931 1 Jn. 4:7-12 Modelling God's Love Amongst Us
Notes
Transcript
I was a nurse in the operating room for several years, says David Slagle. One day a couple arrived, both with gunshot wounds. He had awakened late for his first day on the job because his wife did not set the alarm. He expressed his displeasure by shooting her in the arm. Not to be outdone, she went to another room, got a shotgun, and shot him in the arm.
As I gathered their paperwork, I heard something one would only expect to hear in a country song. Separated by a deputy sheriff and handcuffed to their respective stretchers, the husband began, “I love you, baby, and I’m sorry I shot you.”
The wife responded, “I love you too, baby. I’m sorry I shot you.”
—David A. Slagle, Lawrenceville, Georgia
I’m sure that male nurse would regard that as a real contradiction in terms
“I love you baby, I’m sorry I shot you” What kind of relationship is that?
Q. Is that what love is? A new verse I invented is 1 Corruptians 13: 4 Love is deadly, Love is savage, it is easily angered, it is easily provoked, does not keep a record of lost limbs...
----------------------
This morning, we look at how & why we model God’s love amongst us
1. Knowing God and Knowing of God
1. Knowing God and Knowing of God
The cults that have separated themselves from the apostolic church have adopted the world’s thinking
Plato, the philosopher, was very influential and shaped the way much of the world thought about the spiritual realm & the material realm of matter
He pointed to the spiritual side as more valuable & good, however, the universe of matter was evil
When it came to the human body, the spirit or soul was imagined to be locked up in the prison of the material, fleshly body
The soul could only finally be free at the death of the body
-----------------
Because of this worldly perspective, Christians, who were wanting to stay in favour with the world, started reshaping the Gospel message since the message of the cross was offensive to the world
The world would not & could not accept that this pure Spirit (God) would, or even could, suffer!
Under the influence of Plato, in these cults, there was a general disregard for the body & hence, the physical welfare of the Christian community & that showed that these people had lost the plot as far as their Christianity was concerned
They no longer reflected the God they claimed to know
Q. How do we know that? By this reality - Jesus came into the world & became flesh & died as the propitiation of our sins!
That is a tangible, physical & demonstrable love that cares for our deepest need - to reconcile with God
As that song goes, “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us”
-------------------
Last week, the apostle John spoke about testing the prophets to see what S/spirit was behind what they were teaching
If they did not profess that Jesus had come in the flesh - God coming as a human being, then they were antichrists - who He says, deny both the Father and the Son (they deny Him because they do not believe in what the Father & the Son had done)
But he seems to offer another test somewhat in respect to how a person lives
------------------------
He maintains that it is love that is our declaration that a person is born of God & knows God
We all would be familiar with Jesus word to Nicodemus saying to him that a person must be born from above before they can see or know the kingdom of God
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless someone is born from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God.”
There needs to be a divine work that changes the heart of a person
The short of it is that a person needs to be converted & when a person is converted it’s like they have undergone a “renovation rescue” (there was a TV show under that name, yes?); a rebirth; a guttering of the old & a re-birth to the new
Of course, Nicodemus hadn’t the foggiest idea of what Jesus was saying
Nicodemus couldn’t get his head around what Jesus was trying to say
He, like many people, tend to think Jesus always talked literally
Q. “How can a man who is old, go back into their mother’s womb & be reborn, Nicodemus asks?
----------------------
But Jesus was talking about a change of heart
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking about the heart & what the biblical heart is all about
I said that it was the mission control centre of your life - where the you that only you & God knows, resides
It’s where your deepest secrets reside; where your deepest desires live & the very things you care most about in your life
When God gets hold of a person, He changes the heart
All your inner desires are reshaped & directed towards pleasing God & not just yourself
This is why Jesus says that no one can see the kingdom of God without this renovation happening
God changes the heart, but He invites you to come to Him for such surgery that will change your heart
He will change your heart if you seriously give your life over to Jesus Christ
------------------------
John goes further to say that if you don’t love one another in tangible ways, it demonstrates that a person does not really know God
Any person or most persons know of God, but do they know God?
Q. What does it mean to know God?
There is the intellectual knowing of God - you may be able to cite Scripture; cite creeds & confessions, but does that mean you know God?
The people I talk to at the Squash courts know of God, but they do not belong to Him or generally care about Him
The biblical term of knowing has a history in the Bible
Genesis 4:1 (NASB95)
1 Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain...
He had intimate relations with his wife & she fell pregnant with Cain
However, the old KJV gave the rather straight forward literal word of “knew”
Genesis 4:1 (KJV 1900)
1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain...
If it stopped at “And Adam knew Eve his wife” - we would say, of course he knows her
But the word expresses much more meaning as the rest of the sentence makes clear
He knew his wife meaning he had intimate relations with his wife
It’s meaning of intimacy is still the same yet with the absence of that which brought about Cain - it’s not the sexual union per se but a relationship!
It’s not just I know about you but I really experience a union with you
That can be true in the purest sense with other family members
---------------------
We carry this sense over to knowing God & it has that relational aspect attached to it
A person can know of God, but to truly know God, you have to be one of His children
The children of God know God & have a relationship with Him through faith
To be born of God & to know God means knowing & experiencing the love of God
The bottom line is that if a person does not love, John says that they are neither born of God nor do they know God, relationally, because God is love
2. Living the Life of God
2. Living the Life of God
Q. If God is love, what kind of love it this?
There are plenty of people in the world that like to talk about love in ideological terms but then come crashing down with the reality of just how difficult it is to do
Julian Lennon, John Lennon’s son made some stinging comments about his father
“He was a hypocrite. Dad could talk about peace and love out loud to the world, but he could not show it to the people who supposedly meant the most to him: his wife and son,” said Julian Lennon, who was abandoned at age five by his father, Beatle John Lennon.
Jillian goes on to say, “How can you talk about peace and love and have a family in bits and pieces—no communication, adultery, divorce? You can’t do it, not if you’re being true and honest with yourself.”
It is a let down to realise that the love we would want to show, ends up falling short of what real love is all about
We are weak & part of that weakness is our susceptibility to sin
But God has not only shown us the way, but instilled within His people the way
In ourselves, He has allowed us to live the life of His Son
----------------------
God sent His Son into the world SO THAT we might live through Him
Nearly every commentator talks about the life or the eternal life we have from God in giving His Son to us
However, this is unique here - I believe He is saying that we can love like God because we can live our life in or through Him
It is what Jesus has accomplished at the cross that gives us the motivation, yes indeed, even the power to be able to love, like God loves
--------------------
Q. What is the nature of this love? Is it just a wish of love, or a sentiment of love?
No, it’s a love that works in the realm of matter - it’s a love that was done in the physical world; a love that is self-sacrificial
On the basis of His love, we love in like manner - what Jesus did in the real world, we can do in the real world in spite of our weaknesses
Because it is His love that we have been born anew into, as He has taken hold of our life & converted us into being like His Son Jesus Christ
16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
By this, says v.9 of our passage, the love of God was manifested in us
Note the purpose: “so that (or in order that) we might live through Him”
3. He Made the First Move
3. He Made the First Move
Another dimension of love that we don’t often consider is that God’s love is an initiated love
So many relationships falter on the fact that one party waits for the other party to show their love
There are numerous reasons why this happens
Protection
If a person shows love first & then it is either not reciprocated or even rejected that person can get very hurt
That fear will hold a person back from being the first to move in love - it would be even harder if that person is an insecure person
Pride
By the same token, rejection hurts our pride & to make the first move out of love for it to be ignored, undervalued or rejected attacks what we think of ourselves
We want to be loved in return - we want to know that others find us valuable, loveable & worth the effort
That pride in ourselves could come crashing down with rejection so we don’t say what we should say or do what we should do - until the other person makes the first move
------------------------
The world will tell you that your problem is lack of self-esteem & that you are not loving yourself enough
This is false according to the Scriptures
In fact, the Scriptures, overwhelmingly point in the opposite direction
----------------
The 2nd commandment, alongside what Jesus calls the great commandment, He says, is to love your neighbour as yourself
Some make this Scripture say the opposite by suggesting that you can’t love others until you love yourself - that is patently false!
Jesus is affirming that we already have a love for ourselves - on that basis, we ought to direct the same level of love that we have for our ourselves to others
He could hardly make that point a reality if it is true that we don’t love ourselves enough
If that is the case, no one would be getting loved using Jesus’ argument
So if He says to love your neighbour on the basis of your love of self; if in fact, you don’t love yourself, your neighbour is going to get diddle squat
-----------------------
Likewise, the apostle Paul makes the case that husbands love their wives on the basis that they love themselves - if anything, this problem seems to be an over-love of self rather than an under-love of self
Ephesians 5:28–30, 33 (NASB95)
28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body...
33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
The apostle argues from the given - that is, that husbands & wives are in a ONE flesh relationship - that is extremely important to understand
This is the indicative of marriage - you don’t work to become one flesh - marriage brings you into a one flesh relationship
On the basis of 2 things here, the apostle says that husbands ought to love their wives
1. Husbands already love themselves - nourishes & cherishes their own flesh
2. The husband is in a one flesh relationship with his wife
= The husband loves his body; He is one flesh with his wife (his & her body merged in a one flesh); means that her body, which is his (now that it is one flesh), ought to be loved by him too
The whole basis for the argument to love others, both from Jesus & from Paul, is the truth that we do love ourselves - otherwise, the teaching falls flat, if it is true that people do not love themselves
Lacking Love
As the apostle John says here - that for this to be the case (a lack of love), a person either does not know God or is not born of God
There should be no lack of love because we can live through Him
Q. Are you committed to caring for others or are you committed to being cared for?
Q. Will you love first, or wait to be loved?
God shows that by sending His Son into the world, He loved us first, before we loved Him
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
The propitiation of our sins is a result of God first loving us - & in fact, this first loving us changed the course of many people who now love in the name of Christ
Propitiation is a word not used much in the NT - in fact, only four times (two of which are in 1st John)
Propitiation means appeasing anger & gaining the good will of an offended person
The work of Jesus in propitiation means that the judge (God) is compelled by such a sacrifice as to give a favourable verdict
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Jesus’ sacrifice for sin shows that God is just & on the basis of Jesus' actions He is justifier since sin has been effectively dealt with
Jesus’ sacrifice caused God to give a favourable verdict against those whose sins have not been forgiven, so that through Jesus, they can have their sins pardoned
God maintains His righteousness because a price was paid releasing God to pardon & yet remain righteous
Q. Do you know that we live in a period of amnesty? Meaning that God is not dealing in judgement against the world for its sins against Him
One day that amnesty will be over & all those who have not become a follower of Jesus will have to bare the anger of God with no one to help
Q. He first loved you - what response will you have to Him?
4. If This, Then That...
4. If This, Then That...
Q. Have you ever been hurt? You’ll have to get in line as everyone has been hurt?
We have been hurt, threatened, cheated, lied to, used & abused
It happened to me over in the United States when Ros & I were on long service leave
In Sedona, I was held up in the street by this crazy Cowboy who didn’t say much other than point his gun at me
PHOTO Yer yer, ha ha
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
God modelled what love is in sending Jesus to die for our sins
Therefore, we should model that love of God in the way we treat each other
Unlike the cult churches that Cerinthus started, God acted in the material world & effected changed lives in real & in the present
Our response can only be the same
--------------------
But since we “live through Him”, we are able to emulate that love of God to others
We can reflect that love of God onto others
But hang on a minute - how can people see God when all they see is us?
By loving them the way God loved you
----------------------
As verse 12 says: “No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
God remains in us & His love is made complete in us
Imagine what would happen, if the world saw this kind of love happening in the churches?
Do you think, they would then want what we have? You bet they would
It is said that “a rising tide lifts all boats”
--------------------------
The world out there is a harsh & broken place - lives are a mess; shattered, broken, hurt, lost & alone
What an amazing impact we could have on the world if we started to truly one another in the church - as Jesus said:
34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Wow, look at how they love one another - they must be those Jesus people
I’ll close with this statement - the reaction of the unbeliever - the Greek writer Lucian, in about 150 AD, on observing the warm fellowship of Christians - he said:
“It is incredible to see the fervor with which the people of that religion help each other in their needs. They spare nothing. Their first legislator has put it into their heads that they are brethren”.
It’s a real challenge for all of us as we seek to model God’s love among us