WWUTT 426 Because We Love the Brothers?

Jesus said to his disciples a new command I give you that you love one another. Now how is that a new command?

Because the command to love each other is even in the Old Testament. It's because now we love with the love of Christ when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you Becky and greetings in the Lord Christ. We continue our study of the book of 1st

John today in chapter 3 starting in verse 11. If you want to open up a Bible and join with me

I actually had to go back to the list of episodes to figure out where I left off. I couldn't remember. You've only been without the devotionals for one week

May 1st through the 5th. I haven't sat down to record an episode since Good Friday so it's been over three weeks for me.

I don't think I've gone that long before as long as I've been doing the podcast now but I appreciate you letting me have that time and even the time off last week to recoup as we were getting back into the state and everything.

I don't think we've still recovered from that post vacation letdown. You know what

I'm talking about? We have suitcases that are still packed. I'm still pulling toiletry items out of my travel bag.

Still haven't fully unpacked everything yet but we're going to be unpacking the word of God today.

Reading the rest of chapter 3 and then I think for this week we're going to section off each of these three paragraphs.

So today we'll be looking at verses 11 through 15. Let's start there. 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 of 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.

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.

By this we know love that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does

God's love abide in him? Little children let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him.

For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and He knows everything.

Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God and whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep

His commandments and do what pleases Him. And this is His commandment that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another just as He commanded us.

Whoever keeps His commandments abides in God and God in him and by this we know that He abides in us by the

Spirit whom He has given us. As we talked about when we began our study of the book of 1

John, John means to assure His readers of their salvation, rejoicing together in this common faith that we share that has been given to us by Christ.

You will say in chapter 5, I have written these things to you that you may know that you have eternal life and you can see just an outpouring of assurances going on in this latter half of chapter 3 starting in verse 11 and going all the way to the end of the chapter.

Here is how we know that we are His. Here is how we know that we abide in God.

Here is how we know that we have passed out of death into life.

And what is what's the indicator there? What's the sign that we know that we have passed from death into life?

That we love the brothers. We go back to verse 11 for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another.

Jesus said to His disciples in the upper room before being arrested and taken to the cross and rising again from the grave.

He said in John 13, 34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you.

You also are to love one another by this. All people will know that you are my disciples.

If you have love for one another. How is this a new commandment? Have you ever been baffled by that or tried to understand exactly what

Jesus meant there in John 13, 34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another?

Because the commandment to love one's neighbor, that's been all throughout the Old Testament. Leviticus 19, 18, love your neighbor as yourself.

The command that has been given in Deuteronomy 6, 5, you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, mind, and strength.

And all of the law and the prophets hinge on these two commandments as Jesus had said previously.

So what does it mean then for Jesus to say a new commandment I give to you that you love one another?

This is a departure from the Mosaic law, the Mosaic code, that we love

God with all our ability to love God and we love our neighbor as ourself.

Now Jesus is saying to his disciples, you love one another as I have loved you.

So no longer are we loving by our own ability to love. So to love the

Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, that's putting all of our ability into loving

God. To love your neighbor as yourself is to take the self -love that we all inherently have and to turn that into loving our neighbor instead.

But as Jesus is saying to his disciples, as I have loved you, so you love one another.

Now we love with the love of Christ. It is not by our ability to love that we love.

It's because the love of Christ has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And now it is by that spirit that lives within us that we love one another.

And there is a love that will exist in the brotherhood that is different than the kind of charity that we will show people outside the church.

And we should still do that. The apostle Paul said to the Galatians in Galatians chapter 6 that we need to show charity to everyone, especially those of the household of faith.

So there is a uniqueness to the love that we show to one another in the body of Christ as the saints, as the church.

But then there's also charity and goodness that we are going to show to others that are outside the church because it is in that love that we are sharing the gospel and that we are calling for repentance.

And we are delivering the good news of Jesus Christ that saves from sin, that rescues from death and delivers into life.

Just as John was talking about here, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.

That is a sign of the salvation that we have received in Christ Jesus that we love one another as Jesus commanded us to do.

Verse 11 again, this is the message you've heard from the beginning that we should love one another. So from the time that the gospel was delivered to you, that you were told the good news of Jesus Christ who died for sins and was resurrected from the grave so that all who believe in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

We have inherited his life and have become fellow heirs in his eternal kingdom.

This is good news. That's why it's called gospel. And so from the moment that we heard that, it was delivered to the people of God that a kingdom people is to love one another.

We are going to love each other with a love that is unique, that is different than the way the rest of the world loves.

We're not going to be taking advantage of one another. We don't love each other for personal gain or benefit. We treat one another equally.

There is no prejudice in the body of Christ. As Paul said to the Galatians, Galatians 328, there is neither

Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

The ground is level at the foot of the cross. We are all fellow heirs in the kingdom of God. Paul made a similar statement with the

Colossians, Colossians 311. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian,

Scythian, slave or free. But Christ is all and in all.

And it's with this kind of love that we are to love one another in the body of Christ. Now the secular humanists will fire back and say, well, we love that way.

In fact, we love better than the Christians. And I've heard that before. As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with a gentleman just a few weeks ago who tried to tell me that those who are non -religious actually love better and generally do more good than those who are religious, which was an absurd statement that wasn't backed by anything scientific or factual.

It was just something that he was saying. But the kind of love, quote unquote love, that you see displayed in a secular culture, those who do not love

God, it's all self -motivated. It's self -righteous. It's not actually selfless.

I think Jay Budziszewski captured this well when he said the following, real compassion ought to make us visit the prisoner, dry out the alcoholic, help the pregnant girl prepare for the baby and encourage the young homosexual to live chastely.

But how much easier is it to forget the prisoner, give the drunk a drink, send the girl to an abortionist and tell the kid to just give in?

False compassion is a great deal less work than true.

And this is the kind of compassion, false compassion that the world has to offer.

That's exactly what the world is going to do. The world is not going to pay attention to the prisoner as much as you'll see news reports out there about how hard it is to live in the prison system and so on and so forth.

And what different groups of people are most populating the prison systems and stuff like that.

They don't actually care about people in prisons. It's all self -righteousness. Well, we need to do something about this because I had an attack of conscience one day.

Or give the drunk a drink or send the girl to an abortionist. That's very prevalent in our culture today.

And tell the kid who is having homosexual thoughts to just give in. See, those who are secularists would see that as the loving act.

But we know according to what is said in the Bible that God is going to judge these things and it is therefore very unloving to encourage a person in a sin that God has promised that he will judge.

And so we love with a love that is unique, that comes from God, that is not of ourselves. It is not subjective.

It is objective. It is how God defines it, not how we feel that it should be properly exercised.

So it is this kind of love in submission to the commands of Christ that we are loving one another with.

First John 3 .11. Again, this is the message that you've heard from the beginning. From the moment that we were told the gospel and heard about the love of God that has been shown to us through Jesus Christ, our

Lord, we have been told that we should love one another. As Jesus said to his disciples, as I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Just like this. We should not be like Cain. John goes on. First John 3 .12.

We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.

And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous.

He hated Abel because Abel was righteous. Because the light that existed in the life of Abel exposed the darkness in the life of Cain.

And this hatred overcame Cain and he struck down his brother.

And the Lord warned Cain that sin is crouching at your door and it desires to have you.

You must master it. And Cain could not. He did not have the self -control to master the sin that was seeking to overtake him.

And the devil devoured, devoured Cain and Cain destroyed his brother. In John 3 .16

-21. We read, For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.

Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only

Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and the people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil.

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

And it is for this reason that John warns us, Don't be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

Why does the world hate us? Because they abide in death. Because they have the same spirit that Cain had.

Because they hate the light, knowing that their evil deeds will be exposed by those who live according to the light.

Remember something that John said earlier, If we are in the light, let us walk in the light as he is in the light, doing the righteous things that Jesus did.

So we need to make that the mark of our lives as his followers, living in righteousness, and people will hate us for it.

The Apostle Paul said to Timothy that if anyone desires to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, he will be persecuted.

Not that you might face persecution, but you will be persecuted for the godliness that you pursue and desire to have in Christ Jesus.

You may not even yet open your mouth to deliver the gospel message. You have not yet said of somebody that they are sinners needing to repent lest they face the judgment and the wrath of God on judgment day.

You've not even said that in your message yet. But they hate you because of the way that you live your life, the principles that you hold, which are not according to yourself and your own feelings according to your flesh, but it is in obedience to the commands and the call of God.

The evidence of faith in one's life is obedience to God. We have faith defined in Hebrews 11.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.

If we are so sure of the promises of God that have been given to us through Jesus Christ our Lord, we are convicted to obey the words of Christ.

If we believe, we will do. The doing does not save us. The doing did not save us, but it's because we have been saved by Christ that we do, that we show the evidence of this faith that we believe by obeying what it is that Jesus said for us to do.

And what is it that we must do but love one another? And when we love with the love of God, not the subjective love of man, not the selfish love of man, but the selfless love of Jesus, when we love the world will hate us because the righteousness we have does not come from the world.

It comes from God. John 15, 18, Jesus said, if the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you.

And so it is because we are in Christ, we will be hated.

Do not be surprised brothers that the world hates you. 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.

The two things are antithetical. They cannot exist within the same person, a heart that murders and a heart for life that has been brought to life by Jesus Christ.

So one who is still dead in sins and trespasses hates, but one who is alive in Jesus Christ loves.

One of the most heartbreaking things for me as a pastor is to have to confront somebody in their sin and to have them respond to that confrontation by leaving their church and going to another pastor who is okay with their sin.

It is one of the most heartbreaking things that I have had to go through as a pastor.

And the thing that I struggle with in watching that person walk away is that they hate the body of Christ.

They love their own sin more than they love the people that they had at one point claimed to be committed to.

And I've watched it happen time and time again, and it does not get any easier. And I pray that it doesn't.

I don't want to have a hard heart to that. Well, there goes another one, you know, because then how can I say that I truly love the people that I have been entrusted to care for that are considered my flock, me as an under shepherd and overseer in the church.

If it doesn't break my heart when somebody walks away, then I have become hard hearted and calloused and perhaps have been filled with hatred myself to let somebody just wander away into their own destruction without pleading for their life, for their soul to reconsider their decisions, their actions, their choices.

But we live in a culture, in a society, in the United States of America in particular in which there's a church on every other corner.

And so when the things don't work out for me in this church and when somebody starts making me feel not so comfortable,

I can always leave it and go somewhere else where they're okay with me doing what it is that I want to do.

That's not love. In fact, it's hatred. When we're that selfish to consider our own needs ahead of somebody else's, that's hatred for the brotherhood of Christ.

Whenever we talk about hatred, we tend to think of it as an active thing, not a passive thing. I hate you.

Okay. And until a person does that, then you couldn't really actually call them a hater.

Anybody who does not love others and considers their needs ahead of their own hates rather than loves.

And Paul gave us the guidelines for love in first Corinthians 13. But he also said to the

Philippians in Philippians chapter two, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, and we know that there is complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore, God is highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God, the father. Jesus is our ultimate example for what it means to love one another and to do all things to the glory of God.

So let us, in keeping with the obedience of this new commandment to love one another, let us let us do so because we love

God. So let us also love one another. Our Lord God, as we wrap up this lesson today, as we consider the things that have been written to us here, stir in our hearts in this reminder, a commitment to the people of God, a desire to love them as you have loved us.

So we must love one another. There is a uniqueness in this love that should exist within the body of Christ.

Teach us what that means, but let us not use that as an excuse to not love anyone else.

For we should show charity and kindness and goodness to those who are even outside the body of Christ so that they will hear the gospel, turn from sin and live.

We know that we have passed from death into life because we love one another. So let us examine ourselves, look at the way that we live within the body of Christ, this love that we are showing for the members of the body of Christ so that we may know and have assurance of the salvation that we've been given in Jesus Christ.

We pray and ask these things in His name. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .tt

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