INTRO.- New but old. How can that be? How can anything be new and yet old at the same time?
ILL.- Elaine and I have new neighbors next door. I had never met them until one day I was outside and noticed that a truck was delivering a pickup truck to their driveway. I went to investigate because it was an older model truck and yet appeared to be in very good condition. It is a 1967 GMC pickup truck, yellow in color (new paint) and newly chromed bumpers. OLD BUT NEW! Old but has a somewhat new look to it!
People often opt for a used car over a brand new car because of the price. It may be somewhat old or older but it’s new to them!
How about some old sayings but new to some people? See if you can finish these says?
- You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
- A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. (who wants a bird?)
- A friend in need is a friend indeed.
- Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
- Better late than never. (not for me. I don’t like late)
- Better to give than to receive. (Acts 20:35)
- Birds of a feather, flock together.
- Clothes don’t make the man.
- Confession is good for the soul. (also I John 1:9)
- Curiosity killed the cat. (after 9 tries)
- Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
- Don’t cry over spilt milk.
- Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.
- Don’t sweat the small stuff. (it’s all small stuff)
- Eat to live, don’t live to eat.
- Half a loaf is better than none. (especially if you’re hungry)
- Home is where the heart is. (Matthew 6:21)
- Let sleeping dogs lie.
- Monkey see, monkey do. (but are you a monkey?)
- Never say never.
- Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
- Make hay while the sun shines. (work while you can)
In our text, we also have an old but a new message. It’s an eternal message. It’s the old truth that people need to believe in and the old path that people need to follow!
PROP.- What is this new but old message?
1- The truth is in Christ
2- The light is in loving others
3- The darkness is in hating others
I. THE TRUTH IS IN CHRIST
7Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.
This is an old message. It’s been preached for two thousand years and yet, it’s a new message to some people!
ILL.- Two men had an argument. To settle the matter, they went to a judge for arbitration. The plaintiff made his case. He was very eloquent and persuasive in his reasoning. When he finished, the judge nodded in approval and said, "That’s right, that’s right."
On hearing this, the defendant jumped up and said, "Wait a second, judge, you haven’t even heard my side of the case yet."
So the judge told the defendant to state his case. And he, too, was very persuasive and eloquent. When he finished, the judge said, "That’s right, that’s right." When the clerk of court heard this, he jumped up and said, "Judge, they both can’t be right." The judge looked at the clerk of court and said, "That’s right, that’s right."
Brothers and sisters, this is the way it often is in our world. Everything is right to someone. The world is quick to excuse any kind of evil as being right. It all depends on who you are talking about.
ILL.- Take, for example, the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping that occurred on June 5, 2002, when she was abducted from her Salt Lake City, Utah, bedroom at the age of 14. She was found nine months later on March 12, 2003, in Sandy, Utah, about 18 miles from her home, in the company of Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee, who were indicted for her kidnapping but ruled unfit to stand trial.
On Oct. 1, 2009, this case went back to court and Elizabeth Smart who is 21 years old, testified about what took place. Elizabeth Smart was held at the mercy of a sex-crazed man and his jealous wife, and was raped many times a day.
Asked to describe her abductor, Ms. Smart replied, “Evil, wicked, manipulative, stinky, slimy, greedy, selfish, not spiritual, not religious, not close to God.” She said, "Anything I showed resistance or hesitance to, he would turn to me and say, "The Lord has commanded you to do this, you have to experience the lowest form of humanity to experience the highest." Tolman: Did he think highly of himself? Smart: "Yes. He was the king. He was the Lord’s servant and was doing the Lord’s work."
In other words, Brian David Mitchell thought he was right in raping that 14 year old girl! (but we know that the truth is: he is evil and wicked!)
Many things SEEM right to some BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN EVERYTHING IS RIGHT OR TRUTHFUL! The truth is as we believe it to be in scripture is that Brian David Mitchell is an evil child rapist! THAT’S THE TRUTH!
Proverbs 14:12 "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death."
What is the truth of all truths? How can we know the truth in life?
John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Ephesians 4:21 "Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus."
I Timothy 2:3-5 "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."
The truth is in Jesus and His Word. He is eternal truth. His word is eternal truth.
Mark 13:31 "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."
II. THE LIGHT IS IN LOVING OTHERS
8Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. 9Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness 10Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.
ILL.- A neighbor telephoned his neighbor at three in the morning and said, "Hey, your dog is barking and keeping me awake." The other neighbor called him back at 3 a.m. the next morning and said, "I don’t have a dog!"
We’re supposed to love all people, including our neighbors who have dogs.
Obviously, some people are more lovable than others, but the command to love others doesn’t put a qualification on whom to love.
In this text, it says that we are to love our brother.
In Matthew 22:39 Jesus said that the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself. Do you do that?
ILL.- We have a neighbor who is always having trouble with another neighbor. And I’m not either one of those neighbors! This neighbor is having trouble with another neighbor who doesn’t like her dog.
This neighbor lady is someone, however, that we get along with just fine. No problems at all. In fact, when I mow behind our house I often mow part of her/their grass. Is that being neighborly? Is that loving your neighbor? IT COULD BE.
I don’t mind mowing someone else’s yard if they can’t do it or perhaps don’t have time. It’s just one good way to be neighborly and/or to demonstrate some love to a neighbor. (I just don’t know why my neighbors don’t love me enough to mow my grass!!!)
10Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.
If we are in the light of Christ and living the light of Christ we will demonstrate love to others.
Romans 13:8 "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law."
Galatians 5:14 "The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
How do we love others? We demonstrate love or loving kindness anyway we can! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ANYONE LATELY?
And especially, someone outside your own family? Have you done anything for an elderly person? Or a young mother who has her hands full with small children?
James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
ILL.- Elaine and I have a new neighbor right next door who has Parkinson’s disease. I know how crippling that can be since my mother had it and also had to depend on some of her neighbor’s for help. As soon as they moved Elaine told them than any time they needed help just to call us. HOW COULD WE NOT OFFER TO HELP THEM?
ILL.- In his book 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.”
What’s the message? We must work at loving others. And the more we work at it, the more we’ll want to do it. And if the light of Christ is in us it will demonstrate itself by loving others.
III. THE DARKNESS IS IN HATING OTHERS
11But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
ILL.- An Englishman, on a tour of the Western United States, came to a desert filling station. Above the door was a sign: “Joe Bevins, 200% American.”
After the scowling and surly proprietor had filled the gas tank, the visitor ventured a question: “Would you mind, Mr. Bevins,” he said, “telling me just what is a 200% American?”
“Well,” said the filling-station man belligerently, “You heard o’ 100% Americans, I reckon—they hate all other nationalities. Me—well, I’m 200%—I hate everybody!”
Have you ever heard of anyone that hate-filled?
ILL.- I read that some time ago a Philadelphia woman in her will instructed her executor to take one dollar from her estate, invest it and pay the interest on this investment to her husband, “as evidence of my estimate of his worth.” Wow!
Another woman—also from Philadelphia—bequeathed her divorced husband one dollar to buy a rope to hang himself. Another wow! What do you call that? It sure isn’t love!
But there is worse than these two examples.
ILL.- One of the worst cases of hatred ever was found in a will written in 1935 by a Mr. Donohoe. It read, "Unto my two daughters, Frances Marie and Denise Victoria, by reason of their unfilial attitude toward a doting father, . . . I leave the sum of$1.00 to each and a father’s curse. May their lives be fraught with misery, unhappiness, and poignant sorrow. May their deaths be soon and of a lingering malignant and torturous nature."
The last line of the will was even more hateful. It read, "May their souls rest in hell and suffer the torments of the condemned for eternity."
Now, as we know, there are far less forms of hatred in the world today, but they may be hatred nonetheless. For example, what about name calling? I’m talking very degrading name-calling! What about insulting someone else or slandering them in order to put them down and make yourself look good? What about wishing someone would die? What about seeking vengeance for what you consider to be a wrong done to you?
ILL.- Joseph Richardson, a New York millionaire lived and died in a house only five feet wide. It was called the “Spite House,” and it deserved its name. Owning the narrow lot of land on which it was built, Mr. Richardson wished to sell it to the neighboring property owners. They would not pay him what he asked ($5000) and so he put up this house, which disfigured the block—and then condemned himself to a life of discomfort in it. That house was four stories in height and was divided into eight suites, two on each floor. Now why would he do such a thing? Greed and hatred.
ILL.- Harry Emerson Fosdick said, "Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat." Hatred never pays.
11But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
If hatred is growing in a person’s heart, it’s a growing problem and it’s a sign of something bad....namely, the absence of the Lord. How can you hate people or have it dwell in your heart when you know the Lord who is love?
CONCLUSION-----------------------
A new but old message.
1- The truth is Christ
2- The light is loving others
3- The darkness is hating others
Jesus is old and yet He is very new to some people. He was, is and shall forever be. He is the Savior and the solid Rock.
