Loving Brothers Seen & God Unseen | 1 John 4:20-21

Lord's Day: October 5, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: First John Topic: Love Scripture: 1 John 4:18–21; Isaiah 45:6–7; 46:9–11; Ephesians 2:3; 1:4–6; James 2:10–17; Galatians 6:10; 1 John 4:9–12; Mark 12:29–31; 1 Corinthians 12:31–13:13; 1 John 3:16

20If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. 1 John 4:20–21

• Conclusion to “The Other Love Chapter”

I. Loving and hating, without contradiction

II. Loving God and brother, without hypocrisy

• This passage gives us criteria for identifying hypocrisy, and helps us to love both God and brother in harmony: “If someone says…”
• Our vertical relationship with God necessarily affects all our horizontal relationships with our fellow man, especially with our brothers and sisters in the household of faith.

III. Who is harder to love? God? Or Christian brothers and sisters?

• Is there an order of loves (ordo amoris)? A priority of loves?
• To love God—also means that we love our fellow man, our brother, our neighbor, our enemy
• God often teaches us the positive doctrine (love) by also identifying, exposing, and refuting the opposite, the error.

IV. I have been preaching primarily about God’s love and defining His love

• Our perfect love is fundamentally an attitude and a commitment which expresses itself in action and obedience to God’s Word and Will

V. Compare 1 John 4:11–12

• Richard Lenski: “Agape is defined as the love of intelligence, of comprehension and understanding. It always has that meaning in the New Testament, most completely so here where it speaks of God’s love. Combined with this is purpose, a purpose that corresponds to the comprehension of the object…. Saving agape thus accompanies charis, compassion, and eleos, benevolence.”
• The entire law of God can be summarily comprehended in a single word—love.

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Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com