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I John 4:7-12, 19-21
! Introduction
I would like to make a confession this morning.
I like knowledge and truth.
It is important to me that Scriptural interpretation be accurate.
It is important to me that people know God’s truth.
I have discovered, however, that there is a danger in knowledge and truth.
It can come across as cold and calculating and can lack love.
In my search for Biblical truth, however, there is one thing that has been impressed upon me powerfully.
It is a clear and deep truth of Scripture that I can’t ignore and that is that above all, God wants us to love one another.
I have had to realize that truth and knowledge must be held in a heart that is first of all filled with love.
Learning love has been a hard lesson for me, but there is no way that I can ignore that I must love.
It is so profoundly and deeply a part of Scripture that we can’t ignore it.
The command to love is found throughout Scripture.
One simple phrase, “love one another,” is found ten times in the Bible.
It is found 5 times in I John and 3 times in the section we will look at.
In order to learn how significant and important it is that we love one another, let us take a look at I John 4:7-12, 19-21.
read text.
When we visited the Grand Canyon quite a number of years ago, we enjoyed its beauty.
We spent several hours on the south rim and as the day went by, the angle of the sun changed and with each passing hour, the view we had also changed.
We spoke with my step father who was there with us.
He had spent many hours at the Grand Canyon and told us that the more time you spend the more you will see it under different light conditions and you get a different view of its beauty all the time.
Each different light condition gives a different perspective.
As we look at love from this passage in I John, that is what we want to do.
We want to look at the simple command to love and shed different angles of light on it in order to see it from different perspectives.
As we do so, I trust that this command that we are familiar with will go deeply into our heart.
What we have in this passage is a word about love.
!
I.
It Is Appeal
The word about love is, first of all, an appeal.
In vs. 7 the apostle says, “let us love one another.”
The commonly held author of this letter is the apostle John, who is known as the beloved disciple.
Of course, Jesus loved all of his disciples, but there seemed to be a special relationship between Jesus and John.
Twice in the gospel of John, we find the phrase, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”
At the last supper, it was John who was closest to Jesus.
John 13:23 says, “One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him.”
He was the disciple to whom Jesus committed the care of his mother, while He was hanging on the cross.
John 19:26 says, “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son…”
This disciple, who was loved by Jesus, also loved those to whom he wrote.
He calls them “dear friends” or as some translations put it, “beloved.”
It seems significant to me that this disciple who knew a special relationship with Jesus and was called the beloved disciple makes his appeal to love one another out of that love relationship for all other disciples.
It seems that he is saying, “my dear friends, this is important, please, let us do it.”
This aspect of the call to love comes from the heart of one who knew how much he was loved and who also loved those to whom he spoke.
He made the appeal as a mutual call to love when he said, “let us.”
!
II.
It Is Possible
Have you ever watched kids skateboard?
They scoot along standing up, jump on things, flip their boards and do all kinds of other amazing things.
I have tried, but the thing keeps rolling out from under me.
Without being dressed like the Michelin man, and doing it on a mattress, I don’t think I would try it.
In fact, the ability to do it is not in me.
I lack the balance and familiarity to do it.
Perhaps you feel about loving like I do about trying to skateboard.
It is easy for us to think, “I just can’t love,” but that is not true.
A second aspect of the call to love is to recognize that such love is possible.
In verse 7, we are told, “Love comes from God” and we are told, “everyone who loves has been born of God.”
What this tells us is that love is only possible by a new birth.
Therefore, love is possible for us because we have experienced that new birth from God. God has changed our hearts and so we can love.
When people are hard to get along with, we think that love is not possible.
However, it is possible because God has put his love in us.
It is possible because we have a new nature.
We no longer function at the merely human level, but at the level of a changed heart.
It is possible because of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
!
III.
It Is Natural
In fact, not only is it possible, it is natural.
Verse 7 says, “everyone who loves has been born of God.”
We were out at the lake last Monday, trying to start a canoe trip.
We sat inside waiting for it to stop raining.
While we were sitting there trying to keep dry, we saw a duck swimming along happily in the rain with her brood.
You have probably heard the saying, “Like a duck to water.”
We saw it.
Mama and her little ducklings naturally swimming along, happy in the water.
That is how natural loving is to us.
Since God is love, and since we belong to God, and since God has changed our heart, the most natural thing in the world for us, if we are walking in Christ is to love.
Love is natural because it is the nature of God to love.
Because of the new birth, and the Holy Spirit who has been given to indwell us, we have the love of God within us.
It is being born of God that makes it not only possible, but natural.
As we look a little further in the text, we read in verse 12, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
This is a curious writing.
First of all we are told, “No one has seen God.”
Earlier in the book, this idea was followed by the phrase, “the only begotten Son…has declared him.”
This makes sense to us.
We have not seen God, but we see God when we see Jesus.
But that is not how the verse ends here.
Instead, it says, “if we love one another, God lives in us.”
In other word.
God is seen not only in Jesus, but also in our love.
One writer says, “the unseen God, who was once revealed in His Son, is now revealed in His people if and when they love one another.”
So it is significant to notice that love ought to be part of us because it is a natural expression of what God has done in our hearts.
!
IV.
It Is Gratitude
It is also an expression of gratitude.
Several years ago we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.
It was a wonderful time of being thankful for being loved.
Realizing that we are loved we revelled in returning love to the ones who love us.
Last Sunday, we examined the idea that we are beloved - people who are deeply loved by God.
This is a truth that we need to know and understand.
How do we express gratitude to God for this great love for us?
We express gratitude by loving others.
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