Grace Church exists to glorify our Heavenly Father by
 continually making more disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

They’ll know we are Christians by our Love 1 John 2:7-11 Get Real: A Study of 1 John Sermon #8 Emerson said that “life is a series of surprises.” Most pastors today are fairly shock proof. I know I pretty much am. In contemporary culture a pastor deals with nearly everything. We minister among real people and real people are sinners…just like everyone else.   A few years ago though I was really shocked. It was a shock that nearly caused me to leave the ministry, it so broke my heart. I knew that as a pastor that there would be people who would not like me. I knew that because I shared the Gospel, because I taught exclusivity, that only those who have committed their life to Christ will go to heaven, that there would be lost people who might hate me. I knew that because I stood up against immorality and called sin “sin,” there would be lost folk that would despise me. I knew Christians would differ and disagree. I knew that sometimes Christians could get really ticked off and say some very hurtful things. But there was one thing that I was totally unprepared for – after I confronted a church member with serious sin in their life, they spurned the rebuke. Ultimately, our church had to proceed with church discipline, hoping as Scripture instructs us, that this would bring them to repentance. But it was the opposite result. This person became angrier. Hatred is the only word to describe their feelings toward me. And I remember sharing with a friend as I was so broken by that experience, “I knew that when I went into the ministry lost people would hate me but I never expected to be hated by professing Christians.” It was a very dark period in the ministry for me.   The Apostle John was a pastor, the pastor of the church of Ephesus. 1 John was written to deal with heresy and an apparent church split led by these heretics. Personally, I think that John had the same shock that I had – he who was known as the Apostle of Love was blown out of the water by professing Christians who hated and despised him. Six times in this letter he commands us to love one another. George Findlay calls it “the commandment of the epistle.”   Last week we talked about the fact that John gives us three great tests by which to measure the genuineness of a person's Christianity, three tests by which to distinguish a true and living faith in Christ from its counterfeit. Each of these three tests, he introduces in chapter 2, and each he will discuss in greater detail in the remainder of the letter.   Last week we considered the first of these three tests, which John introduces in vv 3-6: the moral test of real life, the test of obedience to God's commandments. Today we’re focusing on the second, the social test of real life, the test of love. Do you love your Christian brothers and sisters? If not, then John says that we are not for real, that we are not spiritually alive. Turn to 2 John 2:7-11 (p. 862).   Frequently, we divorce obedience (which we talked about last time, vss. 3-6) from love. John says love for other Christians is obedience. In verses 7-11  this command to love is described as being old and new. Then, the test of love is applied, twice with negative results (vss. 9 & 11) and once with positive results (vs. 10). John, the Apostle of Love, is simply saying that They’ll know we are Christians by our Love.   Do others know that you’re a Christian because you’re so loving? Let me encourage you to take a heart test this morning as work our way through this section. John tells us then… 1. Love for other believers is an old/new command. “I just love that sweater.” “Man, I really love the old-fashioned kind of baked beans.” “But Mom don’t you realize that Tom and I love each other?” Words, like coins, can be in circulation for such a long time that they just start wearing out. Unfortunately, the word love has lost its value. It’s so overused that it’s become hackneyed and trivialized.   It’s really difficult to understand how a man can use the same word to express his love for his wife that he also uses to express for how he feels about baked beans. When words are used that carelessly, they really mean little or nothing at all. Like the dollar, they have been devalued.    Josh McDowell said, “I believe two of the greatest fears people struggle with today are the fear that they will never be loved and the fear that they will never be able to love.” Christianity is all about meeting that need.   The phrase “dear friends” is a poor translation. The Greek word is agapetoi and literally means beloved. It’s one of John’s favorite words. He uses it six times in 1 John alone. And even in writing to them about God’s command to love, John expresses his love for them by calling them his beloved. It’s also used some another 61 times in the New Testament and was a common early Christian term for endearment.   John is commanding them to love one another, to love their brothers and sisters in Christ. Loving one another is an essential mark of a true Christian. Having said that, we must quickly add that that we must define “love” biblically, not culturally. Culturally, if you mention the word “love,” people think of “niceness.” They picture a loving person as always being nice and sweet towards everyone. He never confronts sin or error. He never gets angry about evil or says anything that might upset someone. Yet if you’re familiar with the gospels, you’ll immediately see that by this cultural definition, then Jesus was not a loving man! Jesus loved the Jewish religious leaders when He said to them, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites” (Matt. 23:15). He loved Peter when He said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan” (Matt. 16:23). He loved the multitude when He said to them, “You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?” (Matt. 17:17). The apostle Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit, Whose first fruit is love, when he said to Elymas, “You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?” Then, he struck him blind (Acts 13:9-11). Now I’m not suggesting we should go around blasting people, while claiming that we love them! My point is that our definition of love, in a practical sense, must encompass all that the Bible says about love, not what a lost world that lives in darkness says.   This past week Jane and I were talking to a lady who studied religion in college. This woman believes being a Christian means being loving and that also means that you believe that all religions are basically the same. You would never tell someone that they are going to Hell because they don’t believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven. Basically, she believes that being loving is being nice.   John tells us that this command to love one another is both an old/new commandment. While he never specifically identifies the old/new commandment in these verses, and he only mentions love once in this entire section, his reference to the new commandment makes it obvious that he is referring to Jesus’ command to love one another.   These are strange words “an old commandment,” “a new commandment” and tough to interpret. What does John mean by old and yet new? There’s a clue here in his words “an old one, which you have had since the beginning.” It’s probably the beginning of your Christian life, as this phrase frequently means in John's letter. It’s something you learned when you first were born-again.   I remember when I got saved as a teenager. I felt an overwhelming sense of love for everyone. Many times when someone comes to Christ, they start hugging everyone around them. They’re overwhelmed with a sense of love. But I wonder if this command goes back further, even to the Creation. We find it at the beginning of the Bible and it runs like a river all through Scripture. Moses taught it in the Law, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). Though it wasn’t yet a written command I believe it’s why God held Cain accountable for murdering his brother, Abel. Cain violated God’s love command with hatred and the outcome of hatred, murder. Jesus identified this as the second greatest commandment, after the command to love God with all your being (Matt. 22:37-40). So in that sense, this command had been with God’s people from the beginning, it was old.   But John also indicates that this old commandment is, in some sense, new. What does he mean “Yet I am writing you a new command”? This is an echo of our Lord’s own words recorded in John 13 in the Upper Room, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (13:34). That phrase “as I have loved you” is the key. To love one another is an old commandment, as old as the human race. But “as I have loved you” is new. The manner by which we love, the process by which this can occur is new. So Jesus’ command is both old and new. It’s so important that we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, that this command is repeated at least a dozen times in the New Testament. Jesus said “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:35). Do you love other Christians? Does your love for other believers demonstrate that you’re a believer? 2. Love for other believers is modeled for us by the Lord Jesus. Bob Russell pastors a large church in Louisville, Kentucky. One weekend they had over 22,000 in three services attend their church. That day their general fund offering was $608,704 and another $27,000 was given to the building fund. You would think that the Senior Pastor of such a large church should deserve some distinction and respect wherever he goes. Right? Not necessarily. Bob tells this story about his parents, who were raised differently from many people today. Bob said, "Recently, my sister asked us to a family get-together at her house in Cincinnati. They were in a new house, so she gave us directions. She said there was room for only two cars in the driveway and we couldn't park on the street. If the driveway was full when we arrived, we were to drive half a block down the street, park at the schoolyard, and walk back to the house. When my family and I arrived, there were no cars in the driveway, so I pulled in. When we went inside, we discovered my parents were already there. They had parked down at the schoolyard and walked so that those who came later wouldn't have to walk that far. So I went back out and moved my car down the schoolyard and walked back.” Bob was humbled by the example of his humble, elderly parents. What a lesson for all of us today! That's the kind of love and thoughtfulness we should have for others. Love attends to others! Love is always thinking of others!   John says of this commandment that “its truth is seen in Him and you” (2:8). It’s true in Him because the Lord Jesus is the greatest example of love in the history of the world. He’s the model of models. He left the splendor and perfect holiness of heaven, where He enjoyed unbroken fellowship with the Father. He came to this cruddy, sin-stained world, not as the conquering King, but as a lowly servant. He was obedient to death on the cross at the hands of sinful men that He could have obliterated, if He had just given the command. He did it all to save sinners who deserved His wrath. This new commandment is supremely true in Him.   Now many of you came to the faith from backgrounds where you didn’t experience love. Your parents abused you verbally or physically. Maybe you were in a series of abusive relationships with the opposite sex. You’ve had no models of how to love other people. It is critical then, once you trust in Christ as your Savior, to learn from God’s Word and from more mature believers how to love others in a practical, daily manner. You will need to unlearn many bad ways of relating to others that you brought with you from the past. You will need to relearn how to think and speak and act in loving ways, especially toward those who wrong you.   It all begins with how you think about others. Instead of thinking first about yourself, your feelings, your rights, and your needs, you must learn to think first about others. How can I show this difficult person the love of Jesus Christ? How can I serve this person in love? Rather than thinking angry thoughts about how he wronged you and how you’ll get even, you begin to think about how Jesus wants you to think about the one who mistreated you. You begin to pray for this person, that he would come to know Jesus. You look for opportunities to return good instead of evil. Let me encourage you to write out Paul’s description of love (1 Cor. 13:4-7) on a card and read it over several times each morning, until you have in your mind how a loving person acts.   What’s surprising is that John also says that this is true in you and me. If you wonder “How?”, the answer is, “Because you and I are now in Him.” It’s true in Him fundamentally and it’s true in us derivatively because of our new relationship with Him. Paul often describes our new relationship as being “in Christ.” John uses the term “abiding” in Him. The glorious truth of the New Testament is that we are joint-heirs with Christ of all His riches (Rom. 8:17; Eph. 1:19-20)! Love for other believers is not natural, it’s supernatural. That’s why it’s a fruit of Spirit, not of the flesh.      Let’s be very honest. There are some people we have a hard time loving for good reason. They’re either wicked or maybe just obnoxious. Maybe they’re arrogant or manipulative. There are others though that we don’t love because we just don’t like them. They don’t do things the way that we think they should be done. Their approach to life is different than ours. And without an objective moral reason, we just subjectively don’t like them.   Love is not optional, particularly in the family of faith. Loving the family means that we forgive as He forgave…that’s everything and anything. Loving the family means that we serve as He served…that means the menial, like washing feet. Loving as He loved means that there are no race or social class barriers.   If you’re lacking in love, maybe for a difficult person then pray, “Lord, You know that I am empty and unable to love this person. But, I am in You and You do not lack love, even for the unlovely. Please love this person through me!” Understanding your new relationship with Jesus Christ is central to practicing biblical love.   This word “true” would be better translated “genuine.” It’s not an act, it’s not artificial. It’s not just words, it’s the real thing.   As we love other believers, we are extending God’s light, “because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” The evil in this world grieves us and weighs heavy on us. As we let God’s love flow through us, we literally beat back the darkness.   Is your love toward the brothers and sisters in this church helping beat back the darkness? Is the love that you are demonstrating toward your own family, your spouse, your parents, your children – helping extend God’s light? We’re not to measure our love against the lost or even against other Christians but against Jesus Christ’s love? So how do you measure up? 3. Love or the absence of love reveals whether we are alive or dead. Some things just go together; peanut butter and jelly, salt and pepper, hammer and nails. There are also things that just go together in the spiritual world. “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him” (vss. 9-11). Love goes with light; hate with darkness. Love goes with eternal life; hate with eternal death. John sees life in terms of black and white, intermediate grays have no existence for him. There is no middle course between love and hatred.   a) Not loving other believers reveals that we are dead and living in the darkness. Over the years I’ve been amazed how hateful, angry, bitter, cynical and even critical some professing believers are. John says that should frighten us about that person’s spiritual condition. Invariably, they haven’t got a clue as to why they keep experiencing broken relationships or why they have so few if any true friends. I don’t know their hearts (only God does), but their lives do not give evidence that they have experienced the love of God in Jesus Christ. Instead, they seem to be in spiritual darkness, blindly colliding from one broken relationship to the next. They do not practice biblical love, which is an essential mark of every true Christian. To hate is to demonstrate yourself a non-Christian. The picture is of a blind person groping in the dark, stumbling and falling over every obstacle in their path. Someone has described utter darkness as a dark room full of black cats at midnight. That’s the spiritual state of the one who hates other believers.   Fish living in the perpetual darkness of the Echo River in the depths of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky have eye sockets but undeveloped eyes? The darkness has effectively blinded their eyes. Persistence in hatred and sin inevitably leads to moral and spiritual blindness.   Are there believers that you just can’t stand to be around? Even seeing them can bring up feelings of disgust in you? Maybe it’s because you’re not related to them. You’re still in the darkness and spiritually dead.   b) Loving fellow believers reveals that we are alive and living in the light. “Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.” Ray Stedman shares of counseling a woman about a physical problem which really had a spiritual root. He discovered that she hated another person and had hated her for years. She told him what had happened, and it was clear she had been mistreated but the thing had eaten like a canker in her heart for years and years. Hate had turned her bitter and rancid and had poisoned all her thoughts. Pastor Stedman told her, "You must find it in your heart to forgive this person, as God has forgiven you." She looked at him and said, "I can’t forgive her, I’ll never forgive her!" He replied, "But God says you must." She said, "But I can’t." So he said, "If you can’t, then you need to face the fact that you are not a Christian. Because if you can’t forgive, then you’ve never been born again." She looked at him and said, "I guess you’re right. I know I am a Christian, and I see that I have just been deceiving myself. I need to forgive." And she did! There came a change in that woman’s life which was like a turning from night into day. She illustrated what John is writing about when he says, “Whoever loves his brother lives in the light.” If she had stayed stuck in unforgiveness and bitterness, she would have tragically demonstrated that she was lost and living in the darkness. Love in action proves that we know the God Who is love!   And wonderfully, “there is nothing in him to make him stumble.” This believer doesn’t cause other believers to stumble.   Freedom is the #1 value of most Americans. As citizens of heaven, loving other believers means we’re willing to limit our liberty, if it would be a stumbling block for a weaker Christian.   Francis Schaeffer, in his book The Church at the End of the 20th Century wrote that love is “the mark of the Christian” and that it is by our love that we demonstrate to a lost world that we are believers. He was right but love is also how a Christian can be assured that they are Christians, have been truly made alive and are living in the light. Love that is real, has been tested, motivates us to reach beyond ourselves and love someone we do not wish to love. This is the love John has in mind and demonstrates that we are for real and children of the light. It’s impossible to be in fellowship with the Father and out of fellowship with our brothers and sisters at the same time.   That’s one reason why God established the local church. What John is talking about is commitment. Loving other believers demands the commitment of a person to a person. You can’t be a Christian alone. When believers become members of a local church, they are making a public commitment to one another. It’s not about writing a check and thinking we did our part. It’s personal. We must bear one another’s burdens, pray for one another, serve one another, support one another in need and care for one another. That’s Biblical love.   Jesus did not shout down from Heaven that He loved us. He lived it and ultimately died it. He stretched out His hands and let them nail them to a cross. That’s the love John is talking about. It’s real, it’s personal and it’s sacrificial. Conclusion: Because we still wear these earth suits, none of us loves perfectly. When we fail, we need to repent and ask forgiveness of the one we wronged. Loving as Jesus loved is a lifelong process of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Those who have met Him at the cross will be growing in love for others.   This love for others is a commandment, not some warm, gushy feeling. And we have hope because God’s commandments are not burdensome and the Spirit gives us the grace and power to obey His commands, which are for our good. Biblical love is a self-sacrificing, caring commitment that shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one loved. You can obey the commandment to love others because He gives His own the power to obey.   This morning if you’re thinking, “I don’t love my mate any more,” or, “I just don’t like that person,” God’s Word is clear: Get to work obeying God’s commandment to love him or her. It’s not optional for the Christ follower, it’s essential!   And friend, if you think love for other believers is optional, be afraid. Perhaps you’re still living in the dark and not even a believer. “Whoever loves his brother lives in the light.” Friend, where do you live? In the light or in the dark? Love goes with light and hate goes with darkness. Do others know that you’re a Christian because you have a reputation for being loving?