Loving Brothers Seen & God Unseen | 1 John 4:20-21
ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church · Carlos Montijo
October 5, 2025
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Show Notes
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Lord's Day:</strong> October 5<span class="sermon-listing-detail">, 2025 </span><span class="sermon-listing-detail"><strong>Preacher:</strong> <a class="speaker" href="https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/sermons/preacher/p/19307/carlos-montijo" rel="p-19307">Carlos Montijo</a> <span class="sermon-series"><strong>Series:</strong> <a id="series-10" class="series" href="https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/sermons/series/first-john">First John</a></span> <span class="sermon-topic"> <strong>Topic:</strong> <a href="https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/sermons/topic/love" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Love</a> </span></span><strong>Scripture: </strong>1 John 4:18–21; Isaiah 45:6–7; 46:9–11; Ephesians 2:3; 1:4–6; James 2:10–17; Galatians 6:10; 1 John 4:9–12; Mark 12:29–31; 1 Corinthians 12:31–13:13; 1 John 3:16</p> <p><sup>20</sup>If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. <sup>21</sup>And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. 1 John 4:20–21</p> <ul> <li>Conclusion to “The Other Love Chapter”</li> </ul> <h4><strong>I. </strong>Loving and hating, without contradiction</h4> <h4><strong>II. Loving God and brother, without hypocrisy</strong></h4> <ul> <li>This passage gives us criteria for identifying hypocrisy, and helps us to love both God and brother in harmony: “If someone <em>says</em>…”</li> <li>Our vertical relationship with God necessarily affects all our horizontal relationships with our fellow man, especially with our brothers and sisters in the household of faith.</li> </ul> <h4><strong>III. Who is harder to love? God? Or Christian brothers and sisters?</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Is there an order of loves (<em>ordo amoris</em>)? A priority of loves?</li> <li>To love God—<em>also</em> means that we love our fellow man, our brother, our neighbor, our enemy</li> <li>God often teaches us the positive doctrine (love) by also identifying, exposing, and refuting the opposite, the error.</li> </ul> <h4><strong>IV. I have been preaching primarily about God’s love and defining His love</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Our perfect love is fundamentally an attitude and a commitment which expresses itself in action and obedience to God’s Word and Will</li> </ul> <h4><strong>V. Compare 1 John 4:11–12</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Richard Lenski: “<em>Agape</em> is defined as the love of intelligence, of <em>comprehension</em> and understanding. It always has that meaning in the New Testament, most completely so here where it speaks of God’s love. Combined with this is <em>purpose</em>, a purpose that corresponds to the comprehension of the object…. Saving <em>agape</em> thus accompanies <em>charis</em>, compassion, and <em>eleos</em>, benevolence.”</li> <li>The <em>entire</em> law of God can be summarily comprehended in a single word—love.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Join us on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong><a href="https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/">ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church</a></strong><br />4712 Montana Ave<br />El Paso, Texas 79903</li> </ul> <p><strong>Contact us at:</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>web:</strong> <a href="https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/">ThornCrownCovenant.Church</a><br /><strong>call/text:</strong> (915) 843-8088<br /><strong>email: </strong><a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></li> </ul> <p>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. <a href="http://lsbible.org/">LSBible.org</a> and <a href="http://316publishing.com/">316publishing.com</a></p>