Word of Salvation – Vol. 30 No. 38 – Oct 1985
Love What Is It?
Sermon by Rev. B. G. Aldridge on 1John 4:7-12
Scripture Readings: O.T. Deut.: 7:1-11 / N.T. 1John: 4:7-12
Hymns: P.H. 329; 229; 338; 340;
INTRODUCTION
What is love?
There is no word more common in our language…
we hear about it in songs
we read about it in books,
we look at it in films and on the television.
But what is love?
The word is used to describe many different things:
Johnny says to his mum: “I love you!”
Husband says to his wife: “I love you!”
Boy says to girl in back seat of car: “If you really love me…!”
A son shoots his mother who is dying of incurable illness
and says “I did it because I loved her!”
Then the Bible says “For God so loved the world…!”
LOVE: What is it?
As Christians we need to ask ourselves: how does the bible define love?
John in his epistle makes this clear:
1. DOES EVERYONE LOVE? (vs.7)
When we look at what John says the first thing we must ask is:
Does everyone love?
Read verse 7.
The answer, of course, is: NO!
Everyone does not love. Why?
Because love comes from God and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Not everyone has been born of God and not everyone knows God so not everyone loves.
But what about feelings of affection between father and child, husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend – is this not love?
We must understand that the bible has four words for love:
The first means lust…!
The second means affection – as friend to friend
The third means family love – as brother to sister
The fourth means love shown by God.
John is talking about the love of God and says that God’s love is special.
Not everyone knows God or loves God as God loves.
2. WHAT IS LOVE? Vs.8-9
Then we ask: What is love?
John is clear: God is LOVE.
Read vs.8
It is very simple. We all know it. God is love.
But does this help us? Not really, for there are many gods in the world.
There is the god: Mammon.
There is the god: Buddha.
The Hindu religion has over 30,000 gods.
Which God is it that is love’
Again, John is very clear.
The God who is love, is the God who sent his Son into the world.
Read: vs.9
Which god is it who is love?
The god: mammon? NO!
The god: Buddha? NO!
The god: Skiva? NO!
The God who is love is creator of heaven and earth,
the God who sent his Son into this world.
the God who wants us to live through him.
This God is love. He is different to all other gods
because He alone gives, not takes.
The god mammon
demands that you work and slave before you get anything.
The god ambition
demands that you sacrifice yourself and family before you get anywhere.
But the God of Scripture is God of love who so loved the world
that he gave his only son.
This God is love.
Love then is not a feeling; it is not an emotion,
Love in biblical sense is an action:
The God, who is love, showed his love by doing something:
By giving his son.
So the boy who says to the girl in the back seat of the car: “If you love me…!”
is not showing love, but lust.
And the young man who shot his mother,
who was dying of an incur able cancer,
was not motivated by love, but pity
and anger at his own helplessness.
True love always gives first, it never demands or takes.
3. HOW DOES LOVE COME TO US? (vs.10)
Love, then, is God who is love –
giving to us his only Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
Read vs.10.
This is love in real concrete terms:
Love does not come from us
Love does not begin with us
Love does not have basis in anything we do.
Love is “not that we loved God”
but this is love that He sent his Son to die on the cross for our sins.
What is love? Love is Jesus Christ dying on the cross.
And so when Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians: “I am determined to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified” he was saying, I am determined to know nothing except the love of God for Christ crucified in the love of God.
It is very important for us to realize this. God does not love us directly but only in and through Jesus Christ and his death on the cross.
If it were not for Christ, God could not love us at all:
There was nothing in us that caused God to love us.
There was nothing that we could do to cause God to love us.
God did not create us in order to love us.
God loves us in and through Christ who died for us.
So, just as the Bible says: “Christ is the Lamb of God slain from before the foundation of the world,” so it also says, “God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, in love He predestined us.” Eph.1: 4-5.
Even before world was created Christ was the love of God in whom we were chosen.
CONCLUSION
The way God loves us shows us how we ought to love one another.
Read vss.11-12.
The emphasis is that the way we love must reflect the way God loves.
Since God so – in this way, through Christ – loves us,
we also ought to love one another in and through Christ.
Let me ask you a question: Why do we find it so hard to love one another?
There are two reasons:
1. First, we try and love one another directly.
We look at each other and we see faults,
jealousy, pride, selfishness anger,
and we say:
Because I am a Christian I have to love that person
but I find it so difficult.
How can I love all that?
The only way that we can do it is the same way God did it:
In and through Christ.
You see, God looked at us
and He saw sexual immorality impurity, idolatry,
hatred, jealousy, anger, selfish ambition,
envy, pride, lack of mercy, impatience and on and on.
God could not love us like that
so He sent his Son to die for us and loved us in Him.
Now whenever God looks at us,
He sees us in Christ,
he sees us as perfect and loves us.
Without Christ we are unlovable, in Christ we are lovable.
This means that if we are ever to love one another we must see and regard each other – not as we are ourselves – but as we are in Christ.
In Christ I can love you and you can love me because we are both perfect.
So Paul in 1Cor.5:16 says:
“From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.
If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation”
When we love as God loved us,
we regard each other as “new creation”
and we can truly love one another.
2. Secondly, we do not act, love towards each other as God has towards us.
A second reason why we find it difficult to love one another is that we do not love, that is, we do not act towards one another as God has acted towards us.
In Christ God has not acted towards us on basis of:
– Our differences.
God does not act towards us on basis of sins, failures.
God did not wait for us to become perfect before he loved us.
Rom.5:8 says “God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”
So we cannot wait for each other to become perfect before we love,
but in Christ you can love me, a sinner, and I can love you, a sinner.
– Our: performance.
Nor does God act towards us,
ie. love us on the basis of our own ability
to meet his, our own, or other standards.
God does not say: You must fully obey me before I love you.
God does not say: You must be fully surrendered to me before I love you.
God does not love us because we love him.
NO! God loves us
God sent his son to die for us as we are.
This means that I do not wait for you to meet my standards before I love you.
I do not wait for you to love me before I love you.
I do not wait for you to fully agree with me before I love you.
In Christ, I love you as you are, because that is how God loves me.
And finally, brothers and sisters, where is the power to love like that?
Let me direct you to the Lord Jesus on the cross,
See the crown of thorns on his head
See his bleeding body broken for you
Hear his awful cry “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”
Think about all the guilt and penalty of your sin taken by Him.
This is how God loves you – How can you refuse to love one another?
AMEN.