1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8: He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9: In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10: Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11: Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

Introduction

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

As we come to this section, some of you may be tempted to ask, “Again, didn’t John bring up this subject of “loving one another” twice already in this letter? He has already covered this subject of love in the second and third chapters. And now again here in the fourth chapter, why return to this subject again?”

The story goes that a friend once asked George Whitefield, the great evangelist in the 18th century, why he always preached on the subject “Ye must be born again.” Whitefield answered, “My friend, for the simple reason that you must be born again.”

So, the apostle John repeats this topic to love one another again and again for the simple reason that the believers must love one another. Listen to what our Lord says to His disciples in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

John learned this truth well from our Lord and now he is passing it on to his readers because he wants them to know and understand that love is not optional for the believer. The way we love one another is how the unbelieving world will know that we are true disciples of Jesus Christ. Not by works of miracles or demonstration of great physical power, not even simply by the doctrine we believe, as important as doctrine is, but by our love for one another.

And so, John focuses once again in this chapter on this theme on “loving one another”. The words “love,” ‘loved,” or “loveth” appear twenty-seven times in this passage. This is the major theme that John will focus on starting from 1 John 4:7 to 1 John 5:3. And that’s what I want to focus this morning. Let’s consider this passage in three headings, namely, the Exhortation to Love, the Demonstration of Love, and the Obligation to Love.

I – The Exhortation to Love

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another…

John begins this section with the word “beloved” which is one of John’s favorite words. He used this word five times in this epistle. Remember how John was used to be known as one of the “sons of thunder”, because of his fiery disposition, but through his intimate walk and fellowship with Christ, he had experienced the gracious love of God and developed a compassionate love for others. He tenderly and affectionately addressed his readers as “beloved” which means “greatly loved” and “divinely-loved ones”. Isn’t that what we are, believers? We are greatly loved by God. Truly, as believers we all can say “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” (1 Jn 3:1) You and I are objects of God’s great love and may we never forget it!

Reading our text again ...

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another …

So here as John affectionately addresses his readers, he exhorts them to love one another. The love we are exhorted to practice is an “agape” love. It’s divine love. Not like emotional or physical, or friendship love, God’s love is a self-sacrificing love. It’s the love given to a people who are unlovely and are difficult to love. Isn’t this what our Lord commanded His disciples in John 13:34, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 

Jack Arnold writes, “This love involves an act of our will, a submission of our lives to God so He can produce this kind of love in us. This is agape love – a love that loves the unlovely.  It not only loves those that do us good, but it loves those who do us evil and who would be considered our enemies... Love is not looking over one’s faults but looking beyond the faults to the real person. Every person has longings, heartaches, dreams, and frustrations of life just like me. He is another person, struggling as I am to face the problems of life.  What can I do to help? Love him or her as a person and seek to lead that one to Jesus Christ who alone can meet the deepest needs of the human heart, for man’s deepest needs are spiritual.”

The verb “love” is in the present tense which means it’s a call to love as a habitual practice, which is something that is only possible as we rely on the enabling power of God. This is what we see in this verse.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God ...

In this exhortation, John reminds us of the origin of this love. The source of this supernatural, self-sacrificing “agape” love is not man, but God. “Love is of God.” Love starts with God. Love flows from God. Only God can produce this love in a Christian. God is the source of love. In fact, love is the very nature of God as John describes Him in the last part of verse 8, “God is love.” Love is one of the attributes of God. God loves because that is His nature and the expression of His being. He loves the unlovable and the unlovely, that’s us, He loves us, not because we deserved to be loved, but because it is His nature to love.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8: He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

In these verses John tells his readers that the presence or the absence of love is a good test to tell whether the person is a child of God or not. Those who have love for one another give evidence that they have indeed been begotten by God. Children of God display the nature of God. Those who do not, give evidence that they have never been begotten of God and know not God.

Before we move on to the next point, I want us to understand that unbelievers also have the capacity to love. But while unbelievers can love others, it is a natural love and not a supernatural love enabled by the indwelling Holy Spirit. I like how Marshall explains it, “It is because men are created in the image of God, an image that has been defaced but not destroyed by the Fall, that they still have the capacity to love … Human love, however noble and however highly motivated, falls short if it refuses to include the Father and Son as the supreme objects of its affection.”

II – The Demonstration of Love

Our Lord commands us believers to love one another and He is asking us to do what He Himself did, He loved others!

1 John 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

Let us love one another not only because love is of God and God is love, but also because He loved us and has proven His love for us. God publicly demonstrated His love for sinners and His love is displayed most clearly at the cross. There at the cross Christ died for us unworthy sinners who were “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1), not because we did anything to deserve it, “but God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us”. The God, who is love, who is the source of all love, showed His love at the Cross. Danny Akin says it this way, “The cross of Golgotha is an everlasting monument to the truth that our God is love.”

The Cross is a revelation of God’s love. Jack Arnold explains, “You could search in nature for a billion years and never know that God is love. But the Cross tells us that God loves men and invites them to trust Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Saviour into their lives. God said He loved and proved it by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to save all in the world who will receive Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour from sin.”

1 John 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

The “we” refers to Christians.  Christians can live through Christ.  He died that we might live, have eternal life and enjoy an abundant life in Jesus Christ.

1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us ...

This is love! Here, John explains what true love is. It was God who took the first step to love sinful men and women, boys and girls. If He waits for us to love Him before He loved us it will not happen, because sinful men have no natural love for God. 1 John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us. We would never know love had God not loved us first. We could never have loved God or anyone else had He not loved us first!

1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

This is love! This is how God demonstrated His love for sinners—by sending His only begotten Son to become the propitiation for our sins. Christ sacrificed Himself as the propitiation for our sins. We already came across this word “propitiation” in chapter 2. It means the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross satisfied the demands of God’s justice. Our Lord fully satisfied the righteous demands of God.

God’s love moved Him to send His only begotten Son, who bore the penalty and punishment that we sinners justly deserved. The initiative was all of God and completely with God! He did not wait until we cried out for help or become righteous. Rather, as Paul declares in Romans 5:8, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us..”

III – The Obligation to Love

1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

Not only is the love for one another evidence that one has been begotten of God but also, it’s the obligation of one who has been begotten of God. It is true that loving one another is the necessary result of being born of God, but it is also true that is not automatic result. This is the reason why John could say, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” That is, since God so loved us, we ought to love one another.

The word “ought” implies obligation. It denotes it is necessary. It is a must. It is a duty. It means we are bound by a moral obligation to love. Since God loved us sinners even when we were in our sinful condition, we have therefore the moral responsibility to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. Since He loved us and demonstrated it by sacrificially giving His only begotten Son, His Best, we who have been begotten of God by His grace are morally obligated to do the same! His great love for us should motivate a grateful heart in us to love one another.

The love of God is what enabled Paul to say in Romans 1:14 I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. 15: So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. 16: For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17: For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Having received and experienced the love of God despite of his unworthiness, the apostle Paul accepted his moral obligation to show love by preaching to lost sinners the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is also the love of God for us that Paul used to challenge believers in Ephesus, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”

Realizing how God in His love has forgiven us, should motivate us and enable us to love one another by getting rid of any negative feelings and attitudes such as bitterness, anger, resentment, strife, fault-finding, slander and being kind and compassionate to one another, and forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has forgave us.

As someone has said, “If you have been to Christ and felt the overwhelming cleansing of God’s love for you, despite the antagonism and hatefulness you have shown Him, if you have felt the cleansing grace of God, forgiving and forgetting all, then, you know you can and must love others.”

Closing Thoughts

1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

Isn’t it amazing that God would love undeserving sinners like us? Aren’t you thankful for the love of God? Where would any of us be, were it not for His great love?

How deep the Father’s love for us,

How vast beyond all measure,

That He should give His only Son

To make a wretch His treasure.

How great the pain of searing loss –

The Father turns His face away,

As wounds which mar the Chosen One

Bring many sons to glory.

Behold the man upon a cross,

My sin upon His shoulders;

Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice

Call out among the scoffers.

It was my sin that held Him there

Until it was accomplished;

His dying breath has brought me life –

I know that it is finished.

I will not boast in anything,

No gifts, no power, no wisdom;

But I will boast in Jesus Christ,

His death and resurrection.

Why should I gain from His reward?

I cannot give an answer;

But this I know with all my heart –

His wounds have paid my ransom.

There can be no doubt that God loved us, and He demonstrated it by sending His only begotten Son Jesus Christ to bear our sins on the cross of Calvary. He endured the judgment and penalty that we deserved as He hung on the cross. And now He commands us believers to love one another as He has loved us. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

I pray you have experienced this great love of God. His love is offered freely to all, that includes you, but you must receive it. Do you know Jesus Christ as your Saviour? Have you experienced the love of God in salvation? If not, I encourage you to respond in faith calling on the name of the Lord to save you.

AMEN!