Sermon Tone Analysis

Love One Another

Skin in the game!

A true Christian loves.

Now the book of 1st John is not goes round and round on three main points:

Right belief about who Christ is… the Eternal God, specifically the Son, who literally came to easrth in the flesh and poured out his blood for our sins.

The witness of the Holy Spirit.

and right action.

True obedient Christian loved lived out in your life.

Notice you have all three parts present in this verse: the person and work of Christ “He is righteous”, the entailment of the effects of the cross on the Christian life… obedience: “practices righteousness”, through the application of the cross through the Holy Spirit: “born of Him”.

So in other words if you have entrusted yourself to Christ and His eternal work on the cross that can cleanse us from all sin and been born again than you will live like Christ lived.

Dogs produce puppies.

Cats kittens.

Christ Christians.

You will live like Him.

Now lets get back to the main verse I wanted us to look at today.

“If someone says, “I love God” and hates his brother, he is a liar;”

BOOM.

I love how John just lays it out there.

Now again this passage is NOT calling you to mustard up the strength in and of yourself to love God and neighbor.

Verse 10 made this chrystal clear:

It is the atoning work of Christ on the cross that produces this love in our lives.

So we run to Him.

We repent and believe as the clear call of the Gospel is preached again and again in Scripture.

You see if we mess this up and put the catalyst or emphasis of our righteousness or our Christian walk or our reltionship with God on the merits of our own love for God… as to see that as the source of it we actually have missed the Gospel entirely.

The greatest act of love in all of eternity has already been done.

and if I miss that for any act of love in my life I insult my Creator who died for me on a tree.

So His love is the foundation of love in my life.

But at the same time.

just as electricty shocks and gravtity pulls down the Christian, who is born of Christ as says will love.

That great love of God at the cross will have its way in your life if you truly repent and believe in Him.

But the passage goes even further.

Because you might say, “well i don’t HATE” anyone.... but there are only really two categories in John… loving and hating.

There is no nuetral ground.

So not loving is hating.

And by the way the biblcal idea of hate begins with neglect.

but check out the rest of the verse.

“for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

notice it switched from hate to love.

so its not enough for the Christian to examine himself and go do I hate anyone.

He must ask himself am i genuinely loving the people in my life that God has given me to love.

even the inconvient ones he has brought across my path.

Now we all stumble in many ways.

We are all growing.

but that pattern of love should be present and increasing friends.

It is easy to merely say “i love the invisible God” and much harder to actually do things for the people in your life.

I can make the clame about God all day long but he isnt actually here in front of me.

I can’t get him a drink of water.

or give him a ride.

But the people in my life are present and needy.

there are endless opportunities to serve.

and of course this is the type of love God modeled and much more so.

He went from heaven to earth to come and serve us.

LIsten to this last part now.

It brings it all together:

1 John

Notice the words commandment and commandments in verse 21 and 5:2.

This brings it all together.

When we love one another we are loving God by obeying Him.

This is really important to Him.

There are tangable ways we can demonstraight are love for God.

Love the child born of Him.

And again He has given us His Holy Spirit poured out through the cross of Christ to help us.

So as long as we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, remember His great love at the cross, and empowered by the Holy Spirit we will put ourselves in a position to choose to obediently love one another.

Simple question you can ask yourself today.

Lord what can I do to love others like you love and have loved me.

Is there any person maybe in my own house.

maybe someone in our church family.

ONce you have it ask this Lord how can i love them really really well.

Love them with the quality of love you have.

Asking the Lord for Help!