Ruth 4:8-12. Final chapter – Our home with Christ in the word “abide” – graciousness in goods and truth.

Sunday June 10, 2018

 

Title: Ruth 4:8-12. Final chapter - Our home with Christ in the word “abide” - graciousness in goods and truth.

 

1JO 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

 

1JO 4:12No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

 

God has commissioned the church to be the witness of Christ in this world. God loved the world and so He gave His Son instead of judging the world. The believer is to display that love alongside the gospel.

 

JOH 3:16  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

 

JOH 3:17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.

 

JOH 3:18 "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

 

JOH 12:46 "I have come as light into the world, that everyone who believes in Me may not remain in darkness.

 

JOH 12:47 "And if anyone hears My sayings, and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.

 

We saw in Rom 12 that love practices hospitality. Philonexia literally means love of a stranger. You have a wonderful home with Christ. Without love I would never be able to display that home, but with love I show off my home.

 

The love of Christ shown is like an open-house, and the gospel is the invitation to have your mortgage paid.

 

Imagine being shown your dream home and being offered to own it and live in it without cost because a great Man has paid your mortgage in full.

 

What a wonderful privilege it is to be free and to be able to invite other captives to be free and to be at home. It is a home that everyone wants, and if you remember the beginning of this doctrine, our first shot at making our own home was the Tower of Babel.

 

Man-made homes (meaning in the soul) are places of isolation and fear ultimately. I think we’ve seen this clearly displayed in celebrities who have committed suicide. I know that they had beautiful homes, but slums existed in their souls. The sad part is that they were each offered the home of Christ freely. Things ought not to be this way.

 

The fountain of life, the spring of living water is to issue forth in our souls. There cannot be bitter water and sweet water together. The slightest contamination renders the water undrinkable, as we have also recently seen. We cannot construct our own homes. Christ is the only Carpenter with the right stuff.

 

ISA 55:1 "Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters;

And you who have no money come, buy and eat.

Come, buy wine and milk

Without money and without cost.

 

ISA 55:2 "Why do you spend money for what is not bread,

And your wages for what does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,

And delight yourself in abundance.

 

ISA 55:3 "Incline your ear and come to Me.

Listen, that you may live;

And I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

According to the faithful mercies shown to David.

 

Sad indeed it is to see any person, poor or rich, reject the free waters.

 

1JO 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

 

1JO 4:12 No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

 

We will be persecuted for it, but the souls of those who will believe are far more important than our personal comfort. Let them persecute. We will love them in return.

 

The world and the flesh hate the truth and hate the gospel most of all. The gospel reveals to man that he is not sovereign and that he is doomed on his own. It also reveals that there is only One Savior.

 

When people fight against the gospel we must not fight back. When arguments are brought against it with fervor we are to respond in kindness and love. Your confidence speaks volumes of the veracity of the gospel. When they attack we keep calm, for we know the One who fights for us. We respond with love and truth and compassion.

 

The fighters want a fight. Our love disarms them and removes the fuel that they seek.

 

It cannot be overemphasized how important divine love is to a witness. The gospel coupled with judging, condemnation, scare tactics, indifference, etc. is barely audible.

 

1JO 4:13 By this [our love for one another] we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

 

1JO 4:14 And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

 

1JO 4:15 Whoever confesses [aorist: points of time] that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

 

The gospel here is viewed as a historical statement: the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world as opposed to a statement of character as in “God is love.”

 

Also acknowledged is that we will face opposition. It will cause us pain to confess the Lord at times, but because we abide in Him and He in us, we lay aside the pain and love the world, wanting all men to be saved.   

 

John has said that if we love one another, God abides in us (v. 12); now he says that God abides in us if we ‘confess Jesus as the Son of God.’ There is no tension at all between Christian love and Christian truth.

 

God abides in us if: we love one another (v. 12) and if we confess Jesus as the Son of God (v. 15). There is perfect harmony in love and truth.

 

The love of God was manifested in giving His Son. The love of God in the believer is manifested by confessing that truth to the world, no matter what persecution may arise against it.

 

Love and truth complement one another perfectly. Love gives. Truth expresses perfectly what is given. Love serves. Truth reveals the need. Love sacrifices. Truth proclaims why.

 

Love of Christ is love of the truth concerning Him. This truth was beheld by the apostles at first.

 

1JO 1:1What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life — 

 

1JO 1:2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us — 

 

1JO 1:3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also

 

The witness began with the apostles and then the torch was passed on to all who believed in Christ through their testimony. As the Holy Spirit empowered them, He will empower us.

 

Think about it. Indwelling us is the Spirit, the perfect love of God, and the truth; all bound up together as a force for the gospel. Nothing and no one can put us asunder and darken the light that flows through us.

 

JOH 15:26 “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me,

 

JOH 15:27 and you will bear witness also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”

 

One final verse, v. 16.

 

1JO 4:13 By this [our love for one another] we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

 

1JO 4:14 And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

 

1JO 4:15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

 

1JO 4:16 And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

 

God’s love for us supplies the motive and the power to love one another. We are to be holy as He is holy, merciful as He is merciful, and love as He loves. Jesus Christ gives us this power through His own love for us and the Holy Spirit within.

 

Concerning the love of God in us as revealing the Father to the world, I quote C.H. Dodd:

“John makes use of the strongest expressions for union with God that contemporary religious language provided, in order to assure his readers that he does seriously mean what he says: that through faith in Christ we may enter into a personal community of life with the eternal God, which has the character of agape, which is essentially supernatural and not of this world, and yet plants its feet firmly in this world, not only because real agape cannot but express itself in practical conduct, but also because the crucial act of agape was actually performed in history, on an April day about AD 30, at a supper-table in Jerusalem, in a garden across the Kidron valley, in the headquarter of Pontius Pilate, and on a Roman cross at Golgotha. So concrete, so actual, is the nature of the divine agape; yet none the less for that, by entering into the relation of agape thus opened up for men, we may dwell in God and He in us.”

 

Summary of “abide” in 1Jo:

 

JOH 14:23Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.”

 

His home is filled with peace, …

 

JOH 14:27“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”

 

produces a wonderful crop (fruit), …

 

JOH 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

 

Think of an agricultural society.

 

is in open communication with his Lord (prayer without barriers of selfishness or fear), …

 

JOH 15:7"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.

 

a testimony to the greatness of the homemaker, …

 

JOH 15:8 "By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

 

filled with love, …

 

JOH 15:9 "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

 

JOH 15:10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love.

 

filled with joy, …