• Building, Maintaining, And Nurturing Good Relationships
• Love One Another
• (Part Two)

• Introduction
• We saw last week that we have the command to love one another.
• These commands are not suggestions that we can weigh and determine if we are going to do them or not.
• Failure to keep these commands will keep us out of our heavenly reward.
• So let us continue with the describing this love that God gives us.

• 1 John 4:7-21 – again John begins another discourse on loving one another.
• Vs. 7 - Beloved, let us love one another -
• throughout this text, John is challenging these brethren to treat each other the way they ought to.
• That is summarized in love.
• While the English language sometimes treats this as a strong suggestion or recommendation (i.e. “let us”, “should”, etc.) in reality it a command that we CANNOT ignore.
• The text bears this out.
• Vs. 7 - This love is from God.
• The idea is that our love comes from God.
• PERHAPS, this love is one of the qualities with which we are made in His image (Genesis 1:26) and sets us apart from the rest of creation.
• We learn what it means to love by looking at His example – Vs. 9-10 note that God manifested His love toward us by sending His only begotten Son Jesus into the world to be the propitiation for our sins.
• Vs. 8 tells us, “God IS love” – meaning He is the personification of what true love is like.
• Vs. 7-8 - When we love, it demonstrates that we know God (4:7-8) as we understand this love.
• Vs. 11-- It motivates us to love one another.
• This is why we emphasize the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus so much (as does the New Testament).
• It humbles us as we learn how much God so loved the world.
• This is the great consideration when our brethren are not everything we would like for them to be.
• Just think about how God loves us even though we don’t deserve it – Romans 5:6-10.
• Vs. 12 - It is necessary if we want God to abide in us.
• Something every Christian needs.
• This is again emphasized in vs. 16
• Vs. 12 - His love is perfected in us, (fully accomplished or completed) as we love one another.
• Vs. 17-19 then proceed to describe how we love Him based upon His love for us.
• NOTE: Let us not separate this from the two continuous factors emphasized – we keep His commandments and we love one another.
• Vs. 20 describes the contradiction when one professes to love God but hates (does not love) his brother.
• In context we find the depth of God’s love for us, even though we don’t deserve it.
• John in essence is saying if we hate our brethren, we do NOT love God because we don’t understand what true love is!
• Vs. 21 he concludes, “And this commandment we have from Him” – it is a commandment or an order, a mandate that comes from God Himself.
• Something we MUST do.
• He who loves God MUST love his brother also.
• The NASB says, “the one who loves God SHOULD love his brother also.”
• “It is almost like a command, but it places more emphasis on the participation”[
• This is an action that the Christian had not yet completed, but he absolutely needed to do it!
• John, throughout this letter and in this context bears this out so clearly, it cannot be misunderstood.

• Truly, we must love one another.
• In this lesson all we have done is to notice the need for this love by examining a few passages of scripture.
• We have seen how it is commanded and fundamental to our faith.
• In our next lesson we will see how this love is implemented in our lives.

• Conclusion (Part Two)
• As this happens, we will NEED each other more and more.
• And that will require that we have the love of God dwelling in us, which in turn will be demonstrated to the world with our love for one another.
• Let us resolve that we will learn of and keep this love in our lives.
• This is good and worthy of our effort in serving God.

By Carey Scott from a series by Tommy Thornhill Jr.

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