When John wrote his gospel, he used a fascinating title when speaking of himself. He called himself, often, the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23, 20:2, 21:7, 21:20).
It wasn't a statement of arrogance, as if John thought the other disciples were unloved. It was instead a profession of experience: John had felt the love of Christ. He knew Jesus loved him!
Can you imagine walking and living and spending time with Jesus, feeling His love for you? What would that love do to you? How would it shape you?
It made John say:
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, ESV)
I alluded to this last week when we looked at God as the origin of both truth and love. John knew this about God. He saw God as the great mountain from which flowed love for humanity. And he'd partaken of God's love through the life of Jesus.
And what did God's love do to John? It made him into a fearless man who loved God and others with the totality of his life. God's love rocked him to the core.
You see, for all John's exhortations to love one another, in his mind, it all begins with God. You cannot have a God who is love birth a people who don't love each other. Or who are afraid of Him. God's love makes us bold before God and loving towards others.
So today, John will teach us to:
- Know the love of God.
- Let God's love have its perfect work in us.
- Agree with God about how love works.
Let's begin.
1. Know The Trinitarian Love Of God (13-16)
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit.
By This We Know
We begin this section with another of John's by this we know statements, a phrase he uses six times in the letter (13). Here, he uses the phrase to point us back to the idea of 1 John 4:12 that God abides in His people (4:12). So he writes, we know that we abide in (God) and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit (13).
So, put succinctly, John is saying we know God is in us because He gave us His Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit Loves Us
And the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is great evidence of God living in us. As many of you know, the Bible teaches that we become the Spirit's home at the moment of our conversion (Ephesians 1:13-14, 2 Corinthians 1:22).
Consider the radical nature of this truth:
"Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?" (1 Corinthians 6:19–20, ESV)
The Bible speaks of various temples and tabernacles. God gave Moses the plan for the first. Israel built it and used it during their wilderness wanderings and early years in Canaan. Solomon, David's son built the second. He gave the tabernacle permanency by building a massive stone (and other elements) temple. Other temples were built at the same sight after that one was destroyed. And God was said to have dwelt in each.
But now, in Christ, you and I are the new temples of the Holy Spirit. There is no earthly temple here on earth. God lives in us.
This is part of the reason you'll rarely hear me refer to our building as the church. I believe the church is people, and the building is our facility or campus, a place to use for God's glory when we gather.
And to John, this fact of the Spirit living in us is evidence of God's abiding love for us. He wants to make us into His home. God wants to abide in us, which is why He has given us of His Spirit (13). It is love which drove the Spirit to make us His home.
I don't know if you've ever had the experience being "phubbed." The word is the combination of the word phone and snubbed. It happens when you are with someone or a group of people; rather than connect with you, they snub you with their phone. You've been phubbed.
It is so common in our modern era that it makes another experience stand out altogether. Instead of being phubbed, when someone looks you in the eye, asks you questions, and listens intently to your heart, it helps you know they want to have something to do with you!
John's idea is that the Spirit wants everything to do with us. He lives in us. He wants to know us. And for us to know Him.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son...
The Father Loves Us
But John knows the Father is also involved in our lives (14). He gave us the Spirit, but He also sent His Son (14). In so doing, God expressed His love for you.
Too often, believers have the wrong idea about the Father. They see Him as hesitant to love or forgive, perhaps because of the passages which teach us Jesus is our Advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). But verses like those aren't telling us there is a divergence of dispositions in the Trinity, but roles. The Son continually holds up our righteousness before the Father, and the Father continually celebrates it.
And He is the one who sent the Son. Yes, the Son volunteered Himself, but the Father had to send His Son. The Triune God is One. He worked from Himself to save us. When looking at Jesus, we are getting a glimpse into the heart of God.
"He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature..." (Hebrews 1:3, ESV)
Jesus' love is evidence of the Father's. John had seen and testified of the Father's partnership with the Son (14). His gospel (the book of John) often highlighted the fact Jesus was doing the work of the Father, executing His Father's will, always doing that which pleased the Father (John 8:28-29).
So Jesus' life and death was an outworking of the Father's heart. He wanted the cross. And why did the Father send His Son?
14b ...to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
The Son Loves Us
Finally, after seeing the role of the Spirit and the Father, John tells us of the role of the Son. Jesus was sent to be the Savior of the world (14). To confess Jesus is the Son of God who came for us and died for us means you belong to God, and God belongs to you (15). He abides in you and you in Him (15).
Jesus loved us so much He saved us, becoming the Savior of the world there on the cross (14). The rest of the Bible is clear: He was saving us from our sin, which created an obstacle for God's love. Man and God were separated through sin, but Jesus made a way to repair the breach.
Through His cross, His sacrifice in our place, we can be reconciled to the God who made us. Agree with the cross. Believe in Jesus and what He did there. You will be saved.
16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
Knowing The Trinitarian Love Of God
So John says we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us (16). It is a robust love. The Spirit, Father, and Son -- The Triune God -- aims His perfect love at us.
This caused John to say, again, God is love (16). If someone abides in love, they abide in God, and God abides in him (16).
Think of our Pacific Ocean. If someone decides to swim in the ocean, they have to get in the water. If someone says, I am going to get in the water, they have to get in the ocean. You cannot have one without the other.
In other words, to swim in love is to swim in God. And to abide in God is to abide in love.
The full-blast of who He is -- Spirit, Father, and Son -- is aimed at us. Before the worlds were created, the Triune love of God found perfect expression within Himself. But, one day, God created humanity. He said:
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26, ESV)
God wanted people He created to experience Him, to bear His image, and know His love. And He is still working hard to do so. He wants people made in His image to know His love, to experience Him. He wants us to know His love for us.
A Process
John hints at this being a process. To know God's love takes time. In a sense, our lives are a constant discovery of His love. Because of this, John said, so we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us (16). Come to know. Come to believe. This is the language of process.
Yesterday, I was honored to preside over the wedding of Joey and Bethany Siekmann. Bethany grew up in our church. Their wedding ceremony was a celebration of their love for one another. Now, though, they enter into life together. Their marriage is meant to be an experience of the love they professed at their wedding.
So it is with us, the bride of Christ. At conversion, we were betrothed to Him. The cross shows us we are loved. But the duration of our lives, both now and eternally, will be an experience of His love.
And, once we receive that love, we must let it have its perfect work in us...
2. Let Love Have Its Perfect Work In You (17-18)
17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world.
Confidence Possible
For far too many Christians, the love of God is a past-tense experience. They saw the love of God in the cross of Christ, became born-again, but proceeded to live in paranoia and skittishness around God. Their basic feeling about and around God is nervousness.
But John tells us it's possible to be confident around God, so much so that may have confidence for the day of judgment (17).
Now, talk about the day of judgment doesn't usually set a Christian at ease (17). You know, you probably wouldn't encourage someone who is doubting God's love for them by saying, "Don't worry, just remember the day of judgment."
Now, I should pause for a moment to remind you that the day of judgment isn't one of life or death for Christians. In Christ, we will not partake in a judgment where our final destiny is in the balance. Jesus said,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life." (John 5:24, ESV)
Instead, the Bible teaches a believer's life will be assessed at the judgment seat of Christ (1 Corinthians 3:12-15, 2 Corinthians 5:10). Did we live for eternity or the temporal? Did we live for God or for the self? But our eternal destiny has already been secured by Jesus.
But John seems to think that if God's love is perfected in us, we will have such confidence before God that even the day of judgment, that day our lives are assessed, isn't a feared event. Now that's confidence!
Know Who You Are
How does one acquire such boldness? John says, because as He is so also are we in this world (17). What does John mean?
Well, part of God's love being perfected in us is that we begin to love like Jesus. The ingestion of God's love changes us.
This is not hard to imagine. Think of someone who has only ever eaten the perfect balance of protein, carbs, and fats in proper portions for the last ten years. They've never overeaten. Sugar is a foreign substance (don't they bother you!). Well, in your imagination, I'm sure that person looks rather fit. What they consumed affected the way they looked.
Perhaps that is the concept John alludes to here. If we consume God's love, we will look like Jesus, and that will give us confidence before God.
But there seems to be more to what John is saying. We aren't actually like Jesus all the time, but the Bible teaches we always have the same position before the Father Jesus did.
"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus..." (Ephesians 2:4–6, ESV)
And knowing who you are -- so secure it's as if you are already seated with Christ in the heavenly places -- can give you radical confidence before the Lord.
Think of it this way. In elementary school I ran for some type of class office. For the life of me, I can't remember what it was. But I do remember I had to campaign and make a speech in front of the whole school. And I also remember losing. The run-up to the election, the campaigning, and the nerves as they tallied the ballots were all such an unsettling experience.
Fast forward to my high school years. I decided to run for Athletic Commissioner. And, in our small little school, no one else decided to run. It was such a different campaign experience. It was a lock. So when I gave my speech, or awaited the results, I exuded quite a bit of confidence.
In Christ, we are a lock. Our position in Him is secure. As He is so also we are in this world (17). As a result, confidence is ours.
18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
No Fear
Here, John tells us that when love has its perfect work in us, when we know who we are in Christ, there is no fear (18). God's perfect love casts out fear (18). Because fear has to do with punishment, someone who still fears punishment has not been perfected in love (18).
For the student of Scripture, this brings up an inevitable question. Doesn't the Bible tell us the fear of the Lord is good? For example, the oft-repeated phrase:
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.." (Proverbs 9:10, ESV)
John tells us perfect love gets rid of fear. Proverbs (and other passages) tell us the fear of God is the place wisdom and knowledge start. How do we reconcile the two concepts?
The answer is simple. Proverbs is talking about respect, reverence, and awe. John is talking about paranoia, fright, and apprehension.
When one draws closer to God, because He is love, their paranoia, fright, and apprehension should vanish. And because He is majestic and holy, their respect, reverence, and awe should grow.
Not Perfected In Love
So John tells us the person who still fears punishment -- someone who fears in that paranoid, frightful, nervous way -- has not been perfected in love (18). This is part of the reason we often respond joyfully to teaching about the love of God. It sets us at ease. It helps us become bold because once we know God is for us, we feel strengthened for everything which is against us.
A good example of the growth John envisions comes from the Old Testament life of Gideon. During his day, the people of Israel were oppressed by the Midianite people who would steal their crops and keep them in poverty. Israel cried out to God. God decided to use Gideon to give them the victory, so the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, recruiting him into God's service.
Immediately, Gideon feared. First, he thought he would die as a result of seeing the Angel of the Lord. Second, he obeyed God's command to tear down the altar to Baal, but only under cover of night so he would remain unseen by others. Third, he asked God for miraculous confirmation about his calling, even though he'd already seen the angel of the Lord. And finally, after God sent him a supporting army, God invited him -- if he was still afraid to head out to war -- to go down into the camp of the Midianites for a final confirmation God was with him. God said:
"But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with your servant. And you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened."" (Judges 7:10–11, ESV)
Gideon was still afraid, so he went down and overheard the Midianites telling of dreams they had of barley bread rolling down the hill and overturning their tents. They were so terrified of Gideon they came to the conclusion that the dream was about him, a man who would tumble into their camp and destroy them!
All this was God's way of developing Gideon's confidence in Him. He patiently perfected Gideon in love. And God wills to do the same for you.
"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!"" (Romans 8:15, ESV)
This is the Spirit we have received. We must let God's love have its perfect work in us.
3. Agree With God About How Love Works (19-21)
The final point of this section is that we must agree with God about how love works. Let's read:
19 We love because He first loved us.
To Us
First, we must recognize all our love is a response to His. We love because He first loved us (19). So God's love comes first to us before it goes anywhere else. He is the great initiator.
Christina and I have been married for nearly 18 years, but back when we were in the dreaded "friend-zone," I was unsure of how she felt about me. I anxiously waited to get a clue as to her true feelings. But all my sleuthing never turned up anything. I had no idea how she felt. So, eventually, with the ball firmly in my court, I had to take the lead and put myself out there. I had to initiate.
And God initiated with us. But that's as far as the analogy goes because it turned out Christina actually liked me quite a bit. The same was not the case with God and us, however. We were rebels, running from Him, and dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1-4). We did not care for Him. We were spiritually deceased.
But in our deadness, God's love broke through. He shattered chains and broke through lies to shout His love for us.
And His love is so wonderfully radical and good. Remember a few weeks ago, when our Life Groups discussed the Prodigal Son parable from Luke 15? Timothy Keller has a wonderful paragraph about the lesson learned while observing the prodigal's return and the father's reception of his rebellious son:
God's love and forgiveness can pardon and restore any and every kind of sin or wrongdoing. It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. It doesn't matter if you've deliberately oppressed or even murdered people, or how much you've abused yourself. The younger brother knew that in his father's house there was abundant "food to spare," but he also discovered that there was grace to spare. There is no evil that the father's love cannot pardon and cover, there is no sin that is a match for his grace. -- Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith, loc. 314. Kindle Edition
Amazing. God's love is first.
From Us
But notice how God's love works. It comes to us first, but then it flows back from us to Him. We respond to His love by loving Him. John said it this way: We love because He first loved us (19). What is our response to His love? We love.
The love John has in mind is our love for God. We will see this in the next verse.
So this is how God's love works. First, it flows from Him to us. Then, we respond to His love by loving Him. But what happens next? Let's read on:
20 If anyone says, "I love God," and 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. 21 And this commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
To Others
John is a straight shooter. He says the person who hates his brother while saying "I love God" is actually a liar (20).
John wanted a pure Christianity. All through his letter, he refers to three terrible lies; one is moral (disobedience to God), one is doctrinal (saying Jesus didn't come in the flesh), and one is social (hatred for others).
When John spoke of hatred, he meant an absence of love. And this is how God's love works. It flows to us. We receive it and in return, love God. After experiencing God, who is love, we then turn and love others. It is the inevitable response to God's love.
In John's mind, one cannot love the invisible God without loving God's visible people. They are right there, ready to be loved. We must extend ourselves to them!
The Myth
But there is a myth we often believe. We think we can love God without loving His people. John is busting that myth with this passage. A person who refuses to love others clearly hasn't interacted with God.
A Christianity which would use the vertical preoccupation as a means to escape from its responsibility for and in the common life of man is a denial of the incarnation, of God's love for the world manifested in Christ. -- John Stott, Christian Mission in the Modern World, loc. 220. Kindle Edition
Yes. Love for God goes hand in hand with love for others, especially our spiritual siblings.
We must remember John's point here. Some forms of theology emphasize people and forget about God, while others highlight God and look down on others. But good theology should cause us to love God and people who are made in His image.
This is part of the reason sins such as abortion and racism are so terrible in God's sight. He hates it when we take advantage of others who are made in His likeness. Instead, when God's love fills your life, you should love all people. May it be so in us.
This is how love works. It flows from God to us, and back to God from us, and then to others through us.
Applications
So, today, we've seen how we must:
- Know the Trinitarian love of God.
- Let love have its perfect work in us.
- Agree with God about how love works.
Let's close with some points of application.
1. Ask God to open your eyes so you can see His love more fully.
Paul prayed for the Ephesian to have their spiritual understanding opened to comprehend the love and kingdom of God (Ephesians 1, 3). Knowing God's love is a process of revelation, so ask Him to help you see.
2. Make growing in God's love a major goal for your life.
Since John tells us it is a process, something we should be perfected in. So when you think of your goals and ambitions, let the love of God be one of your main desires.
3. Every time you are nervous about God discover the reason.
Is it because you aren't conscious of God's love? Is it because you've behaved rather unlovingly? Is it because there is unconfessed sin in your life? Don't let the moment pass without some Holy Spirit introspection.
4. During this season, remember Jesus is the Savior of the world.
We saw this is verse 14. This is important during the season we find ourselves in today. First, with the coming of the Christmas season, let's remember the incarnation of Christ. Jesus was born as a baby in order to become our Savior. He came into the world so He could die for the world.
Second, with the coming of our nation's presidential election, along with all the acrimony and division of such a time, Christians must remember Jesus as the Savior of the world. The enemy of our souls always wants to draw our attention to the world and worldly solutions, and we praise God for the privilege of living in a democracy, but the ultimate Healer of the catastrophe of this world is Jesus Christ. He is the Savior. He has a kingdom greater than any earthly citizenship. And we must fight to give His kingdom its proper place in our lives.
5. Recognize the enemy's hopes to drag you into racism.
He would be happy to drag you into stereotyping others, or into more insidious hate of others. Do not give in. Your fellow man is your brother, someone God created, and someone Jesus died for. There is no room for prejudice and hate amongst God's people.
6. Love your "brother" by serving in the church or joining a Life Group.
I know I've said this before, but all these exhortations to love should drive us to look for opportunities to do so. In our fellowship, serving and small groups provide a couple opportunities for love.
7. Make a list of fellow Christians and pray for them.
When you pray for them by name, your heart for them will grow. Love will increase.