University of Mobile students heard from one of their own as Joe Stevens spoke about what love truly means while preaching out of 1 John 4:7–11 during a recent chapel service.
Stevens serves as instructional faculty of Bible Exposition at the university and pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Saraland, Alabama. In addition to these roles, he also serves as a hospice chaplain in Atmore, Alabama.
Stevens reminded students that because love comes from God and since He loved us first, His love compels us to love others.
‘Supernatural love’
“John bookends this passage with a command to love to love one another,” Stevens during the Sept. 30 service. “The idea is not for us to just simply tell people how much we love them, but the idea is to actually show love to other people. The kind of love that John expects or commands us to express not only to God but to each other is a divine love, a supernatural love, a godly love. It’s a love that is not found anywhere on this earth apart from Jesus Christ.”
Stevens also reminded students that this was the type of sacrificial and unconditional love that drove Jesus to the cross.
“This love is not motivated by anything else on this planet aside from the finished work of Christ on the cross,” Stevens said. “If Christ loved us so much to die for us, then is it so much to ask for us to live for others?”
Stevens emphasized that this passage teaches about love that we can all benefit from.
“Real, genuine, authentic, godly love is generated from God, defined and demonstrated at the cross by God and is perfected in and through God’s people,” Stevens explained.
Christ’s love was constantly on display for His disciples through His service and sacrifice to others, which demonstrates how we are to share His love with others, he noted.
“In the upper room, we see Jesus washing the feet of the disciples and telling the disciples how He has not come to be one to be served, but to serve and how He has come to give His life to be a ransom for many,” Stevens said. “We see in John 13:34–35 what constitutes a real disciple of Christ. That if you want to be marked as one who has the image of God and the likeness of Christ implanted on your life through and through, the world will be able to see you as one who follows Jesus by how you love one another.”
Stevens noted how John took Jesus’ teachings in John 13:34–35 and relocated them in 1 John 4:7–11.
“John tells us that if we claim to follow Jesus, and if we claim to be authentic disciples of Jesus Christ, that means we have a new nature and loving others should be a part of our nature,” Stevens said. “This is less of a command and more of a reminder of where you come from and to whom you belong. It’s very important to know where you come from.”
Invitation
Stevens extended an invitation to students while asking them if they know God and His love.
“If you claim to be born of God, you should be living in love,” Stevens said. “This is the same type of love that should be expressed in and through us towards others. Love gives and we should be ready to graciously give of ourselves as Christ has so graciously given Himself to us and for us.”
He added, “This kind of love didn’t wait for us to love first, but it loved us while we were hostile towards God, sitting in our sin and pursued us relentlessly until it caught us.”
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