1 John 4.11-16.
If we’re gonna call ourselves Christians
In today’s passage John brings up another way we know God’s in us: We practice God’s love. His love can be seen in the world because Christians are actually, visibly loving people. God may be invisible, but when his love is visible, he’s technically visible. It’s our job—really our duty—to make him visible.
1 John 4.11-16 KWL 11 Beloved, if this is how much God loves us,- we’re obligated to love one another.
12 Nobody had ever seen God;- when we love one another,
- God remains in us
- and his love is brought to completion by us.
13 This is how we know we remain in God- and he in us:
- By God’s Spirit
- whom he gave us.
14 We saw, and still witness- that the Father sent the Son
- as savior of the world.
15 Whoever confesses Jesus is God’s son,- God remains in them¹ and they¹ in God.
16 We knew and believed the love- which God has in us.
- God is love,
- and one who remains in love
- remains in God,
- and God remains in them.¹
True, John is practicing some circular reasoning in this passage. In verse 13 he states, “This is how we know we remain in him and he and us: By his Spirit whom he gave us.” How do we know God’s in us? Because he’s in us. Yeah, I can’t help that John’s not really following the dictates of Aristotelian logic like westerners would prefer. But John’s not giving us a logic lesson; he’s explaining what authentic, lived-out Christianity looks like. The only way we can know God’s in us is when he’s in us; the only way we can know God’s love remains in us is when we remain in God’s love. We gotta do this stuff. Once we do, we recognize God’s in it.
Experience is more important than knowledge.
There are an obnoxious number of Christians who are completely dismissive of the Christian experience. They feel Christianity is not based on experience; not at all. It’s based on belief. It’s based on orthodoxy. We’re Christian because we believe all the right things. We’re saved
These folks feel a relationship with God can’t be based on our God-experiences. It can only be based on the scriptures. And all these scriptures have to be neatly arranged and systematized; gotta be logical and orderly. True, that’s not the way in which
1 John 1.1-4 KJV 1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;2 (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)3 that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.
God never meant for Christianity to only be a neatly organized belief system. It doesn’t hurt to have one; it comes in mighty handy at times. But God didn’t introduce himself to us in a neat and orderly way. He started with an elderly nomad named Avram and promised him countless descendants. He took those descendants, now slaves, and turned them into his chosen people. He picked untrained temple servants to be prophets, and untrained shepherd boys to be kings. He took the infinite
And in all this stuff, y’notice God doesn’t try to save people through words, but through the lived, shared experiences he had with ’em. We know God because we had those experiences—because he lives in us. Not because we memorized a bunch of memory verses, then affirmed our churches’ various
The head full of knowledge is nothing, and makes no sense, without a heart filled with God. And if John sometimes makes no logical sense in pointing out the necessity of a heart filled with God… well, that’s okay. He has his priorities straight.
Get these experiences.
In this chapter John lists two evidences of the Christian’s relationship with God:
- We confess Jesus as God’s son.
- We demonstrate God’s love.
And we need to see ’em both.
We gotta have Jesus in it. God chose to reveal himself through the person of Jesus. There’s no bypassing him to get to the Father.
Sometimes their excuse is they don’t wanna deal with ill-behaved Christians. I get that; I don’t wanna deal with them either! But earnest Christians have learned how to bypass those people, and get to the gospels and Jesus despite them. And earnest pagans could do likewise… but they don’t wanna, and misbehaving Christians are their lame excuse.
True, we might misunderstand Jesus. Plenty of Christians do. Some of those misunderstandings can
And there’s a good segue to talk about the other evidence: Love. This is the love which is obviously displayed in a Christian’s life. Love is the Spirit’s fruit,
Some heretics do a better job of showing this love than orthodox Christians. They may not understand Jesus aright, but they do understand God’s love. They’re fantastic to their neighbors. They’re wonderful to one another. They’re awfully patient with we screeching, angry, condemning heretic-bashers. We should see this degree of civility and longsuffering far more often among the people who have their theology straight.
But John didn’t write, “God lives in you if you believe
We don’t need to get our theology straight as much as we need to get our love straight. When Jesus returns, he isn’t judging
