DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
According to 1 John 4:7–8, how is love both evidence and fruit of a relationship with God?
How does the cross clarify and deepen your understanding of what true love is?What does it mean that Jesus is the “propitiation” for our sins, and how is that an expression of perfect love?
What are some ways we might be “withholding love” in our relationships without even realizing it?
Reflection question: If someone observed your life, what would they learn about God’s love by how you treat others?
SERMON MANUSCRIPT:
I remember having a conversation with one of my teammates when I was in college.
I had just recently read the story of God appearing to Solomon in a dream and saying, “Ask what I shall give you.” In humility, Solomon acknowledged his inexperience as king and asked for “an understanding mind.”
I found Solomon's request to be profound, so profound that it began to shape how and what I would pray for during that season of life. Like Solomon, I began to pray fervently for God to give me wisdom, clinging to James 1:5, “If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach.”
I thought wisdom was the greatest thing you could request from God. Until, of course, I talked with one of my teammates.
As we were riding to lunch, we were talking about this story in 1 Kings 3, and I asked him, “If you could ask God for anything, what would it be?”
His response caught me off guard, shaking me to the core. He said, “I think I would ask for love.” Then he quoted 1 Corinthians 13:13, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
His response rocked me because he was right. Wisdom is necessary; love is essential. Wisdom is beautiful, but love is vital.
“If we speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, we are a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If we have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if we have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, we are nothing. If we give away all we have, and if we deliver up our bodies to be burned, but have not love, we gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
In our passage today, John takes some time to highlight how essential love is to the Christian faith. He’s making the argument that love is a key indicator of faith. All who know God know love. If God’s love has impacted your heart, you will begin to bleed out love. To know God is to know love because God is love.
This passage adds color to the black and white picture of love. It teaches us the source of love, and it shows us the clearest demonstration of love, which is the cross. And it answers a multitude of questions we might ask about ourselves.
We might ask, “Am I a Christian?”
John says, “Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”
We might ask, “Am I a godly friend/husband/wife/parent/coworker/boss/etc?
John says, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
All who are godly are loving. To walk like God is to walk in love.
Let’s dive in.
“[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.”
LOVE, THE FRUIT OF A RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS
In these first two verses, John says the same thing in two different ways: a positive way and a negative way— “[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.” John essentially says that those who know God will love others, and those who don’t will not.
Love is not a means to a relationship with Jesus; it is the fruit of a relationship with Jesus. To withhold love from another is to swim against the current of the Holy Spirit’s leading. Simply put, our willingness to love is a key indicator of how we know we have a relationship with Jesus. It is one of the best signs that we have a relationship with Jesus. Your willingness and ability to love are a tangible way to know you are a Christian.
Now, packed deep into the crevasses of these two verses are some nuggets I want us to try to dig out for a moment.
First, I want us to notice where John said love is from— “love is from God” and “God is love.” So, love is woven deep into the fabric of God’s being; it’s tied to his identity. In commenting on this verse, John Piper said, “Love is from God the 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, love is from God because God is love.
Now, God is also eternal. So, if love is directly tied to the identity of an infinite God, then that means his love is everlasting. It has no beginning or end. This means that God’s love extended to us isn’t rooted in our performance for him. No, it’s rooted in who he is. Therefore, his love is undeserved; it’s uninfluenced by anything we can do for him. It’s firmly rooted in Jesus.
So, practically speaking—and we’ll unpack this more in a moment—the love we are called to display is undeserved and selfless love that reflects God's undeserved and selfless love. If God’s love toward us doesn’t depend on what we can do for him, then our love for one another shouldn’t rely on what others can do for us.
The second thing I want to draw our attention to is the parallel between being “born of God” and “knowing God.” John says, “Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”
So, how do we know we’ve been born of God? How do we know we know God? Our ability to love is the key indicator of our relationship with God.
We’ve discussed this a few times while studying this epistle, but let’s ensure we know what it means to be “born of God.” This phrase highlights a miraculous encounter that takes place within the hearts of those who believe in Jesus. When you give your heart and life to Jesus, something miraculous occurs within you. You experience a new birth. You become a new creation; your heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh, and you are no longer a child of Satan, but you are a child of God.
In talking with Nicodemus, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God…. Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God… As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
So, those who believe in Jesus are born again to eternal life. They can see the kingdom of God. God’s seed abides in them, meaning the Holy Spirit now resides in their hearts, and they have been brought to life in Him. The eyes of their hearts have been opened to ways of God’s kingdom, and they can walk in obedience to their King, Jesus, in ways they could not before.
So, do not miss this! John is saying that Christian love is a Holy Spirit-driven activity. Your willingness to love is the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life. No one born of God withholds love from another.
But John parallels the reality of being born of God with knowing God. You cannot have one without the other. Those who are born of God are those who know God, and those who know God are those who have been born of God.
We talked about this a few weeks ago, but to “know God” has a relational and intellectual aspect to it. It’s a term that highlights obtaining knowledge (I know that 2+2=4). So, I know that Jesus died for my sins. I know that Jesus rose from the dead. I know that my sins can be forgiven through Jesus. However, it can also be used within a relational context. As a husband knows his wife in a way that no one else in this world knows her, we can intimately know God. So, to know Jesus is to intellectually know about Jesus and relationally know Jesus. Knowing Jesus means understanding who he is and what he came to do for you on the cross. But it is also to embrace him as your Lord and Savior. It’s knowledge that seeps from the mind into the heart; it’s knowledge that impacts your affections and desires. Knowing Jesus means I understand what He did on the cross for me, and I give my life to Him.
John is, therefore, saying that Christian love is fruit of a relationship with Jesus. The deeper we grow in our understanding of God, the more loving we should become. The longer we walk with Jesus, the more we should walk like Jesus. Gospel doctrine leads to gospel practice. A relationship with a loving God should shape us into loving people.
The fruit of the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life is found in your willingness to love. The deeper we grow in our understanding of God, the more loving we should become.
This reminds me of Jesus’ conversation with the lawyer who sought to put Jesus to the test by asking, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus responds with his own question, “What is written in the law?”
The lawyer responds, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and will all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus says, “Bingo! Do this, and you will live.”
But then the lawyer responds, “Well, who is my neighbor?”
Jesus responds with a story.
He says a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, was stripped of his clothes, beaten, and left half dead. Then a priest walks by and passes by on the other side. Then a Levite walks by and passes by on the other side. Then a Samaritan walks by and has compassion. He went to him, treated his wounds, took him to an inn, and cared for him. Then the next day, he leaves money with the innkeeper and says, “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”
Jesus asked the lawyer, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”
The lawyer said, “The one who showed him mercy.”
And Jesus said, “You go, and do likewise.”
So, to love one another is to have a heart full of compassion. To love one another is to show others mercy. Those who know God know love. They know the extreme measure He has gone to demonstrate His love to us and are willing to walk out that type of love to others.
THE CROSS, THE GREATEST DISPLAY OF LOVE
John says, “[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.”
How do we know God is loving? We know he’s loving because of God's extreme measure he’s taken to make things right for us. The cross is the defining point of God’s love. It shows us just how much God loves us. There is no greater display of love than the act of willingly laying your life down for those you love.
Notice what John is saying here. The eternal God, who is love, manifested (exposed, made visible) his love to us by sending his Son to the cross for us. God sent His Son to the cross so that we might go free; He sent His Son to die so that we might live through him! He sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins!
The New Testament uses the term propitiation only within the context of the cross. It’s a term of sacrifice, a term of offering, a term of atonement. It’s always used within the context of atoning for sins. It’s the same term used in chapter 2, when John says, “He (Jesus) is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” In Romans 3:25, Paul uses a similar term: "whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” Similarly, the author of Hebrews says, “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation (hilaskomai) for the sins of the people.”
So, making Jesus a propitiation for our sins was an act of love. It was God’s loving act of sending his Son to absorb his just wrath toward the sin that you rightfully deserved. The cross is where God’s mercy, justice, love, and wrath all collide. Jesus’ death completely satisfied God's wrath. The wrath that should have been poured out on you was poured out on Jesus. Jesus lovingly came to die in your place.
When we question whether or not we’re loved in this life, we look no further than the cross. The atoning work of Christ on the cross is far greater than you could ever imagine. Jesus Christ is the propitiation of our sins, which is the declaration of God’s love for you and me.
“[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.” The economics of God’s kingdom are where the vertical impacts the horizontal. God’s love for you should impact how you love others. The love we have received in Christ enables and empowers us to love. Recipients of God’s love become extenders of God’s love. God abides in us and we in him, leading us to live out Christ-like love. It’s the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So, although we’ve never seen God, we can see his love displayed through the love we show one another.
The word perfected here means to bring something to completion or maturity. So, in the same way that muscles grow through use, our love is matured when lived out. We don’t become stronger by thinking about the gym; we grow stronger through the activities done at the gym. In the same way, God’s love is refined and strengthened through the action of love.
So, do you want to become more loving? Pray that God will give you more opportunities to work out the muscle of Christian love. Do we want to become a more loving church? Pray that God will give us more opportunities to work out the muscle of Christian love.
When we live out the gospel, the gospel is displayed. When we walk in Christ-like love, God’s love is displayed. Walking in love is a tangible way to let others see God in this life. May we represent him well!