Wonders of His Love

1 John 4:7-21

Introduction

I have had a number of conversations with people recently about the emphasis on the message of God’s love in the church. No one is arguing that God’s love is unimportant. But we can observe that there has been a shift from seeing God as a harsh judge to God as a loving parent. The only problem with this is that we can interpret that love through modern lenses and see only what we want.

Those who see this may be concerned that an overemphasis on love can lead to “Christianity Lite.” That is we create a faith that is only about the warm fuzzies and makes no demands upon our lives. That is certainly not the faith presented in the New Testament.

Today we are looking at the first letter of John. This is a deeply theological letter and about as far away from “Christianity Lite” as you can get. In fact John is really on a heretic hunt in this letter. At this point there are more people in the church than just that first group of disciples. There are some dedicated followers of Jesus but there are some people who are just there and others who are actually dangerous. John’s purpose is to distinguish who is a real follower of Jesus and who isn’t. He presents a number of tests to determine who is who but by far, he focuses most of his time on the love test. We might not think of love as a “heresy detector” but in many ways that is what John is doing. Our major concern today may not be heresy but the principles he teaches are extremely applicable to our situation today.

God is Love

I said that this letter is deeply theological and you can’t get much more theological than reflecting on the nature of God. What is God like? Some people believe you can only say negative things about God. By that, they mean that we can only say what God is not like but God is so different from us that we can’t actually say anything about what God is like.

I’m not convinced of that as the Bible does make some positive statements about God. One of the clearest is found in this letter: God is love.

We need to be clear what we mean by this. It is not just that God is loving, meaning that one of the actions he may choose to do or not do is to love. John is saying that God is love in his nature. This is such a deep statement. It points back to the mystery of the Trinity. Long before the creation of humankind, there was eternal love between the Father, Son and Spirit.

Everything that God does comes out of his nature as love. Even the things that we don’t understand or make us feel uncomfortable. This is why Jesus summarize the Law and the Prophets as love for God and love for people. Christianity is unique in that it is the only religion that has love as its foundation. That is not to say that other people are not loving but the concept around which all of Christianity revolves is love. If you take love out of Christianity, it collapses on itself because God is love. This is a radical teaching and yet it was imperative for John to make this clear before moving on.

God Demonstrates Love

What is love? If you asked many people, they would say that love is an emotion. Many songs and movies are all about falling in love. But the problem with falling in love is that you can also fall out of love. There is nothing wrong with those emotions and we should enjoy them while they are there. But love is much more than that.

We have seen that God is love. But if God only felt love, it would not do us much good. So how does God show love?

In human relationships, people often show their love for one another by giving gifts. Of course gifts can be empty of love. I always hated when I have had jobs where I was obligated to get a gift for a person. Picking a gift is hard enough for me, it is much harder when it is done out of pure obligation. But I actually enjoy it when I am getting a gift for a person I love that reflects who they are. I know them and I know what they enjoy. What matters is not the dollar amount but how it reflects our relationship with each other. The same principle is there with God.

God shows his love by giving us gifts, the most precious gifts that he has. The first gift is very appropriate in this season of Advent. The Father shows his love by sending his Son. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not because God thought it would be a fun holiday, but because he loved us. Jesus came into this world not just to be a beautiful baby but to grow up and pay the price for our sins. God didn’t have to do that but he loved us that much. As John says in his Gospel, “For God so loved the world.” That is not just love, that is so love.

That gift would be enough. But as the late night infomercials used to say, “Wait there’s more!” The Father also sends the Spirit. Why do we need the Spirit if we already have the Son. Jesus on the cross changed everything. But that is a past event. We cannot witness it ourselves today. But by the power of the Spirit that we access the benefits of the cross. The Spirit is so important that Jesus said it was actually better for him to return to the Father. The Spirit was to be our ongoing connection with God. The Spirit plugs us into what happened in the past and is a promise to us of what the future holds.

If you don’t get what you want this Christmas, remember that we have already received the Son and the Spirit from the Father and all that because of his wondrous love.

God Expects Love

That God is love and that he demonstrates his love is all true apart from how we feel about it or respond to it. God doesn’t need us for those things to be true. But what John is doing here is not just giving a theology lessons. He is laying the foundation so that he can administer the test. Are we real followers of Jesus? The test is how we respond to what we have just learned.

So we should respond by loving God back. we do that by worship and numerous other things. But that is not enough. In some ways it is easy to love someone we can’t see. We can come to a worship service, sing out our favourite hymns and not have to deal with all the challenges a regular relationship brings.

John is very clear about this. The love test is how we treat other people. Remember Jesus had already made the connection between loving God and loving our neighbour. If we want to show to God we need to start by showing love toward people.

There are people who are very religious, who love the rituals and the rules. They love the challenge of not only following the commandments but enforcing them on others. Their theology is so solid, they can win any argument. But when you talk to them, there is no hint of love. They are the people who would be quick to condemn the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan but would also be just as quick to avoid helping a person in need.

According to John, it is simply impossible to love God and yet not show love toward people. Attempting to love God and not loving people is like trying to draw a square circle. It cannot be done.

But you might be thinking that it is hard to feel love for some people. Join the club. There are lots of people I don’t easily feel love for. Thankfully we are not commanded to feel love, we are only commanded to love. The feelings are not important. What is important is what we do. We cannot of course make a difference in every person’s life. But we can look at the opportunities we have and the resources at hand. If showing love was made illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict us? Are we going to stumble and miss opportunities? Yes we will, just as the heroes of the Bible did. The important things is, are we going in the right direction?

Conclusion

Some people think love is an easy topic and want something deeper. You can’t actually get deeper. Love goes all the way to the nature of God. God is love. God’s relationship with humanity is all about love in action. The Father sent to Son to this world to save us. The Holy Spirit was also given to us to make that sacrifice real to us and to give us the strength to live a life of faith. What will we do with this? The answer is both simple and difficult. We are to love each other. Not just those who are loveable and not just when the feelings are there. As God put love in action, so must we. If we say we love God then how we treat others has to be consistent with that. Brothers and sisters, let us love one another.