Loving Like God's Children

Then last week we shared about what it means to “Know” God through Jesus Christ, mostly from chapter 2. I decided to use the infinitive form of the the verb in the title “To Know Him”. It is a goal for every one of us who are serious about our relationship with God. But I could have used the gerund form and said “Knowing God.”

>>>That’s just a little introduction into my next few weeks as we talk about . . .

The Gerunds of Being God’s Children

OK, so what’s a “gerund” anyway?

A gerund is defined as a verb ending in “ing” as used as a noun.

Over the next several weeks we will look some of what the results of God’s Love end grace to us in some “Gerund” words. “Loving”, “Believing,” “Behaving”, are my “gerunds” for the next few weeks. Verbs meaning action, made into nouns —the things— that describe what we should strive for because getting good at these things only happen because they are the results of God’s Love through Jesus Christ.

>>>I know you weren’t expecting a grammar lesson today, but I made it short, just a couple of minutes. I thought, maybe, knowing that our Christian lives should be about qualities of life that come from what we do. So we will get into today’s gerund, . . .

Loving Like God’s Children

I mentioned last week that the main themes of 1 John are more than just “love,” in fact, God tops the list of the themes here. And last week we paid attention to one of the other top themes of knowing God. As we go further into this letter from John the Apostle, it’s time we talk about love in the flow of the letter.

Now, I do hope that you have started to read this whole letter at least every week. I doesn’t take too long. It’s only about 4 pages, and not hard to read. Give yourself the context of the whole letter so these main themes will soak in.

Loving Like God’s Children means that is one of the things we are about doing. Loving describes the action of Love. Of course, we love because God first loved us. That’s in 1 John 4:19. God loves us too much to leave us in our sin which cannot survive in the presence of His holiness. And if we are sinners by practice, not just by our un-redeemed nature, then we are outside the family of God.

So, on the Cross, the death of Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for our sins gives us the opportunity to be fully forgiven in His name. And after the Resurrection, we are invited to live in the new reality of becoming more like Jesus, the Son of God, as the Children of God.

>>>The premise for living out the qualities of God’s children is . . .

1 John 3:1 CSB

1 See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him.

See how great is the love we have from the Father! In Christ, we are called God’s children because, in Christ, we ARE God’s Children. And that makes us foreigners in the world. According to many verses in the New Testament, the world of sin in which we live just doesn’t know how to handle the Children of the God who Reveals Himself that the world just doesn’t know.

So, as God’s Children, lets look at what loving means for us.

>>>This begins with John reminding us that he is putting before us a commandment that Jesus has already given his disciples. So we begin with . . .

Living in the Light of the Lord’s Commandment

You remember, of course, that I find great hope for being what God wants, and strength to do it, in the 3 commandments of Christ.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Matthew 22:37, Luke 10:27

Love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:39

Love one another as Christ has loved you. John 13:34

>>>So John is able to remind us that these three, but specially the last two commandments that have to do with how we relate to others in the world should define what we are about.

1 John 2:7 CSB

7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old command that you have had from the beginning. The old command is the word you have heard.

John calls us “dear friends”, or “beloved” in many English translations. He is connecting us with himself as the children of God. It is lived out in how we follow the Lord’s commands.

The Same Old Thing Is New in Christ

>>> The Old Command, well, the one since the beginning of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, is nothing new but everything about about what it looks like in us is new because of what Christ is doing inside:

1 John 2:8 CSB

8 Yet I am writing you a new command, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

>>>

The Dark Side Shows Itself in Hate

1 John 2:9 CSB

9 The one who says he is in the light but hates his brother or sister is in the darkness until now.

>>>

The Bright Side Shows Itself in Love

1 John 2:10 CSB

10 The one who loves his brother or sister remains in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

Loving One Another Is the Standard

1 John 3:11 CSB

11 For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another,

No Surprises Here—Only Evidence of Life

1 John 3:13–14 ESV

13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

Love’s Opposite Is An Ugly Comparison

1 John 3:12 CSB

12 unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.

1 John 3:15 ESV

15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

How Far Should Love Go?

1 John 3:16 CSB

16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Loving Isn’t Just Not Hating

1 John 3:17–18 CSB

17 If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.

Loving Comes From Being Reborn

1 John 4:7–8 CSB

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Jesus Is the Revelation of God’s Love

1 John 4:9–10 CSB

9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Love doesn’t originate in us, it comes from God. Love doesn’t happen on earth because we loved God, it happens because we are forgiven in Christ.

Loving Is What God’s Children Must Do

1 John 4:11–12 CSB

11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.

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