Love for the Brethren

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The Love Command From the Beginning

Following sermon. Well, this afternoon, we are back in the book of 1 John, in 1 John 3, and verse 11, 1 John 3, and verse 11. And as you find your way there, I'll introduce the topic for us today. Several years ago, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones stood before his congregation at Westminster Chapel in London, England, and standing there behind his pulpit, he made a scandalous statement to his listeners.

He declared, he said, I do not hesitate to say that the ultimate test of our profession of faith, of Christian faith, is this. It is the whole question of our loving one another. He then went on to say, indeed, I do not hesitate to say that it is a more vital test than orthodoxy.

I am the last man in the world to say anything against orthodoxy, but I'm here to say that it is not the final test. And then as the doctor went on, he concluded with this, that love, love is the final test.

What Lloyd-Jones was saying is that it is possible to articulate an airtight summary of Christian doctrine and still not be a Christian. That it is possible to make a profession of faith before man and still not be a Christian.

It is possible, if you can believe it, to read your Bible and go to church and see some form of moral reform in your life and still not be a Christian. And yet, in stark contrast to all of that, if one possesses a true love for Christ and a committed love for Christ's people, this person cannot be anything other than a genuine Christian.

Now, this is what Martin Lloyd-Jones said. We, of course, know that he is a fallible man. He would be the first one to confess that, to agree with us on that point. But then we need to ask the question, is this true?

Is it true that the measure of our love, one for another, can determine the genuineness of our Christian profession? Or if we were to ask the Apostle John, how would he answer this question? As we will see from John's letter today in our study, for the Christian who has been truly born again, one of the chief things that defines that man or woman is this.

It is the presence of a supernatural love. The supernatural love of the Christian for Christ and for his people, our love for one another, believe it or not, speaks a louder word than our doctrinal statement.

Our love for one another makes a more forceful claim than our profession of faith. As we will see in this text, it is by our love for one another that we and the world will know that we are Christians, true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Love While the World Hates

And so, looking in our text today, I've divided our study into four points, and we'll look first at verses 11 through 13. John writes, 1 John chapter 3 and verse 11, for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

We should not be like Cain, who was the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

Beloved, we can be assured, if you want to know, how then can I be certain that I am a Christian by my love for another, for my brother, for my sister, we can be assured that we belong to Christ when, this is my first point, we love while the world hates, that we love while the world hates.

In verse 11, John reminds us that this is the message that we have heard from the beginning. He's repeating here something that he already shared with us in chapter 2 and verse 7. You'll recall we already looked at this theme in part a few weeks ago, about four weeks ago, when he said that we have no new commandment.

This is not a new commandment that we have received, but it is an old commandment that we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And it's not hard, just with a cursory glance, to verify this for ourselves.

In God's word, there are few Christian virtues that are commanded or commended more than love. The word love, I did a brief study this week on this, appears in our Bibles 745 times, and more than half of that in the Old Testament, near the beginning.

Early in the formation, if we were to go back to the nation of Israel and its formation as God's covenant community, early in the life of that community, God issued a command to Israel that was rooted in who they were and in his own divine identity.

In Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 18, you don't have to go there, but I'll read it for us, the Lord God said to his people, you shall love your neighbor, this is broad, your neighbor as yourself, and this is why.

He says, love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord. As if to say that you have a duty, not simply to love, not simply because it is a good idea, but because I have commanded it, and it is bound up in who I am.

And even more, from the beginning of Christ's earthly ministry, he repeated the same command, we know, to love your neighbor as yourself. But then he added specificity to it, when he told his disciples, I give you a new command to love one another in particular.

And he modeled obedience to this command in everything that he did. John is absolutely right when he says that this is the message that we have heard from the beginning. This requirement that we love one another should not take his readers by surprise, it certainly should not take us by surprise, it has always been an inseparable part of our identity as the people of God.

In the words of one observer, love is the central theme of Christianity. And it's appropriate to ask, if love is the central theme of Christianity, is it the central theme of my life? Is it the central theme of your life?

It must be, for there is no other alternative that John gives us. You might remember four weeks ago, when we looked at John speaking about this the first time, he gives us two options, that we can either love or we can hate.

And John does not change his tune. In verse 12, he offers the only other alternative to love, as he presents the contrasting attitude of the world. And to do this, John takes us right back to the beginning.

In verse 12, he writes, we should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. Here, John recalls a scene that we find in Genesis chapter 4, in verses 1 through 16, where Cain and Abel, the eldest sons of Adam and Eve, are found trying to make a life for themselves in the garden.

And there, as they are trying to work and to keep, as they have been commanded to do, we're told that Abel was a man of faith, Hebrews tells us that, and that he was a shepherd of the sheep. He tended to his flocks.

And what did Abel give as his offering to God? But he gave of the firstborn of the flock and of their fat portions. You've heard me recount this before, that he gave of his first and of his best. Meanwhile, his brother Cain was a tender of the ground, one who kept the ground and grew his various plant life.

I'm not sure what he was growing, but we do not hear that he gave his first and his best, but rather merely gave of the crop that he had. And for this reason, because Abel gave his first and his best, he was a man of faith.

As John tells us, his deeds were righteous. His offering was accepted and Cain's was not. And what did Cain do? But Cain killed his brother in a fit of jealous rage. He murdered him. In fact, when we look at 1 John 3 and verse 12, where it says, and why did he murder him?

Or he was of the evil one and murdered his brother. John uses an interesting word. It is not the typical word for murder, the generic word, but it is one that conveys a very specific level of violence.

One technical commentary, I'm not sure if you read technical commentaries. I know a brother who's familiar with them. They're daunting oftentimes, but you find these little gems. And one technical commentary points out that it means literally to butcher.

That Cain didn't kill his brother. He didn't murder his brother, but in a white hot rage, he butchered his brother because his deeds were evil and Abel's were righteous. And then John adds in verse 13, do not be surprised brothers, if the world or that the world hates you.

In the course of my studies, I came upon one commentary that tries to explain the reason for this verse. It reads like this. This is a direct quote. John's audience lived in a culture that often opposed the values of Christianity.

Now, I don't know if you picked it up. It's a short quote, but that's the whole context. And what the commentary is trying to do is it's framing Christian persecution in the past tense, as if to say that it was a past reality limited to the historical context in which John is writing.

And I am sorry. I'm not sorry. That is just not true. But verse 13, that we should not be surprised that the world hates us is not a commentary on the social and geopolitical environment in which John is writing.

It is a promise to every Christian whose eyes fall upon this verse. Verse 13 is not ancient history. It is the context in which the people of God have lived from the day that Abel's blood was shed in the soil until Christ returns to save his own and to crush his enemies under his feet.

Here, John is telling us a timeless truth that the true people of God will love one another because this is the very thing that we have commanded to do from the beginning. And it is because it is who we are, because it accords with the very nature of our God.

And meanwhile, it is no surprise that the world will hate and it will especially hate us because this is what they have been doing from the very beginning. Not only that, but they will hate even each other if they perceive that the good conduct of another is a condemnation of their own.

They will hate even one another. And there is an interesting example that can be found from the world of philosophy. If we were to go back in time 400 years before Christ lived, there was a Greek statesman in general.

I'm not sure if you recognize this name. His name was Alcibiades. You can try to say that 10 times fast. And he was called one of the most gifted men in the history of ancient Greece. He was well-educated.

He was a skilled orator. He was a charismatic leader. He was famous for his attractive appearance. I encourage you not to google his name because the portraits that were drawn of him always include his adoring fans.

He was, it's really an interesting study, he was so charismatic, so sly that he was a general for the Athenian army, at some point defected and joined the enemy Spartan army and became a leader in that army, leveraging his knowledge of the Athenian army.

He was a gifted man. And he's known for that giftedness, but he's also known for this, that he was, in the words of one, the genius playboy of the Greek empire. He was known far and wide for his immorality.

Now, we aren't surprised by that, but what's interesting about Alcibiades is this, that he was educated by a famous Greek philosopher named Socrates. And Socrates, unlike Alcibiades, was a man who held virtue in high esteem.

Integrity was something that he valued even as an unbelieving man. Though he was not a Christian, we should not make any mistake about that, he was before Christ, he was not a Jew, he was not a man of God, his conduct was sufficiently upright that even his lifestyle condemned that of Alcibiades.

And there's a fascinating account that I think, though there are some differences, is instructive in the way that the world relates to us and we relate to the world. One day, Alcibiades is being tutored by Socrates, and he looks at Socrates square in the face and he says this, Socrates, I hate you because every time I meet you, you show me what I am.

Did you catch that? Why did Alcibiades hate Socrates? It's not because he was jealous of his intelligence. It's not because he disagreed in general with his ethics. It was because the relative, and I asterisk that word relative righteousness or uprightness of Socrates, exposed him for what he really was.

He was at heart a morally bankrupt man. He was evil and he was of the evil one, and he hated Socrates for exposing that. Now what do you think these kind of people will think of Christians? Let me tell you, every time a wicked person meets a faithful, God-fearing man or woman, someone who possesses something that Socrates could only dream of possessing, a spirit-filled Christian with integrity and conviction, it incites some measure of hatred in that person because it shows them, it shows you what they really are.

There's one brother who summarizes this almost perfectly. He says, wherever Christians are, even though they say nothing, they act as the conscience of society, and for that very reason, the world will hate them.

Now what is my point in all of this? Beloved, do not be surprised when the world is filled with hatred for one another. Do not be surprised when the world is filled with hatred even for you. This is who they are.

It is what they have been doing from the beginning. It's what we once were of the evil with evil deeds, hating and being hated. That is their identity. And yet, just as we expect hatred from the world, we should, to an even greater degree, expect love from the Christian.

The reason why Christians love one another is because we have been extracted out of this hate-filled world. It is a matter of identity that we are foreigners, strangers, and aliens to this world, and we no longer belong to it.

We are no longer like Cain, who is of the evil one with his evil deeds, but we belong to the Lord, our God, and he has given us new marching orders. And like Abel, it is the Christian's duty and desire to perform righteous deeds, even to obey the message that is from the beginning that we should love one another.

And so how do we tell, how can we tell that a Christian is a Christian by their love? Because it is who we are, just as we eat and drink and live and breathe and sleep, so we love. Now, that is at the foundation of it, but John takes us further in verses 14 and 15.

We say, he reads, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Love in Accord With Our New Nature

So we can be assured that we are Christians because we love while the world hates. And secondly, we can be assured that we belong to Christ because we love in accord with our new nature. In verse 14, John makes another profound statement.

He writes that we can know, that we can know that we have passed out of life, out of death and into life because we love the brothers. There are some, even those who belong to Christian groups, that will tell you, you can never possibly know you're standing before God.

Some would go so far as to say that if you claim that you know that you are a Christian, that you know that you have eternal life, that you are right with God, that is tantamount to arrogance. You are misled.

You are in error. But what does God say in his word, beloved, that you can know that you are right with God? You can have confidence. You can stand on solid ground because of this, because you love the brothers.

At this point, you can hear the echoes of Martyn Lloyd-Jones' words from the introduction. Whether we love the brethren doesn't just tell us that the measure of our spiritual maturity, it tells us whether or not we have been born again and possess eternal life.

And as John deals with this theme, this is likely what was happening. Again, if we put ourselves in John's shoes, we've heard about the secessionists. Here they are again. That the secessionists had abandoned the church, demonstrating that they did not love the church.

There was no love in their hearts for them. They claimed that they were those who had passed from death to life. With their proto-gnostic heresy, they claimed that they were the enlightened ones. But in reality, they proved by their actions that they did not belong to Christ because they did not love Christ's people.

In fact, they were treating the church with a measure of hatred. I think that's why John says that in verse 15. They were murderers at heart, just as our Lord Jesus had taught in Matthew chapter 5. And notice with me how John orders the horse and the cart.

There are many who get this cart before the horse. But let's put the horse and then the cart. We need to be clear in our minds. You do not pass from death to life because you love the brothers. That is not what John is saying.

Rather, because you have passed from death to life, because you have been born again, because you have a new nature, because you have eternal life abiding in you, for this reason you love the brothers.

That it is life that results in love. Not love that equals life, but life that equals love. Our loving others is rooted in our new nature. You can look at a Christian and you can say with some degree of certainty that that man or woman must be a Christian because all I see from them is a sincere love for Christ and his people.

And such a thing is impossible apart from the work of Christ in his people. That it is the natural inclination of the world to hate Christ's people, to disdain them, to perhaps sometimes silently to despise them.

But because we have passed from death to life, because we have received a new nature, so we love the brothers. John MacArthur writes on this point. He says, Love is not merely an optional duty for someone claiming to be a Christian, but proof positive that we have been born again.

Love is the sure test of whether someone has experienced the new birth or still is in spiritual darkness. And when our text says that we love the brothers, it is in the present tense. It is an ongoing activity.

It is not a one-time event. It means that we are not living on yesterday's manna. That we are not content to have had a season where we loved God's people, but that we presently love the people that he has saved to himself.

That it is an active love of those who God has put before us today. You can say there was a time when I did not love God's people. When there was not a single cell in my whole body that was inclined in that direction.

That I did not desire God's people for a moment. Surely some of you can remember a time when that was the case. I remember when I met Christians for the first time. I didn't even know what a Christian was.

And what did I do? I mocked them as they tried to show kindness to me. But when God saves us, when he makes us his own, he does what is humanly impossible in us. He extinguishes the natural born despisal that has consumed our hearts, that will consume our hearts.

And he fills us with love for his people that we can do no other but to love and to cherish, to treasure, and to serve those who are our brethren in Christ today, tomorrow, and forever. Our Bible gives us, I think, a compelling example of this in 1 Samuel chapter 18.

Why don't you turn there with me? There we find language, I think, in 1 Samuel 18 that perfectly describes what the Christian's heart ought to be towards his brothers. In 1 Samuel 18, we find David returning to Saul after slaying Goliath, that Philistine giant.

We've heard this story many times. We've told it to our children. If we grew up in Christian households, that's all that we remember about the story. Only a boy named David, only a little sling. I think that's how it goes.

But what happens after that rock leaves the sling and that giant's head is cut off, severed from the body? You might not tell that to our toddlers. We read in verse 1, as soon as David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

What fascinating words. Or if we were to go ahead just a couple of verses more to verse 3, 1 Samuel 18 .3, lest you think that maybe this was just a whiff of mere sentimentality on Jonathan's part. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul.

What kind of love is this? When was the last time you actively thought in your mind, I love that brother. Oh, I love that sister as my own soul. My soul is knit to theirs. It cannot be separated. It's like a conjoined twin.

If you separate us, you kill us both. Beloved, perhaps no one has ever told you this before. I know that I have not. But this, 1 Samuel 18, verse 1, verse 3, this is to be the love that we are to have for one another in the church.

And we are not to be content until the Lord gives it to us, until it is ours, until we possess it, until it is the reality in our hearts and in the hearts of every other Christian in our midst. We should look for it.

We should labor for it. We should pray for it. We should, because God hears our prayers, expect it. But some of you are looking at me, you're looking at 1 Samuel 18, and you are arguing with me in your mind, and you're saying, Shane, that is a description in the Old Testament.

It is not even a prescription, and it's not a prescription in the New Testament either. So why in the world would you say that we must labor, pray, and expect this kind of love in our midst? It is because Paul did.

It is because this was one of the facets of Paul's ministry. The churches that he ministered among and labored for, he sought this in them, that their hearts would be knit together in love, the very same terminology.

But where do we find it? In Colossians chapter 2 and verses 1 and 2. As Paul is dealing with this church, he has just told them, and he is going to tell them some more about the glories of Christ, what Christ himself has done for them, who he is.

And in verses 1 through 3, he says this, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you. That word struggle, agona, like agonize. It is a conflict. It is a war. There is something going on here.

I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea, another church, and for all who have not seen me face to face. What does he want? That their hearts may be encouraged, being, here it is, knit together in love.

Do you think that language is accidental? From Paul, who was a Pharisee of Pharisees, who was of the highest spiritual pedigree, who had likely memorized much of, if not all of, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.

Paul, the New Testament apostle, was struggling, engaged in a great conflict, laboring to this end that the church would, like Jonathan and David, they would be knit together as a people in covenant, loving one another as their own souls.

And I don't have to tell you, I don't think I have to tell you, that if God has given you a new nature, if you have passed from death to life, that there are a few things in all of creation that sound more exciting than this.

That we have been made anew to love one another, dear ones. And there are, and I know it among many of you, that you love the brothers, or that you desire to know them, that it excites you to see them, that it excites you to love them.

Let me excite you some more, that there are levels that we have not yet attained in this love for one another. That we thought that the target was this close, and then we hit that target, and we realized there was another target behind it, and another behind that.

That there are levels, degrees, to which we can love one another that we have not yet even dreamed of. And because God has made us new creatures in Christ, because he has given us his spirit and put this desire in our heart, brethren, let us struggle.

Let us engage in the conflict that we might possess it, and we will know with a degree of certainty that we are Christians, because we desire that with all of our hearts. If you're sitting here, and if you can overlook my delivery of this sermon, just do business with God in the text.

If you can sit here and say, I don't hate Christians, but I'm not sure that I love them, or I'm not sure that I have a nature that really gets excited whatsoever about loving them or loving them better, well, then Martin Lloyd-Jones in the introduction is talking, perhaps to you, that are you passing the test?

Are you a believer? Or if you're excited and there's nothing or just moderately excited, a spirit-given excitement for it, well, we have something to work with. But John goes further. In chapter 3, 1 John 3, 16, we can be assured that we belong to Christ when thirdly, we love like Christ.

Love Like Christ

We love like Christ. Verse 16, by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. Here John illustrates his point with the most powerful display of love that has or will ever be known.

Has there been one who loved better in the midst of, in the face of his enemies who raged against him? Has there been one more than our Christ who has been one whose nature was entirely predisposed to love?

If I can be so bold, if God is love and Jesus Christ is God with us, then Jesus Christ is love incarnate. That we have no clearer picture of love in this world, no Hallmark movie, no wedding that you have ever been to, nothing that you have ever seen compares to what Christ is and what he became and what he did and what he has accomplished for us.

There has never been a clearer picture of love in all the world than this. God the Son coming down from heaven. He the theme of heaven's praises, as we sang a moment ago, where the angels happily existed all of their eternal lives or immortal lives, let me say it that way, to sing his praises.

There Jesus Christ came from his throne and he came to his own. He came to a world that did not, that would not receive him. And taking the form of a servant, he became a man living in obedience to his Father in this sin-cursed world.

And there he died on that grotesque Roman cross and being forsaken of the Father, there he satisfied the just wrath of God that we deserve. They are on our behalf in order to redeem us from bondage to sin and death and make us his own beloved sons and daughters.

By this, by this and this alone do we know love. Perhaps John is anticipating what he will say in 1 John 4. In this, in verse 10, in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

You know, I used to sing, some of you have heard me say this before, forgive me if you've heard this, but it's a good reminder perhaps. I used to sing songs about my love for God and I felt great about that.

I always had difficulty singing songs about God's love for me because I thought, who am I to deserve God's love? And then one day the Lord flipped that dynamic on its head and I realized I can sing about God's love for me seven days a week, 24 hours a day, every minute of every hour, every second of every minute.

I have never loved God like God loves me. You have never loved God as God loves you. The picture of love that we have before us, it is the substance of love. When we read that God is love, we see this in 4K, in the life of Jesus.

And we might ask, then could John set the bar any higher? Some of us would have preferred, I think, that John would give us the dictionary definition of love. Oh, John, tell us that we are to love our brothers and tell us what Webster's dictionary says about love.

Some of us might prefer that John would give us Paul's definition of love in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. And I agree that that is more than comprehensive. But what is John talking about when he talks about the standard to which we are to love one another?

We're getting at definitions now. He gives us not a definition, but he gives us a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, the lover of our souls, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And in doing so, John gives us a picture of love that is more devoted, more costly, more involved, more selfless than any act of love that this world or any other world has ever known.

And he makes the demands of this love explicit. In verse 16, he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. This expression, laid down his life, is a favorite of John's.

No one else in our New Testaments uses it. Meanwhile, John uses it 10 times. And what John is after is he is here to demonstrate that Jesus' life was never taken from him, nor was he reluctant in giving it, but he laid it down of his own accord as his expression of love for us.

It was Jesus in John chapter 10 who said to his disciples, I am the good shepherd. This is a passage I love to look to when I think about the particular redemption that Christ has accomplished for us.

Verse 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for who? For his sheep. He lays it down. And he doesn't lay it down for everyone indiscriminately, but he lays it down for his people.

And then just a few verses later in verse 18, no one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. So if you ask me ever, brother, how much do I have to love my brothers and sisters in the church?

I will give you God's answer from God's word. No more and no less than Christ has loved you with everything. He who laid down his own life willingly, joyfully even. And John says, we ought to do the same.

That word ought, in English, it has a connotation, I think, that John is not quite getting at there. And this is not to critique the Bible, the English version that I have. They're better translators than I am, but we need to know what it means by ought.

But John does not mean, you know, you really ought to do that, as if it were a suggestion. But that word ought, it implies a duty. You are under obligation. You owe it to your brother. When he says you ought to do this, he means it is right and necessary to do just this.

Just as Christ laid down his life for his elect, it is our Christian duty to do the same. And if we are his, God does not have to twist our arm. But can't you see this? That the one who has received all of Christ's saving benefits, we will rejoice to do this.

That we see this as, in a strange kind of way, a desirable cross to carry. Just as a husband, you ask a lot of husbands what their favorite verse is on marriage. Where is it? It's not typically wives submit to your husbands.

That's not my favorite verse on marriage. What is it? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. That the redeemed heart, the renewed man and woman, we see this verse, we see the cost, and in some strange kind of way, we love it.

And we would desire nothing besides it. Oh, how? Oh, how? How can we, how could we, when we see what Christ has done for us, that he has saved us from this brutal world? And not just the world, but that he has saved us from our brutal selves.

He has removed our sin from us. As far as the east is from the west, our future is sure, as the song goes, the price it has been paid. And because of his great love, we will be with him forever. We shall air his people be.

Oh, how could we not love that Christ? And how could we then not sacrificially love those whom he has loved even unto death? How could we not love those who share in this glorious inheritance with us?

You know what it's like to go to family gatherings and parties amongst friends. I can only be so interested about someone's new holiday trailer. I can only be so interested about the new home that you're building in Cabo or the timeshare that you just signed up for.

Tell me about Christ and bring me with the people who love this Christ so that we can know each other and love each other and spend our lives, spend and be spent for the glory of this Christ, for the glory of our triune God.