First Baptist Church of Highland Park

Rev. Dr. Henry P. Davis III: Hi, I'm Henry Davis, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Highland Park in Landover, Maryland, a Bible-believing, Christ-centered, and spirit-led congregation. I want to welcome you to our radio broadcast. And remember, there's power at the Park.

First John, Chapter 4. Not Saint John, as my great-grandfather used to say, little John. First John, Chapter 4 is where we want to turn our attention. I want to pick up the reading in verse number 7, and I'm going to read through verse number 12.

The New Living Translation reads in this fashion: "Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us."

These are the words of God. You may go to your seats around the building. I want to come back to verse number 10: "This is real love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." Thank God for our dancers and all of our persons, our ushers and greeters and everywhere. God's love that is so abiding.

I want to talk in this service, love is still the answer. There are some questions every generation has to answer. How do we live together when we don't agree? How do we heal wounds that have been open for generations? How do we build families in a culture that increasingly is pulling us apart? How do we disagree without destroying one another?

And here's a question: How does the church of 2026 speak to a world that has heard our sermons but isn't always convinced by our lives? You know the scriptures. You shared that. What about your life? And after all our progress, technology, education, political theory, social programs, economic strategies, cultural advancements, humanity and all of us still wrestling, I would think, with one stubborn problem.

We have learned how to connect devices without learning how to connect hearts. We can send a message around the world in seconds. And that's what happened a couple of weeks ago, I got messages from all around the globe in a matter of seconds. I had to ask persons, "How did you find out so quickly?" And still struggle to speak kindly to somebody who is across the room.

Families will sit down to dinner now, and everybody has a device out. And everybody's head is down instead of appreciating Joanna Smith who's at the table. We have smartphones, but sometimes hard hearts. We have more followers, but less fellowship. More ways to communicate, but sometimes less understanding. More platforms from which to speak, but seemingly less willingness to listen.

Listening is important. It's a key. If you're going to develop a relationship, you've got to listen. It's not about you. We can disagree with somebody we have never met, become angry with somebody we don't know, and dismiss an entire human being with a swipe of a finger. I can eliminate you from my list. I can block you. I can erase you.

And into this world, it is this world that John writes one of the simplest, yet I would think, most revolutionary sentences in scripture. "Let us continue to love one another." Now, maybe we've made that too complicated. Maybe what our homes need is more love. It might be more than a paint job, new furniture, the scent in the air.

Maybe what our communities need with the violence, guns, lives taken too soon, love. Maybe what our children need to see modeled is more love. Maybe what our marriages need is more love. Maybe what our churches need, love. You come through those doors, you don't want to come to angriness, bitterness. You deal with enough of that at home. Somebody said that at home.

Maybe what this broken world desperately needs is more love. Now, when I say that, because I was at Madison Square Garden and I was there to see Heatwave back in the day at the Garden, where the song that we all loved during the party, "People in the house, always and forever." The lights went down and you looked around the room. Not sentimental love, not weak love, not love that ignores truth. Not love that pretends injustice doesn't exist.

I'm not talking about blind love. Not love that allows people to mistreat us without accountability. What I'm talking about is biblical love. Is this all right? I had a little time to work on this one. This is love with backbone. This is love with conviction. This is love that tells the truth. Not just saying what you want to hear. Love that seeks justice, love that forgives, love that restores, love that crosses boundaries, love that refuses to surrender another human being to hatred.

Great theologian Howard Thurman understood that hatred ultimately damages the person carrying it. When you carry hate, it's going to damage you. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. insisted that darkness cannot ultimately defeat darkness. Hatred cannot cure hatred. But long before Thurman and King, there was an apostle by the name of John.

He sat down and essentially said, "Children of God, never forget this. Love is still the answer." And John can speak about love with authority because this is the same John who once wanted Jesus to follow, he called Jesus, he said, "Fire. Send fire down. Send fire on people who rejected you. Whip them." And that's Luke, Chapter 9.

But something happened to John. He spent enough time with Jesus that the disciple who once wanted to burn people up became the apostle who couldn't stop talking about loving people. He went through a transition. And that's what Jesus will do to you. I pray that we're not what we used to be. I know, I know there are still areas of our lives we still need to work on.

Yeah, if you'd have caught some of us a couple of years ago, we'd have been a mess, because we are a mess right now. Imagine what we would have been. And if you stay around Jesus long enough, he will start to change your mentality. That's why sometimes our growth in the faith now allows us to go through a challenge, and now we're able to run it in our spirit.

And then we were to say to ourselves, "Boy, a few years ago, I'd have blown my top. I'd have said some words that I shouldn't say. I'd have called you something." But look at God. He'll change how you treat people. He'll change how you respond to people who don't respond correctly to you. You're going to meet some folk who are going to act ugly. But because you act ugly doesn't make me have to act ugly back at you.

Because you cannot get closer to Christ while being comfortable with hatred. John says there are three things we need to understand about real love. Number one: Love starts with God, not with us. Here it is: First John 4, "Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God." Don't miss John's starting point. He doesn't begin by commanding us to manufacture love.

Manufactured love could be fake love. And you meet too many fake people. They love you while it's good times. He doesn't begin there. He tells us where love comes from. Love comes from God. God is the source of love. John says love comes from God. The Greek word dominating this passage is agape love. That's what we're talking about.

This is not phileo. This is not merely romantic attraction, whether you look like Denzel or Beyoncé. It is not simply friendship. It is not emotional chemistry. Agape is love that seeks the good of another. Love that gives, love that sacrifices, love that acts, love that does not require the recipient to deserve it before the giver extends it.

And John says its ultimate source is God. And then verse 8 takes it a little further. It says, "God is love." Notice what John does not say. He doesn't merely say God loves. He says God is love. Love is not merely something God does. Love belongs to God's very nature. You need to get the sermon I preached earlier about the hands and you can look at that.

But love belongs to God's nature. God doesn't wake up one morning and decide to love. God doesn't love you because he's in a good mood. God doesn't love you when you're performing well and love you less when you're struggling. God loves because God is love. You cannot define love without looking at God. I look at God and I gain the definition of it.

The culture we now live in, we often begin with ourselves. I love what makes me happy. I love people who love me. I love people who agree with me. I love people who treat me right. But biblical love begins somewhere in a totally different space. It begins with God. Therefore, I don't get to define love according to my convenience. I have to define love according to God's character. God is love.

That's why Jesus could say, "Love your enemies." Now, I'll admit, I'm with y'all on that. "Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you." Anybody can love people who love them. Jesus says the evidence of transformed love is what happens when somebody doesn't. That's grown-up Christianity. That's not baby faith. That's not faith in a bottle. That's the kind of faith that allows me to transcend because of the biblical principle.

Receiving God's love changes how we love others. Verse 7, "Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God." John connects knowing God with loving people. This is going to get a little rocky in here. That's uncomfortable because we would rather measure spirituality by how much Bible you know. How many scriptures can you quote?

I'm grateful for our discipleship ministry two weeks ago, or Crown Financial and Business by the Book, everything that we learn. Sometimes people will measure where they are by how loud they are in worship. How long you pray. How many church positions have you held? I'm president of this, and I'm usher this, and I'm deacon this, and I'm leader that.

How many gifts, spiritual gifts, you display. But John says, "Let me see how you love." That's what I want to see. Because you've got some folk who can praise God in here and cuss you out in the parking lot. They don't speak in tongues, but they can speak in a tongue that you'll understand. Paul says essentially the same thing in First Corinthians 13: "I can speak with the tongues of angels. I can understand mysteries. I can have mountain-moving faith. I can give everything away. But without love, I'm nothing."

And just like I could have the tongue of angels, I could have the tongue of a demon. Here you are in your good church outfit, and you've got the tongue of a demon. You left church and then you went to church all that time and came out of there acting as ugly as you are. Church, our greatest spiritual gift is useless if nobody can feel Christ's love through us. I don't care how long you've been at Highland Park. Because love starts with God, not with us.

Not about me, it's about God. The second thing is: God showed his love instead of merely saying it. He showed it. Showing love is more than saying love. Here it is right in the center of the text, verses 9 and 10: "God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him." Notice the word and it's a verb. Action. "Showed."

God didn't just say he loved us. God showed it. It's when love becomes visible. I can see it. I can feel it. Love took action. Love stepped into history. Love put on flesh. Love moved into our neighborhood. Verse 10 says, "This is real love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us." God made the first move. And here's the gospel in one sentence, one sentence captures everything: God loved us first. You got the first move, God. And the first move that you demonstrated is loving us.

We didn't initiate salvation, God did that. We didn't climb our way to heaven, that's what they had in the Old Testament, Tower of Babel. They say we're going to try to climb up there. No. Heaven came down to us. We didn't find God, because God wasn't lost. God came looking for us. Luke 19:10 says, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save those who are lost."

Religion says find your way to God. The gospel says God came looking for you. That's a game changer. Because some people think Christianity is primarily about good people behaving well enough for God to accept them. That's not it. Christianity is about a loving God pursuing broken people who could never rescue themselves. That's good. Let me read that one again. Christianity is about a loving God pursuing broken people who could never rescue themselves.

I can't rescue myself, I can't save myself. He loved us first. Before you prayed, he loved you. Before you joined church, he loved you. Before you got yourself together and you're still working on that, he loved you. Before you understood anything about theology, he loved you. While you were confused and making a mess, he loved you. While you were running, he loved you. He loves us in spite of us.

Romans 5:8 says, "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." "Still." That's that phrase, "while we were still." Still wrong, still wondering, still wandering, still sinful, still stubborn, still becoming. Still, still, still. No matter what your still is, God loves us. And love cost God something. It cost God to love us. Verse 10 said he sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sin. A son who knew no sin but died for our sin.

The Greek concept here is a word hilasmos. It's an atoning sacrifice. The means by which the barrier of sin is dealt with. John will not allow us to reduce love to being simply sentimental. Biblical love has a cross in the middle of it. That's what we like this new podium. You can't miss the cross. Love cost. Love gives. Love sacrifices. John 3:16 does not say God so loved the world that he felt something. It says, "God so loved the world that he gave."

Love that never gives is, if you're not giving anything, it isn't biblical love. It's got to be giving. Love gives time. Love gives patience. Love gives forgiveness. Love gives another chance, when appropriate. Love gives attention. Love gives dignity. Love gives itself. And God's love gave Jesus. Calvary is God's definition of love. If you ever wonder whether God loves you, I'm going to give you something. Don't begin with your circumstances.

If you're ever wondering, "Does God love me?" Don't start with your circumstances. Why not? Look to Calvary. Look to the cross. Because circumstances can change. Feelings can change. You've seen folk, people change, money changes, health changes, relationships change. But there is a hill called Calvary where God settled the question forever.

"How much do you love me, God?" Jesus stretched out his arms. He says, "I love you this much." stretched my arms. "Come unto me who are labor and heavy laden. I'm going to give you rest." And when he stretched out his hands, he had nails in his hands. Nails in his feet. Crown on his head. A wound in his side. Not because we loved him first, because he loved us first. That's why the cross isn't merely an instrument of death. The cross is God's, I know Larry Harper's watching, here it is, Deacon Harper, the cross is God's love letter written in blood.

That's why the cross you're looking at there and here is red. The blood. Something about the blood. The blood makes this thing real. Blood. I'm expressing myself. So my love letter. And I hung there on that Friday, but three days later, love got up. Death couldn't kill love. A tomb couldn't hold love. A stone couldn't stop love. Hell couldn't defeat love. Love got up!

And because love got up, we can get up. What got you up this morning? Love watched over me all night long. Love. He knows my good, bad, and my ugly, yet he still loves. Here's my third point: People should be able to see God's love through us. I pray Stacy, yesterday, when they came through, people picking up backpacks and sneakers and getting a haircut and hairstyles. The most important thing was not what you had in that backpack, but did you feel love?

When people greeted you with a smile, hug. First John 4, verses 11 and 12, John turns the corner. Because if we stop at verse 10, we can shout about God's love without ever being changed by it. But we don't want to stop there. Verse 11 says, "Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other." There it is, there it is. Since God loved us, we ought to love each other.

How are you going to be a part of the body of Christ and you can't speak to people? I don't care about your badge. Scripture is that we ought to love each other. Grace received must become grace released. If grace woke me up this morning, I ought to get up and release that grace. I want to be a channel of blessings. I don't want to be selfish, I don't want to sit down on God. Love received must become love reproduced. You felt love, you ought to reproduce that love.

Mercy received must become mercy extended. Forgiveness received must become forgiveness offered. We cannot receive vertical love without expressing horizontal love. Vertical, up and down. Horizontal, across. The cross itself gives us the picture. There is a vertical, up and down beam. God is reaching toward humanity. I'm reaching down. And then there's a horizontal, human beings, us, reaching toward one another.

You cannot embrace the vertical while rejecting the horizontal. You can't say, "I love God," but I have difficulty with people. How real is your love? It's more than your bumper sticker or your faith-strong shirt. And next weekend is faith-strong weekend, but it's got to be more than mottos and bumper stickers. We've got to show it. Jesus said in John 13:35, "Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples."

Not our church buildings, not our denominational labels, not our theological vocabulary. Jesus wraps it up: Love. Imagine if the church became known first for how well we loved. They may not agree with our doctrine yet, but they encountered love. They might not understand our worship, but I felt loved. They may not believe what we believe, but they know we love them across your background, across whatever difference.

And maybe love becomes the bridge across which somebody eventually says, "I'm walking to Jesus." You don't know who's sitting next to you today. Somebody's coming to this church today. You felt unloved, unwanted, unappreciated. You felt pain. But you need to come into this space and know we haven't gotten everything right, but God loves us. We've gone left when we should have gone right. We haven't always articulated our faith in the way we should have articulated our faith.

Love becomes that bridge. Love does not mean agreement. We need to make this clear. Biblical love does not require universal agreement. Jesus loved people and he loved people he corrected. Jesus loved people he challenged. Jesus loved people who misunderstood him. Jesus even loved people who crucified him. Love doesn't mean I approve of everything you do. Love means your humanity remains sacred to me even when we disagree.

That's a word our culture desperately needs. We have learned how to cancel people. I mean, we can swipe them right out of our lives. Push one button and you're blocked. Come on, somebody. We can dismiss people, we can demonize people, but Jesus teaches us another way: Love people. Tell the truth, but tell the truth in love.

Sometimes I ask my wife about wearing a certain outfit. And my taste, her taste, a little bit different. And she tells me sometimes, she said, "If you want to dress like you're in Texas, you need to move there. You're in the DC area. You're not in the wild, wild west." Whatever you do, stand for justice, but stand in love. Correct wrong, but you do it in love. Defend the vulnerable, but I do it in love. Fight injustice without allowing injustice to teach you hatred.

That's powerful love, that's Christ-like love. We make the invisible God visible. I can't, my late grandfather almost lived to 100 years of age, was a deacon in the church, went to prayer meeting every Wednesday night. My dad would call him, he'd answer the phone and he'd always go to prayer meeting and he said sometimes, "I'd rather see a sermon than hear one." That was Deacon Henry P. Davis Sr.

Powerful love. Verse 12 gives us something extraordinary: "No one has ever seen God, but if we love each other, God lives in us and his love is brought to full expression in us." Don't miss that. Nobody has seen God. But when we love, something invisible now becomes visible. The world can't physically see God. We can't see it. But they ought to catch a glimpse of God when they run into you.

I haven't seen him, but I'm getting a glimpse by being in your presence. They ought to see something of God in how you treat the waitress. Come on, somebody. How you treat the other person on the other side of the cash register. Ought to see something in you, even when they got your order mixed up. Come on, somebody. You don't need to be talking all that cussing and carrying on just because you didn't get your fries.

How we speak to people in your house. How you speak to your spouse, how you respond to your children, how you treat elderly people, how we welcome the stranger, person doesn't smell like us, look like us, act like us. We, how we treat people who cannot do anything for us. There's nothing you can do for me. But I thank God for what God has done for me, I want to show that love.

How do you respond to people who disagree with you? How do we handle folk who've hurt us? Somebody ought to leave our presence saying, "I don't know everything about their God yet, but whatever they have, I felt something different." That's evangelism. That's what evangelism is. Sometimes before people hear the gospel from our lips, they need to experience the gospel through our lives. We become living evidence that love is still the answer.

Church, after everything I've seen, I still believe in love. After all the hatred, love is still the answer. Everything in church is not perfect. We've got a great church, but we don't have a perfect church. Love is still the answer. After all the division, love is still the answer. After all the violence, love is still the answer. After all the political hostility, and don't go to DC today because you might be run over by a racecar.

I'm still going to watch it, though. I can't believe they're going to legally have to be able to drive like that through the District because they were doing that last week. Come on, somebody. I mean, they doing that all around. But love is still the answer. After all the racial tension, and I don't like how Black Lives Matter got erased. I don't like it at all. But after families have been fractured, love is still the answer.

After churches have been wounded, that's why some folk don't come to church because they had church hurt. They've been in churches where they've been hurt. We've pointed out pregnant teenagers like they got pregnant by themselves. After people disappoint you, love is still the answer. Not because love is weak, love is powerful. Love can walk into a room full of hatred and refuse to become hateful.

Love can be mistreated and refuse to become mean. Love can be wounded and still choose healing. Love can tell the truth without destroying the person who needs to hear it. Love can fight injustice without surrendering its soul to bitterness. Love can look at an enemy and still recognize a human being made in the image of God. And if you can do that, that's powerful.

In other words, love still works. Ask Joseph. His brothers hated him, but love still worked. Ask Ruth. In the Old Testament, death disrupted her family, but love still worked. Ask Hosea. His heart was broken, but love still worked. Ask the woman who was caught in adultery. Everybody else had stones, Jesus had love. Ask Zacchaeus, as he climbed up a sycamore tree. Everybody else saw him as a crook, Jesus saw somebody worth saving.

Ask Peter. Denied Jesus three times, but love came looking for him. And if you really want to know whether God's love works, ask Calvary. They whipped him, love stayed. They mocked him, love stayed. They spat on him, love stayed. They nailed him, love stayed. They lifted him, love stayed. And hanging there between heaven and earth, Jesus looked at the very people crucifying him and said, "Father, forgive them, because they know not what they're doing."

That's love. They put love in a borrowed tomb on Friday. Saturday, love was still there. But early Sunday morning, love got up! And because love got up, hatred doesn't win. Sin doesn't win. Shame doesn't win. Death doesn't win. The grave doesn't win. What wins is love. Love our children, love our seniors, love our young adults, love our millennials, love our families, love our neighbors, love the stranger, love the hurting, love the forgotten, love the person who doesn't look like us, love the person who doesn't vote like us, love the person who doesn't think like us, love the person who doesn't yet believe like us. Yes! And I'm doing it not because of me, but the power of the Holy Spirit.

Love even those who don't love us. Because we're not loving people because they deserve it, we love because he first loved us. And maybe today you're wondering, could God really love somebody like me? Verse 10 says, "This is real love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us." We don't have to talk God and convince God to love us. He already does. You don't have to earn his love, Jesus already demonstrated it. You don't have to fix your whole life before you come, come to Jesus.

And let Jesus begin changing your life. Maybe you've been looking for love in all the wrong places. That's what I've been doing the last few days, been scrolling and whole lot of stuff I've been watching, looking at. Whole lot of folk love they, they think love is a one-night stand. Maybe people promised to love you and they left. Maybe somebody broke your heart. Maybe you have even stopped believing real love even exists. "I've been hurt so much, I'll never give myself over away like that."

I come to tell you, real love has a name. His name is Jesus. A love that forgives, a love that restores, a love that heals, a love that saves, a love that can hold me in your arms, a love that refuses to let your worst chapter become your final chapter. You gotta come to Jesus today because after everything this world has tried, after every substitute, after every counterfeit, after every broken promise, after every shattered heart, after all these things, I have reached the same conclusion that John reached 2,000 years ago. God is love. God still loves. And love is still the answer.

I got joy in my heart, thanksgiving on my lips. I don't mind praising God, because when I think of the goodness of Jesus and all he's done for me, my soul got to cry out, Hallelujah! I believe I'll run on a little while longer, see what the end is going to be. Because can't nobody do me like the Lord. Won't he do it? He's able to answer your prayer. Put clap it in your hands, joy in your heart. Can't nobody do me like the Lord. Say yes! I'm still loved, and love is still the answer. So when we walk out of Highland Park, walk out with love. Love for others, but with gratitude that God first loved us unconditionally. Thank God for his unconditional love.

Rev. Dr. Henry P. Davis III: You've been listening to the radio broadcast of the First Baptist Church of Highland Park and Landover, Maryland. If you want to receive a CD or DVD of what you have just heard, please call 301-773-6655, or visit us on the World Wide Web. And remember, there's power at the Park.