Sermon Resources · Knowing Love

Knowing Love: From Selfishness to Agape Love

Concluding a series on knowing God, this sermon centers on agape: the selfless, unconditional, chosen love that defines God's nature. Grounded in 1 John, the message invites believers to move from inward-focused living to visible, practical service. The call is simple and memorable: become a "bike fixer"-someone who notices a need and lovingly responds.

Key Points

• The series builds from being named by God, to being able to love, to carrying the Greater One within, and finally to moving outward in love.
• The New Testament distinguishes eros, storge, philia, and agape. First John centers on agape: love chosen freely rather than driven by emotion, blood ties, attraction, or affinity.
• God is not merely loving; God is love. Jesus Christ reveals that love most fully.
• To be born of God, to know God, and to love others are inseparable realities-not competing tests of faith.
• Knowing God includes both recognition and relationship: we see evidence of God and come to know God through nearness and experience.
• Prevenient grace means God's love goes before us, pursues us, and claims us before we fully recognize it.
• Fear is a counterfeit motivation for witness. Agape cares for the whole person and their life now, not only their future after death.
• Discipleship is a journey from selfishness to selflessness-from taking the ball to fixing the bike.

Scripture Reference

• 1 John 4:7-8: love comes from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God, because God is love.
• 1 John 5: being born of God is connected to knowing Jesus, paralleling the call to love in chapter 4.
• 1 John 4:12, 18-21: God's love becomes visible in believers; perfect love casts out fear; love for God and neighbor cannot be separated.
• Psalm 23:4, 6 and Psalm 46:1: God is present in the valley and a ready help in trouble.
• Acts 17:28, Ephesians 5:1, and John 15:15: alluded to in the sermon's reflections on life in God, imitating Christ, and friendship with Jesus.

Stories and Images

Recognized before he knew: An ancestry DNA test revealed the speaker's West African and Nigerian heritage. Nigerian strangers recognized something in him before he knew it himself-a picture of God knowing and naming God's children before they recognize their identity.

From ball-taker to bike-fixer: Poindexter Washington once kept the balls that landed in his yard. Over time, hardship and caregiving reshaped him into a generous neighborhood presence who repaired bikes and appliances for free. His story pictures the slow, real work of discipleship.

Cat people and dog people: This humorous metaphor contrasts self-worship-"I must be God"-with grateful devotion-"You must be God." Spiritual growth moves us away from self at the center.

God made visible: Moses saw God only from behind; no one has seen God directly. Yet when believers love one another, God becomes recognizable in the world.

Words to Remember

Success focuses inward. Significance turns outward.

Love does not only ask where someone will be after death; it asks what they need while they are here.

Discussion Questions

Agape is described as a choice rather than an emotion or obligation. Where is it hardest for you to choose love when your feelings or circumstances pull another way?

The sermon connects knowing Jesus with knowing love. How does that reshape the way you understand your relationship with God?

Where do you see yourself on the journey from a cat-like posture of self-focus to a dog-like posture of grateful devotion to God?

What might transform a person from a ball-taker into a bike-fixer? Where have hardship or responsibility opened you to a deeper capacity for selfless love?

If people encounter God through the love they see in believers, how does that change the weight you place on ordinary interactions?

What practical reorientation might help you move from pursuing success to pursuing significance?

How does being known and claimed by God before fully knowing yourself affect your identity and worth?

How does the conviction that eternity is happening now change the way you engage the needs around you today?

Where have you seen God's pursuing, prevenient grace in your story-perhaps in a moment you did not recognize as grace at the time?

Which is harder for you: fixing someone else's bike or admitting that your own bike needs fixing? What would practicing the harder posture look like this week?

Small Group Guide

Agape: The Love That Changes Everything

Overview

This session explores agape as the unconditional, selfless love of God and calls the group to move from self-focused living toward significant, outward-facing love. The aim is not simply to define agape, but to let God's love become visible in concrete acts of care.

Key Takeaways

Opening Questions

Before this sermon, which Greek word for love did you most associate with the word "love"? Did the message shift anything for you?

When has someone loved you as a conscious choice rather than from obligation? What did that reveal to you?

Engaging the Text

In 1 John 4:7-8, how do loving others, being born of God, and knowing God belong together?

Where is agape hardest to practice because the relationship lacks emotional connection, family obligation, or shared affinity?

Does the thought that people may recognize God through us feel like a burden, a privilege, or both? Why?

How does agape challenge a faith that focuses only on someone's eternal destination rather than their full life today?

Making It Real

Who came to mind when you heard the invitation to fix someone's bike? What is one specific way you could show up for that person?

Where do you need to let someone know that your own bike needs fixing?

Practical Applications

The name on your heart: Write down one person. Pray for them each day this week, then take one concrete step-a call, visit, meal, letter, or practical gift-to show love.

The bike you can fix: Identify one overlooked need in your neighborhood, workplace, or family that you can help meet. Take the first step this week.

The bike that needs fixing: Practice vulnerability. Share one real need with a trusted person and receive help.

The mirror exercise: Spend five minutes asking whether your recent actions have reflected agape or a lesser, more self-protective form of love. Bring what you notice to God without judgment.

Closing Prayer Focus

Pray that God would deepen the group's capacity to choose love; that names and faces raised in the study would lead to action; and that the church would be known for how it loves. Close with the Lord's Prayer if desired.

5-Day Bible Reading Plan and Devotional Guide

Agape: The Choosing Love of God

Day 1: You Are Named

Reading: 1 John 3:1

Before you earned anything, asked anything, or knew what to seek, God named you. Your identity is not secured by achievement or by the labels others have given you. God sees you in uncertainty and wandering and says, "That one is mine." You are a child of God.

Reflection: What names or labels have you allowed to define you that conflict with what God says about you?

Practical Application: Write down three false names you have been carrying. Cross them out and write "Child of God" over each one.

Day 2: You Are Able

Reading: 1 John 4:7-8

Agape is not driven by emotion, blood, or tribe. It is selfless love chosen for the good of another. God does not simply save us from something; God saves us into a life shaped by divine love. That capacity now lives in you. You are able.

Reflection: In what relationships are you relying on emotion rather than choosing agape?

Practical Application: Identify one difficult relationship where you will choose to love this week because God has made you able.

Day 3: The Greater One-Love Over Fear

Reading: 1 John 4:18

Fear can imitate urgency and even imitate faith, but fear-driven witness cares more about outcomes than people. Agape rejects that counterfeit. It brings bread, offers a hug, and fixes the bike. The Greater One within you is a spirit of love, power, and a sound mind.

Reflection: Where has fear shaped your witness more than love has?

Practical Application: Take one step toward someone you have been reluctant to serve, motivated entirely by love rather than obligation or fear.

Day 4: Love Seen

Reading: 1 John 4:12

No one has seen God, yet God becomes visible when believers love one another. The change from taking neighborhood children's balls to fixing their bikes was discipleship in motion: God becoming recognizable through a transformed life.

Reflection: If someone who did not know God watched your life for a week, what might they conclude about the God you follow?

Practical Application: Do one visible, unexplained act of kindness for someone outside your usual circle-not for recognition, but as worship.

Day 5: Love Chosen

Reading: 1 John 4:19-21

We love because God first loved us. Discipleship moves us, day by day, from "I must be God" to "You must be God." It happens through small choices to agape when every instinct says to protect ourselves. Someone in your life needs their bike fixed today.

Reflection: What act of love have you been postponing that God is calling you to do now?

Practical Application: Contact the person whose name or face came to mind. Do not wait for a perfect moment. Fix the bike.