God Is Love: More Than a Feeling

Intro

We just had valentines day last week. I hope you all had a good valentines day. steak. Valentines day is a day that we are all forced to think about love. It is the love holiday in our culture. But today in 1 John we are going to see that real love isnt about chocolate and a candlelight dinner. Real love isnt modeled for us by a chubby angel with a heart arrow on valentines day. It was modeled by a bloody savior on a cross on Easter. Experiencing a love like that from the source of love in God has massive implications on our lives not just now but for all of eternity.

1 John 4:7–10 NIV

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

This is the third time and last time that John brings up the subject of brotherly love. He brought it up in chapter 2 where he used it as an indicator that someone is walking in the light. In chapter 3 he mentioned it as an evidence that someone is a child of God. Now in chapter 4 he is renenforcing those ideas by stating that love itself comes from God. We are both obligated and able to love other Christians because we know God who is the source of real love.

He also points out the flipside of that in verse 8 where says he says that whoever does not love does not know God. The reason that we are able to love each other if we know God and the reason that those who don’t know God cannot love each other fully is because God is love.

John has told us that God is Spirit, in his Gospel and he has told told us he is light in verse 5 of this book. Now he gives us one more encompassing statement that informs us of the nature of God. God is love.

1. God is Love.

God is the source of all love. Real love has its ultimate source and origin in God. God existed before anything. as a result of that God’s characteristics have existed before anything else. God was love then, He is love now, and He will always be love.

It is very important that we note that by John saying God is love. does not exclude the other attributes of who he is. The Bible as a whole shows us. God is Love, God is also Light, God is also Justice, God is also Truth, God is also Holy, God is also righteous. God being Love does not contradict or supercede all the other characteristics that make Him who he is. God is the source of all of these things. The reason we are able to show anyone else love or justice or any of his characteristics is because we have been made in His image.

God’s love It is not an abstract concept but concrete action. Love is always demonstrated by actions. It is not abstract, it is never complacent or static. God doesn’t just sit back on his throne talking about love. He showed us in verse 9 what love looks like. It looks like God taking action sending His son Jesus so that we might choose to find life through Him.

That is love. That is how the source of love showed us His love. When we say God is love that is what we mean. It not a warm fuzzy feeling it is action. The action of God giving us his Son even though we didn’t love him.

When we see a statement like God is love. God Equals love. Its like an equation. If you have a mathematic mind which if you do. God bless you. He made our minds to work very differently. A student here one time asked me if I could look at a problem they were struggling with in their honors calculus homework. And I looked at it. I don’t know what I looked at but I looked at it. I stood there for a minute thinking about how to get out of this situation without them realizing how I had no idea what was going on. Until I decided to come clean and pointed them in the direction of someone who has that type of mind to comprehend equations easier than my mind that was made differently.

But even I can tell that God is love, God equals love reads like an equation and equations you can flip. and many today try to flip the equation of God is love to love is God. They try to tanspose the equation but friends that is not an equation that can be flipped. love is God is not a Biblical idea. John makes it clear in this passage that the controlling principle of the universe is not an abstract quality of love. What governs the universe is a sovereign living God who is the source of all love, who He himself loves.

Don’t get it twisted there is no chicken or egg debate here. God came first, God is love it cannot exist without him. But the only way that we are able to love fully is when we are connected to the source of love. In verse ten he lays out the order. He loved us first and sent Jesus. Our action in the story was to sin. God’s was to love and send. Lets look at the result of that.

1 John 4:11–18 NIV

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

There are so many truths in these verses. I wish had time to go deeper into them all but in our limited time I can only point out a few so I encourage you to study this passage on your own this week. Read and listen to people smarter than me. It wont be hard to find them. But of all the beautiful things we see about God in this passage what I feel led to point out this morning is this.

2. Where God’s Love Reigns, Fear Retreats.

When we are in relationship with the source of love. And God who is love reigns over our hearts, fear cannot stay. The perfect love of God drives out fear. Does this mean that your fear of the dark, or of snakes, and my fear that every time I open the door to office im going to find that the students have filled it with packing peanuts again. that those fears are going to go away. that isn’t what he’s talking about.

He is talking about the fear of what happens when we close our eyes in death. Because when you die or when Jesus comes back you will have to stand before God and be judged. You might think I get fearful during my annual performance review when I’m judged. If I am going to stand before a holy, all knowing God I am going to be terrified.

Terror and fear should be the appropriate response to standing before God on the day of judgement, and yet John tells us that on that day instead of fear we can experience confidence. You can experience confidence. How because God loved us first, We recipricated that love the only way we could by putting our faith in him. Now God’s love has been made complete in us and we have been made like Jesus.

This doesn’t mean we have achieved being perfect, but it does mean that we stand in relation to God the same way that Jesus does. In that way we are like him. We have a relationship with our judge that is characterized by love. and because we know the judge that we are going to stand before loves us. We can look towards our day judgment with boldness and confidence instead of dread and fear.

Perfect Love and fear cannot coexist in the hearts of believers because perfect love drives out fear.

I remember the first time I asked a girl out I was afraid I thought she liked me but I wasnt sure. so when I revealed what I thought was love I was fearful. love and fear exist together when there is doubt that that the love isn’t going to be recipocated. and thats what I felt.

When I asked Alysa out I had no fear at all. Why ? because my sister betrayed Alysa and told me that she liked me 10 minutes after Alysa told her. I asked with confidence because I knew the affection was already there.

We can love God fully because we have already heard and seen that he loves us before we loved him. We get to stand before Him with confidence with no fear of rejection because. We have already seen not just that he likes us, but that he loves us with a perfect love that he put into action on the cross.

Being in a love like that affects everything about us.

1 John 4:19–21 NIV

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

3. God’s Love Flows Through Us, Not Just To Us

In these verses we see John say again what he’s said several times in this book. A Christian can’t say they love God without loving their fellow Christians. If they do they are lying. of all the evidences that John gives of the different ways we can tell if a heart has experienced the love of God, this one seems to be the most important to him. He is making it very clear that love for God and hatred for a brother or sister cannot coexist in the same heart.

Have you guys ever been around Christians who everyone feels like they need to walk on eggshells around. People say things like you don’t want to get on her bad side, or thats just how he is. and their is just an overall lack of love that is shown in their actions of how they treat other people both in the church and out?

John calls is calling it like it is. That type of behavior is not the evidence of someone who has experienced the love of God. To know God is to manifest His love. All our love is a reflection of His. The origin of love is not our effort or initiative. Accepting a “That’s just how I am” view of how you treat other Christians is not an acceptable reflection of God’s love. In fact it is sinful.

When we have experienced the love of God we move from being ok with thats just how I am, and move to thats how I was before I experienced the love of God and now that love flows through me to other people.

What is the biggest flashing red flag to identify church people who aren’t followers of Jesus? How do they love other followers of Jesus. The concern here is not with an individual’s failed attempt to love that tried and failed. But someone’s complete unwillingness and inability. Is a true sign that someone does not have the love of God flowing to them. Disobedience to the command of verse 21 anyone who loves God must also love their brother or sister. Which is a reiterating Jesus’ command in Mark 12:31

Mark 12:31 ESV

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Disobedience to this command demonstrates a false love towards God that results in failure to love brothers and sisters in Christ. When we encounter God’s love it should remove the idea that us acting unlovingly towards each other with the excuse “Its just the way I am” Jesus didnt die so you could be just the way you are. He died so that you could be like Him experiencing the fullness of God’s love.

God’s perfect love is too perfect to just flow to us. It also flows through us first to our fellow believers and then to the world around us.

We are not the generator of love. God is and we are not simply to receive the love it is to flow through us. We are the conduits through which God love is shared to other believers and then to the world. If there is a breakdown in that it isn’t God’s fault. its ours.

Conclusion.

God is love. He is the source of it. It isn’t us or our feelings. If you are here today and you claim to be a follower of Christ and yet you have no will or desire to love your fellow believers. This isn’t my opinion it is God’s word and it says you are a liar. If you are here today and you claim to be a Christian but have no love for other believers examine yourself. Make sure you are in the faith.

If you are here and when you look forward the day of judgement and you feel fear. you are afraid to stand before God. Don’t leave it to chance. Fear is an indicator of danger. if you aren’t 100% sure that you have the reason of being in a loving relationship with God through Jesus as your confidence do not leave today with out coming forward and getting that right. let his perfect love cast out all your fear.

If you are sure use this last song praising God for the love that he has shown you and ask him to give you opportunities this week to be a conduit for his love to the church and to the world that we are called to reach with his love.