Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 John 4:7-21

This is, I think, the third time I’ve preached on this passage since we began Desert Oasis Chapel 6 1/2 years ago because it’s one of my favorite passages – it captures the heart of the gospel’s good news message in a few verses: God is love and love comes from God, God sent His Son as the clearest display of that love, to atone for our shortcomings, and as a result we’re called to be His followers – living bold lives as loving and fearless vessels of that good news. As a result of that, we’re called upon, in fact, commanded to love each other.

John thought of love as an active verb, almost athletic. It brings life and moves out in many directions from the core of the recipient. It moves from the first person to the second, actively affecting, almost infecting, the next person. Then that love points the second person both vertically toward God and, again, out toward the next person he or she comes into contact with. This is God’s plan for evangelism – love the people.

The man or woman who is walking in love is receiving a constant supply from God’s never-ending supply. But being in possession of that treasure transforms the one who carries it. Filled with the abundance that is God’s love, he or she wants to give it away. Think of the idea of having so much income, so much wealth, that you desperately want to give it away to anyone who’ll accept it. Well, we do have that wealth and, unlike money or material possessions, we have to give it away because it it’s no longer abundant if we hoard it. Think of a treasure that is abundant as long as we distribute it. Once we got used to such an idea, we’d become genuine philanthropists – the word means “lovers of mankind,” just what John is talking about.

John talks about overcoming fear in this passage, a fear that’s based on punishment on the day of judgment. He contends that we, as believers, living full of God’s Spirit of love, do not need to fear judgment. A lot could be said about this but it’s interesting to observe that, in many ways, the opposite of love is not hatred as much as it is fear. Fear disables us, paralyzes us, instills in us defensiveness and bitterness. Love does all the opposite, enabling us to connect with others honestly, empowering us to reach out beyond ourselves. It implants in us openness and a receptive spirit that can listen and embrace. John says that love casts out fear. Can you see how that can work for you?

But this love is only valuable if we use it, if we give it away. The act of giving it empowers the giver and the recipient, both are affected, in time transformed, by the sharing of this love. For that reason, believers are ordered to love because that very act changes us as we give it. God is offering us all the love we need, want, could ever use. What are we supposed to do with it? Look around – it’ll take about 10 seconds to find somebody to share it with.