LOVE IS THE THEME
1 John 4:7-16
INTRO: There was a great theologian who came to the USA from England and was being interviewed by a group of seminary students. The question was asked, “What is the most profound thought that ever occupied your mind.” The answer was, “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.” You may go very, very deep in theology; you may become a scholar; you may become a philosopher, but you’ll never ever understand anything more profound than to understand that God loves you so much He gave His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what this message is about.
I. LOVE PROCLAIMED (vv. 7-8).
The Scriptures proclaim that God is love. John seems to go deeper and deeper and deeper into the subject of the love of God and comes to the conclusion here “God is love.”
The Nature of the Father (v. 7). Notice the statement in v. 7, “for love is of God.” It doesn’t say “for love is God.” John is not saying that God is some kind of impersonal, intangible being. God in His person, God in His nature is love. This tells us what God thinks about us. God loves us. It’s very important to know the kind of God you serve.
When the Bible declared “God is love,” that was an altogether brand new concept in the world. People of the religions of that time never would have dreamed of saying about their god “God is love.” The gods of the heathen were pagan and fickle and judgmental. Yet Jesus came manifesting the love of the Father.
In comparative religions you study the gods of all the different religions of the world. You will discover that none of them are gods of love, that none of them have a god who is a god of love.
So John says, “love is of God because God is love.” That simply means then that the only place you can get love is from God. That if you want love you have to come to the source of love and that is God. That means that you and I will never ever be capable of expressing love until first of all we experience the love of God in our own lives.
The Nature of our Family (v. 7). “and every one who loves is born of God and knows God.” One of the birthmarks of God’s family is that the members of the family have love. Notice what Jesus says in John 13:34,35, “A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.”
In Colossians 1:4, Paul talks about our faith in the Lord Jesus and then he says, “and the love you have to all the saints.” Well you say, “I can’t do that.” “I can’t love all the saints.” You are exactly right. I can’t do that and you can’t do that. Later on I’ll tell you how you can love all of the saints.
Here is a test to let you know whether or not you’ve been saved. It’s found in vv. 7-8. “Everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. He that loveth not knows not God.” Give yourself the “love test.” Do you love people? The Bible says if you love you know God. If you don’t love, you don’t know God.
II. LOVE PROVED (vv. 9-10,14).
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us.” The word manifested means to make visible. Love is an intangible. You can’t touch, taste, smell love, or store it in jars. The only way you can see an intangible is to see that intangible demonstrated and displayed in a life.
God proved His love toward us, in a beautiful, beautiful manner. He did it by sending His Son. Three times in these vv. 9, 10, and 14, the Scripture uses the word sent, S-E-N-T. V. 9, “God sent His only begotten Son.” V. 10, “He sent His Son.” V. 14, “The Father sent the Son.” Three times it tells us God sent Jesus. Here is the three-fold proof that God loves you.
He Sent Jesus to be the Son (v. 9). The statement “the only begotten,” is the same as in John 3:16. The word here means unique. God sent His unique Son, God sent His one-of-a-kind Son. He didn’t send an angel. God sent His only Son into the world. Why did God send His Son? Look at v. 9, “that we might live through Him.” That’s The only way you can have life.
Folks just exist without the Lord Jesus. People who are shooting drugs up their veins, they’re not living they’re just existing. People who are running from pleasure to pleasure trying to find joy and meaning and purpose in life, they’re not living they’re just existing. God sent His Son that we might have life through Him.
He Sent Jesus to be the Satisfaction (v. 10). Propitiation means to make satisfaction, to satisfy. It is not that God is an angry God that has to be appeased by sacrifice, but rather that sin has broken the demand of the holy law of God and there had to be a satisfaction made for that broken law.
God solved the sin problem and the problem of His broken law in the person of His Son. God allowed His Son Jesus who knew no sin to be made sin for us.
He Sent Him to be the Savior (v. 14). What if it said, “God sent His Son to be the Savior of Africa?” Or what if it had said, “God sent His Son to be the Savior of China” Most of us in this building would be left out. God didn’t send His Son to be a segregated Savior. God didn’t give us a Savior for just one particular group of people or one particular place on the earth. God sent His Son to be the Savior of the world, the whole world can experience salvation.
III. LOVE IS PRACTICED (v. 11).
Three times in this chapter he says we are to love one another. He gets very, very practical with the love of God. He is simply saying that we are to manifest this love by our love for one another. Look at what it says in v. 12. “No man has seen God at any time.” We know that’s true. But then he says, “If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected” (i.e. His love reaches its intended conclusion). His love is completed if we love one another.
You see the invisible God when you see a believer loving other people the way God says we are to love them. The only way people know that God is a God of love is when they see the love of God manifested in the life of a person. You and I are demonstrations of the love of God if we love one another the way God says we ought to love one another.
CONC: He says several times in these verses that we dwell in God and God dwells in us. Look at v. 15, “Whosoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God.” Look at v. 16. “God is love; he that dwelleth in love dwells in God, and God in him.” We ought to live every day in the atmosphere of the love of God.
Do you remember when the woman came and took the box of ointment and broke it and poured it on Jesus? The Bible says that the odor of that ointment just filled the house where they were? In God’s house, in God’s fellowship, in God’s presence there is the fragrance of love.
