GOD IS LOVE
(1John 4:7-21)
Mark was walking home from school one day when he noticed the boy ahead of him had tripped and dropped all of the books he was carrying along with two sweaters, a baseball bat, a glove, and a small tape recorder. Mark knelt down and helped the boy pick up the scattered articles. Since they were going the same way, he helped to carry the burden.
As they walked Mark discovered the boy’s name was Bill, that he loved video games, baseball, and history, that he was having a lot of trouble with his other subjects and that he had just broken up with his girlfriend. They arrived at Bill’s home first and Mark was invited in for a Coke and to watch some t.v. The afternoon passed pleasantly with a few laughs and some shared small talk, then Mark went home.
They continued to see each other around school, had lunch together once or twice. They ended up at the same High school where they had brief contacts over the years. Finally the long awaited senior year came, and three weeks before graduation, Bill asked Mark if they could talk. Bill reminded him of the day years ago when they had first met.
"Do you ever wonder why I was carrying so many things from school that day?" asked Bill. "You see, I cleaned out my locker because I didn’t want to leave a mess for anyone else. I had stored away some of my mother’s pills and I was going home to commit suicide. But after we spent some time together I realized that if I had, I would have missed that time and so many others that might follow. So you see, Mark, when you picked up my books for me that day, you did a lot more. You saved my life."
Jesus Christ did a lot more than just healing the sick. He did not only live a perfect life in our place; He died for us so we can have eternal life. He rose again from the dead to warrant that we will also be risen and live with Him forever and ever.
This passage probably contains the greatest single statement about God in the whole Bible, that GOD IS LOVE. I am amaze how many doors this single statement has unlocked and how many questions it has answered.
LOVE ORIGINATED FROM GOD
v. 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
v. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
God is love. It does not say God is grace nor God is mercy although we know God is all-gracious and all-merciful but it says God is love. God did not create an emotional feeling or expression at the time when He created man in His own image. He Himself is the personification of love. Within the Godhead there is love. Love finds its origin in God. He gives out love. When He demonstrated righteous indignation in His humanity, it was because of His love for man who is sinful in thoughts, words and deeds. There was not a time that God started loving and would stop loving. Love didn’t begin when God created the universe. Love was already there. There is love within the triune God. Where God was, there was love. Where God is, there is love. Where God will be, there will be full of love. So when we join Him in His eternal glory, the heartbeat of our eternal home, which is heaven, is love—that includes joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. For God is love. It is not to say that God loves. That is true, but John is putting emphasis on the character of God that God is love.
ILLUSTRATION: God’s love is not the kind which John Lennon sang in his song entitled “Love”)
Love is real, real is love,
(It’s true that love is real if it comes from God . But not all things that are real personify love. Sin is real. Killing is real but they don’t have the character of love at all)
Love is feeling, feeling love,
(feeling is an element of love but not all feelings mean love. If I say I feel like killing you, slapping you, hating you they’re not feelings of love. Or if someone who is married and expresses to another another girl he loves her, that is not true love.)
Love is wanting to be loved.
(Love is not for the asking. Though we’re sinners, God loved us. Love gives; self-less; sacrificial)
Love is touch, touch is love,
(Another element of love is affectionate touch but not all touches mean love.)
The word love in this passage is not sexual, and it is not social love. It is supernatural love. It is that which the Holy Spirit puts in our hearts and only the Holy Spirit can make it real for us. If love here is the love of God, the AGAPE kind of love, then only the Spirit of God can enable us to extend this to others.
Love has double relationship to God, i.e.
• It is by knowing God that we learn to love — How can we know God? By reading the word of God. There is no way we can know God apart from His word. Where does it begin? It all begins by becoming a child of God through Jesus Christ.
- In India a mother in distress throws her little baby in the Ganges river to be eaten by filthy crocodiles as a sacrifice for her sins—does she know God is love?
- In the jungles of Africa they bow down to gods of wood and stone, do they know God is love?
Don’t ever say because you are a Christian that you already know God is love. You have to soak yourself in the word of God to understand His nature or character. That is what it means to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Each day as you read His word the more you will get to understand Who and What God is.
• It is by loving others that we love God — How can we show our love to God? By loving others. I’m not asking you if you love your mama or papa; your wife or husband; your children or cousins? What I’m asking you is do you love others?
LOVE EXEMPLIFIED BY GOD
v. 9 This is how God showed his love among us; He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.
God’s love was demonstrated by God Himself, Jesus Christ—His life, death and resurrection. The greatest example God has shown to mankind—sending His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. Jesus did not die on the cross for no reason at all. He died for us to pay the penalty for our sins. So how can we not be grateful for that?
Eph 2:4,5 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Eph 5:2 “ . . . live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifices to God.”
1John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
When we look at Jesus we see two things about the love of God:
1. It is a love which holds nothing back. God was prepared to sacrifice His only Son. God was ready. There was nothing that would prevent Him from sacrificing His own Son so we can be with Him.
Illustration: I remember when we were kids. There were 8 of us including the maid and cousins, total of 13 people living in our house. My mom would cook for 13 people but when mom starts distributing, my mom’s portion would always be lesser than everybody else. She would always give a little bit of her ration. (In Tagalog it says: Isusubo na lang, ibibigay pa. (in mom’s case, what she was about to eat, she would give it to her children.)
2. It is a totally undeserved love. None of us deserved to be loved and yet He loved us by letting His Son to die on the cross.
Illustration: I never heard my papa complained about my mom’s nephews and nieces living in our home. Even at a time when my papa was unemployed that our pantry was empty not a word of complain. In fact, papa can tell them to look for their own place but he never did. The right time just came that they moved on.
Romans 5:7,8 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. (8) But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Christ is our example. Our model. The apostle Paul said: follow me as I follow Christ. The Bible says: Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord (5:22); husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church (Eph 5:25). Husbands, in loving your wives the model you follow is Christ, How He loved the believers unconditionally; Wives in your submission to your husbands the model you follow is Christ, How He submitted to the will of the Father. So, husbands and wives follow Christ’s sacrificial love—even to death on the cross.
LOVE EXPLAINED BY GOD
v. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
God keeps telling us over and over through His word how He loves us so much. Was God’s love shown to us because we first loved Him? Of course not! In fact were God’s enemies and we were rebels. He did not love us because we loved Him, but He loved us in spite of our sinfulness.
To God it is very personal. Because His love has something to do with you, with me. I wrote this one song entitled “Holy Lord, I’m Wholly Yours” and the bridge goes this way:
“It took one lie to separate me from You
It took one life to bring me back to You.”
Yes, because of one LIE that Adam was deceived to disobey God resulting to man’s separation from the love of God. But it only took one LIFE (Jesus Christ’s) so we can be reconciled to God.
Biblically, the basic Hebrew term for “love” is CHESED, used of God, means “lovingkindness” or “tender lovingkindness.” The Greek word “AGAPE,” used of God’s love means “selfless” or “sacrificial” love. (Systematic Theology, Norman Geisler, Pg. 111)
“His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” - Another word for atonement is propitiation which means “MERCY SEAT”; the Old Testament word atonement means “TO COVER.”
IN THE TABERNACLE IN THE HOLY OF HOLIES THERE WAS THE ARK OF THE COVENANT. ON TOP OF THE ARK THERE WAS A COVER CROWNED WITH TWO CHERUBIM OF SOLID GOLD, FACING EACH OTHER AND LOOKING DOWN UPON THE COVER OF THE BOX. THE COVER WAS CALLED THE MERCY SEAT. IT WAS HERE THAT THE NATION OF ISRAEL MET GOD IN PERSON OF THE HIGH PRIEST. ONCE A YEAR AND ONLY ONCE A YEAR, THE HIGH PRIEST CAME INTO THE HOLY OF HOLIES, BRINGING BLOOD OF AN ANIMAL TO BE SPRINKLED ON THE MERCY SEAT. THIS WAS THE WAY THEY WERE TO COME TO GOD: ON THAT DAY OF ATONEMENT, THE HIGH PRIEST WENT IN AND SPRINKLED THE BLOOD ON THE MERCY SEAT. THAT MEANT THAT ISRAEL WAS ACCEPTED BY GOD FOR ANOTHER YEAR, AND THEN THEY WOULD NEED TO GO THROUGH IT AGAIN THE NEXT YEAR. (Leviticus 16)
In the Old Testament, God demanded a sacrifice that covered their sins only for a time. However, every year, the High priest represented the people by offering animals in their behalf to appease God for the offense that the nation of Israel had committed against Him.
In the New Testament, Christ’s death completely satisfied God’s demand of a perfect sacrifice. God’s wrath upon a sinner is averted if he puts his faith in Christ. Therefore, a sinner who puts his faith in Christ finds mercy by virtue of Christ’s blood that was shed on the cross.
The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is sufficient for the whole world but is only effective for those who put their trust in Him.
LOVE COMPLETED BY GOD
v. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
v. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.
v. 13 We know that we are in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
v. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.
v. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God
v. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in Him.
The term “His love is made complete in us” does not mean that God’s love can only be completed with our help. God does not need any help from anybody. God is self-complete. He is self-existent. He doesn’t need your worship to be fully God. He does not need your praises to be God. God is God.
In the first place since God so showered His love on those who are His children, we are commanded to love those who are members with us in the household of believers. No one has ever seen God but if we love one another, people around us will witness His love in and through us. God is manifested to the world through us whom He loves so dearly. So when we love one another, His love is perfected in us or made complete in us. We are never intended to be station of God’s blessings, but channels. God’s love is poured to us, not that we might keep it for ourselves, but that it might be poured out through us to others.
When we do love one another in this way, that is the evidence that we are in Him and He in us, and that we are partners with the Holy Spirit in ministering to others. It is amazing to me at the truth that He dwells in us and we dwell in Him. Most of the time I pause and marvel at that. I am the temple of the Holy Spirit, the Living God.
ILLUSTRATION: Be careful my brothers and sisters at what you say and do—your actions can be your greatest tool for witnessing.
Story about Gandhi . . .
LOVE PROMISED BY GOD
v. 17 In 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.
v. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Again, love is made perfect in those who has received Jesus as Lord and Savior. For it is only in this way that the sin question is settled once and for all. Nothing can free us from the effect of sin which is eternal death but only the blood of Christ. God promised that with His love we will have no fear—fear of judgment or punishment.
The Lord God is so gracious and truly loving. My papa wasn’t ready to die late last year. He said he feared death. Then in November, he heard the gospel and confessed with his mouth Jesus is Lord and Savior. That might have prepared his heart not just for heaven but for the ensuing events. He started getting stronger. He wanted so much to get stronger so he could come back to California. He probably knew that he was going to die soon although he wasn’t saying it. He wanted to go back to California so he could see everyone and he did.
His battle with cancer was not easy but he fought confidently with his hands raised and saying in an audible voice “Thank you Lord.”
The last two months he was with us felt like ten years. We cherished every moment we had with him. We witnessed his life ebbing away. On Monday he fell asleep and never woke up.
His grace-filled exit was his grace-filled entry to heaven. My papa’s departure reminded me of Luke 23:46 when Jesus said "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. When he had said this, he breathed his last."
It was just like that with papa: he gave out a deep long breath then he was gone. He didn’t have any grimace on his face. His face was completely peaceful. He was saying "Thank you, Lord" over and over again two weeks before he died. This time he was completely ready. His final days were spent with the family around him until he breathed his last and gave himself up peacefully in the hands of God.
The love of God will drive away fear just like what He did to my father. He drove away fear with His perfect love—what was the result? a peaceful departure into the hands of God. God’s love prepares us for the worst, physical death but most of all it prepares us for the best—eternal life.
CONCLUSION:
We learn to love because God loved us first. It is easy to say “I love God.” This is how you can say you really love God: by loving others. Show your love to your brothers and sisters in the Lord and your love will be flowing out to the unbelievers. God commanded us to love. Love comes from God and love leads back to God.
PRAYER:
Father we use the term “love-gift” so often that we relate it to material things. May we use the term this time in a context of the greatest work that you have done in our life—your love-gift was your Son whose death at calvary paved the way for mankind to experience your free gift of eternal life. How can we not respond to your love by loving our fellow brethren and those that are unbelievers? Help us to be humble. Help us to be loving. Thank you for your love. We pray this not by might nor by power but by your spirit, in Jesus name. Amen.
