Living With The Love Of The Lord Series

Living with the Love of the Lord

1 John 3:10-18

Sermon by Rick Crandall

Series: The First Epistle of John

(Prepared December 30, 2023)

MESSAGE:

*God's kind of agape love is one of the greatest themes in this very short letter from the Apostle John. We know this because the original words for godly love are found over 50 times in these verses.

*In all of these verses and many more, the Bible is talking about Christians loving one another with the same kind of unselfish, servant-hearted, sacrificial love that God has for us. It's the same kind of love we see in John 3:16 where Jesus said, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

*It's also the same kind of love found in God's greatest two commandments. One place to see them is in Matthew 22:37-40, where Jesus said:

37. . . "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'

38. This is the first and great commandment.

39. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

40. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.''

*God loves us with this kind of agape love, and He commands us to love other people the same way that He loves us. But He puts a special emphasis on Christians loving one another with agape love. It all started on the night before the cross when Jesus gave His followers this crucial new commandment. In John 13:34-35 the Lord said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

*Jesus repeated the love commandment 3 times in those 2 verses. And that's not all. We can find this love commandment for Christians at least 16 times in the New Testament! (1)

*For example, on the same night before the cross, in John 15:12-17 Jesus said:

12. "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

13. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.

14. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.

15. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

16. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.

17. These things I command you, that you love one another."

*In Romans 13:8 Paul said, "Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law."

*In 1 Peter 1:22-23, the Apostle Peter tells Christians:

22. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,

23. having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.

*And 1 Peter 4:8 says: "Above all things have fervent love for one another, for 'love will cover a multitude of sins.'"

*Christians: Loving one another with God's kind of agape love is one of God's greatest priorities for our lives. And today's Scripture helps us see why.

1. FIRST: GODLY LOVE SHINES THE LIGHT ON OUR SALVATION.

*This is God's message for us in vs. 10-11, where John wrote:

10. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

11. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another,

*Here God's Word gives us a sharp contrast between the children of God and the children of the devil. Verse 10 says "the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest." The original word means to make something apparent, recognized or known. The word picture is "to shine the light" on something. And in vs. 10 John gives us two things that shine the light on our salvation. The first is right living, because John said, "Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God."

*And the second thing that shines the light on our salvation is godly love. Again in vs. 10-11, John said: