Church Calendar
Advent & Christmas – God with us.
Lent – God preparing us.
Easter– discover God for us.
Pentecost– God in us.
Ordinary Time– God through us.
Defining Love.
The English word love is broad and adaptable.
We use it to describe our appreciation for food, drink, products, and activities.
We use it to describe sexuality and romance.
We use it to describe the bonds of affection and loyalty that connect us to family and friends.
Eros is sexual or romantic interest. It is the root of erotic.
Storgee, this is the attachment bonds between family members.
Philia is the affection shared between friends.
Agape is the willingness to act for the good of another. Agape is the term John uses to describe God’s love.
Some form of agape occurs 46 times in the book of 1 John; 27 times in our fifteen verses.
And in this passage, John argues that love is –
The character of God
The sacrifice of Christ
And ultimately, love is the witness of the Spirit
Love is the character of God
“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.” – 1 John 4:7-8
God is Trinity, a community of love.
God is relational, affectionate, and joyous.
“[T]he famous text “God is Love” might be transliterated to read: God is family, God is community, God is shared existence, and whoever shares his or her existence inside community and friendship is participating in the very flow of life and love that is inside the Trinity.” – Ronald Rolheiser, Domestic Monastery
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” –Ephesians 3:17–19
“Meditating on God’s love has done more to increase my love than decades of effort to try to be more loving. Allowing myself to deeply experience his love—taking time to soak in it and allow it to infuse me—has begun to effect changes that I had given up hope of ever experiencing. Coming back to God in my failures at love, throwing myself into his arms and asking him to remind me of how much he loves me as I am—here I begin to experience new levels of love to give to others.” –David Brenner
Love is the sacrifice of Christ
“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.” – 1 John 4:9-10 (NIV)
“[sin is] love turned in on itself.” – Augustine
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” –Matthew 22:37–40.
Atonement is the theological concept that describes what Jesus’ death accomplishes.
“[God] loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”–1 John 4:9
The Bible offers pictures, motifs, and analogies, and angels to understand Jesus’ sacrifice as the antidote to the poison of sin.
“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” – Colossians 2:13-15
“It is in the crucifixion that the nature of God is truly revealed.” – Fleming Rutledge
Love is the witness of the Spirit
”Dear friends, since God so loved us, we should also love one another.12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.”– 1 John 4:11-13
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” –John 13:34–35.
“This is what it means to live in the Spirit. The premier expression of the Spirit is love, and the Spirit-prompted person is one who loves God and loves others. Spirit-ual formation is formation into love.”– Scot McKnight
By the witness of the Spirit, we are the love of God manifest in the world.
To a watching, waiting, and hurting world, the bonds of love between us are an invitation to know the love of God.
Serve one another
“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” –John 13:14–15
“Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.” –Tish Harrison Ward
We serve one another in love and let that love overflow to the world.
