One of the most famous Bible statements about God is found in our text today: “God is love.” What a marvelous statement! What a truth! But we have to be careful with a statement like this, especially in a culture where ‘love talk’ is thrown around so freely, from songs to salutations, from billboards to sweatpant bottoms. In a culture saturated with love-speak we run the risk of inverting (and thus, perverting) John’s declaration “God is love” into an abomination: “Love is god.” John’s closing sentence in this epistle is an apt warning: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” Simply defined as ‘an intense feeling of deep affection,’ it’s easy to see how love can become an idol for many, –a god, –a thing to be worshiped. By nature we all want to be on the giving and receiving end of those feelings. Yet, as the supreme pursuit of one’s life love cannot and will not supremely satisfy, because love is not supreme; only the loving God from whom love comes is supreme, and thus He alone can supremely satisfy!
John elevates love as a principle activity of the Christian life when he says in v. 7, “Beloved let us love one another,” but he properly subordinates it to God when he then says, “for love is from God.” Love is a product, but God is the Producer. Love is a practice of the Christian life, but God is to be the priority.
The church in John’s day and the church today have some significant differences. Back then churches mainly consisted of poor and working-class folks, but today the church is far more economically diverse. In John’s day the church sat on society’s margin, but in a few hundred years would become institutionalized and mainstream. By contrast, while today’s church has been part of mainstream western society for centuries, it’s quickly being pushed to the margins by secularism and other cultural forces. In John’s day the church was a movement with no monuments. Today—especially in our American (Western) context—the church has many spectacular monuments but seemingly little spiritual movement or vitality. John and the church of his day were persecuted, but within a few hundred years the church would become a state-sanctioned instrument of persecution. Today the church in the west isn’t being persecuted, but that won’t always be true. We may be moving back to the margins. We may be moving back to the place of persecution. But, praise God, we’re moving!
For all the differences between the early and modern church, God’s purpose for the church hasn’t changed, and His word provides guidance for how to be about His purpose. In the A.D. 300s emperor Constantine’s vision compelling him to declare Christianity the state religion of Rome led to centuries of abuse done in the name of Christ. Conditions within the early church made this grafting into Rome’s political structure enticing, namely a gradual exchange of loving one another for a self-love fondled by the prospect of political acceptance and power—and it started with church leaders. But I think the true church is weary of this today. True Christians are fed up with being looked at as a voting block and want to be a vital, prophetic gospel force. True Christians, don’t get duped by politicians or candidates claiming they’ll protect you or your values. They can’t. They won’t!
Can reclaiming Jesus’ mandate to love one another today be God’s way of making the church a movement again? I believe so. And if we at Bridge are indeed A loving community of Christ-followers glorifying God together by making disciples of all nations, then by God’s grace might that movement grow here and spread outward from us. Let’s look closely at John’s words.
“Beloved…” Why does John call them “Beloved” in v. 7? He could’ve addressed them in any number of ways: “Okay Christians,” “Alright disciples,” “Listen up saints,” “Pay attention brothers and sisters.” He likes to call them “Little children.” He could’ve said, “Okay little children, let’s love one another,” but he doesn’t do that here. Instead he roots his central exhortation, the central imperative of the epistle— “love one another”—in their identity as beloved of God. You see, imperative flows from identity; command flows from condition. What’s the church’s identity and pre-existing condition? We are God’s beloved! Does John love these believers? Sure. He calls them beloved elsewhere. But he calls them ‘Beloved’ and challenges them to love each other because of what he says in the next part of the sentence: “for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” John’s instruction to love one another is rooted in the Christian’s identity as beloved of God. And our identity as beloved of God is rooted in God’s identity as a loving God—as Love personified! “Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” Notice the contrast in v. 8, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
When we fail to love one another, and lack love for one another, is it because we’ve forgotten our identity as God’s beloved? And have we forgotten our identity as God’s beloved because we’ve forgotten God’s identity as a loving God? And have we forgotten all of that because, through a lack of spiritual self-discipline, we’ve gotten our identity wrapped up in this world and all sorts of worldly things? As emphatically as John urges the early church to love one another in 4:7, he just as emphatically urges them not to love in 2:15-17,
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
Or even worse, do we fail to love one another because we’ve never been properly identified as God’s beloved because we’ve never properly received God as a loving God by putting our faith in Jesus, the One He’s sent to save us from all those worldly attachments? “Beloved…” It’s more than just a tenderhearted address; it’s a declaration of the church’s identity!
“Let us love one another…” This is it—this is the biggie! If loving one another… loving the brotherhood… loving other Christians isn’t in here, John’s letter falls apart. Loving one another as followers of Christ is the glue that makes every other instruction, every other reminder, every other encouragement and exhortation in this epistle hold together.
Think about our witness as a church. If we go serve the poor but grumble and roll our eyes at each other, what are we accomplishing? If we go on mission trips but gossip about those who aren’t on the trip, where’s our focus? If at sports camp we complain about who’s not doing what in front of our neighbors and their kids, what are we telling them? If I accurately preach all the doctrines of the Bible yet go home and behave unlovingly towards Deborah, what am I telling my unsaved children about the church, about Christianity, and about Jesus Himself?
And if we aren’t heeding the command to love one another, are we really heeding John’s other “love” command: to not love the world and its things? Are we really his final command to keep ourselves from idols? If we aren’t loving one another, we’re not loving God. And if we aren’t loving God, it’s not that we aren’t loving, we’re just loving something else. We’re loving how that grumbling, gossiping, complaining, or meanness makes us feel about ourselves. God is no longer love to us; self and self-love have become gods to us. Again, this is why John’s next statement is so important.
“…For love is from God…” The universe wasn’t created by a feeling. You and I weren’t saved by a feeling. Our Creator and Savior is not a feeling; He’s a Person! Actually, He’s three Persons in one with a plan and a shared will to carry out that plan. His will toward us is grace, and that sin-forgiving grace is set in motion by His redeeming love for us. Grace, forgiveness, redemption, love—we’re not talking about some mystical mojo blowing a kind of magic wind randomly touching some people and not others—“Can you feel the love tonight, Simba?” No. Love and all it entails has a starting point—it’s from somewhere! And that starting point is in fact a starting Person: “love is from God.”
Don’t you hate those phone calls that pop up “UNKNOWN” or “RESTRICTED”? You have no idea who or where it’s from. The last thing I want to do when I see “UNKNOWN CALLER” on my phone is answer it. When God calls a human heart, He’s no “Unknown” caller. He identifies Himself through something called conviction. If today you’re aware of sin—a behavior, a pattern, a state of being that arouses a sense of shame and guilt, God is calling. If you want free from that sin and guilt, God is calling! If the message that God sent His Son to give you that freedom is appealing to you, God is calling! If you’re a Christian but you’ve neglected spiritual discipline and fallen into the self-loving idolatry of worldliness and recognize that your love for other Christians is languishing, God is calling!
In John 4 when the woman at the well first met Jesus, He was unknown to her, but she certainly wasn’t unknown to Him. He called her at every point of her sin, but she didn’t recoil in terror. Jesus’ piercing insight woke her up to the fact that He was no ordinary man. And though she felt guilt, shame, and conviction, when she ran back to town it wasn’t to get away from Him; it was to bring others to Him. She heard love calling and it wasn’t just some gentle wind blowing; it was a man—the God-man—speaking to her; and she answered! “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.” God’s call is a loving call. Don’t sit there and play dumb wondering why you’re feeling that conviction, that desire for freedom, that attraction to Christ, that awareness of idolatry. Answer the call!
“…And whoever loves has been born of God, and knows God.” We answer God’s call either by being born of God through initial repentance of sin and faith in Christ (we call that conversion), or by confessing our selfish idolatry, thereby proving that we were already born of God and starting to live (and love) like it again. Why is western Christianity more of a monument than a movement? Trust me, it’s not a theological crisis. We could pave a path to every people group on the planet with all the books and pages of theology the western church has produced over the centuries. And it isn’t a money crisis. We could pave roads and build bridges to every unreached tribe on earth with all the buildings and pews we’ve built to make ourselves feel comfortable and legitimate. It’s not a leadership crisis either. We’ve got seminaries churning out biblically faithful pastors and missionaries enough to put gospel boots on the ground virtually anywhere.
It’s a love crisis that keeps us in monument mode rather than movement mode. And again, it’s not the absence of love but the lamentable misappropriation of love self-ward rather than others-ward. Why do we want to feel self-important when the cross of Christ proves how important we are? Why would we want to feel self-secure when Jesus says, “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you”? Why do we want to feel self-actualized in earthly accomplishments, when the Lord calls us to be heaven’s ambassadors in the here and now?
Oh Spirit of God, might you break and awaken our hearts, redirect our affections. Help us move again and prove we’ve been born of God and that we know God by loving who God loves, not only one another already in the family of the church but our sisters and brothers yet to be born.
“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Ever wonder why Jesus sent the disciples out to heal and preach and teach in pairs—two by two? Ever wonder why the apostles always preferred to move in groups and teams? Safety? Yeah. Added confidence and boldness? Sure. Accountability? Okay. What about love? Could it be that our earliest Christian ancestors were directed by Jesus and chose to always travel in groups because the world cannot know that we know God, much less that our God is loving, unless it sees us loving each other? I’m all about safety, accountability and boldness in witnessing, but our primary witness doesn’t hinge on those things; it hinges on love.
Our oldest two kids are seven and five. They’re well into that fighting stage. Everything’s a power struggle. There’s not a lot of visible love between them. I came home the other day and they were playing together in the living room. And when I asked one of them to do something for me, Deborah cut me off and said, “Can it wait? They’re actually playing nicely and quietly together.” She didn’t want to interrupt a rare moment of civility where it almost seemed like they loved each other.
I’m going to take a risk this morning as a pastor and pay you a compliment. I was privileged to grow up in what was (and still is) a very loving church. Calvary Baptist Church of Republic, Missouri is not a perfect church, but it is a loving church. It’s a much larger church than Bridge, but I want you to know that pound-for-pound our church is just as loving than that church. When I look at our church I don’t see your interactions as rare moments of civility where it seems like you love each other; you guys really love one another. Now don’t let that go to your heads; it’s not something to be taken for granted or to be proud of; it’s something for which we ought to credit, thank, and praise God.