son.

He sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. What? To appease wrath for our sins. And see, this is the truth intention that scripture always pulls out in us, that God wants us to enjoy life. And he sent his son so that we might experience life to the fullest.

But he also sent his son in love to appease wrath because we're sinners.

And so God is love. God is love.

And if he were loved, right? If he were love, I can do anything I want, right? If God is just love, if God is just love, it means that I can do anything I want, right? Because God loves me no matter what I do. God loves me.

And that's what the world today says, is that God is love. And so I get to do whatever I want. And not only do I get to do whatever I want. Now in the craziness of 2024, we have people saying, because God is love and I can do whatever I want, because God is love, you have to approve and support of whatever I want. That's the craziness of culture today and society today that they have twisted the idea that God is love into this idea that I can do whatever I want.

And not only that, is that you have to support me and appease me and agree with me that whatever I do is okay. Because God is love and he loves, right? But what? First John 4:10 is saying that, yes, God is love. God is love, but he sent his Son for the propitiation for our sins.

Because God is also holy. God is. God is also. He also is wrathful. God is also wrathful.

In fact, God is love is stated four times in the Bible. And so we know it to be true. It's very clearly stated that God is love four times in the Bible. And so we can go back to scripture and say, yes, God is love, but it also says that God is holy. Over 600 times.

Over 600 times it says that God is holy. So both God is love, but God is also holy. And if you're holy, if God is holy, that means God is just. Because if he is not just, then he is not God. And so if God is holy and God is love, if God is holy, then he can't stand for sin.

And so he is wrathful, right? It is good and right when he is just. If he is holy, he is just. And out of that justice, out of that justice pours out his wrath.

And so he is also wrathful. And I'm going to say something right now that I think some of you are not going to like, some of you not going to like. But it is a truth in Scripture because we look at this and say, God is love, God is holy, God is just, and therefore he has wrath. But oftentimes, oftentimes we as believers play this game that, yes, all those things are true, but love kind of wins over all of those other things. And so we play it as a game that God's love is going to outweigh his holiness, his justice, Right?

But that's not what Scripture says. God is defined by a characteristic that God is love and God is holy. There is no game to be played. He is both holy and he is love. And in order to be loving, he must be just.

And in order to be holy, he must be just. And in order to be just, he must have wrath. And so we play this little game and say, well, God is more loving than anything. And we say things like, God hates the sin. God hates the sin, but he still loves the sinner.

Right? God hates the sin. He doesn't hate the sinner. But I'm going to tell you today that the Bible disagrees with you. If you've ever said that statement, the Bible disagrees with you.

And it is a front to God to say that God. I'm going to say something that is going to make you uncomfortable, especially in the city that we live. In because of the history of a certain church in this town. But the truth is the truth of Scripture. I'm just going to read it for you.

Psalm 5, 5 through 6. I'm going to go to the Psalms. And it says, the boastful shall not stand before your eyes.

You hate all evildoers. That's pretty clear, right? The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies.

The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and the deceitful man. And so the statement that God hates sin and not the sinner is not right. It is not scriptural. It's an affront to God. Because God clearly see in Psalm 5, 5 through 6 and then 15 times more in just the first 50 Psalms.

So 15 times more, he states that God hates both sin and the sinner.

Sixteen times in the first fifty Psalms, he states that God hates both the sin and the sinner.

And to say that he doesn't. That he doesn't hate the sin and the sinner takes away from both his love and his holiness.

It's an accusation against God. It's an accusation that he doesn't care enough or love enough to despise those that do evil, right? We can look at somebody who does evil and hate them, right? But we are saying that God can look at that person and not hate. That Scripture says that He.

He both hates sin and the sinner. And the problem is, is that we have. We have Westboro Baptist, right? That that's their message. I saw them out two weeks ago.

They were on Topeka Boulevard. I think it was two weeks ago. Last week, I think they're out in Topeka Boulevard holding up their signs. God hates you. You're going to hell.

And that's their message. That God hates us. That God hates us and that we're going to hell. And that's the problem, is that when we see this in scripture, we have that distorted message that God hates you. The reason why.

And we take matters into our own hands. That's the reason why they exist, Westboro. Cause they're taking matters into their own hands. They read Scripture and they say, well, God hates this. God hates both the sin and the sinner.

And so I need to take matters into my own hand and spread that hate and tell you that you were hated by God. But what did we just get done talking about? That God is also love. And that he loves us. That he sent out of that love Jesus Christ for the propitiation to appease his wrath for our sins, that we might live through him.

That we might live through him. And so both. So the problem is that we have churches like Westboro Baptist, who's a local church, preaching that God hates sin and sinner. Which is. Which is biblically correct, but applicationally incorrect.

Because while he does hate the sin and the sinner, in God's love, and we saw that right in nine, right in this love was the love of God was made manifest, that he sent that God sent his only son into the world. We don't have to take things into our hands. We don't have to be that church that preaches that God hates the sin and the sinner. We don't have to be that church because God also is love. And out of that love, he entered into the world, became human for his enemies, and died for the propitiation of our sins.

Because we have a perfect holy God who is judge. Who is judge. We don't have to take matters into our own hands. First Corinthians 5:13 tells us that the God is the judge, that God will judge those out of the church. And so we don't have to.

We don't have to be that judge because we also see God in that moment where we're enemies to him, where we're sinners. God in that moment, what does he do? He makes a move toward us. He makes a move toward us so that we might experience his love.

And when we take matters into our. Our own hands, it's not only just. It's not only when. When we. It's not only when.

If we were out there. It's not only Westboro Baptist that's saying, man, he hates the sinner and God hates you. It's also when we look. When we look at another person's life and we're jealous of that.

When we look at another person's life and we're jealous of that. Man, if we look at somebody else's talents and say, man, if I could just sing, I really wish I could sing. If I could play guitar like Dwight, man, if I could play guitar like Debbie or Katie, man, if I could play piano like Drew. For me, it's like, man, if I could preach like John Piper or Matt Chandler or Billy Graham, man, Right?

But the reality is that all sin, in those moments when we take matters into our own hands, and when we take matters into our own hands and we begin to try and dictate how we believe that God should be demonstrating his love toward us, we are sinning against Him. And all sin is an accusation against God that he is not good, that he is not fair, that he is not to be trusted. Because if you think about that, Think about it for a moment. If you look at another person and you say, man, I'm really jealous. And I wish, man, I could.

I wish I could get a new car. I wish God would give me a new car like he gave so and so a new car. What are you telling God? What are you telling God? You're telling God that what he has blessed this person with is not good, that it would have been better to go to you.

You are telling him that his providence, that his blessing is wrong.

You are rebelling against him.

When we look at another person's talent and say, man, if I can only play guitar like Dwight, right, I would be so much better.

I'm telling God that his plan, his plan for his church, the uplifting of his church and the way Dwight leads the worship team and leads us in worship every Sunday would be better if somebody else did it.

And that is an accusation that God's plan, that God's plan for his church, that God's plan for Dwight's life and my life is wrong. And I am accusing of God of not being good. I'm accusing him of him not being fair. And I am telling the world that he can't be trusted.

And so we. We have this message that God. God is love. God is love. And he is made visible.

He is made visible to us. He lives among us. And that we might live life through Him. And that love, thankfully, love, thankfully, is not defined by us because we're terrible judges on what love is. We are terrible judges of what love is.

And so love is defined by God.

And in that, he demonstrates his holiness in hating both the sin and the sinners. And Scripture calls us enemies to God, but he demonstrates his love for us by making the first move toward us, making the first move toward us through His Son, by the sending of His Son so that we might live life through him to the fullest. But also because he is holy and because he is just for the propitiation of our sins, so that his wrath might be appeased. Justice might be done because of our sin, because of our sin. And so God is love.

And I want us to understand this, that God is love and he has wrath. Okay? God is love and he has wrath. It's not. God is love and God is wrath.

God is. God is love, and he is holy. And because he is holy, he is just. And because he is Just he has wrath. He isn't wrath.

He isn't. He is love. He is holy. He has wrath. Because if, if those things don't play out that way, then he is not God.

And this is that truth intention that we so often struggle with, that we so often struggle with, that we want to. We want to place God is love above everything else. And we want to focus on that because if we do that, it means that we can do whatever we want because God's just going to forgive us and we can move on. But we also need to recognize that God is holy and he is just as well.

And we can know this because we can know this because love is to be known, both be known and experienced through him and love can be known through scripture. Because if there is one thing that I would want us to be accused of is that we are a people of this book, that we are a people of this book, that we are in this book. And we can know that God loves us because Scripture shows us and tells us that God loves us. And we can trust it. We can trust that God loves us and cares for us because it is written in this book.

And so love is to be both known and experienced. And as we're seeking God, as we're seeking God, right? As we're seeking to know Christ more, as we're seeking to get to know him, we also want to experience his love through Christ. I ran across this quote that I'm going to read to you about this kind of tension that we have where we want to be a people of the book, we want to be found, our foundation wants to be in Scripture, but we also want to be a people. We don't want to be a church that's dry, that knows, that has knowledge but does not experience the love of God.

We want to be a church that both knows God, loves God, knows the love of God because it is in scripture. But we also want to be a church that experiences God and that seeks after the experience. And some of you in this room, I'm making uncomfortable because you're like, hold on. Church isn't supposed to be experiential. We need to.

We need to tone it down, tone it down, stick to the book. Then there's other people like, oh man, I love experience. Let's do this. We need to sing songs more. We need to be hyped up more.

We need to experience the love of God. So there's truth, intention here. There's tension in churches. There's people that love the knowledge and the Study of Scripture. Then there's people that love the experience side of God.

And we need to be both of those. We need to seek to be both of those. We need to know that God loves us, but also experience his love. And I ran across this quote about this, that the knowledge of Christ's love, the knowledge of Christ's love in the sense of an inward, personal experience of it. Okay, hold on.

So the knowledge is an inward, personal experience of it. Its freeness, its tenderness, its depth, its patience is the great dynamic of the gospel.

The knowledge of Christ's love and the sense of personal experience that we experience through the knowledge of Christ's love, the freeness that it gives us, the tenderness that we experience, the depth that we experience, the patience that we experience from God is the great dynamic of the gospel. It is the good news.

This love, this love that we experience, that we both know and we experience, is transmuted. Okay? Transmuted means changed. Transmuted. It is changed into spiritual force.

Hold on. What knowledge is transmuted into spiritual force? What are you talking about here, Pastor? We're not charismatic, we're Baptists. All right?

We don't know about any spiritual forces. Right. Can't raise our hands during worship that might scare people off or taken over.

The knowledge of Christ's love is transmuted into a spiritual force. And as the breeze fills the sails and bears forward the ship, so the love of Christ fills the soul and moves it in the direction of God's will, but in the fullness. But in its fullness, it passeth knowledge.

Oh, hold on. What? So this knowledge that is changed into a spiritual force through our experiencing of the Gospel is passeth knowledge when it goes beyond what we can know, because it fills our souls and moves it in the direction of God's will. It is infinite, not to be grasped by mortal man. And therefore always presented new fields, new fields to be explored, new depths to be fathomed.

And so we are rooted in this book. We are rooted in Scripture. We are rooted. We know that God loves us because Scripture tells us, but we also know that. And through that knowledge, through that knowledge, as we experience God's love for us, as we experience Scripture coming alive to us, as we experience that, it is transmuted into a spiritual force that goes beyond, beyond just knowledge.

And so we both want to be a people of the book, but we also want to be a people of experience. We want to be rooted in faith. We wanted to be rooted in the faith of Scripture, but we also want to Be a people that experiences God. And if the book says it, if the Bible says it, it's true. And I need to believe it, you need to believe it.

And we need to be rooted in the truths and the promises of the Bible, but we also need to experience it. And that's the reason why I'm saying this is because at some point in your life, you're going to come up to a point in your life where just the knowledge, just the knowledge is going to fail you. And that knowledge is great to be relied on, and you should lean back to it. But it is the moment when you come to that point, maybe it's a struggle that you have, maybe it's shame that you're experiencing, but it's the experience of God where God's love comes off the page. And all of a sudden, when you're in shame, you're feeling that shame because you've done something that was wrong or you've done something that you're ashamed of, that you feel God come around you and say, I love you.

It's in those moments that you begin to experience and you understand the gospel. You experience it. It's when you're in the depths of getting bad news of the doctor and you've been diagnosed with a disease or something, and God's peace comes upon you, and you feel him say, I am here and I love you and I will take care of you.

So we know the truths that are in the Bible, but we also crave the experience.

And I'm gonna tell you, as your pastor, I'm gonna tell you that there is a very rare instance that I ever feel that on a Sunday morning in church, okay? Usually it is not here when I am experiencing the love of God. Sometimes it is, but very rarely. It's usually when I'm. I remember one of the.

One of the deepest. One of the deepest times that I felt. It was after my mom passed away. And I'm riding in my car. I was commuting from our house to the seminary back and forth.

And this was a couple months west from my mom had passed.

And I don't even know what I was doing in the car. I was praying and I was saying, God, I need you. I love you. I want you. I'm dealing with this grief, and I just break down crying because I feel him in the car with me.

It's going to be all right. I'm here with you. I love you. I loved her and I love you.

Those are the moments that you experience. You experience the Love, the knowledge of God's love, where it comes out as a spiritual force and it goes beyond, beyond the knowledge that is found on the page. And we should be a people that seek that experience.

We should be a people that seek that experience.

Romans 8:31, 35 says, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? I think sometimes we wipe that under the rug a little bit. If God is for us, who can be against us? If the God of the universe is for us, who can be against us?

No one. No one can be against us. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for all of us, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is it to condemn Christ? Jesus is the one who died more than that, who is raised, who is at the right hand of God? Who indeed is interceding for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword.

And so we need to know this because all of those things come into our lives. And so we need to be rooted in Scripture and the truths of Scripture. We need to understand it because the book says it and I need to know it. But how can I get up here and preach it? How can I get up here and preach it and believe it and say that God is.

That this is God's truth, and say something like that God hates sin and the sinner? If I am not 100% sure that this is true because I have experienced it. Because, right? I mean, if I'm up here preaching every week that God hates the sin and the sinner, that's not going to grow the church, right? We want to grow the church.

We need to grow the church. Nobody's walking in the door because of that message.

But I can preach it. I can preach that God is love and that he is holy and that those are the truths, because I understand it and I have experienced it. I not only know it, I have experienced it for myself, and I preach it through experience. And I can preach with passion because it is. It is something that I have experienced.

And I say, you gotta believe this.

And experience is good. Experience is good. It is something that we should desire. In fact, Moses, after seeing all of the. All of the miracles that God had done for the people of Israel and taking them out of Egypt, when God asked him, Moses goes and he says, just show me your glory.

I want to see more, right? Moses had already experienced so much. And Moses goes to God, he says, show me your glory. I want to see more. I want to see more.

You got the Apostle Paul, who it says has gone to the third heaven. He has been taken up to heaven to be with God, the dwelling place of God. I don't know anybody who's done that today, right? But the Apostle Paul, who's been. Who's literally who saw and experienced Jesus on the road to Damascus, was taught by Jesus.

He's sitting there saying. He's sitting there saying that he does all this, that he might know him more. That he might know him more. Paul, the Apostle Paul, the one that has written a majority of the New Testament that we look to. And he is saying that, I want to know Christ more.

I want to know Christ more. And we sit in our seats on a Sunday morning and we come to church and we give God an hour and a half, two hours of our time. And we never think, I want to know God more. Because if we did, every day, we'd be opening up our scriptures. Every day we'd be reading.

And yet statistics tell us that only, like 90% of churchgoers only open their Bible on Sunday morning.

We need to be a people of the book, but we also need to be hungry to experience his goodness and his grace. We need to be a people of the book, but we also need to be hungry to experience his goodness and his grace. And the only way I know to tell you how to do that as your pastor is three simple words. Ask for it.

Ask for it. If you're sitting in here and you're saying, I have not experienced God, I don't know what the pastor's talking about. He's preaching, and I have no idea what he's saying. I've been in church 20 years, and I've never experienced God like what he just said.

Get down on your knees and ask for it.

Ask for it. I think sometimes Christians are stuck on this treadmill of where they get up and they go to church on Sunday morning, and they are trying to morally purchase the experience of his goodness and his glory and his delight by doing good things to try and earn God's experience of love. And yet repeatedly, Scripture repeatedly says there is nothing that you can do to earn God's love because his love is given freely to us in this is love that we. That not that we have loved God, but that God loved us. That he made visible.

Made visible, manifest among us, made visible love among us through the sending of His Son, so that we might have life and have it more abundantly. McCall, back to Romans 5.

That while we were weak, while we were weak, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And so if you're. If you're a Christian, if you're a Christian today and all you're doing is attending church on Sunday morning, you are robbing yourself of experiencing God's love. If the. If the extent of your faith is showing up here between the hours of 10:30 and noon on a Sunday morning, and you don't think about God another day in your life except on Sunday between those hours, I'm not robbing you. God's not robbing you.

You are robbing yourself of experiencing God's love, of knowing God's love, of experiencing God's love. And my heart goes out for you because I want you to experience it in those moments where you're feeling shame, where you're feeling distraught. You're not sure where the mortgage payments going to come from. You're not sure how you're going to get through a diagnosis. You're getting old and you're feeling cranky because your whole body aches all the time.

You're young and your body aches all the time.

It's true. You turn 36 and your body starts falling apart in those moments where we're struggling.

Ask him. Seek the Lord. So I want you. I want to know you more. Not only that, I want to experience your love.

I know that your love is true because it is rooted. The knowledge is rooted in Scripture, and you have told us that. But I want to experience it. I need to experience it. I need to feel your comfort.

I need to feel your love. I need to feel your assurance that you are there with us, that you are there with me. And so no one is robbing you except you of those experiences. So when we are celebrating Christmas, we're celebrating Advent, we are celebrating that his love has been made manifest among us in the sending of the Son, so that we might live for. So that we might live and for the propitiation of our sins.

And this is why the Gospel is called good news. This is why the Gospel is called good news. It's because we are celebrating his love made manifest, made visible to us among us in the sending of God the Son, so that we might live and live in abundance and live in fullness and experience the fullness of his love and to appease God's wrath for our sins. And that's why it's good news. I want to talk to you how this plays out in our lives.

If you're a believer in this room, if you're in a believer in this room and you're struggling, you. You have things you say, man, I hate this about me. Or. Or, man, I'm. I'm struggling with this.

I'm dealing with addiction, I'm dealing with depression. I'm dealing with anxiety.

I'm dealing with uncertainness. And you're not experiencing God, and you don't feel God in those moments. If you're a believer in this more, I just want to. I want to. I want you to hear me as your pastor.

My heart for you is for. To experience God. And so just cry out, Cry out to God and ask him. Ask him, say, I want to know you more. I want to experience your love.

Ask him for it. And if you're. If you're an unbeliever in this room, man, there are some tough things said this morning, and I want. I want you to hear my heart when I. When I say that God hates.

God hates sinners, and he hates sin, that we were all sinners. We are still all sinners in this room. And yes, we are in his enemies. And yet scripture is very clear that while we were his enemies, he sent his son out of love. Out of love, the only kind of love that we should look forward to and look up to, to save us out of that, so that his wrath might be appeased through the sending of his son, the death, burial, and resurrection of his son, that his wrath might be a peace, so that we might be able to experience the love that is God through His Son.

And if you have not experienced that yet, man, I am begging you, today is the day. Hey, if you come up to me and say, like, if you're. If you're. If you're here today and you're like, man, I want to be baptized. Let's do it.

We already got baptism open. I'll hop in there. Let's have another baptism.

But that's what we celebrated today. And I want you to experience that today. I want you to experience it. And I hope we can leave here today with a hunger for God's love that moves past the knowledge, just the knowledge of God's love. Let's pray.