Chain Reaction
Series: Turn on the light
Sunday Sermon / December 16, 2007
Intro:
Author, Lisa Rogak has written a book on Funeral Foods, Rituals & Customs from Around World
It’s entitled, “Death Warmed over.” In it she tells the story of one man who was very near death. He was dying at home in bed. He could smell the aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies coming from down stairs. And he wanted one more cookie before he should die. So, he climbs out of bed, rolls down the stairs and crawls on his hands and knees across the kitchen floor, reaches a trembling arm to grasp that one final chocolate chip cookie when he feels the sting of a spatula smack his hand. “Put that back,” His wife said, “They’re for the funeral!”
How many here can recognize our need as the human race for more love?
What would the world look like if people truly loved God and truly loved each other?
What a different place this would be.
What would our country, city, church or our personal relationships look like if more Christians loved God and we all truly loved each other?
• That kind of love would start a chain reaction.
• That kind of love lived out would change the world!
But we don’t live in such a world do we? No we don’t.
Most people and many families don’t experience this life changing love.
• John writes these next verses, not for us to evaluate others. But he writes them so we may find direction and strength in loving others.
• How would your family and personal relationships improve with more of God’s love at work?
Text: 1 John 3:11-24 “11This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12Do 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 brother’s were righteous. 13Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
16This 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. 17If 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? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24Those 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.
I. The Greatest Commandment is our greatest deficit
11This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
This isn’t anything new. The Mosaic Law set forth the parameters of love. Those Ten Commandments were to help us define the violations of love against God and against our neighbors.
Romans 8:3 “3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
a. Jesus was asked, “Which commandment is the greatest?” His answer tells is volumes about who God is and what he requires of us.
b. Think about it. If you want to figure life out, if you want to understand what will really make your heart sing and what will change to the world.
c. It’s right here in Jesus command. Love God and Love People. All the law and prophets are fulfilled in these two (which is really one) command. LOVE.
d. How can you tell a real Christian? Love. Not just doctrine, not just their location on Sunday morning, nor any other “sign” It’s all about love.
e. Because you can’t fake this one for very long. And because you need God’s help to really do it.
Most people don’t ever get passed the obstacles to love.
II. Obstacles of Real Love.
12Do 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 brother’s were righteous. 13Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.
a. Murder
Most people if asked “Are you a loving person.” Most people would say, “Yes”
Nobody thinks of themselves as evil, hateful or murderous. I think that most people would resist the identity of “Evil”
(Although I did see a guy with red eyes at IGA in Vandergrift the other day)
We read about murder and our reaction is, “Oh, of course murder is bad.” We live in a very civilized nation. We have all kinds of social edicts driving us. We learn not to say certain things. We learn not to do certain things that would offend each. But we are one of the most murderous societies that have ever existed. We have simply legislated it; we have taken the “edge” off killing.
One of Saddam’s favorite sayings was a quote from Stalin, “If there is a person, then there is a problem. If there is no person, then there is no problem.”
In the last 34 years, Americans have murdered 16.1% of our population.
In the 23 years of power Saddam only murdered 10% of the population of Iraq.
We murder nearly 25% of all conceived babies in the US and 30% of all conceived babies in the world.
b. Hatred
15Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
• Think for moment about what really happened with Cain.
• He first of all, rebelled against God, he attempted to substitute false religion for the true worship and then he became jealous with his Brother for being accepted by God.
• When jealousy took root, unforgiveness, resentment and hatred filled his heart. Then he had to “get rid of the problem”
• He murdered Able because his own actions were evil but Able’s were righteous
• Here John repeats Jesus’ warning, “The world will hate you.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
"For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one [person] to whom I’ve been doing this all my life– namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man." C. S. Lewis, "Forgiveness" chapter in Mere Christianity, p. 11
Hatred is equal to murder. (It doesn’t have the same social consequences but it does have the same moral consequences.)
c. Indifference
17If 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? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
Our culture works from a distorted understanding of love.
A practical observation of love in our culture will define love as either lust or use. Lust: Love and sex in our culture are synonymous. Use: We “love” everything from hotdogs to our favorite shoes.
Real love isn’t just sentimental nor is it merely emotional love. We can have strong emotions for something or someone but not ever experience love. Our emotions come and go. But real love requires action and putting another person before our own interest.
Love isn’t emotion that leads to words. Love is passion that leads to action.
I am sure you have heard someone say, “We just fell out of love.” As if there wasn’t any choice involved.
• “I’m not my brother’s keeper.”
• “Sorry about your luck.”
• But Compassion stirs inside the Christian’s heart
• That says, “I can make a difference.” And “this person needs MY help.”
All of these “sins” build up in us and drive our lives and attitudes. They taint life and destroy life. But what if there was a way out? A way for us to wash it all away? There is.
III. God’s love reacts with the world
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
a. Advent is ALL about bringing God’s Love to Earth.
The power that fuels the sun and the stars is nuclear fusion. Unlike nuclear fission, there is no limit on the amount of fusion that can occur
Nuclear fusion is the joining (or fusing) of the nuclei of two atoms to form a single heavier atom. The process releases considerable energy in the form of heat and light.
For fusion to occur, the electrostatic repulsion between the atoms must be overcome. Creating these conditions is one of the major problems in triggering a fusion reaction.
• Advent – God started the reaction – he initiates the reaction, He steps up and steps in to stop the destruction of his creation.
• Spiritual fusion – our only hope.
• Our heart needs fused to God’s heart. The process releases love.
• But, our heart repels His
b. When we know God we can truly love.
• Genuine concern and love inside a community.
• Meeting needs with action and truth.
• (Not always money. Some people need encouragement, others need someone just to care and listen.)
• This is why welfare and most charitable organizations fail at transformation.
2 Thessalonians 3:10 “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."
• Mutual giving and sharing.
• The answer isn’t socialism or communism.
• The answer is God centered community.
• Sometimes I need help; other times you need help.
This isn’t about charity, this is about community. In Action and Truth.
IV. God’s love in us makes the difference.
19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24Those 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.
a. God’s love does change hearts, lives, and churches and from there it spreads.
• Pride stops the chain reaction
Pride will drive in two directions when it comes to giving.
First – selfishness and envy. (I deserve what I got because I worked for it. That person doesn’t deserve my money)
Second: Pride shows up in Fear – (I don’t have enough to give, I don’t have anything to give.) This is the pride of self-sufficiency.
“I’m on my own, I have to fend for myself. I can’t depend on anyone else. I have to save my self. “
• Knowing God’s love, loving Him in return and turning that love loose into a community of brothers and sisters puts us in the middle of the greatest chain reaction ever.
b. Always enough – peace with God / peace from God. God is the lover of my soul. Provider and sustainer and supplier.
c. When we realize how completely sufficient God is and how completely loved we truly are, we are enabled to love others the same way.
Think of that dried out and hard sponge. It’s rough and uncomfortable. But God’s love, God’s presence is like taking that dried out sponge and submerging into a bucket of water. At first the sponge repels the water and tries to float up out of the water but if the air is squeezed out the water gets sucked in.
Conclusion: God has given us everything; now it’s our pleasure to give it way too.
