This short text is one from which I have often preached to you and I hope to preach from it a good many more times if I am spared, for it is one of those inexhaustible wells into which you may let down the bucket every morning, and always pull it up full. It is a mine with a good many vains of the richest ore. You may think that you have dug all its treasures out, but you have only to sink a new shaft, to find that there is another vain just as rich as the former one; and when you have brought all that wealth to the surface - and that may take your whole lifetime - someone else may sink another shaft, and open up a fresh vein.

Tonight, I will present four points concerning our text:

I. First, by showing you that OUR LOVE TO GOD IS A FACT WHICH DESERVES AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND A CONFESSION.

II. Secondly, that OUR LOVE IS AN EFFECT FLOWING FROM A CAUSE: "We love because he first loved us."

III. Thirdly - OUR LOVE IS A SIMPLICITY FOUNDED UPON A MYSTERY. "We love." That is simple enough. "Because he first loved us." Ah! there is a great mystery which none of us can fully understand.