Sermon Tone Analysis
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Prayer
Last week we examined the simple truth....
Since loving our brothers shows that we are born of God, we must love our brothers and so prove that we have passed from death to life.
Not only is loving our brothers and sisters to be a warning against hating them like Cain.
It is like we saw and evidence that we have been born from above.
It is an evidence that we are indeed the children of God.
What we saw last week was like a photo negative of the direction that John is going to take us this week.
This week we see that photo for what it really is.
Since Christ has intentionally and purposefully laid down His life for us.
We must lay down our lives for our brothers, in action and truth.
This positive photo focuses on the Lord Jesus Christ.
It focuses on how we know love.
How do we know love?
Christ Has Laid Down His Life
“Self-Giving Love”
We have seen this before, but John is redefining the concept of love.
In the Old Testament, people were commanded to love one another as they love themselves.
The standard of love was based upon the way a person loves themselves.
But John is intensely raising the bar here, he is saying that Christ has laid His life for us.
1 John 3:16 (NKJV)
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.
The standard of love for the Christian community will be marked by a self-giving, self-sacrificing love.
I want us to look at three different characteristics of this life giving love.
The first is the Lord Jesus’ intentionality in giving himself up.
Intentional
“Deliberate Action”
Often times, when people talk about the death of Christ, they speak about it as though Jesus was helplessly being abused.
They speak of the action as though Jesus didn’t know what was happening to Him.
They speak of His life as though He was trying to just “Do good things”, something like Gandhi but was just brutally killed.
But when you open up the New Testament, you don’t see a picture of a Jesus who was blindsided.
You don’t see a picture of a Jesus who was dumbfounded.
He intentionally knew what he was doing.
Does this sound like a Jesus who was dumbfounded?
Does this sound like a Jesus who was caught off-guard?
No!
He was being obedient to His Father in heaven.
His Father had sent Him for a purpose and He was living intentionally for it.
All of His earthly life, He was living intentionally.
In another place Jesus says...
Jesus is saying that He is the One sent from the Father.
He is the ONE who has come to give His life for the sheep.
I want you to notice the irony behind what He is saying.
Shepherds were to be ones who protect the sheep and serve the sheep, but to lay their life down for sheep.
But He goes on to say...
Now Jesus is saying here that no ones takes His life from Him.
But He is the ONE who lays it down Himself.
The cross was not a clean-up job.
His laying down of his life was not a back-up plan.
Jesus is saying that for Him to lay His life down for the sheep was intentionally what He had come to do.
So Jesus is saying that He possesses eternal life.
He is the ONE who has eternal life and has the ability to bring it to others.
Standing by A Pool
All of us have experienced swimming in a pool or at least standing by a pool with a lifeguard.
Picture with me:
You’re standing by a pool by yourself, nobody else around, minding your own business.
And the lifeguard that is on duty dives into the water to save you.
In the process of “saving you”, the lifeguard drowns.
We would NOT look at this and say the lifeguard was a hero.
Suicide bombers have intentional deaths.
An intentional death is NOT enough.
An intentional death ALONE is NOT what makes Jesus’s laying down of His life special.
Unlike this lifeguard, Christ is the ONE who intentionally pursued us.
Possessed Life
He was the ONE who possessed all life.
In Him was life, and He had the ability to bring that life to others.
So just possessing life alone is not good enough.
He it was who intentionally, every step toward calvary was a step toward redeeming His people.
“The love of Christ for us in his dying was as conscious as his suffering was intentional.
If he was intentional in laying down his life, it was for us.
It was love.”
Laying down our lives for someone else in a haphazard way does not help in any way.
An intentional death is of no use if there was not a plan behind it.
Purposeful
“Calculated for an End”
1 John 3:16 (NKJV)
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.
It must have a purpose behind it.
This purpose was the redemption of His people, the redemption of the world, and inaugurating of the kingdom of God.
Remember the passage from Mark that we sighted above, where Jesus predicted His own death.
He predicted His coming crucifixion.
He predicted the giving of His own life for others.
But directly before this, Mark clearly expresses to His readers that Jesus was leading the way.
Mark 10:32 (NKJV)
Now they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed.
And as they followed they were afraid.
He was the ONE intentionally going forward toward Jerusalem.
And it was there, as they were on their way to Jerusalem for Him to be betrayed and killed that He utters these words.
The purpose that Jesus gives for His laying down of His life was as a ransom for many.
Standing by A Pool
Now go back to this pool analogy.
It was silly to think about a life guard dying in the place of someone who was NOT in need.
But imagine that you were drowning.
And the lifeguard leaps into action to save you.
And in the process, gets you out of the water.
We would call them a HERO!
Now in this situation, the lifeguard recognized an actual need.
In the same way, it is exactly what the Lord Jesus has done.
Acknowledged the Need
He also acknowledged our own weakness.
He saw the brokenness of humanity and He acted.
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