1 John 4: Loved First, Free from Comparison

Introduction

Picture the plain of Dothan, about twenty kilometers north of Shechem. Ten brothers are tending their father's flocks there. In the distance runs the caravan road that leads to Egypt. At the end of the road a figure appears, too far away to make out his face, but close enough to recognize the colors of his tunic. Their father had that tunic made for only one of his sons: Joseph.

This is how Mounir Nosel opens his message "Loved First." What the brothers feel that day, he says, we have all felt at some point. It is a question we rarely ask out loud: "Am I loved? Am I loved as much as he is, as much as she is?" We count the messages we received on our birthday. We stumble on a photo of a dinner with friends we were not invited to. And sometimes it happens right here, in the Church.

The desire to be loved is not bad in itself: God created us to love and to be loved. What goes wrong is when other people's love becomes the condition for feeling like somebody. The thread running through the message is 1 John 4:19: "We love, because he first loved us."

Outline of the Message

1. At Dothan, the Tunic Turns a Brother into a Rival

The text does not say that Joseph had wronged his brothers. The verbs in Genesis 37:4 are different: "his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers," and "they hated him."
Jacob's preference for Joseph was well known and real. Was it fair? The preacher points out that this happens in our families too. When someone asks you which of your children is your favorite, "it's a trick question. Don't answer with a name."
Their wound was real. Their hatred was not justified. These brothers were loved too: if Joseph came to that field, it was because their father was worried about them. "Go now, see whether it is well with your brothers" (Genesis 37:14).
Joseph arrives carrying their father's love. But they do not see that love. They see only the tunic, the symbol of favoritism. That day, in the field, their brother became their target.

2. The Trap of Comparison

"It's terrible, but it's so human." Instead of rejoicing for someone, a little sentence rises up: "Why did she get that and not me?"
This reflex is learned early: in the family, in upbringing, then at school, with grades, rankings, the first and the last in the class. From the earliest grades, we notice that the top student seems to be the teacher's favorite.
The top of the class was already wearing an invisible tunic. We have grown up, but many people still operate on this tunic principle.
Here is the trap: "When I look at what the other person receives, I no longer see what I myself receive. And little by little, my own brother can become my rival."
This need to be loved sometimes pushes us to follow the crowd, to look for proof that we belong just to feel that we exist. John notes this among some religious leaders who believed in Jesus but stayed silent, fearing they would be put out of the synagogue: "for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God" (John 12:42-43).
To escape this trap, we would need someone who never needed to look at other people's tunics, someone who knows above all else that he is loved. That someone exists: Jesus.

3. Jesus Lives from the Father's Love

The preacher leaves Dothan for the banks of the Jordan. A crowd of ordinary people has come to be baptized by John. At the moment Jesus is baptized, the Father declares: "This is my beloved Son" (Matthew 3:17).
At that point, Jesus has not yet done anything in public. No miracles, no crowds around him, not yet the cross. The Son of God, who left the glory of heaven, lived thirty years of ordinary life in Nazareth, as a carpenter.
It is over this ordinary life that the Father says: "This is my beloved Son." Before the works, there is love.
Jesus does not need to earn the Father's love: he receives it and lives from it. "That's why he never looks at anyone's tunic."

4. God Sent His Beloved Son to Us

If we are honest, we look far more like Joseph's brothers than like the example of Jesus. How can the love Jesus received become ours?
Jacob sent his son to his brothers out of love for them. God did the same thing: he sent his beloved Son to us. And we did what the brothers did: we did not receive him.
That is precisely where God showed how far his love for us goes: "But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). The life of his own Son, in exchange for our salvation and our freedom: "Is there any greater gift than that? The answer is no."
Jesus had announced it: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Paul goes a little further: Christ died for us while we were still sinners, still jealous, still looking at other people's tunics. He did not wait for us to deserve his love; he gave it to us first.
On the third day, God raised him from the dead. The resurrection proves that the sacrifice was accepted, that forgiveness is real, and that Jesus is alive today.
Jesus is the beloved Son from all eternity, and in him we become children by adoption. What the Father said of Jesus at the Jordan, he says every day of all who put their faith in Christ: "my beloved child."

5. Loved First, with a Place for Everyone

The preacher quotes Bernard of Clairvaux, in the twelfth century, in his treatise on the love of God: "He loved us first, he so great, we so small, and so much and so freely."
First in time: before you were born, before the foundation of the world, God chose you personally in Christ (Ephesians 1:4).
First in intensity: no one will love you more than he does, "not even you yourself, surprisingly." He loves you unconditionally, just as you are, with your gifts, your strengths and your weaknesses. He does not love you for what you bring him.
So you do not need to be first in order to be loved, as at school or in the workplace. He is the one who loved you first, and the dynamic is reversed. The preacher even invites the congregation to turn to a neighbor and remind them that God loves them.
God will not rewrite your past, but he comes to fill in what was missing, because his love has no limit.
"In Jacob's house, there was only one tunic. But in the Father's house, there are many rooms" (John 14:2). Your place is the one he gave you. No one can steal it from you, not at work, not in your family, not in the Church.
We are sometimes ready to do a great deal to be accepted by a group or by a person. But even if not everyone welcomes you, your place does not depend on them. His love is enough for you to know who you are.
There is the reality we live: a friend's silence, a personal story, the reaction of a friend to whom we say we are Christian. We quickly draw conclusions: "I'm not that important," "I don't matter," "nobody loves me," and even "maybe God doesn't love me."
We must set the truth against that reality. Jesus says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), and the truth does not change: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
Paul affirms it: neither death nor life will be able to separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). "Be sure of it, be reassured, hold fast to this truth."

6. Free to Love and to Rejoice for Others

When this love becomes your starting point, you can sincerely congratulate the other person for what they receive, because nothing can uproot you.
John the Baptist lived this. His disciples come to him, worried: everyone is going to Jesus. "It's as if there were a John the Baptist booth and a Jesus booth." John could have compared himself. He answers, "He must increase, but I must decrease," and adds that his joy is complete (John 3:26-30).
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34), which is why Scripture tells us to guard our heart (Proverbs 4:23). In John the Baptist's heart, love had been planted, and that fruit gives glory to God.
An ordinary life is not a less-loved life. Even in sickness, suffering or sadness, you are just as loved by God. God loves ordinary people, equips them, and does extraordinary things through them.
Jesus sends us out with this commandment: "that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another" (John 13:34). On the train, at the office, outside the school gates, in your kitchen on a Tuesday evening: that is where he wants to love through you.

7. "Come Near to Me"

The preacher returns one last time to Joseph's brothers. Twenty-two years have passed. In Egypt, Joseph weeps so loudly that the Egyptians hear him. He says to them: "Come near to me, please. I am Joseph your brother" (Genesis 45:1-4).
Joseph does not take revenge. He no longer needs their love to know who he is. So he can love them first: "Otherwise, the door would not have opened."
What Joseph did for his brothers, Jesus did for us in a far more perfect way. The beloved Son, rejected by his own, became the one who saves them.
This very morning he says to us again: "Come near." We are invited to come to him, to acknowledge our jealousy and our envy of the other person's tunic, and to receive what he won for us through the cross and the resurrection: the name of God's beloved child.

Key Takeaways

The desire to be loved comes from God. It goes wrong when other people's love becomes the condition for feeling like somebody.
When I look at what the other person receives, I no longer see what I myself receive, and my brother becomes my rival.
At the Jordan, the Father calls Jesus "my beloved Son" before any miracle: before the works, there is love.
God loved us first, while we were still sinners. In Christ, he calls us his beloved children.
In the Father's house, there is not just one tunic: there is a place for everyone, and no one can take yours.

Personal Application

Which "tunic" are you looking at right now on a brother, a sister, a colleague or a friend?
In what situations does other people's approval become the condition for you to feel like somebody?
What conclusion have you drawn from a wound or a silence, and what truth from the Word can you set against it?
For whom could you sincerely rejoice this week, like John the Baptist before Jesus?
Where, in your ordinary daily life, does God want to love someone through you?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Joseph's brothers hate him?

According to Genesis 37:4, they saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him. Mounir Nosel stresses that the text does not say Joseph had done them any harm. Their wound was real, but their hatred was not justified: they were loved too, since Jacob was sending Joseph to check on them.

What does "he first loved us" mean in 1 John 4:19?

For Mounir Nosel, God is first in time: he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He is also first in intensity: no one will love you more than he does. He loves you as you are, expecting nothing in return, and he did not wait for you to deserve his love.

How can you escape the trap of comparison?

The preacher invites us to receive the Father's love first, like Jesus at the Jordan, declared the beloved Son before any miracle. When that love becomes your starting point, you no longer need to look at other people's tunics, and you can rejoice in what they receive, like John the Baptist.