2. Covenantal Love, Sabbath(1.4)
Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week’s Study
Read for This Week’s Study
Memory Text
“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him’ ” (John 14:23, NKJV).
However, careful study of divine love throughout Scripture shows that these ideas, though common, are mistaken. First, the Greek term agape refers not only to God’s love but also to human love, even sometimes misdirected human love (2 Tim. 4:10). Second, throughout Scripture, many terms other than agape refer to God’s love. For example, Jesus taught, “ ‘the Father Himself loves [phileo] you, because you have loved [phileo] Me’ ” (John 16:27, NASB). Here, the Greek term phileo is used not only of human love but also of God’s love for humans. Thus, phileo does not refer to a deficient kind of love, but to God’s love itself.
Scripture also teaches that God’s love is not unilateral, but deeply relational, in that it makes a profound difference to God whether or not humans reflect His love back to Him and to others.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, January 11.
Sunday(1.5), The Everlasting Love of God
Read Psalm 33:5 and Psalm 145:9. What do these verses teach about how far God’s lovingkindness, compassion, and mercy extend?
Some might think that they are unlovable, or that God might love everyone else, but not them. Yet, the Bible consistently proclaims that every single person is loved by God. There is no one whom He does not love. And because God loves everyone, He also wants everyone to be saved, as well.
Read 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4, and Ezekiel 33:11. What do these texts teach about God’s desire to save everyone?
The verse after John 3:16 adds: “ ‘For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved’ ” (John 3:17, NKJV). If it were up to God alone, every human being would accept His love and be saved. Yet, the Lord will not force His love on anyone. People are free to accept or reject it.
And even though some do reject it, God never stops loving them. In Jeremiah 31:3, He proclaims to His people: “ ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you’ ” (NKJV). Elsewhere, the Bible repeatedly teaches that God’s love endures forever (see, for example, Psalm 136). God’s love never runs out. It is everlasting. This is hard for us to understand because we often find it easy not to love others, don’t we?
However, if we as individuals could learn to experience the reality of that love—that is, to know for ourselves God’s love—how differently we might live and treat others.
If God loves everyone, this means He must love some pretty despicable characters, because there are some (a lot, in fact) despicable characters out there. What should God’s love for these people teach us about how we should seek to relate to them, as well?
Monday(1.6), Covenantal Love
Read Deuteronomy 7:6-9. What do these verses teach about the relationship between God making covenants and God’s lovingkindness?
Deuteronomy 7:9 describes a special kind of love that God has with His covenant people, a relationship that is partially dependent on whether or not they remain faithful. God’s love is not conditional, but the covenant relationship with His people is.
The word translated “lovingkindness” or “mercy” in Deuteronomy 7:9, ?esed, itself exemplifies the covenantal aspect of divine love (and much more). ?esed is often used to describe the greatness of God’s mercy, goodness, and love. Among other things, ?esed refers to the lovingkindness, or steadfast love, for another within an existing reciprocal love relationship. It also initiates such a relationship, with the expectation that the other party will show this lovingkindness in return.
God’s ?esed shows that His lovingkindness is extremely reliable, steadfast, and enduring. Yet, at the same time, the reception of the benefits of ?esed is conditional, dependent upon the willingness of His people to obey and to maintain their end of the relationship (see 2 Sam. 22:26, 1 Kings 8:23, Ps. 25:10, Ps. 32:10, 2 Chron. 6:14).
God’s steadfast love is the basis of all love relationships, and we could never match that love. God not only freely gave us existence, but in Christ He freely gave Himself for us. “ ‘Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends’ ” (John 15:13, NKJV). No question, the greatest expression of God’s love was revealed when the Lord “humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8, NKJV).
What are ways that you can constantly keep the reality of God’s love in your thoughts? Why is it important to do that?
Tuesday(1.7), Conditional Relationship
Read Hosea 9:15, Jeremiah 16:5, Romans 11:22, and Jude 21. What do these texts teach about whether the benefits of God’s love can be rejected—even forfeited?
In these and other texts, enjoying the benefits of a love relationship with God is repeatedly depicted as conditional upon the human response to His love. Yet, we should not make the mistake of thinking that God ever actually stops loving anyone. As we have seen, God’s love is everlasting. And, although Hosea 9:15 includes God saying of His people, “ ‘I will love them no more,’ ” it is important to remember that later in the same book God declares of His people, “ ‘I will love them freely’ ” (Hos. 14:4, NKJV). Hosea 9:15 cannot mean that God entirely ceases to love His people. It must refer, instead, to the conditionality of some particular aspect or benefit of a love relationship with God. And how we respond to His love is crucial for this relationship to continue.
“ ‘He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him’ ” (John 14:21, NKJV). Likewise, Jesus proclaims to His disciples, “ ‘The Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father’ ” (John 16:27, NASB).
These and other texts teach that maintaining the benefits of a saving relationship with God depends upon whether we will accept God’s love (which involves willingness to be vehicles of that love, as well). Again, this does not mean that God’s love ever ceases. Rather, just as we cannot stop the sun from shining but we can cut ourselves off from the rays of the sun, we cannot do anything to stop God’s everlasting love, but we can finally reject a relationship with God and, thus, cut ourselves off from what it offers, especially the promise of eternal life.
What are ways that people can see, and experience, the reality of God’s love, whether or not they return it? For example, how does the natural world, even after sin, reveal His love?
Wednesday(1.8), Mercy Forfeited
Read 1 John 4:7-20, with specific emphasis on verses 7 and 19. What does this tell us about the priority of God’s love?
God’s love always comes first. If God did not first love us, we could not love Him in return. While God created us with the capacity to love and to be loved, God Himself is the ground and source of all love. We have the choice, however, whether we will accept it and then reflect it in our lives. This truth is exemplified in Christ’s parable of the unforgiving servant (see Matt. 18:23-35).
In the parable, we can see that there was no way the servant ever could have repaid what he owed the master. According to Matthew 18, the servant owed his master 10,000 talents. One talent amounted to about six thousand denarii. And one denarius was what an average laborer would be paid for one day of work (compare with Matt. 20:2). So, it would take an average laborer 6,000 days of labor to earn one talent. Suppose after accounting for days off, that an average laborer might work 300 days per year and, thus, earn 300 denarii in a year. So it would take an average laborer approximately twenty years to repay one talent, which consisted of 6,000 denarii (6,000/300 = 20). In order to earn 10,000 talents, then, an average laborer would have to work 200,000 years. In short, the servant could never repay this debt. Yet, the master felt compassion for his servant and freely forgave his huge debt.
However, when this forgiven servant refused to forgive the far, far smaller debt of 100 denarii of one of his fellow servants and had him thrown in prison over the debt, the master was moved with anger and rescinded his merciful forgiveness. The servant forfeited the love and forgiveness of his master. Although God’s compassion and mercy never run out, one can finally reject, even forfeit, the benefits of God’s compassion and mercy.
Think about what you have been forgiven and what it cost you to be forgiven by Jesus. What should this tell you about forgiving others?
Thursday(1.9), You Have Freely Received; Freely Give
However, what we can and should do is to reflect God’s love to others as much as we possibly can. If we have received such great compassion and forgiveness, how much more should we bestow compassion and forgiveness on others? Recall that the servant forfeited his master’s compassion and forgiveness because he failed to bestow them on his fellow servant. If we truly love God, we will not fail to reflect His love to others.
Read John 15:12, 1 John 3:16, and 1 John 4:7-12. What do these passages teach about the relationship between God’s love, our love for God, and love for others?
Just after John 15:12, Jesus told His disciples,
“ ‘You are My friends if you do whatever I command you’ ” (John 15:14, NKJV). And what did Jesus command them? Among other things, Jesus commanded them (and us) to love others even as He loved them. Here and elsewhere, the Lord commands us to love God and to love one another.
In short, we should recognize that we have been forgiven an infinite debt, one that we can never repay, a debt paid only at the cross for us. Therefore, we should love and praise God and live with love and grace toward others. As Luke 7:47 teaches, the one who is forgiven much, loves much, but “ ‘to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little’ ” (NKJV). And who among us doesn’t realize just how much he or she has been forgiven?
If to love God entails that we love others, we should with urgency share the message of God’s love, both in word and in deed. We should help people in their daily lives here and now, and also seek to be a conduit of God’s love and point people to the One who offers them the promise of eternal life in a new heaven and a new earth—an entirely new creation from this world, which is so marred and ravaged by sin and death, the doleful fruits of rejecting God’s love.
What specific steps can you take to love God by loving others? What could you do today and in the coming days to show people God’s love and (eventually) invite them to enjoy what it means to have the promise of eternal life?
Friday(1.10), Further Thought
“Keep your wants, your joys, your sorrows, your cares, and your fears before God. You cannot burden Him; you cannot weary Him. He who numbers the hairs of your head is not indifferent to the wants of His children. ‘The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.’ James 5:11. His heart of love is touched by our sorrows and even by our utterances of them. Take to Him everything that perplexes the mind. Nothing is too great for Him to bear, for He holds up worlds, He rules over all the affairs of the universe. Nothing that in any way concerns our peace is too small for Him to notice. There is no chapter in our experience too dark for Him to read; there is no perplexity too difficult for Him to unravel. No calamity can befall the least of His children, no anxiety harass the soul, no joy cheer, no sincere prayer escape the lips, of which our heavenly Father is unobservant, or in which He takes no immediate interest. ‘He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.’ Psalm 147:3. The relations between God and each soul are as distinct and full as though there were not another soul upon the earth to share His watchcare, not another soul for whom He gave His beloved Son. ”—Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ,p. 100.
Discussion Questions
In light of this week’s lesson, how do you understand Psalm 103:17, 18? What does it reveal about how God’s love is everlasting, and yet how the benefits of a relationship with God are dependent upon whether we will accept His love?
In what ways does knowing this make a difference in your relationship with God? How does it affect the way you think of the sorrows of others?
Sibú of the Bible
by Andrew Mcchesney
Melvin Madriz
Melvin wasn’t sure whether man was created from dust or corn. In the Bible, he read that “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7, NKJV). But the Cabécar, the largest indigenous group in Costa Rica with a population of about 17,000, taught him that Sibú, which means “God” in their native language, created man from corn.
Growing up, Melvin always had thought that the Sibú of tradition and the Sibú of the Bible were the same deity. But as he studied the Bible with a Seventh-day Adventist, he realized that Sibú’s characteristics in the Bible were very different from those of tradition. He decided to accept the Sibú of the Bible, and he was baptized with his parents and two siblings.
A year later, his mother suffered a stroke at the age of 40 and died.
Melvin, who was 22, believed that death was an unconscious sleep. But Cabécar tradition taught that his mother remained alive and risked being lost in darkness forever unless her family partook in four days of rituals that guided her to the next world. As part of traditional funeral rituals, they needed to slaughter two pigs and three chickens and feed them to mourners. Refusing to do so would be considered very selfish. Cabécar tradition condemned selfish people as an abomination. Despite tremendous pressure from grandparents and other relatives to conform to tradition, Melvin and his family decided to follow the Bible. An Adventist pastor helped them find a place outside of Cabécar territory to bury their mother.
It was then that Melvin decided to become a pastor. He had sensed God calling him to gospel ministry since his baptism, but he had resisted. After his mother died, he resolved to dedicate the rest of his life to sharing the Sibú of the Bible. He wanted to lead his people away from the Sibú who created man from corn to the Sibú who formed man from dust. He wanted them to rejoice in the knowledge that animal sacrifices were not required to gain eternal life in the next world because the Sibú of the Bible gave His own life as a sacrifice to save all.
Today, Melvin Madriz is a 24-year-old pastoral student at Central America Adventist University in Costa Rica. Upon graduating, he will be the Adventist Church’s first Cabécar pastor. Only about 30 Cabécar people are currently Adventists.
“I believe in Sibú, but only the Sibú of the Bible, not the Sibú of tradition,” Melvin said.
Pray for the God of the Bible to be proclaimed to the Cabécar and all indigenous people worldwide. Thank you for your mission offerings that help share the gospel with unreached and underreached people groups.
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