Manifest Love

Opening Illustration

There's nothing you can do that can't be done Nothing you can sing that can't be sung Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game It's easy Nothing you can make that can't be made No one you can save that can't be saved Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time It's easy

All you need is love, all you need is love All you need is love, love, love is all you need

The Beatles! I loved the Beatles growing up, because I was a weird little kid who only listened to oldies. Love is all you need, the promise of a peace and love generation, but you get to wondering if that promise was really fulfilled. War still happens, liberals still demonize conservatives and conservatives still demonize liberals. Message boards, youtube comments, twitter. If someone gave me the ability to completely shut down the internet, I know that would cause all kinds of chaos for good people, but would still need lots of restraint just because of youtube and twitter.

When you look at the words of this song however, it isn’t difficult to see why maybe it comes off as a little vague about love. “Nothing you can do that can’t be done” cool. “Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung” okay. That doesn’t really mean much. It’s kind of just saying love, just do it. There is an equally vague slogan becoming popular today that just says “love is love”. Far from telling us what love is, this slogan says quite the opposite. However you love, whatever you think love is, it’s all good.

Everyone agrees that the world needs more love, but everyone seems uncertain about what that means. Today we are talking specifically about loving one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Like the song, this passage makes a sure point of telling us to love one another. This is the third passage where John has brought this up, and he specifically commands us to love one another three times! But unlike John Lennon, John the apostle gives us grounding and reason for our love.

If there is one thing that John wants us to walk away with, it’s that we (as a church) need to love one another with a love that is grounded in the nature of God.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

1 John 4:7-

1 John 4:7–10 NIV

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Christian Love is defined by the character and work of God, we do not define it ourselves

1 John 4:7 NIV

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

God is the source of love (7)

work of God, we do not define it ourselvesGod is the source of love (7)

I. God is the source of love (7)

One thing that John makes clear here is that he is talking about a very specific kind of love. None of this “love is love” stuff. It’s specific and real. Why do we know this? Because he says everyone who loves has been born of and knows God, but we probably know people who aren’t Christians who have love for their children, or for their spouse.

1 John 4:8 NIV

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

That’s because God made man in his own image, meaning that he allows mankind to share in some of his attributes in a limited way, that includes the ability to love. But we also know that mankind is fallen because of sin, and that our ability to love has become corrupt. We can’t love completely selflessly. We can’t love completely unconditionally. Our love often has a selfish twinge around the edges.

But John isn’t talking about the imperfect love of this world that practically anyone can experience. He’s talking about the love that comes from God, not only the love that comes from him, but the love that he is!

1 John 4:8 NIV

8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

II. God is the basis of love (8)

1 John 4:8 NIV

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Last week Pastor Manny talked about false teachers and the way some people twist Scripture to their own uses. This phrase, “God is love” is one of those favorited ones. People twist this one all the time. Often people will say “God is love” meaning that God is love only, as Manny alluded to. There is no wrath, or justice, or holiness in God, only love. Still others will make love and God equal. Like in math, it doesn’t matter which side of the equal sign you put God or love, it still means the same thing. That isn’t how language works however. We’re talking about God. Love isn’t our God, but our God consists of love. One final way this scripture gets twisted is that people think that God adheres to the standard of love. As if there are some standards that God is subject to.

But John isn’t talking about the imperfect love of this world that practically anyone can experience. He’s talking about the love t

No. The problem with all three of these views is that it leaves the definition of love completely up to the interpreter. If God is love only and not just, then the reader has redefined love. Because God’s love includes justice. If love is our god, then it is impersonal and is based on a relative experience because love cannot reveal itself on its own like God has revealed himself to us. If God is subject to the standard of love then how to we know what that standard is. And for that matter if God creates a standard of love what is the basis of it? Is it arbitrary? Can it change?

The incredible thing about our God is that he is neither subject to a standard nor does he arbitrarily create a standard. He himself is the standard. Love, perfect and unmixed is simply defined by the character and nature of God. That’s why John insists that you must know God in oder to love this kind of love. Because it is derived from his very nature.

So how do we know God? How do we know what the love of God is, which we are supposed to be loving each other with? By his actions:

1 John 4:9 NIV

9 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.

III. God is the example of love (9)

The love of God isn’t just warm feelings. It isn’t an abstract thing we have to conjecture about. It isn’t like the love that I love my family with while I’m at work. Where I just think about them and how much I miss them. It’s that but it’s also like the love I have for my family when I get home and get to interact with them and serve them.

1 John 4:9 NIV

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.

God’s love is active and demonstrable. He sent his Son into the world that he might live. This is how we can know what God’s love is like. God’s love is selfless and sacrificial. It benefits us and changes us. This is how we ought to love one an other. It isn’t up to us how to love one another, it’s how God loves. John makes and interesting statement here:

1 John 4:10 NIV

10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

IV. We do not define love for ourselves (10)

God’s love for us, isn’t like our love for him. What does our love for him look like? Well we get together once a week, maybe sing some songs, maybe kind of mouth them, maybe just glare at the worship team because it’s not like when you grew up. We put maybe 2-5% of our income into a bag, smile and nod through a sermon, then maybe if we’re really good pray or read a short passage a couple times a week.

Now I know that’s not anyone, but thats really the best kind of love we can come up with on our own. What does it look like when we try to love one another with that kind of love. Well either we don’t talk to anyone at all, or we tell people we’re praying for them even though we forget as soon as we leave. And we definitely don’t share our problems with anyone else.

God’s love is starkly contrasted with this. God himself stepped into the messiness of our lives. God sacrificially sent his Son. God himself took care of our problem by making an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

When we are trying to figure out what the love of God is, we should be looking inward to ourselves for the answer because our love is just embarrassing compared to the love God demonstrates towards us. C.H. Spurgeon likens it to the comparison of the Atlantic ocean to a tide pool.

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. XXIX “Herein Is Love” (No. 1,707)

What is your little pool to the vast Atlantic? Do you point me to the love in the believer’s heart, and say, “Herein is love!” You make me smile. I know that there is love in that true heart; but who can mention it in the presence of the great rolling ocean of the love of God, without bottom and without shore? The word not is not only upon my lip but in my heart as I think of the two things, “NOT that we loved God, but that God loved us.” What poor love ours is at its very best when compared with the love wherewith God loves us!

The love of God is far greater than our love for him and fo us to love with that love we must experience the love that he has poured out on us in the gospel. What do I mean by that word gospel?

1 John 4:11–16a NIV

11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 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.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

1 John 4:11–16 NIV

11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 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.

Christian love is rooted in the gospel

There are three important components John includes in this gospel in how it relates to love. If God is the source and standard of love, then the love God demonstrates in the gospel is source of our love as it flows outward.

Christian love is rooted in:

… our relationship with God (11-13)

1 John 4:11–13 NIV

11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.

1 John

Again John connects our relationship with God with the demonstration of love for one another. He goes as far to call it the completion (or perfection) of God’s love. That isn’t to say that God’s love is lacking, or is deficient qualitatively, but rather that what his love begins is completed in us by our love for one another. This is how God is made visible to a world in chaos.

But you may at this point, like me, be intimidated. God’s love is extreme. How in the world are we supposed to demonstrate it to each other even in a microcosm? Through his Spirit. Love is a central component to the fruit of the Spirit, and the fact that God lives in us and has given us his Spirit can’t help but produce love for one another in us.

This is made possible only through the sending of the Son to die for our sins.

1

1 John 4:14 NIV

14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

… our salvation from God (14)

This is the third time that John brings this up in this passage. It isn’t the first time in this letter that he’s brought this up:

1 John 3:16 NIV

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

or maybe you are more familiar with the gospel according to John:

John 3:16 CSB

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

John always ties the concept of love together with the cross of Jesus Christ. One commentator used the word “cruciform”. The love of God is cruciform or cross shaped. And our love needs to be rooted in and fueled by the cross as well. We can be confident that we have access to that kind of love if we have put our faith in him

… our faith in God (15-16a)

Christian love is rooted in the gospel

1 John 4:15–16 NIV

15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 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.

The Result of Love

This love planted in us has some results that John points out here. God’s love is effectual.

1 John 4:16-

1 John 4:16–18 NIV

16 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. 17 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. 18 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.

Growing relationship (16b)

Just as our love is rooted in our relationship with God, so also continuing in love causes our relationship to grow. NIV uses the word “live” here, but that can be confusing because we aren’t talking about living versus dying. it isn’t talking about salvation here anymore. It’s talking about living in the sense that I “live” with my wife, or I lived in an apartment at CBU with Mann\y for a year. ESV puts it this way:

1 John 4:16 ESV

16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

The idea is staying with God, with God causes us to grow closer to him. Time spent together is the key to growing closer to them. If you want to know how to grow in your relationship with God, you have to spend time with him. Usually we think of that as reading our bible and praying, which is good, but here God actually becomes part of our relationship with one another. As we love one another, with a love rooted in the gospel, we actually grow closer to God together.

Where does that take us? A closer relationship with God makes us more like his Son.

1 John 4:17 NIV

17 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.

Growing obedience (17)

So many people try to make Christianity about following rules. And there is a component of obedience, but it is meant to grow out of our relationship with God as we live a life of love rooted in the gospel, and as John writes here, that in turn gives way to a greater confidence on the day of judgement.

Growing confidence (18)

For a passage that people use to say that God is love without any wrath or judgement, this passage talks an awful lot about judgement. He’s talked about the need for an atoning sacrifice for our sins, now he talks about the day of judgement. But he’s not talking about dreading that day but having confidence.

1 John 4:18 NIV

18 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.

We do not define love for ourselves (10)

Perhaps you know .

Proverbs 1:1 NIV

1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

Proverbs 1:7 NIV

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Fear is the beginning of knowledge. It is the beginning of that relationship. Understanding that we are sinners before a holy God is vital to our relationship to him. It’s why Isaiah cried out in fear before the throne of God crying that he was undone because of his sin before God. Even John, who wrote this apostle, who is called the beloved apostle, fell down as though dead when the glorified Christ appeared to him. But see what happened next:

Revelation 1:17 NIV

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.

This is made possible only through the sending of the Son to

The fear of the Lord is the beginning, then God says do not be afraid.

Romans 8:1 NIV

1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

The Reason for Love

So why do we love?

1 John 4:19–21 NIV

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 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. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Love is our response (19)

Our love is a result of and in response to the love God has for us. And as we pour out the love of God onto one another, love becomes our assurance.

Love is our assurance (20)

Anyone who does not love his brother or sister is a liar, but if we do love then we can have confidence that we are God’s children. It isn’t a guarantee that if you have some kind of affection toward your church family that you love God, but we know you can’t love an invisible God without loving your visible brothers and sisters.

You might be thinking, “that’s alot of work. I don’t know if I need to grow closer to these people in order to love God or know that I’m saved.” Well, not really an option

1 John 4:21 NIV

21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Love is our duty (21)

It isn’t optional. We must love one another. There it is the third time.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

So how do we do that as East Hills Community Church?

We are in a transition. We are at a pivotal moment. We aren’t just looking for a new pastor, we are trying to redefine who we are as a church, and tempers can be short, and it can be easy to blame others for problems or to dismiss viewpoints that are different to ours.

We all have a strong opinion as to what will make our church better. Some people want things to go back to how they were 10 years ago, some people want things to stay the same, some people want something new. Whatever you think needs to happen for East Hills to grow, ask yourself, “am I willing to let my opinion go for the sake of the whole church.” because someone is going to be let down by what we do. Will we continue to love one another or will we jump ship?

If someone has a different opinion than you, do you actually listen and value that opinion or do you immediately start trying to convince them that they are wrong and you are right? What you might have just heard me say is, “yeah that person should have listened to you and why you are right.” No I’m talking about you, you listen to and value another’s opinion.

But we are sinful and we will hurt others. But if someone is hurt do you try to reconcile or do you avoid it? Do you try to reconcile or do you justify yourself? Healing is painful, and it means sometimes sacrificing your pride and your opinion. But thats what the love of Christ is all about right? Many of our names are cemented together just outside those doors. Don’t forget it.

Grow closer to one another. Give someone in our congregation a call this week. Or a text. I’m especially bad at this. I didn’t text anyone this week, except to cancel plans.. Share your burdens with one another, pray for one another. And keep up with the reading plan. There is so much more to say about sacrificial love, that I just don’t have time to cover that I put in the reading plan. Loving is hard. I know what it is to have a full time job and to just want to spend the evening at home with my family rather than also make an effort to love and get involved in our church family, but we are called to something higher.

Beloved, let us love one another.