Mix and Match

In the next several verse John is still walking through the same theme of loving our brother, light and darkness. We see that we live in a world where the darkness is already passing away and the light is coming. John continues on the theme in verse 9 of what characterizes a believer and how they should live.

We must not blind ourselves

We see a direct connection between hate and darkness and love and the light.

The theme of darkness has come up continually so far. We have come to understand darkness as being every thing that is not part of the light. Everything that is not part of God. In effect Darkness is the absence of God. Darkness is a life characterized completely by sin.

Light on the other hand is everything that is good and right. We saw that God is light. So a life characterized by light would be one that is perfectly in line with God’s will. A life characterized by repentance.

John starts us off in verse 9 by writing that the person who says he is in the light, but hates his brother, is actually in the darkness.

You may be thinking, okay, that pretty simple, hate darkness, love light…but lets take a little bit of a closer look at the idea of hate.

Hating is to dislike intensely; to feel an aversion towards someone.

So hating is this idea of intense dislike towards our brother or sister in christ.

Now listen to what John is saying, we cannot dislike our brother or sister and claim that we are christian because the reality is we are walking in darkness.

Hate has no part in the christian life. We cannot blind ourselves into believing that we can dislike someone, and still be walking with God. They are just incompatible with one another.

We must love our brothers and sisters

But on the opposite side of the equation we see the idea of loving our brothers means we live in the light.

So this picture of love and light emerges. But also we see the phrase “Cause for stumbling” And the first time I read it it kind of made me pause. What does it mean that there is no cause for stumbling.

looked it up, and it is this idea of “there is nothing in the person that would cause them to stumble.

So stay with me here for a second. We have seen light and darkness come up over and over again so far in John. So in this instance we are seeing a theme arise out of these two things.

We see darkness as this breeding ground for sin. It is the cause for our sin, it is where we cant see because we are so lost in it.

Light on the other hand prevents us from stumbling. Light is what illuminates our path. But also light is so closely tied to the idea of loving our brother.

Here is the rub, I am afraid that we over simplify the idea of “loving our brother” and it loses its significance. We live in a time where culture preaches love at every corner, but it is a love that is completely unrelated and often contradictory to the love that we see arise from scripture.

We are told that we should love people no matter what they like, who they like, how they dress, what they believe. We should accept the things they do as being okay, because whatever makes them feel best is best. That accepting them, liking them, that is loving them.

False.

We must look to christ for our example of love. Christ was not afraid to say the hard thing, he was not afraid to show someone where they were sinning, he was not afraid to go against the religious paradigm of the day. He was not afraid to sacrifice himself for us. He served, he suffered, he loved.

Now this is not a license to treat someone differently because of what they believe. If you look at the example of christ, those he corrected were the ones who claimed to believe in GOd, who claimed to know what they were talking about. But the example that Christ set was one of christian love towards those who did not believe. This was not acceptance of their way of life, but rather a love that showed them he cared, that brought the gospel into their lives to illuminate their darkness so they could see. So they would no longer be blinded by there sin.

We must love our brothers and sisters!!!!

We must separate ourselves from hate

John closes with the encompassing idea of hating our brother leads to darkness. Those who hate their brother are lost in darkness, they do not know where they are going, why? because they are blind.

We have to separate ourselves from hate. If we do not there will be dire consquences. not only for us, but also for those around us.

What are some ways that we hate our brothers and sister?

How do we separate ourselves from Hate?

What is something that you will do this week to change your behavior to one of love towards your brother or sister?