More Love for the Loveless

ICEBREAKER
What are some great examples of someone loving you well? You can share about your spouse or someone in your family but also think of how others outside your family have loved you well.

Today we’re talking about the biblical concept of Love and how God provides more love for the loveless. It’s part of our Advent series at church called “More or Less.”

While Christmas is a beautiful, even magical time of the year, it doesn’t resolve all our conflicts, reduce our anxieties, or fill our lives with friends and cheer. In fact, in some ways it complicates life. The bottom line for this whole series is…  “When there seems to be less, God has more.”

WATCH, STUDY, DISCUSS
Watch the Bible Project’s teaching video on “Love.” You can find it on their website at BibleProject.com or on YouTube.

• What surprises you about this definition of love?

Read 1 John 4:7-16 - The God of the Bible doesn’t just express love, he is love. As a triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—he has always been and always will be an others-centered, self-giving, communal being. Jesus fully embodies the love of God, and he demonstrated it most clearly when he gave his life on behalf of humanity. When people learn to trust Jesus’ love for them, they join in God’s community of life and love, and their very nature is transformed to live a life of love with him.

• According to the passage, what is the source of love? How did God show his love to us, and why did he do it? Why should we love others? Take time to rediscover and marvel at the answers the passage provides to these questions.
• Review 1 John 4:16. Have you learned to trust that God loves you? If so, describe your experience of receiving his love. If not, what do you think would change in your life if you fully trusted that God loves you?
• No one has seen God, but God lives in the one who loves (vs. 12). In this way, God’s life can be seen through people who choose to speak and act in sacrificial love. How have you seen God’s life through people’s love for one another? How can you love and show God’s life to someone else today?

Read Matthew 5:43-48 - Jesus teaches his followers to seek other people’s well-being without expecting anything in return and to extend love to even their enemies. Sacrificial, selfless, and forgiving love imitates the very character of God himself.

• How do Jesus’ words encourage and challenge you today?
• Note how God himself is kind to people who commit evil. What does this say about God’s character?

TAKEAWAY
Do you have a person in your life that you struggle to love? Take time now to imagine how God sees that person. What do you imagine he desires most for them? How do you think Jesus would personally address them, and how can you join him today? 

John the Baptist said in John 3:30 “He must increase. I must decrease.” This week, how will you make the love of God more important and the love of yourself or others less important?
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PRAYER
First, take some time to ask people to identify prayer needs related to the discussion about encouraging one another. Second, take some time to ask for additional prayer requests. Then close your time together in prayer.