ASSURANCE OF FELLOWSHIP
1 John 4:12-18
Introduction:
On July 20, for a special treat, Misty and I took our boys to Ft. Wayne to meet and get autographs from Tony Stewart, Zachariah’s favorite Nascar driver. While we were waiting in line for our turn to meet Tony, I observed fans comparing with one another how well they know him. Many of the fans did not really know Tony Stewart. Yes, they knew his sponsor, his record, what years he won his championships, where he was in the points standing, but they really didn’t personally know Tony.
There were some other fans present who knew Tony on a first name basis. In fact, one gal went to Tony’s house to deliver birthday presents to him from some loyal fans on his birthday. This gal knew Tony and had occasions when she was able to spend time with him, but she didn’t know Tony as a close personal friend. This is to be expected when not a lot of time is able to be spent with another person.
As I continued to observe the crowd, I met a man who really knew Tony well. He was a man who worked in Tony’s merchandise trailer helping sell souvenirs. I found it interesting that this man didn’t spend a lot of time and effort telling everyone he knew Tony Stewart. He didn’t have to. This gentleman demonstrated traits of the Stewart family. His name is Nelson and he is Tony’s dad.
In a similar way, there are many who claim to know God well. Of these, some know about God, but they really don’t know God. They have never entered a relationship with God as one of His children by trusting in Christ. Others know God, but they don’t know Him well. They don’t spend a lot of time with Him and are out of fellowship. Then there are those that demonstrate they know God and know Him intimately. These are those who bear the family resemblance well. They reflect the nature of their heavenly Father who is love. They love others in the same manner that they have been loved by God through Christ.
In order to be in fellowship with a God who is love, we must love one another as He loves us. When our lives reflect the nature of our Heavenly Father who is love, when we love others as He loved us in Christ, it provides us with the assurance that we are abiding in Him and that He is residing in us. Do you have that assurance this morning? God’s Word gives us an objective basis for determining if we are in fact enjoying fellowship with God.
Implications of God’s Love for Us:
We are exhorted to love one another (1 John 4:7-11)
“Dear friends (Beloved), let us love one another.”
Those characterized by a lifestyle of love have been born of God and know God
“…for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” Notice, we don’t love in order to come to know God and to be born of God. We love because we have already been born of God and already know God. We don’t love in order to become members of God’s family. Our already having been born of God into His family produces love for other children in the family.
Those characterized by a lifestyle of not loving don’t know God
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” God’s children will act like their Heavenly Father. If someone is characterized by a lifestyle of not loving God’s children, that person has never experienced God’s love. A life dominated by apathy, hatred, and the total lack of expression of love is not a Christian life. This person does not know God.
Who provides the best example of what our love for one another should look like?
God provides the best example of how we are to love one another
“This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and send His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
His love is sacrificial—He gave His Son who gave His life
God sent Jesus to be the sacrifice for our sins. Jesus was sent to die for us to remove the offense between us and God caused by sin. Jesus was sent to die to renew the relationship once broken by sin.
His love is unconditional—He gave it even though we didn’t deserve it
We did not love God first. In fact, we sinned against Him. In spite of our sin and in spite of the fact that we did nothing to deserve His love, God loved us by sending His Son.
Since God loved us in this manner, we should love one another in the same way
Notice the motivation God gives us for love. The exhortation to love does not spring from anxiety about losing God’s affection, nor from a threat of God’s wrath if we don’t love. The exhortation to love flows out of all the sacrificial, unconditional love God has shown us. Based on God’s love for us, we should love one another sacrificially. When love requires we pay a price, we should be willing to pay it. After all, consider all that Christ has done for us and all it cost Him to show love to us.
We should love one another unconditionally. Even when those we love don’t deserve our love, we should love them anyway.
What we do when love costs us and is undeserved is the real measure of how much we really understand what God’s love is all about. Will we love one another as God loved us in sending His Son to die for us? We will if we desire to be in fellowship with our God who is love.
Remember again, loving in this way is not a matter of trying harder to love. Love is the fruit that the Spirit of God produces. God is the source of love. He produces it as we abide in Him, drawing from Him what we need to sustain our lives and to show God’s love to others.
Implications when we love others like God loved us (4:12-16a):
Read v. 12
It assures us that God resides in us (4:12a)
“If we love one another, God lives in us.” Notice that love is the evidence, not the condition for God’s abiding in us. We love as a pattern of life because God abides in our lives. We don’t love so that God will abide in us.
It assures us that God’s love is perfected in us (4:12b)
In what sense is God’s love made perfect or complete when we love one another as He loved us?
His love has fulfilled its intended purpose in us
God showed His love for us in Christ with the intended purpose that it would produce love for others in us. God’s love is perfected when it is expressed. When we love others, it demonstrates that God’s love has fulfilled everything God intended it to do and in this sense, love is made complete.
His love has been deeply experienced by us
God’s love is made complete when we have a deep and full experience of that love. When we love one another and by so doing experience the depths of God’s love for us, it demonstrates God’s love is made complete, that it has fulfilled everything God intended for it to do.
It assures us of fellowship with God because He has given us His Spirit (4:13)
“We know that we live in Him and He in us, because He has given us of his Spirit.”
What we know: We are abiding in God and He is residing in
us
How we know it: He has given us His Spirit
It’s easy to understand how the presence of the Spirit in us provides the assurance that we are in God and He is in us—that we are in fellowship with Him. The question is, since the Spirit of God is spirit and we therefore can’t see Him, how do we know He is there? We know when we see His fruit produced in our life. Notice what John literally says in verse 13, “…he has given us of his Spirit.” What has God given us out of His Spirit? He has given us love. We know the Spirit is in us when we see the products of His working within our lives.
The Spirit produces love in us
When we see the Spirit’s love produced in us, it gives us confidence of our fellowship with God, especially when we understand that without Him, we can’t love one another as He loves us. We can’t manufacture His love by ourselves. It is the product of our abiding in God and He in us.
John writes next what at first appears to be an unconnected thought, “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” How is this related to the subject of love for one another? When we take a closer look, we see a clear connection between this statement and the rest of what John has written.
Let’s study this phrase more carefully. Who does John mean by “we” when he says “we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son?” John is referring not only to himself, but also to his readers. Wait a minute! John’s readers are not apostles. When did they see the Father sending the Son to be the Savior of the world? How can they be witnesses of gospel truth when they weren’t there to physically see Jesus?
We need not have seen Jesus physically on earth to testify about what God has done for us through Him. We see what God has done as His love is exercised in our lives.
How does the truth that the Father sent His Son to be the Savior of the world relate to the subject of our loving one another? The truth of the gospel is put on display when Christians love one another as God loved us in sending Jesus to die in our place. John’s readers might not have physically seen Jesus, but they do see the love of God expressed by Jesus’ coming as God’s children love one another. We testify to the Father’s love in sending Jesus by our love for one another.
Our love makes God’s love visible to behold (4:14)
Our love testifies to the Father’s love in sending Jesus to be the Savior of the world (4:14)
No one has seen God. Since God is invisible and no one can see Him in His essence, how then does God reveal Himself to the world?
In the Old Testament, in order to see what God is like, a person would have to visit the tabernacle or temple where God’s presence dwelt and a glimpse of His glory could be seen.
When Jesus came and “tabernacled” among us, God’s glory dwelt on earth in Christ’s body. People would have to physically be with Jesus to see what God is like.
Today, God’s glory resides in the bodies of God’s children by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
While people still cannot see God, they can see us. As we abide in Christ and He in us, we will love one another as God loved us. By the love God’s Spirit produces in us, we reveal God’s love to a needy world.
Talk about an incredible purpose for living our lives each day. May we continually abide in Christ and see His love—unconditional and sacrificial love—produced in us in order that our life might be a continual witness that God is love and that He sent His Son to die for the world.
The Spirit produces our acknowledgment that Jesus is God (4:15)
Not only is the Spirit’s presence in us evident by His production of the fruit of love, but also by our confession of who Jesus is. Our acknowledgment that Jesus is the Son of God—that He is in essence God just as much as the Father is God—provides assurance that we live in God and He in us.
We have come to know and trust God’s love as it has been demonstrated in Christ and testified to by believers (4:16a)
Read v. 16a
We have come to know God’s love from having seen it in what Christ did for us.
1 John 3:16a- “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”
1 John 4:9-10—“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
We have also come to know God’s love from seeing it demonstrated in and testified to by God’s children as we love one another and thereby reflect the nature of our Heavenly Father.
We trust in the love we have come to know as the basis of our confidence that we are in fellowship with God. We have good reason for relying on God’s love as an objective basis for assuring us of an abiding, intimate relationship with God—Why? Again, only God can produce this kind of love. When we see it in our lives, we know without a doubt that He did it!
Our abiding love assures us we are in fellowship with God who is love (1 John 4:16b-18)
God is love. When we continually abide in love, it is evident that we abide in Him and He in us. As the result of our abiding love, God’s love is made complete.
As the result of our abiding love, God’s love has fulfilled everything God intended it to do
God’s love for us was expressed to us with the intended purpose of it would produce abiding love in us. When abiding love is present in our life, it demonstrates God’s love has accomplished what God intended for it to accomplish. In this way, His love is made complete.
When God’s love is completed in us, it results in confidence as we anticipate future judgment because we are like Him now
When we are like Jesus now, we have confidence that we need not fear seeing Him face to face in the future. No one who is like Jesus in this world, who loves as He loves need fear the future when we will approach His judgment seat. Those in whom God’s love is perfected will have bold confidence on the day of judgment as they turn to our judge and look upon His face. Fear will be absent on that day.
Abiding love drives out fear
Apprehension about facing Jesus on the day of judgment is not our experience when love has been perfected in our lives. Fear and love are mutually exclusive. They do not co-exist. When have we ever been fearful about the thought of standing before Jesus to give an account of our life while we were at the same time loving others as God loves us? As we abide in God and God’s Spirit produces love in us, our experience is not fear, but confidence.
Fear has to do with punishment.
People who abide in love need not fear punishment
People who are continually fearful have not been perfected in love
What are the implications of this passage for our life?
Our love puts the truth of the gospel on display for others to see.
Other people see the love of God expressed in Jesus’ coming to the earth to be the Savior of the world when they observe us loving one another. How clear of a witness are we giving to those around us? The question for our church is not really, “Are we witnessing?” The question is, “What kind of a witness are we giving?”
Are we expressing love in deed and in truth? We need to express God’s love by our actions and our love needs to be sincere.
Are we loving when love’s expression requires sacrifice—when it requires that we give sacrificially of ourselves, of our time, of our money?
Are we loving unconditionally? How are we responding to those who have wronged us? How are we responding to those who have ignored and neglected to show love to us? Are we loving even when love is not deserved?
When we abide in God and thereby love each other as God loved us, we testify to the truth that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World. What does our community “hear” as they observe us? One of the most important aspects of our gospel witness is that we love one another and thereby reflect the love that God showed us in sending Jesus to die for us.
Purpose for living is realized as we love one another and thereby testify to God’s love.
Many in our world struggle to discover their life’s purpose. They live aimless lives without direction. As long as we pursue selfish goals, I believe our frustration will only get worse. Life’s purpose is not discovered when we think life is about us and when we allow our focus to be centered on ourselves. Incredible purpose for living each day is realized as we abide in God and depend on Him to produce His love in us. The greatest purpose for living is to live in a way that glorifies God. How could God be glorified any more in us than to have our love for one another testify to His love in sending Jesus to die for us?
How we love others shows us whether or not we are in fellowship with God.
There are three groups of people:
Some live a life not characterized by love, but by hatred and apathy. These people are continually fearful because love has not been made perfect in them. They have good reason to fear punishment, because their life testifies to the fact that they have not been born of God and do not know God. If you are a part of this group this morning, trust Christ as your personal Savior.
Don’t think for a minute that you need to work harder at loving so as to earn God’s acceptance. You will never make it. You cannot be good enough. You cannot love in the way God expects us to love. Only God’s children who have been born of God and know God and who abide in God can love as God loves us. To become a child of God, you must trust in Christ. You must come to the end of thinking that you can make it to God by what you do, and trust in Jesus instead. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of love. He laid down His life in our place, taking the penalty for our sin, so that we might have eternal life through faith in Him.
There is a second group of people who live a life characterized by love, but their life is not currently reflecting this fact. When at any time in our life, we are not loving as God has exhorted us to love, we are out of fellowship with Him. If we are in this second group this morning, we need to confess our sin and experience God’s cleansing and forgiveness. We need to abide in God, depending on Him to produce the fruit of His love in and through us. If you are in this second group, don’t for a minute think that you need to try harder to love and then life will be what God expects it to be. We can’t do it by ourselves. We must depend on God’s Spirit to produce God’s love in us.
There is a third group of people who are currently living a life characterized by love. If we are in this third group, we should continue enjoy what God is doing. We should enjoy the privilege of having our life testify to the love of God in sending Jesus to be the Savior of the world We should enjoy the confidence that God gives us when His love is made complete among us. We should enjoy our lack of fear. We should remember how we got to the place where we are at. We should be careful to continue abiding in God, allowing Him to produce and express His love through us.
John 13:34-35—“A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”