S - Epistle of John Pt. 7 (1 John 3: 11-18)
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16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Last week we took a break from reading through 1 John, I hope you had a good time with Mr. Miguel Viera. I heard he threw some frisbees at some of you guys. I truly pray you had a good time. We had a good time ourselves.
But today, I want us to continue our reading through 1 John and if you don’t remember 2 weeks ago we started reading chapter 3 and today we are going to keep reading through chapter 3 all together. But before we dive into today’s reading I want us to read something Jesus once said:
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Let me ask you a question, How do you know anything? Maybe we want proof, or better yet, we want evidence right? Imagine for a second that I told you I was a professional tik toker, how could I provide some evidence for that? I’d have to pull up my tik tok and show you my profile and how much money I make. But what would you say if I pulled up my apps on my phone and let you look through them and you don’t see tik tok?
Would you believe me without evidence? Probably not right?
What if I told you I had 4 million dollars in my bank account, would you want me to give you some evidence? I bet you would, because if I had 4 million dollars I could buy every single person in this room whatever they wanted for lunch right? What if I pulled up my bank app and when you saw it this is what it looked like:
Would you believe I had 4 million dollars? Probably not right? I stand by this truth right here:
You will show people who you are
You can try to fool people and pretend to be someone you aren’t but eventually, who you are is gonna be seen through evidence. I could trick all of you and pretend I have money. I could go out and get a loan, and buy you all expensive stuff for some time but if I can’t pay the loan back, eventually you guys are gonna find I’m broke.
So, As we read today’s verses, it leads me to ask this question:
How do I show people I follow Jesus?
I follow Jesus, I hope all of you follow Jesus, and if I want to show people that I follow Jesus, how do I do that? Do I just carry around a cross around my neck? That can help but it’s not enough. Can I just put a bible verse on my Instagram bio? You can, but It might not be enough. How do I truly show people I follow Jesus?
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Let’s read some Scripture and then we’ll pray:
11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.
13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
Verse 11 teaches us the heart of the Gospel: Whats it say? The message that you have heard from the beginning: we should love each other. Let me ask you a hard question, do we love each other in here? You might love some people in here, but do you love everyone in here? I read this in a book once:
God is love. And because God is love, Christians are to love one another.
Now don’t get me wrong, it is not always easy to love each other. We hurt each other’s feelings sometimes. We pick on each other, and sometimes we do things that make us unlovable, but the Gospel teaches that God loved you and me when we were enemies of God.
So when it was hard for us to be loved, God loved us so much He sent His only Son to die on the cross for your sins and mine. Jesus pays the price you and I can not pay, and He does it out of love.
But see, John doesn’t just tell us to love each other, he shows us what it looks like for us to NOT love each other.
12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.
John talks about this dude named Cain that killed his brother. and why did he do it? Because he was jealous. Have you ever killed your brother or your sister? I hope not. That’d be crazy right. Have you ever wanted to kill them before? XD. I know sometimes it can be hard for us to get along with each other and we may even say something like: “I’m going to kill you” but I don’t actually mean it.
In the Old Testament we get the story of Cain and Able. These 2 guys where the sons of Adam and Eve. And they went to worship God one morning and Able worshiped God with everything that he had. He worshipped God as best as he could and God was pleased with Able’s worship. But when Cain went to worship God, he did it because he had to. Not because he wanted to, or because he loved God. He worshipped God because that’s what everyone else was doing.
Well God is not blind, remember what we said earlier:
You will show people who you are
God saw right through Cain and this is what the story says:
5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
And God even asked Cain, why are you mad? If you did what you were supposed to do, and you did it well, I’d take your worship. But I can’t take fake worship, it doesn’t work like that. It’s like when someone hurts you and they come an apologize ONLY because an adult told them to. Would you appreciate that apology? Probably not, God did not accept Cain’s worship because it was fake.
So this is what Cain does:
8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
That my friends, is not love. Now I know what you’re thinking:
Pastor Luis, I’ve never killed anyone. Especially not my brother or sister.
Why don’t we test that. Let’s see if that is true:
13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
See John says: if you hate your brother it’s as if you had killed him. Now I know this is a hard part of the bible to read, but I want you to know that John learned this from someone else. John is not telling us something new, John is teaching us what God’s standards look like. So John is REPEATING something someone else has said:
21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’
22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
What does Raca mean?
Raca = a worthless empty headed person
If you hate your brother or sister, it’s practically the same thing. Because hate is what cause Cain to kill his brother Able.
John tells us: Don’t be like Cain. Don’t hate, love each other instead. I recognize that it can be hard to love people. And one of the things we say the most is: I don’t feel like I can love them. Well I want to teach you something this morning, we believe that love is an emotion, and it’s not. Love is a decision you must make.
Every single morning when you get up you have to decide whether you are going to love people or not. I decide every single morning I am going to love Mrs. Stephanie as a good husband. Every morning I get up and I decide I am going to love my brother like he is my brother. And every morning I get up and decide I am going to love each and every single one of you in the best way possible. By sharing the Gospel with you because God has used others to share it with me.
But God also chose to love you by sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross. It was not an easy decision to make but I guarantee you that God does not regret that decision because thanks to that you and I have the opportunity to have eternal life.
I want you all to remember this, if you hate someone or if you love someone it’s only because you have decided to do it. And if you hate someone, you can’t blame them for a decision you made. It’s not Able’s fault Cain hated him. Cain chose to hate his brother. this morning we need to decide to love each other.
Don’t be like Cain, instead let’s be like Jesus:
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
See, John tells us to love each other. Then he tells us what the opposite of love looks like. Then He reminds us what Jesus has done to show us love. And gives us some practical examples for what it looks like for us to love.
Jesus laid His life down for you, for me and for every other person you know. So we should love each other by laying our life down for others. How do we show others we follow Jesus? By loving each other. Love is not something we say about each other. You can tell every person on earth that you love them, but it means nothing if its not true.
Jesus showed us love, He didn’t just say it. Loving people may mean you have to lay your life down for them. But that’s not something that happens every day. But what you can do for others is give.
Give them resources, money, clothes gifts. When you love someone you give them what you have, but you can also love others by giving them your time. Share your time with them, spend meaningful time with them. Showing people that you love them goes further than JUST saying it.
Saying I love you is so important. Some people need to hear it, and others may not. But everyone needs to know they are loved.
Isn’t that what God does for us? He makes us know we are loved? He loves by taking away our sin, by providing us with homes, clothes, food our favorite activities. He provides us with different abilities, to play music, play sports. God gives us the capacity to learn and even the capacity to love others. Isn’t that love?
Now I want to as all of you the same question I asked at the beginning:
How do I show people I follow Jesus?
By loving others, especially by loving other Christians.
I know that for some of us this is majorly important. Because you love God you want God to be glorified with your life.
For some of you, you might be thinking:
I don’t want people to think I follow Jesus, because I don’t follow Jesus. The truth is that God has already decided to love you anyways. But the Bible also teaches us that we can’t love people the best way we possibly can if we don’t know God’s love.
If you don’t know Jesus, you probably haven’t experienced God’s love. And maybe you come from a home or place that never really showed you love in the first place. So I want to ask you: Will you let God’s love be in your life?
I want to leave you with the most famous bible verse ever:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
If you would only believe in Jesus, He can show you what true love really is.