The Next Awakening Part 8 - Love One Another

Do you watch any of the doctor shows? You know the ones that take place in hospitals or follow a group of first responders around? In inevitably, at some point, someone will stop breathing and their heart will stop. When that happens, they rush in to revive the patient. If it happens in a hospital, someone calls a code blue and everyone comes running. Someone brings a crash cart and all kinds of medical equipment and nurses and doctors work side by side to revive the patient. Their first priority is to get the heart beating again. Without the heart, the body will die. I read this statement about code blue in the hospital:

“Every minute is important as the chance of revival decreases with time.”

I can’t help be see the parallel to the church and revival in the church. Every minute is important. The heart must be restarted. The heart of the Gospel is found in one word: Love. Show me a church that loves and you will see a church that is alive.

Love is not the only metric for a church that is alive, but it may be the most visible and arguably the most important.

We’ve been looking each week at a list of characteristics that are present during revival. This list came from Jonathan Edwards who was a preacher during the First Great Awakening. He wrote it to encourage his parishioners and those who lived during that time to differentiate between a genuine move of God and something that is just a counterfeit.

Here his list of true signs of God led Revival.

When esteem for the true Jesus is raised

When Satan’s kingdom is attacked (sin and worldly lusts)

When people come to love Scripture more

When men are led away from falsehood to truth (sound doctrine)

When there is an increase of love to God and man

Our passage today from 1 John will encourage us to love one another just as Jesus did. We’ll first get examples of how not to love and what that really is…murder…then we’ll get examples of what love looks like and how to do it.

Before we read our passage for today, I want to read our passage for last week that dealt with sin. Let’s read starting with verse 4 of chapter 3:

1 John 3:4–10 NIV

4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. 7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.

That passage ends with the encouragement to love your brother and sister by means telling us who we are if we choose not to love our brother and sister. This is the transition for what we will talk about in the next few verses. Verse 11 says this:

1 John 3:11 NIV

11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

This cannot be said enough. I was having a conversation with someone this week where we were talking about how bad people are treating other people these days. If you don’t like what someone believes, what they’ve said, what they’ve done, just go to your friends and voice your displeasure and don’t stop until you find others who agree with you. Once you’ve found those who agree, you get organized and you do whatever you can to get them cancelled. You get them fired, you discredit them, you stretch the truth a bit and throw in some buzz words that get all kinds of people upset. Call them a racist…call them a bully…call them any number of other buzz words and remove any influence they have. Destroy any sense of credibility they have.

You may be thinking I’m talking about the world, but this is happening in churches. Christians are using these tactics just as much and maybe even more. Christians are not just cancelling non-Christians, we are cancelling each other. It’s awful. Rather than trying to work through things like Matthew 18 says -

Matthew 18:15–17 NIV

15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

This probably deserves an entire sermon, but let me just say that Jesus still ate and hung out with pagans and tax collectors. They were not treated as members of the body, but they were still loved by Jesus.

Before I continue reading, I must confess that this was a hard passage to read. God is still softening my heart in regards to those who are my “enemy.” Those who would speak ill of me. Those who would mistreat me. Those who would go against me just because it’s me. It doesn’t feel great to be in those situations. I’ve had to work through some of those feelings fairly recently. Fortunately I haven’t acted out and lashed out in the midst of those feelings, but God still convicts and challenges me. And I have to repent. I have to ask Jesus to help me see others as he sees them.

Look what Jesus said after they hung him on the cross:

Luke 23:33–34 NIV

33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

This is response we are to have when we are wronged, when we are spoken ill of, when we are mistreated…Father forgive them. Our response wants to be like James and John…they said this when they were not welcomed into a village:

Luke 9:54–55 NIV

54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them.

I know you’ve got some strong feelings and your logic is sound. They deserve the wrath you want to call down on them, but Jesus would rebuke that response in you. He rebukes that in me. We need to repent and seek forgiveness.

Let’s continue reading

1 John 3:12–13 NIV

12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.

Cain was upset by Abel’s right living and killed his brother. John says don’t be surprised if the world show hatred toward us…this is the pattern of those who are not in Christ. They will hate those who are living rightly.

Then:

1 John 3:14 NIV

14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

If someone does not love, they are dead. They are in need of reviving through the blood of Jesus. We who are alive in Christ have been revived because we love each other. Then John lays the hammer down:

1 John 3:15 NIV

15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

Hate = murder.

I’ve seen people make comments about the ten commandments…how they are doing too bad…They usually start with “I haven’t murdered anyone...” Um, I beg to differ with you. I’m a serial murderer according to this verse and my guess is that you are too.

Lord help us to replace hate with love. Help us to see those who are challenging to us in love. With the same love you have, Lord. Such great a love that you were willing to lay down you life for them.

Speaking of that, verse 16 says this:

1 John 3:16 NIV

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Jesus is our example of love. He gave up his life for us. Philippians 2 gives us a good description of what this means:

Philippians 2:1–4 NIV

1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

This is laying our life down. We seek to place others, their needs above our own. Let me say here, this does not give us permission to pull this verse out when we don’t get our way… “You don’t love me because your aren’t putting my interests above your own...” There is possibly some truth in that, but are you being loving by saying this?

Let’s continue in 1 John...

1 John 3:17–18 NIV

17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

John gives us something practical to practice our love. If we see a need that we can meet and we don’t, are we loving? This doesn’t mean we try to fix each and every person’s situation. We can’t do that. We’ve got to do what God calls us to do. When I see a need, I ask the Holy Spirit to lead me in how He would have me respond. Sometimes it’s to give into the need, sometimes it’s to connect that need with the appropriate resource like Connecting Hope. Sometimes it to just pray because God has called someone else to meet that need.

The key piece of all of this is love.

Church, we can’t have revival without love. There will be no next awakening if there is no love. Our world doesn’t need us to shake our finger at them in disapproval. They already know. What they don’t know is that there is a God that loves them. There is Jesus who came and laid his life down in love. We are called to love.

I can tell you story after story of someone having a long conversation after being loved and then they accept Christ. I have never heard a story of someone coming to Christ after a Christian yelled at them. Love is the answer. Love is what we are called to. Selfless, no strings attached love. This is what Jesus offered you and I and this is what we should offer the world around us.