Love: 1 John 4:9-12

Here we are, already on the fourth Sunday of Advent! In just a few days, it is Christmas. The moment we have been looking forward to is almost here! For the past three weeks, we have been looking at each word which represents the different weeks of Advent. This week’s theme is love. In the English language, this little word is used and misused in so many ways. Often, I have wished that we had different words to better express the way in which we mean the word. People will say they “love” a song or movie or type of food, and then turn around and say, “I love you” to a friend. Surely those two types of “love” can’t be equal.

My son Everett pointed out to me, in the same way that the peace and joy that God gives us is different from the world’s definitions of peace and joy, so too is love. The world’s idea of love is what is really called “infatuation.” Or people use the word “love,” but it’s simply indicating a preference or a fondness for something. Something good happens and we say, “I love this!” but we don’t really mean that we love it. We just mean that we are happy about it.

God’s love is vastly different from that. When He says that He loves, He doesn’t mean it in a flippant, superficial way. He’s more than just happy about something. Thankfully, in the Greek language, there are many words for love. It doesn’t have the same problem as the English language. The type of love we are going to be looking at today is the Greek word agapé, and this kind of love is deep and profound.

Look at how Strong’s Lexicon defines agapé. It says, “Agapé is a term used in the New Testament to describe a selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love. It is the highest form of love, often associated with the love of God for humanity and the love that believers are called to have for one another. Unlike other Greek words for love, such as ‘eros’ (romantic love) or ‘philia’ (brotherly love), agapé is not based on emotions or feelings but is an act of the will, characterized by a commitment to the well-being of others.”

The love that comes from God is like that. It’s not always emotional. It is a deep well. It’s not based on circumstances or feelings.

Last week, I talked about joy, and how joy is a choice. If we choose to take our eyes off ourselves and place our eyes on Jesus, drawing near to Him, then He fills us with joy. That joy He gives us is not always emotional happiness, but it is an attitude of graciousness that we extend to all around us. We are content and joyful.

Like joy, agapé love is expressed in contentment, graciousness, and self-forgetfulness. And the more we draw near to Jesus, the more love we will have and the more love we will experience. Love is also a choice. It is, as the definition stated, “an act of the will, characterized by a commitment to the well-being of others.”

Proof of this is seen in our text for today. We are only looking at four verses today, but they are chock-full of truth for us to discover. Let’s read 1 John 4:9-12 (CSB). It says, “9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.”

To begin with, there are three things in verse 9 which I want us to look closer at:

1. Christ is the only begotten Son

2. He was sent into the world for the world

3. So that the world could become alive through Him

The first thing I want us to look at is the term “begotten Son.” According to Strong’s Lexicon, this word is monogenés, and it means, “only begotten, unique, one and only.”

This is in contrast to us, who, through faith, are the adopted children of God. This is important to note, for Jesus was not just a man. He was not a prophet like John the Baptist. He was not like Elijah or Moses or someone else who was used mightily by God. He is the only begotten Son of the Father. There is no one like Him. That makes Him unique. That is why He could die on the cross, rise again, and forgive us of our sins.

There is endless misinformation about Jesus. I don’t want to take the time to address it all, nor could I if I wanted to. We don’t really need to worry about any of it if we understand the truth, which is this: Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. He is the prophesied Messiah. He is fully God, while at the same time, a fully sinless man. There is no one like Him. He is a man, but He is God. As He said about Himself in John 14:9, “The one who has seen me has seen the Father.”

The second thing to note in verse 9 is that Jesus was sent into the world for the world. Jesus wasn’t sent just for God’s chosen people, the Jews. He was sent for the entire world. This is important to note for two reasons. It supports what the whole rest of the New Testament supports: that Christ died for all people, not just one elect group of people. The “Gentiles” are not excluded. And second, He was sent for all people, not just “the chosen,” as some denominations within Christianity think.

While the debate about Jews and Gentiles has been put to rest, the other debate has not, which is why I think this point is essential to make. A large segment of Christianity, known as the reformed or Calvinists, thinks that Jesus was not sent into the world for the world, but rather, He was sent only for the people whom God has elected or chosen to save. They do not believe that Jesus died for all people, but only for the elect. Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible incorrectly says, “The love of God here spoken of, and instanced in, is not his general love to all his creatures, which is shown in the make of them, and in the support of them in their beings, and in his providential care of them, and kindness to them; but his special love towards his elect, and which was before it was manifested.” He also says, “but not every man in the world is here meant, or all the individuals of human nature; for all are not the objects of God’s special love, nor is Christ God’s gift to every one; for though these are called the world, yet rather the Gentiles particularly, and God’s elect among them, are meant; who are often called ‘the world.’” I only include those quotes to show the confusion that is being spread by people who hold to a reformed or Calvinist theology. They are gravely wrong in their conclusions.

Scripture is clear that Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, was sent to the world for the whole world, which is the third thing I want us to note about verse 9. He was sent so that the world could become alive through Him. As the Cambridge Bible for School and Colleges says, “The only Son has been sent for this purpose, that we may live, and not die, as we should otherwise have done.”

Jesus was not sent into the world to condemn the world. He was sent into the world to offer salvation to all who would have faith in Him. If we believe in Jesus, then even though we will die, we will live forever with Him for all eternity. Jesus says about Himself in John 10:10, “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”

Why would Jesus be willing to do all this for us? In verse 10, we see that the reason God sent Jesus into the world is because God loves us. It says, “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

It’s exactly as Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” 

Jesus, of course, is speaking about Himself. The reason He was sent is because of God’s love. It was an act of love that Jesus came to earth, was born of the virgin Mary, suffered and died, and rose again. All of that was a conscious act of love. God chose to do this.

In MacLaren’s commentary, he writes, “Love in its nature is self-kindled--’not that we loved God, but that He loved us’--and that it lays hold of, and casts out of the way that which, unremoved, would be a barrier between God and us--viz., our sin: ‘He hath sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’”

God self-kindled His love. There was nothing about us that would cause God to love us. He simply chose to love us. None of us loved God. He reached out to us. He created mankind, and He chose to love His creation. He didn’t have to do that, but He did. Proof of God’s love for mankind is that He gave Himself for us so that we could be forgiven of our sins.

Unlike Gill’s commentary, Christ is indeed “God’s gift to every one.” God, our Savior, “wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” just as 1 Timothy 2:4 says.  

He made that a possibility by coming to earth as a little baby. He humbled Himself so He could become, for us, the Messiah, our Savior. Now, all who believe in Him can be brought into the family of God by being forgiven of our sins. This is the message of Christmas. This is proof of God’s great love for all people.

What should our response be to this great love that He has shown us? Verse 11 tells us. It says, “Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.”

In that verse, we see that loving one another is actually a mandate. It’s a requirement for those of us who follow Christ. Because God has loved us so abundantly, we are to love our fellow believers abundantly. John writes it using the word “if,” but he isn’t questioning whether that is true. He’s making an if/then statement. Since God has loved us in this way, we also must love one another.

I love Christmas time, not only because we focus on the birth of Jesus, but because it is a wonderful time of year when it’s really easy to show love to people. When we do kind things for people, send cards or give presents, we are showing people that we love and care for them. The presents that we give are a great way to show someone that we love them. It’s also a good opportunity to take time and tell people that we love them. The Christmas season is a built-in opportunity to share love. It naturally encourages us to spread love. So much so that people who do not do so are seen as “scrooges,” cold-hearted and miserable. That is the opposite of who the Christian should be.

Why is loving people, not just at Christmastime I might add, a mandate? Verse 12 says, “No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.”

As believers, we are called Christians, which simply means, “one who follows Christ.” We are supposed to be representatives of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:20, we are called ambassadors. It says, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, ‘Be reconciled to God.’”

Loving people is a mandate because we are representing Christ to the world. The way the world will know that God is loving is if we love one another. If Christians do not love one another, why would the world think that God is love? As that verse says, “no one has ever seen God.” The only way the world will “see” God is if we accurately depict what He is like.

There is a famous poem attributed to a nun, Teresa of Avila, who was born in 1515 in Spain that goes:

Christ has no body but yours,No hands, no feet on earth but yours,Yours are the eyes with which He looksCompassion on this world,Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,Yours are the eyes, you are His body.

I like the sentiment of that poem. Christ, of course, has retained His body in Heaven, but here on earth, He is no longer present in physical form. We are the hands and feet of Jesus when we love one another. When we love people in Jesus’ name, then we show people who Jesus is like.

In addition to that, the rest of verse 12 says, “If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.” I think this is a continuation of John’s thought in 1 John 2:5-6 which says, “But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete. This is how we know we are in him: The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked.”

In Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, he says, “If true love exists in the heart, it will be carried out in the life; love and obedience are parts of the same thing; one will be manifested by the other; and where obedience exists, it is the completion or perfecting of love. The apostle does not say that either the love or the obedience would be in themselves absolutely perfect; but he says that one cannot fully develop itself without the other.”

In other words, if we truly love God, we will prove that we love Him by obeying His commands. As the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges says, “Obedience, not feeling, is the test of perfect love.” Which brings us back to the beginning, which is this: love is a choice.

If we want to follow Jesus, we must choose to love one another. When we do this, we demonstrate to the world that God is love.

It’s not always easy to love another. Like the other words for the weeks of advent, love, just like hope, peace, and joy, are easily lost. When the troubles of this world, the devil, and our own flesh are constantly tearing us down, it’s difficult to choose hope, peace, joy and love.

I have found that the best way to hold on to hope, peace, joy and love is to stay in God’s word and draw near to Jesus. For just as hope, peace, and joy are grown inside of us when we draw near to Jesus, so too is love. The more we understand God’s love for us, the more love we will have to share with other people.

God’s love was revealed to us when He sent us Jesus, our Savior. This is the Christmas message and why we celebrate and decorate and give gifts. We are proclaiming the great love the Father has shown to the whole world. Jesus is the gift given for all people, so that all who would believe in Him might be saved.

This Christmastime, let us show God’s love to the world by loving one another, so they too will see God and join with us in worshiping our Savior.

Pray: Heavenly Father, oh what great love You have shown to us in sending us Jesus! Please help us draw near to You so You may fill us with greater and greater love. Help us share Your love with each other so the world will see, and You will be glorified. In Jesus our Savior’s name we pray, amen.