Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

Since we have started this letter from John, there have been three main tests that John has continued to stress.

The Moral Test: The difference between righteousness and unrighteousness.

The Social Test: The difference between love and hatred

The Doctrinal Test: The difference between believing the right things and the wrong things.

At this point, a person may wonder, which of these three tests are most important?

To take away one of these tests actually undermines and destroys all the others.

But we’re going to look at a passage of Scripture today that I would argue is John’s real thrust of the letter.

Margaret feels like she was failing in the relationships that mattered most.

She tried to move closer to her friends and family, but either they didn’t respond to her efforts at deepening intimacy, or worse, they moved in the opposite direction.

After several seemingly close friendships had faded away, it seemed to her that nothing would ever change.

She seemed to sabotage her own efforts because something was not quite right in the way that she moved toward people.

Her past track record of loss predicted her future failure and she didn’t know how to fix it.

Since God is love, those who are born of Him will love Him and others.

By loving one another, we make known the God who is only seen in the person of Christ and bring about His purposes.

What God Is

“God is Love”

1 John 4:7 (NKJV)

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God

Now for John to say, “let us” it is essentially a command.

He is saying that all of us and himself included, we should love one another.

John now turns for a third time to discuss the topic of love in the life of the believer.

The first time he talked about love, it was the true light which was already shining and continues to shine...

The second time, love had to do with abiding in eternal life...

But this third time, he is grounds our love for one another in the nature of God.

It is this third time that he talks about love where he leaves us standing in amazement of the wonder of God’s love.

Reason #1: God is Love

The first reason that John gives for why we should love one another is BECAUSE love comes from God.

Love finds itself as the overflow of the nature of God.

This first section expresses that we should love one another because LOVE stems forth from God’s character.

But to say something like this is going to give some implications for the life of the believer...

Notice what John says about the person who loves...

Born of God

This birth is not something the person themselves brought about, but something that God has brought about in their lives.

John doesn’t say that a person who loves has become born again.

He says that a person who loves is born of God.

So the birth from above proceeds the love that comes from the person.

The person DOES NOT love to be born of God.

They love because they have been born.

The same thing goes for the next two statements as well…

Knows God

Now again, the Gnostics have been trying to convince these believers that they don’t really know God.

But John says that the person who loves is the one who actually knows God.

Notice something about these two qualities, the love is the result of the birth and the knowledge.

Not the other way around.

We don’t love to become born again.

We don’t love in order to know God.

We LOVE because we have been born again and already know God!

John also gives the inverse of what’s just been said....

No Knowledge = No Love

John now makes the opposite point as well...

If a person does not love his brother or sister, then he does not really know God.

For the loveless Christian to profess to know God and to have been born of God is like claiming to be intimate with a foreigner whose language we cannot speak, or to have been born of parents whom we do not in any way resemble.

It is to fail to manifest the nature of him whom we claim as our Father (born of God) and our Friend (knows God).

Love is as much a sign of Christian authenticity as is righteousness (2:29).

What about the unbeliever who loves other people?

To understand that humanity has been made in the image of God means that though God’s image has been deface by the fall.

Though the image has been defaced, all people still have an ability to care for one another.

But for our question, it depends on how you define love.

If you define love according to worldly standards, then yes.

But if you define love in step with God’s standard, then no.

Unbelievers can be kind and loving but there are always some kind of selfish motive.

The difference of believers love and unbelievers is the believer loves from the heart.

The believer loves with a self-sacrificial love that is properly motivated.

Human love, however noble and however highly motivated, falls short if it refuses to include the Father and Son as the supreme objects of its affection.

It falls short of the divine pattern, and by itself it cannot save a man; it cannot be put into the balance to compensate for the sin of rejecting God.

Love alone, therefore, is not a sign of being born of God.

So it sounds like what you’re saying is a person who is not a believer can’t love.

I’ve seen plenty of people love who are not Christians!

We can all think about the couple who loves one another, or the family who express their love for one another.

Here’s the thing: we all have a standard of love.

If we listen to what people say, we can find out very quickly their standard of love.

We have all heard it said, “I love _______.”

This situation was “loving” or “unloving”

By the problem is when you begin to define love in a way that is contrary to God.

So for people to say, “It is unloving of God to send people to hell.”

They are making a theological statement.

They are essentially saying, “Love is God” rather than “God is Love”

They are allowing their conception of love to drive what they believe God can or cannot do.

The second reason John gives for why the believer should love one another is BECAUSE “God is love”

We need to ask the question, what does it mean that “God is love”?

John has made three different statements about what God is like.

“God is Spirit” (John 4:24)

“God is Light” (1 John 1:5)

Which we saw that God was holy and pure in all of His ways.

But now we see “God is Love” (1 John 4:8)

How does all of this square together?

God’s Love and Simplicity

I want us to wade into the deep end of the pool for a moment.

When we talk about the attributes of God, we need to recognize how they hold together.

Apple Pie and the Simplicity of God

When we talk about an apple pie, we must recognize that an apple pie is made up of parts.

You have the apples, cinnamon, flour, dough, sugar, and all sorts of other goodies.

Now if you were to remove any of those elements, the pie no longer is able to be called an apple pie.

This is easy to understand, but what begins to get complicated in our small brains is that is NOT true of God.

We CANNOT say that God is made up of parts.

When we say that God is SIMPLE, we don’t mean that he is not complicated.

What we mean is that God is NOT made up of any parts.

God is NOT compound, composite, or made of different parts.

When we talk about God’s attributes, we must understand that God is identical with all that He is in and of Himself.