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1 John 4:7-21
Good morning, our reading today is from the book of 1 John, chapter 4, verses 7 to 21.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
This is how we know that we live in him and he in us. He has given us his spirit. And we have seen and testified that the father has sent his son to be the saviour of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the son of God, God lives in them and they in God.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment. In this world, we are like Jesus.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.
Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command. Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
This is the word of the Lord.
The Beloved Disciple's Confidence
Phil and I once learned an important lesson about leadership and influence. Apparently, it's not about skill. It's not about training. It's about energy and confidence. We were told that you could achieve anything so long as you had energy and confidence.
When we come to the gospel of John and the letters of John, we see a man with extraordinary energy and confidence. He writes the fourth gospel and doesn't refer to himself as John. He starts to refer to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved in the third person multiple times about himself.
At the last supper, he's recounting this. He tells us that he's sitting the closest to Jesus and Peter asks him to ask a question and so he leans right in. When they run to the empty tomb, of course, on Easter morning, he makes sure we know that he got there first. He tells us that twice. He's a confident young man.
When the risen Jesus appears on the shore of the lake and he's in the boat with Peter, he also helps us know that it was him who recognized him first. "It is the Lord," he says. As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, "It is the Lord," then he acts. He is completely, gloriously, cheekily, unselfconsciously confident in the love of Jesus for him. So much so that he takes upon himself this name, the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.
Now you might find that maybe a bit much, the confidence of it all, but I do think there's a twinkle in it because actually for John, he doesn't want to hold this identity just for himself. When he writes his letter and writes the gospel, he tells us that we share his identity. We too are the beloved ones.
Our Identity as Beloved Ones
So today when he writes, "Dear friends, let us love one another," or if you, like me, remembered the verse, "Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God," he's not just saying, "Hey mates," he's saying we are all the beloved disciples. We are all the ones whom Jesus loved.
He might be cheeky, he might be confident, but he's not keeping this identity for himself. He's handing it to, not just to individuals, but to an entire community, a community of beloveds, beloved ones. This is your identity as an individual, and this is your identity as a community.
Now we live in a world, of course, that has made identity one of our most anxious experiences. Perhaps back in the day, we would have said that it is the teenage job to ask the question, "Who am I?" But now all of us are encouraged to ask that question over and over again, almost every morning that we wake up. Who am I?
Do I look inside myself and find my authentic self and give it expression? And if it shifts, then what do I need to shift in my life to express it authentically? Or do I look outward to find my tribe and to hope that I will have others who share my identity markers, who will give me the mark of belonging with them?
Now of course, both of these tasks are pretty exhausting. The inward self keeps shifting. The tribe is always under threat. Are you going to be in? Are you going to be out? The recognition that you need to be at peace in yourself, who you are really, is always one bad day away from being withdrawn.
But John's answer to identity is that it is received, given before you could earn it, held from outside of you and stable because of the identity of the Lord. Agapati, beloved ones, you are beloved. Before the world knew your name, put you in a box, you are beloved.
The Fourfold Evidence of Our Beloved Identity
But how can you be sure? How can we live with this identity? How can our community be a community of the beloved ones? Well, there are four reasons in this passage.
- The first is that our identity, as I've just said, comes from the foundation of God's identity.
- The second is the external evidence of the cross.
- The third is the internal evidence that fear is being cast out as we abide in Jesus.
- The fourth is the interpersonal evidence, being in the community of beloveds, loving and being loved.
So let's have a look at the foundation. Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. God is love. It's twice in this chapter here and in verse 16, three words, God is love.
Love is not a mood God happens to be in. Love is not even something that God does when the conditions are right. Love is what God is. It is his nature from which everything else flows.
Julian of Norwich, 14th century Anchoress, and I'm sure it would have been assistant bishop back then if they'd had them, who lived through the Black Death and received a series of visions of the crucified Christ, spent 20 years sitting with one question, what is the meaning of what I saw?
She asked Jesus directly in prayer. And at the very end of her Revelations of Divine Love book, she records his answer.
What do you wish to know your Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well. Love was his meaning.
Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love.
Remain in this and you will know more of the same. But you will never know different without end. Love is his meaning.
Love is the first word, the last word. When we ask questions, what is God doing? Ultimately, when we drill down, love is his meaning.
Meister Eckhart, around the same time, 14th century German mystic, says this, God loves my soul so much that his very life and being depend upon his loving me. To stop God loving me would be to rob him of his Godhood for God is love, no less than he is truth.
If the sun doesn't decide to shine, it just must because of its nature. God does not decide to love, it is what God is.
And Julian would add, before God made us, he loved us, which love was never abated and never shall be. Before we drew breath, before we spoke a word, whatever it sings in that amazing song, Reckless Love, before we could earn it, before we could do something to lose it, nothing, love is there.
That is the foundation of our identity as beloveds.
The Cross as the Ultimate Declaration of Love
But we're not simply given this, what could feel a bit abstract, we're given the evidence. So I say love is not what God does, it's what God is, but love does. And love does in Jesus Christ. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the atonement of Jesus on the cross, that his death not only took our sins far, far away, as far as the east is from the west, but he paid for, paid the penalty, absorbed, made right our sins against God God himself in himself, absorbing the full cost of our sin and breaking death so that we might live for him and through him and in him forever. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us, the initiative for this, that the love that God is now does is his initiative right from the beginning, not a response to us, he didn't look at us and say, look what they're earning, I better send my son. God moved toward us while we were still turned the other way.
And this is historical objective, the cross happened. It is the declaration that God has made you his beloved. His beloved. And we must, to embrace the love that God is, rely on this external evidence that Jesus is the son of God, the savior of the world. He is the one that ushers us into our third point, the internal evidence, the experience of abiding, remaining in Jesus so that fear loses its grip.
Perfect Love Drives Out Fear
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment. In this world, we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
The foundation is the identity of God. The external assurance is the cross of Christ and the internal experience is that as we remain in him, perfect love will drive out fear.
So what kind of fear are we talking about? I know a number of us struggle with anxiety, just generalized anxiety. It just floats around and there's, you know, you feel like there's nothing you can do to get rid of it, even if you're trying to be rational about what's happening in your life.
For some of us, we fear, we look around the world and we actually wonder how people can live without fear because of so much that is going on. Some of us look at our young people and worry about what it's gonna be for them to grow up in this world.
But it's not ultimately these fears, although of course Jesus does speak to them in other places, that ought to be entirely losing their grip. We do live in a broken world, that is true. And sometimes it is right to worry and take action. However, here we're talking about a punishment that is a judicial word. And it appears only here in the New Testament and one other place, Matthew 25, where Jesus is talking about the punishment of the unrighteous at the last judgment. So John is talking about a specific fear here.
Now, the scriptures would say that the fear of punishment and death probably underlies most of our fears in the world. So here, this confidence that we are to have is that the terror of a guilty person before a judge is no longer ours.
The cowering dread of someone who expects to be condemned, it's no longer ours. And you know that that fear, excuse me, that worry that you are separated from all that makes life good, you know that that's a punishment in itself as you feel it, living under that dread, living under that sense of separation from God.
Living under the question mark of whether God wants to know you, whether God wants to hear your prayers, whether God wants to pour out goodness on your life, whether God wants to work all things together even in the midst of suffering and hardship, that fear, that fear is a terrible burden to carry.
And what John wants us to know is that because you are a beloved, that fear must be being driven out.
We talked about a few months ago, maybe, that we are to abide in Christ as a branch in the vine. We know that image really well. And this is the sap of Jesus' love coming into us and pushing out, driving out that fear that God does not love us, that fear that we are alone, that fear that we are gonna get what we deserve. And the word here is drives out, throws out, ek bello, the same word that is used with Jesus casting out demons. The love that God is and has and has shown and is infusing into us as we abide in Christ must push out the fear, the fear that on the day of judgment we will be found wanting.
And how? Because in this world we are like Jesus.
Now, sometimes we read this and we've applied it to be, I need to do the same works as Jesus. I am like Jesus in this world. I should be seeing healings. I should be doing all kinds of miraculous things. And there may be other places that we would go into the scriptures to find some evidence for that.
But this is not that. This is that as Jesus is connected intimately with the Father as the one who has been through the worst that sin and death could throw at him, come out the other side, risen, exalted, vindicated, glorified, beloved, held in full communion with the Father, this is us.
In the world, we are like Jesus, the risen Jesus, who could go about his business and be on the beach and have a barbecue and come into the room. We are like Jesus who can do the things that we do in the world whilst being entirely connected in love to the Father.
Nothing stands in our way. All death is gone. All sin is paid for. We are now in the same union that the Father and the Son have. We are there too.
Now, of course, you and I might still struggle with fear. And it's good for us to see this word perfect, perfect love drives out fear.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love. The perfect love is going to bring us on a journey with a goal. The goal is where we're moving towards.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love. But don't worry, you are on that journey.
However slow, however interrupted, as fear gets pushed out by the sap of his life and love, it will happen.
Living as a Community of Beloveds
And finally, evidence four, the interpersonal evidence, being part of a community of beloveds. Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
We said at the beginning that one of the deep hungers of our age is to have the right identity to be recognized as who we are to be truly seen.
The philosopher Charles Taylor says that this hunger is ultimately going to be met in community. We become who we are through being genuinely recognized by others.
You are my brothers and sisters makes you a beloved sibling. Identity is never solitary. It's not something I have to work out on my own.
It's relational and a community of beloveds is God's gift to us to do that.
Verse 12 tells us what is at stake. When a community of people genuinely love one another, God becomes visible in the world through them. Otherwise, he says, God is invisible and that is a hard burden to carry if you want to introduce people to him. But the community, he says, is the location where an otherwise invisible God becomes visible. Jesus said, they will know me by how you love one another. That is the whole witness of the church.
So what does it look like? Well, we've had a look through John's gospel. Sorry, from the first letter of John already and we've seen that, number one, a community that is of the beloveds is honest about their failure and sin.
Walks in the light. Actually confessing our sins, confessing them to the Lord, confessing them to one another and working towards restoration, being in the light, receiving the forgiveness of God.
The pretense of having it all together so that the community looks like a community of beloveds is not holiness. It's pride in religious clothes. A community of beloveds needs to be honest.
Secondly, a community of beloveds needs to be materially generous. I don't have the verse up here but in chapter 3 it says, if anyone has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet closes their heart against them, how does the love of God abide in that person? I said that God is love and then God does love and the same for us. Love must be concrete. The love that proves our belonging to God that will actually help us to be sure that we are the beloveds is love that is expressed. It's what we do with our resources when we see need in front of us.
I think about the time when we were in COVID lockdown together and we gathered a number of grocery gift cards that we were able to give to those who were without work. We could send some and we sent some to the church up in Craigieburn and when I visit them as their bishop I will be able to be so proud that we saw need in that time and opened our hands.
I think about when the Afghan women came from the rise of the Taliban and we collected all kinds of material goods to make sure that they had what they needed. And I think about when people have been unwell including in recent months and meals have been made and care has been shown.
John's question is that if there is real need and we've looked the other way then how does the love of God really abide in us? But if we have seen need and shared what we have, if we have known love and then does, did, do, did, done love then we know that the love of God has genuinely found a home in us and we in it.
So we're an honest community, we're a community that's materially generous, we're a community that refuses to look away. That we never give the cold shoulder or even a smiling exclusion to someone because we are out of relationship with them. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar for whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen and he has given us this command anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
When we come to church and we sing the vertical praises, or one of a better word, of our Lord and yet there is horizontal disruption between us. Something that somebody has said, a resentment, a sense that someone who held authority or you know was up the front didn't, didn't see you, didn't give you what you needed. Real disappointment being let down, all kinds of things. When we come and we hold what John is calling hate here, then we work against that confidence that we so long for that we are the beloveds because we know there's something in us we know. Whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen cannot love God. How do I really know that I love God and he loves me when I am in relational breakdown with people in my life including in the church?
But we are to be a community of beloveds. We are to see each other just like Phil talked about last week, Hagar needing to be seen. Seen as someone who is truly beloved by God even though she had given trouble and she also was a victim. She needed to be seen and we need to see each other in this community and work towards restoration, reconciliation, forgiveness, letting things go and opening our hearts.
Following the Beloved Disciple's Example
Well the conclusion, I wanted to come back round to our cheeky confident John. Yes he tells us he got to the tomb first. Yes he tells us he lent against Jesus at supper. Yes he tells us he recognized Jesus. I think that in these behaviours actually the confidence that he has produces something that we want.
So let me tell you first, he's at the cross and he's waited there actually some longer than some others and he's there with Mary the mother of Jesus and Jesus says to him, son here is your mother, mother here is your son. And so that community of beloveds as John the confident one, although of course his heart is breaking at that time, is right there right in the thick of it. Well from that hour it says John took her into his own home. The beloved disciple starts to create even at that moment through the command of the Lord a community of belovedness. He opens his home in the midst of his grief and receives into his home the grief of someone else's deep loss. That comes from his confidence in the love of Jesus.
Secondly I think the love is maintained and so deep, so confident because of the way in which he has always stayed close to Jesus. So leaning up against him, being right there in in the Last Supper but remaining at the cross and then running to the tomb.
I just had this thought the other day that even though he gets there first he doesn't go in and I wonder if it's because his heart was so grieved at the thought that if he went in he might see the dead body of Jesus that he just couldn't do it. That he he just had spent so much time, had had Jesus in his focus so clearly for so long that his heart was so full of what it had meant that this man had loved and sacrificed for him that he just couldn't he just couldn't go in and see it all over.
And yet of course that understanding of the sacrifice of Jesus and what it had truly meant, the darkness of it, meant that he could really say this man has died for my sins. You have an advocate. You can be confident that forgiveness is yours because I have seen it. It was real finished and so dark.
But then of course on Easter morning he's he's done this he's seen then that the the tomb is empty he believes but when they're out on the lake later and a figure on the shore calls to them it is him who knows that voice. Intimacy has trained his ears his eyes. He knows how Jesus moves. He knows what he does. He knows how he stands how he speaks and so when others are missing it across the water, he sees it. And I think that confidence, that closeness, that cheeky, I'm right in the center of things, that means that he, when Jesus turns up, he sees it.
And so for us, what do we need to do? Number one, we're bringing people in to our homes, our lives, just like he did with Mary. That comes from being a beloved.
Number two, we're staring at the cross so much that we really, really understand how free we are of our sins. And we're so deeply confident because we know it was real.
Thirdly, when Jesus turns up, when Jesus turns up here, when Jesus turns up when we're at work, when Jesus turns up and we're doing stuff with the kids, we know, we recognize it, we see him, we can join in, we go, that's the Lord. All right, that's the Lord, let's go.
That's gonna happen here. I'm not gonna be here to see it. You will see it. A community of beloveds recognizes when Jesus is on the move and they say, okay, let's go.
And then finally, there is this letter, well, three of them actually, written in John's old age to a community that's kind of kept regenerating. Some are as old as him, some middle-aged, some young.
That's the best thing about Deep Creek, right? Incredible spread of ages. It is such a blessing.
John is writing to this, investing in this, the new ones and the old ones, pouring into them the thing that he knows is best, the thing that has shaped his entire life, that they are beloved.
He's reminding them and we remind each other that love in Jesus is for everyone and it will change the whole community and that community will change the world.
Agapaytoy, dear ones, beloved ones, the disciples whom Jesus loves. That's us. Amen.
