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1 John 4:7-21 "God is Love"
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. (1 John 4:7-13)
It is easy to say that love is the solution to all the
world’s problems. It is easy to say that if we could all just
love each other this would be a better place. The problem is that so
few people truly understand love. The true mark of a Christian will
always be this, that they understand love. I learned a song when I was
young, "They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love,
they will know we are Christians by our love." Righteousness is
not the truest mark of a Christian. Even though John writes that whoever
abides in Jesus Christ does not continue in sin, a blameless life is
not enough to prove that you are a Christian. In fact many people who
are not Christian seem to be more moral and righteous than those who
are Christian. Truth is also not the surest mark of a Christian. We
are encouraged by Jesus to "know the truth and the truth shall
set you free." And yet there are people who have all the right
doctrine but still don’t know the One who said "I am the
way, the truth, and the life." The best way to know that you really
know God is whether or not you really understand love. Why? Because
God is love.
I am always amazed at the astronomers who can tell you what a star that
is millions of light years away is made of. Of course they have not
sent a spaceship out there to collect samples to run tests on. How do
they do it? They look at the light that the star gives off. Each material
gives off a different spectrum of light when it is burned. By looking
at the color of the light they can tell what the star is made of. How
do we know what God is made of? Like the astronomers we are limited
in what we can do. No one has ever seen God or touched God and we certainly
cannot take a sample of Him to bring back to the lab. And yet like the
distant star that sends its ray of light across the void to this earth,
God too has manifested Himself to us in such a way that we can know
what He is made of. God sent the Light of the World, Jesus Christ, to
us so that we would know what love is. What is the love that we learn
from Jesus? What is this love that is the very substance of God?
"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." First we learn
that real love does not start with us. Real love never starts in the
first person. The three most important words in the English language
are not, "I love you". They are "God loves me".
When we start with "I", we are really describing the love
of this world. It always starts with "I". I feel good when
I am with you. I am happy when I am around you. I like the way you look,
the things that you do. We might think that the one that we love is
the center of the universe but the real center of that universe is "I".
What happens when you no longer are happy to be around them or you don’t
like something that they do? "I love you", turns into "I
don’t love you anymore". Real love always starts with God.
His love for us does not change. It does not depend on how we look or
what we do. God will never say, "I don’t love you anymore."
If you base love on how you feel you will only be able to love the people
who you like. But Jesus told us to love even our enemies. True love
is not a fire that is lit by my own feeble candle but a reflection of
the great light of God’s love for me.
The second thing that we learn about love is that it gives. God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, so that
whosoever believes on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
The love of this world is more of a transaction. We feel that if we
do not receive anything back then we are excused from loving anymore.
Most marriages break up because one or both partners feel that they
are no longer getting anything out of the relationship. The husband
or wife feels that their needs are not being met. But real love is a
gift that does not expect anything back.
The third thing we learn from Jesus about real love is that it is sacrificial.
Love cost Jesus everything. When He gave Himself to pay the price for
our sins, Jesus gave up His life, His honor and His relationship with
the Father Real love always involves giving up of yourself. You cannot
keep yourself as number one and truly love. We are naturally selfish
creatures and so this involves some pain, some sacrifice. It is physically
impossible to love and still be comfortable at the same time. Love hurts.
It always entails some measure of dying to self and living for others.
Jesus once was invited into a religious man’s house for dinner.
A certain woman of that city when she learned that Jesus had gone to
eat there came to Him with an alabaster flask of fragrant oil. This
woman was known throughout the city as a sinner. She was a woman with
a bad reputation. And yet she knelt down behind Jesus at His feet and
wept. I can only imagine that she wept because she understood the great
love of God for her. With her tears she started to wash Jesus’
feet and then wiped them with the hair of her head. Now when the religious
man who had invited Jesus for dinner saw this he thought to himself
that if Jesus were really a prophet he would know what kind of woman
was touching him. Jesus told the man, "Simon I have something to
say to you." There was a certain man who had two debtors. One owed
him a large sum of money and the other owed him only one tenth as much,
but neither of them could pay. The man freely forgave them both. "Tell
Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?" Simon answered
back, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more." And Jesus
told him that he was right. Then he turned to the woman and said to
Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me
no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and
wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss, but this
woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did
not anoint my head with oil, but this woman has anointed my feet with
fragrant oil." Love starts with God. We will love much if we know
how much we are loved. We forgive much if we know just how much has
been forgiven us. We will give if we know how much we have been given.
We will sacrifice if we know how much was sacrificed for us.
Do you see why John says that if God so loved us, we also ought to love
one another? If you understand God’s love you will be like that
woman who wept at Jesus’ feet. You won’t care what people
might think. You won’t care that the oil is expensive. You won’t
care about messing up your hair or getting your clothes dirty. All of
those things will mean little compared to what God has done for you.
If you don’t really know God’s love then you will stand
back and ridicule those that do, complain about the mess and the fuss,
and miss out on it all. If you know God’s love then when you hear
where Jesus is you will go there straight away and serve Him as best
as you can. Where is Jesus? If you know God’s love then you will
recognize Him in the least of your brothers. You will see Him in those
who are hungry and those who are naked and those who are in prison.
You will see Him in those who have bad reputations and little social
grace. You will recognize Him in the helpless, the widows and orphans
and in the foreigners who cannot even speak the language yet. If you
know God’s love then you will reflect that love and all will know
that God abides in you.
"God is Love II"
"And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us." (1 John 4:14-19)
The truest mark of a Christian is love. There is a great
misconception in the world that Christians are people who are claiming
to be righteous. This is not our claim. This was not John’s claim.
John’s testimony was that God had sent Jesus Christ, His Son to
be the savior of the world. A Christian does not claim to be good. Instead
we confess that Jesus is good. We confess that we are not able to be
good and that we need a savior. We confess that Jesus is the Son of
God, the only one who could truly be righteous. Jesus who was perfect
and without sin loved us so much that He paid the price for all our
sins by dying on the cross in our place. He gave Himself, sacrificing
everything for us so that we might be able to know the love of God.
If you want to know the love of God, you must confess that Jesus is
His Son. The only way to truly know God’s love is through Jesus
Christ. I am amazed sometimes at how people will avoid speaking to each
other, even when they are desperate to find out what that other person
is thinking. It usually happens with good friends who for some reason
are having an argument. They don’t want to talk to each other
but each starts to talk with other friends about what the other is thinking.
They get the round about story from three or four people until they
are so confused about what that person is really thinking that they
never speak to them again. It is so silly, why don’t they just
go and have a good talk and straighten the whole thing out? People often
relate to God in the same way. They do everything but talk to Jesus.
They talk about God, they read books discussing God, they get all the
gossip, all the rumors from a variety of different sources and yet they
ignore the one whom God called, "My beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased." Why don’t they talk with Jesus? It is the same
reason that friends don’t talk to each other. They are afraid;
Afraid of confrontation, afraid of being wrong, afraid of being rejected.
We would rather give up a relationship, a friendship, by default than
risk being rejected in person. We would rather not try at all, than
risk trying only to be turned away. This is the fear that we have with
God. We cannot ignore Him, we cannot stop thinking about Him, and yet
we are afraid that if we get too close we will get burned. We are afraid
that if we talk to God’s Son and really attempt to know God, we
will only get there to find that we are not really welcome after all.
We are afraid that God will see our faults and our shortcomings and
punish us.
John writes, "Love has been perfected among us in this: that we
may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we
in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out
fear, because fear involves torment." The opposite of love is not
really hate, the opposite of love is fear. Let me tell you this very
straight, if you confess that Jesus is the Son of God then you have
nothing to fear. God will not reject you. Instead He has promised to
forgive all of your sins. God will not punish you. He will cleanse you
from all unrighteousness. My daughter Gracie is at the stage right now
that she wants to run around constantly checking out all the new things
in her little world. Every once in a while we notice that her diapers
are beginning to sag and she is in need of a change. In order for us
to change her we must first catch her and lay her down on her back.
She hates this. She would much rather be running around and in her mind
has much more important things to be doing than simply lying here on
her back while Mommy fiddles with her clothes. She regards our attempts
to clean her up as torment, when in reality it is exactly what she needs.
We also have a hard time distinguishing between punishment and cleansing,
between suffering and skilful hands of the master potter shaping us
into a vessel fit for His use. You might ask, well if it looks like
torment, and it feels like torment, then it might as well be torment
for all I know and don’t I have a right to be afraid of a God
like that? Well, no. Because God does not just torment us. We parents
don’t just change diapers all the time (though it might feel that
way). We also hold, and cuddle, and play with our children. We feed
them and sing them to sleep and read them story books. We protect them
from danger and wake up in the middle of the night to soothe them when
they have a nightmare. In short we love our children. So Gracie should
not really be afraid when we change her diaper. She might be upset about
it, she might not really understand what is going on, but she knows
that we love her.
God loves you. He does not want to torment you, only cleanse you. There
is no reason to be afraid. God has shown us His love for us through
Jesus Christ His Son. You do not have to be afraid of God, go directly
to Jesus and talk it out with Him. He will tell you of God’s love
for you and His willingness to restore your relationship. Confess your
sin to Him, tell Him how much you need a savior and that you believe
that He is able to deliver you from sin. This is the beginning of a
relationship with God. It will become natural to go to God with everything
in your life. He is the friend that is closer than a brother, the ever
present help in trouble. All through your life you will never need to
fear that He will reject you. Go to Him when you fail and when you sin
and confess and He is faithful to forgive.
| I have a question... | I want to receive Jesus Christ! | I want to confess sin... |
| I need prayer... | I want to come to church... | I want to be a prayer partner |
| I have a question... | I want to receive Jesus Christ! | I want to confess sin... |
| I need prayer... | I want to come to church... | I want to be a prayer partner! |