Love One Another

[SPEAKER_00]: First John chapter 3, give you guys a second to get there and then we'll read it together.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: First John chapter 3 verses 11 through 18 verses 11 through 18.

1 John 3:11–18

[SPEAKER_00]: First 11 says, for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then we should love one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should not be like King who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: And why did he murder him?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous.

[SPEAKER_00]: His brother, Abel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do not be surprised, brothers, at the world hates you.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever does not love, abides in death.

[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

[SPEAKER_00]: By this, we know love that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if anyone has the world's goods and ceases, brother and need, they're closest as hard against him.

[SPEAKER_00]: How does God's love abide in him, little children, but us not love and word or talk, but indeed, and in truth, let's pretty together real quick.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father and heaven, we thank you for this time.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just pray that by your Holy Spirit, you would illuminate and show us the truth of your word.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, minister to us through your word, show us Christ, Lord, convict us of where we need to be convicted of our sin, but encourage us with your grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: I pray, Lord, that eyes the preacher would get out of the way and that we would behold you and your mercy towards us and that Lord, you would apply this message all to our hearts.

[SPEAKER_00]: This we pray, Father, and Christ's name by the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: For those of you guys that may be jotting down some notes, if there's one takeaway, if there's one takeaway that I think is important for us to get from this text tonight, it's that we learn what love for one another looks like when we look to Christ's love for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We learn what love for one another looks like when we look to Christ's love for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who here has a sibling, a brother or a sister?

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a good relationship with your brother or sister?

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, good.

[SPEAKER_00]: I should have, I was hoping to not hear any nose.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh, thank goodness, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever had a really nasty fight with them, though, or are other things just always pitch you can?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, fight, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we know how it goes.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have an older sister, she's three years older than me, and her and I are really close, and our genuine friends now, but I didn't start till probably junior senior year of high school.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting when we were growing up, we had some really nasty fights, we weren't Christians growing up, so I mean, you already got that foundation right there, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But we were always at each other's throats, it seemed like, and it's really interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a number of different ways that this came out.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, actually, my parents told me this.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I was around three or four, my sister, right, she's three years old and me, we were getting in an argument, I guess.

[SPEAKER_00]: And from when I told, my sister was fed up with the argument through a haymaker in my face, and I fell through the TV.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, OK, start off our relationship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Especially ran to a room crime, probably, because she knew she was in trouble, not because she cared.

[SPEAKER_00]: Another time, when I was around fourth grade, my sister was picking on me when she had a friend over for a sleepover, and I got sick of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what I decided to do is grab a baseball bat, and I chased her and her friend around the house taking legitimate swings at her and her friend.

[SPEAKER_00]: by God's grace I missed every time, but I ended up smashing one of our kitchen chairs.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't vote well in any situation when my parents found that out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was not good.

[SPEAKER_00]: But so my sister and I, we used to fight so much that there was this one somewhere in my mom, just she ran out of sufficient punishments and then her parental fatigue, she once had us right out, I will not fight my brother or my sister probably about a thousand times.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is over the summer, though, so we had lots of days.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, honestly, she probably lost count, but ended up being, oh, you're gonna write this until I feel like you're done.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, for like four days straight, I just didn't know anything, but we'll not hit my sister.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll not hit my sister anymore, my sister.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, it was horrible.

[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't allowed to do anything until it was done.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what's interesting about our story, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is, you know, I'm sure you guys have had lots of fights, hopefully not as violent.

[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of fights with your siblings.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's interesting about our story, though,

[SPEAKER_00]: is all of that change at a certain point.

[SPEAKER_00]: All that changed because my sister and her 11th grade year, and me and my 8th grade year, we both became Christians around the same time during the same summer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when we both became Christians, when the Lord saved us, and we became followers of Jesus Christ, our entire relationship just flipped on its head overnight.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just flipped overnight.

[SPEAKER_00]: We saw each other in totally different lights now.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had different lenses through which we viewed one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: She wasn't my sister that was annoying or mean or other different things.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, she was my sister.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, my blood system, my blood relative, but she was also my sister in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was my sister in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord Jesus lived, righteously, died sacrificially to pay for her sins and reconcile her to God just as much as he did for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he loved her, just as much as he loved me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, how could I not love her of Christ?

[SPEAKER_00]: Love her.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was the same for her and I.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was, that was, and it should say the same thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: That us becoming Christians was the thing that totally shifted our relationship.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, how could I despise and reject her when Jesus rescued her with his own life and death?

[SPEAKER_00]: Change to everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: The principle of love for other Christians love for our brothers and sisters.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we're dealing with tonight in our passage.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be looking at the danger of hating those around us and why and how love for Christians is meant to look but ultimately what we will see together as when we mentioned earlier.

[SPEAKER_00]: What we learn, we learn what love for one another looks like when we look to Christ's love for us, for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to go through two points tonight, guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our first point is that whoever hates Christians, doesn't know God's love.

[SPEAKER_00]: John's pretty clear about that, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever hates Christians doesn't know God's love.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we see this in verses 11 through 15.

[SPEAKER_00]: As we look at this text together, let's notice a few things in these first few verses.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look at me, a verses 11 and 12.

[SPEAKER_00]: John says, again, for this is the message you've heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should not be like King.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, why did he murder him?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because his own deeds were evil in his brothers' righteous.

[SPEAKER_00]: John uses that connecting word for in a way that's meant to show us and connect us about what he is about to say in connection to the prior passage in verse 10.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, by this it is evident, who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil?

[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nor is the one who does not love his brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you, and when you guys see brother here, you could think brothers and sisters, even though there is a, a faithful way to see it there as brother, but essentially this section here is John giving an explanation of what hatred for, for those in the faith your brothers and sisters looks like and what love for the brothers looks like with Cain given as an example in verse 12 of what hatred looks like and Christ himself actually given an example of in verse 16 which we'll get to later.

[SPEAKER_00]: But notice how John says, John says that we've heard this message of love one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've heard it from the beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've heard it from the beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now this phrase could refer to Genesis 1 where the God who is love creates everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: It could kind of could John shop to one where Jesus who is the love of God incarnate is shown to be God and creates the world alongside the Father in the Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's most likely referring to what John heard from Jesus himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: and records in John 13 versus 34 and 35.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is, you guys, I'm sure I've heard it before.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is where Christ tells us disciples, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You also are to love one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is where it gets interesting because then Jesus says, by this, all people will know that you are my disciples, by the love that you have for one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: How will people know that you belong to Jesus by the love that you have for another?

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, don't let Jesus say in a new commandment that phrase throw you off, it could be confusing at first.

[SPEAKER_00]: What, love for God and neighbor has been there from the beginning, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Even in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this commandment being new is grounded in the display and reason for the love, which Jesus says is grounded and what he says, just as I Christ have loved you.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the new part.

[SPEAKER_00]: How did Jesus love his followers and his people?

[SPEAKER_00]: When we see this in verse 16 of our own passage in first John 3, John says, by this we know love, what that he laid down his life for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He laid down his life for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's why John says, we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same principle we see where the Apostle Paul and Romans chapter 5 verse 8 says, this is the demonstration of God's love, right?

Romans 5:8

[SPEAKER_00]: God loves us this much.

[SPEAKER_00]: The while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so Jesus and John, they're highlighting the love that truly matters and that honors God, the most, the love that is self-giving and self-sacrificial, a love that seeks the highest good of those you are loving.

[SPEAKER_00]: And check this out.

[SPEAKER_00]: A love that actually costs you, possibly everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're a very life.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a love that costs.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is true love and godly love.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as we're going through the flow of this passage, John tells us, though, what about the love or really lack thereof that we're not to imitate?

[SPEAKER_00]: We see this in the example that he gives of Cain in verses 12 through 13.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, we should not be like Cain was the e of the evil one and murdered his brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I notice how he then goes on and says, do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

[SPEAKER_00]: The world hates you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And John's mind, Cain, is one of the prime examples, because despite E thinking that maybe he would be the promised one that would save in Genesis chapter four, it turns out he's not the promise C to the woman, but rather is of the seed of the serpent, the devil, Satan.

[SPEAKER_00]: What characterizes your evidence, his belonging to Satan and being of a devilish offspring?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, as John says, it's hatred for his brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's hatred for his brother, Abel, that resulted in Abel's murder.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so John says that his deeds were evil and they manifested in hate and murder, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas, we're as able.

[SPEAKER_00]: Abel was righteous and those deeds manifested such, but what's the difference between the two ultimately?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's that cane, he likes faith and God

[SPEAKER_00]: which then crescendoed in Cain's sacrifice before God, if you familiar with the story being rejected.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it wasn't that Abel was any less of a sinner than Cain or somehow inherently better than Cain.

[SPEAKER_00]: The reality is what Hebrews 11 verse four says that by faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice to Cain.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was by faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

[SPEAKER_00]: It goes on in that verse.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I won't belabor this point much longer, but it isn't string.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's most likely guys that Abel's offering wasn't just anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was most likely reminiscent of a piece offering, the same that you would find out later in the Levitical Law.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was an offering of someone in faith who knew they had sin and offended God.

[SPEAKER_00]: His God commended them in His grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: Abel was a protocrystian in a sense.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what you see going on there in the hall of faith as it were, and he was chapter 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why Cain hated him and killed him since he belonged to the devil.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because Cain belonged to the devil, he hated his brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, the true and greater able, Jesus Christ himself, would be killed by another man who belonged to the devil, his own disciple, Judas.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we see this conflict going on in Scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those who belong to the devil, those who belong to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet like John, Jesus says in John 15, right, goes down and remember how John says here, do not be surprised that the world hates you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says the same thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, we should not be surprised that the world hates Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: And thus would seek them harm, whether it's their spiritual or social, or even physical harm or death.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is evidence seen where Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, 12, and you can mark this, guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you've experienced this already.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul says, all who desired to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

[SPEAKER_00]: And will be persecuted.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can bank on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's what Paul says.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he's just building off of what Christ said.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why then John concludes then in verse 15, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know that no murderer has eternal life

[SPEAKER_00]: murder guys starts with hatred and a man's heart as Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount.

[SPEAKER_00]: It starts internally, before manifests itself externally.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one who continuously murders his Christian brother and his heart regardless of what they say about themselves, they are evidenced in a lack of Christ's love in their heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: They love that transforms.

[SPEAKER_00]: They love that Jesus has particularly for his people.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, on the other hand, for the Christian John says, not, we guess, not, we hope, he says, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers and understand this, John doesn't mean that we've been saved through the act of loving our brothers, rather what he means is that no one can sincerely love Christians without the spirit of God in them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, for Christians, for Christians, genuine love for Christians, it shows that the Spirit of God in dwells in you, for only one who belongs to God can have the indwelling spirit of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's this evidence piece.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so guys, when thinking of John's point in this passage, it's important to ask ourselves, if this is the case, why should I care?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why should I care?

[SPEAKER_00]: All this sounds fine and Danny Brendan, but why is it important?

[SPEAKER_00]: Love seems so abstract.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does all this mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: For me, we'll first.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to deal with different sides of the issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's one side we have to see, and it's asking ourselves this, do you hate Christians?

[SPEAKER_00]: If we're dealing with what John says, in the way that he says it, do we hate Christians?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're here tonight because a friend invited you, we're really glad you came.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know that's a provocative question.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just posed five seconds ago, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you answered that question though with an obvious yes, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you grew up in the church and you had some bad experiences that led you to despise those who claimed a belong to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: But understand a few things.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're all sinners.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of us, including those who belong to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christians are redeemed and forgiven sinners, but still sinners none the less.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Christians are sinners who belong to Jesus, the sinless one.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so tonight, if you're here and you're exploring it, but you're saying, yeah, but I still, I don't, there's no way any of this is real.

[SPEAKER_00]: You say God can't be real, because sinners exist, and those sinners have hurt me at some point.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if that's you, welcome to the live for the Bible, where people are really as messed up as the Bible says they are.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how it is because of sin, affecting everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that doesn't change the fact that outside of Christ, if that is you, you are also wicked.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as Hebrews chapter 9 verse 27 says, it's appointed for Man of Die once and after that comes judgment.

Hebrews 9:27

[SPEAKER_00]: The question is, will you stand in that judgment?

[SPEAKER_00]: Will you stand?

[SPEAKER_00]: We both know, simply from experience that you won't, based on your own ability, your effort, your performance, because you've broken God's commands.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need me to tell you that, you know it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your conscience bears witness to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: My plea to you, if that is you, is not to stay away so that you maybe won't screw up everybody else or because you think everyone else has hypocrites, but the opposite.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you trust the promise of the Bible, which says that in recognition of your sins, if you come to Jesus Christ in faith, there are a pair of your sins.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ask for forgiveness, trust in Him alone for your peace with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You will be saved and forgiven and rescued and rescued.

[SPEAKER_00]: For the children of God here in this room, ask yourself this on another side of the issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does it look like to hate my brother or sister in Christ?

[SPEAKER_00]: What's that even look like?

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you say to yourself, well, okay, I don't like this guy because he's annoying.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, but, but, you know, I don't like her because she's weird, but I wouldn't say I hate them.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a little too strong.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, have you ever been sinfully angry at another Christian?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll raise up both hands, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever been that way?

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was sinful anger because you didn't get something you wanted, or you believed a lie that was said without verifying it with that person.

[SPEAKER_00]: If that's you, I should see everybody's hand up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says in the summer of the mound, he says, I say to you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council, whoever says you fool insults will be liable to the hell of fire.

[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, when Jesus says liable, He means your sinful anger in and of itself, it deserves the judgment that required Jesus to die in your place.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus died for sinful anger.

[SPEAKER_00]: We internally hate our brothers and sisters when we desire ill will of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we wish they would be slandered, made fun of, or gossiped about, we are hating them internally.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we are jealous about what they possess instead of being content with what God has gifted us.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we have discussed in our thoughts about caring for them, or even just being around them, when we create clicks that intentionally leave others out of friendly, godly fellowship.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we're doing that, we're hating them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our wordly, we are hating our brothers and sisters when we lie about them.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we gossip or we slander them, when we hurl insults or cusswords at them, hatred is the opposite of love.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's worth asking us as Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we are called to love others as Christ loved us, it is worth asking them, what does that love look like?

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, we saw some of the hate piece and it's necessary because that's what the text deals with, but what does love look like?

[SPEAKER_00]: And even deeper.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's the motivation?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because you might say, yeah, I know I'm supposed to do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: What's the motivation?

[SPEAKER_00]: What's the reason for doing so?

[SPEAKER_00]: And guys, that brings us to our second point, which is that we love because he first loved us.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is something you guys will get to in chapter four of this book.

[SPEAKER_00]: More John says this explicitly, but it's worth mentioning even now.

[SPEAKER_00]: We love because he first loved us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Guys, as we turn to this final section, we see the center point of John's whole section on love in the life of the Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: Missionary Amy Carmichael once said, you can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love is a self-giving posture that is necessarily self-sacrificial in nature.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what John's center piece point is in verse 16 where he makes us clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, really, just drink in verse 16 with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: By this, we know love that he, meaning Jesus, he laid down his life for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He laid down his life for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And John says, because of that, we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: In his personal, in his use of the personal word, we, John, is addressing those to whom he is riding to that belong to Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what does he say?

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, we don't guess.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't speculate.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know.

[SPEAKER_00]: What love is, because Jesus showed it to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christians in this room, does that not rain deeply in your soul?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does not resonate with you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus died for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I know.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how I know what love is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus died for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know what love is because Christ, He laid down His life for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus showed His love and coming to this world to win a bride for Himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: He showed the love of God by being born in a lolly, manger despite owning every ounce of creation as its creator.

[SPEAKER_00]: He comes in a lolly humble way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus loved us by subjecting Himself through the perfect and exacting demands of God's law.

[SPEAKER_00]: A law that justly condemned us and because of that we could never fulfill it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, He showed God's love by healing the sick.

[SPEAKER_00]: Restoring sight to the blind, giving hearing to the deaf and raising the dead, He showed His love by teaching the goodness of God's law, the beauty of His precepts, the comfort of His promises.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus showed us God's love by filling everyone who came to him with a felt experience of compassion and grace and mercy that could only be divine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then this love, this in an estomer with this vibrant, this incalculable love.

[SPEAKER_00]: It spilled over in it, crescendoed in this shameful flogging and his violent beating, his horrific crucifixion and death on a cross, where he bled out and gasped for air under the weight of God's righteous wrath.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus showed his love by dying in the place where we should have.

[SPEAKER_00]: Suffering the penalty we deserved and emptying the judgment that we should have endured.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that not true love, friends?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know about you, but, I mean, you meditate on that long enough?

[SPEAKER_00]: How does that not soften your heart?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because who Christ says, what he's done for you personally?

[SPEAKER_00]: It says, the him goes, behold the man upon across my sin upon his shoulders.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you guys know the words, ashamed I hear my mocking voice calling out among the scoffers.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished.

[SPEAKER_00]: His dying breath has brought me life, I know, not I guess, not I hope, I know that it is finished.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why should I gain from his

[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot give an answer, but this I know with all my heart, his wounds have paid my ransom high schoolers, listen to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to know with certainty that God loves you, it doesn't come from you banking on how many likes you get on Instagram or views on TikTok.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't come.

[SPEAKER_00]: from you banking on certain emotional highs as though butterflies in your stomach could atone from your sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't come from checking off even your Bible reading for the day as though God's love must be appeased a day after day.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't come from paying mental penance for your sin by saying, how do I know I'm good with God?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I cried over my sin for 10 minutes instead of five.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't come from that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those tears could obey in your place.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, if you want to know with certainty on your best day,

[SPEAKER_00]: When your worst day, when life is good, when life sucks, when you feel pretty holy, or when you feel pretty lousy, it comes from a definitive place, one place, the death of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it comes from.

[SPEAKER_00]: What are you looking to to feel loved?

[SPEAKER_00]: What are you looking to to feel loved?

[SPEAKER_00]: As if you want to know that Christ loves you, look at the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why good Friday is something we celebrate as Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, I can promise you you have and never will know the love, like the immortal creator of all things dying on a tree he created.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the hands of people he created, so that we may have love in peace with him forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've never known love like that, and you never will.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so how does an evidence that a real grasp of things like this like deeply in our soul and as affected us truly?

[SPEAKER_00]: Was we move on?

[SPEAKER_00]: John says as much in verses 17 and 18 of our passage, he says this, look with me there.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

[SPEAKER_00]: little children.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let us not love in Word or talk, but indeed, and in truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, we show that we truly grasp God's love in our lives when we are loving others, especially Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: Laying down one life means meeting the needs of others like Christ did in meeting our greatest eternal need.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so guys, willfully exhibiting a hard-hearted shutting up of compassion or turning off the eyes away from a brother or a sister in need and refusing to show empathy.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were never a more unlike Jesus than in that moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're never more unlike him than you were when you were refusing to show love, mercy, and grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: But notice though, look at me here, it's interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says,

[SPEAKER_00]: and verse 16, well, to lay down our lives for the brothers, and then in verse 17, he shifts from brothers plural to brother in the singular.

[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't a general love, but an individual love as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is why John switches from the plural to the singular.

[SPEAKER_00]: John won't let us escape the prospect of showing kindness to individual Christians by just abstractly saying that we do.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's really easy to say no, I love Christians, we're good.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love everybody, we're fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: John, let us get away.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, no, no, no, do you individually show that?

[SPEAKER_00]: As GP Lewis remarks, it is easier to be enthusiastic about humanity with a capital age than it is to love individual men and women, especially those who are uninteresting, exasperating, depraved, or even otherwise unattractive, loving everybody in general may actually be an excuse for loving nobody in particular.

[SPEAKER_00]: If the Christian doesn't love his visible brother or sister and distress, how can he say he loves the invisible God?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a valid question.

[SPEAKER_00]: With that in mind, how should we show love to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ?

[SPEAKER_00]: I actually think, I mean, now I think about it, it might be better to ask ourselves questions in a different way.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I love my fellow Christian, if I say I do,

[SPEAKER_00]: Are they angry?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are they thoughts of annoyance, of slander?

[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, our thoughts should be kind, loving, and friendly, instead.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I love my fellow Christian, do I sympathize with them and they're sinned, they're sorrow, they're suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of being impatient, ungracious, and prideful, I should be merciful, patient, and eager to alleviate their spiritual physical affliction.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I love my fellow Christian, how do I feel when I'm apart from them?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I just come to church and consume my spiritual tidbit for the week and then just hurry to leave?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or do I feel compelled by the Holy Spirit to seek opportunities to encourage and pray for and be with other believers as I long to be with them Sunday to Sunday to Sunday.

[SPEAKER_00]: The reality is, it says if Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, you guys know it, if I speak in the tongues of men's and men and angels, but have not love, I'm what?

[SPEAKER_00]: A noisy gong, a clanging symbol.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries in all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I'm nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I give away all I have,

[SPEAKER_00]: I have not loved Paul says I am nothing, but if I have love, if we have love friends, we are displaying the character of God to those around us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you gotta ask yourself, what's again?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why should I love my fellow disciples of Christ?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well because who are they?

[SPEAKER_00]: They are people that Jesus lived, died, and rose again for

[SPEAKER_00]: Just like he did for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So guys, ask yourself this, are you viewing the Christians around you the way Jesus would?

[SPEAKER_00]: As those so precious that he gave his very life for, it all goes back to Jesus as it should at the end of the day, because it's this.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is by grace alone through faith, alone in Christ alone that we learn what love for one another looks like.

[SPEAKER_00]: as we look to Christ's love for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: So once again, guys, what are you looking at in terms of where your love is coming from and how you should love others?

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll tell you what to do, Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: We love, because he first loved us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.