True Values: Love
Text: 1 Jn. 3:11-18
Introduction
1. Illustration: On December 2001, the “Leaning Tower of Pisa” was finally reopened to the public, after having been closed for almost a dozen years. During that time, engineers completed a 25 million dollar renovation project designed to stabilize the tower. They removed 110 tons of dirt, and reduced its famous lean by about sixteen inches. Why was this necessary? Because the tower has been tilting further and further away from vertical for hundreds of years, to the point that the top of the 185-foot tower was seventeen feet further south than the bottom, and Italian authorities were concerned that if nothing was done, it would soon collapse. What was the problem? Bad design? Poor workmanship? An inferior grade of marble?
No. The problem was what was underneath. The sandy soil on which the city of Pisa was built was just not stable enough to support a monument of this size. The tower had no firm foundation.
2. The foundation of the Christian and the Church is love. Therefore it is one our core values.
a. It is the distinguishes whether we are a child of God
b. It distinguishes if we have been transformed
c. It distinguishes if we are following Christ
3. Read 1 Jn. 3:11-18
Proposition: Love is the distinguishing characteristic of all true believers.
Transition: The first thing that love does is...
I. Love Shows We Are A Child of God (11-13)
A. We Should Love One Another
1. John begins this section by stating "This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another."
a. What does John mean that this is the message we’ve heard from the beginning? The beginning of what?
b. He is talking about the beginning of the Church and our Christian lives.
c. It was the fundamental teaching of Jesus.
d. Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT)
Jesus replied, “‘you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
e. Jn. 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
2. John goes on to show us the opposite of love - hate. He said, "We must not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother.
a. John’s point was not that Cain murdered and became a child of the Devil; rather, because Cain belonged to the evil one, his anger and jealousy drove him to murder.
b. John wanted his readers to understand the terrible results of refusing to love one another.
c. Lack of love can lead to anger, jealousy, hatred—and, finally, even to murder.—Life Application Concise New Testament Commentary
3. John asks the question "And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was righteous."
a. Cain could not bear the contrast of his brother’s righteous actions with his own actions which were evil, and the first murder became a monument to self-love, as the cross was to become the demonstration of divine love. - New International Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM
b. Hatred is nothing more than selfishness and lack of humility.
c. James 4:1-2 (NLT)
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.
4. John also tells us "So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you."
a. Keep in mind that when John talks about the world he is talking about that evil system which is opposed to God all that is good.
b. He is telling us to not be surprised is that evil world system hates us.
c. Cain was the model of the world which still displays the same ugly characteristics that he displayed (Stott, The Letter of John, Tyndale NT Commentaries, 144).
d. He is telling us to be different; to be set apart from the world.
B. The Great Commandment
1. Illustration: We give our different reports of the church in worship service attendance, children’s church attendance, tithes and offerings. Wouldn’t it be something if we had a measurement or a chart that would say this week we were up in abounding love. We have increased by seventy percent in love over last week. What if we could measure love? It would tell us so much, because that is the key.
2. Love is the determining factor of whether or not we know Christ.
a. 1 Corinthians 13:1-2 (NLT)
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.
b. It doesn’t matter what else you can do if you do not love.
c. Gifts don’t matter.
d. Talent doesn’t matter.
e. Education doesn’t matter.
f. Unless we combine them with love.
3. Love is an aspect of God’s character.
a. Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
b. These are all aspects of God’s character.
c. Notice that love comes first.
d. Because it is essential to God’s character so it should be an essential aspect of our character.
4. Jesus said this is how others will know we are His people.
a. Not bumper stickers
b. Not t-shirts
c. Not jewelry
d. Not the size of our Bible
e. By our love
Transition: Another thing that love does is...
II. Love Shows We Have Been Transformed (14-15)
A. Because We Love
1. John says that love is the proof that our lives have truly been transformed.
2. He says "If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life."
a. This verse begins dramatically with the pronoun "we" (Stott, 145).
b. He is talking about the Church.
c. "Let the world hate; we do not hate, but love" (Stott).
d. We are to be different; completely distinguishable from the world.
e. People should look at us and see something different.
3. John says that our love for one another is the proof that we have been transformed; from death to life.
a. Love for fellow believers proves that a believer has passed from the realm of death to the sphere of eternal life.
b. Their love does not earn them eternal life; instead, their love is evidence that they already have eternal life.
c. He is simply underscoring that because such love is already going on, we have a tangible sign of Christ’s...work in progress. (Burge, NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: The Letters of John, 161).
4. On the other hand, John says "But a person who has no love is still dead."
a. A person who has no love is still dead. This is the condition of all people by nature.
b. A person who does not have love shows that he or she has not passed from death to eternal life.
c. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
d. If this is true, and we believe that it is, then the opposite is also true - if we have not been changed, if everything has not been made new, then we are not in Christ.
5. John then takes it a step further and says "Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them."
a. Here John links hatred with murder.
b. However, John was not the first to make this connection. Jesus said in Matthew 5:22 "But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell."
c. In the heart there is no difference; to hate is to despise, to cut off from relationship, and murder is simply the fulfillment of that attitude. - Expositor’s Bible Commentary; Pradis CD Rom
B. Beyond Doubt
1. Illustration: The motor home has allowed us to put all the conveniences of home on wheels. A camper no longer needs to contend with sleeping in a sleeping bag, cooking over a fire, or hauling water from a stream. Now he can park a fully equipped home on a cement slab in the midst of a few pine trees and hook up to a water line, a sewer line and electricity. One motor home I saw recently had a satellite dish attached on top. No more bother with dirt, no more smoke from the fire, no more drudgery of walking to the stream. Now it is possible to go camping and never have to go outside. We buy a motor home with the hope of seeing new places, of getting out into the world. Yet we deck it out with the same furnishings as in our living room. Thus, nothing really changes. We may drive to a new place, set ourselves in new surrounding, but the newness goes unnoticed, for we’ve only carried along our old setting. The adventure of new life in Christ begins when the comfortable patterns of the old life are left behind.
2. Unless there is change in our lives, there is no transformation.
a. We cannot stay the same
b. We must be different
c. We must be transformed
3. It doesn’t matter:
a. How often you go to church if you do not love
b. How much money you give if you do not love
c. How much you read the bible if you do not love
4. What really matters is:
a. A change of mind
b. A change of attitude
c. A change of heart
5. Unless we show love for our brothers and sister in Christ there is no transformation.
a. Unless there is love in our lives we are still dead spiritually.
b. Unless there is love in our lives there we have not been renewed by the power of the Spirit.
Transition: Yet another thing that love does is...
III. Love Shows We Are Following Christ (16-18)
A. By This We Know Love
1. The question we need to ask ourselves is what is love?
a. The Greek word that John uses here is the word agape, which means "a selfless and sacrificial love; a love of the mind, of the reason, of the will as well as of the heart and affections. -- Practical Word Studies in the New Testament
b. It is the love that goes so far...
c. that it loves a person even if he does not deserve to be loved. —Practical Word Studies in the New Testament
d. that it loves the person who is utterly unworthy of being loved.
e. that it is compelled to sacrifice itself for its enemies
2. John tells us in verse 16, "We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us."
a. We know what agape is by Christ himself demonstrated it for us.
b. He showed us this love not because we earned it, or did something to make us worthy of it.
c. He showed it to us simply because He loved us.
3. Jesus showed us this love by:
a. Coming to earth and becoming like one of us.
b. Coming to earth and submitting himself to the horrible death of the cross.
c. Coming to earth and thus giving up all of his rights and privileges as the Son of God.
4. John tells us "So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters."
a. We are to do this not simply because that is what Jesus did, but because that is what Jesus revealed to be the demand of agape love.
b. Love is denial of self for another’s gain. It is doing what Jesus himself would do. - Expositor’s Bible Commentary, The, Pradis CD-ROM:1 John
5. Hate and love are direct opposites of one another.
a. Hatred is negative, seeks the other person’s harm, and leads to activity against them.
b. Love is positive, seeks the other person’s good, and leads to activity for them, even if it requires self-sacrifice (Stott, 146).
6. John tells us that love, like faith, is something we have to put into practice. He says "Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions."
a. Love with words may be genuine enough, but is not fulfilled in actions.
b. Love with the tongue consists of hypocritical utterances with no truth in it.
c. I believe that the Apostle John would agree with the old saying "actions speak louder than words."
B. Love of Christ
1. Illustration: A newspaper columnist named George Crane 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.
2. Showing the kind of love that Jesus displayed changes things.
a. It can soften the hardest of hearts.
b. It can change the meanest of dispositions.
c. It can change a person’s life.
3. The kind of love that Jesus demonstrated means being willing to lay down your wants and desires.
a. It might mean putting up with that song you don’t like because it ministers to someone else.
b. It might mean putting up with something you think is distasteful or out of place in order to bring someone into church.
c. It means willingly giving up your rights to benefit someone else.
Transition: Sacrificial love is what Jesus demonstrated, and it is the kind of love that we must show if we are to truly be His disciples.
Conclusion
1. Love is:
a. What distinguishes the child of God.
b. What demonstrates we have been transformed.
c. What proves we are following Christ.
2. Let me ask you this question: If you were arrested today for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?
