Sermon Tone Analysis

Remain In Love

I John 3:11-24

“And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.”

I John 3:23

Do you realize that we, as the church, are on the march to Pentecost?

Easter was 5 weeks ago, and Pentecost is two weeks away.

Back in about 33 A.D. the tomb was empty, and Jesus had been seen in his resurrected body by over 500 people.

In two weeks, on Pentecost, we will hear the story of how the church was born so very long ago.

We’ve been looking at the “LOVE ONE ANOTHER” statements of the Bible.

This morning we open one of the letters of John.

John was young man when he met Jesus.

In Matthew 4:18 we are told that Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee and called out to two brothers, Peter and Andrew, and said, “Come, follow me.”

A little father down the shore, Jesus saw James and his brother, John, in their father’s boar.

“Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.”

(Mark 1:20)

What a Memorial Day for us to remember Jesus’ call to follow Him.

I think of all the things that John must have seen during his lifetime.

All the miracles he experienced first had.

All the teachings he heard.

All the hatred that he saw and experienced at the hands of those who hated Jesus.

John started following Jesus around 30 A.D. John lived a long life and he became a prolific writer.

John wrote 5 of the 27 books of the New Testatment: The Gospel of John, First, Second and Third John and the book of Revelation.

John writes the Gospel around 85 A.D. and writes the first, second and third letters around 90 A.D. And, finally, John wrote the book of Revelation around 95 A.D. By the time John started writing, he is in Ephesus and he is their pastor.

John is a much older man by now and is one of the only surviving eyewitnesses of Jesus, his teachings and miracles.

Think about that.

John was a young man when he met Jesus in 30 A.D. and by 90 A.D. he is writing everything down that he saw and experienced.

John must be at least 75-80 years old as he writes the book of first John.

Let us come to the Lord in prayer as we prepare our hearts and minds to hear God’s Word.

“Lord God of all life and everlasting love, come into our hearts and minds today and fill us with more and more of your love.

Keep showing us how to love one another.

Amen.”

I John 3:11-24

This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother.

And why did he murder him?

Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.

13 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.

14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers.

Anyone who does not love remains in death.

15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?

18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us.

For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them.

And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.[i]

The Message of Love One Another

Last week, we began our series on “Love One Another.”

We learned that this phrase is used eleven times in the New Testament.

Jesus used it two times when He washed the disciple’s feet.

Peter used it twice, and John penned it six times.

The Apostle Paul does not want to be left out, so he will use “Love One Another” one time.

Today we will look at two of John’s six “Love One Another” statements.

Listen again to verse eleven, “This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.”

The Greek word John uses here for “love” is “agapao.”

In this context the word for love is a present active verb.

What John is trying to say is, “You have heard the good news, the great tidings of great joy and the message is this: love one another today, tomorrow and forever.

Never stop loving others.”

In his commentary, David Allen wrote, “Love is the circulatory system of the church.”

That is a profound thought.

I thought a lot about this statement this past week.

I am happy to report that I think I’ve turned the corner from chelation.

My 12-week migraine, and severe flu-like symptoms are decreasing.

I’m feeling so much better.

I was really kind of happy to read about how “love is the circulatory system of the church.”

This means that the church cannot exist without love, and if we take John seriously here, then we cannot ever stop loving one another.

The Ministry of Love One Another

To illustrate his point, John writes about Cain and Abel.

Cain let his “love one another” principle drop, his heart was hardened, and he had hated his brother.

When Cain’s heart was hardened, he was filled with so much hatred that he killed his own brother.

Wow!

What a powerful warning we are studying today.

Do not let our heart get so hardened that only hatred rules.

When we stop loving one another, the flow of love is blocked.

Love is the circulatory system of the church.

When we think of love, we often think of God’s love and John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

After using Cain as an illustration of not loving, John’s second illustration is Jesus.

Look again at verse sixteen, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”

“This is how we know what love is; Jesus laid down His life for us …”

When Jesus gathered His disciples in the Upper Room on the night he was betrayed, He told them that the world would hate them and for them to take courage.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

(John 15:13)

As we look at these verses, we cannot help but to stop and realize that John was there in the Upper Room with Jesus.

Jesus loved John.

I wonder if Jesus was thinking, “John, burn these words in your heart and mind.

You are going to live a long time.

You are going to tell everyone how important it is to love one another—not just for today but for always.”

I remember when I first read about Boris Kornfeld.

I have never forgotten his story.

In a story from Chuck Colson’s book, Loving God, Colson told the riveting story of the Jewish doctor in a Russian concentration camp known as a gulag.

What crime against the state that Boris had committed, no one knows?

Boris Kornfeld met a fellow prisoner, a committed Christian, whose name we don’t know, who engaged him in conversation about Jesus.

Boris often heard the prisoner recite the Lord’s Prayer and found himself strangely drawn to the words.

While carrying on his medical duties amidst filth and squalor day after day, Kornfeld began to see the parallels in the Jewish people who had suffered so much as a nation and the suffering of Jesus and he became a Christian.

When Kornfeld discovered an orderly stealing food from his patients, he reported him to the commandant.