Text: 1 John 4:7-17
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to 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. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
Jesus is God in a human body (Word made flesh)
As Jesus lived so the church lives.
As Jesus fleshed out God, so the church fleshes out God.
Q. What is God like?
A. Look at Jesus. Look at the Church. Look at Christians. Look at me
For the bad and the ugly in the church’s history we apologise:
We’re sorry:
• For wars started in Jesus’ name
• For endorsing slavery
• For colonial oppression
• For the subjugation of women
• For segregationist policies in South Africa and the USA
We’re sorry:
• For genocide & ethnic cleansing in Rwanda
• For not speaking up about the holocaust
• For the Medieval crusades
• For institutional child abuse
• For saying the earth is flat
For the good the church has brought we celebrate:
• Universal human rights
• The innate dignity of persons regardless of their function
• The development of schools and Universities
• Extraordinary contributions to art, music, & architecture
• Founding of law schools, the legal profession & values
• The spread of written language and increase in literacy
• The Church has founded schools, hospitals and orphanages
• Christians have campaigned for prison reform, better housing and an end to the slave trade
• They have helped to establish a huge number of charities to support the poor, the underprivileged, prisoners and their families, the homeless and those seeking justice.
• The Church was at the heart of the civil rights movement in the United States and the campaign to end apartheid in South Africa.
Plus, the millions of acts of kindness that go on every day by churches, charities, and individual Christians around the world. These acts save nations staggering sums of money…
• It is estimated that in New York City alone, the time given by churches and the faith community is worth over $12bn dollars a year.
• Research in the UK in 2015-16 for the Cinnamon Network calculated that the time given by churches and faith groups to their communities through social action was worth more than $4bn a year.
Whenever the church, or individual Christians, has made the apostle John’s statement their focus they have got it right: In this world we are like Jesus. When that hasn’t been our heart we’ve got it horribly wrong!
And so, let this be your filter ~ In this world we are/ I am like Jesus.
Q. What does this look like?
1. It looks respectful
Acts 17:16, “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”
Acts 17:22-23, “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So, you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”
Epimenides, in his work Cretica, wrote, “They fashioned a tomb for you, O holy and high one. The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies! But you are not dead: you live and abide forever, for in you we live and move and have our being.”
Paul uses the poet’s words to introduce the Greeks to the death and resurrection of Jesus.
In the 6th century B.C., when the poet Epimenides lived, there was a plague which went throughout all Greece. The Greeks thought that they must have offended one of their gods, so they began offering sacrifices on altars to all their various gods. When nothing worked they figured there must be a God who they didn’t know about whom they must somehow appease.
So Epimenides came up with a plan. He released hungry sheep into the countryside and instructed men to follow the sheep to see where they would lie down. He believed that since hungry sheep would not naturally lie down but continue to graze, if the sheep were to lie down it would be a sign from God that this place was sacred. At each spot where the sheep tired and laid down the Athenians built an altar and sacrificed the sheep on it. Afterward it is believed the plague stopped which they attributed to this unknown God accepting the sacrifice.
Paul tried to convey to them that the unknown God was the true God, Jesus Christ: the God who created all things and every person. He then goes on to give a gentle but firm rebuke of man-made religion. It is of “man’s design” and Paul refers to it as “ignorance” that God once overlooked – but no longer! God is not looking at our religion – He’s interested in relationship. His desire is that we would “seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.” More importantly God has already reached out to us in the tangible person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “your Father in heaven…causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45)
2 Peter 3:15, “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
I.e. there’s no room in the Christian life for obnoxious bombastic pigheadedness.
In this world we are/ I am like Jesus.
To be continued…
Discussion & further Study
- Read & discuss (or meditate on) 1 John 4:7-17. What truth speaks to you from these verses?
- Over the centuries the church (and Christians) has been responsible for some wonderful and terrible things. What do you think today’s church does well in being like Jesus? Where do you think we still have room to grow and change?
- How do you think making the apostle John’s statement (In this world we are like Jesus.) your focus can impact the way you live and interact with others?
- Jesus said, “your Father in heaven…causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). How can this truth help us to be respectful of others, even our enemies?
- Read and discuss 2 Peter 3:15
- Discuss this statement: “there’s no room in the Christian life for obnoxious bombastic pigheadedness.” Have you ever been less than respectful to someone? What was the outcome? How would you handle that situation if you were to face it again?
- These two articles will be useful for you to read and discuss
https://baysidechurch.com.au/race-culture-religions-3/