June 23, 2024 | Pastor Joel Christiansen
Passage: 1 John 4:7
1 John 4:7 – “love one another.”
How do we know if someone is a believer and a follower of Jesus?
“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God. 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 him." 1 John 4:15
How do we know if someone is a believer and a follower of Jesus?
- Whoever declares that Jesus is the Son of God
- Whoever lives in love
“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 love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4:9,10
“God is love” not “Love is God”
God’s love requires nothing in return. God’s love is unconditional.
God’s love makes us secure.
“We will have confidence on the Day of Judgement … perfect loves drives out fear.” 1 John 4:17,18
“Dear friends (you who are loved), since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:11
“The Love of God” Frederick Lehman.
Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.
“As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is God’s steadfast, never-changing love for those who know him.” Psalm 103:11
“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19
Series Information
Have you ever heard someone take a quote completely out of context? Maybe it was from an interview or someone remembering a conversation. It can be so disheartening or even infuriating to see someone’s words used in a way that misrepresents their idea or position. Even worse, it can harm their reputation or hurt a good cause.
You may not realize it, but we can have a tendency to do the same things with God’s Words. Too often, we can take a perfectly good sounding verse, pluck it right from the chapter and use it in way that feels right, but points people further away from the Good News we have through Jesus. Even worse, we can use these verses in ways that can misrepresent God’s heart for His people, and even reinforce evil, brokenness, and sin.
In this series, we are going to place these verses back in their chapters, see the fullness of what they mean. We will discover how these fuller passages can actually bring us to a better understanding of God’s heart for us and how we can live more fully as His people in our church, families, and community.
