Loving One Another In First John

LOVING ONE ANOTHER IN FIRST JOHN

I/ WHAT LOVE DOES:

1 John 3:16-18

"Hereby perceive we the love , because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down lives for the brethren. {17} But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? {18} My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."

1. Which is more important loving words or loving deeds ?

2. How do we know God loves us? (First because His word says so, and second because Jesus proved it by His action on the Cross)

II/ WHAT LOVE IS:

1 John 4:7-10

"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. {8} He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God

is love. {9} In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

{10} Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son the propitiation for our sins."

A/ Love is of God - Love comes from God:

"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God"

The best that the unchristian world can do is a union on mutual interests. But love for the unlovely, and for the unloving, sacrificial and lasting is

something supernatural, even superhuman, beyond the comprehension of the unsaved world. This kind of love is strictly and exclusively "of God".

1. Is love a feeling, or an action ?

2. Why should we do a loving thing for another person?

B/ Those who are "born again" love: "and every one that loveth is born of God"

1. God’s life and character necessarily manifest themselves in those who His children "he who loves is born of God". Merely emotional, or intellectual, or

doctrinal, or mystical conceptions of the new birth will not satisfy John (or God).

2. Those who are really spiritual are those who love.

Love defines who the real christians are! As God is righteous, they who do right are born of Him; as love is of the divine nature, so those possessing that nature will show it by loving.

C/ There is no Knowledge of God apart from Love: "and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God"

They alone know God who are willing to learn love, for the loveless heart has never understood what God is like. God’s power, eternity, majesty, wisdom, judgement, may be perceived, and feared: but they will not be fully understood, and God Himself will not be known, except we love. "He who loves... knows God. He who does not love does not know God", it is as plain as that!

D/ Finally, "God is Love":

1. Judaism and Greek philosophy had learned that God is Spirit, Judaism and Gnosticism had learned that God is light, but only Christianity saw the one truth worth all languages in earth or heaven - God is love!

2. John means it is the nature and property of God to be merciful, bountiful, faithful, abounding in grace, over-flowing in loving-kindness, patience, and tender-heartedness, dealing with us in steadfast righteousness, and ever seeking our highest good.

3. Paul says that nothing named in heaven or on the earth can separate us from it - (Rom 8:38-39).

4. All God’s activity is loving activity. If He creates, He creates in love; if He rules, He rules in love; if He judges, He judges in love" He cannot help it: for God is love!

E/ What God is - is learned from what God does: - verse 9 & 10

"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins"

John insists that the initiative is God’s. Love (again) originates in God, and the meaning of love must be deduced from the divine action of God. "For God so loved the world that he gave"

III/ WHAT LOVE DEMANDS:

1 John 4:11-12

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. {12} No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

We would think that he would have gone on to say we ought also to love Him,but he does not. For it is the nature of love to pour itself out for others, and it rests not until it has reproduced itself in those it loves.