An Incarnational, Missional People
“Becoming Fearless & Risky”
1 John 4:7-21
Patrick Henry Hughes is 18 years old. He was born without eyes and without the ability to straighten his arms and legs and consequently cannot walk. Despite these circumstances Patrick has overcome these limitations and has been able to excel in music. Patrick began playing the piano at 9 months. Today he even performs in the University of Louisville marching band as a trumpet player. He participates in the band formations and marching routines with the help of his dad, also named Patrick.
Patrick the dad works nights at UPS so that he can spend his daytime hours with Patrick the son, assisting him with college life where he is a straight “A” student and the marching band where dad pushes the son in a wheelchair in order to perform all of the band formations.
I was introduced to the Hughes father and son duo a week ago when I attended a leadership conference where young Patrick played the piano and sang.
Yes, Patrick the younger is unusually gifted in music but he is especially gifted with a loving father and mother. Patrick’s parents have not just loved him with words and encouraging pats on the back. They have worked hard and sacrificed extensively so that Patrick could have a full and meaningful life.
The love of Patrick’s parents has been “fuel” for him overcoming being blind and crippled.
All of us are spiritually blind and crippled and without hope for eternal life except for the sacrificial gift of God’s love. The question is, “Do you know how loved you are?”
Knowing in your head that God loves you doesn’t make much difference. For God’s love to fuel and propel your life you must know it experientially.
The Apostle John reveals to us how central to life and empowering the love of God is to us.
[read 1 John 4:7-21]
This section begins with the salutation, “Dear friends.” Literally the translation from Greek is “Dear ones who are greatly loved.” We have several verses to examine but we could profitably spend all of our time on this opening phrase.
God is a great lover. However, love is a relational experience. If I don’t receive and live in God’s love then its vast power has a diminished impact upon me. It raises the question, “Why would anyone be slow to receive the love of God?”
Perhaps there are many reasons. Allow me to mention 3:
1. Sin. Choosing to sin puts a relational and spiritual distance between me and God. He’s holy and sin free. He abhors sin though He loves me. Now if my heart desires to repent and to be forgiven and free from sin God is faithful to work in me to deliver me from sin. We discovered that in 1:9.
2. Disappointments and wounds. Many of us have experienced hard things in life. Some of you had neglectful homes. Others were abused in some way. A few have had tragic chapters in life. Disappointments and wounds can inhibit or discourage me from trusting God and drawing near to Him. If I’ve been wounded by trusting others in my past then I’m going to be reluctant to trust God and draw near to him.
3. Intellectual bias. In America and particularly the Northwest, some of us have seen Christianity lived out by a few who appear to have “parked” their brain and put their emotions into overdrive. Their emotionalism and lack of asking hard questions about faith can lead to a conclusion that one must take a leap of faith into the unknown and unexamined in order to follow God. In truth, God commands us to experience Him with both our heart (emotions) and mind. I often refer to Lee Strobel around here. He was formerly a reporter and award winning writer for the Chicago Tribune who was an atheist. Through the example of his wife Strobel was challenged to intellectually ask all of the hard questions about Christianity and as a result he not only became a believer in Christ but subsequently wrote several books that engage the intellect for others seeking Christ.
The point is, you are someone who is greatly loved by God. Have you received that love? Is it impacting and changing your life?
John says, “Dear ones who are greatly loved, love one another.”
As we’ve carefully defined love over these weeks you are now well aware that love is not primarily a feeling but primarily a way of behaving and treating others. John is not exhorting us to have warm and fuzzy feelings for others. He is exhorting us to behave around others in loving ways.
If someone is lonely love looks like friendship and companionship.
If someone is needy, love looks like meeting their needs.
If someone is burdened, love looks like helping to bear their burden.
If someone is hurt, love looks like caring and being a part of God’s healing.
John wants to make sure we get it so John defines love when he says, “This is love…God…sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (4:10)
God loved us by sending Jesus as an “atoning sacrifice” (NIV). The literal word is propitiation (gk: hilasmos; appeasing). Propitiation is an offering to appease an angry God. We cannot forget that God is holy and that sin is so repugnant to Him that He pours out His wrath upon sin and sinners.
Our salvation is being saved from God’s wrath. Many 21st century westerners don’t like to acknowledge that God has wrath. We want to only attribute love to God. But God is both loving and just. Therefore God must respond to the injustice of sin. God has poured out His wrath upon Jesus who was the propitiation.
If we look through a piece of red glass, everything is red. If we look through a piece of blue glass, everything is blue. If we look through a piece of yellow glass, everything is yellow, and so on.
When we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, God looks at us through the Lord Jesus Christ. He sees us in all the white holiness of his Son. Our sins are imputed to the account of Christ and his righteousness to our account (The Expositor’s Illustration File).
So, let’s get clear. You can’t love others well without God’s love effectively received into your own heart. You don’t have enough fuel or power in your life to love others.
Oh, you may have a good bit of fuel to love easy to love people; people who are like you and reciprocate the love. But Christ followers are called to love everyone and most everyone is hard to love. Certainly it is hard to love others well for long periods of time, like years.
How important is “loving others”? Can someone just believe in Jesus and try to be a good person and be okay? John says no. John says that if you don’t love others well, then you don’t know God.
“Does not know God” reveals that “loving others” is not optional. You can’t accept a few propositional truths about God or Jesus and be okay. To have relationship with God means that your life is changing so that you love as God loves. If that is not happening John says you don’t know God.
But you may be thinking, “I believe that Jesus is the savior and I have special feelings in my heart about God. I know that I’m saved but I’m not out there loving people like you’re describing.”
Then I would invite you to compare what Jesus said in John 15:6 where knowing God is likened to a branch abiding in a vine. If the branch is not connected to the vine it is cast off and burned. So, one is either abiding in Christ (evidenced by loving others) or one is disconnected, cast off (evidenced by not loving others) and headed to the fire pit. (John Piper, sermon given on 5/18/1985)
John said, “Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (4:11, NIV)
This “oughtness” is not an external factor but internal. The “oughtness” is birthed by the gratitude one has for how we have been loved by God.
God has done a deep work of healing and restoration within me concerning loss and grief. I experienced losses in my parent’s divorce and in the death of my brother during our childhood. My heart is drawn toward others who experience various kinds of losses or wounds because of the hope I have for their healing and restoration. The “oughtness” I feel about reaching out and caring for those in loss comes out of my heart; not through a “white knuckling” forced action.
How then does one go about knowing God and loving others?
The word John used in 4:7 is “beloved”. Receive and live in the love of God.
The word John used a lot in chapter 3 is “practice”. Children of God practice righteousness (right living) and practice loving others.
Let me encourage you to not waste your small group experiences by simply being pleasant or quiet or suppressing your true feelings about issues and challenges. Take a risk to risk being vulnerable and sharing something personal. Take a risk and love someone with a little challenge or confrontation.
I’ve been a part of small groups for the past 17 years. I’ve had people lovingly ask me, “Are you loving your wife and children well right now? Are you working too much? Are you angry about that? Is your heart getting hard? Do you really think you have God’s guidance about this matter?”
Listen, I want those kinds of questions and confrontations in my life. Those people weren’t being harsh or “holier than thou” or judgmental. They loved me enough to be concerned about the state of my soul. If you’re wise you’ll invite that kind of scrutiny in your life and you’ll lovingly offer it to others.
John said, “If we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.” (4:12, NIV) The NASB says “His love is perfected in us.” The idea is not that God’s love was incomplete or less than perfect and then we came along and everything became completely perfect. Rather, God’s love is in process and when we receive His love and then begin to use that love and love others, the process becomes complete or finished. It reaches the conclusion that God is looking for.
And, when we live in Christ and love others well, when “love is made complete among us…we will have confidence on the day of judgment. Perfect love drives out fear…” (4:17-18, NIV)
If you have been a part of at least two or three weeks of this series from 1 John then you’ve noticed a lot of reference to assurance of one’s salvation. John’s church members have been shaken about their faith and security in Christ. John’s purpose is to clarify and solidify what legitimate life connection with God looks like.
Back to the vine analogy, when one is connected to the vine and bearing the fruit of loving relationships, one has confidence about relationship with God and one has no fear about facing God on judgment day. Does that describe you?
Conclusion
I know of a woman who lives close to a penitentiary. Both the guards and inmates are on her heart. She prays for what goes on behind the barbed wire fencing. Several times a week she drops by the penitentiary with sandwiches or fresh baked cookies with the hope of adding a lift to their day. When asked why a wife and mother of school age children makes regular visits to the penitentiary she shares in simple ways about Christ in her life.
I know of a man who made some bad choices when he was young and he found himself living on the streets, homeless for about a year. Now older, married and with children he regularly makes some sandwiches or takes some snacks to the areas where homeless people wander around. He does it because he has been so loved by Christ he wants to pass on a simple blessing.
I know a woman who weekly visits a hospice where the patients are all dying of AIDS. She hands out lotions or creams. She sits with the patients, holds their hand, reads a scripture or says a prayer. She’s totally healthy and no one in her family has AIDS. But in her heart she aches for those suffering because they are alienated, alone, losing their children and dying.
I know a business man who simply and only belongs to a professional organization that meets weekly for lunch. Everyone there is for the purpose of networking and drumming up more business. My friend is there because he knows that these business people are climbing success ladders and pursuing money and though they have a lot of stuff, they are bankrupt with respect to heavenly treasure. He’s there to offer friendship and be a light that shows the way to Christ.
These are but a few examples of love in action. They all take time and they are all inconvenient. They all involve some level of risk.
People only take risks when people believe there is something on the other side of the risk worth gaining. Suppose someone placed a tightrope from one side of Niagara Falls to the other and offered, “I’ll give you $1 million if you successfully walk across that tightrope from one side to the other.” Would you take that risk? To tumble into the waters below would mean almost certain death. What if they offered $10 million? Most of us would say no. The risk is too great even for a large sum of money.
But, suppose a bad guy was on the other side of the falls and declared that he would drop your child or grandchild in the waters to their death unless you crossed that tightrope to retrieve your child. Most of us would take the risk even if we were pretty certain we couldn’t make it and would die trying. Why? Because someone we loved was in danger of perishing.
People all around us are perishing. They are dying and leaving this world and facing an afterlife unprepared to meet a holy God. We choose not to think about such things but the fact is that millions of people are hanging over perishing situations. God calls upon those who follow Christ to be His ambassador (Incarnation) and accomplish His mission (missional) in this world. John tells us that to be and do that means that we have to risk walking across tightropes of love to all kinds of people, most of whom are hard to love.
What’s the big deal about loving people? When we carry the love of God to others that becomes the drawing power of God, the woo of God for that person to come to God and receive a new life.
Do you know God?
Are you loving others well?
