Love One Another

Love One Another

Question of the day:  When was the first time you thought you understood what love was?

This week we are going to finish up chapter 4.  

READ: 1 John 4: 7-21

God’s Love and Ours

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

1. Verse 7 and 8

"Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."  This quote has been running over and over again in my head this week.  After all, how can this be.  I think first of my atheist sister in law who spends most of her life helping those in need and "loving" those around her.  She is one of the most loving person I have ever known and is a staunch atheist.  Is she born of God and knows God?  Or is she not loving? 

On the flip side, there are many life long Christians who are dedicated to God, who were or are far from loving.

What to do with this?

Usually when I am stumped with a question I find it helpful to keep reading.  

Let's read through verse 12.

2. "This is love: not that we love God, but that He loved us..."

What does this mean?

Is it possible to think too much about how we feel about God or our love for God?

Why was John writing this?

What is our part in this great love if not our love for God?

3. "since God so loved us we ought also to love one another..."

So this great Love and our part in this Gospel or good news is to love one another?

When children are little sharing is something that they just can't do.  Developmentally it isn't possible for them to really share.  I remember a time when Anna had just learned what sharing was and would sometimes begrudgingly and other times enthusiastically share with her siblings.  Sarah and Andrew had not reached that level of maturity yet.  They would accept her gifts and then just cling to them, refusing to share. One time Sarah was loaded with toys, so much that she couldn't carry them all, but was completely unwilling to share even one little toy.  The toys were so many that she had to just sit down and  couldn't play with any of them because they were just too many.  

Is that what we sometimes do with the great love that God has lavished on us?

Do we hord His love, grace, forgiveness?

4. "and His love is made complete in us." 

This word complete is interesting.  teteleiomene: to bring to an end, to complete, perfect

Now if you remember John tells us in 1 John 1:4 that " We write this to make our joy complete."  The word used there is - peplērōmenē,: to make full, to complete

This is a subtle difference but I found it interesting.  

Why is this interesting.  pepleromene or to make full joy is to bring joy to capacity. There is nothing that brings more joy.   So for us to share Jesus with others, to proclaim what he has done, will make our joy complete, or fill us up with joy.  

However when he writes of God's love being made teteleiomene (bringing to an end or to complete to make perfect.) in us that means something quite different.  

What does this mean?

John is highlighting the Gospel.  The complete gospel.  

1. God is love, he sent his son to die for us.

2. His love, and grace is a free gift. It is His great love poured out on us.

3. When we KNOW his great love, when we have experienced His great love then we share it. 

4. In sharing/demonstrating His great love, His great amazing love is teteleiomene in us. 

The beauty of this is that it never ends.

Because His love is then shared and starts this beautiful process in someone else.  

It isn't made complete in us until we start sharing His love with others. 

The Gospel isn't complete without the transformation, the living and sharing part of LOVE.  

The good news, the Gospel is that God loves us so much He sent his son to die for us, so that we might have eternal life, and that eternal life, that knowing, that confidence, experiencing that LOVE, gives us a confidence and transforms us so that we can in turn love those around us, spreading the Gospel.  Spreading the LOVE of God.

If we are like Sarah at a young age where we just sit in His love and grace, then His love isn't made complete.  It isn't perfected, it isn't done.  The Gospel isn't done until we love one another. 

When I think of Sarah sitting on the floor covered in her toys and completely miserable as she was unable to play, yet unable to share it makes this so clear. 

The Gospel is not this small singular gift wrapped in a package that we open and then carry with us, and we never let go of.  It is so all consuming, so much, it is lavished on us, poured over us, it is so much and it is only completed when we are willing to love each other. 

5. "This is how we know..."

How do we know?

6. "There is no fear in love...."

We could spend an entire lesson on this verse.  Perfect love casts out fear.  I believe this is one of those texts that we put on mugs and t shirts and posters and have rarely if ever understood the context.  I do think it works outside of the context, but the context makes it even more rich.  

What is the context?

What is John saying here about fear?

Do we evangelize from a place of fear?

Do we nurture and train up our children from a place of fear?

A professor from a Christian (not Adventist) university asked a question in his class.  They were to simply write down on a piece of paper, without their name, if they were Christian because of the fear of hell or not going to heaven, or if they were Christians because of their love for God.  About 90 percent year after year said it was because of fear.  

What about you?

Why is fear so detrimental?

Why not fear?

When raising my children I was thrilled when they had a little fear! 

I remember a conversation with my brother about a huge issue in his life.  I will never forget this statement, "What if I have it wrong, I don't want to loose my Salvation."

What God did for us in sending his son, casts out fear.  It replaces that fear with His great, perfect love and that love and confidence makes it possible for us to love one another!

7. "He has given us this command..."

This is not just a call or a natural result but a command that we love one another.  

At the beginning of this lesson I talked about my sister in law who loves and serves and yet is an atheist.  

I want to make it clear, there are lots of people who love and serve who don't acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.  My sister in law is an amazing woman and I love her. 

As Christians how important that we obey this command!  When we love because of the love that God has for us, when we love because of the transformation, because we are living in Him, that love is LOVE!  That love is teteleiomene.  It is complete.  It is a love that shows God to others.  That is how we are like Jesus.  When people knew Jesus they knew God.  When we love with a love that is a result of His great love for us, that love helps others see God.  It is a love that keeps going, a love that spreads, a love that transforms, a love that is complete. 

If we aren't loving like that, then the love of those who don't know Christ becomes all the world knows.  Worst yet when we claim to love and don't, what damage we do?

I was having a conversation with my brother yesterday.  He is a Psychiatrist working in a homeless shelter in Harlem.  It is a shelter for 18-30 year olds.  He told me about a person who was hopping in and out of cars from the age of 11.  He said, that this person had been so neglected and abused, sexually and physically their whole life that the "love and caring" from their John is what made them willing to hop in and out of cars starting at 11.  This made me sick! Sick! Sick, that any 11 year old would feel love or think that a John loved them.  How blind this poor soul is to what love is!  

If we as Christians don't love, because God loved us, how will they know what love is?

KNOW LOVE!

LIVE LOVE!

SHARE LOVE!!!!

Why?  Because God is LOVE!