The New Testament reading for next Sunday is as follows:
1 John 4.7-21
7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so 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 atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is 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 do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. 15God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19We love because he first loved us. 20Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

It is from God who is love that all love takes it's source. As someone has said: "Human love is a reflection of something in the divine nature itself." This means that we are never nearer to God than when we love. And Clement of Alexandria once said a startling thing when he said that the real Christian "practises being God" - "everyone who loves is born of God and knows God".

Secondly, love seems to have a double relationship to God. It is only by knowing God that we learn to love and it is only by loving that we learn to know God. Love comes from God, and love leads to God.
Thirdly, it is by love that God is known. (V.12) We cannot see God because he is spirit; what we can see is his effect. We cannot see the wind but we can see what it can do. We cannot see electricity, but we can see the effect it produces. The effect of God is love and it is when God comes into a person that s/he is clothed with the love of God and the love of others. God is know by his effect on that person. It has been said that "A saint is a person in whom Christ lives again" and the best demonstration of God comes not from argument but from a life of love.

Fourthly, God's love is demonstrated in Jesus Christ (v.9). When we look at Jesus we see two things about the love of God. a) It is a love which holds nothing back. God was prepared to give his only Son and make a sacrifice beyond which no sacrifice can possibly go in his love for us. b) It is a totally undeserved love. AS Barclay puts it, "It would be no wonder if we loved God, when we remember all the gifts he has given us, even apart from Jesus Christ; the wonder is that he loves poor and disobedient creatures like us."

You must remember the verse from the great Wesleyan hymn (I think)

How thou canst think so well of us,

And be the God thou art,

Is darkness to my intellect,

But sunshine to my heart!

Human love is a response to divine love (v.19). We love because Gos loved us. AS Barclay says, "It is the sight of his love for us which wakens in us the desire to love him as he first loved us and to love our fellow-men as he loves them."

Then. verse 17 and 18 suggest that when loves comes, fear goes. Fear is the characteristic emotion of someone who expects to be punished. As long as we regards God only as the Judge, the King, the Law-giver, there is nothing in our hearts but fear because with such a God we can expect nothing but punishment. But when we know God's true nature, fear is swallowed up in love. The only fear that is left is the fear of disappointing him because of his love for us.

The next thought from William Barclay is that love of God and love of others are indissolubly connected. (verses 7,11,20,21). If God loves us we are bound to love each other because it is our destiny to reproduce the love of God in our human life. John says quite bluntly that anyone who claims to love God and hates his brother is nothing but a liar. The only way to prove that we love God is to love the people whom God loves.

Another little rhyme (to which I once put a tune in our student days) which you might remember....

To live in love with the saints above,

Oh, that would be glory!

But to live in love with the saints below,

Well, that's another story!

Next, some thoughts (again leaning heavily on William Barclay) about perhaps the greatest single statement about God in the whole Bible, that "God is LOVE". It is amazing how many doors that single statement unlocks and how many questions it answers.

a) It explains creation. Why did God create the world? ( a question we face in our schools every day brother). The atheism and apathy we see every day must bring him terrible grief! Why should he create a universe which brings him nothing but trouble? The answer is that creation is essential to his very nature. If God is love, he cannot exist in isolation. Love must have someone to love and someone to love it.

b) It explains free-will. Unless love is a free response it is not love. Now, you know that I believe in predestination and we have our differences but this doctrine does not mean that we are not free. It does not mean that we are puppets on a string. That would not be love at all. You know, brother, that I have tried to control the lives of those I love and have found that it ends in tears. Love must be free and it must set the loved one free to choose freely to love. What a lesson! But how glad I am that I was forced to learn it.

It is also an explanation of redemption. If God had been only law and justice, he would simply have left us to the consequences of our sin. The moral law would operate; the soul that sinned would die. But the very fact that God is love meant that he had to seek me out and save me when I lost my way!

Finally, (as Barclay points out) it is an explanation of the life beyond. If God were simply creator, we would live out our brief span and die forever. But the fact that God is love makes it certain that the chances and changes of this life do not have the last word and that his love will readjust the balance of this life. What a wonderful message in these uncertain times....

 

Mark