I continued my series on 1 John. This week we reach the great theme of the action, or activity, described in the scripture as love. In the week that Steve Jobs died and the media has been full of comments on his life and work I invited people to think of all he accomplished and ask to ask themselves how their accomplishments compare to his. I suggested that there is a great difference between what can be accomplished in this life and what makes a difference to eternity.

Standard Podcast [ 29:20 ] Play in Popup | Download

1 John 4:7- 10

 

Intro
Steve Jobs died this week. Think of all he accomplished and ask yourself how your accomplishments compare to his.

I quoted from his Stanford University Commencement address which delivered on June 12, 2005. I predicted it will become popular to be read at funerals for years to come.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

See Matthew 25:40 to get things in perspective.
And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Not many people can have the talent, or the opportunity to build a business like Apple. But anyone can build in the spiritual realm, stuff that will last forever. We can do this by the action we call love. In the bible, love is an action.

“Dear friends” verse 7. Yet another section begins, marked by a new salutation and appeal, similar to verse 1.

The transition to a new topic seems abrupt, as if John has put from his mind the previous unpleasant subject. However the connections between the parts of the letter are often subtle. It is subtle here too.

Two connections:
1 The power to love one another, and the power to confess the incarnation is by the power of the Holy Spirit. Verses 2,12,13. Faith and love partners together. Faith and trust lead to love.
2 The antichrist spirit is a selfish one. It makes one’s own intellect and interests the measure of all things. The antichrist spirit is therefore truly idolatrous.

For the third and last time in this letter the apostle introduces the subject of love between believers. Though it is the third time, it is certainly not a mere repetition. Two thirds of the vocabulary about love in this letter appears in this section. The previous section on love led to this. This is the climax of the theme.

Although we should be a loving people in a general sense, the context here is about loving within the Christian community. There is no attempt within this letter to explain the love which is found outside the believing community, the community that bears the name of Jesus. The world loves its own John 15:19.

Some say, “You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” The reply to that is to ask the question – “Then who do you love?”

Three further divisions within this section. Each of these sections begin with an appeal to love based upon God’s love:
4:7-10 An appeal to love based on the great act of love, God sending the Son.
4:11-18 The relationship between loving and “remaining”. This is not about security of our salvation but about securing the experience of abiding in him and he in us.
4:19-5:5 The act of love is a means by which we are victorious over the world.

The brotherly love spiral in this letter:
Imagine a spiral with the line circling three times. The following is the the three times the line passes the same point of the circle.

____
2:7-11 It is a consequence of walking in the light.
____
3:10-18 A form of right living and a mark of a person’s true state of belonging to the Truth.
____
This third time. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit, contrasted with the spirit of the antichrist. This is something that is of God manifested through the believer. God in us.

1) The instruction
4:7-10
“Beloved, love one another”. This literal translation is so much better that the “Dear friends” of the NIV. In the Greek original it is made up of three words all beginning with the latter ‘a’. This would have been a device for emphasis and easy memorisation. I wonder if it ever became a slogan recited within the community. It would have lend itself to that use. This is the instruction, and what follows is the persuasion.

2) The persuasion is the initiative 4:10
God took the initiative and still continues to do so. God first reached to us. He was the innocent party yet he made the first move to put things right. We model our attempts at reconciliation on him – we must be prepared to make the first move.

3) The action 4:11
In this love, expressed by someone who is in the truth, I can get a glimpse of God.

How can we know if someone is truly born-again? By the way they live, particularly by their love. One can not know God without being a person that loves for God is love. We all become like the God we worship. We are shaped by the things we value most.

The phrase “God is love” is not telling us that God loves. It is telling us about what he is. Verse 9 is an expression of it.

Last week I was very much stressing the wonder that the Almighty God dwells within us. This week it is about the wonder that love divine dwells within us. This week I will try to observe myself, to look for evidence of this love expressed in me and by me.