1 JOHN 4:20, 21; 5:1-3 [LIFE, LIGHT & LOVE SERIES]
THE OBJECTS OF OUR LOVE
[Mark 12:29-31]
A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with a class of five and six year olds. After explaining to the children what honoring their Fathers and Mothers meant, and exploring a few practical ways the kids could do that, she decided to raise another related question, "Children," asked the teacher, "is there a commandment in Scripture that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?"
A little boy in the front row instantly raised his hand. "Yes, Michael," said the pleased teacher, "What does God command us about how to treat our brothers and sisters?" Without missing a beat the little boy earnestly answered, "Thou shall not kill,"
This funny, little fella touches on some truth doesn’t he? Developing loving relationships is tough. We all need special help, and God gives it.
The Apostle has just announced the reason we can love in verse 19. “We love because He first loved us.” We are to respond to God's love by abiding in God’s love, as we do, He reproduces His love in us. This love is not in the abstract. We are to love God and His children through attitude and action. We love God and His children by keeping God's commandments (CIT). If we keep God's Word because we love Him, His commandments are not burdensome but bring guidance, protection, and blessing.
I. LOVE THE SEEN BROTHER, 4:20-21.
II. LOVE OBEYS THE WORD, 5:1-3.
What we have here is a warning against pretending. Some pretend to love God by loving Him in theory but not loving those being recreated in His image. Verse 20 teaches that anyone who claims to love God, yet hates his Christian brother is a liar or makes a false claim. “If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
This is not saying that we are to love the brethren more than God. No, God is the supreme object of our highest, most ardent affections. He must be loved more than anyone our eyes can light upon, for the ordering of the two great commandments is to be obeyed, in that we are to love God first and foremost.
What God is saying here is that if you fail in duties that are right before your eyes and should be easy, how do you expect to perform duties that are out of sight and on a higher plane. Your brother is always before you and you can see him and observe his need for love in word and deed. God being unseen or unobservable could fall into the category out of sight, out of mind. Therefore if we are not mindful of loving our fellow man whom we see, how can we say we love God who is unseen? If the seen is not loved, don't lie to yourself and say you love the unseen. It is an impossibility. Love is not nebulas, it must have an object. If it fails to reach out to the nearer object, the brethren, it will never reach the higher object, God. Love that cannot reach the next pew will not reach heaven.
God’s command in verse 21 is to join together the two kinds of love, love for God and love for one’s brother. “And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.”
The Apostle strengthens his teaching for the absolute necessity of loving the brethren (the seventh time he has taught it in this short letter) by the fact that God has commanded that all who love Him are to love their brethren. John agrees with Paul who says "The whole law is fulfilled in one word which is, You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Gal. 5:14).
The commandment is found in Deuteronomy 6:5, Lev. 19:18, & Luke 10:27. Some may say that they can fulfill their obligation by loving God but you cannot authentically love God and not love the brother being recreated into God's image. People who say they are devoted to Christ often have a remarkably un-Christian attitude towards the people of Christ. Yet refusal to love the brethren blocks the way to loving God. God does not want His vagueness [for those who have not discovered Him in life, in His Word and by His Spirit] to allow people to deceive or lie to themselves. They must prove their love for Him by loving the brethren. Love for God expresses itself in obedience to God's commandments. Loving the brethren is the second most important commandment in Scripture.
II. LOVE OBEYS THE WORD, 5: 1-3.
Everyone who truthfully loves the God the Father will also love Jesus the Son. Chapter 5, verse 1, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and whoever loves the Father loves the one born of Him.”
We must believe or commit our self to Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. We must believe that He is the One that fulfilled this Divine Commission. He was born and crucified as the anointed one, the Messiah, the Savior of the World. To believe this is to accept both the Old and New Testaments. It is to believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be, the One who is equal with the Father (I and the Father are One -Jn. 10:30), and as such demands of every believer the absolute surrender of self to Him. This believing indicates committing ourselves too Jesus' will and way.
But belief without love as St. Augustine put it is the belief of a demon (Jas. 2:19). We must love the One in whom we have placed our trust, our confidence, for our eternal salvation. All true believers love God; it is part of their new nature to love the Father.
Our faith in God is the doorway that opens up our lives toward God. The result of our faith is a love relationship with God and His children. This love of God is working in us that we might love our brother. If we love Him who begot us we will love the begotten, or those born of Him. The Father's love manifests itself in that those born of Him, those born into the family of God, love one another.
This love does not spring from something lovable in the person himself, but because he is born of the Father, or a child of God. You may not agree with another Christian, or even like him or his ways. But you are to love him. You may be certain that God is not pleased with all our sins of commission and omission, but He still loves us. We must do the same for the brethren.
John just pointed out God's command to love the brethren in verse 21. In verse 2 he stresses the relationship between love and obedience. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.”
We have been born of God and we love our Father and we love His children. We demonstrate this love by keeping or observing God's commandments. How do we know we love God? By keeping His commandments or His Word. We love not theory, or sentiment but with obedient actions.
Note that commandments is plural. A test of our love is if we are obedient to the commandments. Though we are to love the brethren “His commandments” includes other acts or areas of obedience. [A truly loving child will be an obedient child. If the child is not obedient, it turns to manipulation to get its way instead of love, for true love obeys the parent.]
When we become Christians, we become part of God's forever family, with fellow believers as our brothers and sisters. It is God’s calling that determines who the other family members are, not us. We are called to accept and love them. How well do you treat your fellow family members? How well do you treat your brothers and sisters in Christ? By God’s love we can love them. Through God’s love we can keep His commandments.
Because God is love, the closer I get to the Lord, the more His love will rub off on me and the more I will love His children. Those who think they don’t need fellowship with the body need to hear this statement because John says he who loves God loves His kids.
[Forgiveness doesn’t have to do with feelings. Forgiveness is a decision we make. If we decide to forgive, feelings will follow in due season. Who can choose to forgive? Only the one who’s living in love. Who is living in love? The one who realizes that, although he’s a sinner and a failure, because God has been so good to him, he has no reasonable option but to love his brother. [Courson, Jon: Jon Courson's Application Commentary. Nashville, TN : Thomas Nelson, 2003, S. 1630]
Verse 3 teaches that what it means to love God is to obey His commands. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”
The Greek word translated by “keep” is a word that carries the idea of “guard,” “keep watch over.” We are to be careful to carry out God’s commands because so much is at stake. God’s very love is involved in His commandments.
Now we don't do things and call it love, we do because we love God. We demonstrate our love for God in keeping His commandments. Just as faith without works is dead, so love without actions is dead. The saint's love for God is the motivating factor in keeping God's Word.
A test of love is your personal attitude toward the Bible. The Holy Spirit produces in the heart of the yielded believer an ability and a desire to keep, to live out God's Word. Love impels us to obey God's Word.
Then John says His commandments are not grievous or burdensome. To some, maybe even to you, His commandments are burdensome. The fact that He asks us to do anything, like attend church or support His church is burdensome. We are opposed to them, don't want the obligations they place upon us. His responsibilities haunt and harass us and we would like to shake them off. It was so in the Garden of Eden with our first parents and the forbidden tree. But John expressly says, that absolutely without reservations or qualifications that God's commandments are not burdensome. How then can this be?
What keeps the commandments from being burdensome is the love relationship we have with God. Receiving the love of God that was manifested when He sent His Son to die as sacrifice for our sin by believing in Him who so loved us we form a love relationship with God. This love pushes out the evil, the old man, the old leaven and the commandments which were once grievous became a joy. The authority which we once rebelled against we now surrender to. Pride is humbled and independence is turned into dependence. Self will is expelled and obedience found.
When you have such a love relationship with God, experiencing His love for you in a multitude of its wondrous ways your attitude toward submitting and following God's commandments is changed.
Grievous? O my redeeming God, my loving Father, the Father of my love! Grievous that you would command me! O may it never be! No, take your rightful place and rule over my life, my heart, my will, my affections, my time, my talents, my resources!
If Your command means my suffering I shall do it simply because You desire it. Yes, I may groan, cry and shed tears at times in the doing or suffering it brings. But then there were groans, cries and tears when the Doer of Your will was Your own beloved Son. Him You asked to lay down His life for the sheep. But by His obedience we were saved and He did so for the joy laid out before Him.
An old story tells it well. Someone saw a little girl carrying her heavy baby brother on her back. When asked if he was not too heavy a load for her to carry, she replied with a smile, "Oh, no sir! He’s not heavy, he's my brother!"
The burden of religion (man trying to please God in his own strength) is a grievous one (Mt. 23:4); but the yoke that Christ puts on us is not burdensome beyond our ability to keep doing at all (Mt. 11:28-30). Love lightens burdens. Jacob had to work for seven years to win the woman [Rachel] he loved, but the Bible tells us that "they seemed unto him a few days, because of the love he had for her" (Gen. 29:20). Perfecting love produces joyful obedience.
It's easy to feel confined by structure in our faith because we have a natural resistance to rules. But God's commands are given to enhance our lives rather than restrict them. Instead of weighing us down, they protect us from the burden of sin. As we follow His commands, we experience liberty.
Learning the structures of music allow one the freedom to play an instrument and obey a fine musical composition. Speaking of an excellent musical composition, concert pianist Jeannette Haien says, "Under the laws of structure you have the freedom to work in the freest way imaginable. What [the composer] has written is that which I honor."
The Bible is our sheet music for living. Today, we can play the song of life as God has written it, and we can discover anew the promise of Jesus to those who believe in Him: "If you abide in My Word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31-32). True freedom is found in obedience to Christ.
In CONCLUSION
The apostle, by this series of statements, reduces love for God and one’s fellow Christians to its fundamental character. A person who obeys God’s commands is doing what is right, both toward God and toward his fellow believers and is thus loving both God and them. [Walvoord, John & Zuck, Roy: The Bible Knowledge Commentary. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books,
Let us close with a caution. Much stress has been laid upon your loving your brother; loving him as you see him; loving him because God commands you; loving him as begotten of God. But your love for your brethren needs to be looked at closely. Is it really love for them, as brethren, as children of God? Is it love for them because they are children of God? For it may be based on other grounds and for other reasons that you love them. It may be a love of mere natural sentiment and affection, mere human love, having little or nothing in common with the love with which God first loved you. To be trustworthy at all, it must be because God loves them and you love God.
Do you find this or other commandments burdensome? Once more hear His voice. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Mt. 11:22). Will you come and find rest in His love as you surrender to His Lordship?
