True Love 2, "True Love Acts" 1 John 3:11-24

- According to an ancient tradition, the elderly apostle John, too weak to walk, was carried in to say goodbye to his congregation. His only counsel to them was this: "Little children, love one another!"

- Another tradition tells of how the people asked for something new, a new commandment, but the aged apostle responded by reminding them of what he had already written, "This is the message you heard from the beginning: we should love one another."

- The apostle John never let go of his conviction and never stopped proclaiming love, true love, but why is love so important?

- What does love do?  What does true love accomplish?  In our passage for today what did John tell his readers true love does?

- Verse 18 slashes straight to the heart of the matter: "Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth." True love is not shown in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

- Let your actions show Christ's true love in you.

-Love is a verb and a verb describes, conveys or portrays action.

- True love is the flesh and bones of the gospel.

- The story is told of St. Francis of Assisi and how terrified he was of leprosy. One day as he was going down a narrow path there in front of him in the middle of the path stood a snowy white leper.  Inwardly, St. Francis was repulsed.  Ashamed at the response of his heart, St. Francis clothed himself with compassion, ran and embraced and kissed the man, then went on his way. But a moment later he looked back only to discover there was no one there, just the empty path in the warm sunshine. For the rest of his life St. Francis of Assisi was convinced that it was no leper he met on the path, but Jesus Christ himself.

- We Show Christ's love in us by what we do.

- John wrote, ¹² Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.

- Cain proved he hated his brother Abel by murdering him.  In fact, the subtle meaning of the Greek text compares the murder to an animal that's had its throat cut for slaughter. 

-Does that kind of hatred surprise us? Are we shocked by the degree of jealousy and resentment that would drive a man to murder his own brother in cold blood.

- The spiritual children of evil reproduce evil, but the spiritual children of God reproduce love.

- John wrote,¹³ Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.  - John's words in this verse reflect the very words of Jesus in the 15th chapter of John's Gospel.  "If the world hates you," said Jesus, "know that it hated me before it hated you.

- Bitterness and resentment, anger and jealousy breed hate and Cain became filled with hate toward his brother Abel. Those who love God should expect no less.

- Cain followed the way of the world by rejecting God's advice and murdering his brother whereas Abel found favour with God.

- God accepted Abel sacrifice because of Abel's heart. He was seeking to please God. God rejected Cain's sacrifice because of Cain's heart.  He was seeking to please himself rather than God.

- We Show Christ's love in us by what we do.

- ¹⁴ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

- Hatred of any sort is strong evidence that someone does not belong to the family of God. True love is of such importance that those who fail to show it show instead that they do not have new life in Christ. As Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

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

- John is continuing here to hammer away on his point for his readers.  Love is a verb. True Christian love is a love that works for the good of, and the sake of others.

- In a family movie we have at home about the Pinewood Derby, the dads in the film are all going crazy getting ready for the Derby and a wife confronts her husband with a slogan from one of his advertising campaigns for the company he works for which said, "Self-sacrifice is giving up something good for something better."

-True love sacrifices the self-centered lowercase "G" good things for the other centered uppercase "B" better things. True Christ-like love follows a plan which is carried out intentionally and is deliberately focused on loving others above self.

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

- John tells his readers, allow me this paraphrase, "This is where the rubber meets the road. If you really love your brothers and sisters in Christ you need to put your money where your mouth is. Needy people cannot see your love until you meet their need."

- We Show Christ's love in us by what we do.

- True love requires more than lazy lip-service, rather true love meets needs.

- James also says as much, "¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." (Jas 2:15-17)

- We Show Christ's love in us by what we do.

- Our trouble is we so often fail in the area of living out the love of Christ. We become hard on ourselves. We become discouraged and we wonder about our faith and we say to ourselves, "If I were really a Christian things would be different.  I should be different.  I should be better.  I should be more loving. I should do this," or" I should do that."  What we really need to do is stop "shoulding" on ourselves and start listening to the advice of John.

-  ¹⁹ This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰ If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

- When we lose our way, when we fall down what we must remember is that we serve and love the God who is greater than our hearts and he knows everything. 

- He knows that all things being equal even when we fail to keep the law of love, he knows we intend to keep it.  God knows the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

- He also knows that we don't measure ourselves fairly. We often punish ourselves, put ourselves down, and dwell on our failings which is exactly where Satan wants us.

- But God wants us to be honest with ourselves about our failings; deal with them in simple and humble confession, and then get back up again and move on walking deeper in our life with him.

- ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.

- We serve the God who is greater than our consciences and we know that as the divine judge his verdicts are authoritative and just because his knowledge is perfect and he alone is able to assure us that Christ's blood has covered a multitude of sins.

- Because we are washed clean our consciences are clear.

- Whenever our consciences are pricked and we feel the conviction of guilt over sin we need to deal with it right away. That way, we can continue to serve God with a clear conscience as his children in whom he delights.

- His children delight in him and the thought that there might be any tension between obedience and love doesn't occur to them.

- In that kind of relationship, it is natural and automatic for the child of God to come to him and ask for whatever is necessary, whatever is needed.

- ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

- With verse 23 we come full circle. John tells his readers that they can't have true love without faith in Jesus and they can't truly have faith unless they love one another.

- To believe in the name means to believe in his person, his character and nature, and everything he represents.

- Above all things, Jesus Christ represents the self-sacrificial, unconditional love of God.

- Christians are enabled to live out true love because of the gift of new life which they receive from the Holy Spirit.

- As John says, ²⁴ The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

- If you're a believer and you're here this morning with doubts about your ability to love, then John says to you, "You have the Holy Spirit living within you, therefore you have the power to do whatever God wants you to do, including learning to love."

- Many years ago Wycliffe Bible translator Doug Meland and his wife moved into a village of Brazil's Fulnio Indians.  They called him "the white man"  which was no complement because they had been oppressed and exploited by other white men.

- But after the Melands had learned the Fulnio language and began to help the people with medicine and in other ways, they began calling Doug "the respectable white man."

- When the Melands began adapting to the customs of the people, the Indians gave them greater acceptance and spoke of Doug as "the white Indian."

- Then one day, as Doug was washing the dirty, blood caked foot of an injured Fulnio boy, he overheard a bystander say to another: "whoever heard of a white man watching an Indian' s foot before? Certainly this man is from God!"  From that day on, whenever Doug would go into an Indian home, it would be announced: "Here comes the man God sent us."

- We Show Christ's love in us by what we do.

- Show the love of Christ in you by what you do.

July 31, 2011: “ENCOURAGING FORGIVENESS” Ephesians 4:17-32

- The apostle Paul in this passage is comparing and contrasting Gentile, earthly, worldly people with God’s chosen heavenly kingdom people.

- Paul is telling his readers that there are two kinds of people in this world; the worldly and the heavenly.  It seems like he is painting a picture that’s us versus them, but it’s not like that.  

& It’s not like that because within us, each one of us, is that godless worldliness, the worldly “they” Paul wrote about.  And within each one of us is someone who knows Christ, the heavenly “you” Paul wrote about.

- Paul was concerned about this issue in every church.  As he wrote to the Colossians, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you...” (Col. 3:5, ESV).

- We are at war against our own person and Paul says, “You know that stuff inside you that’s earthly & worldly & sinful, Kill it!”

- God is serious about dealing with sin.  The message of the Bible is that sin brings death.  We need to get serious about dealing with our sin too.

- There are two kinds of people in this world: heavenly people & worldly people & both kinds of people are within each of us.

- At the end of our Ephesians passage Paul sums up what heavenly kingdom people need to be like: If you know Christ, forgive as you’ve been forgiven.  We need to forgive; we must forgive because of what’s wrong in us & we need to forgive & we must forgive because of God’s forgiveness & the new life in us.

- You see, we have all been forgiven of a lot of sinful junk and garbage in our lives.  & We have some sin-junk we still have to get rid of, that’s why Paul says we need to stop living like Gentiles who are spiritually lost trying to fill up their lives with empty things and empty pursuits.

- We all used to be worldly people, but we need to stop living like worldly people and start living like the heavenly people we are.

- Worldly people have a darkened understanding to the things of God because they don’t know Jesus & don’t know his forgiveness.

- Worldly people are ignorant of God’s gift because they are hard-hearted; they have braced & propped themselves against the knowledge of God.  Like a fossil that was once flesh, their hearts are petrified, turned to stone.

- Worldly hard-hearted people have lost their sensitivity by refusing to deal with their sin & reconnect with God, in that sense they’ve lost touch with reality & are full of spiritually empty ideas.

- Because they are disconnected from God, worldly people can’t think straight & they come up with all kinds of absurd & ridiculous explanations, justifications, & excuses for not reconnecting their lives to God.

- Worldly people are naturally drawn to sensuality and are absorbed with whatever brings life pleasure.  Since they are disconnected from their Maker, it’s only natural to connect with sensual desires.

- Worldly people are preoccupied with satisfying physical desires because they think there’s nothing deeper or beyond this life.  Many completely worldly people gratify their desires at all costs, without thought of the consequences, living like they are perpetually addicted to one thing or another or trading one addiction for the next thing that comes along that seems better.

- Worldly people live by their impulses & urges.  Their life’s philosophy is: “If it feels good, do it.”

- Is this the kind of life for a Christian, a disciple & follower of Jesus whose citizenship belongs in heaven?

- Since we have learned Christ, we are supposed to understand what life is really all about.

- Christians have not learned Christ to just keep on living the way we have always lived, oblivious to the changes that need to take place on the outside because of the change that has taken place on the inside.  No, we have learned Christ.

- People who learn Christ are no longer Gentile, earthly, worldly people, no longer living after the flesh like an ever hungry, self-satisfying, earthbound caterpillar, but set free to fly in the skies like a beautiful butterfly.

- Heavenly people have no more excuses for worldly living which demonstrates a sick, godless form of self love.

- Heavenly people need to get rid of everything in their lives which reconnects them to their old worldly way of life.  The old way of life is rotten & mouldy & putrid through & through and the only proper response, as we all know all too well, is to get rid of it, put it to death, kill it.

- Worldly people’s lives are in bondage to decay, but heavenly people are set free from rot & death.  If we don’t get rid of our old, sinful, worldly behaviours that connect us to putrid living , then rot will set in again & our lives will not make the impact God intends for them to make.

- Heavenly people prepare themselves for honest living.  They stop lying & stop pretending to be someone/something they are not.

- Heavenly people tell the truth about who they really are.  Truth telling helps maintain the connections we have with our self & others, & Christ.

- Heavenly people know that anger can be used as a tool & a weapon, & know the difference.  They refuse to allow their anger to get the best of them & don’t give the devil the edge he so desperately wants so he can make gains in their lives.

- Heavenly people refuse to let anger fester in their hearts, but find a healthy outlet with God’s help to get rid of resentment & bitterness that Satan can use.

- Heavenly people seek to make an honest living by finding ways of working which contribute to the greater good of society & ways to generate income which is not illegal, unethical or immoral, but God honouring.

- Heavenly people are aware that what they say can either connect them to or disconnect them from others.  They strive to make their conscious thoughts & words into blessings & gifts.  They know that every time they meet their neighbours is an opportunity to extend gift & blessing.

- Heavenly people are aware that God’s Spirit is always within & around them, revering & respecting him with peace & joy, looking for where he is working & working with him.

- The person of the Holy Spirit gives the grace of his gifts & the fruit of his character as an instalment of the eternal, glorious, destiny that awaits those who love God.  & in God’s presence heavenly people will serve him & one another with immortal, resurrection bodies that never die: working, serving, singing, praising, planting, harvesting, in peace & joy forever.

- Bitterness & rage, brawling & slander, evil plans & intentions are at the heart of what is worldly.

- But heavenly people are gentle & kind & compassionate.

- Heavenly kingdom people know how much they have been forgiven.  They know the depths of their own sins & the greatness of God’s gift & they show others the same forgiving courtesy God showed them.

- Heavenly people know how bad they’ve been & they know how badly others need the forgiveness that God makes available in Christ.

- If you know Christ, forgive as you’ve been forgiven.

- All of us were once worldly people desiring only to please ourselves, living for today, but we have learned Christ & are citizens of his heavenly kingdom with glorious eternal destinies.

- If you know Christ, forgive as you’ve been forgiven.

- As worldly Gentile people, we hurt others & hurt ourselves, but as God’s chosen citizens of the kingdom of heaven we are called to restore & heal & forgive.

- If you know Christ, forgive as you’ve been forgiven.

True Love: True Fellowship 1 John 1:5-10

- This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all (v.5).  What was John trying to communicate to his readers about God in this verse? It is simply that John wants his readers to picture the age-old contrast between good and evil.

- There is an excellent reason why many children and even adults are afraid of the dark. Evil loves darkness because of the distinct connection between God and light.  Evil figures there's no better place to hide than in the dark. Just as Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God" (John 3:19-21).

- Evil loves darkness, but God is light.  God radiates light. He is the one who is indescribably good.  He is perfect, holy, righteous, just, and filled with love, mercy, peace, and faithfulness. There is no one like God. "God is light; and in him there is no darkness at all."

- John has established for his readers that God is light, he is good, and then he brings out the big guns. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.  It doesn't need to be dark outside for us to be walking in darkness.

- In N. A., millions of people claim to be Christian, for many it is mainly because they're not Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or Atheist, so they assume they're Christian. But the question is where is the evidence? That's the question John is asking of his readers: Where is the evidence? "If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth."

- The evidence that someone is a Christian, having fellowship with God and other believers, is that person "lives out the truth."

- This message is not only true of John.  James tells us that our faith is a faith that works. He wrote, "faith without deeds is dead" (Jas 2:26). Paul tells us, that we are God's workmanship, his masterpiece, "created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Eph 2:10). Living faith is a lived out faith, it is truth in action.

- Echoing James and Paul, John says, "If you are not living out the truth, then your faith is a lie and you're walking in darkness."

- Am I living out the truth? Are you living out the truth?  When the world looks at us, do they see the evidence of our faith?  The hard news is no one can know that your faith is real unless they see you living out the truth.

- The flip side of the coin is in verse seven: ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 

- If we are working out, daily exercising the truth not only in prayer and bible study, but in love, charity, and good deeds or acts of kindness, then that's all the evidence needed to show the world that we belong to God, that we belong to the local church, and that the blood of Jesus has washed us of our sins. It is the evidence of our fellowship with each other & with God.

- Are we giving our faith a regular workout? You see, we need a workout that challenges & stretches us, making us stronger, showing the world that it's true.

- That's where true Fellowship comes into play. True fellowship goes deeper than the surface. True Fellowship cuts through the superficial, hi-how's-the-weather parts of our relationships, and goes to the very heart of life and faith.

- True Fellowship offers to everyone the deepest of friendships because only in true Fellowship do we find that we are able to live without deceit.  Only in true fellowship can we be honest with ourselves, with one another, and with God about our sins and find the courage to live up to God's glorious standard, in spite of our sin, and walk in the light as he is in the light.

- Our faith must become so overwhelmingly powerful in our lives so as to reflect the very truth of the shed blood of Jesus Christ's cleansing power in us.

- Our faith needs to become a picture of the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ in each one of us. Do I love others like Jesus loves me? That's another one of those questions that we can rephrase as a prayer: Lord, help me to love others like you love me.

- There is nothing more important. That is what John wanted his readers to understand and that's what we need to understand.

- Why is it so important?  It's important because we need to understand that we are at war against the flesh of our bodies. You see, until we receive a glorified body, we not only have a new nature because of the Holy Spirit living in us, but we still have a sinful nature.  The earthly body is drawn to sin.

- John tells his readers, "Don't let anybody tell you otherwise."  As he writes, ⁸ "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."

- You see, there were people in the first century who claimed that sin had no lasting power in their lives.  I don't know about you, but I don't know how anyone could possibly think that way. All I need to do is look at my own everyday ordinary life to understand that I am in a battle against my own sinful nature. Habitually, intentionally, unintentionally, I still sin.

- What John was saying to his readers is simply this: "If you think that sin has no power over you, then you are deceived and you don't understand the truth."

- John again gives to his readers the flip side of the coin in the next verse, verse nine: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

- You know, the culture of John's day was so very similar to the culture of our day. Both cultures repress, ignore, and deny the reality of sin.  But the truth of the matter is sin is real, and the message of God's forgiveness in Jesus Christ when we confess our sin is as relevant today as it was in the first century.

- Try as we might, we cannot bury our sin. It's going to come out. It will find us out. It will expose us for who we really are. Like it or not, all of us need our lives exposed to the light of God. We need to stop living with deceit and start being ruthlessly honest with ourselves about our sin before God.

- For many of us that means we're going to have to have an accountability partner with whom we can share our deepest, darkest secrets, someone whom we can trust completely. Why? Because that's where true Fellowship enters. When we don't have someone in our lives who can hold us accountable for our actions then we are heading toward failure. One or a few people whom we can trust with the nitty-gritty details of our lives will spur us on toward love and good works.

- Of course, one of the truly hard things about confession is not only this idea of accountability, because we are ultimately accountable to God, but also that there will be times when there may be difficult consequences to our sins.

- As a parent, when I look at my daughters and the behaviours that they copy from my life that I find undesirable, I'm reminded of the consequences of my sin. God has put children in my life for many reasons and one of those reasons is corrective.  He wants me to see the error of my ways and correct them before it's too late so that my children will grow up modeling the new me, which is growing in Christ-likeness.

- God allows consequences like this not to punish us, but because he loves us and he disciplines those whom he loves.

- I am thankful that God offers his forgiveness to us on the basis of his faithfulness and justice. It is because he is faithful and just that he extends to us his mercy. It is because he is faithful and just that he has provided Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for our sins and through whom we become righteous. 

- But it is not a righteous judge who declares the guilty to be justified without someone paying the price of guilt. That's not justice but a miscarriage of justice. When the guilty get off Scott free it is a mockery of justice. But God sent Jesus Christ who paid the price for the guilty.

- John declares to his readers in verse 10, "If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives."  The culture of our day again is a reflection of the culture of John's day. We live in a society that says I'm okay and you're okay but if I'm okay you're okay then why do we need forgiveness? If I'm okay and you're okay, then there's nothing to forgive because only sinners need forgiveness.

- The idea that human beings are basically good flies in the face of the Bible's message and makes a mockery of the gospel.  It says to God, "You're a liar." If we deny the reality of our fallen sinfulness, then we deny ourselves of the opportunity to hear God speak, to receive the forgiveness which God offers to us, and to be transformed by the indwelling power of his Holy Spirit.

- I want to take a moment and literally go back to the center of this passage which is verse seven: "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin."

- True Fellowship with God and one another begins and ends with Jesus Christ. The gospel of John records Jesus as saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”(John 8:12).

- It is the goodness of God available to us through both the sacrifice and the person of Jesus Christ which brings light and goodness to our lives.  It is by living out the truth, that God enables us to have fellowship with him and with one another. And it is in our honest confession of sin that we are forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ and receive his purity, goodness, and light.

- True fellowship means honesty about our sins and true fellowship means living by the light of God's truth.

- True fellowship is lived out in God's light!