1 John (Part 6): Love One Another

Love One Another
- “One another” means other believers
- “Love” means to seek someone else’s highest good, at the expense of your own time, energy, and resources, regardless of how you are feeling, regardless of how they are treating you.
- Loving God → Loving one another (1 John 4:20-21)
- Loving one another is the defining feature of Christian believers (John 13:34-35)

Practical Applications
- Build your life around Christian community.
- Push through when things get hard.
- Love without hypocrisy. (Romans 12:9)

We love because God sent His Son to die for us. The way we show our love back to Him is to love our brothers and sisters in Christ.
(1 John 4:10-11)

TAG Questions

(Try these out with friends after the worship service)
1. What is something the Lord taught you through the sermon?
2. How does it apply to your life?

Discussion Questions

1. Share a personal experience where you felt deeply loved and accepted within your Christian community. How did that experience impact your faith?
2. According to 1 John 4:16-18, what is the connection between experiencing God’s love and demonstrating love towards others, particularly fellow believers? How does understanding God’s sacrificial love for us impact the way we love others?
3. Read, John 13:34-35. What is it about Christians’ love for each other that is so unique or peculiar that people will be able to see that love and mark us as disciples of Jesus?
4. When you think about the importance of “loving one another” as Christians, what is the most difficult part of that for you? What barriers, stories, reservations or emotions come up that make investing in Christian community difficult for you?
5. In Romans 12:9, Paul instructs believers to let their love be genuine and without hypocrisy. What are some practical ways we can demonstrate sincere and authentic love towards one another within the Christian community? Why do you think that might be difficult to do?
6. Pastor Josh talked about the importance of building your life around Jesus’ command to love one another, as well as the importance of pushing through when things get hard. When have you encountered difficulty in Christian community in the past, and how did you respond to it?
7. Reflect on the concept of sacrificial love as demonstrated by Jesus in 1 John 4:10-11. How does the sacrificial nature of Jesus’s love challenge us to love one another sacrificially within our Christian community? What sacrifices might this entail?
8. What practical steps can you take to further prioritize and invest in Christian community in your life?