Perhaps slightly counter-intuitively, one of the hardest ideas in the Bible to get our heads around is the love of God. When you study this glorious dimension of the life of our God it turns out to be a sophisticated and multi-faceted reality. Too often we lose much of the richness of the idea (and of the experience) by reducing it to a rather bland: ‘God loves everyone the same’, or ‘God’s love is unconditional’. Neither idea resonates particularly well with what the Bible actually says. Even in this week’s reading we can see a sense of discrimination in God’s love. ‘…the Father Himself loves you because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from God’ (16:27). A straightforward reading would suggest that God doesn’t love - at least doesn’t love in the same way - those who haven’t loved Jesus, and believed that He came from God.

And this sense of God’s love as a differentiated experience turns out to reflect much more adequately the teaching of the Bible. It is those who are adopted in Christ who are able to call God Father, and to approach Him in prayer. Through Christ, we have entered into covenant relationship with God and He relates to us in a way now fundamentally different from the rest of the world. The emotional landscape of God’s being is rich, which is no less than we should expect. And His love for His (adopted) children is different from His love for the world. Yes, the Bible does speak of God’s love for the world, and that love found expression in His sending Christ as an atoning sacrifice (Jn.3:16, Rom.5:8, I Jn.4:10). That love is not withdrawn when we become Christians, but other dynamics of His love become part of our experience. And it is our appreciation and experience of that covenant love that God has for the Church, that qualitatively different love, that is the basis of our confidence in His delighting to hear us pray (16:26).

And of course, the converse can also be true. Those who have no such confidence might find that behind their impoverished experience of prayer, lurks an insecurity, or perhaps a confusion about the nature of God’s love for us in Christ…

Questions:

How does God’s love take on different dynamics when we are thinking about:

(i) The Father’s love for the Son?

(ii) The Father’s love for the world?

(iii) The Father’s love for the Church?

(iv) The Son’s love for the Church?

Can you show from the Bible how these ‘loves’ have different elements and features? In what ways does thinking about how God’s love for the Church differs from His love for the world enrich our experience of worship, prayer, discipleship and mission?

How does remembering that God is Trinity open up the richness of the Bible’s teaching about the love of God? Why does Jesus focus on the Father’s love for the disciples in this passage (16:27)?

When is the time Jesus envisages no longer speaking figuratively abut the Father (16:25)? In what way has Jesus been using figures of speech up to that point? Does Jesus speak ‘plainly’ to the Church now? What implications does that have for how well we should know about God?

Over the last three months, we’ve heard Jesus teach a lot about prayer (14:13-14; 15:7; 16:24; 16:26). How has your approach to, and experience of prayer changed over this year in the light of Jesus’ teaching? Have you grown more fully into what Jesus says our experience of prayer should be? How can you support each other as a HomeGroup as you grow in this area of your life as Christians?

Why does the disciples’ realisation that Jesus doesn’t even need to have someone ask Him questions convince them that He is in fact ‘from God’ (16:30)?

How does Jesus’ telling the disciples about their upcoming ‘scattering’ ensure their peace in Christ (16:32-33)? How would you counsel a Christian who felt anxious and worried and restless? Does this promise of peace mean that some kind of ‘inner calm’ should be a part of Christian dsicipleship?

How is this peace different from anything a non-Christian can experience or enjoy?

What does it mean to say that Jesus has overcome the world? Why is there still so much sin and suffering, and opposition to the Gospel throughout the world if Jesus has overcome it?