Behold, What Manner Of Love! - Part 5

Today we are continuing our study in 1 John 3. Thus far John has been presenting us with “tests” we can take that will help us to know whether or not we are true Christians.

1. One of the first tests we find in the passage of John we are looking at today continues with what we were looking at last time…do you love the brethren.

2. The second test we will be looking at today is, “Do you have a spirit of indifference when it comes to doing the will of God, especially when it comes to assisting a bother in need”.

3. The third test has to do with the test of your conscience. In other words, is there this nagging feeling of doubt concerning your salvation?

4. Lastly, we will look at whether your life is marked by answered prayer. In Matthew 7:7-10 Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

If you are an obedient child of God your life will be marked by answered prayer.

Let’s begin at verse 13:

1Jn 3:13 Do not marvel, my brothers, if the world hates you.

This is straight from the words of Jesus. In John 15:17 gives the command to His disciples to “love one another” and then immediately following that, He warns them that the world will hate them because it hated Jesus first.

Notice how John follows this line of thought. In 1 John 3:11 he writes, “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another…” and then he writes in verse 13: “Do not marvel, my brothers, if the world hates you.”

Here is the conversation that apparently came to John’s mind as he was writing his text:

Joh 15:17 These things I command you, that you love one another.

Joh 15:18 If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.

Joh 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Joh 15:20 Remember the word that I said to you, The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept My saying, they will also keep yours.

Joh 15:21 But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.

Joh 15:22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

Joh 15:23 He who hates Me hates My Father also.

Joh 15:24 If I had not done among them the works which no other did, they would not have had sin. But now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father.

Joh 15:25 But that the Word might be fulfilled that is written in their Law, "They hated Me without a cause."

If you are a Christian, you don’t have to do anything for the world to hate you; it’s going to hate you because you represent Jesus whom they hate.

And if you are a Christian and you’ve never felt the tension or the hatred it’s because your light is not shining. Start representing Christ in your workplace, in your neighborhood or even in your home and you will begin to experience what Jesus was talking about.

1Jn 3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers. He who does not love his brother abides in death.

1Jn 3:15 Everyone hating his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has everlasting life abiding in him.

Here John is leaving us with another test where we can be assured of whether or not we are saved.

According to the book of Ephesians, the unbeliever is “dead in trespasses and sins” (vs. 1) but verse five says, “(even when we were dead in sins) has made us alive together with Christ (by grace you are saved)…”. So John writes in verse 14 that “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers. He who does not love his brother abides in death.”