Growth Group: 1 John 4:15-21 (Jay)

INTRO: Learn to love like God loves. Don’t be ashamed to love others like how he loves.

Q: How has your understanding about love evolved over the years?

1 John 4:15-21 “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

True love for God

1 John 4:15 “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”

Confess = public declaration and brought on by some sort of pressure

You are deeply convinced that you love Jesus and nothing can tear you from that

Remember: 1 John 4:2 “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,”

It is so important that we confess he came in the flesh as a human being to be able to pay for the human sins. The God element of Him allows him to cover infinite sin.

Son of God = God. We are confessing that Jesus (Jehovah saves) is God as well.

The result: God abides in Him and he in God = salvation from sin.

Marriage is the picture of being one with a being…for us we are ONE with GOD. Christ and the church.

Hebrews 13:5 “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

We tend to trust money more than God.

Money will go away, but God will never go away.

Psalm 125:1 “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.”

INTRO Part 2: What are the pieces (aspects, attributes) of love that come into play with love and God, and then how do we turn that around and love other people, even non-Christians.

Number 1: 1 John 4:15

Confession exposes the true nature of your relationship with God (review from v 15).

Number 2: 1 John 4:16 “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

We have confessed it, and we believe in the love God had for us (because of what he did for us).

What we believe and why we believe is God’s sacrifice of His Son for our sin but also the Holy Spirit given to use makes us remember.

We are experiencing it. It is experiential because it’s a relationship, but it is also based on knowledge.

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

What matters is knowing Christ.

Number 3: 1 John 4:17 “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.”

Belief is the direct continuing result of the love of God abiding in you.

Believers have confidence in God’s love.

God loves us, just as he loves his Son - because as he is so also are we in this world.

Present tense: the intensity of his love is the greatest even now, and forever.

Number 4: 1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

Romans 8:1-4 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

The Law itself cannot separate us from our sins. The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. Jesus sacrifice accomplished what the law could not. Christ makes you perfect.

But having the Holy Spirit seals our salvation and we are set free from the law of sin (the consequences of sin).

Perfect love (God’s love/what he did for us and to us) casts out fear.

Number 5: 1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.”

He initiated it, he formulated it, he did the work in us first.

Number 6: 1 John 4:20 “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

Hate of people is contrary to being a Christian.

It’s okay to have a restoration period (you may have to avoid them for a while), before full reconciliation.