공동체와 양육

All You Need is Love (1 Jn. 5:1~5)

2018.06.10P. Daniel Park

Because we are born again through faith in Jesus Christ, we are able to love God's family and overcome the world, and God's recklessly extravagant love is the secret weapon in that struggle.

Those who believe are born again into God's family (vv. 1)

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. When a sinner acknowledges Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection, the old self is put to death and a new self is born of God. Being born again is not the end but the starting point of salvation, and salvation leads to redemption back into the embrace of God's love. There is only one new birth and one new life, so the phrase born again Christian is an unnecessary repetition that can lead to incorrect theology.

Born again, we love God's children as God's family (vv. 1-3)

John writes that everyone who loves the Father loves those who have been born of him, and that God's commandments are not burdensome. Our love for others grows out of knowing God's love, which Adam turned away from in the Garden of Eden. In the parable of the prodigal son, the father's love never changed while his son was away, and the word prodigal means recklessly extravagant. The older son began to lose sight of that love when he compared himself with his brother, and comparison always leads us to lose, either into pride or into devaluing ourselves.

Born again, we overcome the world through faith (vv. 4-5)

Everyone born of God overcomes the world, and the victory is our faith in Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus said, in the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. God's love is like a bottomless well in the middle of a desert, and those who live beside it can bring forth life even in that desert. The world presses us through cravings for pleasure, pride in achievements and possessions, intellectualism that denies God, and physical persecution, yet the victory is ours.

God is both lion and lamb, and he loves you

God is both the lion to be feared and the lamb led to the slaughter, at the same time and all the time, as seen in Jesus and in Aslan's sacrifice in the Narnia story. God loves you with an everlasting love like the waiting prodigal father, so you do not have to prove your worth or fear his punishment. Perfect love drives out fear, and your worth is set by the Creator who made you as his masterpiece. God loves you so that you can love yourself.

We practice love by giving time, serving, and receiving

God commands us to love after showing the ultimate love of Christ, who died for us while we were still sinners. Love is a verb, so it must be practiced as a spiritual exercise, not as a way to make God love us. The first practice is to give our time to people who are hard to love, listening before we talk. The second is to serve within the church with the gifts the Spirit has given us for the body of Christ. The third is to open ourselves to receive love from others without calculating their motives.

Apply to Life

  • Let us examine ourselves and ask whether we are born again through faith in Jesus Christ.
  • Let us stop dancing to the tune of the world and live as children of God.
  • Let us give our time to someone who is hard to love, listening before we speak.
  • Let us use the gifts the Spirit has given us to serve the body of Christ.
  • Let us open ourselves to receive love from others without calculating their motives.

This summary was made automatically from the sermon's captions and may differ from the sermon.

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