Blog Journeys of a Lifelong Learner

These are partial notes from the primary sermon given at the morning meeting of Grace Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma today.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:7,8

1. God is the source of mutual love (7a).

The Spirit of God and the Word of God work to effect the cause of God in the life of the believer.

The exhortation for Christians to love one another is based on the nature and work of God. This type of love has as its focus the welfare of others and is not concerned with personal benefit. The passage emphasizes the reciprocal love which ought to characterize all of God's people. The Christian's love of his fellow Christians is a better test of his faith than a measurement of claims of loving God, for the love of God is a vertical relationship and can be more easily faked than a horizontal relationship involving two sinners transformed by God's grace.

True Christian charity develops a burning desire for union with God and His people. The love found within members of the trinity is mirrored in the love exhibited among believers. The Christian must be faithful to examine his own fellowship with other believers.

The love God's people have for one another is a shared love (John 13:35). Loving actions solidify a bond of love, a bond of unity (Colossians 3:14).

The love discussed in the passage above is supernatural, originating from God, and cannot be manufactured by natural means.

2. Mutual love reveals that a believer's character flows from his Father's character (7b,8).

Regeneration imparts the ability to love. The Gnostics, purporting themselves to be wise for their "superior knowledge" had no true knowledge of God, and were thus incapable of rendering true love as required of Christians.

Those who have not come to know God cannot love rightly. The knowledge of God imparts a pursuit of perfect moral goodness. God meets the needs of His children and cultivates a bond of union with them. The love of God does not abrogate or contradict His other attributes.

The holiness, righteousness, and justice of God must not be diminished on account of the significance of the love of God. Even God's punishments of sin are loving, for He operates from love (Hebrews 12).

A.W. Pink's Partial List of Attributes of God's Love

• uninfluenced (free from man's influence), Deut. 7:7,8
• eternal (for the past, present, and future), Jer. 31:3
• sovereign (God loves whom He pleases), Rom. 9
• without limit (surpassing knowledge), Eph. 2:4;3:19…
• immutable (unchanging), Rom. 8:38,39
• holy (discipline for our own good), Heb. 12:6-10
• gracious (unmerited), Rom. 8:32