1 John

Children of God Practice Righteousness

1 John 3:11–24 ESV

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 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. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 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? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

We are given a model of how to show love in Jesus Christ. In our lives, we depend greatly on modeled behavior. I struggle to think critically because I did not grow up being taught to think critically. Some grow up and do not know how to be a good spouse, a good parent, a good follower of Christ because their parents did not model those. You may struggle with anger issues, a critical spirit, a know-it-all mentality, or a passive nature because that was the environment that you grew up in. On the other hand, some of you are extremely blessed and had excellent models and its easier to be patient, kind, compassionate, self-controlled or loving. As we mature and become our own adults, we need to start developing in these areas in which we are weak. In this passage, we are going to be taught how to love one another. This is hard because we are naturally very selfish people. We do not need to be taught to be self-serving, but we do need to be taught how to selflessly love others. We see here two models for love. Cain is our example of how not to love, and Christ is our example of how to love (1 John 3:12,16).

Cain hated his brother, because his brother practiced righteousness by presenting a pleasing offering to God. He then murdered his brother. Now I hope all of us can say that we have never murdered anyone, but just because we have not murdered our brother, does not mean that we are loving them. We know from Matthew 5:21–22 that if you are angry at your brother, or insult him, or say: “you idiot,” then you are condemned. It is not enough to not murder, you also cannot be angry. Now, we may say: “I am not angry at most people, so I am okay.” But that is not acceptable. God wants us to love even our enemies, and do good to those who hate us. We do not have any excuse to act in irritation or anger. We should also be very careful that we are not jealous of our brothers’ and sisters’ good works. The passage then goes on to say that the world will also hate us because we practice righteousness. In fact, we should be more surprised if the world loves us.

Our example of how to love others comes from Christ Jesus himself. This is a great relief, because it means we have a model to imitate. So, even if we do not have an example from our own lives, we can find comfort in a perfect example from Scripture. And there are four books of the Bible showing how Jesus acted from which we can learn. John reminds us that Jesus’ ultimate act of love was in dying for our sins. Our sins! Every time we sin, we can and need to stop and thank him for dying for that very sin. You may ask how we are to imitate Jesus’ death on the cross. It is not so much that we imitate the act, but the attitude Jesus had in doing it. His attitude is captured in Luke 22:42 where he prays to God concerning his upcoming death, saying: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Jesus’ heart showed that he would not only sacrifice his life for others, but that he was doing so in order to accomplish his Father’s will. We ought to be like Jesus, sacrificing our own desires to serve and love others, even if that means actually dying on their behalf. John continues in this passage to give an example of how we should love others. We should utilize the gifts that God has given us to help those in need. The passage is basically saying: how can we value physical blessing over the immeasurable worth of others? How can we deny to give to others with what has been given to us? God has given us money, cars, houses, and resources to bless others with, not to hoard to ourselves.

By actually loving others, we can have confidence that we actually love God. Loving others is a litmus test of our dedication and love for God. If we obey his command in this area, then we are likely obeying his commands in other areas. Paul argues in Romans 13:8-10 that loving our neighbor is the fulfillment of the entire law. For if we love others, we will not kill them, steal from them, covet what they have, commit adultery against your wife. Our sin is us being selfish and seeking our own desires. It seems from these verses that as we obey God’s will, giving up our own, that we have confidence before God. As we seek his will, we can then whatever we ask, we will receive, because God wants his will accomplished as well.

John concludes this chapter by reiterating God’s commands for us: to believe in Jesus Christ and to love others. If we keep these commands, our relationship with God will grow as he lives with us and we obey him. We can have confidence that he lives in us if we have his Holy Spirit in us. This book truly was written to give us joy and confidence in Christ.

1:1-2:14 (24)

2:14-2:27, 4:1-6 (20)

2:28-3:24 (26)

4:7-5:21 (34)

1:1-2:14 Light and darkness, Christ is our advocate, and we know God by keeping his commands and loving others via the new commandment 2:15-26, 4:1-6 Warnings of the world 2:28-3:24 Children of God practice righteousness and love others 4:7-5:5 Believers love their brothers and keep God’s commands because he first loved us 5:6-21 Eternal life, prayer, and those born of God