Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,
Several weeks ago we had a visitor with us at church. And it so happened that I was preaching on the passage where John introduces the second of the profession of faith tests that he gives in this letter, which is the social test – the need for us to show Christ-like love to our brothers and sisters. Well this same visitor was back with us a few weeks later when I preached on the passage where John picks up that same topic again. So visiting us on two separate occasions, he heard sermons about why loving our brothers and sisters is so important and what it looks like. It’s not surprising then that he wondered whether love was in need of some specific attention among us
Well, he is not with us today. But today we come to the THIRD TIME in this short letter that John speaks about the need for believers to love one another. John has worked through the three profession of faith tests, twice: the moral test – Genuine believers love to obey God’s commandments, the social test – genuine believers love their brothers and sisters, and the theological test – genuine believers love the truth about the person and work of Jesus Christ. And John is going to summarize the three tests one more time in the opening part of ch. 5. But before he does that, John returns again, with a lot to say and with some real force, to the importance of loving one another.
And if we think about it, the first test has to do with obeying God’s commandments. Right? But the Lord Jesus said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.” So if we love one another, we are obeying God’s commandment. Therefore, the second and the first profession of faith tests combine in the command that we love one another. And with the new command to love one another, Jesus pointed to Himself as the reason and the example for this love. He said, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” So the third profession of faith test – that we love the truth about the person and work of the Jesus Christ – is also an essential part of our love for one another. This means then that the extra attention that John gives here to the second profession of faith test is not in anyway ignoring or downgrading the importance of obedience and theology, for the fact is that obedience and theology are essential parts of our love for one another.
But the fact remains that just as it was reasonable for the visitor I mentioned at the start of the sermon to assume that two sermons on love might mean that love needed some specific attention here at Dovedale, the fact that John returns a third time to this matter of loving brothers and sisters is revealing and instructive. The believers John wrote to had resisted the false doctrine of the Gnostics and had not fallen into loose living. But did they love each other? Did they really love one another? And if we think about church history, when theological controversy comes along, what is the first thing that often flies out the window? Love for others. People become absorbed with fine points of doctrine and procedure but do not give nearly as much attention to love. It is in John 13 that we find Jesus’ new commandment that we love one another. Do you remember what he said next? He said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Our love for one another is THE thing that marks us out as Jesus’ disciples. So is there this love among us? Is it obvious that we are a congregation of Jesus’ disciples?
Well, let’s think more about these things as PASTOR JOHN RETURNS AGAIN TO THE IMPORTANCE OF LOVING ONE ANOTHER. And there are two main sections of this passage: In vv7-11 we find THREE POWERFUL REASONS why we should love one another and then in vv12-21 we discover the TWO PRECIOUS BENEFITS of loving one another.
I. So first of all, the THREE POWERFUL REASONS why we must love one another.
A. And the first one is the NATURE of God. We read, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.” And then at the end of v8, “God is love.”
1. One of the most wonderful things to study in the Bible is the CHARACTER of God. And God has revealed much about who He is in the Bible. And there are a few places, like this one, where we read that “God is ___________.” So we know that God is Spirit, and we know that God is truth, and we know that God is a consuming fire. But here we see that God is love. Love is an essential part of God’s being.
2. And the language that the Bible often uses to describe becoming a Christian is to be BORN AGAIN. God sends His Holy Spirit into a person’s heart and changes their essential being and nature; He regenerates them; He gives them new life.
3. So that is the point here: Because God is love and because love is from God, “whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” So when we behave in an unloving way, we are not being true to who we are. We are living as though we have no connection with God.
a. It’s kind of like the person who uses a false surname. Their real name is Smith but they tell everyone that it is Jones. And this means that no one can connect them with Mr Smith Snr. No one will say, he is just like his dad.
4. So we must love one another for the sake of our witness to the world. That is how they know that we are His people. We must love one another then because of the nature of God.
B. But the second reason why we should love one another is the GIFT of God.
1. Verse 9 says, “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. 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.”
a. According to John 3:16, why did God give His only begotten Son? Because He so loved the world. Ephesians 2:4 says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us…made us alive with Christ.” Underneath and behind the whole work of salvation in Jesus Christ is the great love of God.
2. And so great is His love for us, He SENT HIS ONLY SON INTO THE WORLD. It doesn’t even come close as an illustration, but can you imagine sending your only child, a dearly loved child, to live in Norway? Well, the Father sent His only Son, the Son with whom He enjoyed daily and precious and intimate fellowship with, away to earth.
3. But not only Did He send His only Son to earth, He sent Him there TO DIE. He said, Go, Son. Go and live among them and then go the cross where I will forsake you and smite you and afflict you and wound you and crush you with all my eternal wrath until you die.
4. But not only did He send His only Son to earth to die, He sent to die FOR SINNERS.
a. Early I quoted Ephesians 2 in connection with God’s great love. Here is the rest of the verse, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses.”
i. We sometimes hear about lawyers or celebrities going to extraordinary lengths to try and get the sentence of someone in prison who they think is innocent overturned. But what about the clearly guilty, child-murdering, wife-beating, rapist? Does anyone try and get him out of prison? No. Well, God’s great love for us is seen in that God sent His only Son to die for the spiritual equivalent of child-murdering, wife-beating, rapists. For outside of Christ, that is what we are – dead in our trespasses; hostile, hateful, enemies of God.
5. Verse 10 says, “God sent His Son to be the PROPITIATION for our sins.” And that is a word that needs explaining. Propitiation and expiation are the two parts of Jesus’ work on the cross. Pro means to or toward, and ex means out or away. Expiation – Jesus takes our sins away from us and pays for them. Propitiation – Jesus looks to God and receives His eternal wrath and punishment. And the end result of this amazing love, as Romans 5:1 tells us, is that “we have peace with God.”
6. And so we come to v11, “Beloved, if God SOOOOOOOOOOO loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Because of the gift of God – His giving His only Son to die for sinners, we also ought to love one another.”
C. Well, that brings us to v12, which introduces the next main section of this passage. But before we consider that section, something we have already mentioned is seen here as the third reason why we must love one another in this verse. And we see it in the opening words of this verse, “NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN GOD.” In one of the catechism classes the other night, we were reminded that the first man in space, the Russian cosmonaut, YURI GAGARIN, is said to have commented after his space flight, “I didn’t see God out there.” Now, there are a lot of things we could say about his comment. But at a very simple level, what he said matches what John says here, “No one has ever seen God.” But the astounding and breathtaking point that John is making here is that God can be seen in His children! Yuri Gagarin was foolish to think that if he travelled far enough into space he could park his space-ship in heaven and see God. But if Yuri Gagarin had gone to a church and seen brothers and sisters loving each other, He would see the love of God. It’s the same point we noted earlier from the words of Jesus, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Yes, there is a place for apologetics and learning gospel presentations, and all of that. But the strongest witness we can proclaim to the world is our love for one another.
II. These then are the three POWERFUL reasons why we must love one another – because of the nature of God, because of the gift of God, and because such love is a strong witness to the world. But such love is a powerful witness to ourselves also as we look at the remaining verses and see the two PRECIOUS BENEFITS of loving one another. And they are summarized in v12 as John says, “If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.”
A. And v13 takes up the first of these precious benefits as we read, “By this we know that we abide in Him and He is us.” So the first precious benefit of loving one another is that by it we know that GOD ABIDES IN US. Do you want to know and be sure that you are a Christian? Well, one way to be sure is to see that you love your brothers and sisters.
1. You see, you will only love your brothers and sisters if the Holy Spirit lives in you, as we see at the end of v13. Can one of you boys and girls tell us what the first fruit of the Spirit is from Galatians 5? Love.
2. And vv14-16 fills out or explores this wonderful truth even more. We know from John and the other Apostles that the Father sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world. This is what we read in the Bible. And “whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and he in God.” Well, we have already seen that behind and underneath the whole work of salvation is God’s love for sinners. And it is this undeserved love for us that has attracted us to Him. That’s what v16 is describing, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.” We have come to know and believe that “God is love.” It is the love of God that draws us to believe in Jesus Christ. So if my life is a reflection of God’s love to me in Jesus Christ; if I love my brothers and sisters as God has loved me in Jesus Christ, this can only be of the Holy Spirit, so I know that I abide in God and that God abides in me. That’s the first precious benefit of loving my brothers and sisters – I can be sure that God abides in me.
B. The second precious benefit of loving one another we see in vv17-21: And it is that THIS IS HOW GOD’S LOVE IS PERFECTED IN US.
1. And what we read here has to do with THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. It is not a popular teaching of the Bible but it is THE topic that the Lord Jesus devoted most of His words to in the Gospels. There is going to be a Day of Judgment for everyone at the end of time. Now let’s be very clear on this: The basis of our salvation is the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We contribute nothing to our salvation; we can not earn 1% of our salvation by what we do. It is all of Jesus! We need not fear the Day of Judgment because Jesus is the propitiation for our sins; we have peace with God. But we may also face the Day of Judgment with confidence because, as we read at the end of v17 and into v18, “As He is so also are we in this world.” We really can be like the Lord Jesus in terms of loving our brothers and sisters.
2. Here is a very simple ILLUSTRATION of what is being taught here. You boys and girls are left home with your siblings while your parents nip down to the shops. While they are away, you squabble and fight and maybe even break something. Are you looking forward to when Mum and dad get back home? Uh uh. But if you behaved well and maybe even did some tidying up while they were out, then do you look forward to their return? You sure do!
3. Well, our love for our brothers and sisters will never be perfect in this life. Nevertheless, as we see in v18, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” While our love is not perfect, as in as good and consistent and complete as it could be, it is the perfect love of God; it is the love that is from God. And because we see it in ourselves, we can be confident that on the Day of Judgment, God will say, “I recognize you; you look like my Son. I see my love in you.” So this too is a precious benefit of loving others.
Well, we have considered three powerful reasons why we should love one another and two precious benefits of loving one another. John concludes with these words: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” It is probably the natural inclination of most to think that it is easy to love God simply because He is worthy of our love and difficult to love our brothers and sisters because they can be so unlovable and unworthy and undeserving of our love. But John smacks that sort of thinking right between the eyes! He would have us see that unless we are really loving our brothers and sisters on the horizontal level we are deceiving ourselves in regard to what we consider to be our love for God on the vertical. “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
Earlier in the service we read from HOSEA. And Hosea’s love for Gomer is a perfect illustration of the kind of love we are talking about – He was to marry and love a woman who he knows will constantly leave the marriage bed for the bed of other men. And each time he has to go and find her and bring her back and love her. And if you are thinking that that sounds disgusting and how could God get Hosea to do that, remember that you are a Gomer. You are an unfaithful, idolatrous, half-hearted, self-absorbed sinner who so easily wanders away from the Lord. But such is His love for you in Christ that He dealt with your sins once and for all on the cross, and He continually restores you every time you fall into the whoredom of sin by leading you to confess your sins and seek His forgiveness.
So that brings us right back to where we started: What is love like in here? Does our love for one another look like God’s love for us? The love of the world is deserved love – you be nice to me or give me something and I will be kind to you. I will love you if I feel like it. But the love of God is undeserved love – I will be kind and gentle and compassionate, and serve you even if you do not deserve it. I will turn the other cheek. I will go the extra mile. Is that how you love one another? Amen.