How do you explain the hatred and evilness in our society? How do you comprehend the hatred between the Jews and Palestinians? How can we support the evilness we see on the political scene? How we process the anarchy in our society? How do you explain Columbine? Families wounded by divorce? Friendships ended because of deception? Churches who continue to refuse reconciliation?
John reminds us of an ugly side of humanity. He connects the root of our problems to two brothers who met in a field. Suddenly one brother lifted an ax high above his head and, with one swift blow, caved in his brother’s skull and crimsoned the earth with his brother’s blood. From that meeting until now, we struggle with the embryonic tension between the two great poles of the human dilemma: to love or to hate.
John will remind us that there is always a powerful force of hate that tempts even Christians; he reminds us that the spirit of the antichrist is among us. Yes, inside the church. John will show us that hatred is a devilish thing. John, perhaps better than any other New Testament writer, was inspired to write from the perspective of God’s redeeming love. Yet, he also reminds us that there is a constant battle between love and hatred. We are challenged to ask: What is the origin of love and hate?
First, love and hate originate outside of humans. Love comes from God. Hate comes from the devil. Allow me to illustrate.
What possessed a mother in Texas to kill her 5 children? If parents in Africa kill a child who confesses to having AIDS, we call it barbaric murder. In America, we soften the reality of hatred born of the Devil by using psychological language. I understand that, because none of what to believe God created us for such evilness. He didn’t.
However, hatred creeps into our lives as secretly as we discover we are madly in love with the one to become our spouse. My wife and I, as childhood sweethearts, started our relationship with the assumption she was working as a matchmaker. Surprise, surprise. We started dating and I never went on a date with her friend. I have often said that I never asked her to marry me, from early it was a work in progress. Hatred works the same way. We rarely ever ask a person if we can hate them. It happens.
Cain was probably very unaware that when he hated he was under the control of another mind. Little did he know that someone was taking over his life. No sudden chill ran up and down his spine as the author of hatred was possessing him. Satan deceived him!
Remember when the Lord met with His disciples in the Upper Room....Judas was sitting at the table and Satan entered his heart. Remember the deception in the Church caused by Ananias and Sapphira? Peter would ask, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” Acts 5:3.
Scriptures holds before us a great revelation: It is possible for Christians to come under the grip of the Devil.
I. WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS IS A LITTLE MORE LOVE (:11-15)
The countercultural movement of the 60s was right in their major point: The world needs a little more love.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
Their problem? They attempted to find love within themselves. Tragically, the failure to love was as characteristic of that era as any other. Precious lives were ruined by drugs and shallow sexual relationships.
When reading John, you discover he was not a confrontational preacher. You can only imagine the conflict of theology and wounded hearts that Gnosticism had caused. Yet, he doesn’t, like Paul, put it all on the table. It will help us to remember he is writing to a church that is in a battle zone. Many are leaving in protest, rejecting the Bible’s teaching about Jesus Christ. Harmful words and actions resulted from believers allowing the spirit of hate to enter their hearts–John equated it with the spirit of hatred that entered Cain.
Listen to how Timothy Peck describes the world in which we live.
We live in a world of hatred and violence, a world where relatives refuse to speak to each other for decades, a world where parents abuse their children, a world where children tote assault rifles. We live in a world of terrorism, where to make a statement people bomb the Ok City Federal building, we live in a world where people demonstrate what they believe by trampling on other people all the time. Don’t be surprised...this is life.
The church has a different goal–we are to model for the world the authentic way to love. The spiritual quest we must follow is that Jesus calls us to be different. We are called upon to do several things and to do them well.
• To love,
• To give forgiveness when it is not deserved,
• To show gentleness when attacked by others, and
• To extend grace when we want to lose our cool.
John was fearful that the church was simply mirroring the world. The church is called upon to demonstrate to the world that we are different. We are to follow the example of Jesus. He took on the role of a servant and washed the feet of His followers. It was Jesus that said,
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all people know that you are my followers, if you love one another. John 13:34-36
II. WHAT THE CHURCH NEEDS IS AN INCARNATIONAL MODEL FOR FAITH AND PRACTICE (:16, 17)
We have all laughed at the Budweiser commercials. While sitting on a dock fishing the son says, “Well dad, there is something I need to tell you.” After his dad asked about it, the son says, “Your my dad and I love you man.” In an impersonal manner the father tells the son, “You aren’t going to get my Bud.” The exchange is missing something; however, John point to Jesus as a role model who reaches out in an incarnational act of love.
What does an incarnational love look like? John points to Jesus as our model.
If you were standing on the edge of a pier at the beach, and some guy came running up to you and said, ““This is how much I love you”” and then dove into the water and drowned you’d think he was nuts. Maybe you’d think it was a nice gesture, but it was a waste of a perfectly good life. He couldn’t just told you much he loved you. But if you fell off that pier and were drowning and that same guy dove in to rescue you, dragged you to safety but died in the process and his dying words were, “This is how much I love you then you’d truly understand this kind of love. That’s what Jesus did when he went to the cross, he didn’t just show us love, but he brought God’s love to us by rescuing us from our sin. John looks at Jesus Christ’s death on the cross as a picture of how God wants us to love.
III. GOD WANTS BELIEVERS WHO DEMONSTRATE THE LOVE OF GOD (:18-24)
When is the last time you really practiced the incarnational love of the Lord Jesus Christ? Did you hear those words in verse eighteen? What does this really look like?
Steve Zeisler said, “There is always more discussion of love and much more appreciation of it from a distance than real sacrifice for another.”
C.S. Lewis: “It is easier to be enthusiastic about Humanity than it is to love individual men and women, especially those who are uninteresting, exasperating, depraved, or otherwise unattractive. Loving everybody in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular.”
Unfortunately, we do not have time to do an exhaustive verse by verse study of the verses of our text for this morning; however, we can bring the central truth of this text into focus: WHAT GOD WANTS IS BELIEVERS WHO DEMONSTRATE THE LOVE OF GOD. Not to talk about in idealistic clandestine groups made up of predetermined membership criteria. The challenge is to stand solid in our commitment to be like Jesus.
Jesus spent himself for us, so we ought to spend ourselves for each other. If we have authentically allowed the love of Jesus to touch us, we will settle for nothing less than relationships that are characterized by self-giving love.
Yet, there is a word of warning for those who will take this message seriously. Why did Cain kill Abel? Verse 12 says he killed him “because his own actions were evil, and his brothers were righteous.” When Christians take seriously the command to love it infuriates the devil. He will do everything possible to stop it.
Billy Graham was astonished by the unreasoning opposition he experienced in London. People said converts there would fail and that he was running a religious racket that was simply a big show.
Joseph Parker: “You had better not preach repentance until you’ve pledged your head to heaven.” John reminds us that the world will hate believers who take seriously the commands of God. Hatred is an attack against God and the principle of self-giving love that he calls for.
Yet, there is no greater joy experienced than that of boldly determining in the heart of hearts that we will settle for nothing less than the love born in the heart of Jesus. We, too, will experience integrity of the Christian call only when we refuse to be filled with the spirit of the devil.
When we realize Holy Spirit is ready to fill our lives with words of love and appreciation, approval, and acceptance, we will discover we have a new agenda guiding our lives.
Ray Stedman: “Until we live on these terms, we have not begun to demonstrate the life that is in Jesus Christ. Oh, the power of love–wonderful power to attract and to draw men irresistibly to contact and encounter with the Living God. But that love can never be manifest where there is a protection, an excusing, a justifying of the spirit of hate.”
Demonstrations seem to be a way of life. People demonstrate against things so the world will know what they believe and why they believe it. Some people join political groups, others write letters, many will join picket lines, and others will protest in the public arena. Everyone appears to have a cause and most of the time their approach means there is insensitivity to the needs of others. The anti-vaccination group that shut down the COVID-19 vaccination station at Dodger Stadium illustrates how some are insensitive to the needs of others. Why would they prohibit hundreds of people from getting the vaccine while carrying signs that read, save your soul turn back now; I guess they were members of the loveless church.
Jesus calls upon us to demonstrate with great intensity for the love of God and his power to transform us into people that champion love over indifference and hatred.
"Fallible" means capable of making mistakes — or, easier to remember — capable of failing. Infallible means exactly the opposite — incapable of failing. This word is often used to describe human capacity for error — no one is infallible. Biblical infallibility is the belief that what the Bible says regarding matters of faith and Christian practice is wholly useful and true. It is the "belief that the Bible is completely trustworthy as a guide to salvation and the life of faith and will not fail to accomplish its purpose.
The Jewish leaders, in Jesus’ time on earth, used Scripture in a way that they failed to see the incarnate love of God.
If not careful, we too will stumble over the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible and fail to see the infallibility of Jesus’ love. Understanding the central authority of Scripture is foundational for godly living. It is the foundation upon which we arrive at meaning and purpose for all we are and do. Yet, it is sad the way I have witnessed the lives of Christians, to include very conservative theologians, destroyed by those who push a political agenda under the guise of “infallible and inerrant Word of God”. They fail to uphold the infallible and inerrant love of God; at this point they become fallible and errant in their ways. Paul draws this subject to an infallible and inerrant point of distinction in his epilogue to his chapter on love.
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. I Corinthians 13:13
John would point to the failure to love extravagant, as God first loved us, is perhaps one of the greatest sins.
