Proof of Life: Love and Hate

1 John 2

Connect:

• Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.

Prayer:

Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.

Review:

This series, Proof of Life, is looking at how we KNOW that we are saved, born of the Spirit, alive in Christ… and what that looks like in our daily walk! This week we looked at how our love for God, our family in Christ, and others demonstrate that this life of God in us is real!

The Grand Tour of the message: Thinking back on what you heard this Sunday…

o What did you learn about God?

o What did you learn about people?

o What did you learn about yourself?

o What do you want to commit to putting into practice?

Reflection:

Personal Experience:

• When a loved one just drives you ABSOLUTELY NUTS, how do you process those emotions? Share an appropriate example and talk about not just WHAT you feel but HOW you try to process those feelings in a way that honors God and them.

  Group Discussion:

• Read 1 John 2:4-6

  • As John begins his homily, he makes the clear point that there is a vital relationship between loving God and doing what He says.

    • Why does “knowing” God and “Keeping” His commandments go together? (Deuteronomy 11:1, Exodus 20:6, John 14:15, John 15:10)

    • Read John 14:23: What does it mean for God to “make His home” with us?

• Read 1 John 2:7-11

  • Obedience is one indicator of “walking in the light as Jesus is in the light”… but there is another one: Love! Let’s talk about that:

    • How can a person be convinced that they are “in the light” but still “walk in darkness”? Is it really that easy to deceive ourselves? Why? (Proverbs 30:12, Jeremiah 17:9, Isaiah 29:13, James 1:22, Galatians 6:7)

    • Read John 13:34: What was “new” about “love one another as I have loved you”?

    • John says, “They don’t know where they are going”. How is lack of direction linked to lack of love for those God loves? (Proverbs 3:5,6, Hosea 4:6, Psalm 119:105, Matthew 6:33, Romans 1:21)

• Read 1 John 2:12-14

  • Break into 3 equal groups and spend 3-5 mins saying in your own words what is his exhortation to

    • Children (in the faith)

    • Young men (emerging leaders in the faith)

    • Fathers [/mothers] (veterans of the faith)

• Read 1 John 2:15-17

• The point here seems to be that this world consumed by evil will pass away

  • Why are the love of the world and the love of God so dramatically incompatible?

  • What difference does it make if we live for eternity rather than for “the world and its desires” that are “passing away”?

Application: 

What will we choose to love? How can we make that an intentional, daily choice? Discuss some disciplines and habits that we can form which will support our growth in that area.

Prayer:

The point here is that we cannot love God AND reject His ways; if we know Him, we will walk with Him. Spend some time in prayer together that the Lord will alert us to ways that we are rejecting/ quenching/ ignoring the conviction of His Spirit in unreconciled relationships!

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