I John 4: 7-21
Theme: Love
IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
[for a definition of love, see I Corinthians 13]
Several years ago, Garth Brooks musical career took off when his song, If Tomorrow Never Comes hit the airwaves. The song was written about his daughter. The words that caught my attention were:
And the thought crosses my mind/ If I never wake up in the morning/ Would she ever doubt the way I feel/ About her in my heart?
If tomorrow never comes will she know how much I loved her (Written by: Kent Blazy, Garth Brooks)
A few weeks ago, I heard this song and it spoke to me of the need to remember that love is something that must be practiced in the here and now. It has immediate concerns. Love is not something that can be postponed. Since we have no promise of tomorrow, we must love today.
When we think of love, sometimes we think of that weird kind of love. It makes young men do weird things. They clean up and wear cologne and stop eating or over eat. Whatever attention span they had, they lose. But it is worse for young women. Something comes over them and they suddenly find ugly young men good looking. This behavior is often accompanied with the words "isn’t he cute." It is fortunate for most of us that young women are struck by this.
But this is not what I have in mind when I talk about love. This kind of love is too weak. C. S. Lewis said this about being in love:
Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all . . . Of course, ceasing to be "in Love" does need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense–love as distinct from "being in love" is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace . . . ask and receive from God. ( C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The MacMillan Company: New York. p. 84)
Lewis gets closer to what I think the Bible means by love. However, you will not find an adequate dictionary definition of love. Note what John says, "Love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." Love is not what the world calls love. Worldly love is very selfish and self centered. The Love that John talks about comes from God. Godly love puts us under obligation to be compassionate and kind to one another. Knowing God causes us to treat others better than ourselves, to put others first. What a different kind of love!
John said that God is love. John is telling us about the totality of love, not the sum total of God. God is more than just love. What it means is that all love is from God. And it means that some of the things that the world calls love are not love at all. It also means that whatever God does, he does out of love. When God creates, it is out of love. When God rules, it is out of love and when he judges, it too is out of love.
The ancient Apostle John says that this is love, not in the fact that we loved God but that God has loved us. John draws the supreme picture of love in that Christ died for us so that we might live. Can you think of a greater act to express love? This means that the justice of God was satisfied in the sacrificial death of Jesus. God's love was redemptive. The death of Christ covers our sins and God sees our sins no more. It is by that act that we have been put in right relationship with God.
I don’t want us to think that there is no passion in God’s love for us. Passion implies a deeply emotional, deeply motived love. As you read the Old Testament, God’s love for his people is framed in such language. God is a jealous God. God goes to great lengths for his beloved. God lavishes Israel with wonderful gifts. And he is long suffering. Israel’s sin demanded a response of judgement but God put off judgment for hundreds of years, until judgment could no longer be avoided. He pleaded with them to return. He woos them as a lover seeks his beloved. He even stated that he will sacrifice all the other nations on Israel’s behalf. God is deeply passionate about his people. He loves us in ways that are unmeasurable. He has gone to the depths for us. How can we ever understand what it means for God to leave his glory and become flesh and to live among us and die for us, to bear our sin? How can we ever understand the depth of that love? Yet, we are the recipients of that love. We are loved by God.
It is no accident then that John follows up on this verse by saying "Beloved if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." How could it be that we who have been loved so much could not love others? The fact is, we are possessed by God and, therefore, by his love. To John it is so simple. If we are in Christ, we love. If we are not in Christ, we cannot love. Love is the very expression of God’s holiness in us!
The language in the Greek is strong, we are obligated to love. We are to love others as Christ loved us. We owe a debt of love to others because God has loved us. It is an immediate debt. We cannot wait to love tomorrow, we must love today. How can we put off something so fundamental to another day? We are never promised another day. We cannot let the ones we love ever feel that they are not loved. We are called upon to love our spouses and our children. But also we are called upon to love our brothers and sisters in Christ and our neighbors and our friends. It is not an excuse to say I will show love later because now I am tired or afraid or lonely or in a bad mood. Love transcends moods and mental states and physical conditions. In fact, we can love others the most when we are at our weakest, for what have we to lose when we love?
Love is the most powerful force in the universe. It always creates. It was out of love that God created us and the world in which we live. Love creates lovers and homes and children. It creates communities and churches and friends. Love pursued us in our darkness and would not let us go. Love called us out of our darkness and into the light of Christ. Love created a church in which we can find comfort and strength and purpose. Love creates a future for those who love God. It creates a place, an eternity, a glorious existence in the presence of God forever.
We have been called and bound together as the people of God by love. And if we are God’s beloved, the special object of his passion and affection, then we need to love what God loves. We must love each other with divine passion and affection. And we must love each other with urgency. It is not optional and it is not something that can be put off until tomorrow. There is no such thing as tomorrow. Tomorrow is only a potential, a possibility. It is today that is real and concrete. It is today that we must love and if tomorrow comes, that we must again love. The great tragedy is to love someone and to find that a day comes when there is no tomorrow and you can never show them, tell them, love them again.
So, if not now, when? When will you love your neighbor, your wife, your husband, your child, your parents, your brother and sister in Christ, your friend? Love is an ever present imperative. Love must happen in the now. Beloved, let us love one another for Love is from God.