Love the Brothers (1 John 3:11-18)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. It is our Give Series. We are excited every time, every year around this time and every time around this year. That's what I almost said.
Go to 1 John chapter 3. We've been working through 1 John and usually we would pause and focus just on Give Series stuff and go somewhere else, but John went there anyway, so we're going to just keep going through John because he's going to talk about what we would have paused to talk about. Our Give Series is around Christmas. We want to celebrate Christmas and we want to respond a little bit to how our culture celebrates Christmas because our culture, Christmas is a Christian holiday and culturally we have a lot of Christian background, a lot of Christian history. And so you have this idea of generosity and sacrifice and love and kindness and peace that all comes in with Christmas.
We have this idea of worship that Jesus would come and that he would humble himself to come redeem sinners, this idea of hope, this idea of light in darkness, that all kind of comes in. And then what happens is culturally we try to pull out the Jesus part. We want to keep peace. We want to keep joy. We want to keep life. We're cool with all of that.
But then we also want to infuse consumerism. And so it's like you bought a filet mignon and you cooked it perfectly and then you pour strawberry syrup on top of it. They just don't go together. It doesn't work right. Certainly Christmas is a time for celebration. Certainly it's a time for feasting.
Certainly it's a time for giving. But we've, we've amped it up so much with consumerism because our whole culture runs off of us buying things we don't need. Buying shoes before other shoes wear out. Buying shoes for this type of occasion. Buying shoes to be this type of person. Buying this shirt that makes us this type of person.
Buying things that help us have an identity. Buying more things than we need and replacing the things that aren't bad with new things. That's our, that's our whole system. It's what it's built off of. And you're a good American. If you go spend money, the news comes out and says, Hey, y'all hadn't been consuming like you're supposed to.
And you go, well, I got to do my duty. I said, I was thankful yesterday and now I got to go get some new stuff. It's just, that's, that's the system that we have culturally. And then we have as Christians, we're supposed to approach this differently. We're supposed to see this differently. And so at our gift series, we try to just push back on consumerism and amp up generosity.
We want some of our money to just walk out the door and to go towards things that don't benefit us. That's why I love the song that was just sung on that little video. It's from citizens. It's called, why don't you marry Christmas? It says, I see the writing on the wall. We've been through all of this before longer lists and grander gifts, brighter lights, entitled kids.
Well, if you love it so much, why don't you marry Christmas? The happy feelings that we had, are they just boxed up in the past? Buying more we can't afford. That's American. The pressure's high, but what's it for? Well, if you love it so much, why don't you marry Christmas?
So our hope in our gift series is to push back on some of this just consumer driven stuff and say, Hey, let's remember what this is actually about. And then let's respond as Christians with generosity. Let's give some money away at this time of year. We bring in money and we give money out for a Lottie moon. It's a Christmas offering, which goes towards the international mission board and towards international missions. It goes directly towards sending missionaries overseas.
And then as a church, we also come together to do our gift project, which is where we've helped church plants in Tennessee and downtown Columbia. We've helped people who had had some flood damage to their home. We came together and raised money for that. We were able to raise some money for some children's gifts and a party that we were able to throw in, in Columbia as well. We raised money for a women's shelter. We've raised money for overseas missions in Honduras and in Egypt.
So I get the distinct privilege of announcing our gift project today. Later. First John chapter three, we're going to pick up in verse 11. I'm going to pray and we're going to walk through as John presses on this idea. And then we'll get to talk through how we're going to be able to practice it together. So let's pray.
God, we ask for joy and delight. As we read your word, we pray that you would help us to see Christ clearly. You might change our hearts. Help us to be loving people in Jesus name. Amen. So John in this section is going to give us one big picture and then one practice.
So he's going to give us one big picture, something for us to see, and he's going to give us something to do the way that this ought to show up in our lives. So he says this in verse 11, for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. This most likely the beginning of these talking about is the beginning of the proclamation of the gospel, the beginning of Christ's work that we would have love for one another in the church. But it's connected to the call in the old Testament to be loving and gracious to the people of Israel and to the people around you.
We should love one another. Verse 12, we should not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous. Do not be surprised brothers that the world hates you. So he says this kind of big picture, we shouldn't be like Cain who murdered his brother.
And it's like, okay, sound advice. But he's, he's painting up on one side, the epitome of worldly approach to others. That's why he says, don't be surprised when the world hates you. He's saying, this is kind of the epitome of non-Christian approach. And then he says, and here's the epitome of a Christian approach that he keeps going. Verse 14, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.
Whoever does not love abides in death that the brothers, there is the church that there is supposed to be a distinct, special love for Christians in the church. Now, Christians are told by Christ to love our enemies, to love our neighbors, and to love the church. So you're, you're told if you're a Christian, that's everybody. They fit in one of those categories. He expands neighbor to whoever's around you. Enemies are all the people that dislike you.
And then you're Christian brothers and sisters. So we're supposed to love everybody, but the, the, the Bible presses on this idea that the church should have distinct, special, greater love, protection, care, defense for those who belong to Jesus. Those are the brothers. And this idea that we are all children of God is not a biblical idea. The biblical idea is that we are all made by God and that all humans are made in his image and therefore have value, dignity. But to be a child of God is a blood bought gift from Jesus to those who believe.
That's what John says in chapter one of his, uh, the gospel of John, that for those who believe, he gave him the right to be called children of God. That's what he says at the beginning of chapter three. And this is that he says that we, how great is it? How good is God to us that we get to be called children? And so we are, but it's through the work of Christ that we're children of God. And so there's this family of God that we're meant to show love to one another.
So he keeps going. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. That's a bold claim. We're going to look at that in a second.
By this, we know love that he, that's Christ, laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. One big picture. Cain on one hand, Christ on the other. That our approach is going to be more like Cain's or more like Christ's. That's what he's getting at.
That you're going to look like a disciple of Cain or a disciple of Christ. He says, we know that if we hate, we're murderers. Did we know that? That your heart posture matters. That just painting a smile on your face while you loathe someone is still a problem for you because God sees your heart. That he actually cares about your heart, not your actions.
This isn't just about your morality. Can you act out the right things? It's like, no, he cares about who you are. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with Cain, so far, you know that he murdered his brother. Well, I'm going to tell you that story a little bit. That's from Genesis chapter three.
Adam and Eve have sons, Cain the oldest, then Abel or Abel. My uncle Abel fusses at me because it's spelled Abel and it's probably pronounced Abel or Abel. So I'm going to call him Abel just for the sake of my uncle. Then sorry. So Cain and Abel, they both at some point come to the Lord to give him a sacrifice.
Abel brings sheep from his flock. It says he brings the first. And then it says in some time, Cain brings some fruit. God has regard for Abel and not for Cain. Cain immediately, it says his face has fallen. He's frustrated by this, that God was pleased by Abel's sacrifice, but not by his.
It seems as if Abel was genuinely worshiping the Lord, was delighting in the Lord, brought the first of what he had. And that Cain thought, okay, well, this may be a good thing for me to do. And somehow it'll garner some favor because as soon as it doesn't work, his heart does not tender towards the Lord to say, what's wrong? What did I do? Like to respond well, he hardens himself towards the Lord, which seems as if it was, he came in it self-interested and when it didn't work, he was frustrated. Then it says he talks to his brother, takes him out in the field and murders him.
That's crazy. But it's the epitome, the physical manifestation of Cain's idea of how the world works, which is you exist for his good. Everything's about me. Therefore, everyone else is expendable. If they benefit me, if they help me, if they bring joy to my life, they get to stay. What's her name?
Marie Kondo. He does that with people. Does this inspire joy? No, in the trash. That's what he does. Christ is the opposite of that.
When you look at a manger, when you look at a nativity scene, that's Christ coming and saying, I'm not here to be served, but to serve. I'm here for everyone else. Therefore, I'm expendable. I'm here to sacrifice so that they might be satisfied. I'm here to suffer for them. Whereas Cain says, you need to sacrifice so that I might be satisfied.
You need to suffer for me. That's his big picture, that we're going to have one of those postures. I'm going to show you a few ways that kind of shows up. If you ever had a friend who knew a guy, maybe you're this person, you know a guy, you have a guy, you have a guy that gets you tickets to things. You have a guy that gets you out of tickets for things. You have a guy that, that can help you fix a car.
You have a guy that can, like, I, oh, I know this person to help us get a deal on this. I know, I know a shoe guy. I know a person who can help, like, and that's, you ever been around that person and you've, I've thought, that must be nice. He's got like a bullpen of perks. Oh, you're going to Disney World? Let me make some phone calls.
Who do you, do you know Mickey? What, who do you do it? But the reality of that is I've got these people around me and I appreciate the fact that they enhance my life. I'm going to make a phone call. They're going to make my life better. I don't know what they do on their end, but be honest with you, I don't care.
Just want this thing. Have you ever been the guy that someone knew? You ever been the only person who owned a truck and a group of friends? I have. When we first planted this church, we were part-time movers. It's just a thing.
And you have to work on your heart in those moments because you're getting a phone call and it's, hey, I'd love for you to sacrifice for me. And there's part of us that really wants to be in the Cain position and really dislikes being in the Christ position. I'd really like for you to sacrifice for me. That would be excellent. And I'd really like to not have to sacrifice for you. Honestly, if you make me suffer and sacrifice too much for you, I don't want to be your friend anymore.
Now, if you sacrifice and suffer for me, that's actually how I define a good friend. I don't want to be a good friend. I want to have good friends. So he writes and says, Christians, do we look like Christ or should we be called Cainians? He didn't say that because it's dumb, but that's what he's getting at. Do we look like disciples of Cain?
People exist for my benefit. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to say a thing that may not garner me some friends. Let me get a drink of water first. Let's talk about wedding vows.
All right. I'm not a huge fan personally of people who write, people of when people write their own wedding vows and I'll explain why. Vows are promises, promises that you make so that you'll keep them when you don't want to keep them anymore. That's the point of a promise. When people write their own vows, they often don't write promises. They write poems about how much they like the other person.
And that's fine. Those are great. Some of them are very beautiful. I've listened to some and thought that's beautiful. It's just not a vow saying, I love how much you love my friends. I love how much you love my dog.
I love how much you love me is nice, but it's not a promise. If anything, it puts pressure on them. I'm going to need you to keep loving my friends, my dog and me. I want my, my wife to think I'm attractive. I want her to think I'm fun to be around, but at our wedding, I want her to promise to stay with me when I'm unattractive and no fun to be around. That's what I want.
I want her to look a lot more like Christ who sacrifices for the sake of love. Then I appreciate what benefits I get. Now we certainly should appreciate that. That's a part of relationships. I get that. But what I'm saying is there's this idea that this is the good stuff and this isn't, but this is where Christ went and it's where he invites us to go because it's actually the good stuff.
There's actually joy here. There's actually freedom here. There's actually delight here and Christ is there. So in the sacrifice, we get more Christ because we need more Christ in suffering. We get more Christ because we need more Christ in generosity. We get more Christ because we need more Christ and he's actually what is good.
That's what he's saying. That's the big picture. Then he says this, we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. That ought to be what this looks like. Jesus refers to it at one point as a city on a hill, that it ought to be beautiful to behold, that it ought to be warming and welcoming and joyful, that people ought to come and be around the church for a while and go, oh my goodness, I have to have that. That's one of the reasons why we invite people who are not believers to join community groups.
If you're not a believer, we want you to join a community group. And yes, this is a terrible, terrible trick because if you join a community group and you stick around one for a while and you see what real Christians look like in life and you begin to see how they love each other and how they love you, we're convinced that you'll see how Jesus loves you and you'll begin to love Jesus. And we want Jesus for you because he's wonderful. But that's what it's supposed to be like. It's supposed to be this beautiful thing that draws you in, that we're to love one another. There's supposed to be grace and sacrifice and generosity flowing out all across the board all the time where everybody shows up thinking, I'm here for your good.
And when you do that, you're free and there's delight and there's joy and there's love and it makes everything better. I've said this all the time and I'm convinced of it. If you want to be miserable, think everything's about you. Show up right now and ask, how much do I like this? How much do I appreciate this? How much do I wish things were like that?
And you'll just be miserable. If you show up thinking, I'm here to serve, guess what? You'll have a lot of opportunity for it and you'll be free and there'll be a lot of joy. We're supposed to be marked by this. John was marked by this. The night before Jesus, the night Jesus was betrayed, the night before he dies, he gets his disciples together and he says, the world's going to know that you belong to me by the way you love one another.
And he says, no man has a greater love than this, than that he lay down his life for his friends. And the next day, the disciple John, at a very young age, stands at the foot of the cross, watching his friend die. Not understanding fully why this had to happen, not understanding fully what was going on, but knowing that a man that had magnificent power and strengths, that he understood to be God in the flesh, was willingly laying down his life and dying and that he was intentionally doing this. John sees him rise from the grave. And John says, that's us forever. That's what we were born out of.
That's who we are. That's the blood that pumps through our veins is sacrifice and suffering and generosity for the good of others and the glory of Christ. That's what John calls us to. So he gives us this big picture and he says, we're either going to be in this posture, our heart's going to be bent towards wanting from others, taking from others, towards exalting self, or our heart's going to be bent towards sacrifice and selflessness. So he gives us a test.
But verse 17, 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? This just got real tangible. Takes this big picture that we ought to be selfless, that we ought to love one another, that we ought to be laying down our lives for others. And then you say, okay, yeah, I'll lay down my life for others. And he says, okay, hand over your stuff. And it's like, I thought you said life, not stuff.
It makes it real tangible, real fast. He says, we ought to look like Christ. And you're like, yes, we ought to look like Christ. Hallelujah. Hand me your wallet. What?
For, for, no. What? This is a trick. He says, no, this is an indication of where your heart is. Do you have stuff and see someone who needs that stuff? Do you keep that stuff?
That's the thing about stuff. It's the thing about money. It's the thing about tangible items. If you have it, I don't have it. If you eat the last cookie, I don't eat the last cookie. Because you ate it.
I wanted that cookie. That's how that works. If I, if you need $200 and I have $200 and I give you $200, that $200 does not pay my electrical bill. Or let me go to that concert I've been saving up for. Let me go eat at Ruth's Chris. Or Cracker Barrel eight times.
Or Taco Bell 150 times. I think I covered all of, all of us here now. Made it really, made you really feel it. That's the reality of if we have the things and we give away the things, we sacrifice. We don't have it anymore. We, we suffer because it was taken out of us.
Have you noticed that? That's one of the things they teach you in sales is a hand of the person, the item that you're selling because when they touch it, it becomes theirs. I sold swimming pools. If by the end of the night I had you hugging the item I had handed you, I was selling you a swimming pool. If I handed you stuff and you just put it in your lap, oh buddy, there was a pool in your backyard because it became yours. You ever seen somebody hurt some of your stuff and you felt it?
Invite kids over to your house. You'll see what I'm talking about. You'll watch them start doing something and you'll feel it in your body while they do a thing to a wall. It's like, and if they're your kids, you can respond appropriately. If they're not your kids, you have to look at their parents. Like, are you going to hit them?
But you can feel it. That's why he takes that here. He says, do we love people? Let me ask you a question. Do you give stuff away? Does all your money go to you?
You ever see somebody needing the thing and you just gave them the thing? Do you have a spot in your closet where your favorite coat used to be? Do you have fewer shoes because somebody else has more shoes? Do you not do a thing every month so that someone else can have something like electricity every month? He says, that's how you know if you love. If we can see that someone needs something and we have that something and we can talk ourselves out of giving them that something, he says something really scary.
He says, if you can close the door on your heart like that, I'm not sure Christ is inside there. So he says, let's paraphrase. Yet closes his heart against him. How does God's love abide in him? This idea that the love of God is flowing out from your heart and if you close the doors, it bursts the doors back open. But if you can close the doors and they stay closed, he just says, the love of God's like the Kool-Aid man.
It's coming through. And so if you can just turn that off and keep it off, I don't know if you know Jesus. I don't know if you've been overwhelmed by the love that he has for you because that's what overwhelms us. It's what pours through us. This love that doesn't end. This love that captures us.
This love that saves us. This love that redeems us. This love that flows. And so he says, when you see someone needs, you just think, this is my moment. This is the type of person I am because this is what Christ came to do for me and I get to do it for you. That's what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount.
He says, we're supposed to give to the ungrateful. We're supposed to give to our enemies. This idea that we're just supposed to give. They don't deserve it. Yes. Absolutely.
Isn't that why you became a Christian? Didn't you run headlong to Christ because you didn't deserve it? Isn't that what overwhelmed your soul? He says this, little children, let us not love in word or in talk, but in deed and in truth. Don't just tell people you love them. Don't just show up and sing about it.
Let's do it. My wife and I got to go to stay in a little mountain cabin thing for just a couple of days. It was Airbnb. We had a good time because our children weren't there. I love my kids, but this was nice. And we got to stay there for a couple of days and we were riding down to go try to find some food in the evening.
We rode over and we saw, it was beautiful. It's like nestled in the mountains. It was glowing. It looked like something out of like Disney World magic. Like it seemed almost fake. The city just glowing and we were heading down towards it and it was like, this is, look at this.
And when we got closer, it was a paper mill. It was a lot closer than we thought. It glistened beautifully, but you got close and it was like smoke and pipes and all the things that were little twinkling lights were just so that I guess people wouldn't like run into them or whatever. And it smelled like a paper mill. We're supposed to be a city on a hill that gets more and more beautiful and sweet and delightful the closer you get. Not that seems neat on the outside and the further you get in, the faker it becomes.
That's why he says, let's not love and word and talk. Let's not seem good. Let's not have and have nothing. Let's actually have the good stuff. Let's love and deed and truth.
You actually don't have to talk about it at all. Jesus says, it's better if you don't. Let's just do this stuff. Let's just look like we belong to the king of the universe who gave up everything so that we could belong to him. Let's look like people who were purchased by blood so money doesn't mean anything.
If you've been purchased by the blood of God, green things with Uncle Sam on them just doesn't matter as much. If we can rest in Christ and delight in Christ then the world's goods are just the world's goods. We're going to spend a couple of weeks just looking at this and talking about this and we want this to be who we are and how we practice all the time but we're going to pick one thing to do together right now. So we said John says is there some brothers who have a need? That's a good thing for Christians to jump in on and you may actually know of that. You may have that in your group.
You may have that around you where you say this is a Christian brother that have a need. It's Christmas time. I'm going to help but the reality is that should happen in January and February and March. It should be a hey these people around me they have needs. I have this stuff. Let's go.
And just constantly joyously looking like Christians but we're coming together for gift series to practically apply this in one specific way. So we just said do we know some Christians around us that have a need and anything that fits those categories a brother with a need works. We heard Raz Bradley brought this to our attention because he's on the board at Bethel Christian Camp and he said this is a little weird he said because I'm on the board there and we just said no it's not because all the things we've ever done have been with people that we've known that we knew about that's how this works and this one specifically is who's around who's a brother that you see and need do you see the need so Bethel Christian Camp is a camp in Gaston it's named Bethel and it's a Christian camp they do a lot of during the summer they do a lot of stuff with underserved children most of the children that come are on some form of a scholarship they have a couple of weeks during the summer where all the kids are on scholarship they run a really tight budget so that they can be very generous their director retired program director retired and they're hiring a new one and this new program director this is him and his wife Jason and Christine Arrington they're taking a pay cut moving from Virginia they're moving out of a nicer home into a smaller home they're taking a bigger budget making it a smaller budget so that they can be a part of what's happening and to join and serve and we found out that they were things are tight but they're trying to renovate this home a little bit Bethel is and so we just said hey if it serves them well as they serve y'all well and serve these kids well we want to help renovate that home we want to help make that a little nicer these are their four children and they're moving down with them in the background you can kind of see the home where I think they're coming from and then this is the one they're moving into and so we're going to go in as they try to renovate some of that and we're going to just help because they need some of the world's goods and we have some of the world's goods and we're the type of people because we belong to Christ who give things up so that other people can have them because Jesus gave stuff up so that we can have him and that's just how we act so we're going to practice this specifically together now we asked Jarl who's kind of head of things over there to send us some information what he sent us was a four minute video that explains a little bit of the heart behind Bethel and introduces us to the Arringtons and tells us a little bit about what they're going to do so we're going to watch that it's four minutes then I'm going to come up and say a few more things and that's it that's our gift project this year so we'll watch this hello Mill City my name is Jarl Hill some of you might know me as the director at Bethel Christian Camp some of you might know me as Isaac's dad and some of you might know me as Scott and Kit's son but most important of all is that I'm a child of God I'm a follower of Jesus Christ you see I think that who we think we are who we really believe that we are is vitally important it forms everything that we do we all know the story of how our great great great grandparents Adam and Eve were created by God and given a beautiful kingdom in which to live but that they decided to snub God because they thought they knew better and that's