Sermon Tone Analysis

OPENING PRAYER

GREET AND INTRO

Good morning everyone!! Good morning on everyone worshiping this morning through live stream.

If I have not had a chance to meet you either in person or through live stream;  My name is Scott and I am a follower of Jesus and have the privilege of serving Him as the Lead Pastor among the people of Stonewater Fellowship.

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Open it to 1st John Chapter 3 as we will look at vs 11 through 24 this morning as we Continue in our Fall series understanding the Fundamentals of living the abundant life that Jesus came to give us - walking together through the 1 st letter of John the Apostle and very best friend of Jesus.

PRAYER TODAY

I want to begin this morning by sharing with you something that I was told a long time ago - That a sermon is first and foremost is a message from God to the person who is going to speak it be that a preacher or a pastor.

This may somehow sound odd - as we naturally think of preachers and especially pastors are people who live somehow in a different way than others.

I know that I have made that assumption over the years when I was not a Pastor Elder.

But, the reality is as an Elder Pastor we certainly have expectations from God that are more severe so we can lead well, the additional reality is that we are people too -

I share this with you this morning becasue this message in particular is a message that addresses probably the biggest struggle that I have - Every message that I bring from the Word of God addresses a struggle of mine and we all struggle with things in common - But this one is probably my biggest and if it is yours as well

So I pray that this Word from God is helpful to you through what God says about this subject it - AS We join together in our quest for God to continue to make us more and more like His SON and

we say yes and Amen to what the Spirit of God does in our minds and hearts this morning -

SO -My Prayer for today is that we would all be immersed in the love of Jesus this morning and that we would leave not only knowing how to love everyone around us better but actually taking steps toward loving others the way Jesus loves us.

And in that we would have a deep understanding of what Jesus Love was really all about.

With that desire before God for all of us - LET US LOOK AT OUR TEXT

TRUTH

ENGAGEMENT

It is interesting that when we read this letter we might observe that the word LOVE occurs 7 times in these 14 verses.

One time for every other verse.

Whats Even more interesting is that the word LOVE occurs 36 times in this writing of first John.

Here is another interesting Note - There are several Old Testament books that do not contain a single use of the word Love -

and EVERY Single New Testament writing uses the word Love -

Here is what is really interesting - The letter that we are walking through together in this season - 1st John - uses the word love more times than any other writing in the new testament -

36 times

The Next NT writing that uses the words love in second place is the Gospel of John - and that is 26 times -

But in the Gospel of John Love is spread over 21 chapters of the scriptures

Here the 36 usages of Love are spread over just 5 chapters -

You might be saying Pastor that is very interesting statistic - but what does that have to do with anything?

Whats love got to do with it you ask?

What’s love got to do with living the abundant Life that Jesus came to give us?

EVERYTHING -

SO Here is a question?

When I say the word “love” what comes to your mind?

When we read in the scriptures “love” what does that mean to you?

When we ponder the subject of LOVE we can easily come to the thoughts that there are types of Love for sure -

There is Love for a spouse -

There is love for our children - and then other children

There is the kind of love that we have for our family Members -

There is a love that we have for our family of faith that often too often seems to be different than any of those I have mentioned before -

After that - Where do we go with Love?

or do we take love into any other sphere of relationships?

I think it is possibleb56 yjf v that at that point our love might stop - We might then not think about love outside those spheres and from there go to the idea of mututality -

Here is what I mean - Respect - Mutual -Kindness Mututal - Patience - Mutual

When you think about love is love selective in the who we love?

It certainly needs to be appropriately given depending on our relationship; but deeper - how do we determine who we love and don’t and are there those whom we simply like and never love and then are there those we just don't like and can never love -

These are all BIG questions -

Even Bigger ones - Do the people we say we love actually believe that you love them, do they feel loved, is it real to them - Because many times we can say “we love you” and at the same time violate every tenant of scripture by the words we use, the passion by which we pursue right and wrong - and the judgement of our hearts in regards or another person.

I read many people on social media say things like “I love gay people” and the words they use are not loving at all.

YOu see the question that I think we must all ask ourselves when we use the word LOVE towards other is “is love what they experience” and Can we love when our world views are sometimes so different?

I think that Love is a difficult subject for all of us to navigate well.

Because there are people who are easy to love and there are people who seem impossible to love and everyone else is in between

TENSION

The problem that this creates is when we live LOVE out That way, as part of our life with Jesus it Robs us of the very abundant life that Jesus came to give us.

and in these passages John deals with that very issue!

UNPACKING

John come off the first 10 vs of Chapter 3 what are dealing with sin and following jesus - and delineating for us the severity of our following Jesus and our dealing with Sin in our lives.

He ends vs 10 with the Idea that someone who does not love his brother is not a child of God.

That is a pretty serious standard -

He then takes the Subject of Love and He spirals down once again and goes a little deeper with it in these 14 verses.

and He Begins VS11 in stepping with in the middle of it by saying “This is the message which you heard form the beginning -

The Beginning of What - In this context John is drawing a time line reference to The Gospel - Since the beginning of the Proclamation of the Gospel that Jesus was proclaiming - That beginning -

He says THIS IS THAT MESSAGE - WHAT MESSAGE?

that WE should love one another - Where did they hear that message?

John and others heard it directly from Jesus - and it is the centrality of the Gospel -

God Love the World -

So love The One whom He sent - Love Jesus

Love one another is such a way that the world notices that your love is different telling everyone that you belong to ME

Remain in the Love of Jesus -

Love the Lord your God with ALL your mind heart soul and strength and Love your neighbors as yourself.

The Question is HOW?

John answers this by telling us how not to love someone -

NOT as Cain loved - You might be saying “Pastor are you implying that Cain loved His brother - And I would say YES - CAIN Loved Able with a love that is of the world.

He loved His brother becasue He was His brother - But His love was contaminated with all of the things that are of the world.

Strife - Bitterness - Resentment - jealousy - and so forth -

The Story is in Genesis chapter 4 - Here is what happened -

its not just that all of a sudden Cain (who was the first born) killed his younger brother - There is a back story to this -

Cain was a farmer - He worked the land and grew crops -

Able was a Rancher and Grew Live Stock -

Both of the brought an offering to the Lord from what they had produced -

The Story says that There was ONE difference between the two offerings - Able was of the first born, the first fruits, the First-lings of his flock -

In other words - Able gave to God first and then to himself and Cain gave to himself first and the excess to God -

Here is what happened - God did not pay attention to Cains offering - The Story says- God had no regard - which means he did not look at it or pay attention to it.

But Able offering God paid attention to -

SO what does Able do - He responds to this by acting like an older brother who is jealous of the younger brother getting all the attention -

He gets angry and he gets depressed -

Here is what God says - If you make course corrections “literally “if you do well” if you do what is right and good” You will not be angry and your will not be depressed -

God then says - If you do not make corrections - you do not do well - its gonna get worse - The Narrative says SIN is crouching at the door and its gonna jump on you the minute you open it becasue it desires to have you -

So Here is what happens-

Cain goes to Able and tell his brother of the conversation that God had with Him -

Now the Bible does not record for us the contents of that conversation and so I can only imagine that the Old brother cain was trying to get the younger brother to do the same thing in His offerings that Cain was doing in His -

I'm not sure - But here is what did happen - Sin overtook cain - and while they were int he field - Cain killed able -