God’s love is not just a feeling or an abstract concept; it is who He is. John tells us, “God is love.” The real, genuine love that we are called to extend to others flows directly from the love God has shown us through Jesus Christ. This love isn’t about mere emotion—it is sacrificial, selfless, and transformative.
Digging Deeper
Work through the following questions and scriptures on your own or get together with your group, spiritual
running partners, or family to talk through what you are learning.
Message Video from Gateway South Austin:
Message Notes by Carlos Ortiz, Jr.:
We have all felt the effects of love, and some of us have felt the effects of not being loved like we should have been. There are different kinds of love, and different people in our lives who represent those types of love. You may not know this, but there four major kinds of love we experience:
- romantic love (eros)
- familial love (storge)
- friendship love (philia)
- selfless love (agape)
This last one is the form of love we will land on for today. Agape, in its noun and verb forms, is mentioned around 260 times in the scripture. 140+ times for the verb, love in action, and 115+ times for the noun, or the essence of love, a selfless love.
We naturally are attracted to eros, because we have a whole movie industry that helps us fall in love with the idea of being in love. Many of us are romantics at heart, and that’s not a bad thing, but very few of our relationships will be romantic…OR at least most of our relationships should NOT be romantic.
Then we all have differing experiences with Storge, the familial love. You may have a family that overflows with this kind of love, a love that they want to share with others. Maybe you were the house people wanted to be at, because your parents loved everyone like they were their own daughter or son.
Then there’s Philia, and hopefully throughout our life we have had friendships that have marked us, and friendships that have filled our cup with the healthy bond of friendship.
But John, the author of 1 John, is wanting us to experience agape, a Greek word rarely used in literature.
As a matter of fact, Homer, the famous Greek poet/philosopher (known for The Iliad and The Odyssey) used the word Agape, but not with the depth and connectedness that we see in scripture nearly 900 years after Homer’s passing. He used the word with affection similar to a fallen soldier who was faithful and honored by his country. One who was selfless and brave. For Homer, it meant “show affection for the dead.”
The followers of Jesus then took the word, and Agape was transformed to represent a selfless relationship between God and humanity. There are more references to this kind of love, Agape, in scripture than all of ancient Greek literature combined.
This context is helpful to fully understand the concepts that the Author, John, is wanting us to embrace. So let’s jump into the passage for today:
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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.10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. – 1 John 4:7-10
Let’s break this down one verse at a time:
Verse 7: Call to Mutual Love
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
When we read “Dear Friends” in the passage, it also can be translated as “Beloved”: A term of endearment used frequently by John. He’s being pastoral and binding everyone in unity.
“Let us love one another”: There’s a communal responsibility to walk in Christian love.
“For love comes from God”: This is now where we get John teaching about love. It’s his first theological point. Love’s origin is not human; it is divine in nature and essence.
“Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” John is tying our human attempt to love as being rooted first in who God is. This is something that truly marks the person who believes in God, and says yes to Jesus.
So how can we experience and share this kind of divine love from God?
We must be born of God.
That reminds me of another passage written by John in his eyewitness testimony of Jesus – the Gospel of John.
In John 3:2-7 – Jesus is talking with Nicodemus (a spiritual leader of the Pharisees), and he’s so interested in what Jesus is doing and teaching, but he has questions:
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’
“Born of God”: Refers to spiritual regeneration…as one being born again
This of course isn’t a physical rebirth, as we just read in the passage, but a spiritual rebirth.
“Knows God”: Denotes relational or experiential knowledge, not mere intellectual awareness. Being reborn by the spirit, regenerating our thoughts to align with God’s thoughts, allows us to truly KNOW, have intimacy and knowledge of God.
Why does all of this matter? Because if we try to love in our own strength it looks one way, but when we love with the knowledge (intimacy) of God, love looks very different.
So if verse 7 pulls us all into a mutual love, then verse 8 brings..
Verse 8: Negative Contrast
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love”
John as a writer does this…he speaks of IF…THEN
He also contrasts things from one verse to another, and we see that here from verse 7, where he is describing Love and its origination, but in verse 8 he begins to contrast.
So for our author, John, a lack of love indicates a deficiency in genuine knowledge of God. Which makes sense because he then writes:
“Whoever does NOT love, does NOT know God”:
The moral and relational dimensions of knowing God have an expectation, and with that expectation and knowledge of God comes an expressed ethical conduct.
Why?
“Because God is Love” – Here we go…God IS…
We’ve highlighted that God is Light, and when we come out of darkness, we step in to who God is in reference to Hope, God is Hope, and here we are now, being stared in the face with this statement from John…God IS LOVE!
Not, God loves, or God is loving, although God is. No, he writes God IS Love, the essence and character of LOVE are rooted in God!
God is Love…This phrase is central to the passage and grounds the entire call to love.
So verses and 7 and 8 are encouragements and corrections for us as humans, verse 9 makes a shift.
Verse 9: Manifestation of Divine Love
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 how God showed his love among us…”: Introduces the demonstration or proof of divine love. Again, John is showing his hand as a writer, he’s not trying to be tricky or genius, he simply is writing in his letters in a straightforward account. For John, divine love is not abstract but concrete, historical.
“He sent his one and only Son into the world ”:
God’s divine love sought us out first, we did not compel him to do so. He sought us out by sending his one and only son. Jesus takes on flesh, he is incarnate, God with us. In John’s world, a world of study called Johanine Literature, this phrase “into the world” implies a fallen state of humanity.
So Jesus is sent into the world…“ that we might live through him”:
This sums up Jesus’ purpose..to be our mediator, so that through him we will live eternally.
Verse 10 then takes us a little deeper to understand God’s love…
Verse 10: Definition and Nature of Love
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
If you’ve been following along, you see a continued pattern here with John. He’s being straight forward: “This is love…”
“Not that we loved God”: A double down on a lack of human initiative, that this was not something we conjured up as humans. Setting up the tone that this kind of love cannot come from human hands and desires, it is not our nature to love like this.
“But that he loved us”: Emphasizes divine initiative and that this kind of love is the nature of God.
The love of a healthy parent gives us a glimpse into the kind of love God has for us.
God is always looking, seeking to love his creation, NOT in our way, but in His way. And in his way his love is not reactive but proactive.
“And sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins”: This act serves as the definitive proof of divine love. That Jesus satisfies divine justice or wrath in our stead, for our sins and shortcomings. He is our substitute, the divine sacrifice that restores humanity back into alignment with our creator.
Now, with all that we’ve just read and understood, we can read the next portion directly from John: CP Note: Read this passage as if you wrote it to your campus, maybe even say that.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
This is our challenge to remain in God. Like John 15’s imagery of staying connected to the vine of God. And when we are connected, we love others in a way that gives people a mere glimpse of the Father’s love. This kind of love is complete and brings fulfillment.
How does this happen?
17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Are we walking in a love that is driving out fear? Or are the circumstances and issues of our life drowning out the love of God.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one…If a man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloveds whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards God whom he has not. We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armor.”
– C.S. Lewis – The Four Loves
What fears do we carry that keep away the Love of God? Because in His love, fear does not have room to exist. But His love, removing fear, allows us to love Him back, and out of the overflow of that relationship we love others.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
If you were to do a quick assessment, how are you doing right now when it comes to loving others? Your roommates? Your spouse? Your coworkers? Your boss? Your extended family?
Do you love unconditionally or are your relationships more transactional – where you are in it for what you can get from them?
What if we loved everyone the way a healthy mother loves her child?
What if we extended grace to all in our life just as we’ve received grace from God?
If you follow Jesus, are allowing the love of God be what guides your decisions and how you treat others?
Or do you treat others just like the world does? Do you find yourself quick to judge and slow to forgive? Do you tend to move on or are you willing to work through the conflict? Do you love enough to be honest and patient enough to help others grow?
From 0 to 10 how are you loving God right now in how you are living your life?
With 0 being not at all, 5 being I want to but it’s happening half the time, and 10 being completely and fully in every way?
If you aren’t sure, consider how you are treating the people closest to you. According to 1 John, that is the gauge.
From 0 to 10 how are you loving others right now in how you are treating them?
With 0 being not at all, 5 being I want to but it’s happening for half the people, and 10 being completely and fully loving to all in every way?
If you aren’t sure, ask those closest to you. How am I showing up for you? Do you experience the love of God through me?
Here’s what’s beautiful. Whether you’ve been walking with God a long time or you haven’t yet started following Jesus, the solution for loving God fully and loving others completely is the same.
Surrender to Jesus and let God help you.
Let Him forgive you and extend that same forgiveness to others.
Accept His unconditional love and let His Spirit guide you to see others with his heart and his eyes.
