Sermon Tone Analysis

No New Commandment

You have had this from the beginning

This was not a new commandment.

The message and content of the commandment has been there from the beginning, “embedded” as it were, in the law of God.

But . . .

as verse 8 says

A New Commandment

It is new in the sense that we are now able to see it in a new way.

Because of Christ’s example, we are now seeing what it means to love our brother/neighbor in a new way.

Having the light of life, will by default cause us to walk as Jesus walked and love like Jesus loved!

Jesus is the LIGHT, the ONLY WAY, the Truth, the Life.

And John takes us back to a previously discussed vital sign, which is Walking in the Light.

Which cannot be true if you aren’t loving your brother or if you hate your brother.

Whoever hates his brother is going to walk around in darkness.

That is not a good thing to do.

It is too easy to get tripped up in the dark.

On the contrary. . .

look what John says next.

Whoever loves their close relative/neighbor will not need to worry about stumbling because they are walking in the light, abiding in Christ and logically we can say that as they love their brothers and sister and neighbors, their path will be easily discerned.

Now John reiterates the danger of hating and not loving.

It is foolish.

Vital Sign: Loving your Brother as Christ loved!

Turn in your Bibles to John 13:34-35- “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

How did Christ love?

Humbly

Submissively

Sacrificially

Last week, as we considered obedience to God as a vital sign, we identified a few ways that Christ walked.

We saw that Christ humbled himself, and we will discuss this further in a few moments.

He also submitted himself to His father’s will and He did in such a way that He not only suffered, He willingly suffered well.

The way Christ walked is directly connected to the way Christ loved, which is what John is getting at in this section of 1 John.

This commandment isn’t new, it is the command that was given from the beginning but it has now been exemplified through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and so in that sense it is a new commandment.

The fulfillment of the commandment has been lived out in front of us so we now know exactly what loving our brother/neighbor looks like.

Christ taught about this while he walked the earth in the flesh.

Now turn to Matthew 5:21,

In the sermon on the mount, he began teaching this “new” command, and shortly after He would live out the very principles that He taught.

Vital Sign: Loving your Brother as Christ loved!

Jesus raised the bar, but He did not just raise the bar, He exemplified the love of God with perfection and He did not just exemplify the Love of God perfectly, He is Love perfectly!

Remember though, as we saw in 1 John 2:5, The Love of God is perfected in us, as we obey and as we walk like Christ, as we love our fellows Christians, brothers and sisters, as Christ loved.

Vital Sign: Loving your Brother as Christ loved!

Let’s get a little critical in our thinking for a minute or two.

Let’s allow ourselves to be a bit cynical for a while.

Let’s ask some difficult questions about this idea of loving your brother as Christ loved.

What did Christ have to give to show us His love?

Is it like a millionaire, giving a penny to a beggar?

Did He really suffer?

Did He really give up anything for us?

He laid down His life, but He knew that He would pick Himself back up, resurrected and living again.

Christ gave up everything, and I mean literally everything.

He willingly withheld the use of some of His attributes, He took on human form and walked this earth as a man, but He gave up so much more.

On the cross, Jesus gave up His innocence, He gave up His fellowship with the Father.

Jesus is quoting Ps 22.

He is experiencing the absolute worst thing anyone could ever experience.

One day is as a thousand years to the Lord.

Those three days in the grave, must have been horrendous.

The infinite perfect matchless son of God, took on the sins of finite man, in obedience to the Father, displaying a selfless love to wretched, vile and selfish men, like you and me.

Vital Sign: Loving your Brother as Christ loved!

For King & Country “There’s a kind of love that God only knows” God only knows what you’ve been through, God only knows what they say about you, God only knows the real you, but there’s a kind of love that God only knows.

This is true on multiple levels.

First, he loves perfectly, completely and righteously, all the time.

Second, Christ suffered far greater a sacrifice than any one of us could ever imagine, and yet He loves us, and understood the joy that was to come, as a result of His very costly gift to us.

According to Heb 4:15,

Christ was tempted in any and every way that we are able to be tempted, yet He did not sin.

He never gave in to His fleshly desire for comfort, or selfishly chose to ignore

However, we might be tempted to rationalize our failure to love.

Listen to one such example

Jesus answers by telling the story of the Good Samaritan.

This is a familiar story.

But Jesus doesn’t directly answer the question.

His answer in the end, is that your neighbor is anyone who needs your help.

In chapter 4 we will delve into topic of love, the source and motive from which genuine love flows, the benefit and blessing of it and also be reminded by John’s repetitiveness that if we don’t love love our brother, we are not abiding in the truth.

But listen to some of the things Paul says in Romans 12:9-13 about brotherly love, about brotherly affection.

This is the same kind of love that John is speaking of hear and of course this is right after Paul instructs the believers in Rome to offer themselves as a living sacrifice, which is their reasonable act of worship.

Here in Romans we see some additional qualities and characteristics of the love that are to have for our brothers and sisters in Christ and the love we are to have for strangers as well.

Genuinely showing, care and concern

Passionately abhorring evil, and grasping to morality

Brotherly affectionate

Eagerly and Increasingly honoring others

Persistently serving the Lord

Happily expectant of our salvation

Patiently bearing with our struggles

Continualy in prayer

Generously giving to the needs of strangers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Ak6FdbQGE