God Is Love

I John 4:7-21 “God Is Love”

If you took a sample or a cross section of our culture and compared it to the Bible, what would you find? What difference would be the most obvious? I would argue, that we can see the one of the sharpest contrasts between the Bible and the world in the conception of love. As someone once said, “That word doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

In our culture, love is self-focused and self-defined. It is understood as unconditional affirmation of me and my choices. Sometimes it is boiled down to mere romantic feelings and sexual activity. Christians are called unloving for not affirming people’s sin, especially in the area of sexuality.

The Bible understands love to be based on truth and expressed by obeying God’s commands. In our culture, love has been evacuated of truth and morality. It is completely self-determined. The Bible tells us that the greatest command is to love God and then to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our text today famously says, “God is love.” If we get love wrong, we get God wrong. If we get love wrong, we will not understand our chief responsibility toward God and toward others.

God has defined what love is. Our text today is focused on defining love and showing how God’s love works in his children so that we love one another.

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The main point of the passage is found in the first verse, verse 7.

John views love from 3 different angels. Think of a group of men checking out their friend’s new car. They circle it, kick the tires, open the hood, sit in the driver’s seat…and repeat.

-Love is from God and defined by God

-The outcome of God’s love in us is not fear but fellowship with Him

-Those who belong to God love one another

1. Love is from God and defined by God

If you have survived a high school or college psychology class, you may have heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He identified humanity’s most basic needs all the way to their deepest needs. According to his theory, our most basic needs are physical- food, clothing, shelter, and then protection from harm. He works his way to the deepest human needs. What do you think those are?

He believed that the deepest human needs were the need for self-esteem and the need for self-actualization or self-fulfillment (becoming all that you want to be).

This theory of what constitutes our deepest need drives our culture’s understanding of love. If my deepest needs are self-esteem and self-fulfillment, then you love me by making me feel good about myself. You love me by helping me become all that I want to be. If you hurt my self-esteem, you do not love me. Don’t you date trample on my dreams. Love is making much of me. Love is making me feel good. If you love me, you will unconditionally affirm me and my choices.

I am not wandering into psychology for the fun of it, but because we have got to see that this is our culture’s understanding of love. And we, as fish in water, sometimes forget that we are swimming in it. If we transport this understanding of love into our understanding of God, it will kill biblical truth. It will wreck our relationships.

I do agree that we have a deep needs as humans. Our deepest need is to be loved by God. But the worst thing God could do for us is to unconditionally affirm us and our choices. God meets our deepest need through his love, and that need is propitiation. Read 4:9-10

What do these verses tell us about God’s love for us?

-We are sinners. We do evil. Our actions are wrong before God. God does not affirm our sin, but condemns us for our sin. He is angry at our sins. We must be punished for our sin. John 3:36- “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

-We’re so bad, that it took the death of God’s precious Son to take away our sin problem. Our sin demanded eternal death. Jesus took that punishment. God’s anger against our sin was taken out on his only Son. That’s what propitiation is. Christ has taken God’s anger and punishment against our sin.

-We didn’t reach up to God, but he reached down to us. He first loved us. This does not show the amazing value of humanity, but shows the amazing mercy and kindness of God. That’s love!

It’s like you are stuck in a muddy pit slowly sinking to your eventual death. You are not aware of your danger. You cry, help me, help me, the mud is messing up my hair! We hear: God loves me. We think, “He’s here to fix my hair. If he does that, everything will be better.” Your problem is that you are sinking to your death in a muddy put. Who cares about your hair! Our problem is spiritual and eternal death. We need life! Not a hair do! Jesus Christ brings life to those who are stuck in eternal death.

4:9- God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

Our deepest need is not self-esteem. Our deepest need is not self-fulfillment. Our deepest need is rescue from our sins. God loved us by meeting our deepest need by giving for us what was dearest to him…his only Son.

When we say God is love, let God define what that love is. Love is the supreme sacrifice of God’s Son for us miserable sinners. It makes much of God not much of us.

2. The outcome of God’s love in us is not fear but fellowship

God’s love does something amazing in us. It casts out fear in our lives. Read 4:17-18.

When you’re a kid, maybe you were scared of the dark. Perhaps you were scared of heights…maybe you still are. It seems like quite a few kids are deathly afraid of vacuum cleaners. I had friends in college who were still afraid of them.

As adults, we don’t normally don’t talk about our deepest fears.

-Fear of shame when our secret sin is found out

-Fear being alone

-Fear of being rejected- people won’t like me; they won’t accept me

-Fear you will fail as a parent, spouse, employee

These fears can cause all sorts of anxiety, lead us to sin, and to avoid obeying God’s commands. They can paralyze us. God’s perfect love casts out all fear. But I don’t think John has in mind the fears that I just listed. The fear he is talking about is associated with punishment and the day of judgment. If our deepest need is salvation from our sins, our deepest fear should be God’s punishment at the day of judgment. When’s the last time you’ve felt terrified of God?

If we don’t have Christ’s sacrifice for us, we should be terrified about the God’s judgment now and in the end. God’s love is so powerful, that if we have it, we will stand confidently before the Judge of the Universe. Because he is your Father. If Christ has taken your sin, God is no longer your Judge, but your Father. You cannot fear God’s punishment AND love as a Father at the same time. If God is not your Father, he is your Judge. Will you have confidence on the day of judgment?

3. Those who belong to God love one another

You don’t need to read far into this passage to see that John’s practical concern is that Christians love one another. Read 4:11, 20, 21.

Even though it is hard to love one another, it is natural. It is according to our new nature. 4:7- if you have been born of God, you will love. His love is in you, and will flow out to others. It’s part of the circle of life. God’s children will love like God, because God is love. God’s kids act like their Father.

“…God is the fountain of love, this effect flows from him, and is diffused wherever the knowledge of him comes…” –John Calvin If you know God, you will love like him.

We are to love others, because God first loved us. And we are to love in the same way that God loved us. 4:11. How did he love us?

1. We love one other according to the truth

-We will desire to meet their deepest need

God looked past our perceived needs, and met our deepest need, the need of a Savior. He evaluated us from his perfect standard of holiness and truth. In the same, we must love others according to what God says they are.

2. We love one another sacrificially

We were God’s enemies, and he gave us his only Son. The KJV has “only begotten” Son. The better translation would be “unique” or “one and only.” That’s how it’s used in when it is not used of Jesus.

Luke 7:11-15- 11 Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

Think of losing an only child, and multiply that by the infinite worth of the Son of God. Why should we complain, when loving our fellow Christian is slightly inconvenient?

3. We love one another without fear

God loved us out the abundance of his love. We often “love” others not out of the abundance of God’s love for us, but out of fear. Just as, there is no fear of punishment in our relationship with God, there should not be fear as we love our fellow Christians. How often do these thoughts run through our heads?

-I will love them so they will like me

-I will love them, so they will give me something

-I will love my husband, so he won’t yell at me

-I will love my wife, so I can have sex with her

-I will love them, so people will think I am a great guy

This is not love. This is fear and manipulation. Love does not give to get stuff! Love is not mercenary: “I will help you out….for a price.” Love does not always affirm the other person: “I want their approval, so I’ll agree with them.” That’s fear, not love. God’s love is free and without fear, so our love for others should be free and without fear.

When God has met our deepest need of salvation and relieved our deepest fear of judgment, it frees us to love others truly.

Conclusion:

John’s primary concern in this letter is our increased fellowship with the Father. John wants us to enjoy our eternal life. He mentions it several times in our passage: “abide in him” or “remain in him.” We enjoy fellowship with the Father:

-If we love one another (12)

-By the Holy Spirit (13)

-If we confess that Jesus is the Son of God (15)

-Remain in love- keep on loving (16)

If you abide in love, you will abide in God. Your fellowship with the Father is bound up in part with your love for other Christians. Fellowship with God is not just a Jesus and me experience on a mountain. One way we feed our fellowship with the Father is to love one another.

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

“For when any one separates faith from love, it is the same as though he attempted to take away heat from the sun.” -John Calvin

Therefore no one can come with a tranquil mind to God’s tribunal, except he believes that he is freely loved. -John Calvin