The Demands Of Brotherly Love Series

INTRODUCTION

SLIDE #1

• In life, everything has demands. If you want children, when you have them, they demand a lot of time and a lot of money.

• If you want a spouse, it will require a lot of time, effort and patience once you get one. If you want to be a good ball player, it will demand a lot of hard work and practice. If you want to have a good job, it will demand a lot of hard work, training and education.

• If you want good grades, it will demand that you pay attention and that you study.

• There are not too many things in life in which you get something than does not demand something of you.

• Why is it that so many of us feel like we can get something out of their relationship with Jesus when they are not willing to put anything into it?

• Do you realize that your desire to have a relationship with Jesus on the level that means something will demand something from us?

• We have spoken a lot about the subject of love since we have been in the book of 1 John. Today we are going look at the demands of brotherly love.

• It if great to talk about how much we love one another, but it is another matter to mean it.

• If we want to truly love one another, there are some things that this love will demand of us. Brotherly love does not happen by accident or by the fact that we are sitting in the same building together today.

• Let’s read 1 John 3:13-18 together today as we examine some of the demands of brotherly love.

SLIDE #2 & 3 1 JOHN 3:13-18

SERMON SLIDE #4

I. BROTHERLY LOVE DEMANDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE ISSUE (13-15)

SLIDE #5

1. The world shows it will hate what is good. (13)

• This is a bit of an odd way to begin this section, but there is logic to it.

• John tells us not to be astonished or surprised when the world hats us. What he is really says is “stop being surprised” at what is happening.

• Are you ever surprised when a person tries to do good and then they become the object of scorn? You see a person who is doing good things being mistreated and you wonder why.

• The same world which Cain belonged to is the same world we live in. I have seen many instances where a person who is trying to do good or be a righteous person will be made fun of and even hated by those of the world.

• We live in a world which we are called not to love (1 John 2:15-17), a world where anti-Christ’s flourish. We live in a world which is blinded by Satan, is it any wonder that righteous, God-loving people would be mistreated?

• SLIDE #6 John 15:17-19. The world rejected Jesus, it will reject you also.

• We are living in a world that is offended by righteous people because it makes them feel bad about their own condition; it makes them realize they are not as good as they thought.

• This is why Jesus is so offensive to many people. Jesus makes you face the reality about yourself and your condition.

SLIDE #7

2. The love we show to one another is evidence of our salvation. (14)

• We must be careful to remember that our goodness is not the reason we are saved, it is not HOW we are saved. I have repeatedly spoken of how we cannot earn our salvation. We must understand that loving someone is not going to earn your ticket to heaven.

• Our ability to love one another is evidence of the salvation we possess by grace though our faith in Jesus.

• John says we KNOW that we have definitive knowledge of our passing out of death into life.

• The word “Passed out of” denotes a geographical change. When we love our brothers in Christ we can know we have moved out of Death Valley into life.

• Love alone is not the basis of our acceptance before God. It is the base on which all other virtues rest.

• The one who continues not to love continues to abide in death. The absence of love is a sign that one is dead to God.

CLICK #7

3. Not loving one another has terrible consequences. (15)

• Verse 15 seems very extreme, it does not seem like it could be true?

• Isn’t there some middle ground? SLIDE #8 READ VERSE 15

• Sin lies in the heart. Verse 15 tells us the one who hates their brother has the spirit and heart of a murderer. Only outward restraints have restricted the action already contemplated within the heart. SLIDE #9