1 John 4:7-21

The main characteristic of a Christian comes from us imitating God.

Last week we went through the gospel through Abraham and Issac. We saw how much God could love us through looking at the life of Abraham as a father about to sacrifice his own son through the obedience of God. We looked into how we should be obedient to God when he calls us to do some absurd things because he is still in control. We also looked at the saving grace that God showed by sending a ram in order to take Issac’s place. This is the love that we are going to look at tonight.

Going back to the book of 1 John we are going to be diving into the meaning of Love.

1 John 4:7–21 ESV

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because 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 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 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. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

As Christians we should be demonstrating love because we know who love is. Love is something everybody wants to find because we are all searching for something to fill our void. This void can only be filled through us loving God. The reason is because:

1. God is Love

1 John 4:7–9 ESV

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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.

This love is one of the greatest types of loves possible because it is only love that God can show. God shows his love in a way that we do not deserve. But once we have experienced God’s love then we should be spreading this love through loving others. This is a different type of love because we will begin to love people because of their spiritual state rather than loving them because they do the same things that we do.

This love is greater than any love we could ever know because we must first acknowledge who this love is coming from.

God who is in control of everything and creator of everything became human in order for us to be able to live through Him. Its something that is impossible to grasp because we do not deserve it. If we were God and we were not happy with our creation because it is fallen what would we do?

We would wipe out all of existence and restart the world. But that is not what God did He made a way for us to live through Him by coming to this earth as Jesus.

2. God showed His love

1 John 4:10–12 ESV

10 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

We can share this love not because we love God but because He loved us. God loved us first not the other way around. We don’t have to demonstrate our love for God to save us and we didn’t have to clean up our lives for God to save us. God loved us first and sent his son which is God in the flesh in order to take on the whole wrath of God. This had to take place because sin is a serious offense and must have a punishment in order for it to be forgiven.

God didn’t just say that He loved us but He demonstrated that love for us by taking a punishment that we deserved on to Himself.

This is the Gospel because it explains how we can experience God’s love. There is absolutely nothing you can do to deserve it but through what Jesus had already done for us then we can experience this love.

I have said this many times is that you can’t do enough to clean up your life for God to love you. God loves you in your filth. God loves you in your sin. God loves you enough to sacrifice His son for you to have a relationship with Him.

But once salvation occurs we should allow for God to begin changing us to become more like Christ. If we truly understand the love that God portrayed for us when we didn’t deserve it. Then it would be easy for us to love other despite what they do.

The worst act that has ever been done to you does not even compare to what we did to God and yet God still loves us enough to sacrifice his only son in order for us to be made righteous with God.

God changes us through his love and:

3. We love through God abiding in us.

1 John 4:15–19 ESV

15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 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. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.

We are able to love others not on our own but through God’s love dwelling in us. We abide in God, therefore we are able to do things that humanly seems impossible. People hurt each other and that hurt can be very deep and painful but that doesn’t mean that as Christians we should hate someone else.

One way to look at this is if someone has hurt you more than we have hurt God then you are exempted from loving that person. The only issues is that there is no way that someone can hurt you more than what we done to God.

Whenever God comes into our lives then we are perfected through His love. This is the process called sanctification. Sanctification is what happens after salvation in order for our lives to become more and more like Christ. This is a process in which takes the rest of your life.

An aspect of this is for us to begin loving others in order for us to share the Gospel with all people. When we are saved we begin to look at people differently. We begin to love people differently. We are able to put aside past hurt in order to share the gospel with others.