God is Love: God’s Love Completed

1 John 4:7-12 God is Love (God’s Love Completed) Introduction: Almost all people agree, whether religious or not, that if there is a God, he is an all loving being. But where do people get this idea from? You wouldn’t arrive at that conclusion by simply looking at the natural world around you. There seems to be more chaos, hatred and evil in the world, than peace, harmony and love. What about in the ancient religions of the world? What do they say about a god of love? Well, all ancient religions, if they believed in a god, believed that he was a wrathful god who needed to be appeased through sacrifice and gifts. I have an Egyptian friend named Sammy Tanagho who has a ministry to Muslims, and he wrote a book titled: “Glad News! God loves you, My Muslim friend”. He used this title for the shock value because love is not a characteristic of the Muslim’s god. So, again, where do people get this idea of a loving God from? Any religion or worldview that has a concept of a God of love borrowed it from the Bible. The Bible alone tells us that God is Love! 1. God is Love a. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” i. John gives us an exhortation, let us love one another. Why, because love is from God ii. Now John’s purpose is not simply to make a statement about God’s nature, but is more to show us the origin of all love. iii. Love flows from or out of God and has God as it’s spring or source. 1. One commentator argues that all love, whether Christian or non-Christian, emanates from God. In other words all love, even the smallest capacity comes by the grace of God. It is because all men have been created in the image of God and therefore have a capacity to love, it is therefore a result of common grace that non-believers can demonstrate even this incomplete kind of love. a. But John’s claim here that everyone who loves is born of God and knows God does not include this incomplete kind of Love. b. He is referring to a particular kind of love that is found only in those who have been regenerated (born again) by Christ. iv. Three observations of John’s statement that God is love: 1. Its background is the Jewish understanding of God as living, personal, and active, rather than the greek concept of deity which was abstract in character. 2. To assert comprehensively that God is love does not ignore or exclude the other attributes of his being to which the Bible as a whole bears witness: notably his justice and mercy. 3. There is a tendency in some modern theologies to transpose the equation “God is love” in to the reverse, “Love is God.” But this is not a Johannine or biblical idea. As John makes absolutely clear in this passage, the controlling principle of the universe is not an abstract quality of “Love,” but a sovereign, living God who is the source of all love, and who (as love) himself loves. - Smalley a. “ It is true that the words ‘God is love’ mean not that loving is ‘only one of God’s many activities’ but rather that ‘all his activity is loving activity’ and that therefore if he judges, he judges in love. Yet, if his judging is in love, his loving is also in justice. He who is love is light and fire as well. Far from condoning sin, his love has found a way to expose it (because he is light) and to consume it (because he is fire) without destroying the sinner, but rather saving him. - John Stott v. Now, since God is love and all love derives from him as it’s source and origin, John concludes that everyone who loves, that is, God or neighbor with that selfless devotion which alone is true love, has been born of God, and knows God (meaning in fellowship/relationship with God) and whoever does not love, it is because they have never known God. 1. Again, it is ridiculous to think that someone could or does claim to know God and does not have the character of God working in their life. As John has already said, this person is self deceived, they are in darkness. 2. God has Loved a. “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. 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.” i. Not John qualifies the love that he is speaking about. The biblical definition of love is not subjective. ii. The last time John spoke about the Love of God, he spoke about Christ laying down his life for us. He pointed to this self giving action of love. 1. But here John points us to the great love of the Father in giving us his one and only Son. a. The term “only son” is the greek word “Monogenes” and is used in scripture to point to the uniqueness and precious value of the child. There is no other. b. “Every time this term is used in scripture the stress is not on the fact that the person was begotten of the father or mother concerned, but on the fact that the father or mother had only one child, and that child was the one who was so sadly affected” -Brown iii. What John is pointing out to us is the costliness of God’s love. His Son was of invaluable cost, and yet “he freely gave him up for us”. 1. “No greater gift of God is conceivable because no greater gift was possible.” - John Stott 2. The Cost is even greater when we think of what he gave his Son for and what he went through; the humiliation of the incarnation, the life of a poor working class man, a life of obscurity, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, who was born to bear our sins, sickness and disease, who goes around preaching and healing, followed by a not so pleasing to the eye crowd, he is then betrayed by one of his closest friends, mocked, beaten, spit upon, his beard is plucked out, he is flogged, falsely accused, and then dies the most humiliating excruciatingly painful death; death by crucifixion. Dying, homeless, penniless and friendless. For what? That we might live through him! That he might be the atoning sacrifice for sin. a. Paul thinks soberly when he says, “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” i. Think about your children, if you have them. Can you imagine giving your child up to that kind of life even to save the best person? No, of course not! Again as John said earlier this kind of love is not from earth, it is other worldly! ii. To love like God is costly. And it is not possible without the Spirit of God in us. It is not possible to have love like this if we aren’t connected to the source and origin of all love. This is a deep, deep, love, that John speaks about. 3. God does Love a. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” i. Again, just like John instructed us when talking about Christ laying down his life for us, he says we ought to love one another in the same way that God has loved us. 1. Since God so loved us, there is an obligation resting upon us to love one another. ii. But John has already made this argument in this epistle, so what is he really getting at? iii. Well it’s here that John says something so different, and almost crazy! 1. God’s love which originates in himself and was manifested in giving his son, is made complete in his people iv. He reminds us, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” 1. John says something very similar in his Gospel, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” a. So if God is unseen, and Jesus (the one who made the unseen God known) is no longer here on earth, how do people come into contact with the living God in the year 2013? How can God be known? b. John has just told us - he is known through his people’s love for each other. c. That is, the unseen God, who once revealed himself in his Son, now reveals himself in his people if and when they love one another. God’s love is seen in their love because their love is his love imparted to them by his Spirit. i. This means that when people see the church or come to our services they should be surprised, and curious about our faith because our love for one another is not only great, but unique! ii. John is really not interested in the obligation to love one another for its own sake, but because it is the sign that God lives in us. 2. Love is our witness to the world, it is that true light that is already shinning, evidence of God’s coming kingdom! It is God’s billboard to the world that he is alive, and his kingdom on earth is being established! a. Remember the words of Jesus, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” 3. The circuit of God’s love is completed when we love one another. God’s love achieves it’s desired end. The living God is made known as we love one another. Conclusion: As I said earlier any idea of a God of love found in any religion or worldview has been borrowed from the Bible, and it was borrowed as they saw the early church in action. “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” -Acts 4:32-35 Tertullian reported that the Romans would exclaim, “See how they love one another!” Justin Martyr sketched Christian love this way: “We who used to value the acquisition of wealth and possessions more than anything else now bring what we have into a common fund and share it with anyone who needs it. We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies.” When a devastating plague swept across the ancient world in the third century, Christians were the only ones who cared for the sick, which they did at the risk of contracting the plague themselves. Meanwhile, pagans were throwing infected members of their own families into the streets even before they died, in order to protect themselves from the disease. It's no wonder that Christianity spread rapidly throughout the ancient world, even though there were few organized missionary or evangelism programs. The love they practiced drew the attention of the world, just as Jesus said it would. I feel so convicted lately that I need to align myself, my thinking, my action with the scriptures. What I mean is that we often have a way in which we dumb down the teaching of the Bible, we modernize it, or soften it, but when we do this we rob it of it’s power! The radical demands of the Gospel and the New Testament are radical because they are from God. They are not our way of living, thinking, or acting, they are God’s way! My prayer is that we would examine our lives in light of this teaching with these two questions: 1. Do I love my brothers in sisters in Christ in a way that makes the world wonder, and ask about my Faith? Do I love with God’s costly love? 2. If not, by God’s Spirit at work in me how can I change? How or in what ways can I love my brothers and sisters like God has loved me?