5.8.47 10.16.20221 1 John 3.11-18 Love Sweet Love

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1 John 3:11 ESV

11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

With this verse John begins to provide a working definition for Christian love. Our world needs us to work this out. Our overflowing love blesses a desperate world. The world recognizes this need even when it can’t quite understand what drives it.

What the world needs now is love sweet love It's the only thing that there's just too little of What the world needs now is love sweet love No not just for some but for everyone

The dominant culture of the world has always struggled to come up with a good, working definition of the term “love”. It is easier, as the song says to name the need than to describe it in detail. Our radios seem to broadcast bushell baskets of songs describing this search for love. One of the most heart-wrenching pleas?

I wanna know what love is I want you to show me I wanna feel what love is I know you can show me

How much “love” can a fallen world offer the hurting when the search for love is diverted, distracted, and derailed by the very sinfulness that creates the problem in the first place?

Entice: John uses the word "love" a lot. 24x in the 5 chapters of this Epistle, 71x in everything in the NT that he wrote. Clearly love is an important concept for him. Perhaps, it is because people then were as confused as they are now as to what real love is, and just as in need of it.

Engage: Think of all the misuses of the word love. Consider all the pop-culture answers, two of which we have explicitly considered. Ponder all the empty expressions of love. Reflect upon all the unloved people in the world.

It pains me, and I think it pained John to think of all the believers he knew who chose to use the word love and to express concepts of love derived from the worlds compromised culture rather than by Jesus, His gospel, and His specific commandment:

John 13:34–35 ESV

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Expand: We cannot understand what John says here without considering that new commandment given by Jesus. And there is more:

John 14:15 ESV

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

John 15:12–13 ESV

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

This love of which Jesus spoke, and that John cites is no mere feeling of affection. It is not just an emotion. It is not fleeting. It must be durable.

It must be learned.

Learned

It is an act of faith,

Faith

Obedience

an act of obedience,

and a

Transformation

sign of our transformation

in and by Jesus.

Excite: Our world has never needed the Church to be more committed to loving like Jesus than right now. And yet we too often embrace the worldly, selfish, destructive love(s) modeled in our culture. John is concerned with the real thing.

Accurate doctrine without abiding love becomes legalistic and domineering

Abiding love without accurate doctrine becomes undisciplined, uncaring, and antinomian.

Neither of these options is the real Christ-like, Christ-commanded love John defines and describes.

Explore:

Real Love is Christ-like and determined amid a fallen world.

Explain: On the one hand John wants us to know that loving like Jesus

Body of Sermon:

Stands Opposed.

1 John 3:12–15 ESV

12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

We will be opposed by the

By the choices of fallen man.

Example: Cain

1 John 3:12 (ESV)

12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.

Cain chose evil deeds. His brother chose righteous deeds. Righteousness will always be an indictment of evil and provoke its worst behavior.

And we will always be opposed by the

By the challenge of fallen man.

1 John 3:13–14 (ESV)

13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

The main reason the world hates and despises us is that it represents a culture of death and decay. We represent abundant life. This is how it will be until consummation.

This opposition is deeply embedded in fallen human nature.

So that we will be opposed

By the culture of fallen man.

1 John 3:15 ESV

15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

It is not going to get any better. It can’t get any better. Our faith is not designed to make the world a better place, but to rescue the fallen from the dying world.

So on the one hand we always stand opposed to the world…

On the other hand, like Jesus, we must touch the world with a love that

Serves Others.

1 John 3:16–18 ESV

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Following the example of Jesus, we serve others

In sacrifice.

Our Example is Jesus. This broader passage contrasts the hateful, evil behavior of Cain with the loving, redemptive behavior of Jesus. Loving like Jesus is a decision that confronts the choices, challenges, and culture of the fallen world. And it is cruciform by nature.

1 John 3:16 ESV

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

In a wonderful “coincidence” 1 John 3.16 parallels John 3.16

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

The love of God in Christ Jesus is sacrificial. By His sacrifice we are saved, and, in our sacrifices, we serve the Church and a fallen world.

To Love like Christ requires us to serve

In sympathy.

1 John 3:17 (ESV)

17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

When we are sympathetic, the obligation to love is internalized and signifies that we are being transformed into the image of Christ.

Last of all Love is known

In service.

1 John 3:18 ESV

18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Everyone from Jesus to James to Paul; and now John makes this connection between words of love and deeds of love. In a world filled with hatred and opposition we are called to lovingly serve those who hate us most with the love displayed upon the bloody cross and in the empty grave.

Shut Down:

You really want to know what love is?

Look at the Cross.

You really want to feel love?

Serve others.

To really feel love means that we show love.

John heard the words. He heard Jesus command and saw Him demonstrate real love. Over the many years those words bubbled in his mind. In times of crisis, he was able to remind his readers, and now us…

God loves the world in Jesus...

And continues to love that world through us.

That is good news 10.16.2022