Untitled Sermon (17)

We often believe that following Jesus means our lives will be easy and perfect. One of the biggest lies that the enemy tells us, and this pretty cleaver on his part, is that life as a Christian is a life of ease and comfort. Yet, this doesn’t hold true to reality. All of us, in some way or another, have experienced pain, and loss, and suffering. We’ve felt like there is not God, there can’t be because my life sucks. Im in such despair and pain, why would God do this, why would a good God who is supposedly loving seem so far away? We ask these questions. And a lot of times, because of the lies we have believed about following Jesus, we view suffering as God’s punishment for not being “good enough,” or “holy enough,” or perfect. And, so we try harder. We try harder to be as good as possible, but the suffering doesn’t go away. So what do we do? We think, God either doesn’t exist, or he doesn’t love me. And this is where Satan keeps us. He tries keep us in the wilderness, as far away from God as possible. Satan wants us to believe that God, if there even is such a being, has left us stranded. But, this isn’t the point of the wilderness. It is my hope and prayer that what we’ll learn today is that through suffering, through these wilderness experiences that every believer goes through, we are stripped of all of the the things in our lives that keep us from relying on and trusting in God.

Turn in your bibles to Matthew chapter 4

4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written,

“ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,

but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,

“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’

and

“ ‘On their hands they will bear you up,

lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”

7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

“ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God

and him only shall you serve.’ ”

11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Notice the first word in this passage: “Then.” This is hugely important. The then in this passage connects it to the the verses right before it. In 3:13-17 we have the baptism of Jesus. The Spirit descends on the Son like a dove, and God’s voice comes from heaven and says of Jesus “this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” This is one of the main texts cited where we get the doctrine of the trinity - where God is one in three persons.

It says that Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit, and the Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Now, we just finished a bible study on the book of James, and one of the first things James says is that God does not tempt us. This is true, but, God allows us to be tested, because it is through testing that true faith is developed. Like most of our biblical heroes (Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Job, etc) Jesus had to face a period of testing before beginning his public ministry. So, Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tested by Satan. After he fasts for forty days and forty nights, scripture says “he was hungry.” Now, this is probably the biggest understatement in all of literature. OF COURSE JESUS WAS HUNGRY. He hasn’t eaten anything in Forty days! 

And this is where Satan comes in. And the tempter came to him and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Notice what Satan does here. He immediately challenges Jesus’ call as God’s Son. Satan isn’t trying to make Jesus deny his sonship, rather, he is tempting Jesus to act in a worldly way, a way that is self serving.

When we’re going through a season of life where it’s really hard, we’re usually pretty vulnerable as people, and the first thing that the enemy does is he makes us doubt our relationship with God. He makes us doubt God’s love for us. God uses these wilderness seasons to make us push deeper into our relationship with him. The wilderness should push us deeper into prayer, deeper into worship, deeper into being intentional in our relationship with God. But Satan wants us to doubt God’s love for us. And when we start to doubt this, we end up falling into really dark places. Satan says, “See! Look at how hard your life is. God must not really love you. If he did, this wouldn’t be happening.” And we’re soo tempted to listen to this lie. And what we do, and what the temptation for Jesus here was, is we take our life back into our own hands, thinking, okay, God must not love me, so I’m just going to do it on my own. I’m going to try and find peace and comfort and freedom and joy apart from God. And so we try that for a little while, but we’re still miserable. And so we press further and further into the things that we think will satisfy us and we almost forget that there’s a God who loves us. A God who’s overcome all pain, all suffering, all temptations. And he always always, takes us back.

Of course Jesus can turn the stones into bread, but look at how he comes back at Satan: He says “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus quotes the Old Testament scripture here. But he doesn’t just quote a random verse, he quotes from Deuteronomy Chapter 8 verse 3. Now, there are some crazy parallels between and ’ll read and lets see if we can find any similarities. Staring in verse 2

2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word[a] that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

What jumps out here is 40 years, wilderness, and testing. If you know the story of the Israelites, they were slaves in Egypt for 400 years, and Moses lead them out of Egypt and into the wilderness. They wandered around the wilderness for forty years, and as scripture says, it was for the purpose of them being humbled. Now, the Israelites suuuucked at this. In multiple places in the Old Testament we read that the Israelites complained because of the food, or the conditions, or whatever, and at one point, they even said that they’d rather go back to Egypt and be slaves again. This is like a lot of us when we become Christian. We face that first trial, and we want to run right back into a life of sin and death and slavery that we were just freed from. Even though they kill us, our sins are comfortable, and instead of struggling through the wildness and being humbled, we’d rather go back to a life of slavery. What God was trying to teach Israel was that they needed to depend on him and him only. He literally caused food to rain down from heaven every single day. He did not prevent them from meeting their needs, but he provided for them in such a way that they were constantly reminded of their need for him. The narrative of Israel throughout the Old Testament is one of failure. They failed in the wildness, they failed when they became a nation, often turning to idolatry, they failed to trust God. Even though God was faithful to provide for them, the Israelites failed to trust him and trust in his provision. 

But Jesus doesn’t fail. Jesus could have easily turned the stones into bread, thus relying on his own power and falling to the temptation of Satan to not trust God, but he doesn’t. He understands that even though he is starving and even though he is suffering, God will provide for him. Jesus is being tested as Israel was tested, but Jesus doesn’t fail. 

But, the temptations get harder. Verse 5 “Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you, and On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.”

Jesus just rebuked Satan by using scripture, and now Satan comes back with Scripture. The devil knows scripture. But, he takes it out of context.  

There are two temptations here: the temptation of vanity and the temptation to test God’s provision. 

The temple was the center of Jewish life and culture. Had Jesus jumped from the temple, and survived because God sent angels to lift him up, then surely Jesus would have gained a massive following. Satan tries to tempt Jesus with vanity, with the attention and admiration he would receive from such a miraculous event. 

Immediately, if this temptation were to happen to me, I’d probably fail depending on where I am spiritually. In high school, I was on the worship team. I was the only person in Wauchula who could play electric guitar, and I thought I was good ( I wasn’t.) But, the first youth service I played, I got so much attention, and it went to my head. For two years, every time I’d lead worship, I would just shred over the songs. I’d play the same blues scale in whatever key we were playing in. It was trash, but I thought it was good, and it satisfied my ego. In these moments, I wasn’t focused on worshiping God, I was focused on bringing attention to myself. And in the wilderness, this is what Satan will tempt some of us with. We may not seek to glorify ourselves, but rather, we might become self-conscious, or self-deprecating. Both of these, self-glorification and self-consciousness, come from our insecurities because we don’t fully trust God. My whole first year in seminary was a wilderness experience. It was try, there were so many temptations, and I failed a lot. I think all of my insecurities came out in some way last year. But, God used it. He used to to humble me and he used it to force me to rely on his provision, something I still struggle with, and something I think all of use will constantly struggle with, because we aren’t perfect. 

This leads to the second part of this temptation, which is the temptation to test God’s provision. If the first temptation, to turn stone into bread, was about doubting God’s provision, this one is about testing his provision. Jesus responds to Satan telling him to jump by saying “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” As I mentioned earlier, Satan is quoting scripture here, but he is taking it out of context. God will protect his people from external dangers, but Satan is tempting Jesus to manufacture danger, thus forcing God to act. We should never deliberately put ourselves in dangerous situations as a way to test God’s faithfulness.

Application

God doesn’t want me to look at porn, but let me get on my phone late at night, and if he really wants to keep me from it, he’ll turn my phone off. God doesn’t want me to be in this unhealthy relationship, but let me just test it out myself and see if God will put an end to it. Go doesn’t want me to drink and party, but let me hang out with this group of friends and see if he stops me.

God is faithful to keep His promises when we are in need, but if we try to test God and make Him move on our behalf by the manipulation of our situations, it becomes evil. 

This brings us to Jesus’ final temptation. 

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

“ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God

and him only shall you serve.’ ”

11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

This is the hardest temptation. Satan is tempting Jesus with power now. He is offering Jesus the Kingdom without the cross. This temptation is present today. We want Christianity without the cross. We want to be a part of the Kingdom of God without the sacrifice, without the humbling that comes from the wilderness, we want to be a part of God’s kingdom, but we don’t want to trust God. Without the cross, we’re all helpless. Thankfully for us, Jesus didn’t cave, but he defeated temptation, he went to the cross, and he died, because he knew that this is what it took for him to be truly glorified, and this is what it took for us to be redeemed. Jesus’ mission involved the cross, and whether we like it or not, so does our mission. Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and follow him, something we can’t do unless we’ve gone through the testing of the wilderness. 

Here’s the kicker: we’ve all failed. We can’t do any of this. But, Jesus did. Where we failed, Jesus succeeded. As mentioned earlier, this passage mirrors Israel’s story. As God’s chosen people, Israel failed in their temptations. But, Jesus is the new Israel, he did what they couldn’t do and what we can’t do. He lived a perfect and sinless life. Because Jesus defeated temptation in the wilderness, and because he went to the cross, we are able to have a relationship with him, and we are also able to defeat temptation. So, when we find ourselves in the wilderness, cling to God. Cling to his provision. Through the testing, we’re being stripped of all the things that keep us from trusting God. And remember this, Jesus went through it for us. Through him and through his power, we’ll make it through the wilderness into the promises of his kingdom. 

Preaching the Word: 1–3 John—Fellowship in God’s Family Chapter 5: All You Need Is Love (1 John 2:7–11)

JUST WHEN WE THOUGHT we were through with John’s test in 1 John 2:3–6, he whips out another one for us in verses 7–11. The first test was obedience. Test #2 is the test of love: do you love other Christians? If John were choosing hymns to entitle this paragraph, and his whole letter for that matter, he might have chosen “Love Is the Theme.” The word “love” occurs no less than twenty-four times in these 105 verses of the letter. For John, as for all the New Testament writers, we might say love is the circulatory system of the church. The circulatory system in your body carries blood to every part of the body, nourishing every cell. If your circulatory system shuts down, you die. Just as this system is vital to your physical body, so the Church, the Body of Christ, has its own circulatory system: love. When Christians love one another, the body is healthy. When some Christians don’t love as they should, spiritual arteries get clogged, and the Church is in danger of a spiritual coronary arrest.

Words are sometimes like coins. The more they are in circulation, the more they tend to wear out. The word love is like that. There is something odd about a word like love when it can be used for how you feel about your wife, your favorite sports team, a hobby, your enemy, and baked beans! In the Greek of the first century, four words could be translated by our English word love. Three of those four words occur in the New Testament. Occasionally the word eros is used, and it primarily means a physical kind of love. We get our word erotic from it. That Greek word did not always convey the notion of immoral sexual love, though sometimes it was used to refer to a lustful kind of love. Second, there is the word phileō. We see that word in our English word Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. Phileō love can describe the kind of love that a friend has for a friend or a brother for a brother. The word that John uses for love throughout his letter is agapē, a word that the New Testament writers took from Greek vocabulary and invested with an elevated meaning. This word was used to describe God’s love for the church in Ephesians 5:22–33 and his love for the world in John 3:16. “God is love” according to 1 John 4:8, but his love is described in various ways in the Bible according to the diversity of relationships in which God himself is engaged.

Love: The New Commandment (vv. 7, 8)

John writes about a new commandment, but then he says he is actually writing about an old commandment. John, please make up your mind! Is it a new commandment or is it an old one? I can hear John chuckle as he responds, “It is both!” Love is an old commandment because it was given in the Old Testament. It is a new commandment because Jesus gave it to the disciples when he said in John 13:34, “A new command I give to you, that you love one another.” More than fifty years before John wrote his letter, Jesus gave that commandment. In one sense it is really an old commandment. But John says it is really not that old; it is actually new. It has a new emphasis, a new example (Jesus), and a new experience in our lives.

Sometimes people ask, “When the Bible tells me to love all people, does that mean I have to like them?” John does not say you have to like everybody. You’re not going to like everybody, even in the church. I sometimes wonder if when I get to Heaven, God will put me next to the guy in my church that used to rub me the wrong way! I’m hoping he’s not going to say, “David, for the first ten thousand years you get to live right here with that guy you found hard to love, the man whose personality clashed with yours and who bugged you all the time. When you learn to love him, then you can graduate to somebody else that you could not love as you should have.” It is hard to love everybody, even in the church. But we are commanded to do so by him who loved us and gave himself for us in the greatest act of love: the cross. It has occurred to me that perhaps the Bible has so much to say about Christians loving other Christians because it is such a hard thing to do!

Agapē love is a love that is unselfish in nature, a love that gives and expects nothing in return. It is a love that says, “I love you in spite of yourself. I love you anyway, regardless of the circumstances.” It is a love that puts the needs of the other person before your own. That is the kind of love God has for us and that we are to have for one another and for the world.

Notice in verses 3–6 that John uses the plural “commandments” twice. Now he uses the singular word “commandment” four times. Here John talks about “a new commandment.”

On one occasion a young man came to Jesus and said, “Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Do you remember what Jesus said? “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus was quoting the Old Testament at this point. He was referring to Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. So John says in effect, “I am writing an old commandment that is as old as the Old Testament. It is also a new commandment, new because Jesus invested it with new meaning by his life and death for us.”

There are two different words for “new” in the Greek New Testament. One means new with respect to time. The other word, the one John uses here, means new with respect to quality.4 Sometimes something that is old and familiar can be given a freshness and newness like never before. Consider a piece of music. You’ve heard it for years and know the score well. Yet at the hands of a skilled conductor and a master symphony orchestra, that piece of music you have heard many times before becomes something new and fresh. Or consider a dish of food you’ve had many times before. But now in the hands of a culinary wizard that dish of food becomes a totally new experience. It’s something old yet new. John says that is the way it is with love. It is something old and yet something new in terms of its quality and authority.

In John 13:34 Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” John may be referring to this very statement from his Gospel. In John 13:35 Jesus continued, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Jesus did not say people will know that we are his followers by our doctrinal orthodoxy but by our love. The false teachers (Gnostics) John is combating said that knowledge was what was important. For them love was a secondary matter. Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians in 1 Corinthians 8:1, “This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up.” For Paul and John, knowledge of the truth is very important and is not to be discounted. But sometimes knowledge causes us to become proud and boastful. People will know that we are followers of Jesus not so much by what we know, but by what we do and how we love. So this new commandment he is talking about is both something old and something new. It is something old, having its roots in the command of God in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. It is something new in terms of its quality and authority because with each day there opens up before our eyes new opportunities to practice this love that Jesus lavished on us and commanded us to show to others. This love is as old as the sun but as new as the dawn. Calvin cogently noted, “Every man’s faith has its dawn before it gets to noonday.” We might say the same for love as well.

What is the connection between love and obedience to God’s commands? If you love God, you should be able to love your neighbor. If you love your neighbor, you won’t steal from your neighbor or covet his house or commit adultery with his wife or bear false witness against him. If you love your neighbor, all of the other commandments fall into place. If you really love your neighbor, then you’re not going to violate any of the other commandments that have to do with your relationship with fellow human beings. That’s why Jesus said these are the two greatest commandments and why all of the commandments hang on these two: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Agapē love is not a syrupy sweet emotionalism. It is a disposition of the mind and will that loves unconditionally. It is easy to love those who love us. But John is talking about loving all people, whether they reciprocate our love or not.

This “old commandment” is one John’s readers have had “from the beginning.” There are three “beginnings” John may be referring to. First, it could be a specific reference to the beginning of their Christian experience. Second, it could be a reference to the beginning of the gospel as taught by Jesus himself and then his apostles. Third, it could be used by John as a general reference to what has been true for a long period of time. Whatever meaning is intended, the command to love is foundational for Christianity.

In verse 8 the phrase “in him” means “in Jesus.” The greatest definition of love is the person of Jesus Christ. If you want to see what love is all about, study the life of Jesus and you will discover that he is the supreme demonstration of love. Think about all the different kinds of people he loved. There was Mary Magdalene with her sordid past; there was the rich young ruler; there was Nicodemus, the religious Pharisee; there was Zacchaeus, the greedy tax collector. No group of people was more despised by the Jews than tax collectors. Nobody likes the IRS. Yet Jesus fastened his eyes of love on Zacchaeus up in that tree and called him by name. “Zacchaeus, today I will dine at your house!” Zacchaeus was shocked and thrilled at the same time. Here was Jesus, a religious man, willing to be seen in a tax collector’s house! While Jesus was in his home, the icy heart of Zacchaeus began to melt by the warmth of Jesus’ love for him. I think about Jesus’ love and care for the woman at the well in John 4. Women were treated with little respect in Jesus’ day. The social customs of the day prohibited Jesus from even speaking to that woman at the well. Yet Jesus’ love for her brought her to himself, the water of life.

Think about those twelve disciples. If you were going to pick twelve to be disciples, you wouldn’t pick them. There is impetuous Peter, sometimes speaking before he should, sometimes running ahead of the Lord, sometimes even contradicting Jesus. When Jesus needed him the most, Peter denied he ever knew him. Yet every time Jesus looked at Peter, it was with eyes of love. There was doubting Thomas. Thomas wanted empirical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. “If I can’t see, I won’t believe,” he said. Yet Jesus loved Thomas. There is treacherous Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus. Yet Jesus loved Judas. If Judas had repented of his sin of betrayal, I have no doubt Jesus would have forgiven him. All of those twelve men, with all their weaknesses, internal disagreements, and failure to follow Jesus fully to the end, Jesus continued to love through it all.

We all know we should love our friends, but Jesus taught us we should love our enemies (Matthew 5:43–48) and then showed us how to do it. Jesus loved his enemies even when they were putting him to death. He prayed for his enemies, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He probably prayed this prayer not once but several times. He prayed for the Jewish leaders who clamored for his death—“Father, forgive them.” He prayed for the Roman soldiers who drove the spikes into his hands and feet—“Father, forgive them.” He prayed for the Roman soldiers who gambled for his clothes at the foot of the cross—“Father, forgive them.” Can you pray that today? If you walk up to a man on the street corner and tell him about Jesus and he spits on you, could you pray this prayer? Jesus loved even his enemies. God’s love cannot be “hierarchialized,” to use D. A. Carson’s expression: “… if the different ways the Bible speaks about the love of God are not hierarchialized, why should the different ways the Bible speaks of Christian love be hierarchialized?”9 When it comes to loving our enemies, it should not be! Listen again to Carson:

… if Christians love Christians, it is not exactly the same thing as what Jesus has in mind when he speaks rather dismissively of tax collectors loving tax collectors and pagans loving pagans. What he means in these latter cases is that most people have their own little circle of “in” people, their own list of compatible people, their friends. Christian love, as we say … must go beyond that to include those outside this small group. The objects of our love must include those who are not “in”: it must include enemies.

Whether wealthy or poor, aristocratic or common, Jew or Gentile, Jesus loved people.

Everything about the life of Jesus exuded love. He lived love before the eyes of people, even in death. This world has never seen love like they saw in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the quintessential example of love.

The first church that was ever placed in western Pennsylvania was a little church built on the Beaver River by Moravian missionaries to the Delaware Indians. The Moravians were among the most mission-minded people ever. Their founder, Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf, was converted to Jesus by standing in an art gallery gazing at a painting depicting the crucifixion of Jesus. He stood there and looked at the painting for many minutes weeping and finally came to understand that this was the Son of God dying for his sins. He was saved that day in that gallery. Years before Zinzendorf viewed that painting, the artist stepped into the gallery and drew a sketch of the face of the Lord that he wanted in the painting. Then he called in the girl of the landlady where he lived and asked whom that looked like. The girl said, “It looks like a good man to me.” The artist recognized he had failed and tore the picture up. He drew another and brought the little girl back and asked the same question. She said, “He looks like a great sufferer.” Again the author tore it up. He painted a third sketch and brought the girl in again. This time she responded, “The picture looks like Jesus.” The artist knew he had found the face he wanted to paint, and he painted the picture of Jesus upon the cross. It was that painting that Zinzendorf wept over the day of his conversion in the art gallery. Our love for others, even our enemies, should look like Jesus!

But John says this new commandment of love is true not only in Jesus but “in you” (v. 8).

Jesus is our example, and we are the world’s example. When Jesus entered the world, he became the light of the world. He is the true light that has appeared and is already shining. Spiritual darkness has been penetrated by Jesus, the light of the world. As Christians we are to let our light shine so that the world will see Christ through us. Today his light shines through all of his followers. In Luke 1:78 Jesus is described as “the sunrise” arising in our hearts. Have you ever gotten up before daybreak and watched the sun come up? Gradually, as the sun rises, the light begins to dispel the darkness. Jesus, the light of the world, has brought us the light of the gospel, and the darkness must retreat as his kingdom advances.

Loving Fellow Believers Is Walking in the Light (vv. 9–11)

In verses 9–11 John makes the point that our response toward other people is evidence of our Christian character. One of the evidences for knowing you’re a genuine Christian is whether you have love for fellow Christians. You cannot say you are in the light and hate your brother. Notice that the tense of the verb “hates” is present and suggests habitual action. The tense of the verb is very important at this point. John is describing someone whose settled disposition and conduct is one of hatred toward his fellow believers. You can’t have hate and love in your heart at the same time. It’s impossible.

When we as Christians become angry with a brother or sister in Christ, if we are not careful, that anger over time can turn into resentment that, left unchecked, can give birth to hatred. It poisons our entire Christian life. I find it interesting in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus equates killing with hating your brother. As a pastor I have heard Christian teenagers sometimes say, “I hate so and so.” Adults say it sometimes, too. Those words should never pass across the lips of a Christian. They won’t if they are never found in our heart in the first place.

John says if you say you are in the light but hate your brother, you are actually still in darkness. The moral and spiritual atmosphere in your life is darkness. It is difficult to determine exactly what John means by this statement. It could be that such a person has never truly been born again. Consistent hatred for people may evidence an unregenerate heart. In the subterranean streams of caves, there are fish that have lived in darkness so long that they have no eyes. If you continually live in the darkness of hatred, your heart may be unregenerate. It is also possible John is referring to true believers who are failing in this area of love. You cannot say, “I know Jesus” and hate other Christians. If hatred characterizes your life, then you are in the dark spiritually and are not living according to the light of the gospel (1 John 2:3–6). John does not specify the reason or reasons for hating, but he certainly includes racial hatred in this passage. There is no place for racism in the church. There is no place for hatred of an individual because of his skin color.

I can hear some of you now. You are saying, “I don’t hate any Christians in my church. I just don’t like some of them!” There are two categories when it comes to disliking people: you can dislike them for a reason or you can dislike them for no reason. There are lots of reasons we may dislike others: they talk too much, they are too critical, they are know-it-alls, they have no personality, their personality differs from us, they are boring, they are physically displeasing, and a thousand other reasons. On the other hand, sometimes we just dislike someone for no particular reason at all!

I do not like thee, Dr. Fell,

The reason why I cannot tell;

But this I know, and know full well,

I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.

George Bernard Shaw sent Winston Churchill two tickets to the opening night of one of his plays with a note: “Come and bring a friend, if you have one.” Churchill wrote back that he could not come on opening night but would come on the second night, if there was a second night! Sometimes we Christians fall into the trap of the Shaw-Churchill scenario. Even if we don’t speak in such a way to one of our Christian brothers, we sometimes think like this! As William Barclay said, our brother cannot be disregarded; he is part of the landscape. The question is, how do we regard him? We may regard him as negligible, with contempt, as a nuisance, as an enemy, or as a brother. As a brother, his needs are our needs and his interests are our interests. He must be loved.

In verse 10 John makes the first reference in this letter to one of the fundamental virtues of the Christian life: love. “Love” is the word that perfumes this entire letter. John says two things about the one who loves. First, he “abides in the light.” He is not only enlightened by the gospel and thus a true Christian, but he obeys the command of Jesus to love others and thus he abides continually in the light. Second, in such a Christian there is “no cause for stumbling.” That could be understood in two ways. It can mean because we walk in the light we don’t stumble ourselves. It is a dangerous thing to walk in the darkness. Have you ever gotten up in the night and did not turn on the light so as not to disturb your spouse? I walked around with a hole in my head for about two months from doing that once. I walked right into the doorpost. I thought I knew where I was in the dark. It is a dangerous thing to walk in the darkness! You will stumble! There could be a second meaning here. When you begin to hate others, you cause them to stumble. You become a stumbling block instead of a stepping stone. Psalm 119:165 says, “Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.” Simply put, John says in verse 10 that living in the light means loving your brother.

In verse 11 John says three things are true concerning those who hate a brother. First, they are “in the darkness.” Second, they “walk in the darkness.” Character brings about conduct. People do what they do because they are what they are. Third, they are without direction in their life (v. 11). Hatred so zaps purpose and direction in life that you can’t know God’s direction for your life. Hatred takes you out of God’s will. You cannot be in God’s will and hate your brother. So John says he is writing a new commandment: love fellow believers. Jesus is our example. We are never more like Jesus than when we love like Jesus loved.

A young boy would get up on Sunday mornings and with Bible in hand walk several blocks to attend D. L. Moody’s church in Chicago. The boy passed several churches on his way every Sunday. One Sunday a man who had observed the boy passing his own church that he attended week after week stopped him and asked, “Where do you go to church?” “I go to Mr. Moody’s church,” the boy replied. “Well, son, that church is a long way from here. Why do you walk so far and pass so many churches on the way?” The boy’s answer said it all: “Well, you see, sir, they just have a way of loving a fellow over there.”

Do you love God’s people? Do you love them enough to serve them? Do you love them enough to pray for them? Do you love them enough to worship with them? Do you love them enough to bear their burdens with them? Do you love them enough to forgive them? One of the finest sentences you will ever read on the subject of forgiveness is the one that Mark Twain said was given to him by an inmate of an insane asylum: “Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that crushes it.” “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Jesus said that. Now that is love!

There is probably no better explanation of love given in the entire Bible than in 1 Corinthians 13:1–7. Here Paul explains in picturesque language the meaning of love.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

But there is no better demonstration of love given in the entire Bible than the love of God and Jesus demonstrated on the cross. John 3:16 makes this clear: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

There is a haunting photo in the October 1993 issue of Life magazine of a boy playing a flute. Ten-year-old Jeison lives in a charitable institution in Bogotá, Columbia. When you look at his eyes, that is, where his eyes should be beneath his long, dark bangs, you see only empty sockets. When he was ten months old, his mother took him to the hospital with acute diarrhea. Returning the next day, she was surprised to find that bandages covered Jeison’s eyes and dried blood was spattered on his body. Horrified, she asked the doctor what had happened. He answered harshly, “Can’t you see your child is dying?” and dismissed her. She rushed Jeison to another hospital in Bogotá. After examining him, the doctor gave the chilling news: “They’ve stolen his eyes.” Jeison was the victim of “organ nappers.” Eye thieves. Healthy eyes to be used for cornea transplants can bring a hefty price on the black market. Organ thieves in Bogota are not the only ones stealing eyes. There is someone who steals a person’s ability to see in an even more tragic way: Satan. He is the prince of darkness. But Jesus, the Light of the World, has dawned and shines in our hearts!

Hatred leads to spiritual blindness. No way can we walk in the light and hate someone else. If you want to punish an enemy, cause him to hate someone. Although a Christian might temporarily succumb to the sin of hatred for someone, if he is a true Christian he cannot long live with such hatred. Those who exhibit ongoing hatred toward others simply make it clear by their habit of hatred that they have never truly come to know the Lord of love in saving faith.