“Love and Hate”
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One of the worst cases of hatred I have ever come across is found in a will written in 1935 by a Mr. Donohoe. It says, "Unto my two daughters, Frances Marie and Denise Victoria, by reason of their unfilial attitude toward a doting father, . . . I leave the sum of $1.00 to each and a father's curse. May their lives be fraught with misery, unhappiness, and poignant sorrow. May their deaths be soon and of a lingering malignant and torturous nature." The last line of the will is so vicious I shudder to quote it. It reads, "May their souls rest in hell and suffer the torments of the condemned for eternity."
Hatred is real and we see it more and more these days. It seems like it is spewing forth like a fountain on TV, social media, and even on the street. So much opposition and deception. So much distortion and disdain. So much hate as of late and we ponder our future fate. But here is the troubling thing. The one institution in the world that should be a light and guide to bring truth and unconditional love to the world is the church. The world need the church to be the church right now, but instead we are seeing just as much hate and indifference in the people of God. Christian Americans hating Christian Americans simply because we are of a certain political party?
Even in the wall of the church republicans and democrats treat each other like Jews and Gentiles. How can it be that even in the church you don’t wanna say who you voted for because you fear getting your tires slashed in the church parking lot, or put on church discipline, or get added to the this person needs a lot of prayer list. Hate speech and condemning speech toward other christians because of the persons stand on who won in the presidential and vice precedent debates.
Now I am not saying that these are not important things for us to have conversations about and have clear and passionate convictions, but we are Christians first and we who profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who deny self and take up up crosses daily are commanded by the Lord to love one another. This is not an option. This is not a suggestion. This is not up for debate. And it gets even more serious. We are gonna see today that if you profess to love God, but continue to hate your brother… the Bible says that you are a liar. Hmmm. If we are Christians who hate, then we are not christians at all. Let’s look at it.
If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.
The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.
The Liar
The Command
The first thing we will look at today is how a profession of love for God and a behavior of hate for others are characteristic of the Liar. Second we will look at how this relates to the essence of the great commandment and how it leads us to the good news.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world cause us to fall into the hate-filled behavior of the world and its patterns, it is the power of the Spirit and the truth of the Word that will transform our hearts to love a brother enough to even lay down ones own life in sacrifice.
I. The Liar
- Love for God ≠ Hate for Others.
A. The Apostle John. The one whom Jesus loved. He is calling you a liar today. Who is he calling a liar? Those of us who say that we love God, but have hatred for others. What we are lying about is our love for God. Yes it is simple, but very hard hitting to our soul. You cannot love God and hate your brother at the same time. This is not possible.
B. According to Dr. Kistemaker it seems that the Gnostics, Johns opponents, were suggesting that they had a deep love for the Lord, but displayed conduct that showed hatred for others in the church. This might have been symptomatic of their spirit is good and matter is bad dichotomy. God is spiritual, therefore He is good and easy to love, but Christians, though saved, are still matter, so not necessarily deserving of their loving kindness. But this is not possible.
Dr. Kistemacker - Love for God cannot remain a warm feeling in our hearts that moves vertically to heaven but horizontally fails to reach our fellow man. Genuine love for God and for our neighbor extends both ways.
C. We can see this idea expressed in another way in James.
Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God.
D. James is expressing that this cannot be. The tongue cannot do this, neither can our hearts do this.
E. What we have here is the last of the detrimental black lies pointed out by the Apostle John in this letter. These lies are devastating to the hearts and souls of those who claim to know God. It is a moral lie, a doctrinal, lie and a social lie.
- The moral lie - If we profess to know God, to be a Christian, and continue to walk in willful unrepentant disobedience to the law of God. To continue to walk in darkness. You are a liar.
If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth.
- The Doctrinal lie - If we profess to know God, to be a Christian, and continue to deny the truths taught about Christ from the apostles or for us today, the scriptures, we are liars.
And who is a liar? Anyone who says that Jesus is not the Christ. Anyone who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist. Anyone who denies the Son doesn’t have the Father, either. But anyone who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
- The Social lie - If we profess to know God, to be a Christian, and yet have hatred for another brother, we are liars.
If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?
F. John continues to elaborate this point by giving us a logical thought experiment. The argumentation is commonly called an afortiori an argumant from the stronger. An argument which reaches a conclusion by first setting up two possibilities, one of which is more probable than the other. Whatever can be affirmed about the less probable can be affirmed with even greater force about the more probable. If I can prove to you that 2 is less than 10 then it should be easy to prove that 2 is less than 20. Or… the life cereal commercial see if Mikey will eat it? He wont eat it… he hates everything. So if Mikey who hates everything likes it, then everyone will probably like it.
G. John presents this form of this argumentation in our passage. A kind of, if you can’t even pick up 2 pounds why would you think you could pick up 10 pounds. If you cant do the lesser requirement (loving their brothers who they have seen) what makes you think you can do the greater one (love God who you have not seen).
H. Now let’s not try to convolute this simple argument with crazy things like absences makes the heart grow fonder and stuff like that. If you cant do this simple job right here in front of you what makes you think you will do the jobs thats coming in the future.
I. Don’t be deceived. Other brothers and sisters are united with Christ and the union with Christ is so much so that Christ will call his church himself. If you do not love His church you do not love Christ. Do not be deceived. You cannot have one without the other. If you say that you can… John calls you a liar.
J. You cannot hate. That is unbecoming of a Christian. Do not be deceived. We cannot hate other Christians especially. If you are harboring this for other people you know you need to repent and ask the Lord reveal the depths of his wondrous love to you. Because if you think you have love for God while you hate others you lie and you are deceived.
K. Hatred is everywhere today... even in the church. Just watch social media. I see tons of professing christians seething with hate toward others. Because of disagreements with our countries policies. Race or religion. Politics… why are we freaking out over this? No matter who is sitting on the chair in the oval office in DC Christ is still sitting on the throne in heaven. Sure we see the world hate. We see what the world hates. We know why the world hates. So why are we, church, taking our cues from the world.
L. Right now in our culture for many it is kool to hate. Right now its actually politically correct for certain people to hate on others, but not the other way around. Right now it is culturally OK to express hatred for others if you fall into a certain demographic. We cannot do this. No matter what you might have seen and heard expressed on the view or Dr. Phil. Christian you cannot hate a brother or even another person and still say that you love God. If you cannot even love a person right there in front of you, why do you think you can love God who you cannot see?
II. The Command
- Love God and love your neighbor.
A. So John ends this chapter with a commandment and in context its hard to think that he did not have the great commandment in mind. Loving God cannot be separated from loving our neighbor.
Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
B. As we have been studying the 10 commandments we see how the law is summed up here. Commandment 1-4 concerns our love for God. Commandment 5-10 concerns our love for our neighbor. So you see that loving our neighbor is equally as important as loving God. It is his command. But even if I am not obeying the commands or words of Christ, I still love Him. Nope.
“If you love me, obey my commandments.
And once more...
If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth.
C. So how are we doing with this? Let’s be honest. Well before that let me make something clear. Many times I hear some assert that the good thing about the great commandment is that Jesus, by summing up the law, makes it easy for us to keep. Forget the 700 plus laws in the OT, just do the 2 he gives. Love God and Love your neighbor. See he made it easy.
D. I would agree that Jesus made it easy. But he didin;t make it easy to keep, but made it easy to see that we do not keep the law. How can we obey the 700 plus in the OT if we cannot even obey the 2?
E. But see here is where John’s argument gets a bit more bite. We may be able to deceive ourselves in believing we are loving God who we cannot see. Maybe a bit easier to think that we love him because there is nothing really tangible and visual to show us that we do not, though we think we do. But when it comes to loving our neighbor that one is hard not to see. It is right there for all to see. How we treat our neighbor, how we treat our parents, how we treat our children, how we treat our friends, how we treat our spouses, how we treat our co-workers, how we treat people at the grocery store, at a football game, at the mall during Christmas, or even those on the road during rush hour.
F. Now it gets real. If we cannot love our neighbor in all of this, how could we possible think we love God? Yes, lets get it even more real. If we don’t love our neighbor, it is not loving God. So now… how are we doing with this? Maybe not so good. Let’s be honest … we struggle with sin. Everyday we have a wrestling match with the flesh; with the sin nature. It is a struggle. We struggle with anger, with indifference, with even hate. We know all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
G. But it does not have to continue to be this way. We can find hope today. The great commandment leads us to the good news. The great commandment causes us to see that we are sinners and we need a savior. We need to be saved. We need to be rescued.
I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
H. Who will deliver us? The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. There is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. Christ has set us free from the power of sin. Christ brought to us forgiveness . Christ brought mercy. Christ brought amazing grace. This is the good news...
I. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried… The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance… He became sin who knew no sin...
J. We can have hope… salvation is the gift from God. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised… All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He brought us life and life more abundant.
K. And with this life, we have been given the spirit to bring transformation and power to our lives. We are not just survivors, but we are more than conquerors. We are to live a life of victory. We are to overflow with love. Overflow with the lay down ones life for another kind of love.