Week 1: LOVE: God Discussion Questions! Read Matthew 22:34-40 1. How easy do you think it is to live out the greatest commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind? 2. How would you explain this commandment to a child? How would you explain it to a friend? 3. By what standard can we understand what it means to love in this way? 4. Do you agree with the statement you ll never know how to love God until you know how much God loves you? Read John 4:7-21 (God Loving us) 5. Why accordingly to 1 John 4:7-21 is God to be considered the ultimate authority on love? 6. What does it mean to you to know that God lavishly loves you? 7. How would you tell a friend about the gift of God s love? 8. How is God s love to be understood as both sacrificial and undeserved? (Be sure to check your answers against what is said in 1 John 4.) 9. Why is God s love so reliable? How does he demonstrate it? What is the implication for our lives? 10. Whilst we can be daunted by the standard set by God when it comes to love, how does he help us to love him and others more? 11. How does God s love compare to the human expression of love? Us Loving God 12. What is the best way to respond to God s love? 13. Why do you think that some people have such a hard time accepting God s love? Can we help them to more easily receive this gift? 14. How can we ask God to help us in our ability to love? 15. Do you struggle with the idea that we are to love God with our complete selves? Do you hold back anything from God? Do you feel vulnerable opening your heart so wide to him? 16. Why do you think the world is much more comfortable in thinking about love as a noun, rather than a verb? 17. How can we love God in even greater ways than we do now? You might especially spend time reflecting upon our theme for 2013 Drawing Close. How can we urge each other on to Draw Closer to God? The Anglican Church of Noosa
Introduction Talk 1/2 (Matthew 22:34-40 & 1 John 4:7-21): 18/11/12 LOVE: Love God by The Rev d Adam Lowe What does God expect of us? It s so appropriate today on Celebration Sunday, that as we look back and give thanks for all that God has been doing in the life of our community over the year and look forward to the year ahead and commit our plans to God, that we might take the opportunity over two weeks to reorientate our lives to God. To ask the question: what does God expect of us. As the people of God, that is, as members of his family - and if you believe in Jesus as Lord and Saviour, then you re a member of God s family - how are we to live our lives every single day. Now this isn t a particularly modern question at all. The people in the Old Testament who were God s family were the Jews. And throughout the Torah - that is, the first five books of the our Bible - there are numerous commandments. In fact, depending upon how you count them, there s 613. And at the heart of the commandments is not what are the things I must do in order to be good, but how are we to live as the people of God, as people in relationship with him. The problem of course is that 613 is a lot. Here, I ve printed them all out, in small type and will now unfurl them dramatically. I mean, most people who are married probably have a lot of trouble even remembering the wedding vows - the way they promised to live their lives in relationship - let alone 613 commands on how to live in relationship with God. Love God & Neighbour (Matthew 22:34-40) Well I ve got good news, if you think you might have trouble remembering 613, you re in luck, because today in our Gospel reading (from Matthew), Jesus provides the most brilliant summary of the law and how we are to live our lives. And it comes about because the Pharisees have got together and they re trying to come up with a really tricky question to test Jesus. And so we read: 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Seems innocent enough, but it is a profoundly sensitive question. Yet even so, Jesus takes all of the commandments and provides the most profound of answers: 37 Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Everything else is commentary. Everything hangs on those two. So as the people of God what does God expect of us? LOVE; love God and love neighbour. Seems simple, right? Well I suspect it s harder than we sometimes initially suspect. I mean, today we re just looking at the first part, LOVE GOD, and the standard is so high. And that s because ultimately, the chasm between God s standard of love and our standard of love is so enormous. God s Standard I mean, just look at what Jesus says again: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (v.37) The Rev d Adam Lowe 1 The Rev d Adam Lowe 2
I m not going to tease apart each one of those - I want us instead to feel the weight of those words. Jesus is saying love God with everything you ve got. With your entire self. If you ve ever asked a child how much they love something they almost always respond with gestures. You might ask how much do you love your brother, who did something particularly nasty that morning so the little child might respond, this much. But then you might ask, well how much do you love your mum and dad, and they might thrust their arms wide open and say this much. Well, if Jesus were to ask that question, how far wide would you fling your arms? The standard is love unabated! There s no limit, with all we ve got. If you think I m exaggerating, just consider for a moment one of the prayers we regularly pray on a Sunday. You ll never know how to love God until you know how much God loves you You know what this means? If you want to know how to love God, we can t start with a human understanding of love. You won t know how to love God until you know how much God loves you. God is THE authority on love! Love isn t a god, but God is love as our reading from 1 John 4 earlier. How are we to love God? Like God loves us. And if we look at the section of 1 John read earlier, we see the shape of God s love for us in four different ways. 1. God Loving Us Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen. a. Sacrificial & b. Undeserved The first two ways we see the shape of God s love is that it is sacrificial and undeserved. Would you turn with me to 1 John 4:9-10 What s the standard? To perfectly love God. Wow. Now, if you re like me that evokes two questions in my mind: (a) What does that look like? (b) How can I even begin to love God like that? World s Standard I m torn because at one level, I know that love in the world is elevated to the pinnacle of human existence, yet at the same time, we seem to have a lot of problems in reality. Just think about a trivial example: love ballads. For every love song that was ever written, I m pretty sure that there s probably at least one blues, love-broken song. 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. God s love is a gift, to you. It s not a cheap type of love. It s the most costly type of love that we could ever imagine. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:3) I m torn at another level personally, because whilst the world at times elevates love to being a God itself, our everyday experiences of love - even by those most cherished - just don t stack up. The Rev d Adam Lowe 3 The Rev d Adam Lowe 4
God s love for you, cost Jesus his life - he died in order that we might live. How much does he love us? This much. On the mount of crucifixion Fountains opened deep and wide Through the floodgates of God s mercy Flowed a vast and gracious tide Grace and love like mighty rivers Flowed incessant from above Heaven s peace and perfect justice Kissed a guilty world in love (Here is Love; Welsh Hymn) Nothing we did, or could ever do, could earn what Jesus did for us on the cross. He didn t love us because we loved him first - it s undeserved. No, perfect love, loves. God is the initiator! It doesn t matter if you met God 30 minutes ago, or 30 years ago, he loves you (and you, and you...) perfectly. c. Reliable & Trustworthy So God s love is sacrificial and undeserved, but it s also perfectly reliable. I can t think of anything that is perfectly reliable, let alone someone s love for me, or me for them. I m sure you can think of numerous examples in your own life when you ve been left down by a loved one or you yourself have let down a loved one; you ve loved them imperfectly. And that experience can be hurtful, it can be sad, and it can even leave us despairing. 13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. (1 John 4:13-16) Why can we rely on God s love? Because it s concrete - it s real. He showed it to us in his Son. He s given his Spirit in order that we might live in him and he in us. We can trust God s love. So often in life, when we open our heart to someone it s a very vulnerable process. It s vulnerable, because opening your heart leaves you exposed to be hurt in a way that s more significant than any other pain. That s because love is so central to being human and when we get let down it hurts. That can cause us to recoil, to try to protect ourselves, but friends we need not do this with God. God is the one person who you can lay bear your heart and never be heart-broken by him. Receiving God s love is like opening a window to a new life, where there is no fear in judgment, there s not even fear in death. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:16-18) Florence and her machine sing about this: Time after time I think "Oh Lord what's the use?" Time after time I think it's just no good Sooner or later in life, the things you love you lose But you've got the love I need to see me through (You ve Got the Love) Perfect love - the love of God - drives out fear because we take confidence in knowing that if you trust in Jesus, there s no punishment when judgment comes. It drives out fear, because God s love is perfectly trustworthy and reliable. Our worldly experience of love falls very short of being perfectly reliable. But not with God - God has the love that can see us through. The Rev d Adam Lowe 5 The Rev d Adam Lowe 6
d. Empowering So, God s love is sacrificial, undeserved, reliable, and empowering. It s empowering because it drives out fear. It s empowering because our eternity is secure. It s empowering because God has planted his Spirit into you, to help you to love him (and others too). So what does this mean? We are fully free and equipped to love. Not just with a love that comes from our own strength, but with the love of God. b) In God s Strength The second thing we must remember is that we love God in his strength. Not by our own capacity, but in his capacity. Just as love is God s initiative, God is love, God is the source of love we rely on him to love. I find that so reassuring and even a relief. How can we love God perfectly - by seeing how he has loved us, and accepting his help to do the same. Paul, writing to the Romans reminds us that: 2. Us Loving God So if that s God loving us, how do we go about us loving God. I just want to say three brief things....god has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:5) When you trust in Jesus, God just doesn t tell you how to love, or show you how to love, he also enables you to love by pouring his Spirit into you. a) In Response to God s love for us First, we love God in response to his love for us. That is, remembering that love is God s initiative, we respond to it, and revel in it. Remembering that God loves you with an everlasting and lavish love, enjoy it. And the absolute best way to enjoy it, is to love him back. Because when spurred on by his love for you, you love him, it is the basis for an eternal relationship. And even though we will let him down, he will never let you down. If you ve never responded to God s love, might I encourage to do so today. There s nothing to fear, there s nothing to lose, but there s eternity to gain. Perhaps you ve known God s love in the past, but for whatever reason - it could be because of loss or pain - you ve turned away from his love. Friends, might I encourage you to open up your hearts and let God s love refresh you and come alive in you. It starts so simply, by acknowledging what God has done for you and by accepting Jesus as Lord and Saviour. It s giving God a big yes with our hearts and turning towards him. c) With our complete selves So us loving God is in response to God s love, in his strength, and finally with our complete selves. We come back full circle to where we started with the words of Jesus to the Pharisee. 37 Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. Love of God isn t an add-on. Loving God in the way that Jesus describes - that is wholeheartedly, giving it all - means that we acknowledge him as God and accordingly reflect the reality of that in our lives. So what does that mean? It means that we can just carve off a compartment of our lives and say to God I ll love you with this much. No, we ve got to love with everything. So we could actually keep adding to that list that Jesus said. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, time, skills, talents, passions, and even your wallet. It means loving God with all of who you are. It s about using the completeness of whoever you are and reorienting it to God for his purposes. The Rev d Adam Lowe 7 The Rev d Adam Lowe 8
Conclusion It s easy to talk about love as a noun - you know: all you need is love, the world needs love, love is the answer. As if love is a thing that can be acquired; or worse an affection that one might spontaneously feel. No, love is an action. It s a choice. God didn t give us a list of things for us to fulfil, but a loving relationship to which we have the opportunity to respond. The greatest commandment is not about ticking the box, but about entering into and receiving God s sacrificial, undeserved, reliable, and empowering love. What does expect of us? To love him. In response to his love, in the strength that he provides, and with our entire selves. The Rev d Adam Lowe 9