The Law & Gospel of Love (From the Other Love Chapter) | 1 John 4:7-10

Lord's Day: July 20, 2025  Preacher: Carlos Montijo  Series: First John  Topic: Love  Scripture: 1 John 4:7–10; Matthew 16:18; Esther 4:14; 1 John 4:2; Titus 1:16; Galatians 5:19–24; Acts 20:28; Romans 4:4–5; 1 Corinthians 13:4–8; 1 Kings 18:21

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. ¹⁰In 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. 1 John 4:7–10

• Christians should study influential men like John MacArthur, just as Christians should study church history, because it allows us to see the good and bad consequences of their theology and lives on a larger scale, with greater insight and clarity
• God will continue to use His means, His people, to call and raise faithful men up for such a time as this

I.   Transition from 1 John 4:6 to verse 7

• The Spirit of God works in them the fruit of the Spirit, in contrast to the works of the flesh, which are antichrist, and which believers now actively mortify in their own flesh

II.  Love Is of God, for God Is Love

• The main subject of this passage, and much of this chapter is love, agape in all its various inflections and forms
• You may have heard of the famous “Love Chapter”—1 Corinthians 13
• 1 John 4 is the "Other Love Chapter"—29 mentions of love versus 21 in 1 Corinthians 13

III. What love is not…

• Love is not an emotion, not a feeling, not fickle or unstable, something that changes constantly and goes back and forth, it does not give up at the first sign of hardship or trouble

IV. The “Other Love Chapter” expounds what love truly is and what it looks like

• While there are strong law warnings in this passage about how we ought to love, there are even stronger gospel promises and encouragements about what God’s love has done for us and is working in us!

Join us on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

• ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
  4712 Montana Ave
  El Paso, Texas 79903

Contact us at:

• web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
  call/text: (915) 843-8088
  email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com

Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com