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The Love Principle - Study 23: Love as Reaction

  • Apr 29
  • 12 min read

1 John 4:19-21 NIVUK

[19] We love because he first loved us. [20] 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. [21] And he has given us this command: anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

I will never forget the wonderment on the face of my youngest sister as it dawned in her how computers work. ‘You mean to say that inside of that computer is mostly silicone – basically sand – and they’re pretty much a bunch of switches that are set to either one or zero?’ she asked me.


I nodded to confirm she was correct


She was just stunned.


She’s now the Vice Dean of Physics in her university and an expert in Nuclear Science. I’d love to say that our conversation inspired her. I think she was inspired already.


It’s a special moment when we realise how something works.


In our last study, we looked at how Jesus commanded us to love. It isn’t an optional extra.


We don’t get to remove it from the ‘How To Be A Christian’ package. Put quite simply: if we love, then we are a follower of Jesus and are recognised as such; if we don’t love, we are not. 


It really is that stark.


And yes, it means there are people who call themselves Christian, who attend church, who carry around Christian symbols and signs, but who, through their attitudes and actions towards others, prove themselves to be fakes, but that is what the Bible says. If we accept the Bible as the Word of God, and Jesus Christ as our Lord, then this is simply a command we have to obey.


But how does it work?


In a hate-filled world that is constantly at war with itself, often over petty little things that don’t really matter, how can we love?


John, one of the disciples closest to Jesus, has the answer. He told us in his first pastoral letter, how love should characterise a Christian, where it comes from and what it should do. His words were counter-cultural then. They are even more so now. In fact, they challenge much of what we would consider to be human nature. 


But we would be wrong.


We are going to examine some of the simplest, but most deeply profound, words in Scripture. Just as an enormous forest fire that can cause billions of damage can be caused only by a stray match, and just as an entire administration can be brought to its knees by a stray word, the truths in these simple verses upend and subvert our superficial culture, and especially our superficial Christianity.


They might not seem like much, but get ready for all we ever thought about love to be challenged to the core.


Let’s start, then, by looking at The Reason for Love.


The Reason for Love

1 John 4:19 NIVUK

[19] We love because he first loved us.

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/113/1jn.4.19.NIVUK)


Please forgive the war metaphor, but this is grenade number one tossed directly at our worldly concepts of love.


Have you ever heard people say things like, ‘He has a face only a mother could love’, or ‘She could never be my type’, or ‘They are just not like us’?


Usually they are spoken of romantic or friendly relationships. We judge people over what they can do for us: how their looks reflect on our taste; how their influence is something we want; how their bank balance could help us.


None of that is love. Not one bit of it.


When we grade people like they are chicken or turkey or fruit, that’s not love.


We don’t love other people because they deserve it, we love other people because we don’t.


As we saw earlier:


1 John 4:10-11 NIVUK

[10] This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. [11] Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

And again, from those very famous verses in Romans:


Romans 5:6-8 NIVUK

[6] You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. [7] Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. [8] But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This is absolutely paradigm-shifting for us as Christians. It sounds the death-knell for cliques and politics and interest groups in churches – not that there ever was a place for them anyway. It means that we no longer have any justification for excluding anyone from our fellowships other than defiant sin. The old Christianised Sunday game of ‘shake hands, pass the time, avoid’ has to go.


Because we cannot choose who we love.


We must love everyone.


Of course, we are talking about agape love here, not eros. Let me make that absolutely clear. Otherwise Christian marriages would be more than chaotic.


But at the same time, since all our relationships with anyone must at least be based in agape love, we can still see how everything must change as a result.


This is precisely why Paul used a clear statement on what true agape love is, as demonstrated by Jesus on the cross, as the cure for the problems experienced by the problematic Corinthian church in the famous 1 Corinthians 13, because when we realise how much we are loved by God and how little we deserve it, we realise that other people don’t deserve it either and love them.


Before we go any further, though, we must stop and ask ourselves a very serious question: is this how we love? Or is our love based on other criteria?


Do we truly love like Jesus?


As well as the reason for love, we also see The Test for Love.


The Test for Love

1 John 4:20 NIVUK

[20] 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.

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/113/1jn.4.20.NIVUK)


The Balkans is one of the most stunning regions of Europe, but, outside of the big highlights of the Adriatic coastline, it’s infrequently visited and a little neglected.


The reason why is the tinder-box divisions in this beautiful region. Albanians, Bosnian, Serbians, Kosovars and Croatians bear so much pain as a result of two bitter Balkan wars. Grudges are large. Memories are long. Unforgiveness is vast. Bosnia is so divided that it even has three football leagues for each nationality, as well as three governments.


There is just one institution where all three nationalities meet together and cooperate fully:


The Evangelical church.


While the established religions in each nation (Islam for Bosnians, Catholicism for Croats, Orthodoxy for Serbs) have become so intertwined with their national identity that they cannot reach across the divide, the Evangelical, Gospel-preaching church is the only institution that unites them all under one roof in harmony.


Now, for many that might seem strange to hear. In other nations, Evangelical churches have become so politicised and divisive that they are no longer a Christian, or even a religious, entity. They have forgotten their roots. They have set aside the Gospel. They are only interested in power by any means.


But in the white hot heat of divided Balkan nations, the Gospel does not divide – it unites.


Because, as John taught, real Christians don’t hate people. It really is that simple. They love.


If they don’t love, they aren’t Christians.


There it is: I’ve said it.


John made a very interesting observation. He said that if we don’t love people, then we don’t love God.


He made this elsewhere too:


1 John 4:7-8 NIVUK

[7] Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. [8] Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

What he said is that if we don’t love our neighbours, then our relationship with God is affected. Paul would agree:


Romans 13:8-10 NIVUK

[8] Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. [9] The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ [10] Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.

John talked of hating our brother or sister. Now, the word for ‘hate’ in Greek isn’t just what we would call ‘hate’. It’s a bit more nuanced than that. It also means to love less, to slight, to disregard or treat with indifference. It’s not just to actively despise, it’s also to ignore or overlook.


That makes this teaching all the more striking.


Love does not neglect. Love does not overlook. Love is never indifferent.


John taught that even when you did that, you weren’t just demonstrating that you don’t love someone, you were actually demonstrating that you don’t love God.


So two relationships are strained.


And so is the third: with yourself. By damaging the critical relationships you have with others and with God, you are committing an act of self-harm. You are hurting yourself.


Let’s not be in any doubt: this is serious.


So tell me: if someone was to review how you relate to people, would they say that you love God?


Apart from the reason and the test for love, we also see The Command to Love.


The Command to Love

1 John 4:21 NIVUK

[21] And he has given us this command: anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/113/1jn.4.21.NIVUK)


Matthew 22:37-40 NIVUK

[37] Jesus replied: ‘ “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” [38] This is the first and greatest commandment. [39] And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” [40] All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’

We have quite a complicated trip coming up. It will involve crossing four international borders. One we have no fears over – it’s the border back into our home country. We are well prepared for that.


But for the other three we need to research and check and make sure that we meet the requirements or we won’t get into the country.


I heard last year about a woman who flew from Spain to Puerto Rico for her vacation. She asked an AI to confirm if she needed a visa. The AI told her that she didn’t. So she got on the plane and flew all the way to Puerto Rico.


However, when she arrived at the border, she was turned away: she didn’t need a visa, but she needed an ESTA and hadn’t applied for one.


After a tearful post on the internet to purge her shock, she got out her phone, applied for an ESTA, received it and crossed the border into Puerto Rico, but not without stress that she could have avoided.


Love is the border line. It is the border line between righteousness and sin, between obedience and disobedience, between bringing God pleasure and bringing Him displeasure. There is no other border. There us no other condition.


Our faith leads us to God. That much is sure. But if our faith does not produce the works of love, then our faith is ineffectual. It is actually dead (James 2:14-26). It has no form or substance. It is just intellectual assent. It is not saving faith.


And all of the right words or right music or right theology or right thought or right decor will make not one jot of difference. 


Let’s be specific: we are not talking about having Christian friends or even a Christian partner. We are talking about agape love: the love with no fuse that plays the long game; the love that puts other’s needs before its own; the love that bends low to lift others up, even when they do not deserve it; the love that serves and doesn’t need to be noticed, that doesn’t see itself in a rank or a hierarchy, but is willing to spend time with anyone.


We were talking about that kind of love.


Because that is how Jesus loves us.


You see, love for God, our neighbours and ourselves are connected. We cannot have one – or even claim to have one – without all the others. If you remove one, the others all collapse in a heap.


That is why a Christian who disregards, who disrespects, who despises others is no Christian at all.


Love, you see, is the gateway to discipleship. We cannot grow if we don’t have it. We cannot be like Christ without it 


Jesus commanded us to love. If He is truly Lord of our lives, then we must love.


There is no other option.


Conclusion

1 John 4:19-21 NIVUK

[19] We love because he first loved us. [20] 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. [21] And he has given us this command: anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

I live in a part of the world that is riven with rivalry, and has been for more than three hundred years. It’s stupid and it’s petty and it’s wrong. It purports to be religious. It is not. Religion has nothing to do with it, because those who participate in it ignore the commandments of the God they say they follow and do not love their neighbours as themselves.


When he was a teenager, my father was thrown out of a meeting and cut off by his father because he pointed that out.


Nowadays we see people having the temerity and gall to attach the name of God to their endeavours that are full of hatred or violence or the despising of others.


Let me tell you something: these people do not know God at all. They only use His Blessed Name to whip up fervour for their own evil intentions because they admit that their own name won’t cut it. They use religion as a cloak to hide their ugly hatred because they honestly believe that religious people will be too stupid and uneducated to see through their ruse and will believe everything they say.


What they do is an insult. It is an insult to us.


But most of all, it is an insult to Almighty God, and He is not someone you should be insulting.


Here is the plain truth: God is love. That is a fact.


The cross was a demonstration of His love. That is a fact


The cross is how we know what true love looks like. That is a fact.


If we love God for what He has done for us, we must also love ourselves and we must love neighbours as ourselves.


That is a fact.


If we fail to do so, we are not following Jesus Christ and are living our lives in disobedience to Him.


That is a fact.


Many of us find ourselves in places where broken relationships abound. We feel the pain and the damage from those broken relationships. No-one should ever minimise that. It is horrible.


But throwing ourselves with abandon in a petty tennis match of claim and blame and revenge will not take the pain away. It will only make it worse.


If you look at power plugs on certain countries, they sometimes have an extra pin called the ‘ground’ or the ‘earth’. That pin is there for a very important purpose. If there is a power surge or the device malfunctions, this extra pin will divert the electric charge away from the device and into the earth to prevent a fire or explosion.


The cross is our earthing pin. The cross is our ground. On the cross, justice was done, not just for our sin, but for the sins of the whole world.


So we don’t have to worry about vengeance. We don’t have to worry about justice. God will avenge. God will repay. We will see justice.


We just need to love and entrust the pain we feel to God.


But what if that love is unrequited? What if it isn’t returned? Worse, what if it is mocked and despised?


We are not responsible for other people's reactions to our overtures of love. That is their responsibility before God. If they turn their backs on it, God will see and God will not be mocked.


Our responsibility us to obey and to love and to leave the rest to God.


Because when we love, we are most like Jesus.


Prayer

Lord Jesus, You taught me how to love. You showed me how to love. I now ask for Your help to love even those who do not love me, because I know that this is what You did for me and I want to follow You. Help me, I pray. Amen.


Questions for Contemplation

  • Why did we love? Why is this important?

  • What does John teach us about our love for each other?

  • How can you show your love for your neighbours?

 

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