Alba 6-23-2024
TAKE THE OLD AND MAKE IT NEW
I John 2:7-11
Last Sunday we looked at I John 2:3-6 and found three things that help us to answer the question, “Do You Know Jesus?” There we found that keeping His commands, exhibiting His love and walking like He walked are markers that will define how well we know Jesus.
Today, we will take a deeper dive into that one about love. Love is a theme of the apostle John. When he and his brother accompanied Jesus during His ministry on the earth, Jesus called them, “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17). But John mellowed over the years. John learned the importance of love and he encourages every Christian to realize that fact. Obviously being with Jesus made a big difference in his life. Spend time with Jesus and it will change anyone!
John not only writes about love, he practices it as well. Many times when he was speaking to the believers he used terms of endearment such as “Beloved” or “Dear little children.” John had great love for his spiritual family.
In I John 2:7 (our text for today) he writes: “Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning.” He is talking about love. So he is saying:
1. It's an Old Commandment: So Remember What You Have Heard. (vs. 7)
The command from God to love Him with all of our being is not a new command. Way back in Deuteronomy 6:5 the Lord gave the commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
And the command from God to love everyone is not a new command. The commandment to love others is also in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 19:18 God commands, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. These are the two commands that Jesus gave in response to the question, which is the greatest commandment? (Matthew 22:36)
Even non-Christians seem to be aware of the command to love your neighbor as your self. Wouldn't it be great if more people would remember this command and then act on it. Our current world situation shows little of the love that would solve many problems.
Countries go to war with their neighbors in an effort to increase their borders and power. And they do it by blowing up everything in that land, and don't care how many people are killed. It is one thing if you are defending your own land. It is another if you are the aggressor. As the old song goes, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.”
As Christians we have had the command to love from the beginning. We have heard it from the beginning. It shouldn't surprise us that we are called to love one another. We are called to take this old commandment and make it new in our lives. Because even though this command has been around a long time:
2. It's a New Commandment: Because of the Example in Jesus (vs. 8)
In verse eight John writes, “Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.”
At first it may sound like John is contradicting himself. He says that this is not a new command but an old one, but on the other hand it is a new command. What we are being told here is that, yes, the command to love is old. But the command is new when you see that love lived out in Jesus Christ. John says that it is “true in Him.” So when we look at Jesus, we will see this command in a new way.
In fact in the Gospel of John 13:34 Jesus told the apostles: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” The newness is not in the command, but in the carrying out of the command. Love is the willingness to die to self for the benefit of another.
Jesus shed light on the old command to love one another by His demonstration of love... in His life, and on the cross. No one had ever seen God’s love demonstrated in such an incredible, sacrificial, and wonderful way before Jesus Christ went to the cross.
He did that for you and for me. Romans 5:7-8 tells us, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He went to the cross to pay the penalty for your sins and mine.
Jesus’ command is for us to love each other in the way He showed His love for us. That’s what made this command new. Jesus Christ gave love a new meaning. Because Jesus…
Loved not only friends, but enemies.
Loved not only good people, but bad people.
Loved not only the righteous, but the sinner.
Loved not only the acceptable, but the rejected.
Loved not only the clean, but the dirty.
This was totally a new concept of love. Throughout the Bible’s record of Jesus’ life, we see that Jesus died to self before He died on the cross. Dying to self meant putting His own interest beneath the interest of God the Father and the interests of others. The greatest accusation they could ever bring against Jesus was that He is a friend of sinners. Aren't you thankful for that!
After Jesus told us to love in the way He has loved us is when He also said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)
Remembering that Jesus said this, John lets us know that this commandment is meant for us. It is the way we should live. And when we do, that is when this old commandment to love, newly revealed in Jesus Christ, can be seen new in us every day. So it is an old commandment that has been made new, but to work, it also needs to be put into action. So John tells us...
3. It's Your Commandment: Practice it In the Church (vs.9-11)
Look what he says in verses nine to eleven. “He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”
The “brother” in this case is not your family member. This is written to Christians. It is referring to our church family, brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus said that the only way people can tell that we are His disciples is by our love for one another.
Now of all the things God uses for measuring our obedience to Him, why does He choose love?
Why not choose Bible reading or prayer as a measure of our obedience? Then those who read five chapters from the Bible and pray daily would be more obedient to God than those who read one chapter a day and pray now and then. And those who read one chapter a day and pray now and then would be more obedient than those who never crack open the Bible or pray except on Sundays. Wouldn’t that be easier? Because it is not always easy to love one another.
The disciples must have been hard to love: Peter was always boasting, he was overbearing and unreliable. James and John, the “sons of thunder”, were spoiled and selfish. They wanted to call down fire on people, and brought their mom to try to talk Jesus into giving them the top two spots in the kingdom.
All of the disciples were slow at understanding what Jesus was teaching them. Yet Jesus loved them. (We can be thankful that Jesus went ahead and gave fuller explanations about some things so that we could understand them as well.) In the same way that Jesus could love these men who had obvious faults, we are called to love each other. None of us is perfect. Not one of us... sorry!
But that gives no excuse to Christians to act in hateful ways toward each other. Thom Rainer did a survey a while back about church fights. He received a lot of feedback and found that many of the disagreements sounded quite silly. Among the things that caused trouble in a church was an argument over the appropriate length of the worship minister's beard. Thom's reaction was to think that he saw a verse of scripture that indicated it is to be no more than 1.5 inches longer than the minister's beard.
Another church had a fight over whether or not to build a children’s playground or to use the land for a cemetery. Thom said he was dying to know the resolution of this one.
One church had a big argument over the discovery that the church budget was off $0.10. Someone finally gave a dime to settle the issue. Thom said he had to admit this issue is ten times more important than the church missing a penny.
One church had an argument on whether the church should allow deviled eggs at the church meal. Thom's suggestion was: only if it’s balanced with angel food cake for dessert.
Two different churches reported fights over the type of coffee that could be served. In one of the churches, they moved from Folgers to a stronger Starbucks brand. In the other church, they simply moved to a stronger blend. Members left the church in the latter example. Thom said, perhaps they started a new church called: The Right Blend Fellowship.
Those are just a few of the list he offers. Think about a church where there is bickering and fighting. I would guarantee you that if anyone outside that church hears of it, they wouldn't be visiting that congregation. Why should they? They can get that kind of garbage in the world. They don’t need to come to church for it.
I know that in the middle of something a person can blindly get involved in a bad situation. But looking from the outside, most disagreements look silly. We need to stand fast on scripture, but tread lightly on our own preferences.
The old standard says, “In doctrine, unity. In opinions, liberty. In all things love.” If you are going to stay in the light, you need to love your brother and sister in Christ. Scripture says so.
One church seems to have figured out how to deal with fights in church. Bay Hills Church in Richmond, California has something they call “Fight Club”.
What is Fight Club? They explain that, “Fight Club is the acknowledgment that we need a better generation of men. That masculinity, as the culture would purport, is not inherently toxic. The culture war for the heart of men is fierce, but the father-heart of God calls men out and calls men up. Fight Club is the answer to that call.”
They say, “It is a discipleship and equipping cohort for men at Bay Hills. It aims to call men out into greater responsibility and call men up to into leadership. This is especially necessary within the home and the church. Whether you're preparing to become an Elder, a Pastor, a business leader, or just a better husband, father, or friend, Fight Club is an invite-only community to that end.
"Fight Club finds its living and being in the following verses: 1 Timothy 6:12 (NLT) “Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have declared so well before many witnesses.” And 1 Corinthians 16:13 (ESV) “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”
I would say that they are fighting for the right things. We need to practice the things that are of the light, not darkness. Love brings light.
Remember, verse eight says, “Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you.”.... “And In You.” That means that the light of God's love is expected to shine brightly in us.
So for us the Commandment to love should be familiar and yet fresh. It should be familiar because it is consistent with God's revelation from the beginning. It should be fresh because of its perfection in Jesus Christ, and its progressing development in our own lives.
Because: We have heard the command from the beginning.
We have seen the command in the life of Christ. And we are called to carry out the command in our own lives.
CLOSE:
This was told as a true story: Paul and William decided that they really wanted to become godly men. So they started meeting with one another to pray and encourage one another. They even set goals for themselves and their behavior, and were accountable to each other.
At one point Paul decided that he wanted to break his habit of using profanity. He decided he was going to put five dollars in the offering for every time he swore during the week. To stay accountable, he would tell his friend William how many times he’d failed. The first week cost Paul $100.
Now, Paul must’ve been doing ok financially, because that didn’t stop his swearing. In fact, while he improved somewhat over the next couple weeks, he really wasn’t having the success he wanted and was losing more and more money every week.
After the fourth week, William told Paul he had decided that the deal needed to be changed for the coming week, but he wasn’t going to tell Paul how it would change. He just said, “Trust me. It will cost you both less and more.”
When they met the following Sunday before worship, Paul admitted he had failed again. William put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Paul, I told you this was going to cost you both less and more. It’s called grace."
William took out his checkbook, and made out a check to the church, leaving the amount blank. He gave the check to Paul and said, "Your sin still costs, but for you it’s free. Just fill in the numbers, and next week there will be more grace."
William’s grace cost him $55 the first week; the second only cost $20. There was no third week. Paul couldn’t bear to see what his sin was costing his friend, so he quit using profanity. William put into practice Jesus command to “Love one another as I have loved you.”
What we as Christians believe matters a great deal. And how we live as Christians, reveals who we really are. Anyone can say they love… but the proof is seen in the actions of life.
That's how we know that Jesus loves us. Because we know what He did for us. Now it's time to give our love, our hearts to Him.
