Sacrificial?

Good afternoon everyone. Can I repeat the welcome Johnny gave at the start, particularly if you're visiting our great city.

Hope you have a wonderful time here with us seeing the sights and that God will really bless you as you relax here.

We've been going for the last month and a half through the first letter by John in the New Testament.

And I thought since we're more or less halfway through the book at the moment,

and there's a slight change of emphasis over the next chapter or two,

it might be worth just taking stock very quickly.

John and Graham have explained very clearly to us that 1 John is a book that was written into a particular situation.

There are people who had gotten to the church who said, we have superior knowledge,

we are more spiritual than everybody else, we have no sin, we put all that behind us,

and we are really just a bit better than everybody.

And they cause a lot of trouble, eventually it appears they had left,

but not without causing a great deal of disruption in the church,

and perhaps unsettling church members that may be thinking, well, have we really got the truth?

Are we really Christians?

And John is writing to assure people that the test of Christianity, of Christian faith,

is that we believe in the Lord Jesus and that we are obedient to him,

and it's not all about having knowledge, it's much more about having love for one another.

Now that continues to be a large part of the theme of the remaining chapters in the book,

but as I said, I think there is a bit of a change.

In the last two and a half chapters, John is not so much thinking about the people who have come into the church

and the damage they've done, he's thinking about the people who are still there,

and how they should deal with one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus.

When we read the passage in a few minutes, you may notice again and again,

John talks about the brothers.

I think particularly in the second half of the book as well,

we can see the close link between John's first letter and John's gospel.

Now see it throughout the book, right at the start of the book he talks about in the beginning,

as he talks about in his gospel.

But from the middle of chapter 3 onwards,

there's a very close parallel between what John writes to his readers of his letter,

and particularly the teaching of the Lord Jesus in the upper room to his disciples in John's gospel.

Now when you read John's gospel, there is a very clear message in it.

The message of John's gospel is believe and live,

or maybe more accurately believe and have life.

He explains at the end of his book in chapter 20,

These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,

and that by believing, you may have life in his name.

If we take the most famous verse in John's gospel, chapter 3 and verse 16,

it says,

Whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

We go through lots and lots of verses in John's gospel that bring us this theme,

if you believe in Jesus, then you will have life, life not of yourself, but life given to you by God.

And that's very much also in John's letter, and we'll see that as we read our passage this morning.

But John's letter has a slightly different emphasis at points.

So not just believe and live, he says know and love.

In John's first epistle, the word know is used 42 times, mostly in chapters 2 and 3,

and the word love is used 45 times, mostly in chapters 3 and 4.

So he's saying once you've believed in the Lord Jesus and have life through him,

you will love and you will then have assurance you will know that you belong to him.

And that's the sequence, I think.

You believe in Jesus, that is the only way to have salvation through him.

You believe that he lived, that he died for you, that he rose again,

and that he can bring forgiveness for your sins.

When you do that, you're given life by God, you're given eternal life,

and that life leads you to love others.

And we'll see in a few minutes just how critical that is.

As you have life through the Lord Jesus, so that brings a love for him and for others.

And that love you have for others is one of the key evidences when you're thinking,

well, do I really belong to Jesus?

Am I really a Christian or not?

John says one of the key ways in which you can identify that you do belong to Christ,

that you can know that you are saved, is by the love you have for others.

So you believe, and that brings you life.

You then love, and that brings you assurance.

It brings you the knowledge that you are God's child.

Look out for these as we go through the passage.

We're looking at 1 John chapter 3.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

I'm going to steal a couple of verses from last week's passage,

and we're going to start at verse 11.

1 John chapter 3 and verse 11.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

John writes,

This is the message you heard from the beginning.

We should love one another.

Do not be like Cain who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother.

And why did he murder him?

Because his own actions were evil and his brothers were righteous.

Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.

We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers.

Anyone who does not love remains in death.

Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer,

and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

This is how we know what love is.

Jesus Christ laid down his life for us,

and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him,

how can the love of God be in him?

Dear children,

let us not love with words or tongue,

but with actions and in truth.

This then is how we know that we belong to the truth,

and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence,

whenever our hearts condemn us.

For God is greater than our hearts,

and he knows everything.

Dear friends,

if our hearts do not condemn us,

we have confidence before God,

and ask from him,

and receive from him anything we ask,

because we obey his commands,

and do what pleases him.

And this is his command,

to believe in the name of his son,

Jesus Christ,

and to love one another

as he commanded us.

Those who obey his commands live in him,

and he in them.

And this is how we know that he lives in us.

We know it by the spirit he gave us.

We pray God will help us to understand what he has to say to us from his word this morning,

this afternoon.

This gentleman on the screen here is Dr. Bill Franklin.

Dr. Franklin is 103 years old,

and he received an MBE in June for his services to medicine.

He was involved with Alexander Fleming in the development of penicillin.

He was one of the first people to promote the pollen count

as being a good warning for hay fever sufferers

that they needed to get their pills out.

He also developed a theory

that people are subject much more to allergies these days

because we're too keen on hygiene,

and we don't build up enough resistance to infection.

He was a leading doctor.

Dr. Franklin has had his 15 minutes of fame, perhaps,

in the last two or three weeks.

He was on Desert Island Discs,

and perhaps the oldest person who had ever done that.

And I came across him, I first heard him,

when he was part of the VJ Day commemorations on the BBC.

Dr. Franklin, at the start of the war, was in Singapore.

He got captured by the Japanese,

and for three and a half years he suffered along with many, many other British and Commonwealth servicemen

at the hands of the Japanese captors.

He was beaten up.

He saw terrible things in his work as a doctor.

He emerged from it, emaciated,

and looking in very poor shape.

The BBC did two interviews consecutively with ex-prisoners of war.

One of them said,

I can't forgive the Japanese.

I wouldn't be true to myself if I forgave them.

And who am I to criticise someone who'd been through so much and felt that way?

But Dr. Franklin, when he was interviewed, said,

I can't hate the Japanese.

I don't hate them.

If I hated them, it wouldn't do them any harm.

Hate only harms you.

And Kirsty Young, who was presenting, said to him,

have you always had this attitude?

Is this something that's just grown on you as the memories of the war have got a little bit more distant?

And he said, no.

When I was a child, I said to my brother, I hate you.

And my father pulled me up, and he taught me never to hate.

You only harm yourself if you hate.

I looked on the internet and came across a longer quote from him.

He said, you must not go on hating people.

It does you harm, but it does not do them any harm.

Also, I am a Christian who was taught to love, not hate.

That's how I live my life.

And that's very much the message of the first part of the passage we're looking at this afternoon.

That the responsibility of the Christian and the sign of life in the Christian

is that we love others, that we don't hate them.

And John uses two examples to illustrate that.

The example of Cain, and then the example of the Lord Jesus.

So first of all, we have the example of hate in action.

Now, as he does quite a lot in his gospel and his epistle,

John goes back to the beginning.

Cain was right at the beginning the son of Adam and Eve.

And John says, Cain gives us an example of just how bad it is to hate others.

Now, remember the story of Cain and Abel.

They both brought sacrifices to God.

Cain brought sacrifice of fruit.

Abel brought sacrifice of livestock.

And God was pleased with Abel's sacrifice.

He wasn't pleased with Cain's sacrifice.

And Cain got really jealous and he killed his brother.

That is the example of Cain.

And John says, anyone who hates their brother or sister or hates others,

they are like Cain.

And in particular, Cain hated Abel because Cain had done something that wasn't so pleasing to God.

Abel had done something that pleased God.

And it was Abel's righteousness and Abel's superior spiritual sacrifice that really got to Cain

and that made him hate and ultimately kill his brother.

So in that case, good provoked evil.

The good of Abel and Cain, looking at it, provoked Cain to hate him and to do what was wrong.

And John says, it's like that in our world today.

If we live lives of service for the Lord Jesus,

if we talk to others about our faith,

if we present them their needs of the Savior,

some by the grace of God will come to love and to trust him.

Many will reject us and perhaps will hate or despise us for what we do.

And John says, don't be surprised when that happens.

That's the work of the evil one in our world,

getting into people's hearts and minds and turning them against what is good.

And then John says, and he's echoing here the words of the Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

He says, it's not just the action that counts.

Cain went all the way and murdered his brother.

But John says, it's not the actual action that's important.

The thought counts.

Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer.

And you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

That's terribly strong words, isn't it?

That if we hate someone, it's almost as if we had physically murdered them.

That is how serious it is when we hold these feelings of resentment and hate against others.

And we might say, well, that's very true and very interesting, but it's not really very practical for us.

We don't hate others.

We are Christians.

We love others.

Well, if only that was always evident in our churches.

How often in our church, and this church is not exempt by any means,

do we find people who fall out?

There's been some kind of historical incident or apparent slight or something like that.

And people say, no, I'm not going to get on with this person anymore.

They avoid each other.

There's as little as possible to do with each other.

Sometimes it leads to churches being divided and being split.

And John would say to us, have nothing to do with that.

If you hate somebody, if you resent something about them,

the person you harm most is yourself.

You will do much more damage to yourself than you do to them.

And you will not be displaying the character that we should have

if we are followers of the Lord Jesus, if we love him.

So let's not just see this as something for some other people out there in the world.

Let's apply it practically to ourselves.

Is there anyone, a Christian brother or sister,

that you need to sort things out with and to restore a relationship with?

That's hate in action.

We then have love in action.

This fantastic verse, verse 16.

This is how we know what love is.

Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

So we've had the example of Cain,

the one who hated his brother and who murdered him.

And then we have the example of the Lord Jesus,

the one who loved us when we were unlovely,

when we were sinful,

when we had nothing that would make him want to love us.

Yet he did love us and he laid down his life for us.

And that is the example that we are called to follow.

As in so many things,

our example as Christians,

if we are believers in the Lord Jesus,

is to look at what Jesus did and to imitate it

and to become as much as possible like him.

And in this case,

good doesn't provoke evil as it did with Cain.

The good of the Lord Jesus provokes good in us.

As we see the outrageous love he had,

which Paul presented so clearly to us last week,

as we see the outrageous love of God and of the Lord Jesus for us,

that should stir up in our hearts feelings of love for him,

a desire to serve him and to live for him,

and also to show the love that he had to others.

As he has loved us,

as he has set us an example,

so we should imitate him and his good to us

should be reflected in the good that we do for others.

But there's one other point I think is really important in these verses.

I've summed it up as actions speak louder than words.

We might just read verse 16.

We say,

This is how we know what love is.

Jesus Christ laid down his life for us,

and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

And we might say,

I'd be willing to do that.

If it came to the crunch,

and a brother or sister was in need,

and I could do something to help them,

even if it cost me my life,

I would do that.

But for most of us,

that would just be words.

It's unlikely that we'll be asked to lay down our lives

for our brothers and sisters.

It's just possible,

but probably unlikely for most of us.

And so John goes on in verse 17

to bring it home to us.

Here is what it means in day-to-day life

to lay down your life for your brothers and sisters.

He says,

If anyone has material possessions

and sees a brother or sister in need,

but has no pity on them,

how can the love of Christ be in that person?

Dear children,

let us not love with words or speech,

but with actions and in truth.

See, it's not enough to think the heroic.

To think,

yes, if it came to the crunch,

I would be willing to lay down my life for the Lord Jesus.

I'd be willing to lay down my life

for my Christian brothers and sisters.

If there's no evidence of us being willing

to make small sacrifices in our everyday life,

then John would say to us,

well, there's no evidence that you have that kind of love

that you might make the big sacrifice.

A few of us were involved last week

in the Polar Explorers holiday club.

And one of the characters we looked at there was Stephen.

Stephen who became the first Christian martyr.

And the key lesson with Stephen

was that nothing is too ordinary for God.

Because before he became the first Christian martyr,

Stephen was one of seven deacons

who was chosen by the church,

by the apostles in the church,

to serve those who were in need.

The widows who had no means to support in their day

from the state or anything like that,

the church was supporting them by providing food.

It was a very early form of food bank.

And Stephen was happy to do the,

in many ways, quite menial task

of managing the food bank,

of distributing the food to those who needed it.

He was willing to do the ordinary things for God

as evidence of the love that he had for others.

And then he was called on to make the ultimate sacrifice

as he was stoned to death for his witness

about the Lord Jesus.

They were not willing to do the everyday thing,

to show our practical love to others in the everyday.

Then we have to question

whether we do have a real love for others at all

and whether actually we would make that big sacrifice

if it came to the peace.

Can I challenge you?

Let's all of us in the next week

try to find an opportunity

to show practical love

in a sacrificial way to somebody else.

It might be someone who's in need

and you give them some food or some clothing

or something like that.

It might be someone needs something practical done.

One of your Christian brothers and sisters

struggling with something practically

and you can help.

It might be visiting someone who's lonely

and would welcome a visit

and a time spent reading God's word

and praying together.

It might be someone who's going through a difficult time

and you can sit alongside them

and talk to them and pray with them.

Look for a practical thing

that you wouldn't normally do

that will show the love of Christ

to your Christian brothers and sisters.

That is how God calls us to be

in our Christian communities.

That is how we take the example of the Lord Jesus

in everyday life

and apply it to our church situation.

No good having high thoughts of love

and of devotion to the Lord Jesus

if it's not seen in the practical,

the everyday side of our Christian living.

Let's move on to the second half of our passage.

In the second half of our passage,

John is addressing a problem

that many of us will have experienced.

And that problem is that we do something

or there's something in our lives

that we feel isn't quite right

and we think, am I really a Christian?

Do I really have salvation

through the Lord Jesus Christ?

That is what the false teachers

were probably questioning

about some people in the church in John's day

and John dresses it head on.

And he says,

when your heart condemns you,

when there's something about you

you know is not right

and you haven't shown the character

of the Lord Jesus,

don't listen to your heart.

Remember that God is greater

than your heart.

And he says there are a number of things

that would be evidences to you

that you can have the assurance

that you can know that you belong to Jesus,

you can know that you have eternal life.

Three key evidences, I think,

he presents to us.

And the first is the one

we've been thinking about.

It is strong evidence

that we belong to Jesus

if we have a real love for him

and if that love is shown

in our relations with others.

That is what John's been writing about

and he says,

you can know that you belong to Christ

if you have the love of Christ in you.

If you doubt your salvation,

if you think,

well, am I really someone

who belongs to the Lord Jesus?

Examine your heart.

Think when I think of the cross

and the death of the Lord Jesus

and all that he's done for me,

does that fill me with love for him,

with a desire to live for him

and to serve him?

And does it fill me

with a practical love for others

that I may show out in my life

the love that the Lord Jesus showed to me?

If you can find in yourselves

that the love that you have for Christ

reflecting his love for you

and the love that you have for others,

that is a very strong indicator

that you belong to him,

that you have eternal life.

If we love others,

says John,

we can be confident

that we have salvation through Jesus.

Not that our love is what saves us.

We're saved.

It's not beginning.

We're saved by believing in Jesus

and that brings us to life.

But the fact that we have love,

that is an evidence of life

in the Lord Jesus.

And if your heart condemns you,

look at the love that you have for him

and the love that you show to others

and that hopefully will give you confidence

before him.

Second evidence, says John,

is in prayer.

If we come to God with confidence,

believing that he cares for us

and believing that he wants to give us

what we desire,

then, says John,

we have confidence for God

and receive from him anything we ask

because we keep his commands

and do what pleases him.

Now, don't,

let's just skip over that last passage of the verse.

It is about keeping commands

which we'll come back to.

It is about pleasing God

and walking with him.

But if we're doing that

and we come to God in prayer,

as we see answers to our prayer,

we have greater confidence in our God

and we can have greater confidence too

in our salvation

and the fact that we know him,

that we have life through him.

Again, we'd have to challenge ourselves.

What is our prayer life like?

Do we ask great things from God?

Do we receive great things from God?

Or do we actually come fairly tentatively

and not with the kind of confidence

that John suggests we should have?

And then perhaps we don't see

the great answers to prayer

that we would like to,

that God would want to give to us.

But confidence before God,

confidence in God

and in our salvation through him

comes as we pray to him,

as we ask from him,

as we seek to do his will

in the way we ask

and for his name to be glorified

and as we see the answers,

that increases our confidence in him.

And then finally, John says

we can have confidence

in our salvation

and the eternal life we have

because of the indwelling spirit

that Christ, that God gives us.

Verse 24,

the one who keeps God's commands

lives in him

and he in them

and this is how we know

that he lives in us.

We know it by the spirit

he gave us.

And part of the purpose,

the work of the spirit of God

is to give us that assurance

that we belong to the Lord Jesus,

that we are God's children.

We can also look at the work

of the spirit in our lives

and we can say that

must have come from God.

As we are able to do things

in Christian service

that perhaps we would find

really difficult

and maybe thought we couldn't do

as we exercise the gifts

of the spirit.

As we see,

or more likely perhaps others see,

changes in our character

that we demonstrate

the fruit of the spirit,

love, joy, peace, and so on.

And the indwelling spirit within us

is something that can give us confidence,

that can give us the knowledge

that we belong to the Lord Jesus.

So if this morning

you're trusting in the Lord Jesus

and perhaps you're having doubts

about your salvation,

take this from what John writes to us,

that we shouldn't be listening

just to the guilty thoughts

that come from conscience.

Now, conscience is a good thing

to recognize that we've done wrong

and to be able to confess it

before God.

But we shouldn't be listening to that

and saying,

well, perhaps that means

I'm not really a Christian.

Look at the evidences

that there are in your life,

that you love the Lord Jesus,

you love others,

you can give answers

to prayer from the past,

that the spirit is in you

and have confidence

that you belong

to the Lord Jesus.

And then just to bring it together,

verse 23.

What is it that defines us

as Christians if we are?

It is obeying the command

of the Lord Jesus.

And John says,

this is his command.

He says it's one command,

so it's two parts to one command.

The command is to believe

in the name of his son,

Jesus Christ.

That's very much the message

of John's gospel,

repeated here in John's epistle.

And also it is to love one another

as he commanded us.

So challenges take away this morning.

First is,

do you believe in the name of Jesus?

Do you believe that Jesus

is the son of God

who came into the world

to live the perfect life,

who died on the cross

to take punishment for your sin,

and that through repenting of sin

and trusting in him,

you can have eternal life.

That is the beginning

of Christian life.

It is the only way

to begin in Christian life,

to believe in the Lord Jesus

and to trust in him.

And if you have done that,

take the second part

of the command

and say,

are you loving one another?

Are you loving

your Christian brothers

and sisters

as the Lord Jesus

has commanded you

and as he loved you?

If you are,

have that assurance

that you belong to him.

Let me finish

with some words

by Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan,

you may know,

came to faith

in the Lord Jesus

in the late 70s,

recorded several gospel albums.

I think he may have

slipped back a bit since then,

but he wrote some tremendous songs

of salvation.

And the second gospel album

is the one that's

on the screen

up here just now.

And I want to just finish

with some words from that.

Forget Bob Dylan,

forget who wrote it.

Just think about the words

and think about

how they could apply to you.

Whether it is

that you need to come

to put your faith

in the Lord Jesus

or whether you need

to have greater confidence

in what you have

through him.

This is what Bob Dylan

wrote in the song

called Saved.

By his grace,

I have been touched.

By his word,

I have been healed.

By his hand,

I've been delivered.

By his spirit,

I've been sealed.

By his truth,

I can be upright.

By his strength,

I do endure.

By his power,

I've been lifted.

In his love,

I am secure.

Let's pray together.

Our Father,

we thank you

for your word to us.

We thank you

for the priority

that we must give to love.

We thank you

for the tremendous love

that the Lord Jesus

had for us

to lay down

his life for us.

And we can hardly imagine

what that means.

We are just so thankful

that he took our place,

that he died our death,

that he took our sins

on himself.

And we thank you

that in some small measure,

we can reflect

the love of the Lord Jesus

in our love for one another.

And we pray that

those of us

who know him,

that that may be

very evident

in the way

we live together.

There may be no sign

of hate,

of resentment,

of not getting on

as brothers and sisters.

That our lives

may be characterized

by that self-sacrifice

that the Lord Jesus had.

And that that may be seen

in the everyday things

of life,

as we are willing

to put ourselves out,

often in relatively

small things,

to show our love

for one another

and how that reflects

our love

for the Lord Jesus.

We thank you too

for the verses

at the end

which tell us

that we can have

assurance

that we know

and belong

to the Lord Jesus

and have eternal life.

We thank you

that that comes first

from believing in him

and if there are any

who don't yet

believe in the Lord Jesus

haven't yet come to that point,

we pray that you will

draw them to him

and that they may

find life in him.

And we thank you

that we can have

assurance of salvation

as we look at the love

that the Lord

has planted

in our hearts,

as we look at the way

we can come to you

with our prayer requests

and see them

wonderfully answered,

as we think of the work

of the Spirit

in our lives

and the daily assurance

that he gives us

about our faith.

Help us to have

that assurance

and to demonstrate it again

through love

for others.

We thank you

for your presence

as we've looked at

your word this morning.

We thank you

for the opportunity

we've had to worship

and to learn from you

and we commit ourselves

to you now

in the name

of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.