The Greatest Love

John starts this section with a tone showing his care and affection for these people. Calling them “dear friends”. And as he speaks to them as those he is close with he is also going to challenge them.

He tells them to love one another in 3 different ways. He encouraged them to love one another. He speaks of love as a duty. And he speaks of love as the way we reveal God in us.

We have talked about love throughout this book and what it means. He reminds us here that our example of love is in God, it isn’t just any type of love and it isn’t how we would often describe love. But this love has a source its source in God. That is the example we follow.

Any friend group you are a part of shows love in different ways, it expresses itself different within the context of those we are learning to love from. One group might show love to one another by making fun of one another. Another group might show love by giving gifts. One group might show love by going places and doing things together. Your family teaches you their type of love. Each family shows love in different ways.

God shows us a different type of love. A pure love. Our love is impure. We have the capacity to love because of God, all love comes form God, but our love has been affected by sin. It is incomplete. But if we don’t show this love inside us to others then we can’t claim to know God. Why? Because God speaks to us in love. Let’s say you had a sibling or a parent that was deaf, would you learn sign language? Yes, because that is the way you would communicate with them. To not learn it would mean you wouldn’t really have a relationship with them or love them.

Thus, it isn’t just any kind of “love” that shows us that we remain in God, but only God’s love. A love that only comes from our understanding of God’s grace in Christ.

We get a picture of this love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

“Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

How many of these do you think that you reflect?

God is love

For God to be love means that all His actions are loving actions. If he disciplines, he disciplines in love, if He gives a gift it is a gift from love, if He shows forgiveness it is out of love. There is no “ulterior motive” other than love.

God showed us His love perfectly by sending His Son so that we might have life through His Son. It is an action that shows us the fullness of God’s love for us. It leaves no doubt.

Sending Jesus into the world revealed to us God’s love and is the essence of His love for us. Because it is free and not as a result of the actions out of another. It is purely out of love that God sent Jesus. And not just that He sent His Son but that He sent His son to die for our sins so that we could have life through Him. Jesus atoned for our sins. What doe it mean that Jesus “atoned” for our sins?

It means that our sins have been forgiven and that God’s anger against our sin has been removed. It means that Jesus pleads on our behalf that we may be forgiven of our sins and that He takes our place. That the anger God had against our sin and is put onto Jesus instead. And that our relationship with God is only able to happen because of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf.

We need propitiation

Sin is a disregard for God’s law and deserves judgment

Judgement is divine wrath against sin. It can’t just disappear but must be forgiven and the relationship restored.

Jesus is our propitiation

Jesus died the death we deserved.

It is by His sacrifice, and His alone, that we can go before the Father.

Only by God’s love is this possible

God has from the beginning desired to find ways to restore His relationship with us.

It is only by His gift, that we could not have given, which allowed our sins to be forgiven and for His wrath to be appeased.

Notes on propitiation

God’s wrath is not arbitrary or capricious

It isn’t a passion or vengeful. It is settled and controlled. And the origin of the forgiveness is God’s love. Nor is God reluctant.

What would you think about a person who saw the holocaust taking place and just said, “so be it”? What would you think about a judge who saw your baby being kidnapped and abused and said to the criminal, “that’s okay, try to do better next time!”

You would be horrified at that type of justice. God is understandably angry over evil. He has made a good creation and his creatures have rebelled against him. The world is not as it should be. God must judge sin, and he must judge ALL sin. That is why Jesus had to die.

If God did not have wrath toward sin, he would not be a just God. If God allowed His wrath to consume the whole world, He would be just. But God is not only just. He is also loving. That is why He decided to uphold his justice and his mercy at the same time through Jesus Christ.

Jesus had to die

There was no other way, we can’t do it on our own.

He had to die because that is how much He loves us. It was from love.

But it was even more than that God sent His Son to die for His sins, it is WHO He came to save. Undeserving sinners.

Romans 5:6-8 “For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God sent Jesus to die for those who were unworthy of His love. He sent one of immeasurable worth to die for the undeserving.

Let’s say that someone captured El Chapo, the famous Mexican drug lord who has been estimated to have killed somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 people. And they say “hey, I am going to kill him unless you let yourself be captured by us and I will set him free.” How many of you are letting yourself be captured?

Yet, this tells us, God’s love for us is even more extravagant. Because we are sinners, but Jesus was perfect. And no one sin is greater than another in the eyes of God so whether we are a murderer or a liar we are still deserving of death. Yet God sent Jesus for us.

John says in v. 14 that Jesus is the Savior of the world. That means that He died for all people in all places without any favoritism. He doesn’t love one group of people more than another, or one type of person. All people He loves the same

So what John tells us is that if that is the type of love that God has shown us. Then how can we go back to being selfish and thinking about ourselves when God has shown us such an extravagant love?

It reminds me of the Parable Jesus tells of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18.

Make God’s love complete

So as we look back to God’s love we are called to show others God’s love through the way that we love others. That the God who is unseen was revealed through Jesus and His sacrifice. Now we are called to the same sacrifice of Christ so that others may see the invisible God.

No one can claim to “have seen God” but that does not mean we do not know Him. To say that no one has seen God is just to say that we have not seen God in His fulness. He reveals parts of Himself to us but there are still parts of Him we do not understand. But the parts of His character we do know, like His love, should be shared so that we may know more of Him!

It isn’t that we are called to love “sort of life God loves us”. But it says that God’s love is “made complete in us”. That means that God’s love for us is only completed when we seek to reproduce that love outwardly to others.

1 Peter 3:8-11 “Finally, all of you be like-minded and sympathetic, love one another, and be compassionate and humble, not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult but, on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this, so that you may inherit a blessing. For the one who wants to love life and to see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit, and let him turn away from evil and do what is good. Let him seek peace and pursue it,”

1 Peter 3:17-18 “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,”

See, you cannot love God without also loving others. To love others, as Christ has loved us, is the only way we can reveal we are in Him. To love others as God has loved us is to state we have a personal relationship with God.

John tells us that we have the Spirit that helps us to love others. And He helps us to confess the love that God has had for us.

John makes clear that if we are to act as believers we testify and confess that Jesus is the Son of God. We must have “come to know and believe the love that God has for us.” We must both, have an understanding of how much God loves us and also trust that what God says is true and have faith in it.

The people that you are around, do they know that you are a Christian? How do they know? Have you told them? Would they be able to tell by your actions? Or would they be confused?

Also, if they know you are a Christian. By your actions, what would they believe a Christian is to look like?

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