Three characteristics of the love God desires

1 John 2 verse 4, He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected, hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith, he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

1 John 4 verse 9, In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Verse 16, And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.

God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, or may be better rendered, herein is love perfected in us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Because as he is, so are we in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear. Now very often my kids would ask me, Dad, what are you going to speak about? And quite often I would sort of sarcastically say to them, I'm just going to talk about love. And they sort of roll their eyes and they say, not again, Dad, no you're not, we know you're not going to do that.

Well actually tonight I am. Tonight I'd like to talk a little bit about love. Not in a shallow, superficial, Hollywood way, but specifically in a way that I've enjoyed it here at First John, that is uniquely brought out in this letter by this particular writer.

Now there's a number of younger ones here today, tonight, and we appreciate that. And you will know who wrote these words, it's the Apostle John. One of the original disciples that followed with the Lord Jesus.

And love is a frequent topic that John touches on. Probably the best known verse in our New Testament, John 3, verse 16, God so loved the world. And that's not just that God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, it's that God loved the world in this way.

This is the way in which God loved the world. He gave his only begotten son for us. When you come to First John, this letter that we've read from tonight, we have a verse in verse 1 of chapter 3, behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God.

Over 20 times in the 5 chapters of First John we read about love. But what I've enjoyed, and I'm going to be quite short tonight, what I've enjoyed is a little expression that we read at the end of the section here in First John, chapter 4, where John writes about perfect love. Now, John knew perfect love, so he's writing from personal experience what he describes as perfect love.

Because this dear man had the privilege of being with the Lord Jesus on earth, and being one of the disciples, and being one who followed with the Lord, and John actually takes that ground when he begins to write. So when he writes his gospel, he specifically says, I'm an eyewitness. And again, for you younger ones, John was the last of the historians to write about the life of the Lord Jesus.

So when John picked up his pen to write what we know of as the gospel of John, the previous gospels were already in circulation. Not only were they in circulation, but there was a lot of spurious writing, false writing, men's ideas, fanciful philosophy, circulating around about the Lord Jesus Christ. John picks up his pen and he begins to write, and he says, I am writing to you as one who was an eyewitness, and what I'm writing about to you, I saw it.

So in John's gospel, for example, he says in chapter 19, he that saw it, bear record, and his record is true, and he knows that he says true, that you might believe. He takes the same ground in his first epistle here. He's writing, he says in the first chapter, as one who is writing about what he looked at, what he beheld, what he gazed upon, what our hands handled of the word of life.

So John is not shy about saying, I'm writing as an eyewitness. Well, when John writes about perfect love, he had witnessed perfect love. He had experienced perfect love.

In fact, it's interesting that the only way John ever describes himself in his gospel is as the disciple whom Jesus loved. I don't believe that when John described himself that way, he was suggesting I was his favorite. I'm not sure that in John's mind was the idea of comparison to the other disciples.

I'm the one he loved and he didn't love the others, or I'm the one he loved more than he loved the others. I think John was just simply expressing what to him was an overwhelming truth. He loves me.

The words hadn't been written, they wouldn't be written for several centuries. But John knew the truth of the words, Jesus loves me. And so over and over, he says, I'm the disciple that Jesus loved.

So John knew all about perfect love. But the expression that I've enjoyed looking at and meditating on, and I just want to speak to you a little bit about, is three times over, once in chapter two, twice in chapter four, John speaks about God's love being perfected. Now, I'd like you just to think about that.

If God's love is perfect, how could it be perfected? I was asking Stephen Grant and Tim on the way over, is it perfected or perfected? And I have no idea what it is in Midwest US, so I'll say both. If God's love is already perfect, in what way can it be made perfect or perfected? Our idea of something being perfected means getting rid of the flaws, making it without any weakness, making it stronger, making it pure. So the example I used in the car was someone perfecting, working at perfecting your golf suite, and you never quite get there.

I don't have one to start with, so there's nothing to perfect. But we have the idea that something being made perfect means you've got to get rid of the flaws. Well, that's not at all the idea when we read about God's love being perfected.

So we have to, first of all, get in our minds, what does the Bible mean when it says that God's love is made perfect? Well, let me try to explain it this way. Literally, what the word means is something achieving its intended objective, something reaching its desired goal, something coming to a place in the purposes of God where it has accomplished exactly what God intended it to accomplish. So the idea is not removing flaws as much as it is achieving the desired objective.

So if we take that as a definition, then, of God's love being perfected, what these three passages are telling us is this, that when God loved you and loved me, when in his sovereign counsels he took up a dealing with me and he took up a dealing with you according to his own will, in the language of Ephesians chapter 2, because of his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, he quickened us together in Christ. By grace we're saved. When God set his love on us, he had a purpose in mind.

He had a design. He had things he wanted to accomplish. He had a goal in view.

It's not just that he loved us with a desire to see us blessed and that's the end of it. First John is teaching us that there are specific things that God intends and desires and longs to produce so that his love for us will achieve its desired objective. The first we have in 1 John 4, verse 16 and 17.

The King James, it's not translated this way, but if you have a Darby Bible or an English Standard Version, it will read, by this is love perfected with us. Verse 17 in the King James, here it is, our love made perfect. The end of verse 16, he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him.

By this is love perfected in us. So the first way that God's love is to be perfected in you and in me, is that God desires communion. That's an astounding truth.

I hope we never become so accustomed to it that it fails to impact us anymore. It's not just that God wanted to save me from eternal punishment, amazing though that is. There's a danger at times, now please don't misquote me or misunderstand what I'm saying, but there is a danger at times that in presenting the gospel as a way to avoid hell and eternal punishment, and we should preach that in the gospel, but in preaching that in the gospel, there's a danger for us as God's people at times to simply view that as the end of the offer of salvation.

Now could I say reverently, without in any way trying to be flippant or careless, God's desire when he loved you and he loved me was far deeper and richer and more purposeful and meaningful than simply some type of celestial first responder. He did not just want to rescue us from perishing, marvelous though that is. God's desire in rescuing us is to give us a gift, and that gift is defined in the New Testament as eternal life.

And what is eternal life? John chapter 17, the Lord Jesus said that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. And to me it is absolutely amazing to think that the infinite eternal God of heaven, when he set his love on me as a poor, rebel, disinterested, undeserving sinner, that his desire was that his love to me would then produce in me a relationship with him so that God could dwell with me and that I could dwell with God. And therefore what he is interested in, in his love achieving its desired goal, is for an ongoing, rich, deep, growing, meaningful relationship with those that belong to him.

Is that not what the Lord Jesus promised in Revelation chapter 3? To those who were in that lukewarm church in Laodicea, he describes himself as one standing at the door and knocking. And he says if there's an individual in there, if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and I will sup with him and he with me. Could I ask you very honestly, how's communion in your life? Think over the past week.

Maybe like me you've had a busy week. Have there been any times in your life in the past week when truthfully there has been communion between you and your heavenly father? And there's been a sense of connectedness and there's been a sense that you belong to him and he belongs to you. He is your God and you're his child.

He is your father and you're his child and there is a link that is there and you live in the good of it. That's God's desire. That's God's design.

When God showered us with his love, it was with a view to enjoying communion with us. But secondly, in chapter 2, we read the other time that this expression is used because we read in 1 John 2 and verse 5, who so keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him.

So the second thing that God desired, the second plank in God's objective, the second thing he wanted to accomplish when he showed us his love and showered it without limit on us is first of all, he wanted communion with us as his children. But secondly, he wants his love for us to produce commitment to him. There is a link between love and obedience.

Now John didn't make this up because the man who wrote these words in 1 John 2, he had a day in his life when he sat in an upper room while the Lord of life and glory wrapped himself in a towel and washed the feet of the disciples. And there in that setting, in what we call the high priestly work of the Lord Jesus there, the intercessory work, John 13 to 17, in that setting, the Lord Jesus taught the disciples. He says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.

So John picks up that theme here and he says, in this, the love of God is perfected in us. If we keep his commandment, if we keep his word, he expands on that in verse six when he says, he that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. What God desires, God's plan, God's purpose, his objective in showing us his love and showering us with it is that that love would radically transform us, not into robots to simply do what he asked us to do with no exercise of our own will, not into reluctant compliance where we're just beaten into submission and we do what we think we have to do.

He wants his love to transform and revolutionize us so that because of his love for us, we are willing to pour ourselves out in obedience to him and to his word. Is that not the thought that Paul captures in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 when he says, the love of Christ constrains us, or the ESV word is controls us, the love of Christ hems me in and constrains me and governs my behavior. John says here, the love of God is going to be perfected in us if we are obedient to his word.

So could I ask you, how are you doing on that? How am I doing on that? Because obedience needs to be an exercise of my will. And you know when obedience gets tested? When God's will places claims on me. And when following the claims of my Lord cuts across perhaps other desires, other opportunities, other pressures.

Could I ask every one of you tonight to just think back over the last weeks and months, when's the last time that you faced a choice? Maybe it was a choice in a relationship. Maybe it was a choice relating to a business or career. Maybe it was a choice about lifestyle.

Maybe it was a choice about material things and money. When's the last time that you faced a choice and with a clear mind and a willing heart, you made a sacrifice to obey the truth of the word of God? Or do we just live such vanilla flavored lives that were seldom tested on this? We just kind of go with the flow, do what comes easy. John says, no, the love of God was shown to you, was showered on you, in order that he would enjoy communion and in order that you would be committed to his word.

But the third time that it's used, of the three occasions we have this expression in 1 John, God's love is perfected in us. It reaches its desired objective in us. The third time we have it is in chapter 12 of verse 4. And in that verse, we read that if we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.

So God says, if my love is achieving its desired objective in your life, first of all, it's going to affect you and your communion with me. Secondly, it's going to affect you and your commitment to the truth of my word. But thirdly, it's going to affect you in terms of reproducing in you compassion and love for your fellow believers, love for one another.

Do you love the other believers in your assembly? You just think seriously about that for a minute, do you? And there's likely some that are saying, well, sure, yeah. I got nothing against them. I got no ax to grind with anybody.

I'm speaking terms, that's good. Is that love? I mean, do we not understand that love is certainly more than the absence of animosity, right? So if you were to ask me, do I love my wife? It's not really enough to say, well, we haven't fought for years. Like, you know, things are okay.

We can't remember the last time we had a fight. I mean, surely love is a little more than simply the absence of animosity, although maybe that's at least a good initial goal to strive for. Love is active.

Love is genuine. Let me just expand that question a little. Do you love the believers in your assembly? When's the last time that you expressed that? When's the last time that with genuine concern and interest and involvement and interaction, you have been a conduit in your assembly for the love of God and a meaningful way to flow through you into the lives of the other Christians? It's interesting in this book, 1 John, John basically says, he's a very hard hitter in this book, very black and white, no gray area.

John basically says in 1 John, he says, I am not really interested in listening to you tell me that you love God. He says, what I want to see is do you love your brothers and your sisters? Because if you don't love your brothers and your sisters, then don't tell me that you love God. So John says basically here that God's love is going to achieve its desire and objective in me.

If it affects the way that I interact with my fellow believers, and I genuinely love them the way that he's loved me. You know, there is no more often repeated instruction in the New Testament than the command that we love one another. Every one of the New Testament writers repeats that command.

There are entire sections of many books specifically devoted to that command. So therefore, I think it must be something that we desperately need to be reminded that we must have fervent, as Peter writes, fervent love for one another. So I just like to challenge you with this as I close.

All of us know, at least academically, we know that God loves us. But until I meditated on these, I hadn't quite been challenged in this way before. What does God want to accomplish by showing his love to me? What was his plan? What were his purposes? What was his objective? John tells us here three things.

God has showed me his love, and he wants that love to achieve its desired objective, to be perfected by me having communion with him, God dwelling in me and me dwelling in him. He wants it to be seen and he wants it to accomplish its desired objective by my life being submitted to his word and my commitment to obedience to him. And he wants his love to achieve its desired objective by me being transformed from a selfish, fleshly, difficult human being to someone who is going to reflect and channel the love of God in my interactions with one another.

So I hope these things will be an encouragement and a challenge to you, as they have been to me as well.