August 21, 2023 -- I John 4:7-12 -- Loved based on the knowledge of God

People loved by the Father, in the power of the Spirit: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
I John 4:7-12

Anyone who loves knows God. Knowing God is a tremendously intimate word. It is not knowing God as like you know the couple that lives across the street. You wave. At Christmas you might exchange a card. No. One Who knows God is also intimately known by God—faults and flaws, joys, but also sins and selfishness.

i.                    One is born of God. Jesus declared “truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3. When an unbeliever, confronted with the electing love of God, yields himself to the pursuing love of God he dies to his old nature and he is born again in love. All old patterns and sins are exposed as wicked, ugly.

ii.                 This new birth means we know God as Father. To be born of God, means that by Jesus Christ we are made sons of God, not by a husband’s decision or human will, but by the grace of God. We are known by God and we realize through Jesus we have a Father in heaven—and this knowledge is sealed to us by the Holy Spirit.

iii.               We reveal that we know God when the love of God is made manifest among us. That is, His love clearly, obviously, is our source of love, our endless supply of love. As God manifested His love to us in Jesus, while we were yet sinners Christ dies for us, so too, God’s love is manifest in us. We love one another. We forgive one another in view of the extravagant love of God given to all who believe, all who have been born again.

iv.                Love and the knowledge of God is revealed in the New Testament. The Bible doesn’t pull any punches. Believers are shown to be flawed, loving, and fighting—in every instance completely dependent on the love of God and His Spirit Who is the deposit guaranteeing our salvation. Just look at the Book of Acts. Believers share their goods in common, share the word, and pray together. In the same book, Paul and Barnabas fight. Paul is estranged from John-Mark, and then reconciled. Believers have a contentious synod, in Acts 15, but find resolution. Peter stops believers from entering the homes of Gentiles—even though he’d visited the Gentile Cornelius. You see, only in the knowledge of God can believing communities be reconciled. To know God is to face the conflicts, the wounds and know through it all God is gracious.

v.                  The world is contaminated, polluted, and threatening to pull against the unity and love which should define Christian community. Jesus noted that the enemy has scattered weeds among the wheat. Even a pure church will face challenges and battle to be place where love is demonstrated through forgiveness and healing. It is costly. Such love comes at the cost of Jesus’ very life. Someone can never “get away with sin” it has been punished at the cost of Jesus’ blood. Anyone who repents is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ and must, like the prodigal son, be received into community.

Almighty God, as we cross the threshold of this day
we commit ourselves, soul, body, affairs, friends, to Your care.
Watch over, keep, guide, direct, sanctify, bless us.
Incline our hearts to Your ways.
Mould us wholly into the image of Jesus, as a potter forms clay.
May our lips be a well-tuned harp to sound Your praise.
Let those around us see us living by Your Spirit,
trampling the world underfoot,
unconformed to lying vanities,
transformed by a renewed mind,
clad in the entire armour of God,
shining as a never-dimmed light,
showing holiness in all our doings.
This we pray in Jesus' Name. Amen.
From: "Morning Dedication" from Valley of Vision
 

https://youtu.be/WNz_s7uV_uo Keith Green “Rushing Wind”

Copyright © 2023 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.