Sunday Morning Service :: YouVersion Event

I John 4:11-21

Jesus In Me

Introduction

1. Birds fly…fish swim… that is the spirit of life in them.

2. Through the Holy Spirit Jesus lives in me.

3. In I John 4:11-21 Jesus in me will be demonstrated in 4 ways.

Birds fly…fish swim. God’s life is evident. Christians love.

I. GOD’S LOVE through US 4:11, 12

A. The Performance of Love 11

Since God loved us

1.So…as the Father sent His Son.

2.Oughtis must. It is not an external compulsion, but an inward constraint. God dwells in us by the New Birth. It is not through our imitating God, but through God manifesting Himself in us.

3.To love one another is a continuous action…to be constantly loving one another. He loved us period! God has placed that love in every child. Move out of the road. Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God for Christ sake has forgiven you.

4.We Must Die!

B. The Power of Love 12

1. God is spirit. No one has seen His essence or character. We (being human) can only see

physical manifestations.

2. His love is perfected in us. Perfected is brought to completion, accomplished. This

agape love shows that God is accomplishing His purpose in our lives.

3. God dwells in us…dwells means to be at home. Is God at home in your life? I’ll be a

living demonstration of the character of God to the world.

4.God Is Love!

Birds fly…fish swim. God’s life is evident. Christians love.

II. GOD’S LOVE in US 4:13-16

Love causes us to know that Christ is in us and we are in Him. Dwells in God and God in us is used 3 times.

A.The Persuasion of Love 13

The witness in us gives us assurance…By this we know.

1.The world will have proof (v. 12) There is a self-giving for one another.

2.We will have proof…assurance of God’s Holy Spirit.

3.We dwell in Him…at salvation we are positionally placed in Him.

4.He dwells in us…He is at home in us. He has given us of is the Greek word ek out of. He has given as a gift His Spirit. He is in us to stay. Out of the Spirit He gave graces: Proving that we are in Him and He is in us.

B.The Perception of Love 14

1.Seen means, ‘to perceive’…perception.

2.Testified is proclamation: The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

This was true of the Apostles, but of us also. It is the Holy Spirit working in them and us who permits us to see. Jesus’ death for our salvation is seen. We see by faith that cross lifted up. We see in Jesus our Savior and Lord. We see in fellowship of faith the presence of His love.

3.Because the Spirit gives us this seeing experience that we testify!

C.The Pronouncement of Love 15

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God

1.Fellowship is built on Jesus. Confesse is in the Greek aorist tense. Confession is a life time confession. It is a sustained heart attitude.

2.Jesus is the very essence of God. Jesus is totally, absolutely God.

3.God is at home in him and he in God.

D.The Preciousness of Love 16

1.Here the knowledge of God’s love necessarily precedes the ability on that love.

2.A sequence is given:

*We must know and rely on the fact that God loves us.

*We come to realize that through relying on His love (having faith in His Son) that in His very nature…God is love.

*We discover that to live in God is to live in love. He that dwells in love is at home inGod and God is at home in me.

*That one is God oriented…God related…God centered.

3. Love is the Barometer.

Birds fly…fish swim. God’s life is evident. Christians love.

III. GOD’S LOVE to US 4:17-19

This causes us to have boldness before Him and causes us not to fear.

A.The Perfection of Love 17

1.Herein (v. 16) is our love perfected (matured) His perfection becomes ours. We grow up!!

*By abiding in Him and He in us (13-16)This is living fellowship with Jesus Christ. It is John 15 in action. I am the vine. You are the branches. Abide in me…fruit…more fruit and much fruit will be the result.

*By looking forward…boldness is confidence…nothing hid, nothing ashamed.

At the Bema Seat all will give an account of his love life. When love is matured in us and is shown by our love to and for others…we can have confidence in His presence.

*Grudges, bitterness, revenge, hatred will cause us to hang our heads in shame or that one does not belong to Him at all.

2. As He is, so are we in the world…Jesus in us! We are all the world will ever see of the

love of Jesus. God’s desire in the midst of a sinful world is to make us like His Son.

Christlikeness is His goal.

B.The Preservation of Love 18

It is because of Jesus.

1.The child of God who maintains a Spirit filled life will have no fear of being penalized when he stands at the Bema Seat of Christ.

2.Love is so powerful and life changing that when we know it we are forever removed from the dread of standing before God.

3.Since the perfection of love rests in the perfect Christ we can possess perfect peace.

C.The Preeminence of Love 19

He loved us.

1.Love must never be conceived as ‘natural.’ The love of which John speaks originates in the Father.

2.We love is not duty but a descriptive: As the Father loves, as the Son loves, so also will we love. The love which we love does not originate in us. We do not create it, nor do we have the power to express it. We are available. We love our brother with a gift from the Father…GRACE!

Birds fly…fish swim. God’s life is evident. Christians love.

IV. GOD’S LOVE from US 4:20, 21

Love causes us to know the reality of what we possess.

A.The Practice of Love 20

1.If we say…that is our profession.

2.Love and hatred are incompatible. They don’t go together!

*Don’t say, “I love God” and hate your brother. You are deceiving yourself

*Liar…his character bears no resemblance of the Father.

3. Hath seen is constantly before his eyes. It is not saying simply that which is invisible is

more difficult to love than that which is visible. The absence of practical love to one’s

brother in everyday life rules out the possibility of love to God. One will kill the

other.