Love Everyone?

Loving One Another

1 John 4:7-21

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

Remember when you confessed your sins and invited Jesus Christ into your heart to rule your life? On that day you experienced a radical transformation in which you were born again not of flesh and blood but of the Spirit of God! One of the most important marks and expectations of your transformation is the new found ability to experience and show agape love. While “love” as a religious term is often perceived as being “essentially the love of man for God – that is to say, the insatiable craving of the limited, conditional, and temporal beings for the Infinite, the Absolute, the Eternal,” in 1 John 4:7-12 the standard of love we as Christians are to strive towards is agape or “supernatural love” which only comes from God! Agape love is radically different than romantic, familial or friendship love because it is grounded in God’s nature who loved us so much that even though we would reject Him and become His enemies, even before we were born He chose to send His Son Jesus to die and pay the price for our sins! This is the kind of love that always forgives upon confession and keeps no records of wrongs! This is the kind of love that chooses to see the image of God in one’s brothers and sisters in Christ rather than their deficiencies and in turn love them with the same love one has received from one’s Creator! The following sermon is going to review the reasons why God commanded us to love and one another, how love is a litmus of one’s salvation and how to perfect God’s love within our lives.

Love one Another (7-12)

When asked what the greatest commandment in the Law is, Jesus answered to love God and to love one another (Matthew 22:34-40). In today’s passage John outlines three reasons why we are to love one another. First, we are to love one another because love is part of God’s nature (verse 7). God is spirit (John 4:24), light (1 John 1;15), faithful and just (1 John 1:9) and good; but above all God is love itself. From all eternity God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit by nature are perfect love. When a person is born of God their knowledge, faith and conviction of God’s love is not only established but through the regular feeding of His word and subsequent faithful obedience their love in time will grow and thrive. Since God’s love is poured into the hearts of believers (Romans 5:5), John warned that if you are not a loving person both towards God and one another then this is evidence that you are not born again and do not know God. Since “love to God is a mark which is always set upon Christ’s sheep, and never set upon any others,” it is not possible for an unbeliever to love others with God’s love. Those who are born again however not only have the capacity but the command to share the love they have received from God with one another!

The second reason that we are to love one another is because of God’s gift of salvation through His Son Jesus Christ. He who was in the beginning and the Word (John 1:1), eternally begotten by the Father, chose to atone for humanity’s sins and in doing so paved our way to be reconciled with a holy God (2 Corinthians 5:20-21). Reconciliation is not only granted the moment a person believes in Jesus and makes Him the Lord of their life (Romans 10:9), but an intimate fellowship the Father, Son and Spirit is established (John 3:16-17). This indescribable gift (2 Corinthians 9:15) however comes with the obligation to love one another as Christ first loved us. Those who share in the fellowship of the Trinity do not see the command to love their brothers and sisters in Christ as a burden (1 John 5:3-5), but something owed as a debt (Romans 13:8). It truly is an honor to the best of one’s abilities to share the love one has received from God with other believers! Even though it is tempting to “demonize” believers who have wronged us, this will not lead to our vindication but merely suggest the possibility that we lack appreciation that God saved a nobody like me who deserved hell and that we ourselves may not have been “ravished by the beauty of the Son” and therefore remain lost in our sins.

The third reason we are to love one another is that God continues to show His love towards us! Agape love is not just “to be seen as that which constitutes God’s eternal nature or even that which is revealed definitively in the past history at the cross,” but is to be celebrated as an ongoing, gracious gift from our Creator! God’s love is not present one day and gone the next but is profoundly impacting this world today! Is not faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ still the only way to be a child and know God the Father in heaven (John 14:6)? Are not the prayers of those born of God still powerful and effective (James 5:16)? Do not God’s own still “abide under a shadow of love” and is not His very words still active and sharper than any two edged sword (Hebrews 4:12)? Above all when we cry out Abba Father, do we not still receive answers to prayer and comfort from the Father of all compassion (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)? The answer to all these questions is a provocative YES for God has and will always take care of us, His children! Those who have received every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus their Lord (Ephesians 1:3) though they have not seen God by loving each another they not only experience the presence of God but also leave a profound, unshakeable testimony to this world: hungry sinners can still buy the bread of life without money or cost!