Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

G. K. Chesterton was an early Twentieth Century British author and Christian apologist who is probably most famous for his “Father Brown Mysteries”—there is a long-running BBC series loosely based on the books that occasionally surfaces on PBS and online.

In one of his stories, Father Brown (picture a short, shabby Sherlock Holmes crossed with a Roman Catholic priest) solves a mystery simply by hearing a series of odd-sounding footsteps running repeatedly down a hallway.

At the end of the story as he explains his reasoning that led him to solve the case, he says that “every work of art, divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark—I mean, that the centre of it is simple, however much the fulfillment may be complicated” (Chesterton, G. K. (2019).

“The Queer Feet”, The Complete Father Brown Mysteries (Annotated).

Independently published.)

The idea is that in any crime (as in any work of art), there is always an “indispensable mark”, always some distinguishing characteristic that identifies and reveals it.

Think of how you can hear a song on the radio you’ve never heard before but you immediately know who wrote it.

Or people who can look at a painting for the first time and immediately identify it as a Rembrandt or Picasso (or a Garfunkel).

You get the idea.

That “indispensable mark”, that element about a song or a painting or a dish or a story that absolutely defines it for what it is—the “Spielbergian” quality of a Spielberg movie or the “Steelerish” quality of the Steelers’ offensive line.

You flip the channels on TV and see a kitchen remodel all done in shiplap and immediately go, “Hey, an episode of Fixer-Upper!

Chip and Joanna Gaines!”

I believe that this notion of an “indispensable mark” is what John is driving at in our text this morning:

1 John 4:7 (ESV)

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

So here is what I want you to take away from God’s Word this morning—I want to show you what John is laboring to demonstrate here:

The indispensable mark of the Christian is UNCONDITIONAL, SACRIFICIAL LOVE

I want to argue from God’s Word here this morning that whatever else a Christian is known for—whatever else you affirm, whatever else you claim, whatever else you believe or do, if your life is not marked by unconditional, sacrificial love you have no warrant for claiming to know God:

1 John 4:8 (ESV)

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Unconditional, sacrificial love is the indispensable mark of the Christian.

According to the verses we just read

I.

It is who YOU ARE (1 John 4:7-8)

Look again at verses 7-8:

1 John 4:7–8 (ESV)

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

John says that love is an indispensible mark of a Christian because love is from God—and anyone who claims to be from God must by definition be defined by love!

As one pastor puts it:“In the New Birth, this aspect of the divine nature becomes part of who you are.

The New Birth is the imparting to you of divine love, and an indispensible part of that life is love.”

(John Piper, Quoted in Akin, D. L., Platt, D., & Merida, T. (2014).

Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary) [E-book].

Holman Reference.)

A life marked by the unconditional, sacrificial love of God is indispensable in your Christian life, because it

Shows that you are God’s CHILD (v.

7)

You’ve probably seen the TV commercials for a popular insurance company poking fun at the idea that when people buy a home, they suddenly “turn into their parents”, right?

(“Who else reads books about submarines, Dave?” “My dad...”) When you were a kid you couldn’t figure out why your dad always followed you around the house turning out the lights as soon as you left a room, and now that you have your own house and your own kids (and your own electric bill!), all of a sudden you realize why your dad did that!

The TV commercials poke fun at the inevitability of “turning into your parents”, but John is saying something very similar here (we’ve noted it before:) As a Christian, you will grow up to resemble your Heavenly Father!

As Matthew Henry puts it in his commentary on this chapter, “The new nature in the children of God is the offspring of his love” (Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 2450.)

Sacrificial, unconditional love is the indispensable mark of the Christian because it is the evidence of your being born of God.

This love ties you together with other believers in a “family resemblance” that goes beyond any other connection or division of society, ethnicity, economics or education.

And if your life is not marked by that kind of love, then you do not bear a family resemblance to your Father—and so on what basis are you claiming to belong to His family?

Love is the indispensable mark of the Christian—it demonstrates that you have been born of God, and it

Shows that you KNOW God (v.

8)

Look at verse 8:

1 John 4:8 (ESV)

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

John is putting his thoughts together in a very Hebrew way here—like a line out of the Psalms he makes his statement and then immediately repeats in in another way (this time by stating the opposite thought): Whoever loves, knows God.

Whoever loves not, knows God not!

Another way of saying this is to say that you cannot come to know God and remain unchanged!

If you really have truly come to know Him by faith in Jesus Christ, your life will be dramatically changed!

If you have received this kind of love from God--the forgiveness of your sins by the sacrifice of Jesus--then the Bible says that it is inconceivable that you would not then show that love toward others.

This is part of why Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 6:14–15 (ESV)

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Jesus is saying that if you have experienced this kind of love of God forgiving your sins so completely, then it is inevitable that you will show this same kind of love and forgiveness to others.

A spirit that refuses to forgive is a spirit that shows signs of never having received this kind of forgiveness!

This is why Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18—where a servant forgiven a million-dollar debt is thrown into prison because he wouldn’t forgive a fellow slave a one-dollar debt.

It is inconceivable that someone who has received this kind of love should not be utterly transformed by it.

And this is why for John the notion of a Christian nurturing a spirit of bitterness or hate or unforgiveness is so shocking.

To go back to the family resemblance metaphor for a moment, a “Christian” characterized by an unloving, unforgiving spirit is like finding a baby raccoon in a litter of puppies--you know it isn’t one of the dog’s offspring, and it’s a mystery how it got there!

John is saying here, in effect: “Don’t be the raccoon in the litter!

Love one another because that is who you are in God!”

Unconditional, sacrificial love is the indispensable mark of the Christian.

You love because that is who you are, and you love because

II.

It is why you MET JESUS (1 John 4:9-10)

Look at verses 9-10 with me:

1 John 4:9–10 (ESV)

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

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 the indispensable mark of the Christian because it is through this love that you came to Jesus in the first place!

You love others like this because

It is how you LIVE in His LIFE (v.

9; cp.

John 3:16; 10:10; 10:28; Galatians 2:20)

This is the love that saved you:

John 3:16 (ESV)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

This is the love that gives you abundant and eternal life

John 10:10 (ESV)

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:28 (ESV)

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

This is the love in which you live day by day, the love of Christ that empowers your joy, your holiness, your service and your peace:

Galatians 2:20 (ESV)

I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

In verse 10 John goes on to say that not only do we live in Christ’s life by His love,

It is why He DIED in your PLACE (v.

10; cp.

Luke 6:27-28)

1 John 4:10 (ESV)

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.

In other words, God loved you first!

He loved you while you were hating Him! Let this verse sink in for a moment: God loved you, in spite of the fact that you were His sworn enemy and a fit object of His wrath!