Let’s Take It from the Top, One More Time
Or, The Symphony of 1st John
1, 2, 3, John series, part 9
Text: I John 3:11-12, 23-24
(NASB)
Intro: - This text reviews some of the main themes we’ve already discussed
- Like a symphony: statement of theme, then restatement
- Or like a play—director says, “Let’s take it from the top, one more time.”
- Skipping vv. 13-22 to save them for next week (IDOP)
Thesis:
John reiterates the importance of love, belief, and obedience and connects
them.
I.
Love (vv. 11-12)
A. We are called to love one another.
1. The theme was hinted at in 2:9-11
a. Stated subtly then – 2:10
b. More like a minor key (don’t hate) vv. 2:9, 11
2. Now more directly stated (3:11)
a. Here, it’s in a major key (positive command to love each other)
b. Contrasted again, this time with evil (back to the minor key)
3. Theme will be more fully developed in ch. 4
4. John is, after all, the apostle of love (also a key them of his gospel)
5. Jesus identified it as the second greatest commandment to love your neighbor as yourself – right up there with loving God
B. Application
1. How exactly do we love?
2. Negative example provided – don’t be like Cain (v. 12)
3. Love is an action verb (v. 18): deed and truth, not just word and tongue
a. Similar to James’ words on faith (“faith w/o works is dead,” James 2:26b)
b. It’s all fine and well to talk about loving everyone, but do we really love everyone? Do we even love the people around us? What about the people who annoy us, or disagree with us, or are different from us?
c. Have you ever said or thought, “oh, sure, I love everybody,” or, “I love all my brothers & sisters in Christ?” It’s easy to love vague generalities and abstractions—or at least to say you do.
d. C. S. Lewis: "it is easier to be enthusiastic about humanity with a capital "H" than it is to love individual men and women, especially those who are uninteresting, … exasperating, depraved, or otherwise unattractive. Loving everybody in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular."...
e. But what happens when push comes to shove? Have you ever met someone who made you think, “I could never be reconciled to that person”?
4. God leads the way; He doesn’t ask anything of us that He wouldn’t do
a. Rom. 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
b. Can’t commit yourself any more than that! That’s certainly love in action.
c. So if God could love us when we had rebelled against Him, surely whatever divides us from our brothers or sisters in Christ can be overcome.
5. Illustrations (taken from www.sermoncentral.com)
·
The
young woman was married and had two beautiful children, but one day as she was
standing over the sink, washing dishes, she thought, ’There must be more to
life than this.’ When her husband came home, he found a note she’d written and
began to weep.
She would call him about once every week to check on
the children, and he would always tell her of his great love for her and beg
her to come home. She would always say no and hang up.
Finally, he hired a private investigator to find her
and he went to the apartment where she was staying, nervously holding a spray
of flowers in his hand as he stood at the door.
He had rehearsed over and over what he would say and
he finally got up the nerve to knock on the door. She opened the door and he
started to speak, but she suddenly began to weep and fell into his arms.
"Let’s go home." She managed through her tears.
Months after, when things were starting to heal, he
finally asked her something that had been bothering him. "All those times
I talked to you on the phone; I asked you to come back and you refused. Why did
you come back now?"
"Before," she started, tears in her eyes,
"you were just telling me that you loved me. When you came, you showed
me."
The Bible tells us of God’s love, but Jesus came
and showed God’s love.
·
A
young boy was overheard asking his playmate, "Wouldn’t you hate to wear
glasses all the time?" "No," came the answer, "not if I had
some like my grandma’s. She always sees when people are tired or sad, and she
knows just what to do to make them feel better. One day I asked her how she
could see that way all the time. She told me it was the way she learned to look
at things as she grew older." After thinking for a minute, the first boy
concluded, "Yeah, I guess you’re right; it must be her glasses."...
·
A
newspaper columnist told once of a woman who was full of hatred toward her
husband. Someone counseled the woman to act as if she really loved her husband,
to tell him how much he meant to her, to praise him for every decent trait, to
be kind, considerate, and generous whenever possible. Then, when she’d fully
convinced him of her undying love, she’d make her move and file for divorce.
With revenge in her eyes she said, "That’s perfect, I’ll do it." And
so she did...but guess what happened...the more she demonstrated sacrificial
love toward her husband, the more she began to actually love him, and at the
end of a few months divorce was the furthest thing from her mind.
·
In
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Do not waste your time
bothering whether you ’love’ your neighbor act as if you did. As soon as we do
this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved
someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you
dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn,
you will find yourself disliking him less."
·
Most
of us define love by our personalities:
(1) Sanguines (influencers)--- warmth, expressiveness, and intensity of feeling
(the heart)
(2) Cholerics (doers) —good works, provision, and services given (help)
(3) Phlegmatics (relaters)—loyalty, listening, guiding, being there in need
(4) Melancholics (thinkers)—quiet support, empathy, and tokens of love
6. Therefore, the way we love other people might differ slightly, but we still need to do it; can’t say “I’m not a people person.”
7. Also, we shouldn’t criticize other people for demonstrating love a little differently, as long as they are living by genuine, godly love.
8. The question is: “Is it biblical? Is it in harmony with the other commandments of Scripture?
A. It’s a command!
1. “And this is His commandment…” (I Jn. 3:23)
2. Jesus – “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent,” (John 6:29)
3. Certainly people have the option of disobeying this commandment, and many do.
a. We call this option—to obey or not to obey—free will.
b. But there are consequences for every decision made.
c. The consequences of this are eternal life as one of God’s children, or eternal separation from Him.
d. If we call our selves Christians, followers of the Christ, then we’d better believe
B. It’s necessary for our salvation
1. John 1:12
2. Remember in whom we believe—not belief in just any old thing or person will do; we’re talking about belief in the name of God’s Son Jesus, the Christ
3. More than just head knowledge – even the demons believe, but it doesn’t save them – must be an active faith (faith w/o works is dead – James 2:26).
4. Developed more in ch. 5 (vv. 10-13)
C. Life-changing belief
1. So we’re talking about life-changing belief, belief that will make a difference because we start loving God and our neighbor, and we start obeying God.
2. This spring, we looked at the Apostles’ Creed in our sermons for 14 weeks. We frequently recite the Apostles’ Creed together. We say, “I believe.” That’s an extremely important starting point. Now that we believe, how does it make a difference in what we do, what we say, and who we are?
A. Obedience connected with loving and believing
1. Know God = keeping His commandments (2:3)
2. Keeping His commandments = the love of God is perfected (2:5)
3. Commanded to believe; commanded to love (again, John comes back to love). So we obey by loving and believing.
4. John 13:34-35
5. The song “Day by Day” from the musical Godspell (words originally from a prayer of Richard of Chichester, 13th c.) – “…to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, follow Thee more nearly, day by day.”
B. Ezra’s Example (Ezra 7:10)
1. “For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.”
2. My life verse.
3. Practice = obey
4. If he set his heart, he must have believed it.
5. If he dedicated his life to studying, obeying, and teaching God’ Law, he must have loved God and God’s people (dedicating his life to teaching a people who were known as stiff-necked and rebellious God’s law was an act of love, not necessarily a warm feeling).
The proof’s in the pudding, so the saying goes. The proof that we’re obeying the commands to love and believe is that the person abides in God, and God in him. We know that’s the case by the Spirit He’s given us. A tree is known by its fruit. The spirit controlling a person is known by the spiritual fruit it bears. Are you bearing the fruit of love, belief, and obedience?