True community and connection with Jesus is revealed by our response to God’s love...

At the church where I serve we are in the middle of a sermon series entitled Connect. During this series, we are looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of 1 John. During this series, we are going to discover the components that make for true connection and community. During this series, we are going to discover the landmines and roadblocks that keep us from true connection and community. And as we go through this series, our hope and our prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts, and hands, in a way that moves us to the place where we can experience the connection and community with God and one another that we were created and designed to experience. 

This week I would like for us to spend our time together picking up where we left off last week. And as we jump into the next section of this letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of John, we will see John reveal for us another timeless truth when it comes to how we can experience the connection and community with God and one another that we were created and designed to experience. So let’s jump into the next section of this letter together, beginning in 1 John 4:15-16:

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶ We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Now to fully understand what John is communicating here, we first need to understand the context in which these verses appear in John’s letter. Last week, we looked on as John explained that followers of Jesus will arrive at the knowledge that they have a genuine and authentic relationship and connection with God as followers of Jesus as a result of the very presence of the Spirit of God in their lives.

As we have discovered in the past, it is the Holy Spirit who unites us and connects us in Jesus and who empowers us to live a life that looks like Jesus. And because of the very presence of the Spirit of God in their lives who connects followers of Jesus with Jesus and empowers followers of Jesus to live lives that look like Jesus, John proclaimed that “we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world."

John’s point here is that he and other leaders in God’s new movement in history called the church had seen Jesus and had heard His message and teaching and wanted to declare publicly the truth of what they had witnessed. And what they had seen and heard firsthand was that Jesus was sent on a rescue mission by God to provide all humanity the opportunity to be rescued from the selfishness and rebellion that separated them from God so that they could experience forgiveness and the relationship and connection with God that they were created for.

And it is in this context that John begins this section of his letter by making a statement designed to demonstrate how one may experience the relationship and connection in the relationship with God that they were created for. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” Now, as we have talked about throughout this series, the word abide refers to someone who does not leave a certain realm or sphere of existence. This is the idea of remaining in community and connection with God as we are mystically and spiritually united in Jesus as followers of Jesus.

John’s point is that that the person who professes allegiance to the fact that Jesus is God in a bod who entered into humanity to reveal Himself to humanity remains in close community and connection with God and God remains in close community and connection with them. John then reinforced his statement by reminding the readers of this letter throughout history that he and other leaders in God’s new movement in history called the church have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.

As we have talked about earlier in this series, the word know means to arrive at a knowledge of someone or something. This idea of knowing God is the idea of a past experience that has ongoing and continuing results. John is talking about someone who has entered into an understanding of God’s selfless, sacrificial, other-centered love that is an ongoing reality in their lives.

In addition, when John uses the word believed here, this word is the same word that is translated trust in our English Bibles. This word means to entrust oneself with complete confidence to someone or something, in this case the love which God has for us. And just like the word know, this conveys the sense of a past experience that has ongoing and continuing results. John is talking about someone who has placed their confident trust in God’s selfless, sacrificial, other-centered love in a way that is an ongoing reality in their lives.

John’s point here is that he, and other followers of Jesus who were leaders in God’s new movement in history called the church, lived lives that were driven by a knowledge and a confident trust in God’s selfless, sacrificial, other-centered love that was an ongoing reality in their lives. And because of such knowledge and trust in the love of God that was such an ongoing reality in their lives, John could proclaim that God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

John is reminding the readers of this letter of something that he had mentioned earlier in the letter, which is that God is the source of love. And because God is the source of love, therefore, God in His very nature and character is love. He is not loving, He is love. John’s point is that because God is love, the person who remains in close community and connection with a life of love reveals their close community and connection with God and God’s close community and connection with them.

And it is here, in this section of this letter, that we discover a timeless truth when it comes to connecting in true community. And that timeless truth is this: True community and connection with Jesus is revealed by our response to God’s love.  Just as it was for followers of Jesus in John’s day; just as it has been for followers of Jesus throughout history, true community and connection with Jesus is revealed by our response to God’s love.

And in 1 John 4:15-21, we will see John reveal three different ways that true community and connection with Jesus will respond to God’s love. First, in 1 John 4:15-16, we see John reveal for us the reality that true community and connection with Jesus responds to God’s love by remaining connected with God in love. The timeless reality is that, because God is love, the person who remains in true community and connection with Jesus will respond to the love of God by remaining in close community and connection with God. And because they remain in close community and connection with God, God ' close community and connection with them will produce a life of love towards God.

But not only does true community and connection with Jesus responds to God’s love by remaining connected with God in love. And tomorrow we will see John reveal a second way that true community and connection with Jesus will respond to God’s love…