1 john 2:7-11 Sermon
Notes
Transcript
Sermon
Sermon
Good morning Rivertree! It’s a joy to be with you this morning. Whether you are watching live with us right now, watching this at a later time or listen to the audio podcast I am hopeful the Lord does a significant work in all of our lives this morning.
A quick word about next Sunday. We will be back live and in person at botht the cove campus and the downtown campus but we can still use your help(CHILDRENS MINISTRY PLUG)
and I know in some hearts God is birthing this desire. We prayed on thrusday during the 21 days of pray and fasting we prayed Matthew 9:37-38
English Standard Version Chapter 9
37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
So our pray is some of you will respond to this call.
we are thrilled for next week and can’t wait to see you guys
if you have your Bibles this morning go ahead and turn to 1 john 2:7-11
as we continue our series in 1st john
Something we all have in common is it can be increadible difficult to navigate a room or a space in complete darkness
I know I have a cornea disease so maybe it’s a little more difficutl for me to naviagte a room when it’s complete dark but my guess is we all have a story where we have been walking through a dark room at night and a piece of funiture, a child, or even a staircase caused us to stumble and hurt ourselves
The other night this happened to me. Woke up in the middle of the night got up real quick and triped completely over the fan on the floor. I screamed. My wife thought I was being attacked(which I was by the fan) but alas I am ok
Probably the worst time the darkness caused me to stumble was while I was in college.
I was attending a church with a college ministry. and we where playing laser tag in the church. The college pastor had baught these laser tag guns online that kinda of worked and we could run around the whole church and play
IT WAS AMAZING
until I was on the churches walking track and one of the teamates was chasing me. I took a turn into a hall way to start walking down the stairs that I had walked plenty of times before when the light was on.
This time was different....I took my first step which was almost my last. I began to fall down the steps. IT all was like a slow motin movie and the soundtrack of my life was playing
I knew my life was over. when I hit the bottom I realized no one saw me and if I had died it would be the nice ladies coming to the walking track the next morning to find me. Luckly that didn’t happen and I survied that night
and we probably all have our own “stumbling in the darkness stories”
as we come to our text we begin to see John lay out for the church what living in the light and living in the darkness looks like.
One is the path and the way God would have for us
The other causes stumbling and really leads us down a pathy where we don’t even really know where we are heading.
my hope for today is we would see there is a way to love where we continue to live in the light
Read
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
John is moving from a section where he talks about the reality of sin and the beauty of our saviour
He helps the early church know when they sin they can have great hope because Jesus is the righoutus one who is their advocate with the father.
This is great news!
They know longer behave hoping they might belong to the family of God so that they can believe in him
Know it’s their faith(belief) that helps them realize they belong to the father becasue of the work of Jesus and this impacts the way they live.
and know John begins to write about one of the ways they know live because of who they belong to
He wrties to them about love
love is a major theme of this letter. The word occurs around 24 times in the 105 verse found in this letter
Love is a big deal to us today
I mean there are 15 differenat heart emojis on my iphone
Love moves us, It challenges us, it calls out to us, in middle school it scares us.
IN the same way the circulatory systems in our body carruy around blood to every part of the body making sure your cells are nurisohused
love is the circultory system of the church
As christians love one another the body is healthy. The body florishes
but when they fall to love the way they should things can get clogged and stopped working the way God intends for them to
and as john writes to the church you see the love he has for them. When we writes beloved you can see the pastors heart in his words
and then in verse 7-8 he begins to write about an old commandment but also a new commandment.
It can seem a little confusion
first he says it’s not new
but then he says it is new
it feels like he can’t make up his mind.
it’s almost like when you are trying to decide where to eat. Sometimes I will tell elziabeth here are the foods ai don’t want but then I can’t make up my mind what I do want. It can be a little maddening
so when John begins to write this I almost scratch my head a little.
but part of our issue is the word new
There are two different words for “new” in the Greek New Testament. One means new with respect to time.3 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
it’s like a great movie you really enjoy. Theirs moments you watch the movie and you really enjoy it....but then you watch the special features or read an articale about how the movie was made, or listen to the directrs commentary and you enjoy the movie like never before
those things take an “old” movie and they give it a freshness and newness like never before
This commandment was discussed in the gospels
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.
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.”
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.
for something to be new there has to be something that is old that is contrasted in this moment.
what is the old commandment. It’s this idea of loving your neighbor as yourself. It’s something that would date all the way back to the law of Moses. Moses taught the Jews they were suppose to love their neighbor as they loved themselves.
And while in theory this seems great the reality of this command had been the fact that the Jews had watered this down. They basically came up with a way of interepting this command so they could love who they wanted and hate who they wanted.
See what often happens in the neighbor kind of love is we love those we consider our neighbors. They are people who look like us, act like us, maybe they vote like us or watch the same shows as us.
They have the same world view as us. So we think sure I can love those people.
But Jesus is doing something different here. He is chaning neighbor to one another.
For a world that was divded between races, slaves and free, jews and greeks, male and female what Jesus is saying is there is something I am doing in you and through you where enimies will now be able to come around one table and be one in Christ.
It is easy to love those who love us. But John is talking about loving all people, whether they reciprocate our love or not.
If we are left to our own we seek our own.
Movie stars tend to marry movies stars
Doctors hang out with other doctors
People who like sports hang out with others who like sports.
But what Jesus is saying here is the church is different. In Christ we discover that the people we love are often different then us
And it’s not just loving each other the way we love ourselves. No the command is that we would love others the way God loves us.
And the Love of God is one of the most wonderful truths we would ever come to understand. His love is steadfast, his love is great, is love is uncodtional, his love is unlimited…..It just never ends.
We see the love of God most at the cross. Because it’s at the cross when Jesus was at his darkest moment that he becomes so dear to us. Because at the cross we are reminded that God loves us.
Paul would say in Romans 5:8 God demonstrates his love for us in this way while we were still sinners jesus died on the cross.
And if that’s the greatest display of Gods love when we were at our worst, then it shouldn’t surprise us that when we have been transformed by his grace and mercy and we’ve been adopted into his family it doesn’t become less for us.
He loves us. Yes he really loves us.
And once we learn to accept our accepteence in his love. We are free to love others.
and the reason love was so imporatant to Jesus and important to john is found in John 13:35
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.
Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians in 1 Corinthians 8:1, “This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up.”
and as people who follow Jesus we want to be people who build up others.
So as we read this passage we don’t really struggle thinking of Jesus as infentilty loving.
verse 8 becomes the real suprise then.
English Standard Version Chapter 2
At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you,
NO doubt we can all agree this new commedment is true in Jesus
The greatest definition of love is the person of Jesus Christ
Think about all the different kinds of people he loved
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.
and why was this new commedement so revelationuary? It’s because the old commedement was focused on self-love. In the OT the commandement was love your enemy like you love yourself.
but for this new commedement fulfilled IN us....that’s challening to beleive.
And the greatest enemy of real love is self-love.
That is the root of hatred.
As I read this text I surely believe it’s true in my head but it feels futher away from the reality I expierence each day
because I know myself. And maybe that’s something you and I have in common. Maybe you read this text and you are like YES in Jesus that makes sense
but in me that’s harder to believe maybe it’s a moment where we just have to trust in faith it’s true. Where we can say Jesus I beleive but help my unbelief
and the reason we have hope this morning is because this is Gods work in us.
and this was Johns great hope! That as the Love of Christ is birthed in the early churches heart the darkness would continue to pass away.
that’s is really good news. I know at moments it can feel like there is so much darkness in the world today. So much hopelessness yet our greatest hope comes in the fact that this darkness will pass away
a brighter day is coming. and is here because of the love of Christ
and as John is seeing that day he wants to see more of it but knows when someone says they are in the light but claims to hate his brother he is still walking in darkness and that darkness causes you to stumble
in other words hatred takes you out of Gods will
but not only can hate cause us to stumble. Hate will cause others to stumble. When we hate others instead of being a stepping stone towards Jesus we become a stumbling block.
What John is letting the early church know is they cannot be in Gods will and hate someone.
He saying when you claim to be in the light yet hate still reamins in your heart their is an incostency in your life
and that hate will cause you to stumble. Hate will distort our perspecitve. Hate will cause us to not know if we are on the rigth path or not. and hate leads to utter darkness. To the point John would say that our eyes are spritural blinded
No one can actaully walk in the light and hate someone else
that’s why their is no place for racism in the church, or classesism, or sexism, or discrimination.
and yes it is possible for A christian to temporarily fall into the sin of hatred but impossible for a true christian to stay there
thats why we have hope today.
when you love like Jesus loved you will live in the light
It is love which sees straight, To help us know we are in the center of Gods will
if you think back to my opening story where i am running away from someone in laser tag and then stumble down the stairs to my almost death. You know what would have helped?
Light
and the same thing is true in our lives. walking in the darkness which ccomes with hate is dangourus
but walking in the light which love produces in our lives is exactly where Jesus wants us to be
and don’t miss this Love is risky
love is so risky love cost Jesus everything
He lost friends, he lost followers, and ultimently he lost his life
but Jesus would say in John 15:13 these words
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”
Surley there is no greater description in all the Bible about love then that which is found in
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.
and while this description is truly magnificent it’s a description which really only has meaning when one sees how this love was demostrated by Jesus 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.
a great question for us today is
Preaching the Word: 1–3 John—Fellowship in God’s Family Loving Fellow Believers Is Walking in the Light (vv. 9–11)
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
If you are in Christ then his love is in you and it’s possible to love like him.
The reality is when you love like Jesus you will continue to live in the light
and I know for some watching today you struggle. You want to love like this. But the darkness in your heart just fills to strong
you are struggle latley becasue of hate in your heart with any real direction or meaning
you feel like you are stumbling and causing others to stumble
and at the end of the day the darknes doesn’t feel like it’s passing away. If you are honest it seems like your eyes are blinded towards love
but can I tell you if this is where you find yourself today you are exactly who Jesus came to love.
And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
If your eyes have been blinded by hate
if your are captivated by darkness
if you feel like you are poor in love
Jesus has come to set you free! Allowing him to do so today
Let’s pray
Father,
Thank you for the way you have loved us. Thank you that while hate may have ruled our hearts know Jesus you do. I ask today taht you would allow us to abide in your light
and we know this is possible becasue when we love like you love Jesus we will live in the light
I ask for my brother or sister today watching that is struggling to love. They feel like darkness is covering their path and it’s becasue they’ve allowed hate back into thier lives
I pray Jesus they would expierence your love so deeply today they would be set free from the darkness in thier lives
and father I pray for the person today watching who has never expierenced your love.....and maybe hate resides in thier heart so greatly they can’t even imagine what it would be like to love
Jesus set them free. Open the eyes of their hearts and help them expierence your love and forgivness for the first time today
Lord I pray
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.