When John wrote his gospel, he used a fascinating title when speaking of himself. He called himself, often, the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23, 20:2, 21:7, 21:20).

It wasn't a statement of arrogance, as if John thought the other disciples were unloved. It was instead a profession of experience: John had felt the love of Christ. He knew Jesus loved him!

Can you imagine walking and living and spending time with Jesus, feeling His love for you? What would that love do to you? How would it shape you?

It made John say:

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, ESV)

I alluded to this in our last study of 1 John 4:7-12, where we looked at God as the origin of both truth and love. John knew this about God. He saw God as the great mountain from which flowed love for humanity. And he'd partaken of God's love through the life of Jesus.

And what did God's love do to John? It made him into a fearless man who loved God and others with the totality of his life. God's love rocked him to the core.

You see, for all John's exhortations to love one another, in his mind, it all begins with God. You cannot have a God who is love birth a people who don't love each other. Or who are afraid of Him. God's love makes us bold before God and loving towards others.

So, in 1 John 4:13-16, which we will take three weeks to study, John will teach us to:

1. Know the love of God (week 1).
2. Let God's love have its perfect work in us (week 2).
3. Agree with God about how love works (week 3).

Let's begin.

1. The Spirit Loves Us

13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit.

By This, We Know

We begin this section with another of John's by this we know statements, a phrase he uses six times in the letter (13). Here, he uses the phrase to point us back to the idea of 1 John 4:12 that God abides in His people (4:12). So he writes, we know that we abide in (God) and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit (13).

So, put succinctly, John is saying we know God is in us because He gave us His Holy Spirit.

And the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is great evidence of God's love for us. As many of you know, the Bible teaches that we become the Spirit's home at the moment of our conversion (Ephesians 1:13-14, 2 Corinthians 1:22).

Consider the radical nature of this truth:

"Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?" (1 Corinthians 6:19–20, ESV)

The Bible speaks of various temples and tabernacles. God gave Moses the plan for the first. Israel built it and used it during their wilderness wanderings and early years in Canaan. Solomon, David's son built the second. He gave the tabernacle permanency by building a massive stone (and other elements) temple. Other temples were built at the same sight after that one was destroyed. And God was said to have dwelt in each.

But now, in Christ, you and I are the new temples of the Holy Spirit. There is no earthly temple here on earth. God lives in us.

This is part of the reason you'll rarely hear me refer to our building as the church. I believe the church is people, and the building is our facility or campus, a place to use for God's glory when we gather.

And to John, this fact of the Spirit living in us is evidence of God's abiding love for us. He wants to make us into His home. God wants to abide in us, which is why He has given us of His Spirit (13). It is love that drove the Spirit to make us His home.

I don't know if you've ever had the experience of being "phubbed." The word is the combination of the word phone and snubbed. It happens when you are with someone or a group of people; rather than connect with you, they snub you with their phone. You've been phubbed.

It is so common in our modern era that it makes another experience stand out altogether. Instead of being phubbed, when someone looks you in the eye, asks you questions, and listens intently to your heart, it helps you know they want to have something to do with you!

John's idea is that the Spirit wants everything to do with us. He lives in us. He wants to know us. And for us to know Him.

2. The Father Loves Us

14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son...

But John knows the Father is also involved in our lives (14). He gave us the Spirit, but He also sent His Son (14). In so doing, God expressed His love for you.

Too often, believers have the wrong idea about the Father. They see Him as hesitant to love or forgive, perhaps because of the passages which teach us Jesus is our Advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). But verses like those aren't telling us there is a divergence of dispositions in the Trinity, but roles. The Son continually holds up our righteousness before the Father, and the Father continually celebrates it.

And He is the one who sent the Son. Yes, the Son volunteered Himself, but the Father had to send His Son. The Triune God is One. He worked from Himself to save us. When looking at Jesus, we are getting a glimpse into the heart of God.

"He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature..." (Hebrews 1:3, ESV)

Jesus' love is evidence of the Father's. John had seen and testified of the Father's partnership with the Son (14). His gospel (the book of John) often highlighted the fact Jesus was doing the work of the Father, executing His Father's will, always doing that which pleased the Father (John 8:28-29).

So Jesus' life and death was an outworking of the Father's heart. He wanted the cross. And why did the Father send His Son? John answers this question next.

3. The Son Loves Us

14b ...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.

Finally, after seeing the role of the Spirit and the Father, John tells us of the role of the Son. Jesus was sent to be the Savior of the world (14). To confess Jesus is the Son of God who came for us and died for us means you belong to God, and God belongs to you (15). He abides in you and you in Him (15).

Jesus loved us so much He saved us, becoming the Savior of the world there on the cross (14). The rest of the Bible is clear: He was saving us from our sin, which created an obstacle for God's love. Man and God were separated through sin, but Jesus made a way to repair the breach.

Through His cross, His sacrifice in our place, we can be reconciled to the God who made us. Agree with the cross. Believe in Jesus and what He did there. You will be saved.

Conclusion: Know the Trinitarian Love of 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.

So John says we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us (16). It is a robust love. The Spirit, Father, and Son -- The Triune God -- aims His perfect love at us.

This caused John to say, again, God is love (16). If someone abides in love, they abide in God, and God abides in him (16).

Think of our Pacific Ocean. If someone decides to swim in the ocean, they have to get in the water. If someone says, I am going to get in the water, they have to get in the ocean. You cannot have one without the other.

In other words, to swim in love is to swim in God. And to abide in God is to abide in love.

The full-blast of who He is -- Spirit, Father, and Son -- is aimed at us. Before the worlds were created, the Triune love of God found perfect expression within Himself. But, one day, God created humanity. He said:

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26, ESV)

God wanted people He created to experience Him, to bear His image, and know His love. And He is still working hard to do so. He wants people made in His image to know His love, to experience Him. He wants us to know His love for us.

A Process

John hints at this being a process. To know God's love takes time. In a sense, our lives are a constant discovery of His love. Because of this, John said, so we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us (16). Come to know. Come to believe. This is the language of process.

As a pastor, I am often honored to preside over the wedding of Christian couples. Such weddings are special, a celebration of love. After the wedding, though, the new couple enters into life together. Their marriage is meant to be an experience of the love they professed at their wedding.

So it is with us, the bride of Christ. At conversion, we were betrothed to Him. The cross shows us we are loved. But the duration of our lives, both now and eternally, will be an experience of His love.

And, once we receive that love, we must let it have its perfect work in us. Next week we will consider how...