Love Is All You Need

1 John 2:7–11 ESV

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

Prayer

So far in 1 John, we have seen John address the person of Jesus, sin in the life of the believer, and the character of Christ.

And as we saw last week, John is turning a corner and addressing believers in how they are to love.

John expressed that the one who abides in God will walk in the same way that Christ walked.

But this week, he further clarifies what he has already spoken to us and furthers the conversation.

This week we are continuing to look at the command to love.

If I were to ask you to sketch out to me someone who lacks love, I wonder what would they be like?

What would be look like? Would they have a big handle bar mustache?

Would there be a certain kind of characteristic to them?

Would they dress in a certain fashion?

Would they speak in a certain way?

Would they be harsh?

Would they just ignore?

What does a person who lacks love do for a living?

Do they have a terrifying job?

Or are they someone with a normal job in a normal place and time?

How we think about someone who lacks love is important because it will determine how we recognize a lack of love in our own life.

See what happens oftentimes is we will hear a message and we will immediately think, this message would have been so good for “so and so”

This message would be something my sibling, or spouse, or coworker should hear.

But really, it must be something that we hear first and foremost.

1 John 2:7 (ESV)

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.

John is continuing to clarify why he is writing to them.

We can break today’s message into two sections, the first section being on the Law of Love.

The Law of Love

The law of love is the commandments which God has given to His people that demands love.

1 John 2:7 (ESV)

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.

The New-Old Commandments

This commandment for John is NOT something new to these believers.

The word there for “old” is actually the same root word (paleo) which we get the word, paleontologist.

John is saying that this command is extremely old.

This first section (verses 7-8), John does not even mention the word love.

Why am I assuming that is he is talking about love?

Well from the context we see that John just finished talking about the man who walks as Jesus walked in 1John 2:5.

What John is clearly referring to here also brings to mind what Jesus said to His disciples in the upper room.

John 13:34 ESV

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

SO when John wrote this, this commandment is NOT new to the community.

It is the command which has governed them since they first called themselves Christians.

But it is also much older than that...

Even Jesus says that this was NOT something NEW in kind.

In Matthew 22, Jesus is being challenged by a lawyer to question him and ask “Which commandment is the greatest in the law?”

And Jesus quoting from Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19 responds to the scribe.

Matthew 22:37–40 ESV

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Even for Jesus’ day, this was NOT a new kind of commandment.

This was not something radically different than they have heard before.

The command was to love God and love people.

So John picks up on these ideas for the believers.

1 John 2:7–8 (ESV)

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.

But then immediately turns around and says in 1 John 2:8

1 John 2:8 (ESV)

At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you...

What does John mean by “a new commandment”?

Now there are several ways we understand the word “new” in the english language.

1. Time oriented understanding - newly created

2. Quality of newness

3. New in the aspect of being different altogether

What does John have in mind here?

1 John 2:7 (ESV)

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment....

He is saying that he is a writing them a new command which is new in quality.

The newness of the command depended on the “the extent to which it reached”

Meaning that John was heightening the commands already spoken.

Bringing new depth or to the “degree to which it was realized”.

The new commandment was different to the degree it reached.

John is not writing them an entirely new commandment.

John is saying that this new commandment was different because of how far it required you to go in the field of love.

John 13:34 ESV

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

Jesus is upping the ante.

He is raising the stakes.

He is raising the standard of love.

He is saying that you aren’t just to love others as you would yourself.

The Law of Love is simply this....

You must love your brother as Christ has loved you.

It’s a law.

It’s not a suggestion.

It’s not a recommendation.

It is a command to be obeyed.

But John doesn’t end there...

1 John 2:8 ESV

At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

The newness of the commandment is the degree to which our love is to extend.

And John extends this to say that it was true in Christ, meaning that this kind of self-sacrificial love was seen in Him.

It was true in HIM because He is the ONE who came and died on behalf of sinners.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son...”

Also it is seen in his followers because the Spirit is dwelling in them.

Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”

Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

You must love your brother as Christ has loved you.

So this new commandment to love one another as Jesus has loved us has come to this new community.

But listen to how John describes what is happening in them....

1 John 2:8 (ESV)

because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

The New Commandment and the New Covenant

We are to love one another as Christ Jesus has loved us.

This is one of the main distinctives of the New Covenant.

The old covenant, which is the covenant given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, is described as a veil covering our faces.

Paul describes the Old Covenant as a guardian and a manager to keep us until the dawning of the new covenant.

The darkness that John is describing here in 1 John 2:8 is the darkness of sin and the darkness of the Old Covenant.

It is the darkness that comes from the old age, the age of the curse that has come from the first Adam.

2 Corinthians 4:6 ESV

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

You must love your brother as Christ has loved you.

As we behold who God is and what He is like in the face of Jesus Christ, our hearts continue to grow in grace and love.

We don’t muster this up on our own.

It is light that is produced from experiencing the loving kindness of our Savior.

And as we do that, the darkness continues to pass away in every corner of the earth that we walk.

But before we go any further talking about love, we need to clarify something.

What is Love?

In a day and age that is so confused about love, we need to ask this question.

If you ask someone on the street, “Are you a loving person?”

They would exclaim, “Of course I am!”

In our postmodern, post-truth, post-reality day and age, love is an abstract concept.

But in the mind of a greek person, love was far more concrete.

They actually had four different words for what we would translate as the word “love”

The Four Kinds of Love

Now I want to be clear, the Greek language was no more holy than ours, but I think it is helpful to examine the way they viewed love.

Of these four kinds of love, only three of them are found in the Scriptures.

The first kind of love is ἔρως.

Eros - Romantic Love

This kind of love is what is often found in love between spouses or lovers.

It is the feeling of arousal that is shared between people who are physically attracted to one another.

This word is also NOT USED in the New Testament, but it helps us have better categories for love in our lives.

This is NOT the kind of love that John is talking about in 1 John.

The second kind of love is στοργή

Storge - Empathy Bond

This word is only used a handful of times in the Bible and it refers to the natural affection between family.

An example would be the natural love a parent has for a child.

This is NOT the kind of love that John is talking about in 1 John.

The third kind of love is φιλία

Philia - Friend Bond

This word is used throughout the Bible and it is most associated between people who share common values, interests, or activities.

It refers to brotherly love and is most often exhibited in a close friendship.

This is why the city of Philadelphia is referred to the city of “brotherly love”

What’s amazing is that this is also not the kind of love that John is talking about either.

This fourth kind of love is used more than any kind in the New Testament.

Agape - Unconditional “God’s Love”

When the Bible speaks of the way we are to love our brothers and sisters, this is the only kind of love that is acceptable.

Eros love is essentially self–love, because it cares for others only because of what it can get from them. It is the love that takes and never gives. Philia love is primarily reciprocal love, love that gives as long as it receives.

But agape love is unqualified and unselfish love, love that willingly gives whether it receives in return or not. It is unconquerable benevolence, invincible goodness—love that goes out even to enemies and prays for its persecutors (Mt. 5:43,44). That is why the forbearance of which Paul speaks here could only be expressed in agapē love."

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 4:11 ESV

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

This kind of a love may include emotion, but it MUST ALWAYS have action.

Agape does not mean a feeling of the heart, which we cannot help, and which comes unbidden and unsought; it means a determination of the mind, whereby we achieve this unconquerable goodwill even to those who hurt and injure us.

Agape, someone has said, is the power to love those whom we do not like and who may not like us. In point of fact we can only have agape when Jesus Christ enables us to conquer our natural tendency to anger and to bitterness, and to achieve this invincible goodwill to all men.

Let me give you an example of this…

A man and woman living together outside of marriage learn that they have a problem that is a "lack of love”

"But I do love her!" the man contradicts.

And he is right.

But he is walking of the physical passion (Greek, ἔρως) and perhaps even the real friendship (Greek, φιλία) which he feels for her, while the biblical means that he lacks agape love for his girlfriend and for God since he is participating in sexual immorality with her.

A parent learns that biblically he has a "lack of love" for his children.

Maybe you have heard someone say...

“I love my children!" he asserts.

And he is correct.

But he is thinking of the parental affection he has for his children (Greek, στοργή), while the Scripture is unveiling this parent's lack of ἀγάπη love for his child.

Though the parent still loves his child in a parental way (the Bible terms it 'natural affection"), he is lacking maturity in ἀγάπη love when he is, for instance, consistently impatient with his child, for God's Word says that, "love is patient" (1 Cor 13:4).

Let me give you one more example.

Maybe you have heard someone say...

“I love my brothers and sisters in the faith!”

And he is correct.

But he is thinking of his family (Greek, στοργή), and his friends (Greek, φιλία), but he really can’t stand anyone else there.

They all annoy him. They aggravate him. And he really can’t stand when they offend him.

He really has no interest in forgiving them.

This is my problem, brothers and sisters.

This is your problem, this is all of our problems.

It’s our problem because the flesh in and of itself CANNOT have agape love.

Unbelievers cannot have this agape love.

Now we are going to see John turn and show us what the life of love looks like.

The Life of Love

The life of love for John is a life of the new covenant believer.

The life of love for John is the life of a person who has died and been buried with Christ and will raised with him in His resurrection.

The life of love for John is the life of a person who lives in agape love.

But listen to what he says of this person who has referenced at multiple other points...

1 John 2:9 ESV

Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.

Profession without Love

Again we see the man who professes to be a follower of Jesus.

He professes to know God.

He professes to be walking in the light.

But all the while hating his brother.

For John, the person who hates his brother cannot be walking in the light.

He cannot be living in darkness with his hatred while claiming that he is in the light.

Profession to be walking in the light without actually loving the brothers is deception.

This is also a warning to us Church…

In the gospels when Jesus is describing what will happen in the last day, he says this..

Matthew 24:12 ESV

And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Because people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, and haters of God....

There will be a temptation for believers love to grow cold.

Even the church in Ephesus in the book of Revelation which some have said that 1 John was written to..

Revelation 2:4 ESV

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

Jesus just told this church how good it was that they didn’t put up with false teaching.

But he says that they have a love problem.

They have a lack of love.

But John gives us a comparison to this person in the darkness...

1 John 2:10 ESV

Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.

Love and Light

John says that the one who has agape love for his brother.

The one who selflessly serves his brother.

The one who is patient and kind.

The one who does not envy or boast toward him.

The one who is not arrogant or rude.

The one who does not insist on his own way.

The one who is not irritable or resentful.

That one, John says, abides in the light.

Not perfectly, but over time is growing in their selfless love for their brother.

It is in that person, that there is no cause of stumbling.

This man does not cause his brothers to stumble, rather he encourages them.

He picks them up.

He cares for them at expense to himself.

1 John 2:11 ESV

But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

Hatred and Darkness

Did you know that there are fish in the bottom of the ocean that have lived in darkness for so long that they are blind.

John’s assessment of the person who hates his brother is like that fish.

He has spent so long in the darkness that his eyes are actually blind.

The example of the good Samaritan

Luke 10:30–33 ESV

Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

The one who was the most unlikely of individuals.

The one who was culturally opposed to the Jew was the one who stopped.

He was the one who actually loved his neighbor.

This is what it looks like to love with agape love.

The priest and the levite, the ones who should have been filled with love, they are blind.

Blind and wandering about.

But that is not the case for the Christian.

We are those who have been born of God.

We are those who have died with Christ and are called to live with Him.

We are those who dwell in the light and not in the darkness.

Application

What is love after all? It is not just a certain benign feeling. It is not a smile. It is an attitude that determines what one does. Therefore, it is impossible to speak of love in the Christian sense without at least suggesting some of the actions that ought to flow from it...

Open our eyes to the needs around us.

Open our ears to the needs others have.

Open our hands to be willing to step into others world.

Open our mouths to speak the truth in love to our brothers and sisters.