Love is simple. People are complicated. Evangelism is messy. Audio availabale at www.fultondalechurchofchrist.net

3. 1 John 4:7

6. Complicated
• God made Love the Law of his Kingdom !
– James 2:8 “If you fulfill the royal law according to
scripture , You shall love your neighbor as
yourself”
– 1 John 3:11 “ This message you have heard from
the beginning : We should love one another”
– Romans 13:8 “ Owe no one anything except to
love one another , for he who loves another fulfills
the law”

7. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in
my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide
in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments
and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you,
that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as
I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that
someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my
friends if you do what I command you.

8. Complicated
• Reason 1
– Love is not something that happens to us.
– Love is something we DO. (John 3:16)
– God doesn’t command emotions
– God commands action (1 John 3:16-19)

9. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for
tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we
know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes,
the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I
thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave
up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to
face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been
fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of
these is love.

10. Complicated
• Reason 2
– Love is not natural to us , we are taught
– Love is by Gods definition sacrificial and
unconditional ( John 14:15 , 1 John 3:16 )
• Love causes pain , we naturally avoid pain
• Love requires sacrifice , we naturally avoid sacrifice
• Love requires commitment , we naturally fear
commitment

11. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control;
against such things there is no law.

12. 5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness,
which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is
coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were
living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger,
wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the
old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self,
which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its
creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and
uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is
all, and in all.

15. 1 John 4:7