We Love Because God First Loved Us

1 John 4:16-21 John begins his epistle this way: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—THIS we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 

John wants us to understand that he writes about what he knows! The word of life is not a concept or an idea or a theory—but a person named Jesus.

When John heard Jesus say “I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger” and saw the multitudes fed; when he heard the words of Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life” and saw Lazarus come forth from his tomb; when he heard the hammer upon the nails and saw Jesus die and yet three days later embraced the resurrected Christ; hearing and seeing and touching, John knew and believed and taught something infinitely greater than a new religious idea or a philosophy on how we ought to live—he bore witness to a person named Jesus.

In his Gospel, John said that everything that he had written was recorded so that we can believe in Jesus and have life in his name.  The Word of life that John speaks of in this epistle is a person named Jesus. 

So it is in these verses that we have before us today when John writes about love—not as an ideal or even as a virtue we to which we ought aspire—but as a person named Jesus who is the love of God. 

John says:  We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love.  And in the verses immediately preceding our text John gives us the definition of what it means that God is love and what it means to be loved by God.  He says:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

             Love, according to the Bible, and the especially the verses we have before us today, is God’s gift of his Son.  In this John is simply echoing the words of Jesus himself:  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.  

            That is what John had come to know and believe—that is what the Holy Spirit wants us to know and believe here this morning:  that we are loved by God with an everlasting love—that God has shown that love to us beyond any shadow of a doubt by giving his Son for us into death so that we might be forgiven and welcomed into God’s family as his dearly loved sons and daughters.

God is love and we know that because of Jesus.  That is what John is talking about when he says that:  whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 

It is not just any old feeling of fondness and affection that keeps us connected to God-- and it is certainly not any of the sinful things that our world calls “love” that keeps us connected to God:  it is Jesus.

To “abide” means to remain with.  Whoever abides in Jesus abides in God and God abides with him.  Whoever remains with Jesus, lives with Jesus, stands fast with Jesus—God remains and lives with and stands fast with him. 

And so then, if we are to have a life with God—if we are to understand what it means that we have in the Lord a God of love—it is critical that we know- and believe in- and abide with Jesus.  We ask ourselves:

Am I glad to hear the voice of Jesus as he speaks to me in his Word?  Do I yearn to be close to Jesus as he give me his own body and blood in the sacrament?  Do I face the future unafraid—no matter what it holds—because right here and now I know and trust and live with Jesus?  I hope so!  And more importantly God wants it to be so!  John writes:

By this (abiding with Jesus!) is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

            Here’s John’s point:  in this ever deeper knowledge of Jesus and trust in him; by an ever closer walk with him; is my courage and confidence in God growing so that I can face the future unafraid? 

John especially is looking forward to the Day of Judgment when, as we heard last week in the Athanasian Creed, Jesus will come again and: 

“all men will rise again with their bodies; And shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire.” 

That is a sobering, eternally serious statements and it is meant to be.  Are you ready—confident and courageous—for that day, on this day-- because you know and believe in and abide with Jesus?

And if you think that day is so far in the future that you need not worry about it, what about the temporal judgments that you will face before then? 

What about the hardships and sorrows and pains of living in this broken world and finally death when we pass from it?  Do you face the future unafraid—no matter what it holds—because right here and now you know and trust and live with Jesus?  I hope so because…

Even our Lord Jesus Christ did not escape that path of pain and suffering and death that is life in this broken world--and neither will we!  But he did go past it to a glorious resurrection from the dead- and an empty grave-- and a place at the Father’s right hand-- and so will everyone who knows him and believes in him and abides in him.

That is the promise that gives us confidence as we live in this broken world!  That is the promise that gives us courage as we face our own death!  That is the promise that gives us hope as we think about standing before God on Judgment Day and giving an account of our life: the promise that as it is for our Lord Jesus Christ right now: crucified, raised and ascended—so it will be for us know him, believe in him and abide in him.

We can live our lives no matter what the future holds unafraid--and stand before God on the Last Day unashamed-- because of the love God has for us in Jesus Christ—the exact, same love that shapes and guides our love for others.  John says:  We love because he first loved us.

I took time at the beginning of the sermon to make  sure that you understood that, when John talks about love, he is not talking, first of all about a feeling or emotion or idea or even a virtue—but he is talking about a person named Jesus who is given by his Father into death out of love for you and me.

I did that so that we would understand what John is talking about when it comes to God’s love for us and now, so that you would understand what our love for others ought to be—that genuine love for those around us looks very different than what is known as love in our world. 

You know as well as I do what kind of sinful things are done under the banner of what the world calls “love”. 

People go from one sexual partner to another because they “love” them and then-- they don’t.  Babies are killed in utero by their parent because they “love” them too much to bring them into a difficult situation.  The children that survive kind of parental “love” pull the plug on their parents because they “love” them too much to see them suffer.

None of this has anything whatsoever with what the Bible defines as love:  the sacrificial gift of a beloved Son given into death out of love for enemies.  None of it has anything to do with Jesus.

Instead, as those loved by God—in Christ, we love others because God first loved us—in Christ.  And we love others in the way that God has loved us—in Christ.  

And that we love others in this way—in the way of Christ—is a sure testimony to our own conscience and to the world around us that our knowledge and faith in Jesus it not a mental game that we are playing with ourselves, but a true and living faith that has captured and conquered our hearts and minds and wills.  John says:

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he 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: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

            God is love and the love that he has for us is not a conceptual ideal-- but a concrete act of the will that moved him to give his Son into death for our sins.  We know what the love of God is because we see what his love has done for us.  So it is for us and our love for others.

            We don’t believe for a second the words of someone who talks about their great love for God and treats those around them like garbage. 

In the same way, if we are telling ourselves how much we love God but that love never makes it to others we are simply telling ourselves a pious lie.  John says that it is simply impossible to love the God we cannot see-- if that love does not extend to those we can see.

Love for God—real love—always results in love for those around us—a love that looks like Jesus.  May God grant that we would love others because he has first loved us!  Amen.