A Divided Culture

What is the Main Idea from our time together

If we want to love others the way Jesus does, we must obey His commandments.

Head Change: To know that obeying God’s Word is essential to following Jesus and showing his love to the people around us.

Heart Change: To feel love the way Jesus does for everyone we encounter.

Life Change: To actively love others—no matter who they are—and serve them by obeying God’s instructions to us in his Word.

Who is the most loving person you know? Spend a few minutes describing him or her to the group.

How did Bob summarize what Jesus is asking us to do?

What did Bob contrast Bible study with?

There’s a lot of conflict happening right now in our culture and it’s persistently beating us up. There’s division and anger and confusion, and it seems only to be getting worse.

To what degree have you sensed cultural conflicts affect your life? Do you feel “beat up” by our cultural divisions? In what ways?

Bob said we can’t fully understand how we’re doing until we realize how others experience us. When we begin to think beyond ourselves, we’ll ask ourselves and others different questions. Instead of “How’s life working for you?”, we’ll ask, “How is your life working for the people around you?”

How would you answer Bob’s question? For what reasons might the latter question be a better indicator of how you’re really doing?

Bob told the story about a time when he confronted the chaos of his friend’s diagnosis by anointing his friend with oil from a Burger King fryer. And though his story may have seemed a bit silly, he was adamant that his obedience in that situation didn’t only impact his friend but had a lasting impact on his own heart and faith.

Do you have any stories like Bob’s? If so, feel free to share it with the group. How did God use your obedience to accomplish his will in that situation? How did he use your obedience to change you?

Bob said we’re called to love people “with kindness and respect.” When we show kindness and respect to others, we pay them the dignity they deserve as God’s image bearers

What does it look like to love others with kindness and respect? How does it affect the people who receive it? Can you love others without kindness and respect? Why, or why not?

Bible Study

Bob homed in on two specific ideas: love and obedience. For our Bible exploration, we’ll see how these two ideas relate to each other. Read 1 John 2:1–6.

1 John 2:1–6 NKJV

1 My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. 3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. 6 He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

When we talk or think about obedience, we may do so in a way that leads to discouragement and shame. Because we will inevitably fail, we may perceive ourselves to be among the liars who don’t truly love God. But John starts our conversation about obedience with the gospel. In verses 1–2, John is trying to keep us from sin. But he reminds us that even if we do sin—and we will—Christ's sacrifice covers us and still loves us.

In what ways can we feel like our standing with God depends on how “good” we are or how much we do for God?

What would change if you truly believed that nothing you can do could make God love you any more or any less?

John wrote this letter to make sure his readers understood what it means to follow Jesus. And since we can get a bit off track from following Christ ourselves, we can easily apply John’s words in this passage to our lives.

How would you summarize verses 3–6 in your own words?

In what ways do you show your love for God by obeying him? What does it communicate about the depth of our love for God when we disobey him?

Love isn’t an add-on for us. It’s central to who we are and what we do as God’s people. It’s so central, in fact, that our love for one another will mark us as Jesus’s disciples.

Can other people tell that you’re a disciple of Jesus by the way you love them? Why, or why not?

What does it look like for us to make love a priority in everything we do?

LAST WORD Our culture is in conflict and, to some degree, we’re all bearing the brunt of it. Life can be chaotic, and it can beat us up, little by little. As followers of Jesus, we are commanded by God to acknowledge the chaos—both the anger and frustration around us and the anger and frustration inside of us—and engage it with love. How do we do that? By obeying the Word of God. The choice is before us today: Will we be doers of the Word or hearers only?

DEEPER WALK Meditate: Set aside fifteen minutes to meditate on John 13:34–35.

John 13:34–35 NKJV

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Read the passage 3–5 times slowly, running the words over in your mind and praying that God will apply his Word to your heart. Pray: Pray that God will make you a doer of his Word and not a hearer only. Pray for opportunities and for the power to obey God. Practice: Obey Jesus’s command to love one another by actively showing the love of God to one person this week—a person that’s been hard for you to love. Speak kindly to them when you encounter them, serve them when you can, and pray for them often. At the end of the week, take stock of how it went.