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Won't You Be My Neighbor | Part 4 · Rewind

Rock Point Church

76 min

Pastor Bill Bush · Feb 3, 2020 · 4 min read · 76 min listen

The big idea

When I know love, I will show love — loving others flows naturally out of truly grasping how much God loves us.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 4Be clear about His love — God loves you because of who He is, not because of what you do
Point 2 of 4Stay near His love — you become like Jesus by staying close to Jesus

Point 3 of 4Perfect love casts out fear, so we can jump instead of staying stuck
Point 4 of 4Refusing to love fellow believers exposes what's really going on inside
Take it into your week
Transcript

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Scripture in this message

1 John 4:7
1 John 4:7-21
1 John 4:9
1 John 4:11
1 John 4:16
1 John 4:17

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Bill Bush · Feb 3, 2020 · 76 min watch · 2 min read

Won't You Be My Neighbor | Part 4

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

1 John 4:7
1 John 4:7-21
1 John 4:9
1 John 4:11
1 John 4:16
1 John 4:17

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

When I know love, I will show love — loving others flows naturally out of truly grasping how much God loves us.

We keep getting stuck trying to love people the way God calls us to, but the secret to loving without getting stuck is simple: when I know love, I will show love. Pastor Bill walks through 1 John 4:7-21 to show that loving others consistently only happens when we are clear about God's love, stay near God's love, and let that love push out the fear that holds us back.

Key points

1
1Be clear about His love — God loves you because of who He is, not because of what you do
Pastor Bill works through 1 John 4:7-10 to show that love comes from God, and God showed how much He loved us by sending His Son while we were still rebelling against Him. He warns that misunderstanding this leads to legalism, trying to earn a love that was already given, and uses kids' definitions of love, especially four-year-old Billy's line about your name being safe in someone's mouth, to press the question of whether we really grasp God's love for us.
2
2Stay near His love — you become like Jesus by staying close to Jesus
Moving into verses 11-16, Pastor Bill shows that as we love others, God's love is brought to full expression in us, and the Holy Spirit gives us the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. He points to declining church attendance statistics over thirty years and to Jesus' own habit of withdrawing to pray as proof that gathering, private prayer, and Scripture are how we stay near enough to actually love like Jesus.
3
3Perfect love casts out fear, so we can jump instead of staying stuck
From verses 17-19, Pastor Bill explains that Christians will face a day of accounting for what they did with the time, money, and relationships God gave them, not a judgment of condemnation but a mirror. He tells his own bungee-jumping story, jumping on the count of two instead of three, as a picture of trusting God's love enough to act before fear talks you out of it.
4
4Refusing to love fellow believers exposes what's really going on inside
Pastor Bill unpacks verse 20's warning that anyone who claims to love God while hating a fellow believer is a liar, defining hate as the absence of love rather than just bad feelings. He ties this to church engagement, serving, giving, and community, saying withholding those is itself the sin of refusing to do the good we know we ought to do.

Application

Pastor Bill's charge is to jump on two — to trust God's love enough to act before fear talks you out of it.

Get clear on God's love for you
If you've never truly surrendered to Jesus, stop trying to earn a love God already gave and settle the question of whether you belong to Him.
Stay near Jesus through gathering and prayer
Make public worship and private time in the Word and prayer a non-negotiable part of your week rather than something you do only when you have nothing else going on.
Get engaged in your church body
Serve, give, and get into community rather than just showing up when you feel like it, since withholding those things from fellow believers is itself a refusal to love.
Jump on two instead of waiting for three
Whatever scary step God is asking you to take with your time, money, or relationships this week, take it now instead of waiting until it feels safer, because waiting only makes it harder.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“you can turn to the book of first John. It's kind of easy. It's right before second John, and that's right before third John. It's right before Jude, and then that's right before the last book of the Bible”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“I just want to walk through this passage, verse seven through 21, and in here, I think we can break it down. I think there's three things”
From the transcript
“And the first one we'll see right here, verse seven says this, Dear friends, let us continue to love one another for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God”
From the transcript
“He says, God showed how much he loved us, in verse nine, by sending his one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him”
From the transcript
“He says in verse 11, Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. Should just be a natural byproduct”
From the transcript
“And then here's the transition, verse 16, For we know how much God loves us, be clear about His love, and we have put our trust in His love”
From the transcript
“And look what it says here starting in verse 17. God is love, and all who live in love live in God. He's repeating himself here. And God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect”
From the transcript
“he says in verse 19, we love each other because he loved us first. And then verse 20, if someone says I love God, but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar”
From the transcript
“And then verse 20, if someone says I love God, but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

John opens this passage with something that sounds almost too simple: love comes from God. Not from our best efforts, not from our natural warmth toward people we like, but from God Himself. And then he says something even more striking — anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. That word 'is' carries a lot of weight. John isn't saying God is loving as one quality among many. He's saying love is the very nature of who God is. This matters for how we think about our own attempts to love people well. If love is fundamentally God's nature, then our capacity to genuinely love others is inseparable from our connection to Him. When love feels forced, obligatory, or just plain hard, it may be less a willpower problem and more a clarity problem — a foggy or incomplete picture of who God actually is. Today is a good day to sit with the question: What do I actually believe about God's nature? Is He, in my honest experience, someone whose love I am drawing from — or someone whose approval I am still working to earn? The answer shapes everything about how freely and genuinely love flows from you toward the people in your life.

For reflection

When you picture God, is your instinct to feel loved and known by Him, or to feel like you are still proving something to Him?

Pray

Pray for a clearer, truer picture of who God actually is — not who you fear He might be.

Day 2

Verse nine is where John stops talking in the abstract and points to something concrete: 'God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him.' And then verse 10 adds the part that reorients everything — we did not love God first. He loved us first, and He acted on that love while we were still far off. The cross, John is saying, is not a reward for people who finally got their lives together. It is the clearest possible proof that God's love is not conditional on our performance. The pastor built the whole first movement of this sermon on that single reality: God loves you because of who He is, not because of what you do. That is not a bumper sticker. It is the load-bearing wall of the Christian life. If you are still, somewhere underneath your theology, operating as though God's love rises and falls with your obedience, the cross says otherwise — loudly and finally. Spending time here, really letting this settle in, is not a detour from learning to love others better. It is the foundation. You cannot give away a love you haven't received.

For reflection

Is there an area of your life where you are still secretly trying to earn God's love rather than receive it?

Pray

Pray for the courage to receive what God has already freely given at the cross, without adding conditions.

Day 3

John makes a move here that is worth slowing down for. He does not say, 'Since God loved us, we ought to love God back.' He says, 'Since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.' The direction of the response is outward, toward other people. That is not accidental. John is tracing the natural path of a love that has genuinely landed: it doesn't stay contained inside a private relationship with God. It flows. It has somewhere to go. The people immediately in front of you — your family, your neighbors, the people you worship alongside, the coworker who is hard to be around — they are exactly where God's love is meant to travel next. The word 'ought' here carries obligation, yes, but not the grinding, teeth-gritted kind. It is more like the obligation of a river to flow downhill. When the source is full, the movement is natural. This is part of why the sermon's framing is so helpful: loving others isn't primarily a discipline problem. It is a source problem. When we are genuinely clear about how deeply and unconditionally we are loved, the question shifts from 'How do I make myself love this difficult person?' to 'Where is love naturally wanting to go today?'

For reflection

Who is one specific person in your life toward whom love feels hard right now, and what might it look like to let God's love flow toward them this week?

Pray

Pray for one person by name — that God's love would move through you toward them in a specific, practical way.

Day 4

John says something in this verse that is easy to read past: 'We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love.' The verb tenses matter. 'We know' and 'we have put' suggest an ongoing, settled orientation — not a one-time realization but a posture that is continually inhabited. The sermon's second major point grows directly from this verse: staying near God's love is not optional maintenance for the Christian life; it is the mechanism by which love actually keeps flowing. The pastor named specific practices — gathered worship, private prayer, reading Scripture, serving, giving — not as a checklist for earning God's favor, but as the ordinary ways we remain near Jesus. Think of it this way: a branch does not produce fruit by trying harder to produce fruit. It stays connected to the vine, and the fruit comes. When love for others starts to feel thin or performative, the honest question is often not 'What is wrong with me?' but 'Have I been near the source lately?' Regular rhythms of worship, honest prayer, and genuine community are not spiritual extras. They are the conditions in which love stays alive and real.

For reflection

Which of the practices that keep you near Jesus — worship, prayer, Scripture, community, serving — has quietly slipped in the last season, and what would it look like to re-engage it this week?

Pray

Pray for a renewed desire to stay near Jesus, not out of obligation, but because nearness is where love is found.

Day 5

These are two of the most direct verses in the passage. John says that as we live in God, love grows more perfect in us — and that perfect love expels fear. He is not saying mature Christians never feel afraid. He is saying that the deeper and more settled our experience of God's love becomes, the less fear gets to be the final word about what we do next. The sermon was honest here: fear is real. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of looking foolish — none of that disappears automatically once we believe the right things. But John's diagnosis is worth sitting with. If fear is still consistently winning, it may be signaling something about where we are in our experience of God's love — not as a verdict on our faith, but as an invitation to go deeper. The cure John offers is not 'try harder not to be afraid.' It is 'go back to the love.' Let the love of God become more real, more settled, more the air you breathe — and fear gradually loses its grip. This is slow work. It is not a formula. But it starts with honesty about where fear is actually running the show in your life right now.

For reflection

Where is fear most consistently keeping you from a step you sense God is inviting you toward — and what might it look like to take that step anyway?

Pray

Pray for a deeper, more settled experience of God's love in the specific area where fear feels loudest.

Day 6

John ends this passage with a sharp and loving challenge. He has spent the whole chapter building the case that love flows from God outward, and now he names the contradiction directly: you cannot genuinely love God while consistently withholding love from the people He has placed in your life. Verse 19 grounds everything one more time — 'We love each other because He loved us first.' And then verse 20 says plainly that claiming to love God while refusing to love a brother or sister is a contradiction that does not hold. This is not meant to produce guilt. It is meant to be clarifying. The people around you — the ones who are hard to love, who have hurt you, who drain you — are not separate from your relationship with God. They are part of it. Loving them is one of the primary arenas in which love for God becomes visible and real. The sermon named this honestly: refusing to love fellow believers is not a minor gap in our spiritual performance. It is a signal worth paying attention to. Not as condemnation, but as an invitation to trace the disconnect back to its source — and to let God's love do its work there.

For reflection

Is there a relationship in your life — within your family, your church community, or elsewhere — where love has been withheld, and what might an honest first step toward repair look like?

Pray

Pray for honesty about one relationship where love has been withheld, and for the willingness to take a first step.

Day 7

Looking back across the whole passage, the arc John draws is remarkably consistent: God's love is the source, the cross is the proof, nearness is the path, and courage is the response. The sermon closed with a picture that is worth returning to — a child at the edge of a pool, afraid, looking out at a parent in the water who is smiling and waving and saying, 'I've got you. Jump.' The fear is real. The water is cold. The child does not know exactly what it will feel like. But the parent is already there. That image is the sermon's heartbeat. God is not standing at a distance, withholding His love until you get brave enough or good enough. He is in the water, arms out, inviting the jump. The question the pastor left each person with is worth carrying into this new week: Are you stuck because you have never been clear about this love? Are you stuck because you have drifted from being near it? Or are you clear and near, but still letting fear make your decisions? Whatever the answer, the invitation is the same. You do not have to wait for the fear to disappear. The love is already there. Jump on two.

For reflection

Looking honestly at this week's reflections, which of the three — clarity, nearness, or courage — is the area where God seems to be most clearly inviting you to grow right now?

Pray

Pray for the specific next step God has been surfacing this week — that you would take it in trust rather than waiting for the fear to leave first.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Think about someone in your life who makes love look effortless — the kind of person who just seems to have an endless supply of patience and warmth for others. This message suggests that kind of love isn't a personality trait; it has a source.

Discussion questions

1
In 1 John 4:7–10, John makes the case that love originates with God, not with us — and that the cross is the clearest proof of it. What do you think John wants his readers to understand about the nature of God's love from that argument?
2
The message drew a distinction between a willpower problem and a love-clarity problem when it comes to loving others. What's the difference, and why does that distinction matter for how we think about the Christian life?
3
In 1 John 4:16, John says we know and rely on the love God has for us — and that staying in love means staying in God. The message pointed to gathered worship, private prayer, reading the Word, serving, and community as ways we stay near Jesus. What do you think happens over time when people drift away from one or more of those?
4
First John 4:17–18 says perfect love casts out fear. The message interpreted that to mean ongoing fear is less a resource problem and more a signal that we haven't fully settled into God's love. How do you think those two things — fear and a settled confidence in God's love — relate to each other in practice?
5
In 1 John 4:20–21, John says that claiming to love God while withholding love from a fellow believer is a contradiction. Why do you think John frames it that strongly — and what does that tell us about how God designed love to work?
6
The message closed with the image of jumping on two — not waiting for the fear to go away, but trusting that your Father is already there and taking the step anyway. As a group, what might it look like for us to take that kind of courageous next step in loving the people around us?

Pray together

Gratitude for a love that came to us first — and courage to let that love move through us toward others

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Won't You Be My Neighbor

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