Bible Study - No Doubt (5) - Sure of GOD'S Love - 1 John 4:7-13 - October 3, 2021

 Bible Study – No Doubt (5) – Sure of GOD’S Love – October 3, 2021

This is lesson five (5) in our series entitled, “No Doubt: Six Things We Can Know for Sure.”

Our focus scripture is 1 John 4:7-13.

GOD’S love is seen when we love others as HE has loved us.

How far back does the love of GOD extend for each person who has ever lived upon earth or will ever live upon earth? Let’s consider Ephesians 1:3-4: ³ Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. ⁴ For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.^[c]

GOD chose every person who will ever be to be HIS. The question is, do we choose HIM by placing our faith in JESUS WHO paid for our sins, in full, by the giving of HIS sinless physical life and the shedding of HIS sinless blood?

We read in John 17:4-5: ⁴ I (JESUS) have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. ⁵ Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed.

The love of GOD is boundless but conditional. Let’s explore!

In our focus scripture, the Apostle John was explaining the love GOD has for each of us.

Let’s read 1 John 4:7-10: Knowing God through Love

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. ⁹ God’s love was revealed among us^[b] 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^[c] for our sins. 

The Apostle John explains that those who have placed their faith in JESUS and HIS passion have been born Spiritually. A person has to be born physically before he or she can be born Spiritually. JESUS told Nicodemus in John 3:1-6: There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ² This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”

³ Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again,^[a] he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

⁴ “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 

The miracle of Spiritual birth is eternal and comes about through a person’s faith in JESUS and the atoning sacrifice of JESUS.

GOD is love and HIS Spirit unites with our human spirit. The person becomes GOD’S Child and HIS Holy DNA is part of every Spiritually born person. The foundation of the Spirit-born person is love and upon that foundation we build our relationship with GOD through faith in JESUS. GOD is love and that is what compels HIM to love all people; those who have received JESUS as their Savior and those who are yet to receive JESUS as their Savior.

How do we know that GOD loves us? The answer is:

⁹ God’s love was revealed among us^[b] 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^[c] for our sins. 

JESUS gave HIS physical life just for you and me. How can that be? GOD made every person with the freedom to choose. HIS desire was for all to choose JESUS but it was not mandatory. GOD does all HE can to guide us to that which is the absolute best for us and that is accepting JESUS as our Savior, step one and making JESUS the LORD of our lives, step two.

Why did GOD and JESUS do this? Out of LOVE for each of us!

The Apostle Paul tried to capture this in Ephesians 3:14-19:

¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father^[c] 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. ¹⁶ I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, ¹⁷ and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, ¹⁹ and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Our love of GOD is key to living the victorious life upon earth.

Let’s read our scripture in 1 John 4:9-10:

⁹ God’s love was revealed among us^[b] 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^[c] for our sins. 

GOD reaches out to all people upon earth with the Good News of Salvation from the consequence of sin, which is eternal death. GOD’S gift is redemption from eternal death to eternal life through HIS One and Only SON JESUS. As with any gift, what do you have to do? Either receive it or reject it. The choice is yours.

Let’s read 1 John 4:11-13:

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^[d] us and his love is made complete in us. ¹³ This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 

“If” can be read as “since.” Since GOD loved us, then ---. Why is it hard for us, who know the truth, to find it hard to follow what the Apostle John is telling us e.g. “We also must love one another.” I think it is because we do not know and comprehend the depth of GOD’S love.

Ask GOD to envelop/wrap/bundle you with HIS love. We, who know the truth, often do not fully comprehend the love of GOD. We allow the things of the world to divert us from the love that GOD has for us. Us being those who are Spirit-born. We know the fundamentals but have not opened ourselves up to GOD’S overwhelming love. I have to admit, I had not thought of GOD’S love in the depth that I have until preparing for this study. It is overwhelming. It takes your breath away.

Let’s read 1 John 4:14-18:

¹⁴ And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. ¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. ¹⁶ And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.

Spirit-born people walk in the light and come to know without question the love that GOD has for us.

Why does GOD desire for HIS Spirit-born Children to have this knowledge? Let’s read verses 17-18 --

¹⁷ In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment.^[e] So the one who fears is not complete in love. 

Did Daniel have this love for GOD when he was in the lions’ den? I think so.

JESUS said in John 5:24 - ²⁴ “Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.

That is why Spirit-born people will have confidence in the day of judgment. Spirit-born people are complete in JESUS and HIS atonement for sin.

It is the love of GOD which allowed HIS only begotten SON to come to earth and live as 100% human, subject to sin, with the ability to sin, but choosing to remain sinless in order to pay, in full, for sin. Now that is love!!!

Let’s read 1 John 4:19-21:

¹⁹ We love^[f] because he first loved us. ²⁰ If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.^[g] 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

When we, as humans, understand the love that GOD and JESUS have for us, that in-turn, is our foundation upon which we, who have placed our faith in JESUS, to build upon and to love others without them having to love us back. It is a SPIRITUAL growth process and an abiding.

As Spirit-born people, we have a command from GOD as written in verse 21 - ²¹ And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

We think that is impossible! Yes, it is without the indwelling Holy Spirit. As Spirit-born people embrace the fullness of JESUS and HIS love that HE has for us, only then do we see others through HIS eyes. We are to love our brother or sister in CHRIST. Why? It is because we have the same FATHER, GOD. GOD’S divine sperm has conceived us through the miracle of Spiritual birth.

Does this mean it doesn’t matter about those not related to us through Spiritual Birth? They are fellow human beings bound for eternal punishment. The love of GOD reached each of us who know the truth and we chose JESUS to be our Savior and GOD commissions the Spirit-born to tell others about JESUS.

First Corinthians 6:19 - ¹⁹ Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. Why?

First Corinthians 6:20 - ²⁰ for you were bought at a price. So, glorify God with your body.^[e]

Our salvation cost JESUS HIS sinless life to pay for our sins, in full.

When we receive JESUS as our Savior, we also receive the Holy Spirit. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we also receive the fruit of the Holy Spirit as recorded in Galatians 5:22-23: ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.^[a]

GOD equips every Spirit-born person with this fruit. Notice fruit is singular. Fruit has the ability to reproduce. When a person has the Holy Spirit, he or she has the fruit to be used as directed. How can that be? It is becuse the Spirit-born person has, as JESUS states in John 15:5-8: ⁵ I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. ⁶ If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. ⁸ My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be^[a] my disciples. (It only takes faith the size of a mustard seed,)

How much does GOD love us? The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 5:8: ⁸ But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

GOD’S boundless love was displayed upon the cross for all to witness. But if that display had ended at the cross, there would be no hope but it didn’t. GOD took it to completion with the bodily resurrection of JESUS from the physically dead to the ascension of JESUS to take HIS seat at the right-hand of HIS FATHER, GOD.

Why did JESUS do this? It was for HIS love for each of us and especially for those of us who place our faith in JESUS as our Savior.

JESUS did this out of love. There would be no salvation for mankind, if FATHER GOD did not first love us and JESUS not willingly come to earth. We would not experience the love of GOD.

How do Christians show their love? Let’s read 1 John 3:17-18:

¹⁷ If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer^[i] 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.

JESUS is our example as expressed in 1 John 4:19:

¹⁹ We love^[f] because he first loved us. NO DOUBT because JESUS willingly gave HIS sinless life to atone for our sin and doing so opened the pathway for those who place their faith in JESUS to have a personal, intimate relationship with GOD and call HIM FATHER.

As with any relationship, we must build upon it. We who are GOD’S Children seeking to know GOD and experiencing HIM. It is opening up to GOD and as recorded in Psalm 139:23-24:

Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my concerns.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive^[g] way in me;
lead me in the everlasting way.

Best friends know each other’s heart, are honest with each other, share each other’s most intimate secrets and have each other’s best interest. Any barrier that hampers your relationship is dealt with. Build upon the foundation that only comes through the foundation that is laid when we ask JESUS to forgive us for our sins and come into our hearts. Study GOD’S Word to learn about HIM, talk to HIM and do what HE leads you to do. GOD desires for you to know HIM.

Experiencing GOD written by Dr. Henry Blackby, Claude King and Richard Blackby helped me to begin building the right relationship with GOD. But as with any relationship, we must take the time to build it.

If it was not for the love of GOD, JESUS would not be our SAVIOR!

Blessings!!!