"...if you are seen as some stoic, unemotional Christian, I submit to you it is difficult for you to convey the Love of God in this antiseptic fashion."
[This message is part of a series through the book of 1 John, entitled "Salvific Assurance Through Testimony," preached by Pastor Senter].
- Knowing people are difficult and still learning how to get along with them.
- Knowing people are difficult and still giving them the love of Christ that is in you.
- Knowing people are lost and giving them Jesus for salvation.
- Knowing people are false prophets and giving them the gospel of the one true God for their redemption from damnation.
We have recently reviewed all of these subjects, and all of these things have to deal with one aspect of the Christian life that we will discuss today. The subject of today is the love of God. We will discuss His vast love for us in the provision of His son, in the provision of His salvation, in the provision of His grace, and in the provision of His love.
Look at 1 John 4:7 please. These are the very verses that people turn to when we see the love of the apostle John in its full glory. We love. We love through strength. We love through deed. We love through association. The differing facets of love that we see and know on earth can do nothing compared to the love of God.
On my computer love is defined as “deep affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, intimacy, endearment, attachment, devotion, adoration, doting, idolization, worship, passion, ardor, desire, lust, yearning, infatuation, and besottedness.” The antonym is hatred. In one dictionary, I found this definition for the noun “1. The god or goddess of love: a Venus. b. Cupid or Eros. 2 (in belief of Christian Scientists) God.” Interestingly enough, the references to Venus and Cupid were under a heading where “god” is spelled with a little “g” while the Christian Scientist’s reference (something else we should discuss later) at least has a capitol “G” as, in the one God. In another dictionary I have (it is an encyclopedic dictionary), there are 51 different words, and compound words that use the word “love” in the beginning of it. From “lovability,” to “loving-kindness”–they are all listed, it seems. We have some of the greatest human writers of all time attempting to describe love. Edgar Allen Poe wrote, “But we loved with a love that was more than love.” I even found scripture quoted as a form of love, in the negative. John 5:42 (“But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you”) is quoted under “the kindly feeling or benevolence of God for His creatures, or the referent devotion due from them to God, or the kindly affection they should have for each other.” God is capitalized and the pronouns, where attributed to God, are capitalized. Under “to fall in love,” I found Shakespeare quoted: “One that loved not wisely, but to well.” A further subcategory under this is one, tells of a character flaw and weakness where Samuel Johnson is quoted as saying, “It is commonly a weak man who marries for love.” Even man knew this truth. I even found one word and definition I had never heard before (this may scare you)–”love-bombing.” Love-bombing is defined as “the practice of overwhelming potential recruits into a cult with a show of warm fellowship, concern, and affection.” This strikes fear into me in a number of ways. Here again we find man distorting the truth of God to a point where now we even have a word for the loving, caring, worship and fellowship of believers being changed into something which is characterized negatively. The care and appreciation, the love and affection, the desire to be with those who have, depict, and radiate the love of God has been twisted into something ungodly – and now society warns against the behavior.
Today we look at pure love. Today we look at pure things, today we look at the Originator of love, and we look at love itself and its original splendor.
I. Love is of God (verse 7)
A “Tim’s translation” again for you: “Beloved we may love one another because the love from God exists, and everyone who is loving is born out of the God and he (the one born out of God) is knowing God.” The first section of this verse tells us that the only reason or way we can love one another is through a capacity for love that is driven into us from the outside. We love only because the love from God exists. It is in this existence, in this love, in the ability of our great God to project this love through us that we have the capacity to love.
The second area we come to deals with everyone who is born of God. If our capacity to love exists only because of God, and it is given to us from God, then everyone who does have the capacity to truly love, give agape love, is from or out of God. Since, in order to truly love God you have to know Him, then you have to understand His purpose and how He operates at some level. Logically, if you love as God loves, you are born of God, and you know God. You say, “What does all this mean, then? Aren’t you just running around in circles, loving everything?” Think about the chain of events that has to take place here for this love to happen in an individual.
- First, you have to acknowledge that you are not all that there is to the world. God first shows His grace to you in this one way. You realize that the world does not revolve around you, and you are not the center of everyone else’s universe. The first thing we have to do is to humble ourselves and admit there is something out there that is bigger than we are.
- Second, we have to admit that if we are going to have a life full of meaning, if our life is actually going to count for something, then we have to look at something bigger than ourselves for guidance on how to get there. What is bigger than man, in which man can seek to find meaning in his life? If you ask another human being, they will give you their concept of it. What does that mean, except that someone else has a different idea or opinion than you? We must seek something outside ourselves to see true potential in life as a whole. What is the purpose of mankind anyway?
- Third, in recognizing that not only you, but also no other human being can provide you with the answers to life and love, we have to seek God. We are then compelled to seek Him. When we look through scripture, one must recognize how completely bereft, and incapable of achieving perfection, how much below the mark of Holiness and the true meaning of love man really is. Then we ask, “How can I achieve this holiness? How can I find that which God would have me do? How can I achieve a level of existence where I can be in the presence of God? God is perfect, God is holy, God hates sin, I have sinned, I am unholy, and I am imperfect. How can I (or anyone else) meet these standards?”
- Fourth, if God is perfect and His love is perfect, what is the difference between that love and the love we see here on earth? Is there a difference? How can I attain His level of perfect love?
- Fifth, if God’s love is different from my imperfect love, can I attain that level of perfect love? How can I achieve it, show it, display it, and practice it? How do I appropriate it in order to be able to exercise it, if it is not already within my abilities to do so?
We get the answers to these questions and many more when we study this passage and the passages that follow. From the moment people actually humble themselves to God and begin a life orienting themselves more and more to Him, that person is on a road to a far more rewarding life. Once humility kicks in, one can ask what the meaning of life is and seek it outside of mankind, seek it from God, and finally get some real answers. Once one seeks life’s meaning from God, they begin to learn of God and His purposes. Once we see the perfection of God, we recognize that the only atonement and equalizer for our sin is a perfect sinless sacrifice to bring us into fellowship with God. We can only meet His holy standards with a pure and holy sacrifice.
The only way that His standard is achieved is in the Person of Jesus Christ the Righteous. When we see His living atonement, we realize the full weight and magnitude of sacrifice out of love. Then, at that moment, we receive a glimpse into the splendor of pure unmitigated, unabridged, unhindered love. Our first effort then, must be to obey (John 14:15). We see and realize the need we have to love the one Who first loved us enough to atone for our wretchedness. We must first seek to love Him, so He can love through us. We see our depravity, accept Jesus Christ as our Savior from sin and death, and then we begin to actuate our love for Him in obedience to His commandments. As we submit to Him out of love, we begin exercising the love that is born of God. In this, we know Him.
It starts with humility, it continues with salvation, and then it never ends. The love of God is ever-present in the Christian. God’s love knows all things, sees all things, and understands all things. Do you love Him enough to even seek to learn of Him?
What, you might ask, is the opposite of this? Who is the person who cannot love?
II. Love not of God (verse 8)
One who is not loving has not known God, because God is love. Here we see the direct contrast to the call to love, and an explanation of love in the first verse we studied. It is simple actually. If God is love, and He is in you because you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, then you have love in you. You love, because God in you loves. If God is in you and you now exhibit true, godly love because of Him, it is because you, nor anyone else, can contain God. Neither you, nor anyone on earth or in heaven is capable of containing God and holding Him in check. He is unstoppable. For this reason, we see the equity of the converse logic: if you do not love, the love of God cannot exist in you. There can be no way in which God can be within anyone who does not love. Again, this love is the self-sacrificial love, the love that gives without expectation of recompense, reimbursement, reparation, compensation, or remuneration. This is a giving of one’s self without consideration of cost or return. Just as you cannot love in this fashion without God, the inability to love in this fashion shows you do not have God. Having and accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, having and accepting the indwelling Holy Spirit, having and accepting the gift born of the love of God in your life–this can give you the capacity to love as God loves. Equally, without any of these things there is no capability in any human being to be this loving. There is always something tied to man’s love.
One might say,”How about the person who gives their entire life to serve children or people in foreign countries. This is a true servant who gives of himself tirelessly and without reservation. This, surely, qualifies.” The question is, who is it for? If you ask, either he will enjoy it (for his enjoyment), or he wants to do something worthwhile with his life (for his own legacy), or because he is compelled to serve those in need (to fulfill a compulsion to serve). The issue is not that he is serving, it is whom he is serving for; and can it be a selfless act without serving God. The answer is no – it cannot be selfless unless it is a response to a love that is recognized as being selfless. The act has to be a selfless one in the onset, and as a continuance. Only God, who has everything He needs, can actually give us in a sense something for nothing. He has done so with salvation.
Selflessness can only be born from selflessness. We are self-oriented and therefore cannot originate a selfless service without first receiving a perfect and selfless love.
The reason this selfless love cannot come from man, is because man is not God and God is Love.
III. God is love (verse 9)
Now we can grasp the totality of this statement. John opens verse nine with a typical Johannine comment “in this.” It is a phrase that John uses 14 times in this epistle alone. We find it in 2:3-5 and 3:24, where we read “and hereby we do know” speaking of how we can confidently say we know Jesus Christ (when we keep His commandments), and how this testifies of the truth in us. We find it again in 3:10 where the children of God are shown, made visible through their testimony. Equally, the children of the devil are realized and made known by what they do. This testimony is also found “in this” giving of our desires of life for one another in 3:16. We find in 3:19 the testimony of the truth in our hearts. The phrase “in this” also shows the aptitude of a spirit of God indwelling a believer of Christ Jesus in 4:2, as opposed to the unbelieving spirit, which will not confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. In the verse we are studying right now, we find “in this” telling us that the things of God are visible in us. Others see through us that God has sent His only begotten Son to die for us.
The operative question John is continually asking throughout this epistle is evident in this discussion: “Is the love of God evident in your daily operation and walk in life? Do others see God’s pure love in you? Are you changing because of the salvation of Christ Jesus?” The Gnostics keep telling John’s people that the more you know, the closer you are to heaven. In many ways, I could care less how much you think you know theologically. I want you to know the love of God in your life. If your individual cogitations concerning scripture and the great God we serve drive you to contention and conceit, your thoughts are worthless. You need God’s love in your life, and you need to get right with Him to experience His mercy and Grace before you can consider the deeper thoughts of God. Your personal intellectualism does nothing for your salvation, except hinder it.
Note that the phrase “in this” is normally accompanied by a specific condition.
A. Love Revealed
Here in verse nine we find this condition is something visualized, revealed, or made known. The word “manifest” presents the perfect picture as this thing, this love, is shown, demonstrated, or presented for all to see. The love that God is has been brought into the world by His Son. Then His Son displays it through you. The operation involves four parts:
- God the Father’s love for you
- God the Son’s salvation to you
- God the Holy Spirit’s work in you, and
- Your testimony in the world
Ladies and gentlemen, if you are seen as some stoic, unemotional Christian, I submit to you it is difficult for you to convey the Love of God in this antiseptic fashion. You must be living it. I see so many during each day that want to implement scripture in their lives, but they forget the first condition and the reason scripture is given to us – out of the love of a great God. Scripture is given to us so that we can know Him. Scripture is given to us to help us to know what it is we are supposed to obey, and therefore to love Him. Scripture is not given to us so that we can contemplate the intricacies of the vastness of the power of God. Nor is it given to us so that we can say we know God, and therefore shut everyone else off. Scripture is given to us to show how much God loves us, and what extensive perfection we need to receive in order to be with Him. In this, we realize the gap between Him and us, and then we see the provision for this gap and the love that provided it. In this is the love of God therefore given to us – that even with the immense imperfection that we are, Jesus Christ still came here for us, out of His love.
I have made it a point here that I want smart Christians in this congregation. I believe we are well on the road to that level of intellectual development and understanding in the scriptures. However, at what point in time have you ever heard me detract from the one supreme element of the Christian existence – the love of God? Love, ladies and gentlemen is the element we are discussing here, and it is the beginning of Christianity, according to John. If you over-intellectualize and drop love out of the picture, your faith is worthless. Satan knows more than you or I ever could about these scriptures, yet he is destined for eternal damnation.
I received a note about a blog the other day that was discussing abortion, death of the unborn, and death of children. Here is what one comment said in response to a covenant theologian:
“I think people have good ethical grounds for being suspicious of a religion that teaches that babies, who have not developed the kind of agency necessary for moral responsibility, are damned eternally.
Such an idea, tantamount to positing a God who creates helpless creatures solely for the purpose of eternally tormenting them, is morally repugnant.
Reformed theology in particular has taken within itself some unhealthy emphases and doctrinal positions from its Augustinian heritage. It is fruitful to compare Western teaching on original sin with the Orthodox church, especially since the Orthodox churches does broadly represent the “consensus” among early Christians. I am writing a review of “Light from the Christian East,” which will be published here at SI (I think), and I hope it will generate some fruitful discussion of topics like this.”
My response was that this was, “Interesting, heady, and altogether devoid of scriptural reference.” In fact it seriously leans upon man’s rationalization – one that would actually lead to and has in many cases (Darwin for example) led to a disdain for God because of a perceived thoughtlessness concerning those incapable of contemplation or self-realization. These people are too smart for their own good. God calls us to a childlike faith. Not that we should not know Him, but that our knowledge of Him should never be counted as having some extra-salvific power. It is by FAITH that ye are saved through GRACE– not of our own works – works that include study and intellectual contemplation. HE saves US. WE do not save HIM. He is real, whether we think He is or not. Man did not make God, God made man.
What is the point you might ask? Love is the point. He loved us and therefore we can love Him. What is the point? The point is that the intellectuals of today have some extremely smart- sounding answers to things; but they amount to nothing compared to the vastness of our great God. The smartest person in the world is not going to be able to sustain his life outside the limits of science; and that life will probably not be sustained by the smartest person in the world. There is only a temporary, temporal existence here for that person. Then there is eternal torment.
Just as everything else in nature does, scripture glorifies God. We have to know scripture in order to live a life for God.
B. Living Love
How then do we live love? We have already been studying how we do this. The paramount thing we do is to find a way to give up all our own desires for the sake of another. We die to ourselves daily for God, in this love for Him. We also find a capacity to do the same for those around us. When we sin, God in heaven only sees the Son we have accepted as our Savior. On earth, when someone sins against us, we should only see the Savior Who died for us, and died for them. Both of us, God and man, look at the same thing, in the same fashion, for the same reason – salvation. Not that God the Father needs salvation, but He sees us through the Savior. We look to the Son for salvation, and God looks at His Son because of the Salvation wrought through Him. Living love therefore is living a life of forgiveness one for another.
We must forget the petty differences we have with one another. We must drop our over-intellectualizing and divide on grounded principles in scripture. I am not advocating some ecumenical thing; I am talking about one to another, not ministry to ministry. If you think you have license to get out of loving someone because of something you find in scripture, you have failed the test of Salvation. Because one who hates his brother is a murderer, and the love of God cannot abide in him. If you are so intellectual as to be like 99% isopropyl alcohol on someone’s spiritual day, theologically you are missing the whole point of scripture, and the new covenant in Christ Jesus. You cannot use scripture as an excuse to hate. People are doing this in the extreme, with the KJV-only controversy today. People were doing this with amillenialism and premillennialism in the 1700′s. These are fool’s games. While we bicker about these foolish things, Satan is laughing.
We have to find ways to forgive and love. We can get back to this in a proper fashion, but it is going to take work and time. You must give up your desires and love as God first loved you.
How do you know you are actuating the love of God in your life? People see it in you. People ask you what you have that is so different. People ask about God in you.
We will continue these thoughts in our next post.
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