SERMON GM14-026
SERIES: The Christian Life Viewed as Sonship
SETTING: North Kelso Baptist Church
SERVICE: Sunday AM
SUBTITLE: The Test of Sonship (Part
5)
SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:10b-15
SUBJ: John confirms his readers with the test of love
SUMMARY: The God-given love for
fellow-believers is proof or your salvation
SCHEME: that Christians love their fellow-believers proving the reality of
their salvation
_____________________________________________________________
CHRISTIAN LIVING IN
A WORLD OF CHAOS
The
Christian Life is Viewed as Son-ship
The Test of
Sonship
1 John 3:10b-15
(Part 5)
INTRODUCTION
A.
The Character of Love
In his book Mere
Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Do not waste your time bothering whether you 'love' your
neighbor act as if you did. As soon
as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you
will presently come to love him. If you
injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you
will find yourself disliking him less."
[Let me illustrate this
statement with a story…]
Newspaper columnist and Pastor George Crane told of a wife who came into his office full of hatred toward
her husband. "I do not only want
to get rid of him, I want to get even. Before I divorce him, I want to hurt him as much as he has me."
Dr. Crane suggested an ingenious plan
"Go home and act as if you really love
your husband. Tell him how much he means to you. Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be
as kind, considerate, and generous
as possible. Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy him. Make him believe you love him.
After you've convinced him of your
undying love and that you cannot live
without him, then drop the bomb. Tell him that you're getting a divorce. That will really hurt
him."
With revenge in her eyes, she smiled
and exclaimed, "Beautiful, beautiful.
Will he ever be surprised!" And she did it with enthusiasm. Acting "as if."
For two months she showed love,
kindness, listening, giving, reinforcing,
and sharing.
When she didn't return, Pastor Crane
called. "Are you ready now to go through
with the divorce?"
"Divorce?" she exclaimed.
"Never! I discovered I really do love him."
Her actions had changed her feelings.
Motion resulted in emotion. The ability
to love is established not so much by fervent promise as often repeated deeds.
B. The
Character of God
So
it is with us. We learn that God is a God of love. As a matter of fact John
clearly reveals this characteristic of God when he says, 4:8, ‘God is love.’
The teaching of the word of God emphasizes that having faith in a God of love
requires believers to be people who love other believers.
Our theme is: “Genuine believers love fellow believers”
This
is a good reminder for us all that the Test of Sonship demands the practice of
love for fellow believers which proves our salvation to be genuine.
Proposition: The
God-given love for fellow-believers is proof of your salvation
Interrogative Sentence: So, how does our love for
fellow believers prove our salvation to be real?
Transitional Sentence: In our text, John identifies
three (3) ways that our love for fellow believers prove our salvation to be
genuine.
2A THE CHRISTIAN LIFE VIEWED AS SONSHIP (2:29-4:6)
We continue in this section of scripture that demonstrates that the Christian life if viewed as a life of Sonship.
Like the first section that demonstrated
that the Christian life viewed as fellowship, John issues a series of tests.
The first test was that Sonship, or
being a child of God demanded the practice
of righteousness. John made it clear that a genuine child of God habitually or consistently makes it a
practice to do works that are both
motivated by and in-line with the divine nature that was imparted to the believer at the moment of salvation.
Now we come to John’s second test of
Sonship. In this section, John will
make it clear that…
2B Sonship Demands
the practice of love (2:29-3:10a)
John makes a transition from
righteousness to love. For John these two ideas related. You could
almost say that these two ideas might be saying the same thing.
[The
first thing that we see is…]
1C The
Exhortation to practice love (3:10b-15)
[How does love for fellow human believers prove your
salvation?
The first way is…]
1D …by
revealing your character (10)
John uses
these tests to show who is a genuine
child of God and who is not.
John makes
it clear that there is a clear division of two groups of
“sons” or children. There are sons, or children of God and there
are sons, or children of the devil. There is no middle
ground for John.
There is
no third category. Listen to what he says:
“In
this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest…” (10)
The word
for manifest means “apparent, evident, or known. The idea
is that something is “to be plainly recognized or known.”
The false
teachers have been telling John’s readers that they are the
real children of God and for these readers to also be children
of God they must abandon what John and the apostles had
taught and comply
with their teaching.
Some of
John’s readers are confused. They don’t know who the real
children of God are and so John tells them in verse 10 that there are
two distinct ways
to tell who a genuine child of God is and who
isn’t:
The first
test we have already looked at, but John gives it again.
“…whoever
does not practice righteousness is not of God.
[We need to remember two things:]
·
John is not saying that genuine children of God do not sin or that sin
is impossible
·
John is saying anyone who does not habitually perform [present tense
verb] acts of righteousness is not a part of the family of God
These false teachers were teaching that a person
could be righteous regardless of his/her
actions and behavior simply by becoming a member of their “elite”
society.
John insists that the person
who is actually “doing righteousness” is righteous.
We pick up this week the last
phase of verse 10
“…nor is he who does not love his
brother.”
First of all – this phrase
is a parallel to the first phrase that we just looked at. These two phrased
together provide us with the two
sides of the test of Sonship:
·
The habitual, consistent practice of righteousness
·
Love for fellow believers
Second, so that there is no
confusion, John is not talking about one or maybe an occasional act of
kindness or love, but the continuing
practice of love.
The
point is this – John exhorts his readers to love one another. The first reason
behind his exhortation to love fellow believers is the fact that our consistent
love for one another reveals our character of being a child of God or a child
of the devil.
Our theme is: “Genuine believers love fellow believers”
This
is a good reminder for us all that the Test of Sonship demands the practice of
love for fellow believers which proves our salvation to be genuine.
Proposition: The
God-given love for fellow-believers is proof of your salvation
[How
does love for fellow believers prove your salvation? The first way is that it reveals your
character. The second way that love for our fellow believers prove our
salvation is…
2D …by
remembering our command (11-13)
“For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one
another…”
In John 13:34-35 Jesus told
the disciples:
“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.”
(John 13:34-35, NKJV)
God’s
people are a loving people. The love that God infuses into us, because
He is love, is the motivation to love other believers.
When this motivation is present, genuine Sonship
is proved and
when this motivation is not present,
then genuine
salvation is not present.
Ø This word for message is
used only one time in the NT – right here
Ø It means message,
announcement, proclamation, command, or order
John says to his readers you readers
have already heard this message, this
order at the beginning. Beginning of what?
Our verb, “you have heard” actually
helps us out. It means from the time
that they had first heard the gospel. The command to love fellow believers was a part of the original message
that came from Jesus Christ Himself.
To consistently love fellow believers
is not an option. It is not a choice
that we have. We are not free to choose to love or to choose not to love. This is the natural outcome of
genuine salvation.
John does not want anybody confused
when he appeals to their memory about
this command to love one another.
John gives his readers two examples of
the kind of attitude and actions that
Christians must avoid:
Ø Cain, who murdered his
brother
Ø World who rather than loves
Christians, actually hates Christians
“…not as Cain who was of the wicked one and
murdered his brother…”
John doesn’t actually say that Cain
hated Abel, but he sure does imply it.
Abel had obeyed God and that obedience
stung Cain just as if it were a
physical rebuke of Cain.
Simply by being in the presence of
Abel Cain was in the presence of Abel’s
righteousness and the righteousness of Abel actually condemned Cain. Cain knew this and Cain hated Abel because of it.
“And why did he murder him? Because his
works were evil and his brother’s righteous.”
Cain saw that what Abel did was right
and pleased God. Cain could see
that what he did, did not please God and was not right. Abel’s good works judged and condemned Cain’s bad
works.
Cain’s response to this condemnation
was not to repent and seek the righteousness
that his brother had, but to rid himself of the person whose presence condemned him.
Cain’s hatred led him to murder his
very own brother.
Love produces
sacrifice, hatred seeks to destroy.
I
want you to take note of something here that is very important to understand.
Cain was not jealous of his brother, nor did Cain want to be like his brother.
Cain
hated righteousness. Abel’s righteousness put Cain in a bad light. It revealed
Cain as who he really was inside.
So John is telling his readers that
they cannot walk in the same footsteps
of Cain. His readers must remember and obey the commandment that they had heard when they had first been saved, to love one another.
What
do we learn here? To be like Cain, to hate our brother and not loving our
brother, or genuine believers, reveals the fact that one is a child of Satan
and not a child of God.
I
think the reason church fights and splits are so vicious is because of at least
two reasons:
·
Many of the participating members are not really Christians
·
Their consequent deeds motivated by the flesh (not being in Christ) are
condemned by the deeds of the genuine believers who are in Christ
[So,
the first example that we are not imitate is Cain. The second is…]
THE WORLD
John
moves from talking about Cain to the world.
“Do not
marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you.”
Stop
being surprised John is saying. This is actually a command. Stop doing it. So,
John’s readers were surprised that the world hated them. They didn’t want the
world to hate them. Also the world’s hatred of Christians is not a reason to be
surprised. It is natural that the wicked hate the righteous.
By
the way this is the only place where John addresses his readers as brothers.
Everywhere else he calls them little children, children, or beloved.
It
seems that the reason John calls them brothers here is to place himself on the
same level as his readers.
I
am sure John remembers when Jesus told the disciples:
“If the world
hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the
world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but
I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:18-20, NKJV)
Just like Cain hated Abel because
of Abel’s righteousness, the world
will hate you because of your righteousness. Those who are not genuine believers are members
of the devil’s family. The
characteristic trait of non-Christians is to hate Christ and Christianity.
Just
like Abel’s righteousness behavior condemned Cain, your righteous behavior condemns the world
ungodliness. And for that
the world hates you.
This is just like Cain. The world is
not jealous of Christians. The world
does not want to be like Christians. Christians makes the world look bad. So the world hates Christians
just like Cain hated Abel.
The
reason that John used Cain as an example is simple. Cain hated his brother, the
world hates Christians. The reason for the hatred is the same reason. The
wicked cannot tolerate the presence of righteousness.
The
Jews wanted to kill Jesus by throwing him off a cliff
The
Jews wanted to kill Paul
Cain
hated Abel
The
world hates Christians
Why?
The wicked cannot tolerate the presence of righteousness.
Our theme is: “Genuine believers love fellow believers”
This
is a good reminder for us all that the Test of Sonship demands the practice of
love for fellow believers which proves our salvation to be genuine.
Proposition: The
God-given love for fellow-believers is proof of your salvation
[How
does love for fellow believers prove your salvation? The first way is that it reveals your
character. The second way that love for our fellow believers prove our
salvation is remembers our command.
There
is a third and final way that love for our fellow believers proves your
salvation. It proves your salvation…
3D …by ratifying our conversion
“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 murder
has eternal life abiding in him.”
Here
in these two verses John restates the test that he had given in 2:9-11.
Love,
Christ-like love, sacrificial love for Christians is evidence that you are
truly or genuinely saved.
Hatred
for Christians is evidence that you are not truly
or genuinely saved.
The
world is characterized by hatred. But Christians have confidence that they
have passed out
of the “world” and passed from the death of the world
to life.
This
is a conclusion by the way. We conclude we are
saved, but this conclusion is based on actual experience.
Just
for the record, the passing from death to life shows
the only two spheres into which the entire human
race is divided. There are those who are dead
– the world/lost and –the Christian/saved.
The
nice thing here is that the verb for passed is a perfect tense verb. This transfer has
already occurred in the past and as a result life
has already been
entered. Eternal life is not a state to enter when
we die but eternal life begins at regeneration.
John
is careful with his language. John does not say
that loving our brothers earns eternal life. Those
with eternal life love their brothers.
John
goes to say: “He who does not love his brother abides in death.”
Remember John is talking about
a habitual practice of love. A Christian is one who loves; the person who does not love is not a member of
the family of God. A person who does not love is not
a member of
the family of God.
Notice
what John did not say – he did not say that the
one who does not love dies, he said he who does
not love remains in death. This means that he existed
in death from birth and he continues to stay in death which is opposed to those who
love the brothers
and have been transferred from death to life.
John
continues with this sentence: “Whoever hates his brother is a murder, and
you know that no murder has eternal life abiding in him.”
Remember we are talking
about the confirmation of
genuine conversion.
This
is an interesting statement by John.
First
thing to note by John’s grammar he is not talking
about someone who gets caught up in a moment
of anger toward someone.
Secondly
– John is talking about somebody who continually
hates his brother as a continuing habit.
Thirdly,
if you compare vs 14 with vs 15 and “he who
does not love” with “the one who hates” John puts
this in a very, very sobering manner.
There
is no middle ground – iow, not to love is to hate.
You
cannot say, “Well, I don’t hate Mary, I just don’t
love her” Not loving her is hating her.
This
person, John says is a murderer.
I think the question we have to ask at
this point is how does hating your brother make you a
murderer?
This
word, murderer is only used twice in the NT. It
is used here and in Jn 8:44.
In
Matthew 5: 21-22, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said to those of
old, ‘You shall not murder, ad whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’
But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall
be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca’ shall be
in danger of the council. But whoever says ‘You fool’ shall be in danger of
hell fire.” (Matthew 5:21-22, NKJV)
It
seems that the hatred is the equivalent of murder when you analyze the
destructive attitude.
Bishop
John of Jerusalem is quoted as having said, “The person whom one hates one desires to see disappear.” Hatred seems to be the desire to get rid of
someone, whether or not one has the nerve or the occasion to do the deed.
Hatred
is an attitude that would harm or destroy the person hated. Anyone who has that
type of an attitude toward a fellow believer reveals that he is not been
converted and is not a member of the family of God.
This
is why John makes it clear that loving our brother confirms our conversion.
John
emphasizes this idea when he concludes this first section with this chilling
thought:
“…and you know that no murderer has eternal
life abiding in him.”
If
you hate a fellow Christian, no matter what the reason, you are a murderer and
as an unrepentant murderer you do not have eternal life, therefore you are not a
genuine believer, you have not been converted.
Lot
of church fights are not between Christians who can’t get along, they are
between people who have never been saved but think that they have been.
John
exhorts his people to love one another. He does so because love for fellow
believers proves your salvation.
Proposition: The
God-given love for fellow-believers is proof of your salvation
Loving
your brother proves your salvation three ways.
·
By revealing your character
·
By remembering your command
·
By ratifying your conversion
Our theme is: “Genuine believers love fellow believers”
This
is a good reminder for us all that the Test of Sonship demands the practice of
love for fellow believers which proves our salvation to be genuine.
But for now, what do you say
we wrap this up?
CONCLUSION
In
conclusion, our love for fellow believers is proof that our salvation is
genuine. However, we can’t confuse the act with the attitude behind the act. We
are not saved because we love, we love because we are saved.
Exhortation: I
exhort you to examine your claim of being a Son or child of God in order to
make certain that you are not practicing a life of consistent hate toward a
fellow believer or believers.
John wrote in 1 John 3:7 (ESV)
“Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices
righteousness is righteousness, just as He is righteous. (NKJV)
Let’s
pray! J
1 comment:
Well done Gregg on a great post, (as always I will read this again later to fully absorb)
Yvonne.
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