Part 15 of the sermon series on the Letters of John
After instructing the believers to test the spirits, meaning to test every proclamation or influence, the apostle mentioned love. He mentioned love more than 40 times in this letter. It is about God’s love and the believers’ love for each other. The emphasis reveals to us its importance. The community of faith must practice love for each other. Rejecting false teaching and loving the brotherhood go together in the life of the church community.
Born of God
The apostle reminds the believers to love one another. The reason is that love is from God. The one who loves his brothers and sisters knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God. Genuine believers love one another.
1 John 4:7-8: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
John repeats the same instruction: to love one another. His emphasis is on the character and nature of God, which is love. The term “born of God” is similar to “born from above” or “born again.”
God Sent His Son
John explained that God’s love is manifested through His Son. That is consistent with a statement the writer made in the Gospel Account (John 3:16). The purpose of the Son is to be the propitiation of our sin. Furthermore, it is through Christ that a believer should live his/her life.
1 John 4:9-10: In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
What is propitiation? It is the satisfaction of God’s justice. People are sinners; thus, they are doomed to eternal punishment. Christ became the substitutionary sacrifice. This section refocuses the reader to the main element of the gospel, Christ’s sacrifice because of sin.
Love One Another
Once again, the apostle repeats himself. He states that believers should love one another because of God’s love for us. Although believers may not have seen God, they should love one another. The more a believer loves the people of God, the more God’s love is completed in him/her.
1 John 4:11-12: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
Those who practice love have this confidence, that God is with them. Furthermore, His love is perfected when it is continuously practiced in the church community. How? By loving each other in truth and deed (1 Jn 3:18).
Application
1. Let us test ourselves to see if we love the community of faith. If not, then probably we are not true believers. Therefore, we must be born again because one sign of a true believer is loving the brotherhood.
2. We must always focus and refocus on the gospel. It is about God’s love that He sent His Son and that we should live through the Son. The gospel is about who the Son is and the significance of what He did.
3. Every believer must grow in the love of God. We know that He loves us through His Son, but we grow in His love by loving each other. Therefore, one solid trait of a church community is the love we have for each other.
Poem
GOD’S LOVE AMONG US by Ed Pilapil Jr Test the spirits, test the teaching Then watch what you are practicing It’s about loving each other In Christ, we practice together We will then mature together In us and through us to each other Thus, make sure we are practicing Love, as well as we are teaching For God so loved the world, that’s us God sent His Son, the Christ Jesus Those who believe are saved indeed Then we should love in truth and deed Remain in gospel truth and deed We believe; we are saved indeed Salvation is about Jesus The account of how He saved us
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