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Sunday School Commentary Lesson
By
Dr. Jason Thrower
April 19
Believe God's Love, 1 John 4:13-5:5
Rubel Shelly tells this story: Jason Tuskes was a 17-year- old high school honor student. He was
close to his mother, his wheel chair- bound father, and his brother. Jason was an expert
swimmer who loved to scuba diva.
He left home on a Tuesday morning to explore a spring and underwater cave near his home in
west central Florida. His plan was to be home in time to celebrate his mother's birthday by
going out to dinner with his family that night.
Jason became lost in the cave. Then, in his panic, he apparently got wedged into a narrow
passageway. When he realized he was trapped, he shed his yellow metal air tank and
unsheathed his drivers knife as a pen, he wrote one last message to his family: I LOVE YOU
MOM, DAD, AND CHRISTIAN. Then he ran out of air and drowned.
A dying message - something communicated in the last few seconds of life - is something we
can't ignore. God's final words to us are etched on a Roman cross. The are written in blood
red. They scream to be heard. They, too say, "I love you."
Perfect Love Is Consistent
Like a jeweler scrutinizing a gem's facets in sunlight, the author trains our eye upon many
dimensions of love. For instance, his constant emphasis on God's initiative in love signals a
critical, theocentric difference between agape and romantic love, friendship and altruism.
Contrary to our inclination toward the business as usual mentality, God has decided in our favor
apart from our ability to reciprocate, gracing us with love prior to and independent of any
response we might offer, for no reason than love is the very nature of God. (1 John 4:16b, 19)
For the author love is not one thing among many that God does; everything that God does is
loving, for God as revealed in Christ is love personified - Love come to life. God faithfully and
consistently loves, because that is who God is. As followers of Christ, we surrender our lives to
God and He is able to teach us how to love and to love consistently. Love is more than a
feeling, it is an act of the will. We are to selflessly love consistently as Christ so generously
loved us. Augustine of Hippo, one of Christianity's premier theologians, said "He who is filled
with love is filled with God Himself." More than anything else love is the true measure of our
spiritual maturity (1 Corinthians 13).
Love Keeps God's Commandments
Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from
me; yet not what I want but what you want." (Matthew 26:39) Jesus surrendered himself to
obey God the Father's will. He paved the way for us to love God by keeping the
commandments. "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you
keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's
commandments and abide in his love." (John 15: 9-10). Deep down, hopefully Christians
realize that love is not what supports our interests and makes us feel better. Love is what God
through Jesus Christ has given the church to know about God and to communicate to others.
Our love, generated by God's, is not static; it matures in acts of obedience (1 John 4:12, 17-18),
purified by God (1 John 3:3). God's love does not cancel divine judgement, before which we
still must stand (1 John 4:17); but God is no more prevented by justice from loving us than we
should be shackled by fear from loving God and one another (1 John 4:18).
Because we love God we will carefully and consciously seek to follow our Lord's commands.
Love can cause us to change and do crazy things. Because I love my wife April, I make the bed,
take out the trash, (without being told) wash clothes and do the dishes... When I was single,
over 22 years ago, I was never as careful or diligent about cleaning. I've learned over the years
that it is important to my wife, thus it needs to be important to me. How much more so, if we
love God are we willing to do what is important to God and keep the commandments?
Love Defeats the World
Perhaps the most astonishing thing about 1 John 4:7-21 is that it exists at all. In spite of hate
that the author and his readers felt aimed at them, John never advocates hatred in return
(1 John 2:9-11; 3:13-15; 4:20). In a thick forest of malevolence, the community's outlook
remained oriented to Jesus, remembered as one who loved and was loved. To be claimed by
this text gives us the power and potential to transform life and to bear witness to the hope that
truly love defeats this world. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
Mamie Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, was asked if she harbors bitterness toward two,
white men, or toward whites in general, for the brutal murder of her son in 1955. This is what
she said: "It certainly would be unnatural not to hate them, yet I'd have to say I'm
unnatural...The Lord gave me a shield, I don't know how to describe it myself... I did not wish
them dead. I did not wish them in jail. If I had to, I could take their four little children - they
each had two - and I could raise those children as if they were my own and I could love them... I
believe the Lord meant what he said, and I try to live according to the way I've been taught."
The church's love is progressively shaped by Christ and distilled of all corrupting naïveté,
bitterness, and cynicism. As this happens, we come to realize that, finally, we do not interpret
1 John. It interprets us.