1 John 3:15-18 We love and live by the Love of God and the Life of God

Our text for this week is 1 John 3:15-18, however I will read 10-18,

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 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 brother's righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

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. 17 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? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

It has been three weeks since we have preached from 1 John so a review may be in order. In the verses the text we just read, John spoke about how those who are children of God will do righteous deeds. In 1 John 3:10 John transitioned from that topic to another by saying, “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.” Everything that comes after 1 John 3:10 has to do with how the child of God is to love their brothers and sisters in Christ.

Look with me at 1 John 3:15-18, “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.”

The theme of these verses can be summed up by saying, “Those who enjoy fellowship with God will demonstrate true biblical love and not murderous hatred for their brothers and sisters in Christ.”

The believers that John is writing had been confused by false teachers who said that they had eternal life and that they enjoyed fellowship with the LORD; however they did no live righteously nor did they love the believers. Instead, they displayed a hatred for the people of God. Because of this John concludes that they are not believers and they should not be listened too and allowed to throw the church into confusion and doubt.

When John says in 1 John 3:15, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murder…”, he is not speaking about someone who displays a brief moment of anger. He is not referring to a occasion when someone displays a fit of rage against another person. He is not speaking about those who for a short season are at odds with someone else in the church.

The verb ‘hate’ is in the present tense. This speaks of a person who makes a continual habit of hating other believers in the church. He is speaking of a person who does not seek to end hostilities but who practices ill-will toward the saints. This person does not seek to stop the hatred that festers in his heart. He continues in the path of murderous jealousy. He extends the conflict and make a lifestyle of it. This person allows bitterness to blind them and lead them into sin. They are a person who pursues war and not peace. This is referring to people who would normalize the practice of letting the sun go down on their anger (Ephesians 4:26).

John says that everyone who continually hates his brother in this way is a murderer, and no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. And he also says in verse seventeen that no such person has the love of God abiding in him.

Those who continually and persistently hate the brothers and sisters in Christ cannot be enjoying fellowship with the LORD. They cannot say that the love and life of God is abiding in them if they are not manifesting that love towards those who are brothers and sisters in Christ and if they do not lay their lives down for them in practical ways.

Those who share in the love of God and in the life of God know what real love is. John says in 1 John 316, “By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” To display the type of love that John is speaking of here you have to have a Christ centered heart.

Having come to know this love they are attracted to this grace, they are drawn to it, they are instinctively made to reflect that same type of love within the body of Christ. These attributes are the reflection of the nature of our new life and the agape love that we have experienced in Christ. A believer who has come to know the love of Christ will be willing to make sacrifices for their brothers and sisters of Christ just as Christ did for them. (Philippians 2)

Giving up one’s life for another would be the greatest sacrifice that a person could make. John draws a very sharp contrast between giving up one’s life in verses 16 (‘...and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers’); with verse 17 where he says that we ought to see this practically in how we give to another the things we possess. John says in verse 17-18, “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.”

Let me make several observations about verses 17-18 before moving on

John speaks of a man who has the ability to provide help but closes his heart to the person and their need. They possess the means but they do not possess mercy. This person sees the person in need and they close their heart against them.

The words ‘in need’ is in the present tense and this speaks of a person who has a continual and perpetual need. It is talking about a real hardship that is always present. An example of this would be the missionaries that we support Pedro and Esther. As you know, Pedro is in Bolivia and he contracted COVID. He is on a respirator and can only receive medical care if they pay up front for it. As a church we have heard of the need and we can seek to help or we can close our heart to the need. We have the resources so Community Church decided to give them 5,0000$ to help cover these costs.

John says that the man who sees the need and then closes his heart cannot have the love of God abiding in him. We read, ‘...yet closes his heart against him’, This is in the past tense and speaks of the act of closing ones heart at the very moment that one became aware of the need. Such a person does not want to even be bothered by the need. He gives it no second thought. We are told that this man has the world’s goods and ‘sees His brother in need’ but he ignores it and does not attempt to offer help. We are not talking about someone who may have the resources and does not know of the need.

This is a reminder that all of us have some responsibility to be aware of the needs of those around them and when they see it they are moved to respond.

The fact that this person in need is called a ‘brother’ emphasizes this moment even more. This heightens our sense of obligation to that person in need. It also emphasizes the sense of neglect if nothing is done for them.

It is safe to say that none of us have ever had to measure our love for someone by giving our live up for them. Yet, John is saying that we can measure the love of God in our heart by what we would give to the person in need. He is saying that we can measure the life of God in our heart by how we respond to the person who is in need. Where the life of God and the love of God come together you are capable of the greatest sacrifices; even giving up your life for a stranger.

How are we to respond to this text? There is a part of us that would like to say that we could lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters but then we realize that we don’t always love them practically like John has just described. How are we to respond? What can we do to ensure that in the future we will reflect an open heart towards the brothers and sisters in need and that we would lay down our life for them if needed? Let me spend the remainder of our time together seeking to answer these questions.

First, let’s consider the people of God, His saints, His peculiar people that we are called upon to love in this text.

Secondly, let’s consider that we love in life and express life in our death because this love and life in us are His.

Charles Spurgeon once said that those who entertain a king, also will receive his attendants. He says, “It is not fit that the king should come alone. So also those who receive Jesus by faith into their hearts, receive also His church, His ministers, His Word, and His cause. They take the Savior and all of His belongings. As the old proverb has said, ‘Love me, love my dog(s)’, so they love all who come to Jesus for their LORD’s sake.”

Spurgeon is clear, a person who calls Jesus Christ his LORD will accept, welcome, be hospitable too and embrace all who are the King’s. He will receive the kings entourage, his court and all of his company. The cause of their savior will become their cause. Jesus' cause was to sacrifice His life for others; so His servants will do the same. His cause was to give graciously good gifts to the undeserving; this is now the cause of His saints.

It would not be easy to love the large group of people that come with a King. My mom came to visit us from Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago and she hardly brought anything with her. This would not be the case if my family was to entertain the President or a king for a week. The President would bring hundreds of people with him.

To give you an idea of what something like this might look like consider Genesis 50:6-9. Here, Joseph’s father, Jacob, has died and Joseph is going to take his fathers body back to the land of Canaan. In this text Joseph is not the king, but he is the second in command of Egypt under the Pharaoh. Even though he is not the Pharaoh consider the size of the entourage that he would travel with. We read,

And Pharaoh answered, “Go up, and bury your father, as he made you swear.” 7 So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, 8 as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father's household. Only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. 9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen. It was a very great company.

From this example you get an idea of the great hoard of people a king would travel with. Similarly, every believer is part of King Jesus’ company. Every redeemed person is now a child of the Sovereign King in this world. This is a great multitude of people made up of every tribe, tongue and nation. It is a people made up of men and women; young and the old; rich and the poor; healthy and the sick; they are from capital cities to remote villages.

All sorts of people are being adopted into God’s family who are from different backgrounds and cultures. Despite all of these challenges and barriers, John says that those who are His will love their brothers and sisters in Christ. He says, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers...Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

Jesus’ death redeemed a peculiar people. And this act of our King Jesus is also the deed and the truth that changes how we relate to one another. If King Jesus were to come into our community there would be some who would gather along the streets in protest. Others would come and welcome Him and would follow Him through the streets. In this world, these believers would be shamed, jeered, scoffed at, persecuted and ridiculed. But all of those who love Jesus would also love the others who would follow after Him even under such harsh conditions (Hebrews 10:34).

When the apostle Paul heard about one of the churches he always wanted to hear about the health of the church. Paul did not evaluate the health of a church on the basis of their bank account, the number of attenders or the numbers of programs that they were putting forward. A healthy church could be experiencing trials and persecutions and still be healthy. One of the key indications concerning the spiritual health of any church was their love for Christ and for the other believers.

How would it be possible that this love would still be present under such harsh and unfavorable conditions? This brings us to our second point, “We love in life and express life in our death because this love and life are His.”

Spurgeon speaks of what makes this possible for the saints. He says, “Where Jesus comes with pardon, he brings all the graces with Him, and we are right to entertain them all: not only faith, but love, hope, patience, courage, zeal, and the whole band of virtues. It would be idle to say, ‘Christ is in me’, if none of the graces of His Spirit lodged within our souls.”

Both John and Spurgeon are saying that Christians will display these graces in their lives because they are now in the heart of that person. We are now in Christ and Christ is in us.

We learned in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that the church is the body of Christ (Ephesians 2:15). He is the head and His body is made up of Jews and Gentiles. Together we are one new man. And since we are in Christ we are being nourished and built up in Him (Ephesians 4:15). Those whom Christ nourishes He gives varied graces with which we can love and care for the body of Christ. Peter calls these graces the manifold, diverse, varied, many-sided graces of God.

Like you, I have known some pretty incredible people in my life. I have been fortunate enough to know some people who possessed an amazing ability to love under very difficult circumstances. I have known people who were uncommonly patient when they were being provoked. I have known people who were able to be kind and gracious even when they were being mistreated and abused by others. I have known people who persevered through almost unimaginable hardships and trials.

To the naked eye, it would seem as though they just naturally possess a special ability to love and care for others. It would seem as though they had been blessed with the ability to respond more patiently, kindly and mercifully than most people do. When I witness such a person I am all to quick to a to attribute to them this ability. Yet, eventually they will not be able to continue to display such characteristics if they do not have eternal life and the love of God abiding in them.

It is the life of God (15), and God’s love abiding in a believer (17), that enables that person to display these graces under circumstances that would far exceed their own ability to love, to be patient, to be kind and gracious and to persevere in all of life’s challenges. Without this life and love they would quickly become jaded, hardened, disillusioned, frustrated, bitter and full of despair.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”

He also says in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9, “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

2 Thessalonians 1:11, “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power…”

Colossians 1:28-29, “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”

We have watched God allow people to go through so many things. Things that seem unfair, unbearable, unreasonable. We see crosses that seem too heavy for any man or woman to carry. We have witnessed people go through things that were beyond their ability to cope.

In that moment I wonder if their ability to love would be forever hardened? I wonder if their ability to be charitable will be permanently jaded? I wonder if they will wander from the faith and deny the eternal life that comes through Christ alone?

Left to themselves it would be impossible for them to continue to walk in love. However, if the life of God is in them, and the love of God abides in their hearts, they will display His grace, persevere and be better for having gone through it.

That is why James can say, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” (James 1:2-4)

The life and love of God in a believer cannot become weak, jaded or hardened. Therefore these things will persist in a true believer. One who has the been given eternal life cannot persist in continual hate even if they have been hurt, disappointed or angered by others.