Aug. 31, 2025

“WALKING IN THE LIGHT”

“THE SUPREMACY OF LOVE”

1 JOHN 4:7-16

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.”

In the Gospel of John, he referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”:

John 13:23 “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.”

John 19:26 “When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother

“Woman, behold your son!”

 John 21:7 “Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment (for he had removed it), and plunged into the sea.”

John 21:20 “Then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also had leaned on His breast at the supper, and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?”

This jaw-dropping wonder at the love of God fuels John’s “love chapter” in 1 John 4:7-21. This is the third time in this letter that John touches on the subject of loving one another (2:7-10, 3:11-18).

*John encourages us to love one another, and he supports these admonitions by giving us Three Foundational Facts about God:

1 What God Is: "God Is Love" (1 John 4:7, 8)

This is the third of three expressions in John's writings that help us understand the nature of God:

*God is Spirit-John 4:24 “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”  

*God is Light-1 John 1:5 “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”

*God is love- 1 John 4:7-16

God is love. This does not mean that "love is God." And the fact that two people "love each other" does not mean that their love is necessarily holy. It has accurately been said that "love does not define God, but God defines love.”

Lamentation 3:22-23 “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. 23They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.”

Love that is born out of the very essence of God must be spiritual and holy, because "God is spirit" and "God is light." This true love is "poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us”

Romans 5:5 “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Love, therefore, is a valid test of true Christian faith.

1 John 4:7 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”

For example, the verb “know” vs.7 is used to describe the intimate union of husband and wife:

Gen. 4:1 “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” 

To know God means to be in a deep relationship to Him-to share His life and enjoy His love.

1 John 2:3-5 “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.”

1 John 4:8 “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

To paraphrase verse 8, "The person who does not have this divine kind of love has never entered into a personal, experiential knowledge of God. What he knows is in his head, but it has never gotten into his heart.”

2 What God Did: "He Sent His Son" (1 John 4:9-11)

1 John 4:9-11 “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

Because God is love, He must communicate-not only in words but in deeds.

God's love was revealed in the way He dealt with the nation of Israel:

Deuteronomy 7:7-8 “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; 8but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

The greatest expression of God's love is in the death of His Son.

Rom. 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The word “manifested" 4:9 means "to come out in the open, to be made public.”

Hebrews 10:1 “For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.” 

1 John 1:2 “the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us.” 

John 14:9 “Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

Why was Jesus Christ manifested? 

1 John 3:5 “And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.” 

1 John 3:8 “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil" 

John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” 

Two purposes are given for Christ's death on the cross: that we might live through Him (1 John 4:9) and that He might be the propitiation for our sins (v. 10). His death was not an accident; it was an appointment. He did not die as a weak martyr, but as a mighty conqueror.

Gal. 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

How can God forgive sinners and still be consistent with His holy nature? The answer is the Cross.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

We are not saved by loving Christ; we are saved by believing on Christ (John 3:16). But after we realize what He did for us on the cross, our normal response ought to be to love Him and to love one another.

It is important that Christians progress in their understanding of love. To love one another simply out of a sense of duty is good, but to love out of appreciation (rather than obligation) is even better.

3 What God Is Doing: "God Abides in Us" (1John 4:12-16)

1 John 4:12-16 “No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. 15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

God's desire is to live in us. He is not satisfied simply to tell us that He loves us, or even show us that He loves us.

One of the key words in the Book of Genesis is walked. God walked with men, and men walked with God: 

Enoch- Genesis 5:22 “After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters.”

Noah- Genesis 6:9 “This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.” 

Abraham walked with God- Genesis 17:1 “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.”

Genesis 24:40 “But he said to me, ‘The Lord, before whom I walk, will send His angel with you and prosper your way; and you shall take a wife for my son from my family and from my father’s house.”

Exodus 25:8 “And let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them" 

Did the glory ever return? Yes-in the person of God's Son, Jesus Christ! "And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory" John 1:14

The glory of God departed from the Tabernacle and the Temple when Israel disobeyed God, but Jesus has promised that the Spirit will abide in us forever: 

John 14:16 “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever.”

John 14:23 “Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”  

God's love is proclaimed in the Word ("God is love") and proved at the Cross. But here we have something deeper: God's love is perfected in the believer. We Christians are now the tabernacles and temples in which God dwells. He reveals His love through us.

Men cannot see God, but they can see His love moving us to deeds of helpfulness and kindness.

Three different witnesses are suggested in these verses: 

1. The witness of the believer that Jesus Christ is God's Son (1 John 4:15) 
2. The witness in the believer by the Spirit (v. 13)
3. The witness through the believer that God is love and that He sent His Son to die for the world (v. 14).

Whenever we share this love, it is proof in our own hearts that we are abiding in Christ. In other words, there is no separation between a Christian's inner life and his outer life.

Abiding in God's love produces two wonderful spiritual benefits in the life of a believer: 

1. He grows in knowledge
2. He grows in faith (v. 16). 

"God is love," then, is not simply a profound biblical statement. It is the basis for a believer's relationship with God and with his fellow man. 

Loving one another is not something we simply ought to do; it is something we want to do!

Some practical applications grow out of this basic truth:

First, the better we know God's love, the easier it will be to live as a Christian.

A second consideration is that unless we love the lost, our verbal witness to them will be useless.