Getting to the heart of it
Notes
Transcript
You’ve heard the scripture passage that says you are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are all unique. Everyone of us has unique finger prints. No one has the exact same finger prints as we do.
On my laptop at home there is a finger print reader. I can place my finger on it and unlock it so that I can begin using it. Nobody else can unlock it with their finger print.
My cellphone is secured with my finger print. I can access my bank account by just touching the finger print reader on my phone.
Everyone has unique iris’s in their eyes. Iris's are used as a form of using biometric information for access to buildings and secure rooms.
There has been work to be able to read a person’s unique heart beat. Did you know that everyone has a unique heart beat signature?
If someone had your heart beat signature they could pick you out of a large crowd of people. The Military has developed something called the Jetson prototype. I can detect the unique cardiac signature using a laser from over 600 feet away.
It is a scary thought that we could be tracked in such a way.
You might be wondering where I’m going with this. Did you ever think that your heart beat, your cardiac signature could be so unique?
Let’s apply that to our Christian life.
We don’t need science or the military to tell us what our Christian cardiac signature should look like.
Our scripture text this morning tells us what our Christian cardiac signature should look like.
16 This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
Love is a hard concept to define and talk about because there are so many ways of saying or showing someone that you love them.
It is a feeling but it is so much more. Love is also a choice. We make that choice to love someone. When we celebrate a marriage there is the exchange of vows which go something like this:
I take thee to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith
That is a choice that each spouse is making on that day that they are united in marriage. Now Darlene didn’t realized when she married me that this past year was going to be a little more of that sickness and a little less of that health but she made that decision 33 years ago to love me and express her love through the good and the bad times just as I did.
John in this letter tells us that love is defined or proven by action. It is easy to tell someone that you love them but you prove that love by your actions. I can tell Darlene all day long that I love her but if I never do anything to prove that love by my actions my statements to her are meaningless.
The Apostle John in this passage tells us what love is, John says:
16 This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
John describes for us the supreme demonstration of what love is, but to really understand what he’s saying to us we got to look back beginning at verse 11.
11 This is the message that you heard from the beginning: love each other. 12 Don’t behave like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he kill him? He killed him because his own works were evil, but the works of his brother were righteous. 13 Don’t be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have transferred from death to life, because we love the brothers and sisters. The person who does not love remains in death. 15 Everyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that murderers don’t have eternal life residing in them.
John in this passage talks about Cain. You recall the story of Cain and Abel from the book of Genesis. Abel was a keeper of flocks and Cain work the soil’s the Bible tells us. Both Cain and Abel brought offerings to God presented them to him. Cain brought some of the crops that healed raised and offered them to the Lord. Abel brought a portion of one of the firstborn of his flock and offered it to the Lord. The Bible tells us that “the Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.”
Cain actually has a conversation with God and God asked him why he is angry and warns him that sin is crouching at his door. God warns him that he needs to rule over it. However Cain gives them to his anger and he talks his brother into going out into the fields and their Cain killed his brother Abel.
When you read that passage from Genesis about Cain and Abel you might get the impression that God is a fickle God. The Bible says there “The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.” It almost gives you the impression that God did and eni-meni-mini-mo and picked Abel’s offering over Cain’s, but that is not what happened. Cain’s heart was already turned from God. John tells us there in verse 12
12 Don’t behave like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he kill him? He killed him because his own works were evil, but the works of his brother were righteous.
John is telling us that Cain was already far from God when he offered that offering to God. Cain was already controlled by evil. He already had hatred for his brother and murdering him was the next logical step in his downward spiral away from God.
One writer said:
Abel’s good revealed Cain’s sinfulness. Rather than acknowledging his sins, Cain tried to hide them from himself. He turned his shame into anger at Abel; antagonism welled up in his heart; he murdered in hatred. The entire process makes it plain that Cain did not know God.[1]
This section regarding Cain gets to the theme the John has been presenting to us throughout this little letter. John is using the comparison of darkness and light, of lies and truths, and here he uses the comparison of hatred and love. He’s been describing for us how we can know that we truly are children of God.
I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again we can know, we can have assurance that we are indeed saved. John tells us in verse 14
14 We know that we have transferred from death to life, because we love the brothers and sisters. The person who does not love remains in death.
What is describing here is just another way of demonstrating that we indeed are children of God because we’ve passed from death to life. Notice how that is so different from Cain as he passed from life to death. Cain had died spiritually he was far removed from God.
John goes on and says that anyone who does not love remains and death. He says
15 Everyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that murderers don’t have eternal life residing in them.
It’s important that we understand what John is saying here. When he talks about hating our brother or sister he’s talking about people within the church. I think we’re all quick to say that we are not a murderer. But John is telling us that if we don’t love one another then we do not have eternal life.
What does it mean to love this way that John is talking about? It’s about putting others before ourselves, it’s about having compassion on one another, sharing another’s burdens. And it’s at this point that John moves from this negative illustration utilizing Cain and his story to pointing us back to Jesus.
John writes:
16 This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
What that quote sink in to your mind and heart for a moment. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. Jesus laid down his life for you.
That is the supreme act of love. I believe that John probably had the words of Jesus in his mind as he wrote that. Jesus said in John’s Gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17).
Jesus also in John’s Gospel said:
12 This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends.
Jesus is pointing to a self-less love in that passage. It is an act of putting others before ourselves. In our culture that is a hard thing because we’re taught to put ourselves first. We taught that but then we look up to people who put others before themselves.
Jesus takes it even further as John wrote that Jesus laid his life down for us.
Have you ever said or heard anyone say “that’s my cross to bare”? We might hear people say it when they’re talking about a problem that they live with every day. If they have a chronic illness they may say that it is their cross to bare. If they have a family member who has medical issues they’ll say that it’s their cross to bare. There is a whole host of reasons that a person might say that and they are basing it on what Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke. Luke recorded Jesus saying “take up their cross daily and follow me.”
That cross that Jesus is talking about is not a medical problem or a mental or emotional issue that someone may have. Jesus is talking about something radically different from that. You have to read that entire verse in the context of Jesus dialogue with his disciples. Jesus in this larger passage in Luke’s Gospel is telling his disciples that:
22 He said, “The Human One must suffer many things and be rejected—by the elders, chief priests, and the legal experts—and be killed and be raised on the third day.”
Jesus is talking about his own imminent death. In that one verse, in a nutshell he is telling the disciples what is going to be happening to him shortly. Put the pieces together of the verses that I’ve quoted for you. God loved us and sent Jesus so that we might have eternal life. Jesus said that greater love is shown by laying your life down for your friends. And here Jesus says that He will be the one who going to be killed.
It’s all because of love that all of this is written. God loves us with an incredible love. God through Jesus died on that cross for you and I. The man Jesus was dead and he was buried in the borrowed tomb, but praise God on the third day he arose from the dead and he lives and reigns with the Father today.
Into that background Jesus says to us in Luke:
23 Jesus said to everyone, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me. 24 All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will save them.
Taking up your cross and following Jesus is not taking up that problem that you deal with every day. That is not taking up your cross, that is burden bearing. The writer to the Hebrews tells us:
16 Finally, let’s draw near to the throne of favor with confidence so that we can receive mercy and find grace when we need help.
Those problems or issues that you face are not the cross to bear, they are the burdens that you are to take to the Father. We approach the throne of grace with confidence, even boldly so that we might receive mercy and grace and help. It’s there at the throne of grace that we lay that burden down and let God handle it.
Taking up our cross begins with denying ourselves. It’s dying to our own wants and needs and desires and saying yes to God. Jesus says it is losing our very life for Jesus that we find salvation.
You might be thinking that “boy oh boy pastor you have chased after a whole bunch of different rabbit trails this morning.”
All of this points back to what John writes to us when he wrote:
16 This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
When we take up our cross and follow Jesus we are laying down ourselves, our very lives. We are doing it out of an obligation of love for what Jesus has done for us. One commentator wrote:
Why is love so important because a lack of love invites in the evil one (v 12), and that can lead to murder. The motives that lead to hate, envy, lust, and murder begin in withheld love. People who want to justify low-level living ask, “How much do I have to do?” Christlike love asks, “What is the lavish thing to do How much may I do?”[2]
John makes this practical for us. He says in verses 17 and 18:
17 But if someone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but refuses to help—how can the love of God dwell in a person like that? 18 Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth.
You see, love is active. Love is not some feeling. “To love God is to commit to love the family of God. To minister in Christ’s name is to serve with a spirit marked by less of self and more of him. When we serve faithfully where God has planted us, we daily lay down our lives for others. In ministry we give a portion of our lives for others every day.”[3]
That is sometimes hard, but as John says
18 Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth.
It’s this love in action that proves that we belong to God that we are indeed are children of God.
John closes this section out with a promise and a command. The promise is this found in verses 21 and 22.
21 Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence in relationship to God. 22 We receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
We can rest assured that when we have put our faith in Christ and the Holy Spirit has begun that transformational, sanctifying work within us that we can know that we are no longer condemned. John is saying to us that if we are living this love out, if we are denying ourselves and taking up the cross then he says to us “we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.”
We have confidence to ask because we are living like Jesus. We are living out that love. People often ask me what doesn’t God answer their prayers. Most often it is because we don’t ask the right way. It begins with a relationship with the Father through Jesus. If there is known sin then we have no access to the Father other than to confess that sin. If we’re not living out this love that we’re not truly walking with Jesus.
If all that is in place, then we have the confidence. That is not to say that we can go to God with our giant Christmas list and get everything on it like some spoiled child. You see I believe that when we’ve developed that type of relationship with Jesus and of putting others first that when we do approach the Father that we will be asking for others and not for ourselves. I say that because the closer we grow to Jesus that He blesses us more and more without even asking.
In verse 23 John gives us the command when he writes:
23 This is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love each other as he commanded us.
Notice that it is not John’s command but rather the Father’s command. Believe in Jesus and love one another. It sounds rather simple but we make it so complicated. John expands on it by saying:
The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
When we believe in Jesus and love one another God through the Holy Spirit comes and lives within us. It’s another way of talking about the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. We love one another because it’s the Holy Spirit who is living within us and transforming us from the inside out so that we can love in that way.
Have you believed in Jesus? If so are you living that love for one another? Remember that it is not you, it is the Holy Spirit transforming you into the likeness of Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit enabling you to take up your cross daily and following Jesus. It’s not about you, it’s about what God is doing through you and your response to Him.
We know this, it’s truth. John wrote “We know it by the Spirit he gave us.”
[1] Richards, Larry, and Lawrence O. Richards. The Teacher’s Commentary. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1987. Print.
[2] Williamson, Rick. 1, 2, & 3 John: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition. Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 2010. Print. New Beacon Bible Commentary.
[3] Williamson, Rick. 1, 2, & 3 John: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition. Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 2010. Print. New Beacon Bible Commentary.