Living in Love

LIVING IN LOVE

An Exposition of 1 John 4:19-21

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: March 2, 2025

Series: Pursuing Relational Health on Communion Sundays

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

This morning we continue our special emphasis on the first Sunday of each month. On these Communion Sundays, we are focusing our attention on relationships – on the reality that our relationship with God and our relationships with other people are very inter-related. Our love for God and for other people are so inter-connected that they rise or fall together. This morning we’re going to dig into 1 John 4:19-21.

I want to remind everyone that after this sermon, two or three of you will have an opportunity to share a brief word of reflection, encouragement, or testimony related to the message. So if something gets impressed upon your heart as we are walking through this sermon, consider sharing it!

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Holy Scripture says:

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. ²¹ And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:19-21)

INTRODUCTION: DYNAMIC LOVING RELATIONSHIPS

Knowing God and walking with God means living in dynamic loving relationships. In this passage, love moves in three directions: God loves us; we love God in return; and we reflect God’s love to each other. When we live in this realm of love, we enjoy fellowship with God and freedom from fear. Freedom from fear might seem like a strange idea to bring up at this point, but it is in the context of our passage.

Let’s be honest: fear-based relationships and fear-based religion are a thing. Tens of thousands of churchgoers attempt to relate to God and to others within a framework of pressures, threats, suspicions, guilt feelings, ultimatums, harsh words of condemnation, and refusing love unless someone has earned it. Fear-based religion and punishment-oriented relationships are not biblical Christianity. Instead we are called to let love have its way among us, to let love grow in all its loveliness.

Churchgoers who are governed by fear, have not been perfected in love. And you cannot be perfected in love without loving one another. To be thoroughly characterized by love in all of our relationships, is what happens when we receive God’s love and reflect God’s love to each other. First John 4:11-12 says,

“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:11-12)

Having God’s love blossom in our midst is something that happens as we love one another. And, of course, our love for one another flows out of God’s love for us. This is why 1 John 4:11 begins with “God so loved us”. God is the source of love, and it is His love that creates and shapes our love. Now drop down to the middle of verse 16:

“God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” (1 John 4:16-18)

Thus we can see that abiding in love means both resting in God’s love for us (v. 16) and reflecting His love to each other (v. 12). If you are persuaded at the heart level of God’s great and incomparable love for you, then that persuasion will overflow in generous love from you to others. But if you think that God is holding out on you, if you think that God is waiting to pounce on you, if you think that God is against you and is preparing to punish you on the day of judgment, then you are insecure in your walk with God and you will bring that insecurity, instability, and fear into your relationships with other people.

Selfish and self-reliant people never break free from the crippling power of fear. Self-reliant and selfish go together in the same way that trusting God and love others go together. Why do you, if you are selfish, spend so much time preoccupied with yourself and serving yourself? Because deep down you don’t really believe that the extravagantly loving God is for you. But when you dare to believe that God is 100% for you, and that He will do for you far better than you could ever do for yourself, then you begin to let go of all the things and fears that are holding onto you, and you begin to care deeply about other people and you begin to love and serve others in practical ways. God’s design is for His love to set you free to love others. It is this combination of trusting the Lord and loving your fellow believers that results in a close relationship with God and that casts out fear. Just imagine a walk with God that is not poisoned by fear. Just imagine that when the names and faces of other people in the church occur to your mind or appear to your eyes, your response is warmth and joy in your heart. Just imagine a fellowship with one another that is not poisoned by fear, but is instead overflowing with the love of God!

THE FIRST MOVEMENT: GOD LOVES US

It all begins with God’s love toward us. God’s love for us is the first movement of love: “We love because he first loved us” (v. 19, italics added). God “first loved us”. This is the starting point. First John 4:7-19 emphasizes this over and over again. “[Love] is from God” (v. 7). “God is love” (v. 8, and again in v. 16). God manifested His love among us for our good (v. 9): “God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9) God’s love isn’t minimal or meager; God’s love doesn’t ask how little it can do; God’s love isn’t like fat free ice cream. God’s love is rich and full, it gives the very best (His dear Son), and it makes the greatest sacrifice (the Savior’s blood shed upon the cross), and it removes every barrier between the Holy Creator and sinful creatures. As verse 10 says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

God’s love has a grand purpose, not only to forgive our sins and make us spiritually alive (as v. 9-10 say), but also to make us His dearly loved children. First John 3:1 begins, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (1 John 3:1) One hymn-writer put it this way:

“O boundless love divine! how shall this tongue of mine
To wond’ring mortals tell the matchless grace divine—
That I, a child of hell, should in His image shine!”[1]

Or as another hymn says:

“The love of God is greater far
  Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star
  And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
  God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled
  And pardoned from his sin.”[2]

Being a Christian first of all means understanding, receiving, and resting in God’s wonderful, life-giving, sin-atoning, sinner-adopting love that was displayed through Jesus Christ. Look at verse 15 and the beginning of verse 16:

“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.” (1 John 4:15-16a)

Knowing and believing God’s love for us is not a theoretical affirmation. It is not a mere academic exercise. It is not like coming to know and believe that ladybugs have six legs or that squares have four sides but not all four-sided figures are squares. Useful knowledge, but this is far more: knowing and believing God’s love for us is discovering the greatest secret in the universe, to the point of putting your entire confidence in the love of God, relying upon it, and living in its life-giving power. Since the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ has set His loving gaze upon me, then I am no longer on a restless quest to find meaning and significance from things or from people. My identity question is answered: I am a dearly loved child of my Father in heaven. My security question is answered: I am forever and always safe, accepted, and justified in His faithful, loving hand. My mission question is answered: I am called to be a conduit of His love to the people around me.

As we grasp His great love for us (v. 16), and as we extend His love to each other (v. 12), then “God abides in us” (v. 12). In the context of this loving fellowship where the gospel is preached, where we entrust ourselves to Christ’s love, and where we share love back and forth with each other – right here in this loving fellowship we enjoy spiritual reality, as God’s loving presence is made real in our experience through the Holy Spirit: “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” (1 John 4:13)

God’s love toward us is the first movement of love.

THE SECOND MOVEMENT: WE LOVE GOD

The second movement of love is that we come to love God in return for His love toward us. Verse 19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” Verse 19 doesn’t specify the object of our love – it doesn’t say ‘we love God’ and it doesn’t say ‘we love one another’ – it simply says “[we] love”. The phrase “[we] love” in verse 19 probably encompasses both our love for God and our love for one another, because both of these loves are highlighted in four consecutive verses, starting in verse 20. Let me read 1 John 4:20–5:2, and notice how our love for God and our love for our fellow Christian run through these four verses like a double-stranded thread:

“If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.” (1 John 4:20–5:2)

Do you see how our love for God and our love for God’s people are woven together? God’s love toward us, generates a loving response from us. And our love has two aspects: first, in response to God’s love, we love God. And second, also in response to God’s love, we love one another.

We were made for God, to know Him and worship Him and serve Him with gladness. Our sin separated us from God, and landed us in the darkness of spiritual death, where we were entrapped by lies and ensnared by idols. We had ears, but couldn’t truly hear. We had eyes, but couldn’t truly see. We had hands, but couldn’t build that which is worth building. We had feet, but couldn’t walk in freedom. We had relationships, but couldn’t make them flourish with love, joy, and peace. We had ideas, but not good ones. We had ambitions, but misguided ones. We were without hope and without God, and everything around us was fleeting vanity. We had nothing to look forward to except death, judgment, the outer darkness. But then something happened: “Then Christ Came” – this is how the contemporary Christian group MercyMe articulates it in its song by that title (“Then Christ Came”)! They sing:

“Like a soldier with no armor
In the middle of the battle
I was broken
I was broken

It was only getting darker
In the valley of the shadow
I was hopeless
I was hopeless

I never thought that I would ever see the day
When every single chain would break
Or hear the voice of Heaven call my name

Then Christ came
Changing everything
He took my sin and shame away
Now every song
I sing will be for Him
Ever since the moment He walked in

Then Christ came”[3]

To know that Christ has loved you in this way, by laying down His life for you, by bearing your burden and paying your debt, causes love to rise in your heart for your Savior. How can we not love the One who gave everything for us, who came from heaven to earth and died on the cross to win us back, who draws us into fellowship with the Father, who calls us beloved friends, who holds us in His omnipotent care, who surrounds us with His unwavering faithfulness? To say that He is ‘fairer than ten thousand’ is a vast understatement, for He is, in fact:

“Fairest Lord Jesus,

Ruler of all nature,

O thou of God and man the Son,

Thee will I cherish,

Thee will I honor,

Thou, my soul’s glory, joy, and crown.”[4]

We love Christ, who demonstrated and embodied the Father’s love for us, and we love the Father, who is the fount of this great love – “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:4). With extraordinary and eternal love, the Father planned to bring us into the joy of His salvation. Although we “were by nature children of wrath,” our merciful Father, “because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:3, 4-5). The only fitting response to “the God of all grace” (1 Peter 5:10) is to declare His praise and delight in His glory: “To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Philippians 4:20)

THE THIRD MOVEMENT: WE LOVE OUR FELLOW BELIEVERS

The first movement of love is that God loves us. The second movement is the love that we return to God. Now we come to the third movement, which is the love that we reflect to our fellow believers. Verse 21 is clear and straightforward: “And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” And our loves flow out of God’s love for us: “We love because he first loved us.” (v. 19) In between verses 19 and 21, verse 20 drives home the fact that loving our fellow believers is essential: if we don’t love our fellow believers, then we don’t love God. And so, these three movements of love – God loves you, you love God in return, and you love God’s people – these three movements all belong together.

If you don’t love God’s people, then your claim to love God is a sham. And if you don’t love God and don’t love God’s people, then you really don’t grasp God’s love for you. There is no such thing as a person who is overwhelmed by God’s love, who then makes a habit of hating the people around him. There is no such thing as a person who is filled with love for God, who can’t stand and won’t serve his fellow Christians. And if we don’t love one another, then we cannot rightly claim that God is in our midst. “[If] we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:12) But God doesn’t abide in an unloving people. In fact, “[anyone] who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8) So these three movements of love belong together – they are essential components of the single package of biblical Christianity.

But verse 20 points up the fact that it is possible to be self-deceived. It is easy for someone to make the claim “I love God”. Perhaps you read the Bible, pray, attend church, enjoy Christian music, and feel spiritual. But John wants us to understand that the claim to love God is a false claim if the person making the claim doesn’t love other Christians: “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar” (v. 20). Loving God is verified and confirmed by loving your Christian brothers and sisters. Failure to love your Christian brothers and sisters shows that the claim to love God is empty and shallow.

Discovering the powerful truth in the second half of verse 20

Now I want to call your attention to the powerful but often neglected truth in the second half of verse 20: “for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” If we will let this truth sink deeply into our hearts, it might transform our outlook and our relationships in surprising ways.

Many years ago I struggled to make sense of the second half of verse 20, because it seems easier to love the invisible God who is perfect and perfectly lovable, than it is to love the visible people around me who are profoundly flawed and not so lovable all the time. And that train of thought might lead one to the conclusion that says: of course I can love God whom I have not seen even though I can’t stand the people around me who frankly drive me crazy more often than not. But this is a faulty way of thinking, because the truth is clear: if you do not love your brother whom you have seen, then you cannot love God whom you have not seen.

But after being perplexed about this verse, I eventually discovered a breakthrough concept that sheds clear light on the meaning and force of verse 20. It’s not rocket science, but it is drilling down into a detail that is very important to be honest about. The concept relates to the word “brother”. The meaning of “brother” in the context of 1 John 4:7–5:2 is quite clearly your Christian brother, your Christian sister, your fellow believer. It is true that we are called to love our enemies, to love unbelievers, and to love our persecutors, but that is not the focus of our passage. Our passage is specifically focused on loving one another as fellow Christians. And our fellow Christians, our brothers and sisters, are those who have been born of God, which means that they are children of God. This is the language that John uses at the beginning of chapter 5:

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.” (1 John 5:1-2)

Now this opens up a line of thought that runs through the entire Book of 1 John, and this will make it clear how utterly crucial it is that we have a special love for our fellow believers. Let me put it like this: the test of whether we love the invisible God is how we relate to His visible representatives. If we really do love the God whom we cannot see, then we will love God’s visible representatives whom we can see. Who are God’s visible representatives? His children; those who have been born of God; the sinners that He has redeemed; our Christian brothers and sisters with whom we rub shoulders. And here’s the reality that you need to understand: those who have been born of God are God’s visible representatives and they represent God to you, and the way that you treat God’s representatives reveals your attitude toward God Himself. Yes, God knows that His visible representatives are imperfect and imperfectly represent Him, but that shouldn’t be a stumbling block for you since you are so imperfect yourself, and you know that the beauty of the gospel of God sending His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins is that He bestows His great love on undeserving recipients like you and your brothers and sisters. So the fact that God’s visible representatives are imperfect shouldn’t trouble you. What 1 John 4:20 is teaching us is that if we don’t love God’s visible representatives, if we don’t love our Christian brothers and sisters, then we don’t love God.

Now all throughout the Book of 1 John, John shows us various ways in which God’s children resemble God. And this is important, because the point is that if you love God, then you will love those who resemble God. And if you don’t love those who resemble God’s character and reflect God’s mindset, then frankly you don’t have a heart for God.

Some of the ways that Christians represent God

Here's the reality: your fellow Christians are ‘as God is’ – for verse 17 concludes, “as he is so also are we in this world.” True Christians reflect God’s character and resemble His likeness. Verse 17 is not an isolated concept, but highlights a concept that runs through the entire book. Let me mention some of the ways in which the Christian believer represents God.

First, the Christian believer reflects the light, the reality, the truth that God is. “God is light” (1 John 1:5), and “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) Your humble brother or sister stands before you as a human being who has fellowship with God through the blood of Jesus.

Second, Christian believers have God’s Word written on their hearts. “I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you” (1 John 2:14). “But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth.” (1 John 2:20-21) Your fellow Christian reminds you of God’s truth.

Third, the Christian believer reflects the character of Christ. “By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:5b-6) Reflecting Christ’s character means reflecting His purity and His righteousness. First John 3:2-3 says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” (1 John 3:2-3) And then a few verses later: “Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous…. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.” (1 John 3:7, 9) Those who have been born of God resemble the character of their heavenly Father.

Fourth, the Christian believer resembles God’s sacrificial and generous love. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8) And going back to chapter 3: “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) Those who know God have God’s love pulsating within their own hearts and lives. They are a visible agent of God’s love to you.

Fifth, the Christian believer represents the spiritual and eternal life that God gives. “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:11-12)

Here's the bottom line: your fellow Christian believers are the aroma of God to you. They have been born of God, cleansed by the blood of Jesus, and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Christian believers reflect His light; remind you of His Word; resemble His character, purity, and righteousness; reflect God’s sacrificial and generous love; and represent the spiritual and eternal life that God gives. Now I trust the force of 1 John 4:20 is clear to you: those who do not love the very people who visibly and tangibly represent God, do not love God. Do not be deceived: there are churchgoers out there who can wax eloquent about the perfections of God’s character, but they can’t humbly appreciate the brothers and sisters who imperfectly but truly resemble the character of God. They think that God is awesome and that God’s people are awful – and they are absolutely wrong to think this way. If all you can do is find fault and criticize and call attention to character flaws in the Christians around you, I fear that you may not know what spirit you are of. The world is repulsed by God’s visible representatives, but true believers honor God’s visible representatives, as 1 John 3:12-14 says:

“[Why] did [Cain] murder [Abel]? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.” (1 John 3:12b-14)

Those churchgoers are to be pitied who cannot see and celebrate the evidences of God’s grace in their brothers and sisters.

THREE APPLICATIONS

Let me conclude with three applications.

First, don’t attempt to be more spiritual than God. God intends for you to invest massive amounts of love in other people, especially your fellow Christians. All the theological books in the world are no substitute for the heart set free by the gospel to love your brothers and sisters, to show them practical care, to meet pressing needs, to grow deep and trusting relationships, and to build up with encouraging words.

Second, take time to notice how your brothers and sisters resemble God’s character. We imitate those whom we admire, and God is honored when His people imitate Him, when His people reflect His righteousness and love. One way to promote our affection and devotion to each other is to pay attention to how each other are being transformed by God’s grace. Be specific: consciously think about how specific believers are specifically reflecting God’s character, and love them for it. And tell them. When is the last time that you told someone, ‘I love you, brother, because you remind me of Christ; I love you, sister, because you remind me of Christ. And here’s how you remind me of Christ’ – and then tell them. Maybe it is their courage or their compassion or their gentleness or their selflessness or their holiness or their faithfulness. Tell them.

Third, engage in the battle at the point of temptation. The singularity in verses 20-21 is sobering. “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar”. “[Whoever] loves God must also love his brother.” What do I mean by singularity? What I mean is that I called to love each and every Christian brother and Christian sister. What I mean is that if there are 100 brothers and sisters around me, and I love 70 of them and I hate 30 of them, I fail the test. Then you might think, ‘Well, I know that I score better than 70%.’ Good for you, but if I love 90 of my brothers and sisters, and hate 10 of them, I still fail the test. And if I love 96 of my brothers and sisters, and hate 4 of them, I’m still not measuring up. How can I hate, despise, dismiss, neglect, stiff-arm, slander, have ill-will toward 4 of my Christian brothers and sisters? That’s four too many, right? 

Of course, I don’t want you to despair. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8) So maybe some of us have to humbly confess the truth this morning, that there are a handful of fellow Christians that we don’t love, and we’re recognizing right now that this lack of love is not pleasing to the Lord, and now we need to confess it and address it. And I’m here to say: address it! Because one of two things is going to happen: either your love for God is going to prove stronger than your fleshly attitudes toward the four you don’t like, and your love for God is going to drive out your hate; or your hate is going to prove stronger than your superficial spiritual commitments, and your hate for a few is going to make you utterly dull in your spiritual walk. Therefore address it and thereby prove that the love of the Father dwells richly in your heart! For “this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

ENDNOTES

[1] From the hymn “The Comforter Has Come” by Frank Bottome

[2] From the hymn “The Love of God” by Frederick M. Lehman

[3] From the 2021 song “Then Christ Came” by MercyMe, Then Christ Came lyrics © So Essential Tunes, Integrity's Praise! Music, Be Essential Songs, Hyatt Street Publsihing Worldwide

[4] From the well-known hymn “Fairest Lord Jesus”