A LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE FAITHFUL
A Love Affair – 2
1 John 3:10-17
INTRODUCTION:
Today we will be continuing our study titled “A Love Affair.” Last time we looked at loving the Father and today we will be talking about loving the Faithful – the church, our fellow believers. As we discussed last week love should be the chief characteristic of our lives. The greatest commandment is that you are to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second greatest command is that we are to love one another. And you can’t do the first without doing the second. It is impossible to truly love God and not love your fellow believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, loving one another is very important because it is a proof of our love for God. It is evidence to those around us that we truly love God and that we have been influenced by his love. On the other hand if we hate other believers then this is clear proof that we really don’t love God no matter how much we might claim we do – no matter how religious we may appear to be – and no matter how many things we may have done supposedly in his name.
First, I want to talk with you about…
1. THE DISTINCTION LOVE MAKES.
There is a huge distinction that is made between the one who lives a life of love not only for God, but also for fellow believers. In this passage there are at least four key things that make lovers stand out from haters. And before we get into these four things let me just say that there really is no middle ground. I know it sounds harsh to talk about lovers and haters only. I know someone is objecting in their mind right now and thinking “What about the person that I merely dislike?” However, as I study this passage I don’t find God giving us a third option. He doesn’t say that we have haters on one side and lovers on the other side and in between we have the dislikers.
I think this makes us uncomfortable because we can’t always tell the difference. However, God is always able to judge perfectly between black and white. Sometime all we can see is gray, but God knows the difference even though we don’t. So we have to be careful that we don’t cross the line and start playing judge ourselves. Only God can do so with perfect accuracy. It is just like when the Bible says that God will one day judge between the sheep and the goats. The sheep represent the righteous people who will go to heaven and the goats represent the wicked people who will go to hell. For God it is black and white, you are either a sheep or a goat, you are a lover or a hater. But for us it is often very difficult to tell for certain whether some people fall into the sheep category or the goat category. And so we should simply reaffirm that these two categories exist and that God knows the difference and that we will trust him with that.
However, there are some things that we can know even if we can’t judge perfectly. We can know that love makes a distinction between people in four key areas.
a) Status: Who’s Your Daddy?
Love reveals your true nature – your true status as a child of God. A lack of love reveals your status as a child of the devil.
1 John 3:10, “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Those who do not do what is right are not God’s children; nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.”
As we talked about last week the person who doesn’t live righteously – the person who doesn’t live in obedience to God’s commandments is not someone who loves God – they are not even a child of God. This ties in directly to today’s message because one of God’s commands is to love one another. John 13:34, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
This command to love one another is so important that it identifies a distinction in status between those who are children of God and those who are not – between those who are disciples of Jesus and those who are not. Again, there is no middle ground. You are either one or you are the other and love is the identifying factor.
Someone said, “The sign that you followed Abraham was circumcision. The sign that you followed Moses was keeping the Sabbath. The sign that you followed John the Baptist was that you were baptized. The sign that you follow Jesus Christ is that you love one another.”
We can look at our lifestyle and discover who our spiritual father is. God’s nature is not that of unrighteousness or impurity or lovelessness and the person who manifests those characteristics is not his child.
Do you really love God? Do you really love your brothers and sisters in the Christian faith? Or do you hold grudges and complain and criticize and gossip and stab them in the back? That is the nature of the devil – to tear down and destroy, to corrupt and ruin. Therefore, those who live like that are showing evidence that they are his followers – his children. So, who’s your daddy?
b) Standing: Righteousness or Wickedness?
A lack of brotherly love taken to the ultimate extreme is found in the example of Cain and Able. Cain was the firstborn son of Adam and Eve and Able was his little brother. 1 John 3:12, “Do 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.”
Why did Cain murder his own brother? He murdered him because Abel was righteous and he was wicked and those who are wicked always hate and persecute those who are righteous. Why do those who are wicked hate? They hate because it is in there nature to hate just as it is in the nature of the righteous to love. This, again, is why love is the distinguishing factor.
There are two things I want you to notice here. First, love doesn’t persecute others. Love doesn’t abuse and misuse others. Love enables us to recognize that we are in fact our brother’s keeper (Genesis 4:9). That’s a fact that Cain couldn’t comprehend. Love means that we will care for others and reach out to others.
Secondly, if we love, then we will be persecuted by the world. Why will they persecute us? There are two reasons. They will persecute us simply because they hate us. And secondly, they will persecute us because they don’t understand us. 1 John 3:1, “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” They will persecute us because they don’t know us or understand us and people tend to be afraid of things that they don’t understand. They don’t understand why we deny ourselves some of the worldly pleasures in which they indulge. They don’t understand why we are willing to sacrifice ourselves. They don’t understand why we would spend so much time and energy and money on church. They don’t understand us and so they mock us and ridicule us.
This means that if you are a real Christian and you don’t cover up your faith you will certainly face some form of persecution. And so when you do keep in mind the words of 1 Peter 4:16, “However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”
c) State: Life or Death?
What we are talking about this morning is not some peripheral issue. This is quite literally a matter of spiritual life or death. 1 John 3:14, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.” The death that is being spoken of here is the state of spiritual death.
The Bible lists several characteristics of those who are living this life in a state of death.
i. They live only for personal pleasure.
1 Timothy 5:6, “But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.” While Paul was talking in the context of a discussion about widows, I don’t find any reason to limit his statement here to only widows. Anyone who lives for pleasure alone is living in death.
ii. They haven’t received Christ as their personal possession.
John 6:53, “Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” We have to feed on Christ spiritually in our hearts by faith. This is something that is graphically portrayed in the act of communion – receiving the bread and the wine – eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
iii. They do religious work for the sake of personal pride.
Revelation 3:1, “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” I preached a series of messages on the seven churches of Revelation a few years ago and the message on Sardis I titled “The Church of the Living Dead.” It’s not enough just to do the right things you also need to be doing them for the right reasons – the love of God and of one another.
Love is the proof that we have left that kind of a life characterized by death behind. Love is the proof that we have passed from death to life. Now I want you to be careful to note that love is not the cause of our coming to life spiritually, but it is the evidence that this has taken place.
Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again from the dead in order to save us from our sin and to grant us spiritual life. And one of the hallmarks of that new spiritual life is that of love for our fellow believers. If we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, it shows that we have indeed been saved. But if we don’t love them it shows that we have not yet been born again.
d) Standards: What will you be judged by?
What is the standard by which you will be judged? Will you be judged merely by what you have done with your hands or by what you have held in your heart? A murderer might be caught red handed, but someone who is merely a hater might say, “Hey! My hands are clean. I haven’t done anything wrong.” But the standard they both will be judged by is that of their own hearts.
Look at 1 John 3:15, “Anyone who hates a fellow believer is a murderer, and you know that no murderers have eternal life in them.” Wow! John says that anyone who hates is a murderer even if they haven’t actually killed them. How in the world can he say that? He says that because God doesn’t judge by outward appearances the way people do, but instead he judges by the heart. And so what John is saying here is that the heart of the hater and the heart of the murderer are identical. They have the same spirit, the same attitudes and the same feelings. They may express their feelings differently physically, but their hearts are in the same place spiritually.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:22-23, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.”
The Bible teaches that to hate is to murder. Hatred and murder are equal. They are both manifestations of the exact same spiritual condition and that is the standard by which we will be judged. As a hater you may think that you have higher moral standards than those of a murderer, but God says, “No. You have the same standards and so you will be judged the same.” You may successfully camouflage what is in your heart from other people, but not from God.
One commentator wrote:
Love is the only security against hate. And as every one who does not love is potentially a hater, so every hater is potentially a murderer. A murderer is a hater who expresses his hatred in the most emphatic way. A hater who does not murder abstains for various reasons from this extreme way of expressing his hate. But the temper of the two men is the same.
As we have seen over the last several minutes love makes a distinction between different kinds of people. It makes a distinction in our spiritual status, our spiritual standing, our spiritual state and our spiritual standards.
Next, I want us to look at…
2. THE DIRECTION LOVE TAKES.
Love makes a significant distinction in our lives because it takes us in a significantly different direction in our lives.
Love Directs Us To…
a) Serve The Ultimate Good Of Others.
1 John 3:16, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Just as murder is the ultimate expression of hate, even so self-sacrifice is the ultimate expression of love. Both examples result in the loss of life, but the motivations behind them are polar opposites.
One of the most significant things about Jesus’ sacrifice is that he didn’t just lay down his life for his friends. He gave his life for those who were powerless and ungodly (Romans 5:6). He died for those who were still sinners (Romans 5:8). He sacrificed himself for those who were his enemies (Romans 5:10). He loved so much that he was willing to give his life for those who hated him and opposed him and stood against him and even for those who killed him.
The point is that if we love God, then we will learn to love the way he did. That means that we will not only love those who love us, but we will also love those who hate us. We will love those who use us and take advantage of us. We will love those who gossip about us and laugh at us behind our backs. We will love those who openly oppose us and stand in our way. “Christ died for those who hated Him; and the Christian must confront…the world with a love that is ready even to die for the haters.”
What all of this means is that, if we are living by love, rather than living self-serving lives we will live self-sacrificing lives. Rather than looking out for our own ultimate good we will be looking out for the ultimate good of others. Do you think of others before yourself? Do you even see the needs and concerns and problems that others have or are you so focused on your own that you can’t see anything else? And when you see the needs in the lives of others do you do what you can to help even if it costs you personally and is inconvenient?
Love Directs Us To…
a. Serve the ultimate good of others.
b. Share Unconditional Goods With Others.
1 John 3:17, “If any one of you has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in you?” Good question. Love has compassion on those who are in need of help and moves us to meet those needs. Material possessions refers to the basic necessities of life. If we have the basic necessities how can we refuse to share them with those who don’t.
Now I probably should say a word or two about my use of the word “unconditional.” Unconditional doesn’t mean that we never say no. It doesn’t mean that if someone who is obviously strung out on drugs comes up and asks you for money that you have to give it to them if you have it. In that case I think you are actually helping the person by not giving them what they are asking for because it would likely be misused. It would be a different story if you were to give them a sandwich or some clothing.
To share unconditional goods means that you give with no strings attached. You don’t give in order to get something back for yourself in return. You don’t give in order to manipulate the person into doing something that you want them to do.
The simple truth of the matter is that the love of God does not exist in the heart of a person who sees another’s need, has the means to alleviate that need and refuses to do so.
CONCLUSION:
As we think about these things let’s keep in mind the words of the apostle Paul in Galatians 6:10, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” This was the reaction of the unbelieving Greek writer Lucian (a.d. 120-200) upon observing the warm fellowship of Christians: "It is incredible to see the fervor with which the people of that religion help each other in their wants. They spare nothing. Their first legislator [Jesus] has put it into their heads that they are brethren." We are called to love all people and to serve all people, but we are especially called to love and serve our brothers and sisters in the Lord. We are to have a love affair with the faithful.
