Beloved, Let Us Love One Another

1 John 4:7

May 25, 2003

                The verse that we read this morning, 1 John 4:7, is something that is quite familiar to you, I’m sure, having been in 1 John for several months now. Love one another. The temptation is, perhaps, as we come to this section, to see it as repetitive, and therefore not to give it as much attention as we might if we were reading it for the first time. Although this section is a repetition of what has already gone before, we must resist the temptation to hurry through it, or to only give it a cursory glance. These verses, from chapter four, verse seven, all the way down through chapter five, verse five, are essential to a proper understanding of this letter. We have already covered John’s first exposition of love for one another in chapter three, verses 10 through 24, and now again he returns to that theme. But I think that now in this section John proceeds to unfold love and explain it at a level of depth he has not plumbed until this point. While this section is not in and of itself new doctrine or new teaching that will be novel and unfamiliar to us, it is a new section in the letter, and it is a section that is at the heart of all that John has to say to us. In fact, as I have studied this section, I have found it to be the most challenging of all sections thus far in 1 John. The height of the doctrine and the depth of the practical application are both immeasurable. This passage calls us to understand the infinite love of God and then to live out that love in our every day lives with one another. It calls us to do the impossible and to understand the incomprehensible.

                Because of the incredible richness of this passage, we will be going through it slowly. Although it is familiar to many, there is enough in this passage that has been twisted, altered, misconstrued, rejected, and perverted that we must of necessity spend some time trying to understand what love is as it relates to God and to His children.

                This is a new section of teaching in the letter. We are no longer dealing with testing the spirits and discerning whether someone is orthodox in their theology. It is almost as if John is returning to where he left off at the end of chapter three. Perhaps having concluded his section on testing the spirits, he realized that he had not said all he had intended about loving one another, and so he returned to this theme. He could not leave it, for whatever reason, where it ended in 3:24, so here in 4:7 we see him pick up that theme again, and this time go to new heights and new depths that he had not previously discussed.

                I tend to think that one reason why he does this immediately after commanding us to be discerning and test the spirits is so that we will remember that while doing all of that, we must love one another. The discerning of truth and error and the testing of the spirits of the prophets must be done in the right manner, and it must be done with a spirit of love, or we prove ourselves to be of a spirit other than the Holy Spirit, however doctrinally correct we may be. And so having just exhorted us to be doctrinally correct, and to not tolerate the spirit of error, John now wants to exhort us to balance out this aspect of truth with this other aspect of love. Truth and love, and we see them side by side here in chapter four.

                In 1 John there are two major themes, and perhaps you have picked up on this already. The first major theme is that God is light, and we read about that in chapter one, verse five. John wrote, This is the message that we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light. The first message that John wanted to bring to his readers was this message that God is light. We could say that, to some extent, that concept is not fully understood until we come to the end of the letter, because John works out that statement for us throughout the letter. The idea of Light in 1:5, as John uses the term, is both righteousness and truth. God is absolutely righteous, and therefore His Word is absolutely true because God cannot lie. So this idea of Light is John’s way of saying that God is holy. He is set apart. He is pure. Purity and holiness involve righteousness and truthfulness. Therefore, we see throughout the letter that believers are encouraged to be both righteous and to believe the truth, to be doctrinally sound. Believers are to be in the truth and to live the truth. They are to walk in the light.

                The second major theme that John explains is found in 4:8, where he says, God is love. This is the direct, theological statement of truth. God is love. And, in effect, John works that out for us in his letter by showing how love works within the body of believers, the church, and how God has demonstrated this quality and attribute of Himself to us through His Son, Jesus. This statement, God is love, is incredibly difficult to understand for many reasons, which we will look into next Lord’s Day, if God permits. For now, let us just leave it alone, and say that John’s second major emphasis is that God is love, whatever he might mean by that statement.

                These two themes encompass all of 1 John. Light and love. In fact, along with these two direct doctrinal statements are two practical statements for us. In 1 John 2:29, going along with the theme of light, John wrote, Everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him. This is the idea of walking in the light, living the truth of God’s Word in our daily lives. And then in our verse this morning, 4:7, John wrote, Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. These two statements are parallel, and the teaching is that those who are born of God walk in the light and they walk in love. The one who walks in the light and in love is born of God, and everyone who is born of God knows God, meaning that he or she has fellowship with God. And this brings us back to the introduction, where John tells us that one of his purposes in writing is so that we might have fellowship with God. It happens by being born of God. And we know that we are born of God if we walk in the light and in love. This, then, is the general structure and teaching of this letter. It is often circular in nature, and so this morning we come again to the part of the circle concerning walking in love.

                This section, which begins here with verse seven and runs to 5:5, explains the concept of the Christian and love, especially love to other believers. This passage is John’s main exposition and explanation of love in the Christian life. He has introduced this theme, you remember, in 2:10, where he reminded us that if we do not love one another we walk in darkness. And he emphasized it again in 3:10, showing that if we do not love one another we are children of the devil, and he went on to prove that statement through the end of chapter three. Here, then, rather than just reviewing, he goes on to encourage us on to love one another for other reasons than he has previously given.

An Appeal

                Notice in verse 7 that he begins with an appeal. He begins to appeal to us to love one another in verse 7. He writes, Beloved, let us love one another. I love the way John writes this verse. He begins with this word, beloved. “You people whom I love, my dear little children, my precious brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, let us all love one another.” Do you see his humility and compassion and pleading in this statement? “I am with you in this,” John says, “and we all, myself included, must love one another.” This great apostle does not put himself above us here; he does not look down on us, as it were, and command us as a parent might a child, but he pleads with us to love one another. He encourages us to love each other, and even puts himself in that statement. “You and me and all of us who call on the name of Jesus, let us all love one another,” is the plea from this now aged apostle who walked with our Lord Jesus.

                But what does it mean to love one another? What does John picture when he calls us to love one another? Remember chapter 3. There John clearly outlined how we are to love one another in verses 16 through 18. We ought to lay down our lives. We ought to be willing to die, if necessary, for the well-being of another Christian. We ought to be willing to go to the ultimate extreme, the ultimate sacrifice, for the good of a brother or sister in Christ. Now, many of us will never be called to literally die for another person, so John makes it even more practical, and says that this type of love, love which is modeled after the love of Jesus for us, meets the needs of those who have needs. It pours out affection and kindness and caring to those in need, and it gives whatever it possesses that can be used to meet the need of a fellow believer. This type of love is not mere talk or mere sentiment. It is not the type of love that ends with words, but it is love that is does what needs to be done from a heart of genuine compassion and mercy on the one in need. If you want to understand love for one another, just look at the love Jesus had for us. How did He treat us? How did He love us?

                I think this picture was firmly in John’s mind when he wrote, Beloved, let us love one another. John had the picture of all believers treating all other believers the way Christ had treated them. Full of mercy, compassion, patience, kindness, forgiveness. Love that begins in the heart is to flow out through the actions.

                Someone might ask, “How can I know if I’m loving as Christ loves? I don’t run across people who have great needs very often; I certainly have never had to give my life for someone else. How can I know if this love is in me or not?” The Apostle Paul gives us several tests in 1 Corinthians 13 by which we can know whether or not we love as John has commanded us. When John says, Beloved, let us love one another, we can see whether or not this is in fact the reality of our lives if we manifest certain characteristics. In 1 Corinthians 13:4 Paul wrote, Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant. Here are some tests to see how loving you are, to see whether or not love really resides in your heart. Are you patient with others? Do you bear long with them when they have struggles and weaknesses and temptations and trials? Are you kind? Do you treat all people with kindness, even your enemies? Are you jealous of others? Do you covet their talents, abilities, money, possessions, or station in life? Or are you happy to see them be blessed with the things God has given them? Do you brag? Do you exalt yourself over others as superior to them? Do you look down on people who do not meet up to your standards and expectations? Do you feel superior to those who are less fortunate, and forget that all that you have is a gift from God? The person who is truly loving is patient and kind to all people, even his enemies, and especially other Christians. He is not jealous of others, nor does he try to make himself look superior to others. Look at the rest of the list in verses 5 through 7. Ask yourself if you live up to these standards and expectations of love?

                Realize that these qualities in this list in 1 Corinthians are not love themselves, but they are the effects that love will always produce. So when Paul discusses these things, he is saying that if we have love, if we walk in love, this will be the kind of people we are. We will be patient people, kind people, forgiving people, humble people. Love manifests itself like this. So these are tests. John as pleaded with us, Beloved, let us love one another, and the Apostle Paul has shown us the effects if we do love one another, and now the question is: Do we love one another? Are we willing to love one another more than we do now? In 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 Paul reminds the Thessalonians to love one another, and then he acknowledges that they already do love one another. But he doesn’t stop there. In verse 10 he exhorts them, saying, But we urge you brethren, to excel still more. “You do love one another,” Paul says, “and you prove to be patient, kind, and all the rest, but you are not as loving as you could be. We urge you, we plead with you, grow even more. Love even more. Stretch yourselves even more.” In the Christian life, if we are Christians, we will all love one another to one degree or another. But the plea of the apostles in the New Testament is always, Excel still more. Keep on loving. Always be growing in love. Don’t become complacent, but keep moving and excelling and expanding in your love for one another. You have not arrived, and you will not arrive until you are glorified with Christ, so until then, press on even more.

                This, then, is John’s appeal to us. Beloved, let us love one another. Let us demonstrate it with patience, kindness, forgiveness, trust, endurance, and all the rest. Let us love each other as Christ has loved us. But John does not leave it at that. He gives us a reason why we should love one another. There is a reason why we should prove ourselves to be full of the love of Christ.

The Reason

                Notice what he says in verse 7. He says, Beloved, let us love one another. But why? For love is from God. Here is a profound reason. Why should we love one another? Because love is from God. That word for in verse 7 comes from the Greek word that gives a reason for something. It shows the grounds for something. The reason we should love one another is because love is from God. When John talks about love here, he says it in such a way in the original text that he is talking about the love of Christ which we are to imitate. It is this particular kind of love. He is not talking about Hollywood love, or mere sentimentality or human love here. He is talking, in the context, about the type of love he described in chapter 3. This is God’s love. It is the love of which God is the source.

                We see that clearly throughout the Scriptures. God is the source of all real love. If we are to have real love, who must we love first? God, right? If we don’t love God, we cannot possibly love anyone else biblically, with the type of love the Bible describes. There is no real love without reference to God. So we must love God. But how is it that we love God? Where do we get that love? In Deuteronomy 30:6 Moses wrote, Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God. Who is it who gives love? God. God gives us a changed heart and enables us to love Him. If we are to have any real love at all, we must first love God. And we get that love from God Himself. God is the source of our love for Him. He puts it in us. The New Testament puts it like this in Galatians 5:22: The fruit of the Spirit is love. Where does love come from? The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity. The Spirit causes us to love. He produces love. He is the source, and the passage in Galatians is in the context of love for one another. God first puts love in our hearts for Him, and then He causes us to love others. Love is from God. His Spirit works in our hearts to cause us to love, and God Himself teaches us that we are to love. It is something innate in us. As Christians we know by the Spirit that love is required. In that passage in 1 Thessalonians 4:9 which we looked at a few minutes ago, Paul also said, You yourselves are taught by God to love one another. Is that not our experience? When we are unloving we feel convicted. We know we are not behaving according to the Spirit who dwells in us. We have been taught by God to love one another. So God produces love in us for Himself, He produces love in us for others, and He teaches us that we are to allow that love to work in and through us so that we love one another.

                I think this is what John is saying here when he says that love is from God. God is the ultimate source of love, and apart from Him we have no love and are incapable of love. He must produce it in us. But knowing that, we must ask the question: How is this a reason for loving? Why should knowing that God is the source of love motivate us to love one another? Why does John give this as a reason? Why not just say, “Beloved, let us love one another, because God has taught you to love,” or, “because God has commanded you to love?” Why is the fact that God is the source of love the reason?

                To answer that I think we need to ask another question: What is the ultimate goal of the Christian life? What is it that, as Christians, we long for more than anything else, or at least we should long for more than anything else? Knowing Christ, right? Knowing God revealed to us through Jesus Christ. That’s what Paul said in Philippians 3:8. He wrote, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. “Nothing surpasses knowing Christ,” Paul says. “Nothing can compare with knowing Him intimately and fully and personally! He is my goal; He is my life; He is what I am aiming for!” Knowing Jesus is the goal of the Christian life according to the Scriptures. If this is the case, then as Christians we will want to be as close to God as we can get. We will want to live as close to His heart and His mind as is possible for a finite being. I think John would say it like this: The goal of our existence is fellowship with God. That is what John discusses throughout the letter: fellowship with God and with one another.

                If God is the source of love, one way we have fellowship with Him (which is our goal and desire) is to love one another because that love can only come from Him. We must go to Him and receive from Him to love one another. We should love one another because it increases our fellowship with God. The more we become like Him, the more intimate fellowship we enjoy with Him. So John urges us to love one another, because as we love one another and have this type of fellowship with one another, we necessarily must be having true, meaningful fellowship with God. It’s the only way we could be loving this way! We could not love the way the Bible commands us to love if we were not in fellowship with God. So John is saying, in a sense, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God, and when we receive from God and He gives us this kind of love we experience this vital, intimate fellowship with Him. We long for that fellowship, and one way we experience it is through loving the brethren, so let us love one another. Let us go on to excel still more in being patient, kind, forgiving, merciful, and all the rest, because as we do that, we have fellowship with God. We know that God is in us working and producing this love. This love could only come from Him, so therefore let us love so that we have this type of fellowship with Him. As we receive this type of love and He supplies us with it, we have fellowship with Him, and this is great incentive, because it is the goal of our existence – to know Jesus Christ.

                Now, in case we miss this point, John ends the verse with a logical conclusion.

The Logical Conclusion

                Bear in mind what we said at the beginning of the message today and what John has told us throughout this epistle: fellowship with God is only for those who are born of God. Knowing God is only possible for those who are born of God. Look at the conclusion of verse 7. John writes, Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. This is the conclusion; this emphasizes the reasoning behind the previous statement that the reason we love is because love is from God.

                This is a statement of fact. This is not a statement that tells us how to become born of God. John is not saying that if we love then we will become born of God. No, he is simply stating an axiomatic truth. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. It is absolutely true. Everyone who has this type of love working in his or her life is born of God and knows God. They could not love like this if they had not been born of God. If they did not know God, it would be impossible for this type of love to be working in them.

                This phrase born of God is familiar to us. John has used it several times to signify conversion, salvation. For John, the Christian is someone who is born of God. If you asked John, “What is a Christian? How would you define a Christian?” it appears from this letter that he would respond, “A Christian is someone who is born of God.” And so John here is simply saying that everyone who loves the brethren, everyone who loves with this Christlike love is a Christian. And from this I can only conclude that if someone does not love in this manner, then he or she is not a Christian at all, and has not been born of God, and in fact next week we will see verse 8 teaches that very thing.

                But secondly, not only is the person who loves born of God, but the person who loves knows God. What does this mean? I think there are several implications of this statement about knowing God. First, I think John has in mind a continual, personal, intimate relationship. The person who walks in love has a personal, intimate, ongoing relationship with God. They know their Creator and Savior personally. There is a difference in knowing about someone and knowing someone. The person who loves does not merely know about God; he knows God. Do you see why this is so vital? John is quick to silence those who would be cold and unloving but perfectly orthodox in their theology. Those who know theology but do not love only know about God. They know facts about Him. They know all the figures, and the arguments, and the history. They are perhaps like fans of celebrities who are obsessed with knowing about someone famous, but they themselves have never met the person. They know a lot about them, but they could not claim to know them personally and intimately. This is how the unloving are with God. They know about Him, but they have never met Him and come into contact with Him.

                Do you ever wonder how it could be that people who are theological professors, pastors, or in any other type of Christian work could abandon the Word, fall into immorality, and walk away from the church? It is simply this: they knew much about God, and they could quote the facts and figures, but they did not know God. This is a crucial distinction. On the other hand, we who are believers, who have been born of God, are friends of God. We know Him personally. We visit with Him, as it were, and have intimate, personal fellowship with Him. He has called us friends, and He has known us by name. He has revealed His name to us, and called us into fellowship with Himself.

                This type of distinction is made throughout Scripture. This word know is one of the most important words in the Bible. It doesn’t mean “to know about,” but to know intimately, personally, and by experience. A good example of this is in Amos 3:2, where God says to Israel, You only have I chosen among all the families of the earth. Now this word chosen literally means “known” in the Hebrew. Chosen is how the translators are interpreting the meaning of the text, but the word means “known,” not chosen. So what is God saying? Obviously He knows the other families of the earth; He is not unaware of their existence. But He did not know them in this special way. He did not know them relationally as their God and Savior. He did not set His love upon them and have this vital, intimate fellowship with them. When this type of knowledge is present, there is intimacy and personal fellowship.

                Whenever we know God as John talks about, it is clear that God also knows us in this special way. That’s what Paul says in Galatians 4:9. He writes, But now that you have come to know God, and he says this to these Galatians, but then he realizes that something has happened before they came to know God; there is still something behind that. So he clarifies himself, and says, or rather to be known by God. A person who has come to know God has been known by God in the same way Amos talked about in Amos 3:2. There is an intimate relationship there. We know God, and God knows us. So John says that the person who loves has been born of God and knows God. He has become God’s child, and as God’s child he has personal fellowship with God.

                The question so many Christians often ask, myself included, and it is a good and valuable question, is, “How can I know God more intimately? How can I know Him more deeply?” What is John’s answer? Love one another. Do you want to know God? Then love one another. You will come to know God more deeply than you ever thought possible when you have this type of fellowship with Him. When you love one another you do it through having this relationship where God is working in you and through you. You come to know Him deeply as you demonstrate love, because God is love.

                This is not easy. Patience with that person who seems to always get under your skin. Kindness to those who claim the name of Christ yet show you nothing but hatred and contempt. Rejoicing over other people’s successes rather than coveting and being jealous. Not rejoicing in unrighteousness, not delighting when someone else falls, or sins, or you hear some juicy bit of gossip about someone. Rejoicing with the truth, delighting to see others walk in light and love. How about this: Never taking into account a wrong suffered. Do you want to know God intimately? Be forgiving. Don’t take into account a wrong suffered. Don’t be easily angered or provoked. Be patient. Hope for the best in others. Be a source of positive reinforcement even when the chips are down. Love never fails. These are easy things to say, but they are oh so difficult to live. But live them we must if we want to know God more. And we will live them, however imperfectly, if we have been born of God.

                As we study this passage it is my heart’s greatest desire to get to know God better than I ever have in my life. I hope that as we look to next week, and as we think upon this verse, that your heart’s desire is to know God in a way you never thought possible. I believe that if we take this text seriously, and we seek God in prayer, and go to Him for this love that John describes, we will grow deep in our walk with Christ, and we will worship at heights we never thought we could reach. I plead with you to go to your knees and ask God to produce this love in you, and thereby to reveal Himself to you so that you might know Him ever-increasingly. Do you count everything loss in view of knowing Christ?

                Next week we come face to face with the single most challenging three words I have ever studied in the Bible – God is love. That is a fundamental theological truth. Yet it is so difficult to grasp. I would ask you to be prayerful this week about this text. Pray that God would help you understand it, and believe it. There is perhaps no more difficult text than this in a world where there is so much pain, suffering, sickness, cancer, and, I say it with sorrow, millions of people dying and going to hell every day. Yet, I believe, there is perhaps no more glorious and overwhelmingly beautiful text than this in that very same world. Pray that God would be gracious to us, and that we might know what it means that God is love. Let’s pray.

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