Please turn with me to 1 John 4 - starting at verse 7.  As you’re turning think with me about love.

I read recently about a couple that celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.  Both were in their 80’s and great-grandparents.  Frank had lost much of his hearing.  Bessie had some physical problems.  And yet this couple was still getting along together and celebrating this great anniversary.  Their family had come from all over and had enjoyed celebrating together through the midmorning into the afternoon.  Finally, toward sundown, all the family went home.

Bessie and Frank decided to walk out on to the front porch and sit down on the swing and watch the sunset.  The old gentleman pulled his tie loose and leaned back and didn’t say much.  Bessie looked at him somewhat in wonder and said to him, “You know, Frank, I’m real proud of you.”  The old gentleman turned and looked at her rather quizzically and after a moment said, with a puzzled look on his face, “Well, Bessie, I’m real tired of you too!” (1)

This morning we’re coming back to our look at 1 John and fellowship - fellowship being much deeper than what?  relationship.  Relationship is when we share things in common with other people.  Fellowship is when we’re possessed by God and experience life in Jesus together.  Today we’ve come to the love of fellowship - loving our brothers and sisters in Jesus.

If you’re at 1 John 4 with us - or you have your sermon notes - let’s read  verses 7 and 8 out loud together.  1 John 4 - verse 7:  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

You might to underline those verses.  They’re the heart of what John is writing about here in verses 7 to 21 - what we’re looking at this morning.

“Beloved” - meaning that this is written to the church - those who have been loved by God - who are loved by John.  Those John encourages to love each other.  Why?  Because “love is from God.”  Those who know God - love as He loves.  Those who don’t - don’t know God.

Easier said than done.  Last week someone said to me, “How can God love us?  We’re such icky people.  And how are we suppose to love icky people?”

Let’s be honest.  We struggle with what John is writing here - with being loved and loving each other.  And yet, John writes, “Let us love each other.  That’s what God’s people - living in fellowship with Him and each other - do.”

In verses 9 to 21 that’s what John opens up to us.  Answering the question, “How?”  How we can love each other as we deep down desire to love each other and be loved.

John begins by defining what love is.  He begins with God - God who is the definition and demonstration of what real love is.

Tucked into the end of verse 8 is this statement, “God is love.”  Try that with me, “God is love.”  If we want to understand love we have to begin with God.

Love is an attribute of God.  In the core of who God is - His very nature - essence - God is love.  It’s like ocean.  The ocean is wet.  How could an ocean be anything but wet.  God is love.   

When God created creation He created love.  We often think of creation as stuff - planets and matter - physical things.  But its also feelings - attitudes - emotions.  There would be no love in creation if God hadn’t created it.  God is the source of love.  If we want to understand love we have to look to God. 

Which makes great theology.  But is a little hard to wrap our minds around practically.  So, John begins in verse 9, “By this the love of God was revealed…”

It’s not just that God is love - the definition.  But that God is loving - the demonstration of love.  Actions speak louder than what?  Words.

Verse 9:  By this the love of God was manifested - revealed - in us - or to us - that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins - the means by which are sins are forgiven.

Whenever God acts He always acts with love.  Even in judgment - or punishment - or when we wonder what God is doing - the times when He’s silent - God always acts with love.  Because in the core of what makes God God - God is love and so God is loving - always demonstrating what love is.

What’s it like to be a sinner?  Well, we all can answer that one.  What’s it like to live in world of sinners?  Another easy answer.

We live separated from God - from His holiness - His goodness.  We’re lost - alone - burdened - weighed down with guilt - struggling to find answers.  Even as believers we know how true Paul’s words are, “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.” (Romans 7:19)  We stain ourselves with the blood of Jesus - the only begotten Son of God - staining ourselves over and over again - with sin.

Romans 5:8.  This is an AWANA verse - say it with me, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  God demonstrates His love.  God, through Jesus Christ, offers us hope - purpose - restoration - abundant life now and life forever with Him.  Not because we deserve it.  But, because God is love - God is loving.   God loves icky people like us.

Try that with me, “God loves icky people like us.”

Anyone else here struggle with that?  When we get past our egos and all the things we cover our inner selves with - when we get down to the core of who we are - how could God love me?

Have you ever been asked why you love someone?  Why do you love your wife?  or husband?  or kids?  or grandkids?  or you name the person?  Beyond - its the way they wear their hair or they smell nice - beyond all the outward stuff - its hard to put the reason we love someone into words.

The purpose of John telling us that God is love and showing us how God has loved us is not to explain how God could love us.  That’s something this side of heaven we’ll never understand.  The purpose is to reassure us that He does.  Even when we don’t understand it.  He does.  Beloved, hold onto that.

Coming to us - John takes us one step further - how we are to love each other.  Verse 11:  Beloved - as those who have been loved by God - if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Years ago Burger King had this slogan, “Have it your way.”  Remember that?  There was a cartoon of a guy who walked into Burger King and asked for a Whopper - no bun.  The person behind the counter said, “You can’t have a Whopper without a bun.”  The guy says, “You said I could have it my way.  And my way is a Whopper without the bun.”

So the guy behind the counter goes and gets a his order - comes back - gives it to the man - and says, “Okay.  Whopper - no bun.  Anything else?”  And the man says, “Yes.  Milkshake.  No cup.”

Try that sometime.  See what happens.  Tell them you heard it here at church.

That’s how the world looks at love.  My way or no way.  Remember Toyota?  “I love what you do for me.”  That goes back a ways.  But, that’s the world’s definition.  Its all about me - what pleases me - what benefits me.  When you don’t do it for me then you’re history.

Think about what we learn about love from God through Jesus Christ.

There’s no “I” in love.  None of this is for God’s benefit.  God who has everything and needs nothing - chooses to love us - because its to our benefit that He does.

We struggle with this because every act of love around us runs contrary to what God is showing us real love is.  We struggle because its hard to imagine that someone could love us like this.  And if we struggle to understand what it means to be loved by God how are we suppose to love the icky people around us?

But its not an option.  We don’t get to pick and choose who we love.  To only love people who agree with us - our kind of people - to befriend people who can benefit us - to love people who will love us.  We love as God loved.  Its what we do in the fellowship of the church.

How do we love like that?  Verse 12:  No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 

To “abide” is the Greek word “meno” - meaning to be in close relationship - to dwell.  Like long lost relatives that come for a visit and stay for a lifetime.  They just remain in our house - intimately abiding - dwelling - there.

Jesus used the same word when He told His disciples, “I am the vine and you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”  (John 15:5)  The branches are intimately connected into the vine.

That’s crucial for the branches.  Without the sap from the vine flowing into the branches - the branches produce nothing.  They dry up and die.  If there’s any possibility of fruit - God’s love flowing through us - it has to come from God.  The ability to love as God loves cannot come from us.  It must come from Him.

Verse 13:  By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His spirit.  We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

In chapter one John testified, “We saw Jesus - the Savior - the demonstration of God’s love.  We heard Him - touched Him - felt Him.  He’s alive.”

Here in verse 13 John tells us that - because of the relationship they have with Jesus - abiding in Him - they’re seeing God’s spirit at work.  The love they’re experiencing is because of God at work in them.

When we see God’s love here in this fellowship - with people praying for each other - or through people meeting the needs of others - people who genuinely care for each other - we’re seeing God at work - the Spirit working to perfect us - to do in us and through us what we could never do on our own.

Try this with me, “Its God.  Not me.”

In verses 15 to 17 John takes us up another notch.  Bam!  Because God is the One who gives us the ability to love - we can love each other.  Try that with me, “We can love each other.”

Verse 15:  Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God - whoever comes to Jesus as his or her Savior and trusts Him with their life - God abides in him, and he in God - the connection is made - the sap begins to flow - We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.  God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him.

Belief is more that just knowing about something.  Knowing that County Bank exists is a whole lot different than opening up an account there.  We know that God loves us - more so we’re relying on God’s love - counting on it - trusting Him for it.  So, we’re going to step out in faith and choose to love each other. 

Verse 17:  By this - because God’s love is real and we’re relying on Him - by this love is perfected with us - God is at work in us - so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.

Remember the Super Bowl?  Those Ameriquest commercials?  The man who’s preparing a romantic dinner.  He’s chopping vegetables with a large knife while tomato sauce simmers on the stove.  A white cat knocks the pan of sauce onto the floor and then the cat falls into the sauce.  Just as the man picks up his tomato-splattered cat his wife opens the door.  She sees him holding a cat dripping with red sauce in one hand and a large knife in the other.  The point of the commercial was what?  “Don’t judge too quickly.”

Acts 17:31 says, “He - God - has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man - Jesus - whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”  The day of judgment is coming.  We either go up or we go down.  God doesn’t jump to conclusions.  He knows.

John’s point is this pithy monosyllabic phrase at the end of verse 17:  “as He is, so also are we in this world.”

What this phrase means is that Jesus is now in the world invisibly.  But, we are in this world visibly.  That’s what John’s been writing.

Hear this.  Its Jesus in me.  Its not our little failing efforts to live the Christian life and love others and somehow live in imitation of Him.  It means choosing to relying on Him - to count on Him - to do all He demands of us - to live in us and through us - to create His love in us.

That’s confidence - even in the day of judgment.  Hear this.  On that day when God looks at our lives and sees the activity of Himself in us then He’s not going to reject Himself on the day of judgment.  Whatever is going on in our lives - if its of Him - we have confidence when we stand before Him to be judged.

Grab onto this truth.  We can love each other because God will always be there for us.  He won’t reject us - or hurt us.  He’ll keep His promises to us.  Whatever is true in the ultimate - judgment day eternal destiny sense of having confidence in God - is true even today.

Look with me at how John applies this truth.  Verse 18:  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

J. Grant Howard in his book “The Trauma of Transparency” shares this poem:

Remember Paul Simon?

I am a rock,
I am an island…
and a rock feels no pain
and an island never cries.

We’re like turtles.  At the threat of intimacy - vulnerability - the call to love - we fearfully pull back into our shells. 

But that’s not fellowship.  That’s not the kind of love that God can create in us - here in the church - even in our homes and families.

Perfect love casts out fear.  Not our kind of human love.  But God’s perfect love.  Love that never lets go.  Love that upholds us regardless of what people may do to us.  Love that risks and enables us to take risks. Ultimately what’s the worst that could happen?  Death?  And God’s already got that covered. 

Relying on Him - if we choose to stick our heads outside our shells - even just to look around - He can create His kind of love - begin to perfect love -  even in our fellowship here.

Verse 19:  “We love, because He first loved us.”   That’s a powerful statement of life together in Jesus.  We choose to love because God loved us.  Relying on God - to learn to love each other.  Can we make that statement together?  To set fear aside and trust Him?  Can we try that together?  “We love, because He first loved us.” 

Verse 20:  If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.  And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

Its very easy to delude ourselves into thinking that we love God and yet  withhold love from others.  We’re tempted - when we see our brother or sister with needs - problems - what love can do in their life - tempted to hold back - to find excuses.  But that’s not an option for us.

We all have a longing to love and to be loved - for the kind of unselfish commitment and intimacy and care that God’s love expressed can mean in our fellowship.  We cannot turn away from this and say it cannot be done.  God would not command us to do something He cannot enable us to do.  If we say we love God then we can love each other.

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1. Charles R. Swindoll, Swindoll’s Ultimate Book of Illustrations & Quotes, page 361
2. J. Grant Howard, The Trauma of Transparency, page 119