Where Love Abides

November 17, 1996

I John 4:7-2

John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another.

INTRODUCTION (v 7)

"Love one another" the hallmark of John's ministry; the hallmark of God's people. But what is this love?

Look at this passage with me. It is:

I. A STATEMENT ABOUT GOD

GOD IS LOVE (v 8)
God is love. This is not comprehensive (it is not all that may be said of God) but it is conclusive: whatever else God is, He is LOVE! And so love defines God's family.
Wesley's statement: "God is love. -This little sentence brought St. John more sweetness, even in the time he was writing it, than the whole world can bring. God is often styled holy, righteous, wise; but not holiness, righteousness, or wisdom in the abstract, as He is said to be love: intimating that this is His darling, His reigning attribute, the attribute that sheds an amiable glory on all His other perfections." One stanza in Frederick W. Faber's hymn, There's a Wideness, says it very beautifully:
'For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of man's mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully KIND!
GOD IS KNOWN, REVEALED BY HIS LOVE (also v8)
John is so strong in his conviction about God being love that he says: Love is essential to knowing God in any degree! "The one who does not LOVE does not know God!" God is known by His love; somehow we come to know Him by receiving and reflecting that love. How deficient some of us may feel as we hear this! How poorly we reflect such a great love! Never mind! God's commandments are also God's promises!

[But this passage is also a statement about God's people:]

II. A STATEMENT ABOUT GOD'S PEOPLE

GOD'S PEOPLE ARE TO REFLECT HIS NATURE
If God loves us, and has accepted us on the basis of grace and His own loving-kindness, then God expects us somehow to reflect His life and His love in our everyday living.
THIS IS EXPRESSES 'NEGATIVELY' HERE BY SHOWING TWO THINGS THAT ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE WITH GOD'S LOVE:
If love is the hallmark of God's people there are some things that God's love does not coexist with:
1. "Love" and "fear with torment" are mutually antagonistic, and where there is "perfect love" fear is "excluded." Taken in its literal statement of language ("all fear") we understand fear, this has been carried to logical absurdity.
  There are all kinds of fears— fears that have no moral or spiritual implications whatsoever— fear of heights, of pain, of spiders . . .
  John does modify his "fear" statement by speaking about fear that has torment. So we may safely say that the love of God does not change our human nature so that we have no fear of anything, ever.
  And, too, we will still have a healthy "fear of God." The immensity, the majesty, the wonder of God the Creator, and above all else, the glimpse of His perfect holiness will ever inspire a holy awe, which the Bible terms "fear." But the Psalmist has it right: "The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever!" (Psalm 19:9)
2. God's love does not co-exist with hatred of other human beings.
  We love what He loves, we hate what He hates. And that includes the most cruel form of hatred which is "un-love!" That detached interest in which we view other human beings in their failures, sins and sufferings as though they were specimens in a laboratory— make observations on their motivations and their conduct, and say, "Tsk, tsk! Isn't it a pity!"

[But remember, don't despair because you feel you don't measure up!:]

III. A COMMANDMENT THAT IS ALSO A PROMISE

Which brings us back to John's "life emphasis": "Love one another!" But it isn't original with John. It was the Savior's last commandment: John 13:34
It didn't come "naturally" to John! He was a son of thunder, and a seeker after "destiny." But it came. It came as John obeyed the Savior: "Love one another" is possible with God! God's commandments are also His enablings.
But how can we obey and fulfill this greatest commandment?
Our struggle is not to love one another, or to love the unlovable; not to pretend to 'feelings' we cannot manufacture, but to MAKE GOD AT HOME IN YOUR HEART AND IN MY HEART!
BEFORE WE CAN LOVE THE WORLD— OR EVEN BEFORE WE CAN REALLY LOVE EACH OTHER— WE MUST BE AWARE THAT GOD LOVES US! And when that reality begins to dawn on us, God's LOVE will transform us!
It is GOD'S GRACE that makes His LOVE a reality! The world looks at what we do; and it cannot help it. But the world does not care WHY we do what we do— but 'the WHY' is everything to the Christian.
The world admired Martin Luther King (after the fact!) but it ignored and ignores the fact that he did what he did on the authority of the Bible.
The world admires Mother Teresa for her amazing love of the un-lovely. But what the world does not care to see is THE DISCIPLINE OF PRAYER AND DEVOTION TO JESUS THAT FIRES AND EMPOWERS THAT SERVICE.

[CONCLUSION: ] We cannot all be acclaimed as great 'saints,' or for that matter as great anything! But we all can love Jesus and seek to obey His word. When Jesus Christ is truly 'at home' in our hearts, it must follow as the day follows the night, that God's transforming LOVE will flow through us, and we can obey this 'impossible' commandment.

Let us pray: