Tough Love 10: True Love

1 John 4:7-12

In a nutshell: What is love? There are many different definitions and experiences of love but John says that true love is seen in God sending Jesus to sacrifice himself on our behalf. The way for us to experience true love is to receive this love from God and to love others in the same way.

In this letter John keeps circling back to the theme of love. In this chapter alone there are 21 references to love. Love is very important! But what is love? How can we define it?

We can use the word ‘love’ simply as an expression of preference (“I love that coat!”). We use it in the context of romantic love. We also use it to describe how relationships should be within families, and in many other situations. “Love” is a very flexible word.

We know love exists, we know it is important, but we know it is hard to prove. Love cannot be bottled and purchased. Love is not unique in being vital but hard to define. Truth is similarly essential, and similarly hard to grasp hold of. How do we know truth?

In Jesus’ encounter with Pilate [Jn 18:37-38] ultimate truth was staring Pilate in the face, but he failed to grasp it.

Some truth can be measured (2+2 always equals 4) but we know truth is more than just brute facts. We also know that truth must be more than a mere subjective feeling (“its true for you but its not true for me”). The deepest truth is when we really know something – when that knowing transcends mere facts and feelings and becomes part of us.

So truth and love are intimately connected because we know true love when we really know we love and are loved. This knowing is a combination of facts, feeling and experience which results in us saying, “This is real! This is true love!”

Most people go through life searching for this kind of true love.

Truth and love give meaning to life and John calls us to this kind of knowing – to true love. He gives us three reasons for this:

1. Love one another because God is love
“God is love” is a definitive statement. There are a number of attributes we can recognize in God that define who he is in his essence. For example, God is holy, God is powerful, God is all knowing… and God is love.

Out of God’s essence flow other attributes that are not definitive but are consistent with his character. For example, God’s anger towards sin is consistent with his holiness, his knowledge, and his love. But, anger is something consistent with God’s character rather than essential to it. God becomes angry; he just is love!

As people made in the image of God we are meant to reflect God – fundamentally this must mean that we are people of love. Wherever we see love it is a reflection of God – he is the source of all love – but ultimate love (real knowing) is found only in relationship with Jesus.

2. Love one another because God loved us
Knowing that God is love motivates us to love, but we also see God’s love in his love for us. This love has been demonstrated factually: Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose again. It is also experienced personally by the indwelling power of God’s Spirit. And as we continue in our Christian walk we discover God’s love as over the years he demonstrates his faithfulness, grace and mercy to us. Through a combination of facts, feelings and experience we discover that God loves us.

This love has to be entered into and allowed to shape us. Otherwise it is just words, like being told to breathe water.

3. Love one another because this completes God’s love
It is possible for a Christian not to love. It is possible for a Christian to do lots of things they shouldn’t do – to be more like Cain than Jesus – but this isn’t how it is meant to be. This is the reason for the epistle – if love just happened John wouldn’t have needed to write it!

Loving others is a sign of new birth. It is evidence of our fellowship with God, but we can be reborn and not ‘know’ God as we should. It is possible to love God abstractly because he is invisible but we are called to concrete love – a love that is solid, that is real.

We need to be like God in allowing love to break through rather than anger. As AW Tozer put it, our ‘hyphenated sins’ lead to anger rather than love: Self-centredness; Self-consciousness; Self-defensiveness; Self-exaltation; Self-indulgence; Self-love; Self-pity; Self-pleasing; Self-righteousness; Self-seeking; Self-sufficiency; Self-trust; Self-will. Other people always intrude on these ‘selfs’ – how do we respond to these other demands? With love, or with anger?

How can we love like God?

Love must be demonstrated. Jesus coming into the world showed God’s love. We, too, need to visibly demonstrate love for others.

Love is measured by what it is prepared to sacrifice. God completely gave of himself in Jesus Christ. This is what John means by the strange word ‘propitiation’: Jesus was the sacrifice that turned away God’s anger; Jesus’ death made possible the removal of the guilt of our sin. God is love! We, too, need to be sacrificial in the way we love.

Love only happens when someone takes initiative. Wherever there is conflict one side has to take initiative if there is to reconciliation. God has taken the initiative in reconciling us to himself. We, too, need to take the initiate in being reconciled to others.

When we love like this God’s love for us no longer feels abstract; it is made concrete, it is completed, perfected, when we love God by loving those around us. Loving others closes the circle.

True love in Jesus
If we are to know this kind of love, and love others in a similar way, we always come to the same place that Pilate found himself. Always the question is, What are you going to do with Jesus? And, What are you going to allow him to do with you?


Application Questions
• What are you going to do with Jesus?
• What are you going to allow him to do with you?
• In what ways have you experienced the love of God?
• How can you demonstrate God’s love to others?
• What sacrifices do you need to make to love others in a Christ-like way?
• What initiatives do you need to take to share God’s love with others?