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LOVE ONE ANOTHER

Exploring the essence of God in love as the core of Christianity, reflecting on practical self-sacrificing agape love and dispelling misconceptions about love based on biblical wisdom.

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LOVE ONE ANOTHER

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  1. LOVE ONE ANOTHER 1 John 4:7-12

  2. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is 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. 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. 1 John 4:7-12

  3. I was giving it some serious thought, “What should my last sermon be about?” • First I thought, “The Gospel.” • I also considered the farewell addresses of Moses, Joshua and David. • But then perhaps the Spirit steered me in the direction of the heart of Christianity and the essence of God: love. • Rightly understood, love makes the world go round! No greater topic!

  4. Minister George Crane counseled a wife who was full of hatred and bitterness toward her husband. • He advised her to go home and make every effort at all times to be kind, show appreci-ation, consideration and admiration for him for two months and then drop the bomb. • “Sounds good”, she said and went home. • She carried out the minister’s advice almost perfectly for nine weeks and then Mr. Crane called her. A little reverse psychology.

  5. "Do not waste your time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less." Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis

  6. Agape love is not sensual passion or eroticism. • Agape love is not an emotion or infatuation. • Agape love is not the natural affection for family. • Agape love is not self-serving. • Love in the New Testament is a practical self-sacrificing action as seen in Jesus’ life and death. (But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8) What love is not—some common misunderstandings

  7. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a So what is love (as God practices it himself)?

  8. After weeks of hard labor on the railroad, the Scottish POWs had become harsh and hostile. • One day a shovel was missing. The Japanese officer lined up the prisoners and threatened them with death unless the shovel was found. After a long pause, a man stepped forward. The officer beat him to death with a shovel. • A recount of the shovels was made and none was missing. • From that day on the POWs treated each other like brothers. Ernest Gordon, Miracle on the River Kwai

  9. You’ve heard “God loves you!” for 16 years; surely we have something to build on when I say, “Love one another.” • Love one another with a self-effacing love. • Not loving has grave consequences. If you don’t love each other, you don’t know God. • “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.” 1 J 5:9 Love is the greatest motivator—bar none.

  10. Love one another. Why? • Because people are not blind. • Those who have been searching for God will find Him here, among us. • “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” 1 J 4:12 • God made us to be like Him, we lost that, now we can become like Him again through Christ. What’s the greatest church-building principle ever?

  11. So do you see God here? Do you want to become like Him? Does sacrificial love mean anything to you?

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