THE TEST: LOVE ONE ANOTHER

1 John 4:7 - 5:4

How many times must we be exhorted to ‘Love One Another’?

In John’s brief letter he has mentioned our responsibility to ‘love one another’ seven times previous to the passage we will examine this morning where we find the instruction shared several times.

The refrain of the paragraph is the reflexive love one another. It occurs three times—as an exhortation (7, ‘let us love one another’), as a statement of duty (11, ‘we also ought to love one another’; cf. 2:6; 3:16), and as a hypothesis (12, ‘if we love each other …’).

John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 19, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 160–161.

I get it! I should love those around me.

Many of you are - or have been - gardeners. From late August till just recently one of the tables in the back provided free produce from your gardens.

As gardeners you understand that to grow flowers or vegetables there are certain environmental requirements.

On the website of the OSU Extension service they list the following necessities for successful growing:

Light

Water/Humidity

Nutrients

Temperature

We do have a limited ability to control these environmental challenges with plant lights, greenhouses, fertilizer, and so on.

As we listen to John’s consistent reminders to ‘Love One Another’ in this passage, he also spells out environmental issues that we can choose so that the environment around us is conducive to loving one another.

In a recent magazine article the author, referencing a recently published book, writes

Forty million Americans have stopped attending church in the past 25 years. That’s something like 12 percent of the population, and it represents the largest concentrated change in church attendance in American history.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/christian-church-communitiy-participation-drop/6748

Indeed, those numbers should make us ask the question: What happened?

The book title is:

The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?

I haven’t read the book. But looking at this passage of Scripture may help shed some light for us on the issue today.

CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT OF MUTUAL LOVE

A proper understanding of God’s Nature

1 John 4:8 (HCSB)

... God is love...

1 John 4:16 (HCSB) God is love,...

John makes three clear statements about the nature of God in his writings.

John 4:24 (HCSB) God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

1 John 1:5 (HCSB) Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him.

And here - “ God is love.”

None of these statements fully captures the fullness of God’s nature.

One professor helpfully writes:

…God is not made up of parts like you and me. For example, I have two arms, a nose, … a beating heart, and a few thousand other body parts. All of these ‘parts’ come together to make up my body, but none of them defines me entirely…God is not this way, God is not composed of parts such that he could lose part of himself and remain himself. God does not have love; God is love. Love is not a ‘part’ of God you can cut off or replace; love is essential to God’s very being…God’s essence is not composed of parts but is simple and unified.

Ronni Kurtz, Fruitful Theology: How the Life of the Mind Leads to the Life of the Soul,(Nashville, B&H Publishing, 2022), 20.

As we affirm that God is love, we also recognize He is just, He is all-powerful, He is all-knowing and on we could go.

In order to love one another properly we begin with a growing and deepening understanding of the nature and character of God.

A Proper Understanding of How God gives Himself

1 John 4:9–11 HCSB

God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.

John reminds us that we cannot ‘see’ God (vs 12), but we can know God.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews reminds us:

Hebrews 1:1–4 HCSB

Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. God has appointed Him heir of all things and made the universe through Him. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. So He became higher in rank than the angels, just as the name He inherited is superior to theirs.

As God ‘revealed’ Himself was and is a clear and permanent way of expressing His love.

This is the pattern of love which is to mark our lives.

We cannot know this love apart from knowing God as He has made Himself known.

A Proper Understanding of God’s Ultimate Purpose

John reminds his readers of God’s purposes - which is necessary to fully grasp the nature of love.

1 John 4:13–14 HCSB

This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world’s Savior.

For the world, God’s purpose is to provide a way of redemption. The sin which had captured the world with the fall of Adam and Eve can be overcome - only because of God’s great love for the world.

God’s purpose is further revealed as He gives of Himself to believers via the Holy Spirit -

1 John 4:13 HCSB

This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit.

As we live in confidence and assurance of God’s presence, the world around us will note the ways in which we are different from them.

1 John 4:17–18 HCSB

In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, for we are as He is in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love.

The last phrase of vs 18: “the one who fears is not complete in love...” reminds us that God’s love is complete, having reached it’s goal, only as His love is made visible, tangible and real THROUGH US!

A PROPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE POWER OF GOD’S LOVE

1 John 5:1–4 HCSB

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves the one born of Him. This is how we know that we love God’s children when we love God and obey His commands. For this is what love for God is: to keep His commands. Now His commands are not a burden, because whatever has been born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.

Those who believe that Jesus is the Christ (see 1 John 4:1-6), is confident and assured of both being loved, and commanded to love one another,

The two cannot be separated. We love because God first loved us. We love because He loves us.

The victory of which John writes is the steadfast confidence that nothing can overcome the power and presence of God.

The Apostle Paul phrased it memorably in these words:

Romans 8:38–39 HCSB

For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!

RESPOND AND REFLECT

Mark Clifton, a pastor whom I deeply respect writes,

The local church is an institution in the world where God’s glory is on display to the community. When a business goes under in your neighborhood, God’s glory isn’t impacted as it is when a church dies. For many neighborhoods around our continent, local churches are the ever-present, physical reminders of who God is. When the church struggles, God’s reputation within that community struggles.

Reclaiming Glory: Revitalizing Dying Churches (Nashville; B&H Publishing, 2023), p. 14 Kindle Version.

Churches struggle for many different reasons, but most church conflict boils down to one issue:

a lack of love God’s style

People claim to be loving, but the level of energy devoted to selfishness and personal preferences often suggests that the love of self is the priority instead of the genuine self-giving love God showers upon us.

Can this love hold a church together regardless of the circumstances?

I believe it can.

But this love - like your garden at home must be properly cared for.

Here are the ingredients necessary - according to John - for a church to be on the path to be loving as God is:

Properly Regarding God’s Nature and Character

Properly Regarding the Self-giving Nature of God’s Love

Properly Regarding God’s Ultimate Purpose

Properly Regarding God’s Power