“Humans need to belong. We crave bonds and attachments, which is why we love clubs, teams, fraternities, family. Almost no one is a hermit. Even monks and friars belong to orders. But the tribal instinct is not just an instinct to belong. It is also an instinct to exclude.” —Amy Chua
Love is found…
1. In a
1 John 4:7-8 NIV
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Love is not a faucet to be turned on or off at will. God himself doesn’t just love me or you, he is love. He is creative will for all that is good. That is his identity, and explains why he loves individuals, even when he is not pleased with them. —Dallas Willard
Exodus 34:6-7 ESV
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Love = heb.
“Steadfast Love” (loyal love)
“Rugged Commitment”
1 John 4:9-10 NIV
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.
2. In
John 3:16 NIV
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
God’s matched the of His love.
“Our Christian Faith grows directly out of, and must directly express, the belief of that in Jesus the Messiah, the one true God has reveal himself to be, love incarnated.” —N.T. Wright
1 John 4:11-12 NIV
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
3. By Obeying His
1 John 4:12 NIV
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us
“Love incarnated must be the badge that the Christian community wears, the sign not only of who they are but of who their God is.” —N.T. Wright
John 13:34-35 NIV
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
The rule of love is not an optional extra. It is of the very essence of what we are about. —N.T. Wright
4. Making us
1 John 4:17-18 NIV
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. 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.
“Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy. I say again, fear is the great enemy of intimacy, but love is its true friend.” —Henri Nouwen, Lifesigns
“Fear isn’t one thing. Fear is a bunch of little things all stacked up to look seemingly powerful. And, as much as I hate to give fear the credit, it is powerful. It stops you from moving forward. It makes you act smaller. It keeps you from being here now. Fear is the thing that says, ‘Don’t go tonight. You don’t belong there.’ Fear is the whisper that says, ‘You? People don’t like you.’ Fear is a voice I easily become immune to, not even realizing it is there and talking to me. It says right in the Bible that God didn’t give me a spirit of fear and yet I take it with me on most mornings, the way you take your jacket for that October air.” —Hannah Brencher
Spiritual = Being formed into Christlikeness by God’s Spirit, for the sake of the world.
Our spiritual formation can be described as the process of from a life by fear to one by God’s (steadfast, rugged, loyal) love.
Rugged commitment is how God and our lives, communities, and .
Things to remember in the election season:
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- People are more than hashtags, parties, and camps. They are all wonderfully made in the image of God.
- Kindness is possible even when agreement is not.
- It is always possible to be “right,” but to love wrong.
- If you see any other group as an enemy, remember how Jesus said to treat our enemies.
- This election season will end shortly, but the effect of how we treat one another during it will be long-lasting.
“Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.” —M.L.K
Answer Key: Person; Hased; Action; action, volume; Command; Complete; formation; controlled, compelled; shapes, transforms, cultures