24 Things we can know - PT 6

Title: 24 Things we can know - PT 6

Text: 1 John 3:12-15 – Reading John 15:12-17

Introduction:

Lets keep reading, John 15:18-25

Loving God will cause us to behave according to his law, his law is different from the world and that brings contrast. We who follow god should stick together as his body, not dividing ourselves by keeping unified.

1 John is teaching us how to do these things, how to deal with the issues that come with that

[1 John 3 directs you to…]

Value Your Brethren!

1 John 3:12 “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.”.

The early stories of the Bible are often familiar but we forget the details in how common they are made out to be.

Gen. 4:1-8 (Adam knew Eve and she bore Cain a farmer and then Abel a shepherd) “In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.” 8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.”

You read through the rest of Genesis 4 and the fact that “Murder” is BAD is never mentioned explicitly - it is only inferred by the acceptance of Abel's sacrifice and the rejection and the curse of Cain. Knowing that, let's read…

Heb 11:4 “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.”

The wicked of this world envy the good. They Crave the blessings we enjoy. Abel was commended, Cain was not - that caused envy in the heart of Cain that turned to anger which led to hate then murder. Even though Abel died, he still speaks through His faith shown and commended

Why was he commended? Was one profession better? Abel offered his “first fruits” = the best he had, while nothing of note is said about Cain’s sacrifice.

Application From Abel/How to die like Abel

Give and do your best to build the faith of your brethren. Genesis 4:3

Make sacrifices that cost you something substantial. Genesis 4:3 “

Obey God when your family will not. 1 John 3:12

Live with lasting Virtue Hebrews 11:4

Back to our original point 1. Value your brethren…

Value your brethren so much you avoid hostile arguments and contentions…

Be seasoned with Grace (Col. 4:6), patient and not self seeking, do not try to “Right” (1 Cor. 13:1-7), forgive them (Col. 3:13; Mat 6:15, Mat 7:2)

[In preparation for “how to be loving” John deals with the anticipated difficulties of loving someone in vs 13-14 as we are led to point # 2…]]

Anticipate The Opposition!

1 John 3:13-14

There is still a “Cain” alive today, it is the world.

There is still an “Abel” alive today, the Church.

John appeals to the absolute earliest example of the immeasurable distance between Righteousness and Sinfulness to illustrate how the world still hates those who follow God.

There stands no greater gap than the gap between good and bad, between light and dark.

Luke 16:26 there is described a great gulf dividing the location of the righteous and the location of the unrighteous

Therefore marvel not, brethren, John 15:18-19

The “Love of the brethren test” is one that every one can apply to himself; "Do I, or do I not, find the love of the brethren within me?".

Our love is not measured in lip service and kind words, or by emotions you feel our love is measured by the extent to which we will do or suffer for others.

We can know that can pass from death to life 1 Jn. 3:14

Spiritual death… that's no good. When we do not love brethren, we are not ina relationship with God and we dwell in death.

When we mistreat, insult, berate, harm physically or the influence of others we are not loving or living…

By loving we go from being a child of the Devil bound to remain in spiritual death 1 John 3:10 to being a child of God bound for spiritual life.

[1 John wants us to be well equipped for that spiritual life. We are not home. We are going home. We are born to die. If man was born to be happy man would not be born to die, and since this body is doomed to die our focus therefore must be of a more spiritual nature… which leads us to our final point…]

Live For Eternity!

1 John 3:15 “(15) Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

Moves from love to hate giving no ground for the idea of there being a “neutral or middle ground” because the one who is not FOR his brother is AGAINST his brother.

The one who does not love, hates, the one who hates murders. Sure, not everyone who has hatred physically takes the life of another… It is the murderous temper, not the act of homicide, that is the threat of both keeping one from loving and excludes one from eternal life.

Since this world is passing away we need to be preparing for eternity and living with that as our focus…

(Matthew 5:21–22) “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

Jesus made the very same connection. The religious leaders taught that if you murdered you would be liable to judgment. Jesus taught if you were angry with your brother you were liable to the judgment. What John and Jesus are teaching is that we are a bunch of murderers. We are killing our spouses, our children, our parents, and our brethren when we fail to love them with godly, sacrifice love. When we get angry with one another and refuse to show proper love, we are showing that we are not born of God and do not have eternal life.

We live for eternity because Jesus made eternity available, because he died for us he set the example.

How do we do that, Paul gives us an example as well and will give us x# of x

2 Tim. 4:6-8 “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

Paul at the end of his life wrote this, we can implement ideas on how to live for eternity from him in this text… Here is what we must prioritize: 8 points of application.

Give it you all without quitting

Live and be ready for death.

Fight temptation and error.

Continue to grow personally and spiritually.

Refuse to compromise your faith (vs 7 kept faith)

Live for righteousness.

Have confidence in salvation.

Love the brethren so much you want them in heaven with you.

We are ready, are we loving, are we valuing the brethren, are we anticipating the opposition, are we living for eternity?

We can know that we can pass from death to life 1 Jn. 3:14

We can know that no murder has eternal life 1 Jn. 3:15

Invitation:

Those of us in Christ, who have joined the Church through baptism have a blessing, salvation.

Those of you who are not in christ through baptism have a blessing, opportunity.

Tomorrow is not promised, this life can slip away from us in the blink of an eye if you are comfortable with that fact and at peace with where you will spend eternity, thats great! If you are uncomfortable we can study together and make that right tonight, you tell us before you leave and we will help.