Well, good afternoon. I'm thankful to be here with you
and I'm honored to have the opportunity to speak before you
this afternoon. And for a short while, the focus
of our study is going to be love, and more specifically,
brotherly love. And this comes from a question
that John asks us about love, a rhetorical question that we find
in the scripture. In First John Chapter 4, verse
20. It says there if someone says I
love God and hates his brother, he is a liar For he who does not
love his brother, whom he has seen.
How can he love God whom he has not seen?
This is a powerful question, and we're going to dive into a few
aspects of love this afternoon. So hopefully we'll gain a useful
understanding of this verse and how we can better as Christians
apply it to our lives in order to glorify God in all that we
do. The outline for a study The
structure for a study is based around 4 main questions and I'm
going to try my best to answer the first of which is what is
love? Secondly, do we really have to
love everyone? Thirdly, why do we love?
What should our motivation for loving be?
And 4th what happens when we love others?
What real effect should we expect to see when we do love as
God expects us to throughout this study?
Separate from these questions, I'll be asking several personal
reflection questions. I guess you could call them
that. And they might be a little
challenging. In fact, I hope they're a little
challenging because it's important to be honest with
ourselves as Christians. The only way that we can become
stronger Christians is if we could think to ourselves.
I'm weak in this area and I need to become stronger.
So hopefully these questions help to make the study practical
and applicable and relevant. Before we dive into further
questions about love, it's important that we agree upon
what Biblical love, brotherly love is actually referring to.
And the best definition that I could come up throughout my
study of this topic was the internal decision to act
outwardly in the best interest of others.
So let's look at some Bible examples of what this could
mean. In First John chapter 3, verse
18, it says my little children let us not love in Word or
tongue, but in deed and in truth.
In this verse, John is emphasizing the importance of
the act of loving rather than just the feeling of love that we
often think about. This isn't to say that we
shouldn't express our love verbally.
It's never a bad thing to tell someone that you love them.
In fact, it's a good thing. Jesus does this to his disciples
many times, but it shows us how much more important it is to
show our love rather than simply telling it.
Furthermore, First Corinthians 13 verses 4 through the
beginning of verse 8 says love suffers long and is kind.
Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself.
Love is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its
own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in
iniquity but rejoices in the truth, bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. What sticks out to me about this
passage is again the emphasis on the outward expression of love.
Love, when it's talked about in the Bible, is not usually
described as some warm, fuzzy feeling that we get inside, but
rather it is an inward devotion that compels us to behave in a
certain way that the emotional and internal internal aspect of
love is definitely important. God blessed us with emotions for
a reason, but what Paul emphasized here was the outward
manifestation of that internal state.
I think that there's an interesting connection between
love and faith in the scripture. In John chapter 14 in reference
to love Jesus, it says there in verse 23 through 24 Jesus
answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my
word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make
our home with him. He who does not love me does not
keep my words and the word which you hear is not mine but the
fathers who sent me. And in the context of faith,
James tells us in James chapter 2, verse 18.
But someone will say, you have faith and I have works.
Show me your faith without your works and I will show you my
faith by my works. Both of these passages, I'd
argue, are making similar claims about different subjects.
John's telling us that our love should inspire obedience.
And James is telling us that our faith should inspire works.
In fact, it is through our obedience and it is through our
works that we demonstrate that we have both of these things.
It is not just enough to say that you have love, just like it
is not enough to say that you have faith.
James tells us that faith without works is dead.
And I would advocate to you this afternoon that love without
loving behavior is dead as well. The authenticity of both our
faith and our love is based upon what they compel us to do, how
they compel us to behave. So when we think about love as
that decision to act in the best interest of others, we can
replace. Place the word love in this
question and don't ask ourselves, am I loving, but
rather ask am I acting in the best interest of others?
This makes it a lot more practical, a little bit less
abstract, and it makes it may be easier to answer, but harder to
harder to answer at the same time, because this is tangible,
this is real, this is our actions every single day.
And I know that I cannot answer this question yes, 100% of the
time. And I'm willing to bet that
many, if not all of you in the audience also cannot answer this
question. Yes, 100% of the time.
But this is a good question to reflect upon, to recenter
ourselves in that love that we should be having.
I think the natural follow up question to what is love is who
do I have to love? Is it really true that
Christians are supposed to love everyone?
And is it really wrong to hate people even if they've done
horrible things? Let's see what the Bible has to
say. I have these verses if you're
taking notes listed on the screen and they won't be shown
up here. So feel free to follow along in
your bibles. But I'm mostly just going to
read through them and add an additional comment here there.
So we're going to fly through these verses coming up here.
So first of all we must love our spiritual brethren.
And a few verses that deal with that are John chapter 13, verse
34. It says there a new commandment
I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you,
that you also love one another. This is Jesus talking to his
disciples. Furthermore, Matthew 22 verse 36
through 39 says, teacher, what is the great commandment in the
law? Jesus said to him, you shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul
and with all your mind. This is the first and great
commandment. And the 2nd is like it.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
So a brief pause here. Jesus says to love our neighbor,
but what exactly does that mean? You know the word neighbor
usually refers to the person who lives next door to you.
But looking at the Greek word for neighbor in this passage is
very helpful in understanding what Jesus is truly saying.
Here I believe the mic just fell off me.
The Greek word for neighbor. I won't try to pronounce it, but
it can be defined as any other man, irrespective of nation or
religion, with whom we live or whom we chance to meet.
Our neighbor is anyone who is in close proximity to us and
brothers and sisters. That is literally everyone that
we meet on a daily basis. Everyone is our neighbor and
Jesus is telling us we need to love our neighbors, We need to
love everyone. First, John chapter 3, verse 14
and 15 say we know that we have passed from death to life
because we love the brethren. 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. So we know that we must love.
But now John is telling us it's wrong to hate to the point that
if we do hate a brother, we are in God's eyes the exact same as
a murderer. And obviously that would mean
that we are disqualified from receiving eternal life.
Matthew, chapter 5, verses 21 through 24 says you have heard
that it was said to those of old you shall not murder.
Whoever murders will be in danger of the judgement.
But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a
cause shall be in danger of the judgement, and whoever says to
his brother Raqqa shall be in danger of the council.
But whoever says you fool shall be in danger of Hellfire.
Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there
remember that your brother has something against you, leave
your gift there before the altar and go your way.
First be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer
your gift. What's emphasized here is the
importance of reconciliation with brethren.
In this context, it's even put before coming to the altar to
worship. This means that being in good
standing with our brethren is not something that we can be
taking lightly. In fact, it needs to be at the
top of our priority list. The majority of these verses so
far have been dealing with relationships to our spiritual
family. But Jesus also taught about how
we need to be acting toward those who do not act lovingly
toward us. In Matthew chapter 5, verses 43
through 47 says you have heard that it was said you shall love
your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse
you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who
spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of
your Father in heaven. For he makes the sunrise on the
evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the
unjust. For if you love those who love
you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors
do the same. And if you greet your brethren
only, what do you do more than others?
Do? Not even the tax collectors do?
So Jesus is saying, if we love only those who love us, we are
no better than a tax collector. And in this culture that would
have been a huge slap in the face.
Nobody wanted to be likened to a tax collector.
Everyone disliked them, but the point being, we truly show love
by acting in the best interests of even those who hate us.
This doesn't mean that we do what they want us to do
necessarily, but it means that we don't refrain from doing
things like sharing the gospel towards someone just because we
think that they don't like us. It means that we don't stop
acting lovingly toward those who do not act lovingly toward us.
So, having discussed who we need to love, I present this question
Is there someone in your life that you aren't on good terms
with? And you know that if you just
reached out, it would make things better?
Are there any names or any faces that come to mind?
Furthermore, are we acting in a loving way toward people that we
might not feel deserve our love? Are we being kind to people
without expecting kindness in return?
And are we being friendly toward people who are not friendly to
us? What might make it easier to do
these things is understanding why we're supposed to love
others. If we have that motivation it's
going to be a lot easier and the execution of this.
The primary reason I believe for us to love others is simply
because God loves us. In first John chapter 416 it
says and we have known and believed the love that God has
for us. God is love and he who abides in
love abides in God and God in Him.
Furthermore, Romans 5/8 says but God demonstrates his own love
toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us. When we have trouble loving
people, I would advocate that it's usually because that person
did something to us, said something to us, and we don't
think that they deserve our love.
And this verse here really does a great job of pointing out the
irony in that situation. Remember that question I asked?
Do I love people even if I feel they don't deserve my love?
That is a very selfish way to be thinking.
And I know I have been in that position, and I'm sure many of
you have as well. But this verse puts that all
into perspective for us. How can we as sinners claim that
other people are undeserving of our love when God, the perfect
almighty Creator of the universe, gave his only begotten
Son to come to earth, live a life full of suffering and pain,
to die for that person on the cross so that they might have a
hope of eternal salvation? Unless our love is somehow more
precious than God's. Spoiler alert.
SPOILER alert, it isn't. We are in no position to
withhold it. Finally, in first John 411, it
says Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one
another. In beautiful simplicity, John
sums it up. God loves us.
We should love others. What you might consider our
secondary reason for loving others is to show God that we
love Him. We've already established, Read
through those passages that talk about how we're commanded to
love others, and Jesus says in John 1415, if you love me, keep
my commandments. Because we love God, we must
keep His commandments. And because God has commanded us
to love others, failure to do so would be evidence that we do not
truly have a obedience inspiring love for God.
So now ask yourselves this question.
Am I showing the people around me what God's love for man is
like? What God's love for me is like?
Am I demonstrating the love that God showed us when he gave his
only Son to die for a world that hated and rejected him?
Am I being loved? Where have I been loving even
when I won't be loved back? Finally, what happens when we as
Christians truly do have that love that God wants us to in our
lives? What should we expect to see?
First of all we display unity to a divided world.
In John chapter 13, verse 34 and 35 it says a new commandment.
I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you,
that you also love one another. By this all will know that you
are my disciples if you have love for one another.
Our love and unity in the church should be a sign to those in the
world that the church is a place of refuge.
It is a breath of of fresh air in a world that is polluted with
hatred and division. One of the most powerful
evangelistic tools is showing the world that we have this love
and unity and that it is possible when you can't find it
anywhere else in the world. The people in the world are
watching us, and if they look into the church and see a group
of unloving, cruel and divided people, why in the world would
they be drawn in the way that we interact with one another?
We've already discussed this has serious consequences for us
personally in that interaction, but also for those on the
sidelines looking in. Our Christian relationships have
the ability to make or break someone else's willingness to
accept the gospel just because of how we are acting.
So we need to be taking them seriously.
Secondly, when we love, as God would have us, we can stand with
confidence on the Day of Judgement.
First. John chapter 4, verse 17 says
this love has been perfected among us in this that we may
have boldness in the Day of Judgement because as he is, so
are we in this world. When we love as we're supposed
to, we have nothing to fear and that is extremely comforting to
think about. Finally, when we love as we're
supposed to, God abides in US. First, John chapter 4, verse 12
says no one has seen God at any time.
If we love one another, God abides in US and his love has
been perfected in US. Now, I'm not 100% sure about all
the nuances of this verse. This is a very loaded verse, but
what I do know is that it is comforting to think about God
abiding within me. If I keep His commandments, if I
love. There was no one better to have
by your side than God. So in an attempt to wrap it all
up neatly and come full circle, John says in First John 420, if
someone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar.
For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how
can he love God? Whom he has not seen, The answer
is he can't. John's very clear in his
message, if we don't love our brothers and sisters, we can't
love God. So as a final question, do I
love God? It's what it all comes down to.
This is at the root of the problem.
And if the answer is yes, which I'm sure every single one of us
here today hopes that we can answer this question as yes, it
means that we have to love our brethren.
It means that we have to love those in the world.
It means we have to love everyone, both internally and
both externally. That concludes my thoughts for
this afternoon. But we never want to close
without offering the gospel invitation.
This is not my invitation. This is not the congregation
hears invitation. This is Jesus Christ's
invitation, and he died so that you would have the opportunity
to accept it. And that means hearing the word
of God, believing that Jesus is the Son of God, repenting of
your sins, confessing that Jesus is the Son of God, and being
baptized for the remission of sins.
If there is something in your life that is holding you back
from doing this, think about what's important.
Don't let something here on earth stop you from missing that
opportunity. Don't let that opportunity slip
through your fingers. The opportunity that Jesus died
to give you. The opportunity that Jesus died
to give me. Don't wait if you have taken
those steps, though, and you would like to request the
prayers of the Church on your behalf.
Whether it's sin of a public nature, are you just like the
support of the Church? We'd be happy to help you in
that way as well. If there's one of either case,
please come while we stand and sing a song.
We thank you for listening to our podcast put on by the Church
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