The Way of Love | The One Another Way - 1 John 4:7-12 | Travis Jones

We're going to start in just an unusual way.

It was just kind of late on me, but my dear sister here just shared with me.

We've been praying for her for quite a for a while now.

And um months ago, you were over there in a wheelchair and you told me you wanted to walk, and he was praying for you.

And I know you're going through lots of things, but what this is just a testimony.

What I want to be clear here is before we study the word of God, I want us to understand that we're not worshiping a dead God, but she told me two days ago you were declared cancer free.

Amen.

And I just want to I just wanted to verbally say that, just because once again, we are about to, as a congregation, study the word of God.

But He's not distant.

Last week we heard Tristan, Lord saved him a week ago.

Um all glory to God, all glory to God.

The point I just want to keep it's pounding on me as we're singing these songs that we don't do worship God in vain.

And you all know this, but I just wanted to point that out.

I want to pray for you real quick.

Father God, I thank you for my dear sister here.

I thank you for the testimony in her life, and I continue to pray that you strengthen her, you continue to heal her, build her, use her for your glory, and we ask this in Christ's name, our Savior.

Amen.

Thank you so much.

I was sitting there and we're singing, and I was like, man, I don't know how to do this.

And then I started thinking, it don't matter.

We can do whatever we want to do, man.

You know what I'm saying?

I came up here and I asked Isaac to do this for me, and then he we Isaac moves it back there.

It's like you don't even see me preach.

No, I'm kidding.

Alright, church.

Like I said, I am we all are sinners saved by grace, and the revelation of God is in Scripture and perfectly in Christ Jesus.

And so now I would ask you to open your Bibles or a Bible app, and I want you to go to the New Testament.

We're gonna be we're gonna be looking at a new series here, but we're gonna start in 1 John chapter 4, verse 7.

1 John 4:7

And so it's an eight-week series that we're beginning, and it's entitled The One Another Way.

And what we're going to be doing over the next eight weeks is looking at the commands in the New Testament that command the one another.

The one another commands is what you well, I guess they're called that.

You go, what is a one-another command?

What is a one-another command?

Were there commands in the Bible that we are given on how we are to treat and re- and respond to each other?

I can give you some examples.

There's over 50 of them in the New Testament, and I will give you an example of some.

Love one another, serve one another.

The one another is us, Christian.

That's the one another.

Forgive one another, bear with one another.

Like I said, there's over 50 of them, and these commands matter because Christianity is not only about what we believe, it is also about how the truth that we believe shows up in the way that we relate to one another.

And so John begins, where I think we have to begin as we get into this kind of eight-week series, he begins with love.

Love is foundation to all of the one another commands.

We're going to look at six verses.

And in these six verses, John tells us three times love one another.

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

He is serious about that.

Now, when I say this, I understand that no one's going to raise their hand and argue with it, right?

Like we all like the ideal of love.

The problem is, okay, I'm sorry.

My problem is, is that I often want to receive love more than I want to give love, you know?

Like I want, man, I desperately want all of you to have patience with my weakness.

I want you to have grace for my failures.

I want all of you to understand.

I want all of you to understand my stress.

I want you to understand my background.

I want you to understand my intentions, but then I can fail to offer you the same degree of grace that I ask you to give me.

And I think there may be many, if not all of us, who would struggle in the same way.

So the question is this: how do ordinary people become loving?

How are we to do this?

How are we to love one another?

How are we to be a church, a community that's marked by the love of Christ?

How does love move from something?

How does it move from something we all sing about to something we all practice?

Well, John, he tells us, and so we're going to learn from it.

Let's begin, 1 John chapter 4, verse 7.

1 John 4:7

These are just fundamental principles on this, how you and I are to love one another.

The first thing we got to understand is love comes from God.

Here's how he says it.

All of these, all of these verses we could spend a long time on, but we're gonna, we're gonna we're gonna get through it.

He says, beloved, let us, that's very important, he's talking to us, let us, Silverdale Saturday nights, love one another, for love is from God, and whoever love has been born of God and knows God.

All right.

There is a progression here, and I want you to follow me on it, okay?

John begins, this is foundational, but the first word is foundation to the foundation.

He says, beloved.

Church, that word matters.

Before he says anything about us loving one another, he declares that we are beloved.

Question is this Who loves us?

God loves us.

God loves us.

And we've got to make that very clear.

I know many Christians struggle with the whole concept of God placing his affection on you.

But he has, Christian, because of what Christ Jesus has done.

On the cross in my place for my sin, I have been adopted.

I am indwelled by God the Spirit.

So I just um, what is it?

What is it?

What is it?

There is therefore now no condemnation for the man or woman who is in Christ Jesus.

I want to say this very clearly before we get into the one another command church.

You're loved.

You're loved.

You got to understand that.

If you don't understand that the affection and the love of God has been placed on you, not because of merit, but because of Jesus Christ, you will be unable to love one another in the way that we have been commanded to do it.

So I want us to know that is foundational.

Let us love one another.

All right, foundation.

Why?

He says, because love is, look at this, directional, from God.

It comes from God.

Anyone who loves, text says this.

Anyone who loves, anyone who practices is one of one another, love is born again.

Not only that, if you have that in your life, right, you are, you know God.

You know God.

So you can you can see the progression here.

Beloved, you're loved, love is from God, and whoever loves has been born again is an evidence of your regeneration, and not only that, you know God, right?

So that means, check it out, that means your doctrine is not sufficient to prove that you're born again.

Not your doctrine alone.

The mark of a born-again man or woman is that you love one another.

That is the mark, that is one of the marks of a believer, right?

And you go, okay, we hear that.

But I can already, I already think this because I thought it in my head.

There's things that you think that you may not want to say out loud.

Let me tell you something.

I've already thought of them, so it's okay.

Because I sit there and I say this.

Okay, okay.

I understand that, but I know people who do not know the Lord as Jesus' Lord and Savior, but they still exhibit love, right?

So what's the deal with that?

Well, John is not saying that every act of kindness is proof that someone is saved.

So, yeah, absolutely.

Lost people do kind things.

Unbelievers are generous, they're compassionate, they're thoughtful.

What John is saying is that a life that is increasingly marked by this Christ-like love is evidence that you have been born again.

If you've been born again, the love of God will begin to show up in your life.

Not perfectly, no, not perfectly, but in reality.

It really begins to manifest itself.

A Christian cannot say, I know God, while having no desire to love the people that God loves.

That's his point.

It's like it's like this.

When you're born, I mean, you're born again.

God saves you, God the Spirit resides in you, you're adopted, and that family resemblance to God begins to show up in your life, man.

Just like in the natural world.

You know this, man.

Sometimes you see, you see a you see a kid, I don't know, walking around, and he may not be with his parents, but you know who his parents are because you see the face, you see the walk, you see the expression.

There is a family resemblance.

John says love is one of the family marks of the people of God, right?

That's one of the identifying marks.

And that's what he's saying.

I mean, he's like verse 7 be loved.

Love one another.

Love is from God, right?

Get to verse 8.

He's gonna keep building.

These are some strong verses.

Anyone who does not love, we're talking about Christ-like love, specifically one another, does not know God because what?

God is love.

Okay, now check this out.

He's done told us the source, God is, it comes, it flows from God, and now he's saying not only does it come from God, he makes the declaration that God is love.

Now there's a strong statement even before that.

This is a strong statement.

I didn't say it.

John said it.

Anyone who does not love does not know God.

That's a strong statement.

John doesn't say if you don't have love, you have a few relational issues.

He says, anyone who does not exhibit in this progressive kind of love, you don't eat if you don't have this Christ-like love, that there's not evidence in your life, if you're not growing in it, he says what?

You don't know God.

How could you know God?

If God, if God is the source and God is love, but yet you don't have any of it, how could you know him?

Because to know him is to know love.

He's love.

In other words, if God is love, then those born again should increasingly reflect his love.

Um it's a progression for sure, not perfectly, not without struggle, but there's evidence.

There's evidence, there's an observable pattern in that individual's life of an increasing love like Christ love.

That means if I'm growing closer to God, if I am growing closer to God, then I will be growing in love for one another.

Us.

It's gonna increase, it's gonna be there.

Now, once again, some of you may think this, you wouldn't say it.

Good news, I thought it, so I'm going to say it.

Alright?

Because this is something I've thought about.

You may be thinking, there's an issue here.

When I read this, there's an issue here, okay?

How am I to love someone that I really don't like a whole lot?

Right?

And you weren't gonna say that out loud, but I'm gonna say it out loud.

I read it and I'm like, I don't I don't know.

I get it.

I get it, I get it.

But that is why there's a difference between love and like.

They're two different things.

I understand this.

You and I may not, I don't know how to say it, emotionally connect.

Like we don't, we're not going to emotionally connect with every person.

Nobody does that, right?

You may not naturally prefer every personality.

Um, I have discovered, I've said, I don't say this out loud too much, but you know, I have discovered um that if I'm hanging out with, I can be annoying, guys.

You know, if you hang out with me enough, I get that, dude.

I can be a lot sometimes, man.

You may not naturally prefer everyone.

Some people may not be on your, I don't know, emotional playlist, you know.

They're not your favorites.

I mean, you all got people, you all got people in your phone, but they're not in your favorites on your phone, you know.

Not everybody's your favorite.

It's okay.

That's not what he's teaching here.

We're not talking about personalities.

And I gotta tell myself that too.

Like I'm not being commanded to love one another, other people I like.

Not everybody's gonna have the same personality.

John is talking about something deeper than personality.

The command is not to like one another.

The command is we're to love one another.

What does that mean?

We could work it out many different ways, but it means I seek what is best for you according to the will of God, even if it costs me.

Even when it may not be easy for me, right?

Even when I may not get immediate benefit from it.

I love you.

We love one another.

I want what God wants for you, and you want what God wants for me.

And that is why I'll know I can sit here and in my flesh I can say, I don't want the Kesslers to leave.

I don't.

But I want what's best for them.

I love them.

Good thing I like them too.

It makes it easier.

That's not natural love, church.

That is not natural love.

Natural love exists on a plane of what benefits me.

What I like, what makes me feel good.

But this love that John is commanding us to have for one another is a supernatural love, right?

It's from it's from God, right?

He's the source of it, right?

He's in me, and through it, man, I am going to love.

Love comes from God.

This kind of love that we're talking about, this love one another, is supernatural, man.

Comes that salvation.

You're born again.

It comes from God.

That means we're all capable of doing it.

Let's move on to verse 9.

We're going to see a second truth.

Love was shown in Christ.

It comes from God, but then we get an example of what this one another love looks like.

We move from the source to the display.

All right.

Verse 9.

In this, the love of God was made manifest among us.

It was exemplar for us.

That God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.

There's a, yeah, amen, man.

That's what I'm talking about.

And there's a, there's in this verse, and we could break it a lot stuff down.

There's a lot of, I don't know, truths about this one another love.

But look at this one.

That word manifest.

We're to love one another.

Our example is Jesus Christ, and he was manifest, right?

It means he was made visible.

This type of love has been made visible to us.

It's been revealed to us, it's been displayed to us.

The love of God was revealed to us.

God did not, God did not simply say, I love you from a distance.

He put his love on display by sending his son.

Now, this principle really matters to you and I when it comes to the one another type of love, right?

I don't know, man.

It's it's it's not it's not enough to simply say I love you from a distance.

Because I can love a lot, I love a lot of people from a distance.

You know what I'm saying?

But this type of love is a love that moves.

The love between one another.

The example, and then our love, it moves.

It acts, it's visible, right?

Look, it's good, it's good, it's good to say I love you.

I mean, I'm not knocking that at all.

I've never had someone tell me they love me and I get upset with them.

It's a good thing to say, but it's not sufficient.

It's not sufficient.

The words are not, it's got to move.

Some examples.

A child cannot tell their family, I cleaned my room and my heart.

You know?

You just there's gotta be something attached to it.

You can't say, I emotionally took out the trash.

Well, your emotions ain't gonna take out the trash.

You gotta have the word and you gotta have the deed.

Likewise, love cannot stop with words.

And some people can say, I love you, but there's no patience.

There's no sacrifice, there's no forgiveness, there's no action, man.

That's like that's a lot.

I thought about this.

That's like that's like ordering a meal and then receiving a picture of the food, you know?

I mean, it looks nice, but it don't feed the belly.

God's love was made visible.

So must our love with one another.

God's love, God, God, God sent.

And by the way, and this goes back to what I just said earlier about some people I may not like as much as others.

God moved, God sent, God love, and I was very unlovable.

He did that, he's the one doing that, and he's the one, John saying we're to love one another in that same fashion, that we might key word, live through him.

Live through him being Christ.

Now that tells us our condition.

There's a condition there, right?

That's our condition.

I did not need improvement.

I needed life, man.

I needed life.

Sin has not just made me rude, sin has not just made me difficult.

Sin made me dead, separated from God, unlovable.

I can't save myself.

God is love.

His love moved towards me.

He saved me.

He didn't just say, I love you, Travis.

He said, I'm gonna send my son.

My son gonna pay the penalty of your sin.

There's the proof he sends it.

And John's saying we're to love one another once again.

Apply that practically, once again, not perfectly.

I can't do it perfectly, but it means that's a we relate to one another.

Our love for one another, what is it gonna do?

It's gonna cause us to move towards one another, not because we may like them, but because we love them and we want what's best for them.

So we operate under that condition assumption at all times.

Verse 10.

In this is love.

By the way, there's a lot of people trying to define love.

Well, you get a definition here.

This is love.

Look at the text.

This is love.

Definition.

Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Right?

This is love.

Not that I loved him, but that he loved us, man.

Once again, tying into verse 9, verse 10, look, love takes the initiative.

Love does not say, love does.

Love doesn't say, hey, I did my part, and now they gotta do their part.

That's not biblical love.

Once again, take the definition.

It's not there.

Biblical love says, I'm going to do my part because they need it, period.

That's it, right?

I'm going to do the will of God for that's related to that person, right?

I'm going to be the first one.

Man, that messes me up.

That messes us all up, right?

Because how many things would I do if the other person did it first?

Dude, I'd be a lovely person, man.

This is a true story.

Dude, I'll tell you this story.

So my birthday, this is so lame.

And I hope when I go away, you guys, you know, still don't lose any.

I don't know, I don't want you to think poorly of me, but that's okay.

Look.

This is true, dude.

My birthday's in April.

My wife's birthday's in May.

Alright?

So I remember this when we were dating.

I thought that was pretty cool because my birthday's first, and then her birthday comes after my birthday.

So I I could always see what she's going to give me first.

You know, and my especially when we're first dating, man.

Because I want it, you don't want to, you don't, I want my gift to be equal to her gift, right?

Like, like, like if it was vice versa, and I had to give a gift first.

Well, if I gave her a big old gift and then, you know, you know, the next month she gives me a packet of MMs.

I just feel foolish, you know.

So it was so neat.

I could, I could wait before I demonstrated my love.

Anyway, kind of love gift.

I'm gonna see what she's gonna give me.

That's exactly how many of us still distribute our love to one another, right?

Before I love them, I want to see how much they love me.

But that's not what, that's not biblical love, man.

That's not the type of love God gives us, man.

This is not the kind of one another love we're to have.

Now look at this, right?

Let's do this.

Look at the last, let's just get to the look, look, let me the last part of that verse.

And sent his son Jesus to be the uh propitiation for our sins.

Look at that word propitiation.

Um, that's a five-syllable word.

Um, I can't pronounce them, okay?

That's a big word.

As big big words, big words, lots of syllables means this is you think it's important.

And it is.

It is a beautiful, beautiful word.

What is propitiation?

He sent his son to be our propitiation.

It's what we've already talked about.

It means he satisfied the righteous wrath of God against me for my behalf, right?

He stood where I should stood, right?

Stand.

He carried what I couldn't carry.

He absorbed the wrath of God.

That's propitiation.

So he, God, loved us, but it wasn't just with words.

His love produced an action, even though I was unlovely.

He sent his son to be the propitiation, the sacrifice, the atonement for our sins.

Now, you can take all of that and you can plug it in to verse 7.

Let us take all take all that information we just learned, put it back into verse 7, and you're gonna, that's gonna hit you differently now.

Church, let us love one another.

We we we we we see what it is.

That's how we're to relate to each other, right?

It's our example, it's the model.

And once again, just thinking about this.

I understand it's not easy.

I wouldn't pretend it's easy, you know.

I found in my life, and you have too, that one of the ways that God teaches us to grow in this Christ-like love is by putting unlovely people in our lives.

If I could I really struggled with the words here, right?

Um God will, look, here's the word I would use.

God will allow people into your life that you would call, they're just a little extra, you know.

They're not bad, they just require a little extra.

And I know you you all, you all, you all have those in your life.

Don't point at them, okay?

You know?

Look around.

This is a church of extra, you know?

It'd be a good church name, the church of the extras.

You get them.

God, God gives them.

You don't ask for them, they just show up.

Just a little extra.

And John says, Yeah, I know that.

I know, I know.

I know God's gonna put the little extra in your life.

You treat them as God would treat you.

It's as simple as that.

You ain't gotta wait for them to move first, you move first, right?

And when you do that, you're blessed.

When you do that, it this love grows and you start to look more like your Savior Jesus.

And guess what?

Here's the beautiful thing.

You get a whole lifetime to work this out.

Because I'm gonna tell you, um, once again, I say this before, I'm not young, but I'm not old, but I've discovered this.

You're not gonna run out of those people in your life.

You won't.

Do you won't, ma'am?

God in his graciousness will keep bringing them in your life, and he's gonna say, man, I want you to love them.

And I get reminded that I am one of them.

All right.

First, it's from God.

Two, we get the the source, then we get the example.

Get to verse 11.

We're gonna see this.

Love moves through us.

This is really the pinnacle, right?

God is love, Jesus is the example, he saves us, and we this love is to come through us beloved.

Verse 11.

I cannot say this enough because you don't know.

You do not know how many people call me on the phone, text me, right?

DM me, meet in my office.

They are believers, but they doubt God loves them.

So I can't say this enough, Christian.

God loves you.

God loves you.

You can, you may, yeah, I don't know, man.

You may have to write it on mirrors.

I don't know.

It's a fact.

It's a fact.

God loves you.

Beloved.

If God so loved us, church, we ought, we also should love one another.

We loop back to where we started, right there.

Look at what God has done.

Look at the sun, he sent, look at the cross, look at the sacrifice, look at the grace.

God loved us, but so because that we are to love one another.

Church, this isn't optional.

This isn't extra credit Christianity.

This is normal Christian life.

Okay, so yeah, we're gonna talk about this.

Look, it's not in your notes, but I'm telling you right now, if you go to John the Gospel, chapter 13, John says this by this, this love we have for one another, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

That church, you did you hear that, man?

Not check it out.

Not only is having the love of one another a mark that we are Christians, John says in the Gospel of John that it is also a mark to the outside world that we're followers of Jesus.

Oh, let that sink in.

Let that sink in.

According to the Bible, our love for one another is the only identifying mark to all people that were followers of Jesus.

That's it.

You tell me.

I haven't found another place where it says this all people, all people will know that you're a Christian.

All people do not know that we love Jesus because of our building.

All people do not know we love Jesus because of our programs.

The Bible doesn't say that.

All people don't know that we love Jesus because the way we vote or the clothes that we wear.

The singular factor that the Bible says that all people will know that we follow Jesus Christ is that we practice this type of love with one another.

I don't know.

That's powerful.

We gotta love one another, church.

Verse 12.

No one has ever seen God.

If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us, man.

Once again, tying in, I didn't want to get too much in this, tying into what John already said in the gospel, it's the same thing here.

What he says, no one has ever seen God.

Now, why is he saying that?

It's just a fact.

Ain't nobody, ain't nobody ever seen God.

We ain't seen God, that's a fact.

Then let me tell you this, or ask this.

How is it that those who cannot see God is going to see his glory and power?

He says, one of the ways that those who cannot see God, because God cannot be seen, is they can see him through the way we love one another.

That's what it says there.

Church, I don't even know how I preach.

Look, it says it.

No one has ever seen God if we love one another.

God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

And he's about to build on this, but this is what it says there, man.

So, in other words, one of the ways that God has chosen to display his glory to those who do not know him and cannot see him is by the way we love one another.

God did that.

God has made that manifest that one of the ways that he is going to display himself to an outside world is by the love that you and I practice with one another, right?

We love one another.

Just we gotta love one another.

This deep love.

So God didn't just give us love, he's not just an example of love in Jesus Christ.

He made love one of the ways in which he discloses himself to those who could never see him.

So I don't know.

I'm gonna say it again.

Church, love one another.

Love one another.

Love is not a minor issue, love is evidence, love is testimony, love is a family resemblance, right?

Of those who knows God.

What does that mean?

It means maybe me, some of us, need to stop loving people in theory, avoiding them.

We love them.

We love them.

Because there's not a Christian here who has not been supremely loved by God.

Let me just kind of wrap up this way, because you could sit there and you could say, I hear everything you're saying, Travis, but I don't have the capacity to love like that.

And I would tell you, go back to the first verse, verse seven that we looked at, you don't naturally.

You do not have this naturally.

It comes through God.

Period.

Period.

You repent, you believe, you call Him to save you, God the Spirit indwells you, you're adopted, and you will progressively be growing in this type of love for one another.

Beloved, let us love one another.

That's not the way of the world.

It's the way of Jesus.

May our church be a church that loves one another.

Let's pray.

Father God, thank you for this tremendous text and these commands that we have to love one another.

I pray that we take it seriously, Father God, that we would progressively be growing in this love for one another.

That it would be evidence to the world outside that we are born again, and that through it they will see you and they will come to know you, and you will get the glory, you'll get the honor, and we'll get all the joy.

And we ask this in Christ's name, our Savior.

Amen.