"Perfect Love proves it"

INTRODUCTION

They say that Love has many faces. People see it in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I think sometimes it is best seen through the eyes of children. A group of professionals posed the following question to a group of four to eight year olds:

“What Does Love Mean”

What does love mean?

A group of professionals posed this question to a group of 4-8 year old’s.

“Love is when you go out and eat and give somebody most of your french fries, without making them give you any of theirs. (Chrissy - age 6)

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.” (Terrie-age 4)

“Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure it tastes ok.” (Danny age 7)

“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” (Bobby - age 5)

“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.” (May Ann - age 4)

“When you love somebody your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” (Karen - age 7)

“You really shouldn’t say I love you unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.” (Jessica - Age 7)

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails any more, So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.” (Rebecca - age 8).

So ,it is one thing to get a child’s perspective on love, but it is even better to get God’s perspective.

1 John 4:7–12 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.

John has already addressed the subject of love several time throughout his Epistle.

2:7-11 “Love as an indication that we are walking in the light.

3:11-24 As evidence that we are a child of God.

Note: Now in 4:7-12 John gives his fullest treatment of the subject of love.

Some would say that love makes the world go round.

On June 25, 1967 more than 400 million people in 26 countries watched, via satellite, the Beatles perform the song

“All you need is love.”

They had been asked to come up with a simple song that could be understood by all nations. While I believe their thesis is correct, I can understand why it was the cry of their hearts and that of the rest of the world.

Why? Because it is very close to the truth. You see, what we really need is the God who is love! To be precise, what we really need is Jesus, who was sent by the God who is love. What we need is not to be connected to the idea of love as the world see’s it, what we really need is to be connected to Christ, the source of all love.

John now gives us the central nature and origin of Love.

The Origin of Love is God

(The word love appears over 30 times in 1 John 4:7-5:3)

Some have said that:

Paul is the apostle of - FAITH

Peter is the apostle of - HOPE

James is the apostle of - GOOD WORKS

AND

John is the Apostle of - LOVE

AGAPE LOVE: Agape love is always evident in what it does and what it cost. Agape love is both sacrificial and a supernatural kine of love.

The Nature of Agape Love

Agape Love does not come natural to us due to our fallen state. Because of our fallen state we are incapable of producing such a love on our own. This kind of love can only come from it’s true source which is God. Because of God’s love towards us we are able to lover others with this kind of love.

1 Corinthians 13 speaks of faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these love. Love is greater.

Now we need to be clear we are not saying that lost people, non Christians, cannot love. Sadly to say sometimes unbelievers exhibit more love that believers. We are all created in the image of God. All persons, in spite of their depravity and sinfulness, will give reflections of the one whose image they bear.

God’s grace and goodness to some measure is shared wit the whole of His Creation. However as

Howard Marshal once said:

Human love, however noble and however highly motivated, falls short if it refuses to include the Father and Son as the supreme object of their affections.

Such love fails to honor the greatest commandment of all, the command to love God with all of your being.

1. God’s Love Elicit’s a Human Response

The first part sets up God’s central plan for love.

ELICIT: evoke or to draw out a response from someone in reaction to one’s own actions.

* Love Proves the Relationship

Psalm 103:11 ESV

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

God’s Love and the Height of the Heavens

David rejoices in the fact that God's steadfast love toward those who fear him can be illustrated by the height of the heavens above the earth (Ps. 103:11). David was not an astronomer. He had no grasp on the unimaginable magnitude of the height to which he refers. But we do today.

A good way to help us fathom the unfathomable is the light-year. A light-year is how far light travels in one calendar year. Light moves at 186,000 miles in one second. Multiply 186,000 times 60 seconds, and you have a light-minute. Mul­tiply that figure by 60 minutes, and you have a light-hour. Multiply that figure by 24, and you have a light-day, and that by 365, and you have a light-year. So, light can travel almost six trillion miles (the number six followed by 12 zeroes) in a 365-day period. That's the equivalent of about 12,000,000 round trips to the moon.

Let's assume we are speeding in a jet airplane at 500 miles per hour on a trip to the moon. If we traveled non-stop, 24 hours a day, it would take us just about 3 weeks to arrive at our destination. If we wanted to visit our sun, 93 million miles from earth, it would take us a bit more than 21 years to get there. And if we wanted to reach Pluto, the dwarf planet farthest away in our solar system, our non-stop trip would last slightly longer than 900 years.

Now, try to get your mind around this: The Hubble Telescope has given us breathtaking pictures of a galaxy some 13 billion light-years from earth. That would put this galaxy 78 sextillion miles from earth (the number 78 followed by 21 zeroes).

If we are traveling at 500 miles per hour nonstop, literally 52 weeks in every year, with not a moment's pause, we would reach this galaxy in 20 quadrillion years (The number 20 followed by 15 zeroes)! And that would get us just to the farthest point that our best telescopes have yet been able to detect. This would be the mere fringe of what lies beyond. It is currently estimated that there are around two trillion galaxies in the observable Universe.

Pause for a moment and let this sink in. Are you beginning to get a feel for what it means to know that God's love for you, is greater than the distance between the heavens and the earth?

How does love prove the relationship?

IT SHOWS THAT YOU ARE BORN OF GOD

Show me any relationship that is built on the needs and wants of one person and I will show you are relationship headed for disaster.

Genuine Human love always has its roots in God. The new birth or regeneration that we have experienced takes a dead and selfish heart and replaces it with God’s living, loving heart so His life becomes our life and His love our love. Look what author and pastor John Piper wrote?

“Love is from God that way heat is from fire, or the way light is from the sun. Love belongs to God’s nature. It’s woven into what he is. It’s part of what it means to be God. The sun gives light because it is light. And fire gives heat because it is heat. So John’s point is that in the new birth, this aspect of the divine nature becomes a part of who you are.”

When you become born again, God himself is imparted to you Himself. He dwells in you and sheds abroad His love in your heart. God’s aim is that His love will now be perfected in you. You are God’s Love project.

IT SHOWS THAT YOU KNOW GOD

What is the Knowledge of God.

The key Biblical term for knowledge assumes a personal familiarity, even an intimate involvement, with the known object. Similarly, knowing God entails acknowledging him as Lord in obedience and praise. As a result, human knowledge of God is decisively shaped by the Fall and God’s Salvation.

Adam and Eve acknowledged Him as their lord and diligently carried out the responsibility as good stewards of God’s creation. However, eating from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of Good and evil decisively shaped humanities future.

The fall did not destroy the availability of God’s knowledge. General revelation, God’s universal revelation to His creation still exists. However, general knowledge is insufficient to guide us to God. The special revelation of God allows us to truly know God. Not simply to know about God.

How can we know the Love of God?

(1) We know the love of God when we seek what’s best for others.

God seeks the best for others even at the great cost and expense of His life.

How are you daily seeking the best of others?

Philippians 2:3 ESV

3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

(2) We know the love of God when love becomes our natural response.

The very nature of God is to love (to give a sacrifice). The truth that “God is love” means that He is doing what is in His nature His very character.

GOD’S NATURE IN THE BIBLE

God is Spirit (John 4:24); God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29); God is light (1 John 1:5); God is true (1 John 5:20).

Here is Johns line of thinking about knowing God as His children.

(1) God is love; (2) All who have been born of God and know God are God’s children; (3) God’s children have God’s nature. (4) God’s children therefore will love.

THE PROBLEM OF PERSPECTIVE

Why Love is not our natural default response.

*How we see shows how we have been seen

Many times Jesus pointed out that people have eyes to see but they do not really see.

Note: Remember Jesus said that they will know we are Christian by the love we dispense to others.

John 13:34-35: Jesus gave a new commandment that we love others: just as He has loved us, and by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love (compassion the greatest picture of love) for one another.

(1) The Spiritual eyes of the heart leads us to compassion.

It is one thing to talk about love but another thing to show love. To practice love as our first natural instinct. I often meet hurting people who are wondering, “Does anyone really love me.” They have been abused, abandoned, betrayed, lied to, mistreated, and deeply wounded. You may be like this, where we can barely ask the question, “does anyone really love me?” “Will I ever be loved?”

John is reminding us the good news of the gospel. You are loved, and will always be loved by God.

YOU ARE LOVED FAR MORE DEEPLY THAN YOU KNOW AND FAR MORE DEEPLY THAN YOU DESERVE

The Christ event is the author and the supreme expression of the nature of God as love. Notice that v.9 tells us that God’s love has been “manifested among us.” This is one of our author’s favorite expressions for the historical revelation in Jesus.

THE LOVE OF GOD: does this mean the human love of God, or God’s love of humans? While both seem reasonable the latter is most likely. Notice John tells us the way that this love is revealed so that we “might” live through Him. The Christian life is authentic, a genuine existence, as it was intended by God. Through him means as a consequence of his life. The author makes sure his readers know that it was God’s love which motivated the redemptive act of what Christ did at Calvary.

NOT THAT WE HAVE LOVED: Notice vs. 10 says not that we loved God but that He loved us 1st and best (perfectly).

*Love isn’t content with feelings it presses through to action

vs. 11 tells us that the human response is shaped by the divine action. The divine action of love happened in eternity past, and is now passed on to you an me in the eternity present and leads to eternity future.

True Empathy is the feeling of actually participating in the suffering of others

1 Peter 3:8 ESV

8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

Here is what the Apostle John asked

1 John 3:17 ESV

17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

Let me tell you about the week before we were going into the journey building. The general contractor had walked out on the job and had not finished the building. The place was a mess, there was paint left all over the floor, I was physically, emotionally and spiritually spent.

I left the next week to take my son to Boy Scout camp having no idea how all of this was going to bet done. While I was gone, this guy, Eric Swan sensed my anxiety and the burden that I was carrying. He called all of the Journey people together and while I was away they all come up and worked together cleaning paint that was spilled all over the floor. Paining the walls, getting everything ready for worship the next Sunday.

When I got home something told me to stop by the Church building before I came home. I walked in the door and almost fell out, everything was cleaned and ready for us to start our first worship service in the new building. It started with someone seeing the burden I was bearing and decided to take the burden and bear it with me. This is what the Church is all about. This was an act of Sacrificial Love.

How often in Church life do we come into a Church body and forget that part of our job is bear one another’s burdens. To not just speak of Christian love, but, to put it into action.

Here is the part you do not see many times. That one act of love, now filters down to each one of you. You are now recipients of that same love even though none of you were here 7 years ago when the act of love was being given.

vs. 12 “God’s love is perfected in us”

Note: The love of Christ is perfect in every way. The verb perfected is used 4 times in 1 John, all in connection with love (2:5, above; here 4:17; and 18). Perfected here has the sense of bringing to maturity or completion. John’s argument is that no one has ever seen God in His essence, but we can see God through the lives of those who demonstrate His love to others. When we love one another it proves 2 things:

(1). It proves that God abides continually in us.

(2). His love for us is then perfected, or brought to complete maturity.

1 John 4:13–21 ESV

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.

2. God’s Love Elicit’s His power in us.

The Spirit is on full display in vs. 13 and the son takes center stage in verses 14-15.

*God’s love is an abiding Power

God's Love, Like Marital Love, Is Unconditional

Picture this: a bride and groom dashing out of the church, through the showers of birdseed and into the limo, all aglow with the light of love from the vows they've just taken. In the backseat of the car, en route to the reception, they embrace and kiss. Then the groom announces that he has something to say.

Now you realize, my dear, that, as far as I'm concerned, we can't really say we're married, because I don't know yet what kind of wife you'll turn out to be. I hope for the best, of course. And I'll help you all I can. But only at the end of our lives will I be able to tell if you've lived up to my expectations. If you have—then, and only then, I'll agree that we truly got married today. But if you don't, then as far as I'm concerned we were never married at all. After all, how can I call you my wife if you fail to be a wife to me?

Under such circumstances, it will not be a happy honeymoon—if there's one at all. A wife cannot be a wife if her whole existence as wife is conditional and under constant scrutiny (likewise for a husband). She will certainly fail. This groom has completely misunderstood [the power of marriage to transform the beloved]. The couple that tied the knot only 60 minutes ago is every bit as married as the couple celebrating their 60th anniversary. Whatever happens in the course of the marriage does not affect the "married-ness" of that couple.

—In the same way, how can we be expected to love and trust a God always watching us like a hawk to see if we fail? Right standing with God isn't something that we have to generate from within ourselves.

Right standing with God is a free gift—and that's what helps us grow to trust, love, and obey God.

Note: Notice how many times John uses the phrase “This is how we know.” It is as if he is on the single mission of making sure we know the difference between of what it looks like when someone is truly abiding in Christ and when we are just going through the motions with no genuine indwelling abiding spirit in our lives.

ABIDE: The word signifies progressively to “await,” “remain,” “lodge,” “sojourn,” “dwell,” “continue,” “endure”; look at what it say’s in John 14:23

John 14:23 ESV

23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

ABODE: “Abiding places” the soul of the true disciple and heaven were dwelling-places of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

ENDURANCE

In scripture endurance is closely related to the abiding and dwelling spirit of God in our lives. Endurance is the ability to hang in there when the going gets tough. God enables Christians to endure whatever comes their way. Endurance is something that even minor trials, successfully handled God’s way, bring about as James 1:3 states a steadfastness in our faith as a result of the difficulties and trials we face.

THE FOREVER GIFT

(1) He gave us His Spirit of grace at Conversion.

(2) God gave us His Spirit and He will never take it back.

Note: We are His now and forever and for all of eternity there will be this mutual dwelling between Him and us. The power and presence of this dwelling will only get stronger.

What a Gift

It is kind of like in the star wars saga. Remember how when the Jedi were first learning how to use the force. It seemed difficult and many times hard to understand. However, the more they used it the stronger it became and the more apart of their nature it became.

This is why when Christians fail to abide in Christ and allow the spirit to work in and through them it seems like a struggle. They feel like they have to work at living life in the Spirit of God.

*God’s love is a testifying Power.

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

Hallelujah! What a Savior.

The Father sends us to share with a world of seven billion people the good news of the Gospel of Christ. It is a world of 16,500 people groups, 6,900 of which are unreached totalling more than 2.9 billion unreached persons on the planet. Jesus came to die for this world and He has given us the job to spread the power of God’s love to the world.

Carl F. Henry famously said.

“The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time”

Note: One of the most amazing pictures of this is in Acts 1 after the Disciples received the Holy spirit. You have Peter standing in the middle of the streets of Jerusalem lifted up his voice and began to testify to Jesus Christ. After describing the miracle they had witnessed of the coming of the Holy spirit Peter boldly proclaimed the message of Jesus Christ.

*God’s love is a confidence giving Power.

Note: You may be the most withdrawn introvert that the world has ever known. However, something happens when the Power of the Spirit of God has rested on your life. It even makes the most insecure individual have supernatural confidence.

vs. 16

(1) Confidence comes when we know and believe His love.

The love that is expressed here is a confession of a love that already exists which will deepen as the experience its reality in practice.

Look at couples who have been happily married for an extensive amount of time. Diana and I as of the end of June have been happily married for 33 years. After such a long time a couple will have extensive areas of agreement and mutual understanding that each can tell what the other is thinking without any words being spoken. It is frightening how often Diana and I are thinking the same thing without saying any words.

That sort of intimacy with God is only possible if we rely on his love and live in him. If we would think his thoughts, we must give ourselves to the study of his Word. If we are to experience more of His love, we must rely on him more fully.

Sometimes we go through trials and testings for that very reason, because the God who loves us wants us to rely on him more completely or to trust him more fully. He allows such experiences to refine and strengthen our trust and to increase our appetite for him.

vs 17

(2) Confidence comes when God’s love is working towards our completion.

This verse echos back to verse 12. The idea that God’s love is always looking for and working towards our completeness. Because He is perfection himself, how can our loving Father be satisfied with anything less for his children?

Philippians 1:6 ESV

6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Verse 12 is making the point that God’s love is being seen in the love of Christians have for one another, whereas here the perspective is forward-looking, to the purpose of this work in its completion, which gives us confidence for the day of judgement.

The more that you grow to be like Jesus, the more God’s love is perfected in your life. This is not an impossible dream, because in this world we are like him. Even though we are on earth and he is in heaven, in His grace and love God has given us the privilege of sharing some foretastes of that inheritance which will be fully ours only when we see him.

Note: We can be confident for the Future.

Love has an intended goal. The word “perfected” carries the idea of completion, being brought to maturity. Abiding in Christ gives boldness, for the day of Judgement.

(1) Practicing the Love of Christ gives us confidence.

THERE WILL BE A DAY OF JUDGEMENT

God has set a day on which He is going to judge the world in righteousness. We know that

Hebrews 9:27 “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes the judgement.

Death comes for us all and is common to the whole human race, we are all born dying, thus, it is a consequence of sin.

John’s emphasis here is on a love that is perfected. The basic idea is not that our love is or can be perfect his side of heaven. However Jesus love is perfect, and it is perfected in us. God’s love has reached its intended goal in us. This does not mean that we love everyone with the same perfect love.

Piper paraphrases the first clause of 4:17, “In this, that is in your love for each other, God’s love is put into action and so reaches its appointed goal. It does not remain at the imperfect stage of mere talk, but reaches the stage of action.”

John adds (4:17b), “because as He is, so also are we in this world.”

Note that John does not say, “so should we be,” but rather, “so are we in this world.”

Each of us needs to ask, “Am I at all like Jesus?” Does my life display any resemblance to the love of Jesus in this world? Would others, especially those who live with me, say that they see the love of Christ in my daily behavior?

John writes in 4:18 that there is no fear in love, but, perfect love casts out fear.

1 John 4:20 gives another “if anyone says” statements. Here the person under examination says one thing but does another that contradicts his words. With his lips he says I love God, but in his heart his actions betray him. John’s logic is flawless, it is a lesser to greater illustration.

The idea of what John is saying is that if you cannot love the brother that you can see it is impossible for you to love the God whom you do not see.

How often do we reason our way to why we withhold love from someone. I think people do this far more that they are willing to admit. Usually the excuse begins with a “yeah but.” If it begins with a “Yeah but,” then you are not loving others as you should. This is a command from God, not a request if you feel like it or if you can reason in your own mind why you should not love this person.

To love God and love your brother is to obey God’s command.

CLOSING

What is your identity?

Remember Paul states in 1 Corinthians 13 that even though “Faith,” and “Hope” are important to the Christian life, the greatest of these is “Love.”

What is love?

There were a lot of number one songs in the 80's about "love." It began in 1980 with Queen singing about "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love." Diana Ross and Lionel Richie followed with an ode to "Endless Love." REO Speedwagon promised to "Keep On Loving You." Joan Jett announced, "I Love Rock and Roll." Tina Turner asked, "What's Love Got to Do with It?" Stevie Wonder raised the possibility of a "Part-Time Lover." Huey Lewis and the News reminded us of "The Power of Love." And there were half a dozen more I won't bother to mention.

But the song that played more often than any of them, nearly 30 years later, is "I Wanna Know What Love Is,' by a band called Foreigner. It's the chorus that we can't get out of our heads or our hearts: "I wanna know what love is / I want you to show me / I want to feel what love is / I know you can show me."

People want to know what love is. They want to see it and feel it and experience it.

Years ago, a Catholic priest named Father John Powell wrote a book entitled Why Am I Afraid to Love? We're afraid for all kinds of reasons. But the love we've been talking about this morning, the deep love that God has shown to us in Christ, overcomes fear. "There is no fear in love," John writes, "but perfect love drives out fear" (1 John 4:18).

When you disappoint someone who loves you deeply, they love you anyway! So instead of punishing you or rejecting you, they forgive you. They're patient with you. They give you a second chance, and a third, and a fourth, and however many it takes. That's how God has loved us, so that's how we love one another.

When you're loved like this, you're free. You're free to make mistakes. You're free to disagree. You're free to take a risk. You're free to be yourself. That's why love is the greatest gift we can give to one another: it gives us the freedom to become the people we long to be and were meant to be in Christ.

Question: How is the Love that you have experienced in Christ freeing you to love like Him?