Podcast: 1 John: What Is Love?

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By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
-1 John 3:16-18

Welcome to the Christian Pilgrimage Podcast; I’m your host, Paul Lytle. Today we’ll try to learn “What Is Love?”

I think this is one of the biggest problems facing our culture today. Not as big as, you know, denying God and such, but it’s a pretty big one. That is the complete misunderstanding to what love is.

Love today just refers to some vague feeling that you want to be around someone. We throw it around as though it were some sort of general affection. There is no sacrifice to this sort of love. In fact, it is very often selfish. There is no submission between people who claim to love one another. They just like one another. They will still fight tooth and nail to get their own way, of course. They will still demand their rights and freedoms. But they love one another.

You talk to the normal married couple today, and certainly they will claim to love one another, but ask them about the sacrifices they have made. They are still living their own lives, doing their own thing. The wife does not respect the husband or submit to his leadership. The husband does not live his life for the benefit of the wife. If they have too many conflicts, they will just split up.

There’s something askew there. If you want proof, just try telling people that they are sinners in need of a Savior. There are few more loving acts than to try to save someone from eternal damnation, but see what people think of that. They will call you hateful, judgmental, and extreme.

Love, under this definition, cannot include any sort of correction, confrontation, or conflict. These things are not seen as loving anymore, and yet can we say it is loving to NOT try to save someone’s life, even if it means confrontation?

Jesus died for us. This is how the Bible defines love. He died on our behalf, while we were still sinners. We were in rebellion against God, seeking our own pleasures, our own lusts, pride, and greed, over His glory. Even when we had rejected Him fully, He came to earth in the form of Jesus and died on our behalf.

How does that definition hold up in your life? Let me be frank here. Jesus came to die for me, even though I have spent most of my life disobeying and dishonoring him. That sort of love makes whatever love I claim seem like a middle school romance that will disappear on a whim.

The very fact that we rejected Him was why His death had to take place. In our sin, we had earned for ourselves a punishment of death. It was no minor infraction that we have committed, but crimes worthy of capital punishment. Just because you don’t think you’re so bad doesn’t mean that you haven’t offended a holy and just God.

Jesus took our place in that punishment. He died so that we could live. If we repent and believe, we can be reconciled with the Father, though we don’t deserve it.

When we become Christians, we are given a new heart, and we are given the Spirit to guide us. Encountering Jesus changes us. In the new birth, we are made more like the image of the Son.

That is why John keeps telling us that we can be confident in our salvation by looking at our hearts. Has there been a change in you? Have you turned away from your focus on yourself and toward Him? Look at your heart! Do you love?

We will not have the perfect love that Jesus had, and yet we should be moving in that direction. Of His twelve Apostles, eleven were martyred for the faith. Paul had his head chopped off. Peter was crucified upside-down. Tradition says that John was boiled alive, but he didn’t die, so they imprisoned him on the island of Patmos. Throughout the Bible we find men who died for their faith. They love God and us so much, that the love proved greater than their love for their own lives.

You say you love people. How do you know? Is it something you say, or is it something you do? If it is only words, then you don’t have the foggiest clue as to what love means. Love put Jesus on the Cross for you! That is love! It wasn’t some emotion He felt, but a choice that He made, to love us to death, even while we mocked Him and rebelled against Him. That is love!

It is a love that puts me to shame, but it is a love that also inspires me. God loved me so much that He died so that I could have a place in eternity with Him. What need do I have to fear from this life? What need do I have to count my own life more worthy than the lives of the brothers? He has bought me with His Blood, and He will not let me go.

If you are timid in your faith, if you count our own life more worthy than the spreading of the Gospel, if you are afraid of being rejected and embarrassed because of His name, if you are too worried about money to give to others, then look to the Cross. Look to the Cross and learn what love really means. You have benefited from that great love. That sacrifice has given us freedom to love as we ought. Don’t just try to do better out of your own strong will. That doesn’t come from the heart, and it is not love. First turn to the Cross. Confess your sins and repent of your terrible failure to love. In that repentance and guidance of the Holy Spirit, learn what love is truly about.

The world’s reaction to that love may not be a great one. After all, the world killed Jesus. John warns us in the previous passage that the world will hate us. But let us love in action anyway, because it is no longer our goal to please the world. We are secured in Him. We need not worry about what will be done to us, because it is not our security. He first loved us, and nothing can separate us from that love.

That is a great reason to quit talking about how we love others so much, and get to showing it.