RECAP

• Four weeks in each chapter so far.

”I am writing you these things…”

• 1:4: “…so that our joy may be complete.”
• 2:1: “…so that you may not sin.”
• 2:26: “…concerning those who are trying to deceieve you.”
• 5:13: “…so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

The first big thing he tells them in this letter is that they must always bear in mind that they can have fellowship with the Father and with the Son through the Holy Spirit.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life with God

CHAPTER 2

This is how we know that we know him.

Children, it is the last hour (and it has been ever since!)

SO abide in the word/gospel, with assurance that the Spirit abides in you.

WHY? So you can have confidence when he comes.

If you abide in him when you do not see him, you will be very bold should he suddenly reveal himself. What fear could his appearing cause you? Faith has [made him so real], that if he suddenly appeared, it would be no surprise to you.

Charles Spurgeon

John’s been arguing all along for righteousness, holiness.

SCRIPTURE

See what great love the Father has given us that
we should be called God’s children—and we are!

1 John 3:1

Didn’t we just hear this?

• “Lord, are you sure you want me to preach the same thing in two weeks?”
• To write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry.
• I’m just trusting that God wants to remind you again.

1. God’s love is individual & parental.

Holding a baby, watching her breathe, so cute!

The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

Zephaniah 3:17, ESV

1. God’s love is individual & parental.

2. God’s love is unconditional & irrevocable.

That’s even our own definition/ideal of love.

He’s never going to take his love back. Never going to abandon you.

• If he was going to, it wouldn’ve been at the cross.

Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35, 37–39

• There is no good you could do to make Him love you more.
• There is no bad you could do to make Him love you less.

1. God’s love is individual & parental.
2. God’s love is unconditional & irrevocable.

3. God’s love is transformational & pivotal.

When my sons arrived in the family, their legal status was not ambiguous at all. They were our kids. But their wants and affections were still atrophied by a year in the orphanage. They didn’t know that flies on their faces were bad. They didn’t know that a strange man feeding them their first scary gulps of solid food wasn’t a torturer. Life in the cribs alone must have seemed to them like freedom. That’s what I was missing about the biblical doctrine of adoption. Sure it’s glorious in the long run. But it sure seems like hell in the short run…

Russell Moore, Adopted for Life

You won’t grow past the depth of your understanding of God’s love for you.

The marker of those who understand the gospel of Jesus Christ is that, when they stumble and fall, when they screw up, they run to God and not from him, because they clearly understand that their acceptance before God is not predicated upon their behavior but on the righteous life of Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death.

Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel

1. God’s love is individual & parental.
2. God’s love is unconditional & irrevocable.
3. God’s love is transformational & pivotal.

4. God’s love is unquestionable & inconceivable.

John is blown away, has to stop and call us to wonder and praise

“Behold”, what manner, “what sort of love”. Foreign, alien