Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm20111228.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
1 John: True, Fulfilling Fellowship With God
Part XIII: Identifying God's True Love In True Spiritual Fellowship
(1 John 4:7-11)
  1. Introduction
    1. True Christian love is entirely unique compared to the world's view of "love," for wordly love usually has a selfish, lustful component to it that is absent in genuine godly love.
    2. 1 John 4:7-11 concisely, powerfully describes God's true love in true spiritual fellowship, and it directs us believers in Christ to copy its pattern in our relationships toward one another with great force (as follows):
  2. Identifying God's True Love In True Spiritual Fellowship, 1 John 4:7-11.
    1. The Apostle John exhorted his Christian readers in 1 John 4:7 to love one another, for godly love (he agape, literally, "the [the true godly] love", U. B. S. Greek N. T. , 1966, p. 821) is (literally) out from as to source (ek, Ibid.; Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 233-236) from God, and everyone who thus loves is born of and experientially knows (ginosko, Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T.; Ibid., Arndt & Gingrich, p. 159-161) God. Namely, since true, godly love comes from God as to its source, it follows that believers who are born of God and who spiritually fellowship with God will love with such godly love, making it imperative that they thus love one another with God's true, godly love.
    2. Indeed, the converse of this idea is also true: John wrote in 1 John 4:8 that whoever does not thus love does not know (egno, the 3rd person singular second aorist, indicative active of ginosko, Zondervan's The Analytical Greek Lexicon, 1972, p. 113; Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T.) or he does not fellowship with God, for God is love. John did not mean that love is God, but that "(l)ove is His supreme quality," Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to 1 John 4:7-12). If we were to "peel back the onion skin that comprises God", were that possible, at the very core, we would discover that God is ultimately an infinitely loving God!
    3. However, obeying God's call to love with His own godly kind of love demands that we understand just what that involves in our walk, and 1 John 4:9-11 explains this in simple yet profound terms (as follows):
      1. God manifested His love, that is, He "made [it] visible" (phaneroo, Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T.; Ibid., Arndt & Gingrich, p. 860) "among us" (lit. "in us," en hemin, Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T.; NIV, ESV) in that He sent His only Son into the world that we might live through Him, 1 John 4:9. Thus, true, godly love we Christians should exhibit to one another is one that initiates outreach to edify one another.
      2. 1 John 4:10 further describes God's love: it is not the kind of love that is deserved by its object, for we did not initiate love for God, but He initiated it toward us and so sent His Son to be the propitiation (hilasmos, U. B. S. Grk. N. T.; Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 1972, p. 140) or the sacrifice that atones God's wrath against our sin, and that in our behalf. Thus, true, godly love Christians should exhibit toward one another is a love that not only initiates outreach to edify others, but it is a love that initiates compassion toward undeserving parties, or even parties that have wronged the author of that love so that he is righteously indignant toward the object of his love, and yet he seeks to settle the issue of his just indignation in a way that is edifying for the undeserving object of his love!
    4. To apply this teaching with force, John in 1 John 4:11 wrote: "Beloved, if God so loves us, we also are indebted (opheilo, Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T.; Ibid., Arndt & Gingrich, p. 603) to love one another." That is, if God so loved us when we in our sin had infuriated Him to where still He sent His only Son to bear the brunt of His own wrath against us to save us from our sin, we stand absolutely obligated before the Lord to reach out to fellow Christians who so wrong us that they infuriate us that we might bear whatever burden we must bear to be able to heal that relationship and express our lovingkindness unto them!
Lesson: Believers who are truly born of God and fellowship with Him are obliged to love one another as God loved them in sending His Son in grace to be the propitiation, the atonement appeasing God's wrath against them for their sin, that they might be saved and become recipients of God's love.

Application: May we believers see our duty to love one another as graciously as God in grace loves us! Namely, may we reach out in aggressive compassion to those brethren who even infuriate us by how they have wronged us in ways that make the most room to resolve the broken fellowship in grace!