God is the Source of Love
Truth Taught- God has loved us so we must love one another
John has taught us very well throughout his epistle that the true Christian will love one another. In fact, he has taught us so well that we could rightly conclude that John’s entire epistle is about loving one another. The thrust of the entire Book is…Little children, love one another.
Love for one another is the mark of a true Christian. If you do not love your brother, you are not a Christian. To call yourself a Christian without love for one another is to be a liar.
1 John 2:7–11 (ESV)
7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
He moves forward with the mark of the Christian by showing us what love really is. It’s not warm emotions and feelings. Love is sacrificing for someone else. The measure of your love for one another can be seen by the length you’re willing to go to come to their aid.
Jesus is the ultimate example of love. His love for us is immeasurable because His sacrifice for us was infinite.
1 John 3:11–18 (ESV)
11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Now before we move forward, we must consider these truths. Are you currently loving one another the way Jesus has loved us? Look around this room and ask God to reveal the truth of your salvation by His standard given here in His Word. As you look around ask yourself am I currently loving those in this room? How am I loving them? What have I done to show this love? Am I sacrificing myself, my time, my finances to love one another?
John has stated the fact that loving one another is the mark of a real Christian. He has shown what true love looks like; it is sacrificial in nature.
Now, let’s have God tell us why He has set love for one another as the mark of the Christian.
Please Stand…
1 John 4:7–12 (ESV)
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have 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. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
1. Because God is Love, His People Will Also Love (4:7-8)
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
This statement from John that God is love has been greatly distorted by modern man. Man, often has interpreted this to mean God loves no matter what or that God has to love or that God loves everyone or that there will be no judgement because God is love. None of these are true.
What John intends us to understand by this statement that God is love is that love is a defining mark of God and that love originates with God.
God has shown this love first within the Trinity. There is a love relationship within the Godhead that is eternal and cannot be broken.
The Godhead loves. There is a love relationship within the Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit love. There is a love relationship within the Trinity, the Godhead loves and has always loved within the three persons of the Trinity.
The Trinity not only loves but creates. When the Trinity creates, God loves His creation…
God loves His creation and loves mankind above all other created things. The reason is because man and only man is created in God’s image.
Genesis 1:26–27 (ESV)
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
-God is Love
-The Trinity maintains a deep relational love within the Godhead
-God has created man in His image.
-God loves all He created and especially loves mankind because mankind is an image bearer of God.
-Just as God loves within the Trinity, mankind who is born again will also be in a love relationship with other redeemed image bearers within the Church.
Those who have been brought from death to life and born again will exhibit the same type of love God has. It will not be perfect but it is of the same type as God’s love.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Because love is from God, people cannot love in this way who do not know God. Because God alone extends this type of sacrificial love to His children one who is not born of God will not love because he cannot. Those who are born of God cannot help but love as God loves because the Spirit of God has been given to him and he will manifest this love…HE WILL MANIFEST THIS LOVE!!!
We are born from above or born of God at our salvation. We are given the Holy Spirit and begin to act more and more like Jesus because of the Spirit of God residing within us. Because God is love and has shown us His love as Jesus Christ has died for us, we too begin to manifest this same type of love toward one another.
2. The Fullness of God’s Love Veiled Until Christ Came (4:9-10)
9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
God had shown love to His people throughout the centuries but it was veiled. When Christ came, God’s love was unveiled and shown in its fullness.
John 1:14 (ESV)
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
2 Corinthians 4:6 (ESV)
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
John 3:16–17 (ESV)
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
We must see here the love of God the Father first. According to John, the Father sent Jesus. Love originates with God. Mankind did not ask God for a Savior. God in His great love sent Jesus to us. Jesus coming into the world originated with God, not man. God’s love is the first cause of Christ’s incarnation.
9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world
Notice where Jesus was sent. He was sent into the world. Jesus was sent into this present evil world. He was sent into enemy territory. Jesus was sent into Satan’s country…this present evil world.
Also notice with me the two specific ways that the love of God has been shown in the appearance of Jesus Christ…
A). So that we might live through him
God sent Jesus Christ into the world as a Rescuer of lost sinners to give those under the darkness of sin, life. To reclaim from the realm of Satan God’s elect. Jesus came with a mission to seek and save the lost. His purpose that those created in God’s image, ruined and lost due to sin’s curse might live through Him.
Lost sinners to reclaim could only be secured by the death of our Savior. We can only experience life because Jesus experienced death.
B) So that our sins would be removed
10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Propitiation- to appease God and remove His wrath from us.
Jesus expiates our sin…
Expiation very simply means “the removal of sin and the guilt that comes with that sin.” So, it is God’s taking away or the removal of our sin because of the perfect life and sacrificial, atoning, substitutionary death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And it’s important that we consider that when we talk about the expiation of sin and when we talk about the propitiation of sin, we’re not only speaking about the death of Christ but about the entire ministry and life of Christ. Because Jesus didn’t just come to die; He came to live a perfect righteous, law-keeping life, fulfilling all the demands of God’s law, so that when He died, that His death could be a substitutionary, sacrificial atonement for His people. And you and I both understand, that the atonement of Christ didn’t just make salvation possible; it actually applied and accomplished salvation for God’s people. And so, expiation is God’s removal of our sin and the guilt that accompanies our sin, culminating in the death of Christ on the cross.
God shows His love to us by taking the initiative to love first. The great command here is to see that to love one another must begin somewhere and with someone. You are called by God to begin this mutual interaction. It must begin with you.
The reason is that’s how it works with God. God is the Initiator of love toward us. He sent Jesus Christ to be our Savior…He showed us love first.
Romans 5:10 (ESV)
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
3. Because God Loved Us We Will Love One Another (4:11-12)
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
When God first showed His love to us, there was no love in us. We were dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1)… We were not loving God but we were hostile toward God…Colossians 1:21
God’s love found us loveless. This is the condition we were in; the condition when we were lost, before God’s love. This is the condition of the current lost world.
John is arguing here that everyone without love for one another is still connected to the lost world and has not been Given God’s love.
God loves first and enables us to love one another.
So, when someone says or thinks they love God, John gives us a mark of those who truly love God…They love one another.
Look at John’s logic…
12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
How can someone truly say they love God who is invisible while they do not love one another?
When we have experienced God’s love and have been brought from death to life and then empowered by the Holy Spirit to love one another, God’s love is being shown in the Church the way it is within the Trinity.
Those made in God’s image are now able to manifest the same type of love that God has. We, the Church are called to manifest the love for one another that we could not show before God loved us.
John explains to us that IF God has loved us, we should love one another. IF we love one another then God’s love abides in us.
If these things are true then God’s love is being perfected in us.
Ephesians 5:1–2 (ESV)
5 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
God’s love is perfected or made full when haters and enemies of God are loved by God and begin extending love to one another. Perfection is full circle.
Here’s a warning for the Church…
Just as Jesus could do no miracles in Nazareth because of the unbelief of the people. God’s love cannot be known in it’s proper way nor can it accomplish it’s perfect work when God’s love is not seen among His people.
Romans 2:24 (ESV)
24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
Is God’s love being perfected of blasphemed?
Resources Used:
Studies in John’s Epistles by Findlay
Words of Blessing
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