God is Love
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Illustration: The old computer game “pipe dream” and how we are like the pipes that conduct God’s love to other people.
Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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 atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
We know as disciples of Jesus that love is essential to what it means to follow Him. In fact, He summarized the entire law of God in two commands, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors just like we love ourselves. So if Jesus makes love the most important commandment, than we really better know what love is, and how best to love one another. Not only that, but if we take a peek a little earlier in this same letter John said in 1 John 3:10
This is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister.
So if we want to say that we are “of God,” than we better get this love thing right.
We find ourselves continuing in our sermon series exploring the three letters that John the disciple of Jesus wrote, discovering in them what they have to teach us about God, and what it takes to become better disciples and to better make disciples of others as Jesus called us to do.
The brilliance of this particular passage is that in one fell swoop it tells us a great deal about both the nature of love and the nature of God Himself. The short phrase “God is love” which is found twice in this short passage, is a deeply profound statement. These two nouns cannot be inverted to say that “love is God,” as if we should worship love itself. As the Commentary Critical and Explanatary on the Whole Bible explains “There is no Greek article to love, but [there is] to God; therefore we cannot translate [it as] Love is God” Rather it identifies God so completely with His loving nature that they are almost synonymous. God’s very nature is love. So like I said we learn something about God’s nature in this statement. We see then that everything He does flows out of His loving nature, and love is the motivation for everything from His creation to His punishment of sinners to His redeeming us when we were lost. All of this is proven of course as John says in the one supreme act of love, 1 John 4:9
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.
The reverse is also true. This statement doesn’t just tell us something about the nature of God, but also about the nature of love. If God is love, than the things that God does and says are done in love. So then the way to be certain we are truly loving people is to try to imitate God, and especially His son when He lived as a human being.
So then I think that the main thrust of this passage is to illustrate not only that God is love, but to show the three implications of the fact that God is love, and those are:
We Should Love One Another
We Should Testify About His Love
We Should Have Confidence in the Day of Judgement
Loving One Another
Loving One Another
Illustration: Family resemblance and jokes about the milkman.
Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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 atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.
John uses some strong language here because he wants to drive home the importance of what he is saying. “The one who does not love does not know God,” must be John’s call to serious self reflection. If someone reading this letter has been calling themselves a Christian or a disciple and has not been loving his brother and sister how could he not hear this as an accusation? Now we don’t want to be in the business of telling people they are or are not saved based just on their actions. We know that salvation comes by grace through faith alone and not of our own merit because the Bible tells us so. Ephesians 2:8-9
For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast.
What the Bible does do instead is tell us about the results of our salvation that we should be seeing. To use a biblical metaphor if the seed of salvation was planted in the soil of our hearts, than we should expect to see a sprout turn into a seedling and eventually go on to bear fruit. If we never see that fruit, meaning righteous works born of love, than we know something is wrong.
This is because if we come to God and become His children, than we ought to see the family resemblance. Here is the logic as John tracks it. God is love. His very nature to the absolute core is that He is loving. God promised that when we come to Him, that we would receive the Holy Spirit, or as John calls Him simply “His Spirit.” Therefore if the Spirit of God who is love dwells in us than we should be loving, and on the contrary if we are not loving how could we possibly have the Spirit of God living in us?
So it isn’t just that we love just in order to emulate what God did, though He also says that we should do that. It’s that we theologically believe that God Himself is in us, so if that’s the case He’s going to love others through us. Remember anything we do that is good doesn’t come from ourselves but from God who is in us. We can’t take the credit for any of it.
At the end of the day though the application of this point isn’t that if we feel like we aren’t loving like we’re supposed to that we should just try harder. If love flows naturally out of our relationship with the God who is love, than the solution to a lack of love is to address our relationship with God, not the symptom of the problem. So how do you do that? John emphasized earlier in the letter the importance of abiding in Him, which we do by prayer and reading His word and fellowship with one another. If we want to be people of love that we should be seeking the God of love with everything that we have.
Testifying to Love
Testifying to Love
Illustration: Looking out my window to see if the wind is blowing. I can’t see the wind, but I can see what the wind is moving.
No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
Jesus after the crucifixion and resurrection game His disciples a mission, one that we inherit as the current disciples of Jesus. This mission was to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them all of His commands. The challenge we often face as we go about telling people about Jesus is this: how do we show an invisible God to a sceptical audience? What can we do to show that God exists when no one can see Him. Now while I appreciate apologetics, meaning arguing for good reasons to believe God and the Bible, that’s not what the Bible tells us to do to show God to people.
What does John say about seeing God? He says that while no one has seen God, God’s love becomes visible in us when we love one another. He in this is repeating what Jesus taught Him in John 13:35
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Interestingly it’s their love for each other, or our love for other Christians, that is the testimony to the fact that we are true followers of Jesus. I think there is something special that we share as fellow believers that is unique and a level of love we can show for each other, a true mutual love, that can’t be completely shared with someone who doesn’t know Jesus. That being said every single person is only one decision away from being a fellow disciple of Jesus. The most loving thing that we can do for someone who is far from God is to invite them into this amazing fellowship with us. And this is why we testify to God sending His son, as John says in our passage. So that others may share in the amazing new life that we have been given.
It’s not enough that we should just be loving and kind people. Those things matter volumes, but must also be joined together to our confession as John says in verse 15 that Jesus is the Son of God. Our confession about who Jesus is when matched with love and righteousness is the testimony that people need to hear to know the truth of the gospel. If we just love and treat people with kindness than we will neglect the call to repentance that Jesus is making to the world. If we only confess who Jesus is and call people to repentance than our lack of love and righteousness will make the call ugly and unappealing to those we are calling. We need both together.
Confidence in the Judgement
Confidence in the Judgement
Illustration: Does anyone else have irrational fear sometimes around police officers and security guards? As if when I go through security at the airport somehow a gun or some drugs will have just appeared in my luggage and I’ll get in a lot of trouble. It’s irrational, because if you’ve done nothing wrong why should you fear them?
In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
No one wants to live a life in fear. Anyone who has struggled with anxiety can tell you that. Anxiety is a form of fear after all. Living with fear, especially irrational fear, can destroy people. Fear leads to avoidance and avoidance only leads to more fear and can trap people in lives where they aren’t doing the things that could bring them joy and happiness. Sometimes we as Christians can live lives of unhealthy fear towards God’s judgement. There is a difference between a healthy fear of God and an unhealthy fear of God. The good fear of God described by the Bible is a sober knowledge of God’s power, holiness, and justice and His righteous anger against evil. An unhealthy fear of God is constantly worrying that God is going to abandon you because you aren’t doing well enough. Fear that even though you’ve repented and followed after Jesus that you still won’t be good enough when the judgment day comes along.
This isn’t the kind of life that God wants for His people. In fact Jesus said He came to bring us joy, in John 15:11
“I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
That doesn’t sound like constant worry and fear, does it? And Paul tells us the fruit, or result, of the Holy Spirit dwelling inside us is “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” Fear and anxiety are not on that list. And Jesus tells us not to worry, because God is our father and loves us and wants to take care of us.
John of course under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit follows this same thought and teaches us that “perfect love casts out fear.” It’s like Carla’s communion message last week, light and darkness can’t coexist and neither can fear and love. Because when we fear God’s judgement what we are fearing is punishment. If you fear God’s punishment despite the promises in Scripture that your wrongdoing is not only forgiven but actually forgotten, than that shows a lack of trust for God’s word.
So what is the antidote to living in fear? Living in love. If we are abiding in Christ and loving one another than we can live with our head held high knowing that we can have bold confidence when the judgement day comes that Jesus will turn and say to us “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Another great antidote to fear is to track down the verses of scripture like this one that reassure us of God’s love towards us and our confidence in the face of Judgement. To read God’s promises about our eternal life and future whenever we find ourselves tempted to be afraid, and his promises like earlier in this book even that as 1 John 1:9 says
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So then we need only confess and we will have nothing to fear.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Like I said at the start, all of this flows out of the idea that God is love. His very nature is love, and He has been loving since before the creation of the world and before time began. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit continue forever in a perfectly loving relationship, and they invite you and I into their love. Because of this we have love to pass on to other people, sent to us by God first. And because of this love we testify to who Jesus is so more people can come into this loving relationship with God and with us. And because of this love we can stand tall and confident in the face of the coming judgment. Let’s reread this passage again together.
Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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 atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
So Fredericton Christian Church, if we are disciples of Jesus and have the God of love living within us, let us strive to be a people who are known by their love. Not by ourbuilding, by our events, by the quality of our worship services or whatever else. By love. Let us draw near to the God of Love every day so that love that He is can rub off on us and help us to be the loving people that we’re supposed to be.