Series: 1 John
Week: 14
Passage: 1 John 3:16-19
Title: The Joy of Brotherly Love
Focus: Brotherly Love
STORY: We live in a love-obsessed world.
• “All we need is love.” (Beatles) was first performed by The Beatles on Our World, the first live global television link. Watched by 400 million in 26 countries.
• “Where is the love” (Black Eye Peas) peaked at number eight in the United States, and peaked at number one in Australia and the United Kingdom. The song received two nominations, Record of the Year and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
• “What’s love got to do with it?” (Tina Turner) The song ranked #309 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". It also ranked #38 on Songs of the Century. It was the 17th best-selling single of 1984 in the UK and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012.
o The list goes on and on…
While we are obsessed with love and the concept, we know very little about what love means and its implications. As Christians love means something entirely different that what the world would suggest. As Christians love takes on a different form because we have chosen Jesus. We must not let the world and media tell us what love is but rather let the Bible continue to educate us on it’s true meaning and connotations.
As we begin let us ask a few opening questions:
Which love have you chosen (God’s love or the love offered by the world)?
Who do you let define love for you (the Bible or the media)?
INTRODUCTION: John’s letter goes back and forth on chooses we have to make. John is extremely black and white in his thinking. He has already given us many chooses we make as Christians (choose darkness or light, concealment or confession, sin or obedience, lies or truth, unrighteousness or forgiveness, death or life, antichrist or Jesus Christ, Satan or God, love or hate, etc.).
With the gift of free will we must choose. While we may think that we can pull a little from column “A” and a little from column “B”, we do not get to choose one or the other though one by one. This is a package deal. We either pick one side or the other side. When we choose one side we pick everything that goes with that side. Choose God (the light) and we choose everything that goes with it. Choose Satan (the dark) and we choose everything that comes along with it. There is no halfway, there is no middle ground.
SCRIPTURE: “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.” 1 John 3:16-19
PRAYER
TITLE: (1 John 3:16-19)
Point #1: True Love is shown in Christ Alone (1 John 3:16a)
• Explanation: John starts by answering the burning question that many ask, “Do you want to know how to love?” According to John, if you want to know how to love then we must look at Jesus Christ example in His death on the cross. We know love because we know Christ sacrifice (choosing death for us to have life) through the death and resurrection.
o John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
o John 10:18 “I lay it (my life) down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
• The Gospel shows us of Christ laying down His life to buy us back to God in an ultimate one-time sacrifice. What we are because of Christ’s death directly reflects the fact that we are all about Jesus Christ. We are not a religion, not a set of rules, but more a means to ultimately know the heart of God in Christ’s brutal massacre and share Him openly with the world.
• He LAID His LIFE down for us! That is how we know what love is. Someone died for us.
• Illustration: We are familiar with celebrate those who have laid their life down for us. Military (past wars), firefighters (911), etc.
o We build memorials for the service and sacrifice but we know that this sacrifice does not cover the sin that we have.
• Application: Jesus alone allows us to stay alive. Christ is more than a beloved war hero or rescuer of soles in burning buildings. He is warrior that freely choose to die and fight for his enemies.
o Hebrews 12:3 “Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
• We as people have broken God’s laws. What kind of warrior fights for His enemies?
• The true application of the Bible and text is that we know love because of true love that Christ demonstrated for us! Forget what you are hearing and seeing and reading and “experiencing” from the world. That is only a small margin of the love of God.
• Questions:
o What are some words you use to define this kind of love?
• We could use all the terms we want and we still could not experience it. If we want to know what love is, look at Christ. We either choose that love or we choose hate. That is the choice that we have before us!
Point #2: True Love mimics Christ’s Love (1 John 3:16b)
• Explanation: If we are going to love like Christ then we must, as John’s letter says in the Word of God, lay down our lives for brothers and sisters in Christ.
o QUESTION: Who is John talking about when he says “brothers”? (Look where John use the word)
• 1 John 3:16 “Lay down our lives for THE BROTHERS”
• 1 John 3:12 “Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.” (Relationship - mom and dad/family)
• 1 John 3:13 “Do not be surprised, brothers” (fellow believers in Jesus Christ)
• 1 John 3:15 “ “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer…” (fellow humans/people on earth)
• “Brothers” is used three different ways in the same book (1 John). The most accurate translation of the verse it say’s we lay down our lives for “thee brethren”. What does that mean?
o What John is saying is that we need to lay down our lives for a specific group of people and those people are the fellow brother sisters in Christ.
o While called to love all people we have a responsibility to those people who are in Jesus Christ.
• Illustration: It’s like this: I am going to give you a car. FREE CAR! It’s a nice car, it runs well. I am going to give you this car. You’d be excited wouldn’t you? However, there’s just one catch. You can only have the car one morning a week. The rest of the time it stays at my house and you can’t use it. Also, that one morning a week I will come to your house and pick you up. You can ride in the passenger seat. We will only go where I want to go, and after a few hours, I will drop you off again until the next week. Not quite the same is it.
• Application: We do this! We let God ride around in our passenger seat once or twice a week. We take Him where we want to go, or we take Him to church, and then we call it good. This is NOT laying down your life. Going to church a couple hours a week and then doing whatever it is you want to do is not sacrifice.
o There is nothing that should hold us back from following Christ!
• Hebrews 12:1-3 “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
• What John is saying for us as believers is that if we are going to choose to love (God and our brothers and sisters) and all that goes along with it. That we must sacrifice our preference and personal practice to honor scripture so that the kingdom can advance.
• We must repent of ourselves and seek the kingdom of God.
o TRUE APPLICATION: Sometimes this means being a missionary and going to a third world country and being a martyr (killed for your faith). Sometimes this means God may be calling you to get rid of your privacy and welcome someone into your home, eliminate your preferences, sell some of your possessions, etc.
• John readies the people to pay for the Gospel of Christ with their life. He challenges the people to face death and eliminate the tight grip the world has on them.
• The people of God are ready to go at a moments notice to advance the kingdom of God.
• John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Point #3: True Love Continues in Christ’s Love (1 John 3:17-18)
• Explanation: If there are those who are hungry, we feed them. If there are those who are naked, clothe them. If there are those who are hurting, comfort them. There is a push from John constantly to destroy the earthly perspective and replace it for a eternal mindset.
o How can the love of God be in people who if they have no compassion on people who are hurting, tired, hungry, naked, etc.
o How can we claim that God’s love is in us if we continue to miss the needs of others?
• We need to be broken over other people circumstances and not just be glad it was not us.
• We can speak the need but we must do what the need is.
• Illustration: Story of a person getting something that they did not deserve or that you did not want to give away.
• Application: This is application of God’s word and experiencing the love of God. What if God had treated us the way we treat the poor? To FEEL something does not mean you DID actually something.
o John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He GAVE.”
• What do we give in response to God’s gift of His son Jesus?
• What Love is not: Love is not simply a feeling. Love is not simply just communication. To simply feel and communicate misses application. This according to John is “hatred”. By our inaction we make a choice to ignore and to ignore is to empower suffering and embrace hatred.
• What love is: Love is costly. Love is hard. Love is feeling and communication in action. Love demands a response from the people who want it.
• What are we willing to lay down for the Lord so that He can fill us with a greater life? The more we lay down, the more Christ fills. The more we let go of the earthly, the more eternally minded we become. This is NOT the American way!
CONCLUSION: There is an obtainment of spiritual joy to watch someone else praise God because of our obedience from the death of Jesus. There was joy in Jesus death because He knew what it would accomplish in the life of the saints. There is joy ahead for the Christian when they will lay down their life!
Real love is costly.
CLOSING QUESTIONS:
• Who is it that God wants you to love this week?
• What is the need you know of that God wants you to meet?
• Is God calling you to a life that is not your own, that will glorify and build the kingdom?
• Who is it and how do those people need to be loved by God this week?
PRAYER: God, who do you want me to love today and communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ with today?
