How can we know love? Like Cain in Genesis 4, we so quickly go down the path of hate. Like Judas, we choose the path of grasping at material things and closing our hearts to those in need. The possibility of hoarding within oneself the love we have received from God in the forms of the material things necessary for life is always there. Yet, if the love of God properly abides in us, it will not remain closed off from others. Instead, transformed by the love of God, we will act with compassion toward others in need. We need to learn love from Jesus. He gave his life for us. The gift of eternal life comes from this act of love. This act of love becomes an active force in our lives. Giving our lives for others involves compassionate hearts and loving deeds to those in need. In fact, we cannot separate our love for God and our love for others.
How can we know love? If we are earnest and serious in our Christian discipleship, we may judge ourselves harshly. We see the gaps in our lives between what we believe and how we live. We know we fail in genuine love. Yet, God knows us better than we know ourselves, and God forgives us. If we deal harshly with ourselves, we need to remember how merciful God is.
In fact, the love of God is the only reason we can have confidence before God in prayer. Such confidence arises, not because we obey God so well, but because God is so merciful. Keeping commandments and pleasing God are important in Christian life. Far from legalism, the focus is on one's whole way of life, of which faith is the total commitment of one’s life to God and love is the motivating force of one’s life. The gift of the Spirit is the way in which Christ abides in us. We abide in Christ as we live in trust and love.
16 We know love (ἀγάπην) by the pattern Jesus established, that he laid down his life for us, so his death was “for us”-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. Thus, the author turns to the positive example of Christ, in contrast to Cain. The act of love by Jesus in his dying for us contains an obligation upon those who follow Jesus to live a life that expresses love as well. 17 How does God's love abide (μένει) in anyone who has the world's goods (βίον τοῦκόσμου), sees a brother or sister (ἀδελφὸν) in need and yet refuses help (κλείσῃ τὰ σπλάγχνα αὐτοῦ)[1]? The love God has for us abides within, but it will transform us in ways that lead us toward compassionate acts towards others. The specific concern for the poor is part of the Jewish heritage. The observation suggests those who left the community were the wealthy ones. The opponents of John may have wondered if their poverty would drive others to join them. Within the language of the Johannine literature, this obligation is toward other members of the faith community. One can find similar calls for sharing one’s material possessions with fellow Christians elsewhere in the New Testament (cf. Acts 4:34-35; James 2:15-16). Indeed, a proven effective means of evangelization is compassionate sharing of our possessions with those in need when it is at the same time made clear that these charitable acts arise not from ourselves but from the love of God that abides in us. One can understand these verses as a reflection on John 15:13-15, where on the night before his crucifixion Jesus tells his disciples that their relationship to one another is the binding love between friends, and that “no one has greater love than … to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Certainly, within that narrative context, “laying down one’s life” for another is quite direct and literal, and it is that self-sacrificial act that the letter refers to when it says simply, “he laid down his life for us.” Does it follow, then, that the recipients are likewise literally to sacrifice their lives in response to their obligation to “lay down [their] lives for one another”? Without denying the possibility that such circumstances might arise, this letter makes it clear that such literal self-sacrifice is not the primary moral obligation in view. Nor is it content to permit an abstract “willingness” to act in such a way under extreme circumstances to suffice. He defines the giving of one’s life for others as the compassionate offer of oneself and one’s possessions to other members of the community of faith. So obvious is this obligation to the author that he is dumbfounded by the very thought that anyone might claim to have God’s love within and fail to meet others’ needs.
Verses 18-22 have the theme of assurance before of God of those who belong to the truth. 18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. The point is not just sincerity versus hypocrisy, but that claiming to belong to the truth manifests itself in deeds of love, not in hate. Nor is it the case that the only ones who benefit from such acts of compassion are the recipients of the charity. By demonstrating love not only by “words” but also by “actions”, we prove to ourselves as well as to others that our relationship with God has transformed us. Much more is at stake than just a warm, fuzzy feeling. 19 In addition, by this, we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure as in knowledge or proof our hearts (καρδίαν) before him 20 whenever our hearts condemn us in knowledge or proof. The heart is the seat of the intellect rather than emotion. We can see this because God is greater than our hearts, and God knows everything. Thus, the contrast between the intellectual assurance or condemnation provided by the heart is that God knows everything. In each instance, what is at stake is knowledge about us. Knowledge of the truth can help us in two cases. One in that our hearts condemn us with some sin, and yet God knows it all and forgives. Two, it gives assurance where our hearts are free of sin. This thought is like that of 2:2. This may have been necessary because opponents would have cast doubts on the status of the author because of the importance of deeds in the teaching of the author. 21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, giving us certainty in our relationship with God, we have boldness before God. 22 In addition,we receive from God whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments (our actions are in accord with the will of God) and do what pleases him (and thus arise from a loving, mutual relationship with God). This knowledge provides not only the “boldness” to ask God for what we need but also forms the substance of those requests in keeping with what will be pleasing to God. God is so gracious toward those who struggle with sin that God gives whatever they ask. The text does not suggest merit, in answering prayers. It is part of the covenant relationship.
We love in action when we give our time. One of the greatest gifts we give to each other is time. When you give a spouse, a parent, a child, a friend, or a stranger, your time, you have given something you cannot get back. That time is gone. We need to treasure the gift of time as those who receive this gift from others. In fact, we see it around here, in funeral dinners, in people who set up this room, in people who volunteer for Upward Soccer. We see people willingly sacrificing time for others, setting aside time they could have used on themselves.
We see love in action as people give generously of their treasure. People enable this congregation to make disciples for Jesus Christ to transform the world when they regularly give to the ministries of this congregation. People help us fulfill the vision of helping people believe in Christ, grow in their faith, and go into the world to love as Jesus loved, as we give of our treasure.
People are difficult. We know that. Sometimes, we are the difficult ones.
O Perfect Love is a study of John Wesley. On page 27, Wesley writes of the ignorance of people, the mistakes we make, the things that tempt us, and even physical infirmities that oppress the soul. The point is, we are finite human beings, and therefore, find it difficult to put love into practice.
Further, the root of bitterness can be deep within us. It may arise from a parent treating us in an awful way. It may be through an experience of divorce or betrayal later in life. We cherish the bitterness until it becomes anger that affects every area of our lives. It can make it difficult to love.
Ruth Haley Barton, in Sacred Rhythms (2008, p. 118) suggests several reasons. Love is inconvenient. Love is rarely efficient. Love is complicated. It would be far easier to list pros and cons and do whatever is rationally obvious. Love challenges our self-centeredness. Love may call us to give more of ourselves than we want to give. Love makes us vulnerable, and therefore opens us to hurt. Love is always risky. It carries with it no guarantees.
On many occasions, we find it easier to fight. I suppose we need to be prepared to fight when the time is right. However, I wonder if the Christian world has not gotten far too quick to fight.
23 Further, this is the commandment of God first, that we should believe in the name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Belief in the Gospel of John is a work, shaped in controversy, because of the necessity of public confession. At a minimal level, it identifies the object of one’s belief or trust. It indicates an effect accomplished in uttering the name, making belief a consequence of calling on the name. Christ is the source and object of our ability to believe.[2] This idea of the mutuality of trust and loving action between the believer and Christ forms the conclusion. In addition, second, we are to love one another, just as Jesus has commanded us. 24 All who obey the commandments of God abide in God, and God abides in them. Further, by this we know that God abides in us, by the Spirit (Πνεύματος) that God has given us.Just as God has made Christ to abide within us through the gift of the Spirit, so also we abide in Christ as well through the gift of loving actions toward others in response to God’s command. Abiding in John is a way of being, not just an experience we have, nor a disposition. We have our truest reality in abiding, in which we are to see and understand ourselves in truth. We are to remain who we are. We are in Christ of whom we have heard. We are really in Christ.[3] The text continues the comment from verse 22 on John 16:26-27. The double commandment is like the synoptic tradition of the two great commandments. That this is not legalistic we can see in that “abiding” is so intimate. Commandment and Spirit are together. Note love in John 13:34 and Spirit in 14:15-17, 25-26. The New Testament often has Spirit as a pledge or criterion. Here, the thought is consistent with 4:2; the Spirit is the one who brings true public testimony about Jesus.
The Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said that Jesus was looking for followers, not admirers — he wanted people who would walk with him, do his work, and serve in his name. One of Kierkegaard’s parables told of a man who was walking down a city street when he saw a big sign in a window that said, “Pants pressed here.” Delighted to see the sign, he went home and gathered up all his wrinkled laundry. He carried it into the shop and put it on the counter. “What are you doing?” the shopkeeper demanded. “I brought my clothes here to be pressed, just like your sign said.” “Oh, you’ve got it all wrong,” the owner said. “We don’t actually do that here. We’re in the business of making signs.” That, said Kierkegaard, is often the problem in the church. We advertise ourselves as a place that is showing Christ’s love and doing Christ’s work. However, when people show up looking for real love and real Christian action, they do not see it. “Oh, no, we don’t love people here. We just talk about loving people here.”
[1] The clause translated as “refuses help” would literally be rendered as “closes off his compassion”, using the standard Greek idiom of the “bowels” (splagcna) as the seat of the emotions and acts of compassion (in the way we in English now speak of the “heart”). Without giving way to the etymological fallacy in such a well-established idiom, the image nevertheless suggests the idea of hoarding within oneself the love received from God in the forms of the material things necessary for life. If God’s love properly “abides” in us it will not remain there closed off from others, but instead, having been nourished and transformed by God’s love we will act with compassion toward others in need.
[2] When you believe you are taking your stand with Jesus in a setting where others will disagree or even oppose. The usual meaning of an action done “in the name of …” in Greek idiom is that of an attendant circumstance (“with mention of,” “while calling the name of …”). Surely, however, something more is at stake than just speaking Jesus’ name in a statement of what one believes. Equally unsatisfying is that it is nothing more than a formulaic means of identifying the object of one’s belief and trust. Would not direct use of the name itself (“believe in Jesus Christ”) better express the relational aspect of that trust? A better possible understanding of the expression would be its use to indicate an effect accomplished by uttering the name. The ability to believe is itself a consequence of calling on “the name” of Jesus Christ, who is then in some sense both the source and the object of that trust.
[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.4] 276.
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