Week 4:Redeemer GC Lesson

Main Focus:  What marks true worship in the city of God?

Coming to God by faith on His terms in Christ, giving Him our first and best, loving our brother, and calling on His Name—trusting grace, not our works.

  • 1 John 3:11-18

    For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

    By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

    Chosen because it reinforces Genesis 4: worship and love are inseparable; Cain hated and killed his brother, but those born of God love their brothers and lay down their lives. This text harmonizes with the sermon by showing how true worship produces love, not hate.

  • What do we learn from Jesus here?

  • How does this passage convict us to trust and love Jesus more deeply?

  • What immediate step of obedience is Jesus calling us to?

  • Is the Lord instructing us to adopt any new or renewed habits from this text?