1 John 4:7-21
7 Beloved, let us love one another (in deed and truth), for love (in deed and truth) is from God; and everyone who loves (in deed and truth) is born of God and knows God. 8The one who does not love (in deed and truth) does not know God, for God is love (in deed and truth). 9By this the love of God (in deed and truth) was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10In this is love (in deed and truth), not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us (in deed and truth), we also ought to love one another (in deed and truth). 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another (in deed and truth), God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
14We have seen and testify 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. 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us (in deed and truth). God is love (in deed and truth), and the one who abides in love (in deed and truth) abides in God, and God abides in him. 17By this love (in deed and truth) is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
18There is no fear in love; but perfect love (in deed and truth) casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19 We love (in deed and truth), because He first loved us (in deed and truth). 20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother (in deed and truth) whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also (in deed and truth).
I grew up with parents who had lived through the depression. They had worked hard to save before they could buy anything. Credit was still a new concept and debt was considered dangerous. My parents also thought the Beatles were, as my mom put it, wild boys whose mothers didn’t raise them right. As I grew up I don’t ever remember hearing my dad tell me that he loved me. Mom didn’t tell us those words much either. But I knew without a doubt that they did love me and my brothers and sister. They didn’t have to say it, they demonstrated it clearly to us over and over through dedication, service, discipline, and instruction. The love I experienced from Mom and Dad was love in deed and in truth.
I think it was sometime in the 1970’s when Olivia Newton John recorded one of her first hit songs that echoed the thinking of the changing times. She sang, “I’m not trying to make you feel uncomfortable, I’m not trying to make you anything at all, but this feeling doesn’t come along every day, and you shouldn’t blow the chance, when you’ve got the chance to say… love you, I honestly love you, I honestly love you.”
It was erotic love, sensual love that she was obviously talking about. “This feeling doesn’t come along every day…” “This feeling…” Hmmmm. If my mom and dad had depended on their feelings to generate the deeds and truth kind of love they demonstrated to me and my brothers and sisters… well, life would certainly have been a lot different!
When the Word of God speaks about love, it’s not talking about “this feeling that doesn’t come along every day that you don’t want to blow the chance to say.” It’s not talking about an erotic, sensual, fleshly concept at all. There are words for those things in the Bible, but more often than not, those feeling kinds of words are used to describe an unstable, shallow and self serving sort of experience that comes and goes with the mood swings of life. That “feeling” doesn’t come along every day. In fact, it hardly lasts very long at all. And at times, with some people, it is altogether nonexistent! It’s nice, but it’s fleeting too. That’s not the love we read about here in 1 John.
In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevea’s daughters break tradition and one by one they keep getting farther from the established ways. Finally, his third daughter falls in love with and marries a Gentile. In a poignant scene where she begs her father to accept them Tevea wrestles with this idea saying, “Can I deny my own daughter? But on the other hand, can I deny my faith?” Then finally says, “If I bend that far, I’ll break!” At that point the decision is made and he treats her as if she is dead. He pulls his milk wagon along and walks away ignoring her cries for him to please talk with her. She has stepped outside the boundary of his acceptance, but not the boundaries of his love.
The Prodigal Son left the boarders of his Father’s home and protection, but not the boarders of his Father’s love. When his son comes home, the Father says, “He was dead and is alive again! He was lost and now is found!” The Father recognized his son’s true condition, he saw him as lost and dead… but he never stopped loving him.
Ephesians 2 says that we were dead in our sins and trespasses, but God makes us alive again through his grace in Jesus Christ.
God’s love is so deep and so wide and so long and so high that it surpasses comprehension and human understanding. The boundaries of God’s love extend beyond the boundaries of his acceptance too. His love reaches out to call us back into his acceptance. God’s love is what you see when you look at the cross.
John says it so clearly over and over so we can’t miss it: 9By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
This may well be the most repeated message of the entire New Testament!
Listen to Romans 5: 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. 6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Paul prays in Ephesians 3
14For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
God’s love is the greatest gift we can ever receive! It is also the greatest gift we can ever give to one another, and John makes it clear that it is proof positive of whether or not you are a child of God.
Consider again these words:
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
3: 14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
So, what does this love look like? John 3
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
