Know and Believe the Love of God
We Love Because He First Loved Us • Sermon • Submitted
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· 9 viewsan examination of the connection between experience and faith with God's love
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I) Come to know and believe
I) Come to know and believe
It is common to see two statements that are essentially synonymous to emphasize and confirm an important truth, as in Proverbs, but that is not a common trait of John’s writings
I think it is more likely that John is talking about the connection between evidence from experience and faith, which can occur in either order – ;
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Apostles believed in Jesus because of the evidence they experienced – – but also experienced evidence because of their faith – ,
Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”
Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”
II) Love that God has for us
II) Love that God has for us
This love is the primary truth on which this section of the epistle builds –
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
John brings this point to its conclusion that we (disciples) have accepted this as an unshakable truth – – as we find in many of the great epistles of doctrine – ;
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Scholars debate the preposition “for us”, “to us”, “in us”; but the primary point seems to emphasize the personal relationship God has with us, abiding/dwelling in us as we abide in Him
III) God is love
III) God is love
John restates his primary truth, as he has already proven it – vs.9-10
John makes the application that we must abide/live in love; this is not in the form of a command, but a conditional statement “if…then”
If one abides in love, then he abides in God; this is more than walking “with” God; perhaps best illustrated in marriage –
This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
God abides in him; which does not seem to be a personal indwelling, but in the same sense in which we abide in God
Concl: The truth of the love that God for us brings about a depth of relationship with God that cannot be comprehended by those outside of Christ. But as grow deeper in our knowledge and faith of God’s love, we share a mutual abiding with God in each other.