Love One Another | The One Another Way - 1 John 4:7-12 | Tony Walliser

Well, good morning.

It is so good to see all of you here worshiping with us today.

I'd like to welcome all of you here at this campus, but excuse me, like to welcome all of you to all of our campuses and all of our venues and those of you that are worshiping with us online.

If I haven't had a chance to meet you personally, I'm Tony Walliser.

I'm one of the pastors here at Silverdale and have the privilege today to share with you God's word.

So this is what I encourage you to do.

Go into your Bibles and open up in the New Testament to the book of 1 John.

Turn to 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

Got a smartphone, you can open your Bible app to 1 John 4.

But also do this.

Take out these Bible study outlines that we provide for you.

We give these outlines so you can follow along and take notes as we study God's word together.

We're beginning a brand new eight-week series called the One Another Way.

And it's a relationship series, and it's based on these one another principles that are found in the scriptures.

And literally, if you want relationships in your life to be transformed, then what you do is you follow the one another way.

And see, the fact is a lot of us as Christians, we think that, okay, um, Christianity is believing the right things.

And that's true.

But it's not just your belief, it's also your behavior.

God expects you to live a certain way.

God expects you to love a certain way and to relate to others in certain ways.

And so there are about 60 one another principles in the New Testament.

We're just going to discover the big eight.

And what we're going to do is as we look at those, they will transform our relationships.

If they're applied, you can apply them to your marriage relationship or family or work or you know, neighbors, or friends.

These relationship one another principles apply to every relationship that you have.

And can I just tell you, I believe we need that kind of transformation more now than ever.

I mean, the truth is that there's a recent article that came out by the Harvard Business Review.

And the fact is that we seem to live in a culture, a time in our culture where, you know, everybody's rude.

And it's completely acceptable.

And that, you know what, you're either getting attacked or you're getting hated on, you're getting ignored, and people are just being rude.

It's an epidemic.

Well, how do you fight that epidemic?

Well, I believe you follow the scriptures the one another way.

And what's going to happen is if you apply these, what's going to take place?

Your marriages are going to be stronger, your friendships are going to be deeper, our church is going to be healthier, and our witness to the world is going to be clearer.

Now, what we're going to do today is we're going to look at the overriding big one another principle, and that is we are called to love one another.

And that's found in 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

And so today we're going to begin by just reading that text.

So we don't always do this, but today I'd love for all of you to stand, okay, and all of our campuses and venues.

Let's stand, if you can, for the honor and the reading of God's Word.

God's Word says this dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God.

And everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

The one who does not love does not know God because God is love.

God's love was revealed among us in this way.

God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.

Love consists in this: not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.

No one's ever seen God.

If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.

This is the word of the Lord for you today.

Thanks be to God.

You can be seated.

Now, in those short six verses, the phrase love one another is repeated three times.

Love one another, love one another, love one another.

And the fact is, is that nobody disagrees with that, right?

You can take a poll anywhere, whether it be Christian, non-Christian, hey, do you think we should love one another?

Absolutely.

That's what we need.

Everybody, all we need is love.

We need to love one another.

Take a vote.

Everybody's gonna vote on that.

We should love one another.

Okay.

If we all agree that we're supposed to love each other, then why isn't it happening?

Right?

Why aren't we just all overwhelmed?

Oh my goodness, I think I got too much love.

We don't need to love each other anymore.

I mean, why is it that it seems like, you know, anger is growing and hatred's growing and division is is growing?

Why isn't love growing when everybody agrees we should love one another?

Do you know why?

It's a big problem.

Here it is.

We all want to be loved, but we don't want to give love.

Yeah, yeah.

Everybody needs to love one another, including you loving me, but I don't know about, you know, me loving that person or this person over here, right?

And so everybody wants love, but nobody wants to give love.

Love is one of the greatest gifts, but it's also one of the rarest things in our culture.

And so, how do you love?

Well, the Apostle John tells us how in 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

Now, I call them the four love lessons, and I want you to jot them down on your outlines.

The first love lesson is this.

Jot this down.

Love begins with God.

Love begins with God.

I mean, if we're going to love, then we got to go to the source of love, God Almighty.

That's where love begins.

Check it out.

Look at it, verse 7.

Dear friends, let us love one another because love is from God.

So if you want to love, we got to go to the source, right?

Love begins with God.

But here's this question: What exactly does it mean to love?

Right?

I mean, everybody goes, well, love is love.

Well, okay, define that.

What is love, right?

I mean, because I don't have any problem by telling you I love my wife Susan, but I also love pizza.

Now, surely those two can't be the same, right?

We use in our English language, and it's limited, because we use the word love for a lot of our feelings.

You know, I love Chattanooga, I love SEC football, I love um, you know, strawberry shortcake, I love my kids in my home.

I love those things, but they can't all be the same thing.

What does it mean to love?

Well, that's what's beautiful.

God chose to use the Greek language.

That's what the New Testament was written in.

And so in the Greek language, and I'll put this at the top of your outline, the Greek language is basically has four words that are often translated love.

And so let me describe them for you.

I've done this before, so I'm gonna just run through them real quick.

You have the word eros, that basically means sexual lust.

Okay?

We get the word erotic from it.

And literally, the word eros means take.

That's what it means, take.

All right?

Second word is um storge, and that Greek word means um a family kind of affection, right?

Have you ever heard of a stork?

Why do they use the stork to describe motherly love?

Because it comes from the Greek word storge, right?

And so you have this affection among family.

Third Greek word is philea.

Philea is a, you know, a friendly kind of love.

We have affection and care, we have a kindred spirit among friends, like, you know, the city Philadelphia is a city of brotherly love, right?

And then what do you have?

You have agape.

Agape is an unconditional love, it's a divine kind of love, it's a sacrificial love.

And so John says, okay, we are to love one another.

Which word does he use?

He uses agape.

In fact, it's been described this way: eros is all take, philea is give and take, and agape is give.

It's a sacrificial kind of love.

Now, if you've grown up in church, you've probably, okay, I've heard all that before.

Why is that significant?

Because our world defines love in a lot of different ways.

And God says, hey, this is the way you're supposed to love one another.

In fact, it's used 250 times in the Bible to describe God's love for us and our love that we're supposed to love one another.

Now, we may go, well, you know, so John tells us to love with this unconditional sacrificial love, and that's the way God loved us.

But think about it, think about the context that John wrote this in.

The first century, the Roman Empire.

I mean, if you ask them, a Roman in the first century or a Greek in the first century, hey, um, you know, did you know that God loves you?

They'd go, What?

I mean, when you think of their pagan gods, their gods, what were they like?

Zeus or Poseidon, what are they like?

They'd say, Well, he's not loving.

He's selfish, he's moody, he holds grudges.

That's what, you know, the pantheon of gods are like.

And John is saying, look, our God is nothing like that.

Our God is not like Zeus.

Our God has an incredible love.

That just like light emanates from the sun, love emanates from Almighty God.

Everything that God does for you is out of love.

Every decision he's ever made, everything he's done in your life, it is done out of love.

God is the source of love.

That's the first love principle.

Second love principle is this.

Jot this down.

Love is experienced through knowing God.

Love is experienced through knowing God.

Okay, if God is the source of love, then if I'm going to experience love and give love, I got to go to the source, right?

Think of it like this.

If you need gas, what do you do?

You go to the gas station.

You um, you need groceries, you go to the grocery store.

You need tires, you go to the tire store.

You need clothes, you go to the clothing store, right?

Now, some of you are like, you know, Pastor, I'll go to Walmart or Target and get all that in one stop shopping.

Well, maybe so.

I saw a really cute video of this kid who was shopping with his parents and just got really tired of shopping around Target.

And check this out.

Look at what happened.

Why walk when you can slide, right?

And maybe that's the way, that's the way I feel sometimes with shopping.

But you can go to Target or Walmart for all those kinds of other things, but listen, there's only one place where you can find love, and that is from Almighty God.

Check again, check out what it says in verse 7.

And everyone who loves has been, here it is, born of God and knows God.

The one who does not love does not know God because God is love.

Okay?

What is the apostle John saying?

John's saying that love doesn't come natural to us.

That you and I, we are not going to love the way we're supposed to love in our own flesh.

It's not gonna happen.

It doesn't come natural to us.

He says that what's got to take place is you've got to be born of God.

You've got to have some kind of change that has happened in your heart.

That's the only way you're going to love.

Because if love is not reigning in your heart, then most likely Christ is not reigning in your life.

And we often will love based on our nature.

And if all you got is a sinful nature, then that's the way you're going to love.

I mean, think of it like this.

I heard this story about this, some zoo.

This visitor came by, this enclosure, and he noticed there was a lion there, but also there was a monkey in that cage, in that enclosure.

And he goes, This is crazy.

A monkey and a lion in the same enclosure.

And so we asked, you know, a zookeeper nearby, he goes, Well, how do they get along?

And he goes, Well, they often get along pretty good, but whenever they get in an argument, we've got to get another monkey, right?

Why is that?

Because when lions act like lions, then you have to get another monkey.

You and I, when we act like ourselves, naturally, what comes natural to us is selfishness.

See, nobody had to teach you how to be selfish.

Nobody had to teach you to make the world revolve around you or just look out for number one.

Nobody has to teach you that.

It all comes natural.

Just like lions will act like lions, sinful humans will act like sinful humans.

That's what comes natural to us.

And so John says the only way to have a supernatural love is to have a supernatural encounter with Almighty God.

How does that happen?

You must be born again.

You got to be born of God.

You go, what does that mean?

Well, just like you were born physically, all of us here are born physically, you need to, at some point, be born again spiritually.

That means the Spirit of God comes to live inside of you and he brings his new nature.

For me, when I repented and believed in Christ at almost 20 years old, that's whenever a change took place in my heart.

That's when the relationship with God began, and that's when things begin to change in my life.

For some of you, that decision happened when you were a child.

For some of you, it happened as an adult.

For some of you, you've never been born again.

And you can try to love the way you're commanded to love, but you can never do it.

Why?

Because you've never been born again.

You don't have the Spirit of God living inside of you.

And the very first fruit of the Spirit is what?

Love, right?

And so what do you gotta do?

You gotta be born again.

That's what he says.

You've got to be born of God, and that's how you know God.

Now, we go, well, how do you do that?

Well, the Bible says this if you'll repent and believe, if you will turn from yourself and your sin and trust in Jesus Christ, in that moment of surrender to Jesus as Lord, in that moment the Bible says you're born again.

Okay?

That's whenever it happens.

Now, why do I bring all that up?

Because people will take this verse, God is love, and take it out of the context of everything else it's saying.

No, the only way you know God's love is being born of God.

See, what happens in our culture is this.

They'll go, oh no, no, God is love.

In fact, I heard about this college dormitory, they're having this party there, and everybody's, you know, doing their hedonistic kind of stuff, and and there's a big sign in the room.

God is love.

So, what do you think that means?

That means, hey, you can do whatever you want to do.

God is love.

Free game here tonight, right?

God is love, right?

God is love.

Listen, how do you experience God's love?

By repenting of yourself and sin and trusting in Jesus Christ as your Lord.

That's how you're born again.

And if you've never had, if you've never been born of God, that's where it all starts.

Now I've got to believe that most of you here, you would say, yeah, there's been that point in my life where I surrendered to Jesus, I had that encounter with God.

But for a lot of Christians, it's like a one-time experience.

And so what happens is that we neglect our relationship with Christ.

You've heard me say this hundreds of times.

Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship with Christ, right?

It's all about a relationship with Christ.

And you may, you know, see, a lot of people they're converted to Christianity, but they no longer walk with Christ.

So you go, how do you walk with Christ?

Well, it's like any other relationship.

You spend time with him, you talk with him.

We call that prayer.

You listen to him, that's reading the word, you worship him.

In those interactions with Christ, your heart gets more and more connected with Jesus Christ.

And if we're gonna love the way we're commanded to love, we got we can't do it on our own.

We gotta stay connected to Jesus Christ.

Several years back, there was a um really um great um charity called the Invisible Children.

It was this um desire to rescue these Ugandan children who were kept by a warlord, Joseph Kony.

And and this cause, invisible children, incredible cause, it really became this hot charity that everybody's talking about.

It was started by this guy, Jason Russell, and Jason Russell is a Christian, follower of Jesus, had pure motives in doing all of this.

And so he's starting to be interviewed by all these people.

Everybody's talking about it.

Oh my goodness, let's try to rescue these poor kids that are held by um this warlord, right?

And so everything's going fine, but a few months are going by, and um Jason is really getting overwhelmed.

This is really hard for him to pull off.

And um, so next thing you know, he has a nervous breakdown.

And he makes the news, not because of his charity, he makes the news because in his nervous breakdown, he is um running the streets of LA on a Saturday night completely naked.

A few months later goes by after he had you know recovered, he had an interview with Time Magazine, and he basically said this.

He said, His desire to love wasn't rooted in something bigger than himself.

He said, I was listening to my ego more than I was listening to the Spirit of God.

Now, can I just be honest with you?

That can happen to any of us.

We we may not have a nervous breakdown and we run around the streets naked.

Thank you, Jesus.

But the fact is, we can get overwhelmed and we can tap out, and we can go, you know what, I just can't do this anymore.

I can't love anymore.

I'm done.

How in the world can I keep loving this rude neighbor or this rude coworker or my wayward child?

How can I even love my spouse that's rubbing me wrong?

Because here's the thing when you run on empty all the time, you're not able to love the way the Bible says.

Why?

Because you think you're the source of love.

You're not.

He's the source of love, right?

So the first love lesson, God is a source of love.

Second love lesson, John says, you gotta get connected to him.

You gotta be born again, right?

And stay connected with Jesus.

There's a third love lesson John gives us, and it's this.

Drop this down.

Love is revealed through Christ.

Love is revealed through Christ.

You go, I wonder what true love looks like.

Well, you don't have to wonder.

God displays it for us.

Check it out, look what it says in verse 9.

God's love was revealed among us in this way.

God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.

Do you want to know what love looks like?

All you gotta do is look at Jesus Christ.

Read the Gospels.

I mean, here is God's Son steps out of heaven to walk the dusty roads of this earth.

Why?

To love you.

Everything Jesus did was an act of love.

Jesus Christ, he was the great physician who healed with no fee.

He was the one who fed the multitudes and he didn't charge anything for the food.

Jesus loved and loved and loved, and yet, what happened?

Humanity would rather love themselves than love him.

And so they crucified him.

Look at the next verse, verse 10.

Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Folks, the only way you can truly comprehend the love of Almighty God is the cross of Jesus Christ.

You do not understand God's love without the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that Christ became the atoning sacrifice.

You go, what does that mean?

That means that our sin needs atonement.

We had a sin debt we couldn't pay.

Now, through the years, you know, in religion and the Old Testament, people would offer these sacrifices, but they never were sufficient.

But they were all pointing to the ultimate sacrifice where God Himself would die on the cross in our place and for our sins.

You look at the cross of Jesus, and I'm telling you, nobody loves you more than Jesus Christ.

No one loves you more than Jesus Christ.

That's what love looks like.

In fact, turn to the person next to you and just remind them: nobody loves you more than Jesus.

Nobody loves you more than Jesus.

God demonstrated his love how?

Through that sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ on the cross.

In 2003, there was a movie called The Most.

And it's about a man who had a job, and his job was um, he was a train drawbridge operator.

And so whenever there were boats coming down the river, he would open up the drawbridge and the boats would come through.

And of course, whenever the train is coming, he would close the drawbridge so the train could come through.

Well, one day his son was with him at work, and it was lunchtime, and so they went down by the shore.

They had the drawbridge open so the Boats could come through and they're just watching the boats.

When suddenly he gets a call.

And the call is that a passenger train is coming, and it's coming at a time that they weren't expecting.

So he quickly runs up to his booth.

And as he's about to close the drawbridge, he looks down at his son who had been playing there, and he literally got caught in the cogs of the drawbridge.

And he was like, What am I going to do?

I mean, I've got to go down there and rescue my son.

But as soon as he's about to leave the control booth, he hears the whistle of the train coming.

And he's like, What am I going to do?

If I close the draw bridge, it will crush my son.

If I leave it open and spare my son, will there be hundreds of people on this passenger train that will die?

And so he's in this dilemma.

And finally, with tears running down his eyes, he he presses the lever and the drawbridge goes down.

It crushes his son.

And then he looks out and he sees all the passengers on the train rushing by.

And here there's tears coming down his face, and they're completely oblivious to the fact he's just sacrificed his son so that they could live.

Now, as a parent, we hear that story, and that overwhelms us, right?

That's incredible love, sacrifice.

Well, that is exactly the sacrifice that God Almighty had for you and I.

Well, you ask God, God, how much do you love me?

And God says, this much, and then he dies on the cross for us.

That's how much he loves us.

The Apostle Paul puts it like this in Romans 5.

He says, But God demonstrated his own love for us in this way, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We are still in our rebellion.

Our backs are turned away from God, our fists are clenched against God.

We're running away from God.

And what does God do?

God comes on a rescue mission after us to run after us, to pursue us, to woo us, to draw us, to die on the cross for us.

Nobody loves you more than that.

Christ Jesus died on the cross for your sins.

That's what love looks like.

And so John says, You want to know what love looks like?

Just look to the cross.

That is the ultimate sacrificial love.

But there's one final love lesson the Apostle John gives us, and it's this shot this on your outline.

Love is now expressed through us.

Love is expressed now through us.

If we've experienced this love of Jesus Christ, we are now under orders to love like that.

Look at it, verse 11.

Dear friends, since God loved us in this way, we also must, must love one another.

If God's lavished us with this love, this kind of sacrificial love, we've got to choose to love one another.

Now our problem is, is that we're like, okay, okay, I've been loved, but who am I supposed to love?

How am I supposed to love?

Can I pick and choose who I love?

Is that what I can do?

You remember Jesus in the Gospels in Luke chapter 10, there's this lawyer that comes to Jesus to test Jesus.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

And the lawyer asks Jesus, he says, Um, Lord, how do you inherit eternal life?

And Jesus said, Well, what does the law say?

And the guy had a real lock on love.

He says, Well, the law says you are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you're to love your neighbor as yourself.

And Jesus said, Do that and you'll live.

And um the guy, he's he was looking for a love loophole, and so he asked, Well, who's my neighbor?

And then Jesus, you know, tells the story, the classic story of the Good Samaritan, right?

And you know the story of the Good Samaritan.

You have this man who gets robbed and beat up and left for dead on the side of the road.

Then you have these two religious people that pass by on the other side.

They see him, but they don't help him.

But then you have a foreigner, a stranger, a Samaritan who's often despised.

He stops, he takes care of the man who's beaten up.

And then Jesus says, Okay, who proved to be the neighbor?

And the lawyer says, I guess the guy who showed mercy.

And Jesus said, Go and do likewise, and you will live.

Now, here's the thing.

So many of us we get sidetracked by saying, Who am I supposed to love?

How am I supposed to love?

When am I supposed to love?

We are always asking, Who's my neighbor?

That's the wrong question to ask.

The question is, how am I supposed to be the neighbor?

You see, when God has someone in your life and you see the need, you're supposed to be the neighbor to take care of that need.

Somebody needs mercy, okay, you're the one that gives them that mercy.

Somebody, you know, needs support or encouragement or prayer, you are the neighbor.

You're the one who's demonstrating that kind of love.

And Jesus says, when we have that kind of love for one another, the world sits up and take note takes notice they are truly followers of Christ.

In fact, notice what the Bible says.

Jesus put it this way in John 13.

By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

Jesus is saying, you know what the mark of a true Christian is, it's not, you know, oh, the world will know us because of our buildings, or the world's gonna know us because of our beliefs, right?

Or the world's gonna know us because of our programs and ministries or accomplishments.

No, Jesus said the world will know that you are truly disciples of mine by the way you love one another.

That is the mark of a true Christian that he's loving.

We're loving one another.

In fact, when we do that, we reveal God in a way nothing else does.

Notice how the Apostle John ends this passage, verse 12.

He says, No one's ever seen God.

If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.

Now that's a mind-blowing concept.

Nobody can see God.

And it's true.

God's a spiritual being.

We're physical beings.

We we can't see God.

The Bible says if you see God, you die, right?

So nobody's ever seen God.

But what John is saying is the invisible God is made visible through your love.

The invisible God can now be seen to a watching world.

How?

Through your love.

Reminds me of a story of American GI right after World War II.

He was stationed in war-torn Vienna.

And that day he notices this little orphan boy whose parents had died in the war, um, looking through a window at a bakery.

And so he decides he goes into that bakery and he buys some Danishes and he comes out and gives it to the boy, and the boy looks up at the soldier and asks him this question.

He said, Mister, are you God?

Yeah.

We become the hands and feet of Almighty God when we love one another.

John is saying the invisible God becomes visible when you love one another.

Church, we are called to love one another.

You can't do it in your own strength.

The source is God.

You've got to be born again and get connected and stay stayed connected with Christ.

And as you get overwhelmed with his sacrificial love for you, then you choose to be the good neighbor and love the people around you.

Church, let's love one another.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you so much for your love for us.

Thank you.

That we don't have to question your love.

Lord, I'm so thankful for your faithfulness.

I'm thankful that, God, you have called us to represent you well in this world by loving one another.

God, help us to do that.

We need you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.