Pastor's Notes
Back to Love
1 John 4:7-11 (NKJV)
Why "Back to Love"? This is week four of the Back to the Basics series. The church has gone back to the foundation of Christ, back to prayer, and back to faith. This week the basic is love itself, the word Pastor Kilton calls one of the most valuable in the world and also one of the hardest to define. Scripture does not leave that to guesswork. God is love, and if He had to communicate one word for why He made us, why He sent His Son, and why He keeps contending with us, that word would be love.
Context: First John was written to a church needing to recognize real love and real knowledge of God, and John roots both in the cross. He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, not because we loved Him first, but because He loved us first. From that starting point, Pastor Kilton builds three moves through the passage, that love is the goal of the Christian life, that love is light which means it cannot survive in hiding, and that love is obedience, the way we actually tell God we love Him.
Translated knows in "everyone who loves is born of God and knows God," this is a word for knowledge by experience, not just intellectual knowledge. It removes the idea of a God disconnected from His people in heaven. He is a God we commune with, a God we experience.
His love for us initiates our relationship of love with Him. We can't love God the way we should unless we are receiving and living in His love. That is why John says we have known and believed the love that God has for us, not just felt it, but come to trust it. So often we grow a cynical mind that says good cannot come without a catch, and we question love when it is directed at us. But scripture says we have come to know and believe His love. When God says He loves you, believe that He loves you.
Love is the Goal
Love has been perfected on the inside of us so that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. Pastor Kilton points to the parable of the sheep and the goats to show what that boldness actually rests on.
A. Love is what separates the sheep from the goats.
In the parable, the king separates the nations not by songs sung or offerings given, but by whether they fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the sick and imprisoned. Jesus tells us the eternal impact of love plainly: inasmuch as you did it to the least of these, you did it to Me. The thing that separates those who inherit the kingdom from those who don't is one word, love, and the way that they loved.
Translated perfected, this word carries the sense of mature and complete. Love being perfected in us is not instant, it is matured through everything we walk through, so that on the day of judgment we can stand with confidence, having loved as Christ loved.
B. Loving those who love you back is not a special kind of love.
Often the Christian life minimizes love and maximizes secondary things. We sing our songs and present our offering, then go to our cars and still refuse to forgive, still gossip, still speak badly of someone. We treat love as optional, choosing to love the people who love us and staying apathetic toward the rest. Jesus says that is not special, even sinners do that much.
Therefore: If you want your love to stand out, don't just love people who love you. Love those who despise you, love those who are unthankful, love those who consider you an enemy, and do good and lend to them expecting nothing back. That is the love God takes notice of, the love that reflects Him, because He is kind to the unthankful and evil, and so often we are the ones in that category.
Love is Light
First John is one of the Bible's great letters about love, and it does not open with romance or relationship. It opens with honesty. Before John teaches us to love one another, he teaches us that God is light and shows us how to stop hiding from Him.
A. We advertise our good deeds and hide our sins, which is backwards.
Scripture tells us to hide our good deeds and confess our sins, but we so often flip it. We've become professionals at branding ourselves and amateurs at confessing. This goes back to Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve hide and God asks, "Where are you?" He is not looking for information, He already knows. He is inviting confession. We cannot love and hide at the same time, hiding reveals a fracture in relationship.
Sinstagram: Pastor Kilton referenced a Francis Chan sermon where Chan joked that someone should invent an app called Sinstagram, where everyone posts their sins and hides their good deeds instead of the other way around. It is a joke that lands because it is true, we have become skilled at putting our best selves forward while hiding what we most need to bring into the light.
B. Guilt and shame are not the same thing.
Guilt says I did something bad, but shame says I am bad. Jesus came to deal with guilt, but the enemy keeps people trapped in shame. On the other side of honesty and confession is the maturing of our love, so that when we stand before God we can give an account that His love has been perfected in us.
Love is Obedience
If we gave God a love language, it would be obedience, that is how He receives our love. Often we discredit obeying Him and substitute it with rituals, a verse read, a quick prayer, a song sung, then live however we want.
A. His commands were never meant to be a burden.
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is not a king disconnected from His people, burdening them with a to-do list. This is a King who loves His people so much that He gives them exactly what they need to walk in victory. When you begin to see His love in His commands, it makes you obedient, and it perfects love on the inside of you.
The Kid Who Didn't Know Why He Was Crying: Pastor Kilton recalled speaking with a kid who had just preached the gospel at his school and came up in tears, saying "I'm crying but I don't know why." Pastor Kilton told him it was because he was experiencing the love of God, a love that baffles us, that a perfect, holy, righteous judge would say I want you, I choose you.
Therefore: Maybe today God is asking you the same question He asked Adam and Eve, where are you? Not a question of condemnation, and not a question He doesn't already know the answer to, but a question that invites confession, relationship, and love. Today can be your invitation to redemption, to confession, to love.
Summary of Points
- Love is the Goal: The parable of the sheep and the goats shows that love, especially love for those who cannot love us back, is what marks those who belong to the kingdom.
- Love is Light: Love cannot flourish where confession is absent, so living in the light instead of hiding is how love matures in us.
- Love is Obedience: If you want to tell God you love Him, obey His word, His commands are a pathway to freedom, not a burden.