All You Need Is Love

All You Need Is Love

1John 4: 7-21 (NLT)

I had approx 10 seconds of the Beatles song all you need is love playing as I moved to the pulpit.

. INTRO: Back in the sixties and seventies, this was the theme. All you need is love. The Beatles had a mega hit with a song titled, all you need is love.

In essence they were right. The type of love that they were promoting was not right but in essence, all we do need is love.

.Look at what the apostle Paul wrote to us and the Corinthian church in 1 Cor. 13: 1-8

. 1If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

3If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

4Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud

5or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

6It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

7Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

8Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!

. Those of you that were in our fan or a follower study that concluded last Sunday night can attest to this.

. What defines a follower of Jesus is Love.

. We are back in 1 John this morning. Probably some of the more well known verses in 1 John.

. This is where we see God being defined as Love.

. 1 John 4:7-21

. 7Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

8But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

9God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.

10This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

11Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.

12No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

13And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.

14Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

15All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.

16We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

17And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

18Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

19We love each other because he loved us first.

20If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

21And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.

. The first thing we see here is that we are:

Commanded To Love

.Look @ verse 7 again.

. 7Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

. “…let us continue to love one another …”

. John writes that we are to continue to love one another.

. This was a command that Jesus gave us.

.In John 13:34-35, John writes

. 34So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.