This is Love: Beloved - Darren Rowse
This week at One Church, Darren Rowse opened our Advent series This Is Love by exploring one of the most profound declarations in Scripture: “God is love.” Our passage, 1 John 4:7–12, paints a picture of love that is far bigger, deeper, and more transformative than anything we experience on our own.
In this post, we’ll unpack the message, explore how God defines love, and look at what it means for us today.
“Beloved… God Is Love.” (1 John 4:7–12)
John begins with a simple invitation: “Let us love one another.” But he doesn’t leave us guessing about what love is or where it comes from. He tells us plainly, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
John doesn’t define love by telling us to look inward or by pointing us to our own experiences of affection, romance, or sentimentality. Instead, he directs us to God Himself—the source of love. And to make sure we see what love truly looks like, John gives us a picture:
“This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.”
This is not love as a feeling. This is love in action. This is love on mission.
A Fresh Way of Seeing Love
John uses the word agape 27 times in this short section. Agape isn’t about warm feelings—it’s love expressed through action, sacrifice, and intention.
Darren described it like this:
“When God wants to define love, He didn’t write a definition. He sent a Person.”
This is the centre of John’s message. God doesn’t simply feel love—He embodies it. Love is His very essence. And because God is love, we are invited to see ourselves—and one another—through this lens.
Your True Name: Beloved
John repeatedly calls his readers beloved. It’s not a filler word or a Christian cliché. It’s an identity statement.
And Darren suggested that beloved is really the family name of all who follow Jesus.
Just as the Father called Jesus “My beloved Son” in Mark 1:11 at his baptism, John now extends this name to every Christian.
Why God’s Love IS So Different
Many of us struggle to receive God’s love because we instinctively filter it through our human experiences. We’ve all known imperfect love—conditional love, transactional love, love that comes and goes depending on mood or circumstance.
But God’s love doesn’t work that way.
1. God’s Love Is More Than a Feeling
Our culture often treats love as something that happens to us—something we “fall into.” But God’s love is active. Purposeful. Intentional.
Darren shared it this way:
“God doesn’t have a crush on you. He doesn’t just feel something—He took action.”
He sent His Son. Love moved toward us.
2. God’s Love Isn’t Transactional
We often love because of what someone gives us in return. But God loved us first—long before we responded.
He doesn’t love us because we’re lovable. He loves us because He is love.
Tim Keller’s words capture it well:
“God doesn’t love you because you’re serviceable.
He loves you simply because He loves you.”
This kind of love is secure. It can’t be lost.
3. God’s Love Doesn’t Hold Back
Human love often hesitates. We fear being hurt or rejected.
But God ran straight into the pain.
He gave His one and only Son—unique, irreplaceable, His very self.
Brennan Manning describes this as “the ferocious love of God”—single-minded, unguarded, unstoppable.
This is the love that came at Christmas. Not a sentimental Hallmark moment… But a rescue mission.
The earliest nativity art pictured Jesus wrapped like a body prepared for burial—because the cradle and the cross cannot be separated. He came not simply to be born but to lay down His life. And He did it because you are beloved.
1 John 4 shows us a love that is deeper, freer, and more powerful than anything we can imagine.
A love that acts.
A love that gives.
A love that doesn’t hold back.
A love that names you Beloved.
One Way to Live It Out This Week
When you wake up each morning, take 10 seconds and say out loud:
“I am God’s beloved.”
Let this truth challenge your fears, shape your decisions, and soften your interactions with others.
A Short Prayer
Lord, thank you that Your love is more than a feeling—
it’s a gift, a mission, and a sacrifice.
Help me to believe that I am truly Your beloved.
Let Your love reshape how I see myself and how I love the people around me.
Fill me with a fresh awareness of Your presence this week.
Amen.
Reflection & Discussion Questions
Personal Reflection Questions (2–3)
What word or identity do you most often put on your “name tag”? How does it compare with God calling you “Beloved”?
Which part of God’s love do you struggle most to believe—its action, its selflessness, or its unguarded generosity?
How might seeing Christmas as a “rescue mission” change the way you experience this season?
Small Group Discussion Questions (7–8)
When you hear the word “love,” what first comes to mind? Why?
John says, “God is love.” What do you think he means by that, and what doesn’t he mean?
Which of the three differences Darren highlighted (love as action, not transactional, holding nothing back) resonated most with you?
Why do you think many of us find it easier to believe God loves others but struggle to believe He loves us?
What do you think it means to define yourself radically as “beloved by God”?
How does seeing the Christmas story as a rescue mission (rather than a sentimental moment) deepen your understanding of Jesus’ birth?
In what practical ways could we reflect God’s agape love toward one another this Advent season?
Spend time praying for one another, specifically that each person would grasp “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:18).