Love Among the Children of God (1 John 4:7-12, Psalm 133:1-3)
Rev. David Huffman, January 26, 2025Part of the Morning Worship at North Greenville Church series, preached at a Sunday Morning service
This passage in 1John along with 1Corinthians 13 are sublime passages in the New Testament. Loving God also means loving one another. The apostle John uses the word LOVE 15 times in 1John; he is called “the doctor of love.” He speaks as a pastor, addressing his readers as BELOVED. These beloved brothers and sisters, fellow believers, are recipients of the love of God in Christ. He modeled this love in himself, passing a test of genuineness by caring for them in the face of challenges, including the assaults of false teachers. We are to obey God because of God’s own love for us. God IS love, and love is FROM God. God’s love is wrapped up in His nature and His attributes. God is light and also a consuming fire. He showed the woman at the well also that God is spirit. God is loving, but this attribute is not the same as love. Love is His essence; loving action flows from His attribute of love. Before creation was the triune communion of love in the Godhead, which overflowed into creation. Psalm 33 proclaims that the earth is full of God’s steadfast love, even for the fallen world. This is a steadfast love that gives. Does this mean that God will never judge? He is not permissive, and justification before Him is not unconditional. God is holy and pure, not blind and indulgent. We cannot pit His love against His holiness. His love transforms us, making us able to obey what He commands us to do. His love is never in conflict with His other attributes. Our ability to love one another comes from God. Being called and challenged, we should look and walk a certain way, because the love of God is manifest in us in Christ. We will live and not perish. Salvation in Christ is a rescue operation. God’s righteous anger toward our sin is taken upon Christ. Why would we not love one another? We didn’t seek Him first; we couldn’t, being dead in trespasses and sins. We see God in the lives of His people, how we relate to one another. Love is lived in deed and truth as a witness to the world. In Christ, we can love those unknown to us. Do we look like this before a watching world?
| Earlier: | Same day: | Later: |
|---|---|---|
| « The Steadfast Love of the Lord | None | Why We Need a Savior » |
1 John 4:7–12 (Listen)
7 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. 9 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. 11 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.
(ESV)
Psalm 133 (Listen)
A Song of Ascents. Of David.
133:1 Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the LORD has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.
(ESV)