We Ought to Lay Down Our Lives for the Brethren

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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Please remain standing for the reading of the word from 1st John and chapter 3 again reading in verse 10

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This is God's holy and infallible Word in this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest

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Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God nor is he who does not love his brother

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For this is the message that you heard from the beginning that we should love one another

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Not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him?

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Because his works were evil and his brothers righteous Do not marvel my brethren if the world hates you

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We know that we have passed from death to life Because we love the brethren

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He who does not love his brother abides in death Whoever hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him

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By this we know love Because he laid down his life for us

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And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren

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But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him.

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How does the love of? God abide in him My little children let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth and By this we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him for if our heart condemns us

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God is greater than our heart and knows all things Beloved if our heart does not condemn us.

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We have confidence toward God and Whatever we ask we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight and This is his commandment that we should believe on the name of his son

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Jesus Christ and Love one another as he gave us commandment

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May the Lord be pleased with our consideration of his most excellent word, please pray with me now

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Oh Lord, we are challenged again by your servants inspired words.

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I Pray if there be any want of love for us For our brother that today we would start loving them and if our love is shallow and Superficial I pray that it would be sincere and in deep

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No, Lord, I pray that we would love and give thanks to Christ for his example and that this would be

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The impetus to our newfound zeal to love one another we ask all this in Jesus name

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Amen, please be seated John has been hard on my back because I feel as though the

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Lord has Struck me with many blows Revealing ways that I do not love as I ought and I pray the

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Lord Continues to use this book as a sanctifying influence in our lives That we might grow to be more and more like Christ The title of the message today is we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren

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That's found in verse 16 today. We will be considering Verses 13 through 16.

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I think the bulletin says 19, but we're only going to get through 16 if you want to know what the sermon is about really in just a few words.

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It's really about the Christian and Self -sacrificing love the Christian and Sacrificial love if there was an object to the message today a real purpose.

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I would like us To be that church that would reflect the self -sacrificing love of Jesus by loving the brethren and by sharing with the lost that reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ and his gospel

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The Christian and Sacrificial love it goes all the way to We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren

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I have four points for you for an outline for those of you Who are in need of this if you don't catch it on the first time it's on the slack general page

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You can refer to it later First very simply is the world's hatred the world's hatred

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Second how we know we have passed from death to life How do we know if we've passed from death to life?

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Hatred should not be found amongst the Saints is number three

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And number four is the title of the message Lay down your life for the brethren as you will remember there are three

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Chief errors that is facing the audience that John writes to The first is a denial that Jesus is the

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Christ That he's the incarnate second person of the Trinity that he's come in the flesh to accomplish this great work of redemption and and John has labeled them as Antichrist a very strong word denouncing their unbelief

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As we've mentioned before that doesn't seem to be a problem for our church particularly

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The second major error was worldliness. Now, this is hitting a little bit closer to home

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In chapter 2 it says do not love the world or the things in the world the world calls for us and it allures us and it beckons us to come in and to play and even the people of God are

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Deceived and go along with the ways of the world All that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the

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Father that is of the world and the world is passing away and the lust of it

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But he who does the will of God Shall abide forever That's the second error is worldliness every church in the land needs to Guard against and mortify and put to death the worldliness that is in them

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But maybe the most challenging and it seems to be the most prominent and Jane and John's argument is the want of love

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The want of love for the brethren and today again in first John 3 we're on repeat

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We are hearing again about the love of God Let's consider the Word of God together beginning again at verse 13

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It says Do not marvel my brethren if the world

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Hates you Do not be amazed.

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Do not be astonished if the world hates you my beloved brethren because you are living in a way that is

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Antithetical to them the world here you'll be reminded is the cosmos and it's that ordered system

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The ungodly multitude we say worldly to be distinguished from godly the ungodly multitude

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The whole mass of men alienated from God The church the people of God Align themselves with the mass of humanity that is alienated from God They're hostile to the cause of Christ.

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We can't be with them We can't go along with them. We can't desire their things and their ways

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Their worldly affairs The Aggregate of things earthly the whole circle of goods endowments riches advantages pleasures

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Which are although hollow and frail? They stir desire

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And they seduce us from God and our obstacles to the cause of Christ That's what worldliness is so if you're a

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Christian Need to take an inventory and do some self -examination and with great sobriety and circumspection

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You need to look and list those things in your life that are worldly and you need to mortify them

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You need to put them to death. They are not fitting For the people of God we have much more fun in communion with God and his people than they can ever have

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They have nothing for us But now we go down to the next phraseology and it's the idea of the world's hatred

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If you're a Christian, why does the world? hate you

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Why does it detest you? This verse harkens back to verse 12.

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Look again at verse 12 It said Cain who was of the wicked one.

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He represents the worldly Abel represents The godly and Cain murdered his brother and why did he murder him?

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Because his works were evil in his brothers righteous

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The answer to the question of why that is the world hate us is The Christian is a walking rebuke for the ungodly

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They can't bear to be in our presence because we rebuke their lives by our very existence

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I Can tell you this right now the demons of hell and the enemy of God hated the baptism of Maya today praise

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God They hate that we have assembled in the name of Jesus Christ and we've said that he is

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Lord That there is salvation found in no other Oh, they despise that because it condemns them

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The wicked on the streets of Longwood hate the message of Christ They hate his people because we are a walking condemnation of their very lives his presence

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The Christians presence and character chastens the soul of the wicked Their deeds are evil and are exposed by the righteous

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That's why the unbeliever when they come into our presence They hear all the things that we say and the things that we do they squirm a little bit

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It's hard for them Is it any wonder then that the world hates us?

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But it does beg the question does the world hate you? It's not gonna hate you very much if you're going along with her ways

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If you are not Dismonstrably living and acting like a Christian the world's not gonna hate you

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So another little test Am I worldly how in which ways am

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I worldly? I might list those and I might have things to repent of On the other side of the ledger does the world hate me?

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Well, the world doesn't hate me very much you might say you might not be walking in righteousness if You're walking in righteousness the ire of the world the the bull's -eye of the world

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The arrows of the world will be pointed at you If you're not experiencing any kind of that conflict in the world

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You might not be living and acting as a Christian You and I are not necessarily called to stir up unnecessary strife

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But if our righteousness is an open rebuke to the wicked The question has to be asked do they see

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Christ in you? Are they responding to you in this way?

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And if they are not why are they not? There needs to be more conflict more confrontation

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Not less that's thing we want to avoid right? Don't be bad ill -mannered.

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Don't be rude Don't be disrespectful, but you have to be detested There should be seething anger directed at you because of your allegiance to the

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Lord Jesus Christ and you should fear nothing because you belong to Christ but Very challenging message here.

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Does the world? Hate you. Well, that's the first element of this section and John the second question to be answered is

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How do we know that we've passed from death to life and I'm so creative it's found right there in the verse

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Because we love the brethren the answer is right there

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You say oh I love Jesus Do you love the brethren? Oh I love the church.

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Oh Do you love the brethren? I love theology. I love studying theology. Do you love the brethren?

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I Love reformed things. Oh, do you love the brethren? I love Presbyterianism.

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Oh, do you love the brethren? I've said it a number of times but my grandfather's generation was a fan of the

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Dale Carnegie course How to be friends and influence people no doubt there's some common wisdom in that line of thinking

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But it's transactional It's surface level and in fact,

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I think most people prefer that kind of relationship with one another Kind of you conform to my ways.

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We have a polite understanding of things We don't get really too deep with each other in order to love the brethren.

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You've got to know them You've got to know all the bad stuff

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You got to know strengths and weaknesses You got to be not performing for the

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Saints in the church you got to be living an integrity filled honest

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Christian life before them You have to be acknowledging your sin that you might confess it to them that they might come alongside and help you

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In order to bear each other's burdens. We have to know what the burdens are To meet the practical needs we have to know what the needs are we pass from death to life if we

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Love the brethren and I think the love for the church is generally like the love of the

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Rotary Club or the fraternity or The sports team the sports team is more zealous than ours

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Gators are crying today. Sorry John Rachel But I mean that that hurts more than conflict with the

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Saints for us culturally Our football team losing so this is as plain as day for every

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Christian loving the brethren But we keep it at that surface level we don't penetrate into that deeper place

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It doesn't permeate our whole lives together in order to love each other in this way

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We have to be very close. We have to be deeply connected In fact, we have to commune with one another as those who commune with Christ This is a big challenge genuine

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Christianity loves in a very deep way not a surface way

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Not in a way for performance Not like the Rotary Club, but the

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Christian loves in a self -sacrificing way We know that we've passed from death to life

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We know that we've been transformed by Christ and his gospel because he's been self -sacrificing to us

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He lays his life down That we might live If you do not love your brother

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You abide in death That should cause some pause for us

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Do not love your brother You might be abiding in death

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The believer has been so loved by God that he must love others

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He has to He has been so crucified and buried with Christ And he has been so raised with Christ that he has to walk in newness of life

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We're gonna learn in just a minute and we think of salvation we think about Being delivered from our sins and certainly a huge component of it.

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There's another part. It's very significant In Galatians 2 20

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Paul says I have been crucified with Christ It is no longer

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I who live but Christ lives in me in the life I live in the flesh

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I Live by faith in the Son of God who loved me

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The rest of the verse says and gave himself for me

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Told you a story one of the most impactful things in my life was about 20 years ago a

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British Reformed Baptist preacher told me He has two

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Cards on his mirror One is a three -letter word and the other is a four -letter word

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It's so appropriate because it's a mirror On the left side it says him

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And on the right side it says them There's no me.

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There's no I he looks in the mirror and immediately he's shaving or whatever He looks to the left and he looks to the right

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We are so self -serving We are

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Idolaters of self it is the highest worship that we perform without faith the real joy of living comes when we sacrifice our

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Interest when we look at that man in the mirror and say not your will be done, but his will be done

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Not your glory be pursued His glory not your good being pursued their good being pursued

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This is how Christianity transformed the world and If we want an effective witness in the community, we have to be the people of him and them

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Not me and us very different Not me and mine, but but his

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We have to be all in for Christ and in fact, we've been crucified with him

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We've been buried with him We've been raised with him and if that's true, then our lives have to be radically different we have to put our

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Interests to death for the good of the brethren

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Is your passing from death to life? Is your resurrection? Is it real?

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Is it evident to all? Can we observe your deep and sincere love for the brethren

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Whoever hates his murderer verse 15. We're getting to the third point those of you are trying to wonder what's going on with the clock

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Verse 15 whoever hates his brother is a murderer and And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him

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So isn't that the same thing you said about verse 12? Well, it is to some degree I want you to turn back with me to Matthew in chapter 5.

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I have greatly reduced my Bible citations and page turnings

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But I am gonna ask you to turn to Matthew 5 The absence of love is not neutrality.

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We've learned already in first John It's actually putting on this putting us on the path of murder if I'm not actively loving my

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Brother and sister in Christ. I'm actually not in a place of neutrality.

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I'm on the place of going to murder. I Have to actively love the brethren active

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It seems as though John is making some reference to Matthew 5 the

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Sermon on the Mount here Look at Matthew 5 verse 21 very familiar to you you have heard that it was said to those of old you shall not murder and Whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment

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But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment and Whoever says to his brother in Aramaic Shall be in danger of the council and that means literally empty head call your brother an empty head

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I call drivers on the road idiots almost every day in my head

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So it doesn't seem like a big deal. I'm like you idiot. Why'd you cut me off in my mind?

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Don't say it out loud I'm tending toward anger and murder and I'm not an angry person

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Whoever says you fool Shall be in danger of hellfire that the reality is

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I should never think these things about a person created in the image of God Much more so I should never ever think these things about somebody who belongs to Christ So my repentance has to go not just in actions

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I have to go back to the way I think about things in the world The way

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I think I have to repent of the way I view things It's so significant and so central that says in verse 23, therefore if you bring your gift to the altar

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And there remember that your brother has something against you Leave your gift there before the altar

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And go your way It's interesting we always think about in the

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Matthew 18 situation the offended party Maybe going to the other one.

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This one is I've offended my brother in some way. I may not even know why I'm gonna go to him

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So active Leave your gift before the altar and go your way first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift

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Let's go back to our text On the way there reminds you of our study in the book of Philippians, Philippians 2

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I want you to listen to these words and you can nod your head

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But in reality you may be defying the spirit of the language of the text

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Well, we have to get at root causes here we have to uproot this and in our hearts

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Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit So much of what you do is that but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others above himself

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You have a lot of interests You're trying to raise a family. You've taken a wife. You're starting to have babies

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Caleb and Alexandra Get a lot on your mind Get a plan for the future got to buy a house got to have a retirement got to have a better job

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See how it goes It's all self. It's all internal Let nothing be done through selfish ambition.

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I think you should build a wonderful business and make millions and millions of dollars I think you should do it and you can do it for the glory of God, but don't do it selfish ambition or conceit

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Don't do it that way Do it so you can build us a good church building we can take the land here

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Maybe make some money as we do that. That'd be good But but that doesn't really come into our purview our interests

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Go first How it affects me always first In the mirror picture picture

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It's always Christ first and the people of God second and me. I have to keep looking away from the mirror and Looking to him and looking

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To them Let each of you look out not only for your own interest but also for the interests of others

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John 13 Jesus says in such a radical thing that happens there. He says a new commandment

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I give to you that you love one another That's as old as time

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The qualifier is as I have loved you that you love one another

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How did Jesus? Love us How great is the condescension of the king of glory to take on flesh?

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And he lives in relative obscurity and a not so desirable place and Accomplishes all righteousness

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And he goes to a cross Bearing all of our shame and our guilt there

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It seems like in the Hebrews language He for the joy set before him endures the cross

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If you lay your life down in service to Christ in his church I think the glory the joy that is there for you far exceeds any

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Earthly selfish pursuit This is even a hard trade

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This is an easy trade. It's hard to believe hard to convince ourselves. It's an easy trade

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Whoever hates his brother It's a murderer

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You know no murderer has Eternal life living in him and lastly by this we know love

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I've said it a few times The church is well armed.

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We'd have a crossfire problem if we had trouble here I don't know who takes the shot who takes the shot

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So many there's a lot of armed people here I believe that all of us would stand to the occasion and be heroic in a moment

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To preserve the lives of our brethren. I Have no doubts Pressed into service something bad is happening to the people of God.

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We stand up and we rise up and we act We protect our little ones.

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We protect our wives We stop the threat It seems to me the the harder thing is the small matters the smaller matters of life the little irritations

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Sometimes fellowship with the people of God is inconvenient You'd rather be doing other things

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But in reality, don't we always do it on our terms? If I'm not too tired if I'm not too busy if my house can handle it, then

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I'll do it It's not self -sacrificing

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Jesus sacrificed everything for us He laid down his life for us

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And we say well, well, he's Jesus. He's different. He is but what is the what does it say in our text?

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We ought to lay down our lives For the brethren, when was the last time you sacrificed for the brethren?

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I'm not talking about you serve from abundance When's the last time you sacrificed?

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You sacrifice your interests your comfort and service of the brethren

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In closing I'm going to refer to John's priestly prayer in John 17

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You're welcome to go there if you'd like you can just listen. I think atoning for sin is

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Beyond spectacular what Christ has done There's another significant element and as we lead into communion we have to acknowledge

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There's something very big about our love for one another in our salvation.

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It's essential to our salvation Jesus in His high priestly prayer

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Tells his father that the hour has come and he seeks that glory Which he had with him

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Before the world was In the next section he prays for his immediate

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Apostles and the suffering and sacrifice they're going to make Laying down their lives in service of Christ and the brethren.

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They're all going to be martyred probably except for John our writer our author but then

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He gets to verse 20 and Jesus Almost nearly 2 ,000 years ago prays for you and for me

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I Do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

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That's us We've given ourselves to the Apostles doctrine the breaking of bread in the prayers.

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We're those people That they all may be one so it seems in part our

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Forensic justification has familial connections we have to have our sins done away with Paid for by Christ that we might be one and that Unity is to be reflective of the father and the son's love

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That they all may be one He wants us to be one as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be one in us

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It's got this added benefit that the world May believe that you sent me and the glory which you gave me

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I have given them that they may be one just as we are one

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Wow I want to tell you this I've just been teaching on the

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Trinity and I can tell you they're united Father the Son and the Holy Spirit They are one

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God How lofty is this language for the people of God That we would be one like the

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Father the Son and the Holy Spirit are one verse 23 says

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I in them and You and me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that you have sent me and Have loved them as you have loved me

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John had said in our text that we are Not just to be called the children of God we are the children of God Oh The love of God that's been poured out on his people

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How can you be angry with your brother? How can you be frustrated with him? You've been loved by God They've been loved by God.

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You can love each other He continues

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Says father I desire that they also Whom you gave me may be with me where I am and that they may behold my glory

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Which you have given me You and I are going to see the glory of Christ the full

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Weight of it. We're gonna see it together Oh righteous father the world has not known you, but I have known you and these have known that you sent me

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Don't you listen carefully? And I have declared to them your name and will declare it that the love with which you loved me

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May be in them and I in them essential to the gospel the unity of Christ's people

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Essential love for Christ's people essential to real Christian faith.

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Well It's been a long day. I pray that the Lord Would cause you to take much more serious your duty and obligation.

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Yeah your privilege To love Christ and his people and May you get to the place where you can say without reservation.

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I would lay down my very life for these people Not a theoretical people

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Christians these people whom we commune with and come to the table with and live life together

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Amen Let's pray together. Oh We thank you for your word

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We thank you for your church We thank you for the essential unity that we have in Christ Whatever our minor differences may be

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Oh Lord, I pray that we would celebrate that We see our Christian brethren from other

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Traditions that we would love them also That we would love your universal church as you do or we ask this in Jesus name