Certain Eternity Part 37 – Love in Order
1 John 4:10, 19 August, 10 2025
Introduction
1 John 4:7-21 “7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and
whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not
love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was
made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we
might live through him. 10 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. 11 Beloved, if God
so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if
we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.13 By this
we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the
Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God
abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the
love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God,
and God abides in him. 17 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.
18 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. 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.”
[Slide with other sermons] we have already studied in depth most of the topics
touched on in these verses.
Today, focusing on the order of love….we’ve been talking a lot about love, but for
the first time John makes some profound statements here about the order of love
Baking example: what are the ingredients for a chocolate chip cookie: eggs
chocolate, flour, butter, vanilla, baking soda salt, and sugar
o Order:
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time.
Mix in vanilla.
Whisk dry ingredients separately (flour, baking soda, salt).
Gradually add dry to wet.
Fold in chocolate chips.
o What Happens If You Mix Out of Order?
Adding eggs before creaming butter and sugar: You lose the aeration
that gives cookies lift.
Skipping dry ingredient pre-mixing: Baking soda or salt may clump,
leading to uneven rise or salty pockets.
Dumping everything at once: You risk overmixing, which activates
gluten and makes cookies tough.
PEMDAS example (Show just tope equation at first, then reveal lower breakdown
in slide): https://www.pngwing.com/es/free-png-nxesh
o
o Proper order: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, Addition
and Subtraction
2 parts today: 1) understanding the order of love and 2) applying the order of love
Understanding the Order of Love
“Love” (Gk. agape) unconditional, self-sacrificial action of always seeking the
best for another
o Biblically refers to a core characteristic of who God is (future sermon).
Agape may involve emotion, but it must always involve action. Agape is
unrestricted, unrestrained, and unconditional – it is not earned or merited –
it is simple given or “bestowed”.
1 John 3:1 “See what kind of love the Father has given to us…”
o We have already studied the fact that God has freely given us His love
(part 25 of series)…today, John clarifies the order in which that love is
freely given
This is a critical truth for John to express because – remember the
proto-Gnostics seeking secret knowledge to be worthy of
exultation/enlightenment/godhood – the spiritual and religious culture
all around them was one of human achievement….we must work or
earn our way to God….John destroys this thought
1 John 4:10, 19 “10 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….19 We love because he
first loved us.”
o Profound truth is set forth in v10: God loves us before we love Him
o More profound still v19….we can only love because God loves us. Put
differently, we cannot love unless we know God’s love
C H Spurgeon “Jesus loved you when you lived carelessly, when you neglected
his Word, when the knee was unbent in prayer. Ah! He loved some of you when
you were in the dancing saloon, when you were in the playhouse, ay, even when
you were in the brothel. He loved you when you were at hell’s gate, and drank
damnation at every draught. He loved you when you could not have been worse
or further from him than you were. Marvellous, O Christ, is thy strange love! …
Every man that ever was saved had to come to God not as a lover of God, but as
a sinner, and then believe in God’s love to him as a sinner.”
o It is because of God’s love that He has sent His son Jesus to satisfy the
wrath of the punishment we deserve (propitiation) and to pay the penalty
for debt that we could never pay (atonement)
Our acceptance of that love through trusting in the truth of God’s
promises to us in Jesus is the essence of faith. We see God’s love for
us and by faith confess our need to be loved by God first – that we
could never be worthy of love on our own – and be made right by
Jesus, forgiven of our sin. Because we trust in accept God’s love for
us (exercise faith by the grace of God), we now can begin to love like
God loves….not superficially, like the world, but unconditionally, self-
sacrificially just like our God.
C H Spurgeon “I have sometimes noticed that, in addressing
Sunday-school children, it is not uncommon to tell them that the
way to be saved is to love Jesus, which is not true. The way to
be saved for man, woman, or child is to trust Jesus for the
pardon of sin, and then, trusting Jesus, love comes as a fruit.
Love is by no means the root. Faith alone occupies that place.
… Love believed is the mother of love returned.”
God loves me > I love God > [both of next simultaneously]
o > I love myself (because of my identity in Christ)
o > I love others (because God loves them and I want to be like and serve
my God, so I too will love others)
o Alexander Maclaren “Here we have the ultimate word as to our religion. A
simple trust in the love of God, as manifested in Jesus Christ, our Lord, is
the only thing which will so deal with man’s natural self-regard and desire to
make himself his own object and centre, as to substitute for that the
victorious love of God. If we love Him, it will be the motive power and spring
of all manner of obedience and glad services. St. Augustine’s paradox,
rightly understood, is a magnificent truth, ‘Love! and do what you will’.”
Applying the Order of Love
God alone makes us lovable – apart from God, we are undeserving of love
because our heart is wicked and hostile to God (and others)….we are only selfish
o C H Spurgeon “The reason for our love is found in free grace. God first
loved us, and now we must love him; we cannot help it. It sometimes
seems too much for a poor sinner to talk about loving God. If an emmet
[ant] or a snail were to say that it loved a queen, you would think it strange,
that it should look so high for an object of affection; but there is no distance
between an insect and a man compared with the distance between man
and God. Yet love doth fling a flying bridge from our manhood up to his
Godhead. “We love him, because he first loved us.” If he could come down
to us, we can go up to him. If his love could come down to such unworthy
creatures as we are, then our poor love can find wings with which to mount
up to him.”
Our spiritual identity comes from knowing we are loved
o Converse – if we struggle with our identity/knowing ourselves, the heart of
that is that we are struggling with accepting/understanding God’s love
God’s love is not conditional, not selfish, not chiefly emotional or
intellectual
Our ability to love is directly correlated with our relationship to God
o We only grow in love as we grow in knowing and walking with God
C H Spurgeon “Now remember, we never make ourselves love
Christ more by flogging ourselves for not loving him more. We come
to love those better whom we love by knowing them better … If you
want to love Christ more, think more of him, think more of what you
have received from him.”
o Any change in order results in false love
Yourself first – hedonism, narcissism, pride, “earning” love
Others first – same as above, even more legalistic and conditional
o C H Spurgeon “Yet we must not try to make ourselves love our Lord, but
look to Christ’s love first, for his love to us will beget in us love to him. I
know that some of you are greatly distressed because you cannot love
Christ as much as you would like to do, and you keep on fretting because it
is so. Now, just forget your own love to him, and think of his great love to
you; and then, immediately, your love will come to something more like that
which you would desire it to be.”
Faith – in one sense – is accepting God’s love for you….no true faith without
receiving God’s love
o Converse – you don’t really have a true understanding of faith if you don’t
accept God’s love for you – at best legalistic and works based
understanding of salvation
Our love of others remains rooted in our love for God because we are loved by
God
o We are all image bearers of God and all have potential to be children of
God….therefore we love them as God loves them as an act of loving
worship of our God because of who He is and His love for us
o Oswald Chambers “If what we call love doesn’t take us beyond ourselves,
it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as
cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have
missed the true meaning. This may describe affection and it may bring us a
warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love.”
o John Piper “Brothers and sisters, one of the main reasons why so many
professing Christians have little confidence with God and little boldness
with men is that their lives are not devoted in love to the salvation of the
lost and to the glory of God, but instead are devoted (often by sheer
default) to providing earthly security and comfort for themselves and their
families. When we try to say that we are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, and
yet we do not devote our lives to the eternal good of other people, there is
a deep contradiction within that gnaws away at our souls and dissolves our
confidence and leaves us feeling weak and inauthentic.” ….i.e.
fearing…next sermon
No fear in love (next sermon, v17-18)
Conclusion
Order matters…press into God’ love for you….that you may learn to love God,
love yourself, and love others
Amen. Amen.