Question
God Is Love
1 John 4:7-21
Key Verse 4:8
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Read verses 7-8. What does the author urge us to do? (7a) Why? (7b) Why is love closely related with God? (7c) What is true of whoever doesn’t love? (8a) What is God? (8b, 16b)
Read verses 9-12. How did God show his love among us? (9) What is love? (10, Romans 5:8) What ought we to do in response of God’s love to us? (11, 1 John 3:16) What happens in us if we love one another? (12)
Read verses 13-16. What do we know through God’s Spirit given to us? (13) What have we seen and what do we testify? (14) What happens in the one who acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God? (15) What do we know and what do we rely on? (16a) What is true of whoever lives in love? (16b)
Read verses 17-18. How is love made complete among us? (17a) What will we have on the day of judgement and why? (17b) Why does love have no fear? (18a) What relationship is there between ‘fear’, ‘punishment’, and ‘love’? (18b)
Read verses 19-21. Why do we love? (19) What is the one who says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother? (20a) Why? (20b) What command has been given to us by Jesus? (21)
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Message
GOD'S LOVE AND MAN'S LOVE
1 John 4:7-21
Key Verse: 4:7
"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."
As we know well, John was a politically ambitious person. He wanted to be Prime Minister of the earthly messianic kingdom he thought
Jesus would establish. Before Jesus called him he was competitive, selfish and a man who sought his own glory. But John came to realize that God made his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, the atoning sacrifice for our sins. He realized the love of God. He realized the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who obeyed God's will unto death, death on the cross. Most importantly, his spiritual eyes were opened. In today's passage, John describes those who are born of God and those who are not born of God. He urges us to grow in the love of God. When we study this part prayerfully, we learn that we came from God. Those who do not know that they came from God do not know what to do with their lives, so they end up seeking self-glory and hating others. May God bless us to know that we are born of God. In short, our original being is from God. Since God is love, we must grow in the love of God. We must love one another. That should be our lifestyle on earth.
Look at verses 7-8. "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." John clearly tells us that we are created in the image of God. Since the attribute of God is love, we also must love God as God loves man. On the other hand, whoever does not love does not know God. Here we learn that there are two kinds of people. First is those who do not know God and hate one another. Second is those who know God and his attribute and love one another. Let's think about the first kind of people who do not know God and hate one another. There are many kinds of love. Sometimes people say, "I love you," when it is not love, but just physical gratification. Sometimes people say, "I love you," but man's love is romantic and short lived.
Many married couples say, “I love you” to one another. Many parents say to their children, “I love you” and vice versa. But there are many who divorce and there are many children who wont speak to their parents. It is because they don’t know where they came from or who God is. They are not born of God. There was a young American man who played in a Christian rock band, who told a young Irish girl, “I love you.” But when she made him angry he choked her until she died. He said it was an accident. In his band he sings songs like, “I love you Lord”, but he doesn’t know the Lord. He doesn’t know that God is love.
Now let's think about those who are born of God. Long ago on the Hawaiian Islands there used to be a leper colony at Molokia. The lepers were completely isolated. They could only get there by ship. The ship would stop off the coast and throw the people overboard and sail away. These sick and dying people were left to their own devices. But one priest, Father Damian, could not bear this so he decided to live among them. He was told that if he went there he could never come back, because at that time people thought leprosy was contagious. He went anyways. And sure enough he became leprous and eventually died among them.
This promising young man, who could have done anything with his life, decided to use it to comfort and reveal God’s love to an already dead people. His time, effort and energy was spent fully lavished and some would say, squandered on a group of people who would only die. Many parents give their all for their children to succeed in life, but who gives their all for condemned men and women? Who gives their lives so that others may know the love of God? Only those who are born of God and know God is love.
How do we know that God is love? Verse 10 says, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." Martin Luther, once said, "If I were God, I would destroy all mankind twice a day." But love is this: God sent his one and only Son as the atoning sacrifice. In this short sentence, we learn that God is love. As I shared earlier, parents will do anything for their children, even lay down their lives for them. But God sent his one and only Son into the world. When God sent his one and only Son into the world, he had to deprive him of all his glory, power and honor of the kingdom of God. When God sent his one and only Son to this world, he did not send him to a rented apartment, but to a stable of an animal, and when he was born he was laid in a manger.
It was the beginning of atoning sacrifice. The climax of atoning sacrifice was shedding his blood on the cross. But renouncing the glory and power of the kingdom of God was the same for Jesus as shedding his blood on the cross, because it required divine humbleness. One Ph.D. student studied 16 years for a Ph.D. But his advisor did not pass his dissertation. Then the student shot his advisor to death. How beautiful it is that the advisor bore with such a slow student for 16 years. It was indeed amazing that he did not dismiss him. But the student was not humble enough to honor his professor, who had long-suffering patience, and shot him to death. But Jesus, according to Philippians 2:7,
"...made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." Jesus, from the position of God, humbled himself and became a servant. In the beginning, Jesus was with God.
This Jesus is the very God who created the heavens and the earth. John
1:3 says, "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." Not only so, he is the author of man's life.
John 1:4 says, "In him was life, and that life was the light of men."
Jesus gives his life to each of us and the precious meaning of life to each of us. Amen. But God humbled himself from God Almighty to a menial servant. Servants were considered as nothing more than a useful tool. The fact that God sent his one and only Son Jesus Christ as the atoning sacrifice should convince us more than anything that God is love and his the grace is higher than the sky and wider than the sea.
Most importantly, he is the humble God who sacrifices for us.
Therefore, when we say we believe in God, the most important thing is the realization of God's being as love and acceptance of loving our brothers as ourselves, especially one's wife. Love requires tremendous life-giving sacrifice. Tremendous life-giving sacrifice does not stop with sacrifice itself. It convinces us that we are born of God, and we experience God's love is growing in our hearts. Look at verse 12. "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." This verse sufficiently explains that we have never seen God, but we can believe that there is God. Sacrifice is not easy, and it doesn’t get easier when we seem to constantly give and give and receive nothing in return. So many stop giving when they don’t gain something in return; but those who are born of God, can give to the very end, because God lives in them and his kingdom is born in us.
John says that God's love must be made complete in us. Look at verse 12 again. "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." Also look at verse 17 says, "In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the Day of Judgment, because in this world we are like him." St. John also used the words, "perfect in love" (18).
This tells us that we must grow in the love of God. When we are born of
God and we acknowledge the love of God naturally we want to love others. But the attempt to love others is not natural or easy. Often the closest people to us we have the most difficulty even liking, let alone loving. We call ourselves brothers and sisters, but often we don’t like one another. There are also many more people who hate the children of God, who are born of God, intensely, day and night. Christian persecution is rising all across the world. It is not easy to love these people. The only solution is that we must grow in love. Then we can embrace any kind of people.
There is a story of a boy who was beaten up and used as a babysitter and cook by his step-mother. His step-mother did not allow him to study during the night because he would be too tired to work. One night, he was discovered studing English. His step-mother found out and stopped him. He pretended to sleep. After 40 minutes, he turned on his light and began to study again. His step-mother saw the light from under the crack in the door and came in and started beating him so badly that his left eye was damaged beyond repair. He became blind in that eye. Since then, his tragic moment motivated him to study English harder than before. God had mercy on him and introduced Jesus as his personal Savior through English John's gospel study. The point is not this sad story. The boy became a servant of God. He wanted to forgive his step-mother. But it did not work as he wished. He struggled to forgive his step-mother every night for 13 years. Finally, he read the scene of Jesus Christ becoming the atoning sacrifice on the cross. He learned that he was a selfish and revengeful Christian. He accepted Jesus' love. Since then, he became a student evangelist. To grow in love is a great battle, maybe the hardest battle. But we must complete the love of God in our soul. We must perfect the love of God in our soul.
Sometimes we wonder why we must love God and our brothers. Rather, it seems better to punish those who do wrong and hate them until they repent. But love involves forgiveness; whether he repented or not, we must love God's flock. Again, let's ask the same question, "Why must we love God and others?" Look at verse 8. "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." God loved us. So we must love God and our brothers. This is the key point of the entire teaching of Christianity. Sometimes hatred comes into our hearts when we see unthankful and ungrateful people. But we should not hate them. We must love them.
Read verse 9. "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him."
Love is victory without fighting. In short, love has its divine initiative. One strict father never forgave his second son for stealing money from his wallet one time. When his second son came and begged forgiveness with many tears, his father said, "Well, I will see whether you do such a thing again.” This is not love. This is legalistic hypocrisy. God loved us first. This one fact shows us that God is love. In John's gospel, the story about Jesus and the Samaritan woman is indeed inspiring and unforgettable. It is because Jesus loved the Samaritan woman first. Jesus wanted to visit Galilee. If Jesus walked from Judea to Galilee on a straight course, it took only three days.
But bigoted Jews wanted to avoid walking through the land of Samaria, thinking that the Samaritans were the lost 10 tribes who mixed blood with the Assyrians. So in order to avoid Samaritan territory, they took six days to go around Samaria to Galilee. But Jesus did not mind passing through Samaria. Jesus and his disciples walked from early morning until noontime. They had no food. So the disciples went into a village to get some. Jesus was sitting by the well which was called Jacob's well. The well was situated in the valley between the mountain of blessing, Gerizim, and the mountain of curse, Ebal. When Jesus was in deep meditation, a woman came to draw water. Jesus first spoke to her, "Would you please give me a drink?" (Jn 4:7) The woman answered, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan." At that time, men did not talk to women in public. But Jesus spoke to her first in order to give her living water welling up to eternal life. Jesus knew her past. Jesus knew how lonely she was. Jesus knew she was lost. But Jesus wanted her to come to know the love of God and receive eternal life and the kingdom of God as her inheritance. The problem was that she was so wounded and hurt; she was totally unlikely to accept Jesus' word. Rather, she could have said, "What do you mean by that, 'Give me a drink'?" But the woman was melted by Jesus' love, which took the initiative to speak to her first and she was fully evangelized and became a missionary to her own village people. It is indeed an amazing story that the Son of the Holy God spoke with such a woman at the well of Jacob. We call this God's initiative. Jesus loved us first. So we must practice God's initiative and invite students to experience God’s love firsthand. We must put ourselves in divine discipline to learn God's initiative. This is the first step of learning the love of God.
Look at verse 21. "And he has given us this command: Whoever loves
God must also love his brother." Here we must know that God's word is absolute and it is imperative. It is not at all an encouragement or psychological manipulation. God's love and worldly love are different.
Worldly love depends on each individual's decision. But God's love is a commandment. When we keep this commandment we will come to know the truth and the truth sets us free (Jn 8:31,32).
May God bless us to practice God's love. May God erase all the
hatred toward others in our souls so that God may dwell with us and his love be made complete in us.
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