God is Love

What is love? Baby don’t hurt me…

What’s love got to do with…

All you need is love…

I…I…EE-I, will always love you…

The world sings an awful lot about love. But, where does love come from? How do we know it? How do we truly see it in the world today? John writes in 1 Jn.4:7-12 to call believers to love because God is love, He has proved His love and established a lasting monument to His love, knowing that we show the world what love truly is when we love one another.

Let’s go to the Word together.

The Origin of Love.

1 John 4:7–8 “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.”

Interpretation

Love shows that we belong to God.

Orthodoxy and orthopraxy — John has bounced back and forth between the two. In the first six verses, John dealt with truth and how to discern it. Now, John switches his attention back to practice and the call to love one another (both exhortations in this passage deal with the same exhortation). It is a great reminder that right belief always results in right response.

Why does the believer love? Love is from God. (Verse 8 will continue this idea by saying “God is love.”) Just as we know truth because Jesus is truth (John 14:6), so too the believer knows love because it originates with God. The fullest and truest expression of love, as John will flesh out, it observed in God’s actions toward man.

Are we saying that non-believers can’t or don’t love? No, just that the fullness of love set forth by Christ shows the deepest and fullest definition of love — self-sacrifice for the glory of God.

Love shows that we know God.

The word John uses for know has been consistent throughout his letter, and it refers to experiential knowledge. The implication here is that if a person has seen, tasted, and experienced the love of God, he will then extend that love to others.

It doesn’t diminish or remove the need for confession and righteousness, but it completes the picture of love and life lived in fellowship with God. It’s a natural result, to know God, to have experienced His love, and then to extend it to others. Conversely, if a person does not love, they do not know God. John’s reasoning is simple: God is love. If we fail to love, we reveal that we really don’t know God or what God is like. If there is no love, we truly haven’t been changed at the core of who we are.

Illustration

In comic books, the origin story is paramount. Take, for instance, the original Peter Parker, his conversations with Uncle Ben, Peter’s rebellious streak, Ben’s death, and the words that have become famous — “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Application

We know the origin of our call: God Himself. Do you truly know the character of God? The God who would love? The God who welcomes sinners? The God who dines with the outcasts? The God who does not turn back the ill-reputed woman who washes His feet with her hair…the God who does not cast the first stone at the woman caught in adultery but gently lifts her and tells her to sin no more…the God who beats down cultural norms and meets the woman at the well and her final and forever redeemer? Do you know this God? If so, love for others should not be a problem for you, because you belong to the One who is love.

The Evidence of Love.

1 John 4:9–10 “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.”

Interpretation

God sent Jesus so we could live.

John describes exactly how God has shown His love: He sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. What type of life does God offer?

First, eternal life. What exactly is eternal life? It is true life, spiritual life, life awakened by God, roused from spiritual death and living forevermore.

Second, it is a full or abundant life. God’s life is the only life that truly satisfies and offers any sort of lasting fulfillment.

Third, we live through Him. What does this mean except that we are crucified to the world in order that we may no longer live. Instead, Christ lives in us, producing His fruit in us.

God sent Jesus so He could die.

This is the “gospel opportunity” in this passage of Scripture.

Application

Have you surrendered to the gospel?

The Perfection of Love.

1 John 4:11–12 “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

Interpretation

Jesus’ death is an example for us.

John embodies the very thing he calls the church to: love. He uses a term of endearment when addressing the congregation — beloved.

The love of God becomes the motivation for the believers to love one another. The question is not if God has loved us. John has already given evidence that this is indeed the case. This is a conditional clause where the initial “if” is rooted in truth, therefore the “then” is the natural outcome.

For notes on loving one another, see 1 John 3:11; 18. These verses call the believer to love and to do so in “deed and…truth.”

Jesus’ love is made real through our love for others.

It seems an odd inclusion into a passage about the evidence of God’s love, the fact that no one has ever seen God. John may be hinting that while God’s love is evident because of the atoning death of Christ, God is still hidden from the world’s eyes. However, if we love one another, the evidence of the love of God is in us and perfected in us and evidenced through us.

The opening phrase of verse 12 echoes John 1:18. The world has never seen a full and complete manifestation of God the Father, though there were partial and veiled revelations of God in the OT. However, here in the final days, the Father was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him. While man has not seen God in His heavenly abode splendor, Christ has revealed the Father to the world.

God’s love for us is manifested to the world and made visible through our love for one another.

Illustration

So, what is love? If we are called to do it, rooted in who God is and how He has treated us, how do we love? What does love look like? A group of four to eight-year-olds were asked, “What does love mean?” You know, we could learn a lot from some of their answers:

Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John God Is Love (1 John 4:7–12)

“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.” Chrissy—age 6

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.” Terri—age 4

“Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.” Danny—age 7

“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” Bobby—age 5

“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.” Noelle—age 7

“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.” May Ann—age 4

“When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” Karen—age 7

“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.” Jessica—age 7

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.” Rebecca—age 8 (Sollee, “Love”)

Application

John 13:35 is pretty simple — By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

They will know…

Not wonder…

Not guess…

But know us by our love.

But are we known by our love? Are you? Do people see the love of the Father, expressed through the Son, through your love? May God make our lives look like the selfless and sacrificial love of Christ the Son.