Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - May 10, 2020

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on 1 John 4:12-21; 5:1-5.

We are going to try something. Here is what I want you to do. I want you to imagine that you are alone in an abandoned house. It’s midnight. There are no lights. As you look down the darkened hall you think you see a shadow move across a door. All of the sudden a slight chilled breeze blows over your neck like an outside door has just opened. Nervously, you ask, “Is anybody there?” No answer. Then from behind you, you hear the squeaking of a floor board. You turn and a hooded man is reaching his boney fingers out to you. If this all sounds familiar, it was the plot of thousands of Saturday morning movies I saw at the Hampton Theater.

Generally, the victim was a woman who had been told by the hero to lock herself in the room and not to leave the room under any circumstance. Does she do what he said? Nope. She unlocks the door and steps out into that dark hall. All of us kids in the audience are yelling, “Get back into the room, Lady.” Because, even if she was too dumb to know it, we knew that there is something really bad waiting for her in the hall. Did you ever see movies like that? Were you a scaredy cat? Back when I was in high school, scary movies were the “chick flicks” guys wanted to take a girl to. No matter how repulsive the guy was, the girl always grabbed and clung to him when that girl stepped out into that dark hall.

There were times when fear wasn’t fun. Ever get a traffic ticket and have to go down and appear before a traffic court judge? That was real fear if you were a teenager and had to first confront your parents with the "good" news. So, having to stand before an authority figure is fearsome and most of the time that fear stems from an uncertainty about the punishment. Like facing my Grand momma after I accidently kicked the box from under my brother, Jack’s, feet and left him dangling from the umbrella tree with a rope around his neck. The switching I immediately got confirmed my worse fear about Grand momma. She had no tolerance at all for me hanging out with Jack.

For some of us, there may be fear in coming before the ultimate authority figure, God, because we know all the secretes in our life that we have hidden so well from everybody else. Those things we did and are ashamed of. We have to stand before God and realize that he knows the truth about us. Do you think this is a fear that some of us have? Well you aren’t alone. John recognized this fear way back twenty centuries ago and shares with us in today’s study how to handle that fear.

John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15 God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 

John says that no one has seen God. How come? Because God is spirit. We can’t see God, because he is spirit. But what we can see is the effect his love has. Can you see the wind? We can’t see the wind, but, we sure can see the effects of the wind in a northeaster. How many of y'all have seen electricity? We see the light come on when we flip the switch on the wall. We put food in the freezer and by golly, it freezes. We can’t see electricity, but, we can see what it produces. We might not be able to see God, but, we can see what God produces - love. This introduces a complicated truth. It is only by knowing God that we learn to love. And, it is only by loving that we learn about God. Love comes from God and love leads to God. It is only by love that God is known.

How does the verse 13 start? By this. That means that he is going to say something that is related to something he just talked about. So what was the “this” he was referring to? If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is perfected in us. The word John uses as “perfected” means to be totally complete. You can’t add another thing to it. John recognizes that it’s easy to say God lives in us, but how do we really know that this is true? Let's see how John answers that question.

How do we know we abide in God and God abides in us? John is going to approach the proof in a logical manner. He starts off with a given. All believers know and accept that the Father sent his Son to be our Savior. How do we know that? We have seen and, because we have seen, we testify. What had they seen? The crucifixion and the resurrection. What does testify mean? To not only speak with knowledge but to declare that we believe what we are saying. Since the resurrection was witnessed, we can testify that this proves that Jesus was the Son of God - the promised Messiah. Since there are more than one witness, in a Jewish court, it becomes a truth.

Since we accept and believe this, what does God do? Abide in us. In what form does God do this? God gave us his spirit. The first church back in John’s day knew first hand the love of Christ because they had met him in the flesh. The later churches didn’t have this advantage. God did the next best thing. In each believer he gave a Spirit implant. A part of God to help us understand God’s love and our relationship with God. Do you know what that means? All of us Christians share something very special. We share the Spirit.

Not only does God abide in us, what do we do? Abide in God. I understand that God abiding in us means the His Spirit lives in us, but, how do we abide in God? You abide in your parents in the sense that you share a very intimate relationship with them. You inherit their traits and character. In other words, you are your parent’s child. And we are God’s child and in that sense we abide with Him. And with that we inherit God’s character which is - LOVE - which we have seen demonstrated for each of us.

1 John 4:17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear: for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 

Love has been “what” among us? Perfected. What does that mean? Be made perfect. How do you make love perfect? A lot of wives would like to know the answer to that one. What would be perfect love? Never having to ask your husband for the remote? God is our example of perfect love. While we were turning our backs on God, he loved us. While we were hurting others and him, he loved us. While we were scheming to get more stuff, he loved us. The human idea of love is sometimes a deal where I’ll love you if you love me. But, we can’t use our love to draw God closer to us, because God has already used His love to draw us closer to him and, here's the amazing part, he did it even when we didn’t love him.

So, how do we get this perfect love? John tells us that we have to look to God for that because love started with God. All human love is a reflection of the love that is God. That is why love is so important. We are never closer to God than when we express our love for others. When you do something loving for somebody, don’t you feel all warm and at peace inside? Genesis tells us that man is made in the image of God. That means that since God is love, to be like God - to be made in God’s image - is to be filled with that same love. Now love is an action and not a state of mind. Just as James can say that faith without works is dead, love tucked away in our hearts and not extended out to others will eventually die.

With a perfected love, we can be bold when? On Judgment Day. What does Judgement Day mean to you? Everybody, saint and sinner, will have to stand in front of God and be judged. Is that a scary thought? We know all of the secret sins we have committed. We know we have hated. We know we have lied. Now, we stand before God and he knows all of these things too. It’s that dark hall scary feeling all over again. Our fear is in the unknown and on that Judgement Day, it’s the unknown sentence we will get. We know that we deserve the worse. But, this is where we can be bold. Even though we deserve to have the book thrown at us, Jesus stands up beside us and we know that through the love of Jesus all of these sins have been checked off as debt paid. We don’t have fear because we have faith and faith trumps fear every time. And that faith is based on Jesus’ love. So, we can stand before the most awesome judge, our Lord, and he won’t treat as we know we should be treated. That knowledge is the boldness John is talking about.

1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Those who say, "I love God." and hate their brothers or sisters, are lairs; for those who do not love a brother or sister who they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. 

As much as we say we love, we know there are people who have rubbed us the wrong way. Even people who have tried to hurt us or hurt family members we love. John tells us it’s not hard to love if we remember that God first loved us. But in our culture, how are we taught the value of love? People learn to love themselves and others by experiencing love from others. If their growing up was in a loving environment, then the chances are that they will try to follow that example with their children. Unfortunately, all children don’t grow up in a loving environment. We read all of the time about parents, who abuse their children, had been abused when they were children. A lot of time to be an abuser is to have been taught that abuse was a normal way of life for children. And children imitate what they see and hear. If it is abuse that they always see and hear, then they will imitate it and feel that that is the way adults are supposed to act. The worse part of an abusive environment for children is that they often grow up with a low opinion of themselves maybe even a hatred for themselves. People who don’t have a healthy love for themselves cannot have a healthy love for somebody else.

You see, when we come to Christ, we are clothed in the love of God and those clothes are there for everybody to see. They can see the effect that God has had on our life. A wise man wrote that “A saint is a man in whom Christ lives again.” Everybody who accepts Christ into their heart is not only born again, but, provides Christ with a chance to live again among all the people he loves.

John says that people who claim to love God, but hate their brothers are liars. That's calling a spade a spade. Who are the brothers and sister he is talking about? The whole world or just fellow Christians? There are arguments for both sides. Taken in the context of this scripture, it appears that John is referring to Christian brothers and sisters. Remember John argues that God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God. Those people abide with God which means they are children of God. Here is John’s logic. Every brother and sister in Christ has living within his heart a part of God in the form of the Spirit. This means that the person is now a new creature which includes in it’s being a part of God. For another brother or sister to hate him is to hate everything that makes him who he is including that part of him which is God’s presence. To hate the person is to hate that presence too - to hate God too. Therefore, it is impossible to say you love God when you are actually hating God’s presence.

As a clincher, John says, "Let's get real, folks. How can you say you love God who you have never seen, but hate your brothers and sisters who you have seen. The only way you can love God is to love those who God loves. That's God's commandment and that's your proof that you love God. You see, it is a matched set. So, the only way you can introduce hatred for your brothers and sisters is to lie about you loving God. That's the only way the set can be broken."

Where do we go from here? I guess that requires us to define where “here” is and where we want to go. In our studies so far, John has taken us from defining “fellowship” to defining “love”. That’s the “here” part. Now he takes us to the greatest mystery of them all - eternal life - the “where we want to go” part. How do you picture eternal life? From scripture we have heard that there is no more pain. No more sorrow. No more hatred. No more hurt feelings. There is peace. But there are prerequisites for eternal life not the least of which is death and that is what makes death so scary - so final.

Very smart people have a lot to say about birth. The end product of a birth is there for testing and study. The DNA of the baby compared with the DNA of thousands of men can determine who the father is. They predict that with a DNA sample from a baby, scientist soon will be able to predict the baby’s height, weight, hair and eye color and even when he may go bald, now that’s something I really want to know. Our DNA is a personal blueprint for everything that makes us who we are. Every cell in our body contains our DNA ribbon. If all of those ribbons of DNA in our body were laid end to end, they would stretch for over a million miles. That’s a lot of blueprints packed away in each of us. I admit something about DNA. On my last birthday, my son gave me a DNA kit. I followed the instructions and sent it in. In a few weeks I got back the revelation of where I'm from. I'm not sure my son was satisfied. I think he was using the DNA test to confirm that I am really not from this planet.

Now while scientist are making strides in establishing a book on our mortal lives, nearly nothing exists about the end of our life’s journey - death. We are left to wonder what really happens. But, you know, that is what defines a Christian - what happens after this life and the certainty of the eternal life that follows. And that is the topic that John tackles in Chapter 5.

1 John 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments 

This chapter sums up John’s letter. He starts off where he left off in Chapter 4. Loving God and loving man can’t be separated. They are intertwined actions all part of the same life experience. When a scribe asked Jesus about which commandment was the most important, what did Jesus list as the two great commandments? The first was that we love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength. The second was that we love our neighbor as our self. John has this in mind when he tackles the concept of love.

But, John is a practical guy so he brings the discussion down to a level that everyone can understand. It is part of the natural law of people that there be family love. We wouldn’t be here unless there was a mother and father. Under normal circumstances, a child naturally loves his parents and the parents love the child. The child may fight with his brothers or sisters - might even hang his brother - but, when the rubber meets the road and if your brother is attacked, you comes to the defense of your brother. It is just in our nature to love our families. So, John brings his teaching about God’s love into a realm that we can understand. What he’s saying is, “As a child, if you love your father, then you will love his other children too because those other children are an extension of the father you love.”

John continues, “Ok. Now that we are on the same page, consider this. When you became a Christian you went through a rebirth where God is now your father. Every birth involves being born into a family. Now, being a new born child of God, born into God’s family, if you love God your father, then you will love his other children.” Loving your Christian brothers and sisters is part and parcel of loving God just as it is in your earthly family. Your Christian brothers and sisters are a part of God, a part of God’s love.

One thing that we have to remember. We are not only called to love others, but, we are the recipients of the love of our Christian brothers and sisters. It isn’t a one way street. It has been said that man is not only born to love, he is also born to be loved. Can you imagine a life where nobody loves you? When people come to the point where they believe that there isn’t a single person who loves them, suicide begins to look like a way to resolve the pain of being unloved. And that is at the heart of these two verses.

1 John 5:3 For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 4 for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. 5 Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 

How do we love God? It is more than a feeling or an emotion. There has to be action on our part and that action is to obey God. Think about it this way. How do you show you love somebody? You try to please and bring joy to that person. Whether it is flowers for no reason or having my favorite supper on my birthday, the act of going out of your way just to make the other person happy is a positive show of love. And you do these things willingly because to bring them joy also increases your joy. What makes God happy? Do what he asks of us. Obey him.

That is easy to say, but, what if God demands more of me than I can handle? Does that mean that I don’t love God? John tells us not to worry. God’s commandments aren’t too heavy to bear. John isn’t saying that acting on God’s commands is easy to do. Loving everybody may mean loving people who are down right mean and unlovely. People who have hurt our feelings or have done things that harmed other people who we love. So Christian love isn’t easy. Another problem is trying to reconcile our secular life with our religious life. This is always difficult. Our secular life involves work and decisions that may conflict with what we know scripture demands. Should we love Islamic terrorists who are out to kill our Christian brothers and sisters? Sometimes it is hard to know how we should react. Another thing, for Jews in John’s day, the Pharisees and Scribes had compiled a mountain of detailed laws - scribble laws - that had to be followed. All of these regulations were a tremendous burden to the Jews. Just remembering all of them was nearly impossible.

With all of this, how can John say that God’s commandments aren’t a burden? Because God never lays a commandment on us without giving us the strength to carry it out. God doesn’t send us an Email and then go back to his heavenly web site to twitter away. He sticks with us. Encouraging us. Through the Holy Spirit, he gives us advice. He does that by giving us a peace when we make our decision. What may seem impossible for us alone, becomes possible with God’s help. And God knows our limitations. He really does. What he is really looking for is an effort on our part. Guess what? And he knows that we aren’t perfect yet.

So the commandments of God aren’t a burden. But there is another great truth here. There is something in the Christian’s life that equips him to conquer the world. And what is that something? Faith. That conquering faith is the belief that Jesus is the Son of God. That Jesus really was the incarnation of God on earth. Why is this a victory winning idea? To believe that Jesus was God in human form means that God entered into the world and was faced with everything that we face. He didn’t have to do that, but, he loved us enough to take upon himself all the limitations of humans - hunger, fatigue, physical pain, nasty words, losing Redskin seasons. Folks, this is a love that surpasses human understanding. If God did that it means that God shares in all the trials and temptation we have and knows all the sorrows that come our way. Faith is the conviction that God cares and God shares. And that Faith leads us to eternal life. Death, the final barrier to perfect love, is removed.

In studying these lessons on love, I’m reminded of that popular song of fifty years ago, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” A love that there’s too little of. It wasn’t a new idea. The need for a more loving world goes all the way back to John and these studies. For John, God is that sweet love, but the love of God isn’t a warm fuzzy feeling. It isn’t a reciprocal relationship - you love me and I will love you. It isn’t a love wrapped up in “What’s in it for me?” The love John writes about has it’s beginning and end in our only source of perfect love - our God.

Prayer: Father, thank you for loving the unlovely and the sinner. Thank you for loving me. Amen.