Our brotherly love shows God

Our brotherly love shows God

1 John chapter 4 verses 7 – 21
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 He who does not love has not known God, for God is love.
9 This is how God’s love was shown to us: God sent his only Son into the world that through him we might have life.
10 And this love consists not in the fact that we loved God, but in the fact that he loved us and sent his Son as an expiatory victim for our sins.
11 Beloved, since God has loved us so much, we too must love one another.

12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 We recognize that we abide in him and that he abides in us because he has given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father sent the Son as Savior of the world.

15 Whoever declares publicly that Jesus is the Son of God,
God abides in him and he in God.
16 We have known the love that God has for us and we have believed in it.

God is love and he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God dwells in him.
17 It is in this that love is perfected in us, so that we will have assurance on the day of judgment because we are in this world as it is.
18 There is no fear in love; on the contrary, perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment. He who experiences fear is not perfect in love.
19 As for us, we love him because he first loved us.
20 If someone says, “I love God,” when he hates his brother, he is a liar.
Indeed, if someone does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see?

21 Now this is the commandment we received from him: He who loves God must also love his brother.

like god

God truly loves, so if we love Him, we in turn love like Him: that is, we love our brothers and sisters.
Love is certainly the most used word in this text.
But another often returns to “dwell” and with the latter, we could almost synthesize this text.

God dwells in us

1) The starting point is the fact of accepting, positioning oneself, choosing and abandoning oneself in the love of God manifested in His son Jesus who out of love gave himself as an expiatory victim for our sins.

2) From this decision, God dwells in us through His Spirit, not only does the Spirit attest to our belonging to God through Christ,

3) but the action of the Spirit helps us to reflect the love of God in our lives, this reflection is seen in particular through the love that we have for each other redeemed by Christ.

4) We do not see God but we can see this reflection through brotherly affection.

If God dwells in us by his Spirit, we must aim to dwell in him, listening to the action of the Spirit in us.

If God is invisible, His dwelling in us can be visible through the love manifested between us.

God is unreadable to those around us when we hate one another.

Simple and natural

So let’s manifest our brotherly love naturally.
Evangelical churches rarely make the headlines for positive things, it’s not so good…

However, it happened to me twice to experience it with

• the local church in which I was then for an action at Christmas where the whole Church was only one person to witness to the birth of Jesus,
• and another time for a beneficent action for the city of Montbéliard where the ten assemblies of the city were united with true affection.

Jesus said John 13. 34-35
I give you a new commandment:
Love one another.
As I have loved you, so love one another.
It is by this that everyone will recognize that you are my disciples:
if you have love for one another.

When Jesus said this, there was a young disciple who listened,

• who saw, knew that it was true,
• who believed,
• who testified of it.
  This young disciple is John and he tells us the same thing in his first epistle that we read today.

But what love is it?

Today’s text gives us several echoes of this:
1) Love is in the personality of God.
2) This love takes the lead.
3) This love is committed, deliberate.
4) A sacrificial love.
5) A love that gives and gives.
6) A relational love (not selfish).
7) Finally, it says a lot about the person who shows this type of love.

1) Love is in the personality of God (Verse 16)
The love that comes from God is not only an action that He produces, it is not a duty of representation, it is the personality itself of God.

This aspect is expressed

• with the same force,
• with the same cursor
  as
• His justice,
• His faithfulness,
• His benevolence,
• His holiness
• and many other aspects of His person.

God does not play the one who loves;
Jesus did not play the one who loves and was “off” differently.

His love is visible at many times, a gesture, a word, a feeling shows that this love was in Him.
Matthew 9.36
When he saw the crowds, he was filled with compassion for them, for they were wounded and broken down, like sheep without a shepherd.

2) This love takes the lead
1 John chapter 4 verse 9
God sends his only begotten Son into the world that through him we may have life

It is not the initiative of man, God knew what was the only solution for humanity and as soon as sin entered, He indicates what will be the axis of redemption Genesis 3. 15. And throughout the Old Testament, He will specify this trajectory which is revealed and accomplished in Jesus.

We know a little about the Old Testament and if God did not love, how many times would He have stopped this process?

We know each other and if God did not love us, how many times would He have drawn the line of conclusion on our lives to ask accounts in a definitive way?
But His love, linked to his grace and His patience make it possible for us to wait until we are here today.

3) This love is committed, deliberate
1 John chapter 4 verse 19
He first loved us

Romans 5. 8
8 But this is how God proves his love for us: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Voluntarily Jesus gave himself : John 10.18
No one takes it away from me, but I give it of myself.

What I would like to emphasize here is that Jesus did not suffer, it is not a bad combination of circumstances but a firm and resolute desire: Jesus knew the ins and outs very well (take this cut if possible ( Luke 22. 42 ) which could only be kept out of love for the Father and for us. And we see there a facet of this love, a resolute commitment.

4) A sacrificial love

This is the other aspect of the verses that we have just seen.

• Innocent,
• Jesus was within His rights,
• He is the only one for whom all the law was for Him,
• He had all the supporting documents.

Yet he did not exercise His rights to escape the cross.
Because He knew that in His love it was the only way to save us.

Meditate that this aspect of love is linked to obedience to the Father.

Philippians 2/6 – 8
He (Jesus) who is of divine condition,
he did not regard his equality with God as a spoil to be preserved, 7 but he stripped himself

• by taking on the condition of a servant,
• by becoming like human beings.
• Recognized as a simple man,
• he humbled himself by showing obedience unto death,
• even death on the cross

5) A self-giving and giving love (verse 13)

1 John chapter 4 verse 13
13 We know that we abide in him and that he abides in us because he has given us of his Spirit.

The love of God lifts out of the mire of sin all who place their faith in what Christ has done on the cross and in His resurrection

• to overcome sin
• and acquit the sinner completely.

But God does not leave us at the prison door, like a prisoner who has just served a long sentence and who finds himself outside •
in a world he no longer knows,

• disoriented,
• no longer knowing what to do
• and with the reflexes of the prison world.

No, God gives us an appointed guide who not only reminds us that we are indeed out of prison, but accompanies us all the time to learn to live according to this new fatherhood, identity and freedom.

This is what the Holy Spirit tells us in verse 13.

6) A relational love (not selfish).

1 John chapter 4 verses 7, 11-12
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

11 Beloved, since God has loved us so much, we too must love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us.

When we meditate on the relational aspect between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, we can try to perceive that the love which animates Them is not a selfish but ultra-relational love!

We see it in the ministry of Jesus who needed to spend time in prayer with the Father, priority even in the face of hunger, fatigue or sleep.

The most terrible aspect when Jesus takes sin on His own account is the rupture of communion between the Father and the Son, a relationship that is stopped when He bears our sin.

This is what Jesus invites us to discover and then, here, the apostle.

By remembering that by loving each other, we risk tasting (of course partially) this dimension of love, this relational aspect.

7) Finally, it says a lot about the person who shows this type of love.

1 John chapter 4 verse 12
No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us.

God’s love is like a visiting card: whether we are believers or not, everyone agrees and recognizes in Jesus a complete love.
We cannot see God, Jesus showed us that we could see His Love by loving each other, God expects us to show His Love in turn.

No more fear of judgment in love

The apostle John lived as a disciple alongside Jesus with others who lived with Christ.

They have

• seen,
• known
• and made their own, this love of God manifested in Jesus.

And one of the consequences of this total love is that there is no longer any terror as to the reality of the certain judgment that we will all face before Christ.

For what ?

Because right now I am where God wants,

• with Him, through Christ,
• without fear,
• with confidence.
  Because I already taste Her love, before knowing her perfectly forever.

The intention of the apostle was that his first readers could experience what he had experienced with Jesus and the other apostles.

The intention of the Holy Spirit, in inspiring the apostle, was also that we taste this love by manifesting it among ourselves, with His help.

Our conception of love is necessarily twisted by sin.

The relational aspect is tainted by selfishness, when I say: “I love you”, I want to integrate you into my sphere.

Love is often a CDD that stops when it encroaches too much on my little self.

The sacrificial aspect is replaced by my rights and what I need and not what the other needs.

Sometimes we want to do well and the opposite result occurs!

Our childhood and adult journey has completely damaged the very notion of love.

Disillusioned, maybe we even attribute to love a childish notion that does not exist in real life…

Do you understand why the apostle insists on not throwing in the towel in the brotherly relationship?

Why does the apostle remind us that we are supported by the Holy Spirit to learn from Him, on our release from prison, the true meaning of love and the true gestures of love?

So that we can see in ourselves in our relationships, the One who saved us and that we can taste from now on bursts of the perfect love.