We Also Ought to Love One Another

1 John 4:9-11

June 15, 2003

 

            As you read through the New Testament, you will inevitably see that a certain method of teaching is always employed. The method used throughout the New Testament always grounds its teaching in doctrine, and then from that doctrine lays down certain principles that should be true of us if we believe that doctrine. The New Testament never comes to a person with a list of rules, expecting that person to be able to carry out various regulations. Rather, it always presents us with some doctrinal teaching, some belief about God, ourselves, the world, the Gospel, future events, or any other doctrine, and then from that doctrine establishes that when we really believe that doctrine, we will, as a result, live a certain quality of life. The New Testament never teaches us merely to behave a certain way. Why not? Why does God not come to us with a list of what we should do and what we should not do? The reason is this: Unless we understand and believe the truth about all these great doctrines presented in the Bible, we will never live up to the standard of holiness to which we are called. We must know and understand certain doctrinal facts if we are to ever live the Christian life in a manner worthy of our calling.

            This is, I believe, the single-greatest reason for the moral decline of our society – we have lost powerful teaching of the great doctrines of the Bible. We are so focused on fixing people’s behavior and problems, that we have lost sight of the fact that it is the truth of God’s Word properly understood and believed that is the remedy to all of our ills. It is impossible to call men and women to Christian behavior without first teaching them Christian doctrine, and the New Testament never does that. The New Testament has only one message for the unbeliever – If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Rom 10:9). That is the only message the New Testament has for the unbeliever. Why? Because the Apostles knew that teaching Christian behavior apart from the rebirth is futile. The unbeliever cannot live the Christian life no matter how hard he may try. So to try to reform people with law and practical advice on living will only result in frustration and failure. A proper understanding of biblical doctrine is the foundation for genuine Christian behavior.

            As you read through the New Testament notice how often you see this type of teaching. Read the epistle to the Romans, and notice how Paul spends 11 chapters laying the doctrinal foundation for our faith, and then 5 chapters explaining the behavior that should flow out of that doctrine. In the epistle to the Galatians Paul takes great pains to explain the true Gospel message, and a large portion, if not the majority of the epistle, is an explanation of the meaning of justification by faith alone. In his epistle to the Ephesians Paul writes the first three chapters to explain our salvation and the blessings that accompany it. Then in chapters four through six he explains how that salvation should impact us as Christians within the church and in our spiritual warfare with spiritually wicked forces. It would not be hard to multiply examples of this. Even the beloved Apostle John lays doctrinal foundations for his appeals.

            This morning we find ourselves in 4:11, and we once again return to the Apostle’s appeal to us to love one another. We have come full circle, back to where he began in verse 7. As we come to this verse it is absolutely essential that we don’t separate it from what has gone before. The apostle is now deeply concerned that we see how the doctrine he has put before us in verses 9 and 10 should impact our Christian lives. There is a link, a vital connection, between verses 9 and 10 and verse 11. The doctrine of the love of God manifest in the person of His Son, Jesus, should have a lasting, powerful impact on our behavior.

            As Christians it is essential that we realize this connection. Doctrine and behavior cannot be separated. Without understanding the biblical teaching about God’s love, we will never be changed, and we will never love as God has commanded us to love. It is only when doctrine is properly understood and believed that a life is transformed. And not only that, but doctrine that is properly understood and believed always affects behavior. It is not enough to simply read the magnitude of God’s love in verses 9 and 10, and revel in the wonder of it all. But that is our temptation, is it not? To understand the doctrine, and yet separate it from our lives. To marvel at the wonder of God’s love, and yet to do nothing about it but enjoy it for ourselves. Martyn Lloyd-Jones illustrated this tendency by comparing it to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. You remember what happened there. Our Lord was transfigured before their eyes, and how did Peter respond? He responded by saying, in essence, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. Let us build three tabernacles, and let us stay up here and enjoy this glory.” Of course, he was taken in by the awe and wonder of this glorious person, our Lord Jesus Christ, transfigured before him, and he wanted to stay up on the mount. And we are like that when we behold the wondrous doctrine of the love of God, as we did in verses 9 and 10. We would love to stay up on the mount and just marvel at God’s great love. Yet we cannot stay. When the disciples and our Lord had descended, there was a demon-possessed boy in need of healing. You see, it was not right to stay up on the mount when there was work to be done in the plain. And it is not right for us to stay up on the mount when God has called us to live here, and to do the work He has given us here on this earth. We cannot simply marvel at the wonder and glory of the love of God. No, we must get down on the plain and live out this love.

            The Apostle John is anxious to tell us this very thing in verse 11. He immediately descends from the heights of this matchless love to remind us that there is work to be done in the plain. There are hurting people, trapped in sin and by the devil, and they need to know about this manifest love of God, so we must not stay up on the mount, but we must go down and do the work of loving others.

            That is precisely the Apostle’s proposition to us in verse 11. He says to us, “Because of God’s love toward you, you also ought to love one another.” There is a cause and effect relationship. Because of God’s love to us, we also ought to love one another. God’s love is the cause, and our loving one another is the effect. In verse 11, there are three key words the Apostle uses to emphasize that we ought to love one another. There are three key words you need to notice in verse 11 if you want to understand what the great Apostle means when he appeals to us once again to love one another.

 

Beloved (v. 11)

 

            The first word is Beloved. Beloved. Unfortunately the NIV renders this word, Dear friends, which is not the idea here at all, and, it seems to me, completely robs the text of the meaning the Apostle is trying to give it. So being aware of that, we must understand the word to be rightly translated, beloved. John writes, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Immediately we must stop at this word beloved, because the Apostle uses it intentionally. We saw this same type of address in verse 7, where the Apostle wrote, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. And now here in verse 11 he uses this word, beloved, once more. Why does he do it?

            It seems that at this point the Apostle wants to remind his readers that they have been recipients of this love he has been describing in verses 9 and 10. They are beloved. God has loved them. They have received this manifest love of God personally, and they have been eternally impacted by God’s infinite love for them. This word, beloved, serves to strengthen what the Apostle wants to say. He is, in a sense, reminding his readers that they are not simply Christians, they are beloved, and that of God. God Himself has loved them, and He has proved this love to them.

            Think upon this word for a minute. Apply it to yourself. You are beloved if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior and Lord. God Himself has loved you, and He has not only told us that, He has done something about it. He has proved it in the sphere in which we live. Feel the wonder of the love of Almighty God fill your heart and your mind before you move on to read the Apostle’s appeal. Do you realize this morning that God has loved you? Do you understand that when Jesus hung on the cross, He became a curse for you, so that you would no longer be under the curse of the Law? Can you sit and think that God has loved you in this incredible way and be unmoved in your heart? Can you look at God’s dear, precious, one-of-a-kind Son butchered on the cross, and yet have a heart hardened to His love, and not willing to be broken and, like Moses, to fall on your face and worship? “Oh, dear brethren,” the Apostle says, “you are beloved. You have been loved of God. You are not just children, you are beloved children. You are recipients of the love of Almighty, holy, merciful God.” Think upon it. It is merely a word to introduce the appeal, yet the Spirit has inspired the Apostle to put it there that we might be reminded that we ourselves, if we are in Christ, have received this manifest love of God! Thus, the first word that you must notice and think deeply upon is this word, Beloved.

 

So and Also (v. 11)

 

            The second word the Apostle gives is connected and united to the third word, so that to properly understand the verse we must take them together. The second word is the small word, so, and it is connected and related to the word found later in the verse, also. These two words, so and also, are the two words that drive this verse and explain exactly what the Apostle has in mind when he appeals to us to love one another.

            The word so might be translated, “in this way,” and the verse would read, “Beloved, if God has loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.” The word so is meant to draw our minds and our attention back to verses 9 and 10. It is to cause us to reflect upon all that the Apostle has told us concerning the love of God in those verses.

            The other word, also, might be understood to mean, “likewise” or “in the same manner.” That is the idea that the Apostle is trying to get us to understand. So what he is saying is this: “Beloved, you who have received infinite love from the hand of Almighty God, you who have had your sins forgiven and have been reconciled to Him, since you have received love like this, you likewise should love one another in the same manner.” The word if in the NAS may be properly understood as since in this verse. The Apostle assumes that his readers have been loved by God. That is why he calls them beloved. That is the reason he can appeal to them in this way. If his readers were outside the Christian faith and had never experienced the new birth, he would not be appealing to them to love one another. But he assumes that they have been born again, that the Spirit does dwell in them, and so he appeals to them to love one another in the same manner as God has loved them.

            So the question that naturally arises is, “How has God loved us?” As believers, how have we been shown love by God? If we understand how God has loved us we will be in a better position to understand this appeal to love one another. Without understanding how we ourselves have been loved, our attempts to love one another may be misguided, and we may fail to live up to this calling because we do not fully understand it.

            The first way God has loved us is in verse 9, and there the Apostle tells us that God’s love was manifested in us, or, as we saw last week, among us. God did not love us in some sphere far away. He did not merely tell us about His wondrous love for us. He did not radio it to us, or send us a video or a picture. No, He demonstrated His own love in our realm, where we could see it and understand it. He loved us in our own terms, in a way that we could see and comprehend. He sent His Son, and Jesus came and lived among us. As the Apostle put it in John 1:14, He dwelt among us. He lived where we live, and He walked in our shoes, as it were. He was born in a dirty stable. He grew up in a poor family. He worked as a carpenter. He traveled and did not have a place to lay His head. He went around doing good and showing love, and receiving nothing in return but hatred, scorn, and malice. God did not love us from a distance. No, He came in the person of His Son and He touched lepers, He ate with sinners, He healed the sick, and He cast out demons. His love was manifested among us.

            Beloved, if God has loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another in this way. We also should demonstrate our love to others, especially Christians, among them. We are not called to love others by only writing a check. We are not called to love others second-hand. No, we are to love as God has loved us, which is in our realm, in our sphere, where we live. We are to go out and love one another where we each live. This surely is not comfortable! We get very comfortable in our own sphere, our own realm, yet this is not the example of Jesus we are given to follow. Jesus was in heaven, eternally existing as God, and He left it to show His love for us. How much more willing should we be to leave our own comfort zones to show love to one another?

            But not only has God shown His love among us, He showed it in action. Verse 9 tells us that God sent His only begotten Son into the world. What is the significance of that? The significance is that the Son was precious. He was most valuable. He was irreplaceable. There was no one like Jesus, nor could there ever be. Yet God sent Him. God loved us in this way, by sacrificing His precious, only Son. He gave Him up for us all!

In Romans 8:32 the apostle Paul showed this significance of this, writing, He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not freely with Him give us all things? The Apostle Paul is saying this: If God did not withhold His Son, there is nothing He would withhold from us that is good for us. Why? Because the Son is the greatest gift God could have given us. The Son is the most precious of everything to God. He is dearly beloved. He is unique, and He has an eternal love relationship with the Father. So if God delivered Him over, we know that He will freely give us all things, because nothing is greater or higher or more valuable to God than the Son, which means that nothing is greater or higher or more valuable in all the universe. God gave us the best He had – Himself, in the person of His Son, Jesus.

            What a wonderful truth to think on, yet we must do more than think on it. We must now love like God has loved us. This will mean sacrifice. Love involves sacrifice. John has already told us the level of sacrifice required. He wrote in 1 John 3:16 that we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. We must be willing to sacrifice even our own lives if necessary for the good of other Christians.

            What is valuable to you? What do you treasure besides God? Are you willing to part with it if necessary? Are you willing to give it to someone in need? Are you willing to give up that freedom you have in Christ so that your brother doesn’t fall into temptation and sin because of your freedom? God gave His Son. What are we willing to give up for the cause of Christ and the good of the church? Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. God, then, loved among us, and He gave what was supremely valuable, and we are called to follow His example.

            Thirdly, God gave it for the good of others. John tells us in verse 9 that God sent His Son so that we might live through Him. And then in verse 10 the Apostle says the same thing this way: God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. He sent His Son to bring us to Himself. He gave so that we might live. He gave so that we might receive forgiveness and new life. We could say it like this: God gave so that He gets the glory and we get the benefits of His blessings.

            So how are we to love? We are to love in this way. We are to love so that God gets the glory, and we are to love so that others are blessed. We are to love so that others receive. We are to be a blessing to one another. Oh how many churches are there where the members are not a blessing to one another, but thorns in each others’ flesh! This is a tragedy, and it is sin, because we were called to be a blessing to others. We were not called to simply receive, but we were called to give. God loved by giving so that we would have life and forgiveness. We are to love like that – so that others are blessed, and draw near to God and experience this life and forgiveness in new and profound ways.

            Remember, now, the first word – beloved. Don’t see this as duty that you have to do because you are a Christian. No! It is your reasonable service of worship! It is your joy and should be a natural response to a proper understanding of this doctrine. You have been loved, you are beloved, so you build your actions off of this foundation. You are loving because of how you have been loved, because as a Christian God’s love is in you, and it must express itself. You are beloved, and therefore you must be loving, not out of compulsion, but out of your new nature.

            Fourthly, and this is so important, God loved His enemies. The apostle makes this plain in verse 10, saying, not that we loved God. What does that mean? That means that we were enemies of God! We hated God before we were loved by Him. We declared ourselves His enemies by our continual war against His holiness and righteousness! The Apostle Paul puts it like this in Colossians 1:21, You were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds. We were enemies of God in our minds. We were engaged in evil deeds, rejecting the glory of God for sinful, passing pleasures. Yet God still loved us. He sent His Son on our behalf, so that He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf (2 Cor 5:21).

            This type of love defies any natural, human ability. There is no love like this in the world of unbelievers, and, sadly, it seems there is little love like this even within the church. Our natural response is not to love our enemies, those who hate us and despise us without cause, but to hate them, or, at best, tolerate them. Sadly sometimes these enemies are even within those who call themselves Christians. Yet we are not to hate them. We are to love them as Christ has loved us. We are to make every effort to be at peace with them (Rom 12:18). There are those, of course, who will never be at peace with us, but that is only to be because of them, and never because we have not gone as far as we can go to make peace and show love. How many of us can say at this point that we have loved like this? How many of us can truly say that our hearts do not condemn us for our own sin and lack of love? Can we truly stand and say that we have loved with such infinite, selfless, merciful love? Beloved, have you yet been moved by this love of God to love in this way? It is certainly not easy nor natural to our flesh, but thank God that through the Spirit we have the ability to love in this way. And let us continually seek to grow in this love!

            Fifthly, I think it is important to see that God not only loved His enemies, but He initiated that love. The Apostle John puts it like this in verse 10: Not that we loved God, but that He loved us. This was a love that initiated. It did not sit back and wait to receive love. No, if God would wait for us to love Him before loving us, none of us would ever be loved by God! God always initiates love with the sinner. No one can truthfully claim to have ever initiated a relationship with God! God loved us long before we ever loved Him. He took the first step.

            Now, again, we find ourselves condemned, if we rightly examine our hearts, I am sure. How often have we sat and waited to be loved before reaching out and showing love? How often have we feared hurt and rejection and pain and humiliation, and therefore not loved first? How often have we put the problem all on the other person, and said, “Oh, if only they would first love me, if only they would show one ounce of love, then I would open the floodgates wide and love them!” Beloved, this is not how God has loved us. No, He first loved us. He initiated love with us. He opened the floodgates wide, and that is the only reason we love Him. And we are to love one another in the same way. Again, there is no love like this in the world, and very little of it in the church. Yet this should not be so! As recipients of the love of God, we should love in the same manner! We should initiate love! We should reach out in love! Yes, there may be times, many times, where our love is rejected, and despised, and ridiculed, and others may not want to be at peace with us and have a reciprocal love relationship. That is not the point. The point is to love as God has loved, which always loves first. You may say, “Well, I would try to love first, but I know my love will not be received.” No matter! There is no escape clause in verse 11 that says, “If your love will be rejected, you are exempt from loving one another!” Pain may result, rejection may be the outcome. Let God deal with that. Beloved, we also ought to love one another.

            There is a final way that God has loved us, as I see it, in verse 10, and that is that God loved us compassionately. He showed us mercy and forgiveness. The love of God was filled with compassion and mercy. The love of God came with the offer of full forgiveness for sins and fellowship with Him forever! Although we had infinitely wronged God, He loved us so much that He gave His Son to forgive us for our sins and to have mercy and compassion on us!

            Beloved, we also out to love one another in this way. Are you forgiving and full of mercy? Or are you one to hold a grudge? Jesus put it like this in Luke 17:4. He said that if your brother sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, “I repent,” forgive him. If there is a fellow Christian who sins against you seven times a day, meaning over and over and over again in a very short period of time, and he comes and repents, forgive him. Don’t hold it against him. Restore fellowship. When? Immediately! If it’s not immediate restoration there wouldn’t be time for these 7 acts of forgiveness in one day, right? How does God forgive us? Immediately, without delay, the offense is put away. How often do we sin against Him? Seven times a day? Eight? Eighty perhaps? Perhaps more? How many times a day does He forgive us? As many times as we sin and confess it to Him, right? Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. How many of you have someone who has sinned against you more than you have sinned against God? None of us do. None of us will ever forgive more than we have been forgiven. It’s impossible. We don’t have time to go into it now, but Jesus told a parable of forgiveness and our duty to forgive in Matthew 18:21-35. I commend it to your prayerful consideration as you think about God’s love for you and your response to it.

            At this point I want to be intensely practical, because I believe that this verse, 1 John 4:11, is intensely practical. I believe that the beloved Apostle wants us to get our hands dirty with the business of loving one another. It is a practical verse. He has shown us the great, infinite, merciful love of God, and he has appealed to us to love one another in like manner. So the question is: How do you do it? How do I do it? Is it possible? It is possible if you have the Spirit within you, and there is a way to do it.

            The first step to loving like this is to realize God’s love for you. You must begin by reminding yourself of how much you have been loved. The best way to do this is to remember how wicked and sinful you are. You must always be mindful that you deserve nothing but wrath and hell and judgment from Almighty God. You do not deserve even the very breath you are now taking, let alone an eternity of bliss in the presence of the Lamb. You are utterly undeserving of the love of God, which is infinite in scope and in value. You must see yourself like this if you are to understand the magnitude of God’s love. You must realize the truth of what Puritan John Bunyan said, “He that is down need fear no fall, he that is low no pride.” Put yourself down as low as you can. Humble yourself and realize that nothing good dwells within you that has not been wrought in you by the Spirit of God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it like this. He said, “When I see myself as I really am, nobody can insult me. It is impossible, because they can never say anything that is bad enough about me. Whatever the world may say about me, when I know myself, I know that they do not know the truth about me – it is much worse than they think.” When you realize this about yourself, which you must have done to truly comprehend the Gospel, you can never be hurt or insulted or offended, because you know that you are a sinner deserving of judgment. Even if someone should offend you with a false accusation, most assuredly many accusations that would have been true have been left unsaid. If you have been treated in a worse way than you feel you deserved, or than you wanted to be, or than you expected, you are not hurt because you know how you have treated God and His dear Son, and you have compassion on those who are offensive, realizing that it is only God’s grace that spares you from the same offenses. So the first step is to realize God’s love for you, and do this by not thinking too highly of yourself, but realizing how undeserving you truly are of God’s great love.

            Secondly, consider that what makes another unlovable is sin. That poor person who has offended you, however much you have been offended, is far worse off than you, because they have been taken in by the devil and deceived. They are victims of sin. You must see this, and seeing this, have compassion on them. When someone sins against you, or does not show you love, it is because of sin, and we ought to mourn for them, and feel compassion toward them, and have mercy on them, realizing that sin has taken hold of them.

            And when we see things like this, we don’t personalize these things, but we see them in relation to God. We don’t see someone’s behavior affecting us as much as we see it affecting their relationship with God. Self is never the concern in these matters. Our compassion ought to annihilate self, and promote within us deep concern for the other’s spiritual condition. We fail to love others when we begin to look at self first: how was I treated? How was I affected? How was I hurt? How was I offended? This is a sure path to failure in loving one another. The minute we begin to focus on self, we lose the battle. The issue is never self. The issue is always the other person and their relationship to God.

This is displayed in ultimate perfection in our Lord Jesus. He was the most mistreated of all men, yet the least deserving of this mistreatment. Yet was He ever personally hurt or offended? No! When our Lord wept, He wept over the sin that had destroyed mankind. He wept not because He felt personally offended by the many undeserved attacks, but because He had great compassion on sinners. If we weep, may we weep like Jesus, not out of personal hurt, but out of compassion for those ensnared by sin, Oh that we could stop always thinking of ourselves and begin to have compassion on others and think of their well-being and their walk with God.

            When you’ve seen the love of God for you, you’ve realized that sin is what makes all of us unlovable, and you have made sure you have not personalized what has happened, then you are ready to forgive. You are ready to cover the offense with forgiveness and no longer count it against your brother. You are able to love with mercy and compassion. You are able to work with people with whom you naturally, in your own flesh, could not work and could not love. Any annoying habits, any offensive behavior, and anything that would naturally cause you to shun your brother is overshadowed and overwhelmed by love. Your offensive behavior toward God is ten thousand times greater than anything your brother ever has done or ever could do to you.

            And as we love one another like this, the goal is to love one another to maturity in Christ. We are to be reaching out to help those in need, to bring them to maturity. The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation. We are a body. We are the body of Christ, and we are to build each other up to maturity. The Apostle Paul said that God has put us all together with our various gifts, abilities, and talents to build one another up, and in Ephesians 4:13 he said we are to go about this building up until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. That verse is often taken individualistically, and we see that we, individually, need to become mature in Christ. Most certainly we do, but that is not what this verse is saying. Ephesians 4:13 is saying that we are to love one another to maturity. The church is to be the mature man. The church is to grow up to the fullness of Christ. You are not an island. Your Christian walk is not successful if you are growing mature but those around you are all drowning. We are to love each other so that we all grow up together. The church is to be mature, and that is our goal. If the whole church is mature, then it would follow that every individual is mature, right? Or at least the ones who are mature are bringing those less mature to maturity. This type of growth can only occur if we are loving one another as John has described. We must be devoted to one another if we are to grow to a mature man as a body of believers.

            John has appealed to us to love one another. We are beloved. God has loved us; He has saved us from our sins and from the penalty and power of sin. He has loved us when we didn’t love Him and when we were His enemies. He gave His only Son for us. Now we are to go out and love like that. We are to go out and love like God has loved us, so that we can all grow up to the fullness of Christ. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Let’s pray.

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