“Dear John,” part 2 (Full of Love) by Brian A. Moon
Story – I love the game of Golf. To me there is nothing better than going out to the links on a warm summer afternoon. I love the anticipation as you drive up to the clubhouse and drop off your clubs. I love the smell of the grass and the fresh air as you get your cart and set out for the 1st tee. I love the promise that today could be the best game of your life. I love the strategy involved with picking the right club and where to place the ball to make the next shot easier. I love the moment you step up to the ball and wag your club back and forth and take practice swings. I love that moment of impact when the club hits the ball… aaaahhhhhhhhh I hate this game as the ball hooks into the water hazard and hits a sand hill crane.
Tonight we continue our series called “Dear John” with a message titled “Full of Love.” The love that I just described is not the kind of love we are going to be talking about tonight though. The kind of love we are going to be talking about is our Heavenly Fathers love shown by sending his Son Jesus to die for us. Before we continue lets look back to last week and chapters 1 and 2 of the book of 1st John.
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Last we looked at “Walking in the Light:” we said that God is light and in him there can be no darkness or sin. We also said that God has called us to walk in the light, but the stumbling block is sin. The two sins we talked about were hating people, and loving the things of the world. Finally, we said that Jesus death on the cross cleansed us from our darkness, and enables us to walk in the light.
This week we move on with a look into chapters 3 and 4 of 1st John.
1 John 4:7 – 9 “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” NRSV
Last week as we said we learned that God is light, or that he is perfect and without sin, This week we also learn that he is love.
Now that is great to say God is love, but do we really understand just what this means. I told you in the opening that I love the game of golf, but then once I play it there are times that I hate it with a passion. This is not the kind of love that this verse is dealing with here. My love for golf is a human love; even my love for Cheryl, my fiancé is a human love, And as we all know humans are not perfect.
But we established last week that God is light, he is perfect, he is just and faithful, Therefore the kind of love we are talking about here, the love from God is a perfect love. It is not like our human love in that it is not, and has never been polluted by sin or darkness. God is holy and the love that he gives has that same quality, it is a holy love, a love that us set apart. Love does not define God, but rather God defines love. Today we have a problem with our language, I say that God is love, and I love golf. We use the word with no distinction as to the level or kind of love we are referring to, That is the importance in understanding the kind of love that God is.
God is a pure, perfect, and holy love that is not
tainted or corrupted with darkness.
The next thing we see from this passage is that not only is God love, but we are to love one another. Some quick background information into this passage is that it was written at a time when the early church was faced with some challenges by different idea and philosophies. These groups tried to incorporate their ideas into Christianity, but they went against the message of Jesus. John writes this letter along with 2 others telling the church in Ephesus these are fundamental things that we must defend and hold fast to. It is interesting that the same is true today, many groups would like to, and have, incorporated their faulty teachings into the church, And we need to learn from what John was saying as much today as those early Christians did 1900 years ago. So God is love, and John tells these people that we are to love one another. WHY??? Why do I need to love you, what is the big deal? The answer is quite simple, you see once you have become a child of God you are born of God… Jesus taught us that when we are adopted as Sons and Daughters of God we have received a second birth,
A birth that is from above, or from God. But wait, God is love, so therefore God tells us that we are to love one another just like he loved us, we are now from him, we are from love. Here is the test, when you are born from someone you automatically are their child. Most of us in this room call ourselves children of God, but are you loving people?
1 John 3:16 – 17 “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the worlds goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” NRSV
You see if you are truly born of God, then you are loving others, if you are not, then you are not his child.
1 John 4:8 “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” NRSV (italics mine)
The test for any true Christian is:
Are we loving one another?
Look back now at the last part of chapter 4 verse 7
1 John 4:7 “everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” NRSV (italics mine)
You see not only are the people who love born of God, or the ones who are truly children of God, But they also know God. That may not seem like a big deal to you, but the word “know” is used in far more powerful sense here than our common use of the word. This again is like our use of the word love, there is no distinction made in how we use it. I know a lot about people like the president, or movie stars, or sports figures, but I do not know them… I can know all kinds of facts about a person, I can know their height, weight, hair color, even what their favorite food is, But that does not necessarily mean that I personally know them. Many people know things about God, they know facts, or different stories about God from the Bible, But they still do not know God personally. The difference here is love. If we are loving other people it shows that we are born of God, or born of love, And this love is what changes that knowledge about God into a relationship in which we know God. This knowledge and relationship is like a man and a wife, they know each other in a very special way that goes far beyond mere facts and stories. The point to all of this is that how well you know God is in direct proportion to the amount of love you show for others. The more we love the more we experience God and participate in that relationship, The more we love the more we know God. The flip side to this is that the more we know the more we love because, what God is determines what we ought to be. If we know that God is love, then we ought to be love. The two feed off of each other, but you cannot separate them. To simply know about God is not enough without love, and you cannot love properly if we do not personally know God.
1 John 4:12 “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” NRSV (italics mine)
Love leads to knowing God,
and knowledge leads to more love.
How do we know that God really is love though?
1 John 4:9 “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” NRSV
You see God cared enough about us that he was willing to send his Son Jesus to come and die for the sins of his children so that they might live. God said to his children, “I know you cannot love on your own, I know you cannot even know me on your own,” so he changed the course of history and sent Jesus to come and do for us what we could not do.
He (Jesus) came and became the love we must be, and he paved the way to know God through his death on the cross, and he enables us to do both today.
That is how we know that God is love!!! He did the work for us, and all we have to do is accept the gift and respond to the love that he poured out for us. So: God is love, he proves it through Jesus, we are true followers of Christ if we love, and we also can know God if we love.
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So what do we do with all of this? What does it do to change my life?
There are a few applications I would like to make in closing:
We need to love one another.
The sign of a true believer is if they are loving others, and the sign of a true ministry, or a church is if they are loving one another. Our world is hungry for love, and we must be models of Christ love for the church. It does not mean that we always have to agree on everything, but we are marked by love for one another, we are marked with acceptance, and compassion for each other.
We need to study our Bible’s diligently and spend time learning more about him
We said that we cannot know God until we love, but likewise the more we know God the more we love God. When we learn all of the wonder and mystery, and the power and mercy of God we love even more. If I never spent time with my fiancé I would miss out on the love that grows inside of me everyday. The more I learn about her, the more time I spend with her the more I love her for who she is. The same is true for God, if we never spend time learning about him, and spending time with him, Then we will miss out on the love that will grow deeper inside of us. And finally, we read in chapter 3 that if we see someone in need and we do nothing about it we do not have the love of God in us.
For many people you know they have the need to be introduced to Jesus and their need for his saving grace, that is why we need to:
Show and tell people about Jesus
We need to love lost people and have a burden to show and tell them the good news about what Jesus did 2,000 years ago. One of the best ways to introduce people to Jesus is by bringing them here on a Tuesday night. You may ask what right do I have to invite someone here, well if we are loving others and full of God’s love, Then we earn the right to make that invite.
If God’s love is in us then we will be doing these 3 things:
- loving one another
- learning about, and spending with, God
- and, showing and telling people about Jesus.
Love must fill our life. And the only way for this to happen if one of two ways: We either need to ask God for the first time and accept that gift that we could not do on our own and respond in faith. Or we need to ask God for the continued filling of our lives and the need we have for more.
Keep these two thoughts in mind and which applies to you tonight as we pray.
Prayer Time ----------------
If you are here tonight and you realize that you do not have a love relationship with God through Jesus. If you feel God moving inside of you right now, you know that you have never said thank you God for your gift of salvation, thank you for working in my life to get me to this point, and thank you for Jesus making the way possible.
If this is you, then cry out to God and tell him the desire you have to be saved. Tell him that you place your trust in him and you believe the message that has been given. Tell him you agree that because of your sin you cannot come to him, tell him you are sorry for you sin and you are leaving that life behind tonight by his grace. Accept the fact that he can and will save you. And according to Scripture he will give you the power to saved.
If you are already a child of God, you have a relationship with him, but you know that you need to be more loving. You have messed up along the way and not loved all the people you should have, but you want to do better then raise your hand so that I can pray with you.
God we thank you for your love and the way you revealed it to us in your Son Jesus. Help us to live out that life of love more each day. Amen.
