God's Love

God’s Love

1John 4:13-21

I think it’s safe to say that the one thing our world truly needs today is love. Songs are written about it all the time. John Lennon wrote the song “All You Need is Love.” Dionne Warwick made famous the song, “What the Word Needs Now is Love”. And you know what? They’re right, the world needs love. It has always needed love. But as with most of the world’s solutions to the world’s problems, a very important ingredient is always left out. And that ingredient is the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, though we do need love, the love that this world offers isn’t sufficient because it’s inherently selfish. And I say that because the world’s love focuses on worldly people. God is nowhere in their thoughts, only themselves and the fulfillment of their desires.

So, the vast majority of these popular songs that glorify “love” are instilling within us the idea that love is our salvation. Love is what we should earnestly seek after. Love is the ultimate fulfillment of all our hopes and dreams. Love is the cure to life’s problems. Love is what we live for and it’s our ultimate standard. In other words, love is God.

But, as is usually the case, the Word of God contradicts the word of the world, and tells us that “God is love,” not the other way around. This truth is revealed to us in the Bible, but it was also revealed to us on the cross where our Savior died for us. “God is love” isn’t simply a biblical doctrine—it’s an eternal fact, clearly demonstrated on Calvary’s cross.

And when we appropriate the truth that God who is love, demonstrated His great love for us by sending His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins, when the truth of that overwhelms us and we believe in Jesus as our Savior and Lord, then we can also make…

I. Love’s Confession

1 John 4:13-15 13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked someone who claimed to be a Christian, that if they were to die in the next few minutes, would they go to heaven or hell. And the typical response I’d get would be something along the lines of, “Well, I think I’d go to heaven” or “I hope I’d go to heaven.”

And then when I’d tell them that they don’t have to “think” or “hope”, but that they can “know” --they’d get this puzzled look on their face as if this was something they had never heard before. But this is exactly what John is saying right here.

He’s telling us that we don’t have to “hope” that we’re saved, or “hope” that we’ll make it to heaven—we can be assured that this is the case—we can “know” it! We don’t have to wait until after we die to find out—we can know it on this side of eternity!

You see, he had just told us in the previous verse that, 1 John 4:12 …if we love one another, God abides in us. And then he followed this with, 1 John 4:13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

You know, as convenient as the chapter and verse divisions are in our modern Bibles, many times those divisions weren’t placed in the best spot. And because of that, a thought can become broken up and even masked—and this is a perfect example of it.

So, if we remove the verse divisions, it becomes clear then, that if we love one another as Christ commanded us, then God abides in us and His love is perfected in us, and we “know” that we abide in Him because He has given us His Holy Spirit.

The moment we believe in Christ unto salvation, we are baptized in the Holy Spirit of God. For the scripture tells us, 1 Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

And that Holy Spirit baptism places us firmly within the body of Christ, and we abide in Him… we remain in Him. And this isn’t a one-sided thing at all. It’s not like we’re trying to abide in Him, while He’s trying to escape from us. No. Just as we abide in Him… He also abides in us! John 15:4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.