THE WHOLE REASON WHOLLY - WE LOVE HIM BUT MUST ALSO LOVE FELLOW BELIEVERS – 1John 4:17-20 PART 2 OF 2
VERSES 17 AND 18. {{1John 4 v 17 “By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment because as He is, so also are we in this world. 1John 4:18 There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”}} It is important to note the start of verse 17 “By this”, which is the abiding in love in God, as covered by the previous verse 16. That’s the floor; that’s the foundation. Imperfect love involves the fear of punishment or of getting into trouble. Will we be fearful about meeting GOD, or of standing at the Judgement Seat of Christ? Will we be uncertain of being fully in the light? Will we be ashamed at His coming, which was the theme of the second last message from this book? If there is any fear, it is because love is imperfect. Love must abide in us.
“Lord Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign;
My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art Thou,
If ever I loved Thee, Lord Jesus, ’tis now.”
“Perfect love casts out fear”. Do you have a cloudless vision of meeting God? Not having a cloud between, a dark cloud that can distort a perfect love. That cloud can be called sin, or unfaithfulness, or selfishness, or “the cloud of other things”, or the cloud of “I will later, not now”.
In verses 17 and 18 the word “perfected” is used twice in the NASB. The word itself means to be made complete and full as in the vessel is ready to overflow. God does not want us to get around in stages of love but in the fullness of love. We can allow that or prevent it.
“Confidence in the day of judgement.” That is a positive position. We stand before him in love because we love Him. We love Him because He first loved us. Am I putting something before you that is easy? No, I am not. The old, sinful nature rebels against close fellowship with the Lord for it wants to follow its own path. I think there is one statement we all want to hear and it is, “Well done, you good and faithful servant.” Abide in the love of God. Confidence is a quality entirely given by the Holy Spirit and He does that as we walk in the Light.
VERSE 19. This is one of the greatest “small verses” in the bible. It is a summary more or less of the substance of verses 16 to 18. The Lord Jesus loved us first and ours is the response to that. As we love Him the Holy Spirit spreads abroad the love of God in our hearts.
VERSE 20/21. {{1John 4:20 “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar, for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 1John 4:21 This commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.”}}
GETTING ALONG WITH OTHER PEOPLE
Verse 20 dispels the idea we pick and choose whom to love. If one is a brother we must love. This love is not of compulsion but is a love that flows through the Holy Spirit in us. What if that brother is contentious and misguided? Here we have a problem. What if a person causes trouble in a church or among God’s people? Well there is the chance that that person is not of God, in which case he or she is not a brother. If the person is truly born again but not walking according to God’s commandments then that person separates himself from the will of God, and has caused a break in fellowship with God’s true people. We may not be able to have fellowship. We may not be able to walk with such a person, but our attitude must not involve hate or bitterness. We love because God firstly loved us.
I sometimes try to think into the matter that divided Paul and Barnabas. It is recorded in only three verses – {{Acts 15 v 37 “Barnabas was desirous of taking John, called Mark, along with them also, Acts 15:38 but Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work, Acts 15:39 and there arose such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.”}} The words “there arose such a sharp disagreement” would seem enough to break fellowship between Paul and Barnabas. Then there was Mark who was the cause of the strife, in the middle of the quarrel. Maybe there was right on both sides but it caused a split between two great men of God. Did this break the love between Paul and Barnabas? I would not think that possible for two men who were filled with the Spirit, but it destroyed their fellowship, which was a special one, for it was Barnabas who originally took Saul/Paul under his wing.
It is a commandment that we love one another (verse 21) so it is not a matter of choosing whom to receive and reject. We can’t do that. But I might not relate too well with another person? Be that as it may, you may not be able to have a full fellowship with everyone because of personality, interests, understandings, interpretations of scripture, but you love them if they are the Lord’s, and loving them will not wish any harm or discrimination to them, and you seek their best interests.
How do we understand love? Does that mean we shut off our minds to discernment and have this warm, fuzzy-like feeling for all people. No. Love connects with deeds. Why do we love God? We do so because He loved us first, and did something about it. God loved and God performed. We don’t have love in isolation. That is why love always has a practical side. We might go to help a fellow Christian or brother in Christ and do so, NOT out of a sense of duty but because of the compulsion of love. Paul wrote – {{Galatians 6 v 10 “so then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.”}} There are too many in the Christian walk who keep up appearances through a sense of duty. That is no good. God sees the heart. God sees the imperfections. God sees the sham and the pretence.
LOVING YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST
Think hard on the statement, “We love Him because He first loved us.” If you have that correct, then love flows as if a tap has been turned on. Time is running out for all of us. Don’t live the selfish life for yourselves, then later in life, think that you can give God a helping hand. The Creator of the universe does not want a helping hand. He wants your life. “All to Jesus I surrender; All to Him I freely give.”
A rich young ruler came to Jesus and wanted to follow him. Yes, he had been a good example of a man who had a high standard, and kept the Law. In fact from the time he was accountable, he had done that. Was this man surrendered to the Lord? It appeared that he was, but the Lord said something that rocked him – “Go sell all you have and give to the poor.” That is an odd statement to make, at first glance. Jesus had seen the man’s heart and saw the problem. He could never love God in the correct way because he loved his riches too much. He had divided loyalties. You can not serve two masters. He thought he could. Too many Christians also think they can. Where do priorities lie? Love tainted with imperfections and selfishness, is not love at all. A brackish stream can not be described as pure water.
We have just seen Verse 20 is a very practical, but difficult verse. We quote it again – “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar, for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
I think one of the difficulties lies in the word “brother” for the term is very wide. I really think it is true to context to say that “brother” here is a Christian brother in your acquaintance. Remember this is very practical. It is true that there is an expression called “the brotherhood of man”, not a biblical term, but we understand it as all members of the human race. And should we love those people? That question is already answered in scripture in John 3 v 16 – “for God so loved the world that he gave . . .”. God loved the world of mankind and Jesus died for the world of mankind. Naturally, we should follow the example of the Lord in loving people. It is anti-scriptural to say we love Christians but can hate people who are not Christians. However we must be careful with “the brotherhood of man” statement.
However, we will return to the meaning of the verse. To sit on your throne and pontificate about how good your love for God is, and yet hate true Christians is a contradiction that makes you a liar. I think we need to understand what this word “hate” means. Verse 20 has in it, the contrast of love and hate. One does not love God and hate his fellow believer. The non-believer thinks he can do that. The Christian can’t. I knew a school principal once who had the letters L-O-V-E tattooed on the knuckles of his left hand, but on the knuckles of the right hand, he had H-A-T-E, for it was that hand that would do the mischief and pound his enemies.
The word for love in this verse and in this passage is ??ap?? which is the deeper word for love and contains the sense of “I love, wish well to, take pleasure in, long for; and denotes the love of reason, esteem”. It has a strong preference, for the believer, preferring to "live through Christ", actively doing what the Lord prefers, a "discriminating affection which involves choice and selection."
Hate – Gk µ?s??, is to hate, detest, love less, esteem less; denounce; to love someone or something less than someone (something) else, i.e. to renounce one choice in favour of another. {{Luke 14 v 26: "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate (Strong’s 3404 /miséo, 'love less' than the Lord) his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple"}}
From my experience, if one is in a very small church (say about 10 to 20 people), you get along with each other quite well, and love each other as in the Lord. We know how difficult it becomes when a troublesome person or troublemaker may come to the group. In a much bigger church, say of 80 to hundreds of people, how can you love each one? What I notice there is that people gravitate to groups that have stronger personality similarities. You tend to fit in better with people you get along with more easily. That then sees a church with many small groups or cliques in it. These are not necessarily bad, but they do hold dangers.
People not in cliques get neglected and isolated, not being in an “in group”, and not feeling loved. Let me ask, “Is that loving every brother?” I can’t answer for you, or even for your church fellowship, but I think cliques could be the start of division in churches, and not the development of brotherly love. The very worst thing in a church is when you have a visitor and that person feels on the outside because the church has its more familiar groups. People who do not extend hospitality to visitors by showing them the brotherly love John teaches, dishonour the body of Christ, for God has said {{Hebrews 13 v 2 “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.”}}
I believe bigger churches must actively find ways to express true love for fellow Christians outside the numerous cliques that exist in the church. That is one of the more important pastoral roles for the health of the local body.
There is a verse that says, “How can two walk together unless they be agreed?” (Amos 3 v 3 KJV). Do we all agree in a church? The old human nature is awful. If we don’t agree with someone, the tendency is to reject that person, and then to keep your distance. I know these are difficult areas. Personality differences, differences in less important things, differences in church programs, church positions, church operations, and so many more things can divide, but it is the distinctive differences that must be upheld by love or you will have open division and collapse. Paul wrote these words – {{Ephesians 4 v 2 “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, Eph 4:3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”}} He also had to deal with that very problem as these verses indicate – {{Philippians 4 v 2 “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord. Phil 4:3 Indeed, true comrade, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.”}} You see in those verses that these two women shared together in Paul’s support, so the division between them was painful for Paul, and contentious to each other.
Love does not compromise. Love does not make allowances to evil intent. Those who entered the Galatian churches with a false, distorted gospel, Paul said, “Let them be accursed.” Those who enter a church to take control and manipulate to get that control, are false shepherds of the sheep. Love does not allow tolerance of them. Love judges for the welfare of God’s sheep. The pastoral role is to maintain the unity of the believers, but also to protect the sheep from the wolves, and from the little foxes that spoil the grapes. (Song of Songs 2 v 15). Little foxes can go unnoticed and we need to wait on God for His discernment to detect what can become a problem if left unchecked.
CONCLUSION
Love has a linked connection in a triangle. God at the top; me on the left; and my brother in Christ on the right. There is a two way connection between God and me. There is a 2 way connection between God and the brother. There is a 2 way connection between me and my brother. (Show the diagram). Do we need more love? Yes, we always need more love. The Holy Spirit pours this love into us as said earlier.
There are two verses to finish with. They are these :
1Peter 2:17 “Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.”
1John 2 v 10 “The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 1John 3 v 11 This is the message which you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another,”
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
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Hymns that could accompany this message:-
1. Love divine all loves excelling (MP 449)
2. How deep the Father’s love for us (MP 988)
3. In heavenly love abiding (MP 331)
