How’s Your Love Life?
A Superlative Witness That You Belong to Jesus
1 JOHN 3:11-18
Main Idea: Those who truly belong to God in Christ will live and love after the pattern of Jesus rather than the pattern of the world.
I. Love One Another and Do Not Follow the Example of Cain (3:11-15).
A. Love is at the heart of the gospel (3:11-13).
B. Love provides assurance that we have eternal life (3:14-15).
II. Serve One Another and Follow the Example of Jesus (3:16-18).
A. Service to others may mean dying (3:16).
B. Service to others always involves giving (3:17-18).
One of the most effective ways of teaching is using contrasts and comparisons. For example, I might contrast what it means to be a male with what it means to be a female. I might highlight the attributes of a tall person by standing him next to a short person. Boy/girl. Big/small. Fast/slow. Up/down. North/South. East/West. Winner/loser. These are all simple examples, but we use this teaching technique all the time. And this technique is not new. The apostle John also found drawing comparisons and contrasts to be an effective means of teaching theology and spiritual truth. Throughout 1 John, the apostle draws our attention to various contrasts:
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Walk in darkness/Walk in light |
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Say we have no sin/Confess our sins |
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Keep God’s commands/Do not keep God’s commands |
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Those who love the world/Those who love the Father |
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They/Us |
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Antichrist/Christ |
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Deny Christ/Confess Christ |
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Confident at Christ’s coming/Ashamed at Christ’s coming |
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Those who commit sin/Those who do what is right |
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Children of the Devil/Children of God |
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Hates his brother/Loves his brother |
3:10ff |
John will now develop this last theme of hate/love as he moves us into the second major section of this letter. In 1:5–3:10 the message was “God is Light.” Now in 3:11–5:12 the message is “God is Love.” And because God is love, Christians are to love one another.
The importance of Christians loving one another cannot be overstated. In fact, to hate your brother is akin to murdering your brother, just like Cain murdered Abel in Genesis 4. Jesus teaches us that loving one another provides a superlative witness to a watching world. Remember what He said in John 13:35: “By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Love is the quintessential evidence that says to others, “I belong to and follow after Jesus. My life is to be identified with His.”
Once again, by vivid contrast, John instructs us and enables us to examine the genuineness of our love life. The test is convicting. It is also clear.
Love One Another and Do Not Follow the Example of Cain
Verse 11 flows naturally out of verse 10. The child of God, having been born of God, does what is right, which includes loving his brother. In contrast, the child of the Devil does not do what is right, and he hates (even murders!) his brother. There is a crystal clear contrast between children of God and children of the Devil, between lovers and haters. To make this plain, John goes back in time, all the way back to the beginning. There, he draws our attention to the first murder in human history, the murder of Abel by his brother Cain. He will address both the act and the sinister source behind the act. Just as God delights in giving life, the Devil equally delights in producing death by instigating murder.
Love Is at the Heart of the Gospel (1 John 3:11-13)
In language reminiscent of 1 John 1:5, John says he has a message, a report, which his readers had heard at the beginning of their new life in Christ through the gospel. And what is the gospel message that they had received at conversion? It is simply this: “We should love [continually] one another” (v. 11). This word about love was not just something they heard at the beginning of their Christian experience. It is a word repeated again and again throughout the New Testament.
I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. (John 13:34)
This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you.
(John 15:12)
This is what I command you: Love one another. (John 15:17)
Show family affection to one another with brotherly love.
(Rom 12:10)
Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. (Rom 13:8)
For you were called to be free, brothers; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.
(Gal 5:13)
Therefore I, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, accepting one another in love. (Eph 4:1-2)
And may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone, just as we also do for you. (1 Thess 3:12)
About brotherly love: You don’t need me to write you because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. (1 Thess 4:9)
And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works. (Heb 10:24)
By obedience to the truth, having purified yourselves for sincere
love of the brothers, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. (1 Pet 1:22)
Above all, maintain an intense love for each other, since love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Pet 4:8)
And in this letter of 1 John, we will see this command to love given again in 3:23 and 4:7,11,12. It also appears in 2 John 5. Obviously, God thinks our loving one another is extremely important.
John, following Jesus, says we are to love consistently and comprehensively, continually and individually. Play no favorites. Show no biases. Practice no discriminations among your brothers and sisters. After all, we are family! Love for others flows out of God’s love for us. It is at the heart of the gospel.
To love our brothers and sisters is to stand in stark contrast to the first murderer in the Bible, the man named Cain. This tragic and well-known story, recorded in Genesis 4:1-6, is the only direct Old Testament reference in 1 John. Cain’s actions revealed his true spiritual father, the Devil (cf. 1 John 3:10). As Jesus taught in John 8:44,
You are of your father the Devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of liars.
The word “murder” means to butcher, slay, or slaughter. It speaks of a violent and brutal killing. And what were Cain’s motives? Moved by his spiritual father, “the evil one,” his heart was filled with jealously, envy, and resentment. Abel brought a sacrifice to God that was acceptable and “righteous.” Cain brought one that was evil and unacceptable (v. 12). Cain hated Abel over this and murdered his own flesh and blood.
To all of this John says, “Do not be surprised” (v. 13). It could be translated, “stop being surprised.” It is natural for the world (represented by Cain) to hate you because its father hates you (cf. v. 1). Do not be surprised or caught off guard when people of this world, people like Cain, hate you. It is their nature. However, don’t you be like Cain. Don’t descend to their level. Resist that primal urge to return hate with hate, murder with murder. The gospel has changed you, and love is at the heart of the gospel message. Where the gospel has taken root, love will be the natural fruit.
Love Provides Assurance That We Have Eternal Life
(1 John 3:14-15)
Loving others has numerous positive benefits and blessings. One is that we know we have been born again and have eternal life. In fact, John says we have an abiding and settled knowledge “that we have passed from [spiritual] death to [eternal] life because we love [continually] our brothers.” In contrast, “The one who does not love remains in death” (v. 14).
Now, let’s be clear on what John is saying and what he is not saying. John is saying that continually loving others out of “gospel gratitude” (cf. v. 16) for all that Jesus has done is evidence, a proof, that we have definitely and decisively moved from the realm of spiritual death into the realm of spiritual life. What he is not saying is that eternal life is earned by loving others, but rather that loving others is evidence that we already have eternal life. It therefore becomes another avenue of assurance of eternal life. As I love my brothers and sisters in the community of faith well, I am assured that I am in the family of God.
Interestingly, the word for “brother” occurs 15 times in this letter and almost always has in view the family of God. John, no doubt, would affirm our love for all men and women in general, but here he calls for us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ in particular. Paul says something similar to this in Galatians 6:10 when he writes, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, we must work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.”
Those whose lives are characterized by hatred give evidence that they have never been born again, that they “remain in death” (v. 14; cf. Eph 2:1-3). Further, not only do they live in the world of spiritual death; they are actually murderers in the eyes of God (v. 15). John is clear: an attitude of hate in your heart is equivalent to having murder in your heart. John again is drawing from words he had heard from Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said in Matthew 5:21-22,
You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, “Fool!” will be subject to the Sanhedrin. But whoever says, “You moron!” will be subject to hellfire.
John says it is really quite simple: no love, no life. Love and hate are moral, spiritual opposites. Both cannot reside at the same time in the same heart. “Our love for one another is the flower and fruit that indicates eternal life is at the root” (Anyabwile, unpulished sermon notes).
Serve One Another and Follow the Example of Jesus
Real love, God’s love, is shown as well as spoken. It is tangible and not theoretical. You see in our fallen, broken world how we are so often confused and unsure as to what real love is. Sometimes we are simply wrong in our understanding. Yes, we think about love, talk about love, write about love, and sing (a lot!) about love. But do we really and truly know what love is?
No doubt love was truly expressed, given, and received by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden up to the time of the fall. Then everything went terribly wrong, and murder soon followed with Cain killing Abel. And it hasn’t stopped yet; it has only escalated. We see this clearly as more details emerge about the horrible abortion holocaust in China. On March 14, 2013, the Chinese Health Ministry reported that 336 million abortions have taken place in that country since 1971 (Strode, “China”). Such statistics stagger us, but they should not surprise us. The god of this world (2 Cor 4:4) appears to be winning the day. And yet, in another amazing reversal, there will be the death of death through a death, the death of the Son of God who “laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16).
Service to Others May Mean Dying (1 John 3:16)
Many have noticed the beautiful relationship that exists between John 3:16 and 1 John 3:16. The former is a demonstration of love. The latter is an explanation of love. John 3:16 says that God gave His Son for us. First John 3:16 says we should give ourselves for others. The Bible says that if you want to see love, look at the cross! The Bible says that if you want to show love, look at the cross! The Bible says that if you want to know love, look at the cross! The Bible says that if you want to live love, look at the cross!
We come to an acquired and abiding knowledge of what love is when we consider the penal, substitutionary sacrifice of the Son of God on our behalf. He lived the life we should have lived but didn’t. And He died the death we should have died but now don’t have to die. Love, at its core, is about self-sacrifice and self-substitution. And in our case, it is for those who are completely and totally unworthy. In the song “You Are My King,” Chris Tomlin reminds us that our King died on our behalf! Once we take in and really get our head around this amazing truth, our only reasonable reaction is to honor God. If we really understand the magnitude of what has been done for us and the implications for eternity, we won’t feel obligated to show gratitude; we won’t be merely willing to be thankful; we will joyfully present our lives to God as a living sacrifice in grateful worship.
That is exactly what John tells us. Out of “gospel gratitude” for His laying down His life for us, “we ought to lay down our own lives for the brothers.” Warren Wiersbe says, “‘Self-preservation’ is the first law of physical life, but ‘self-sacrifice’ is the first law of spiritual life” (Be Real, 127). Jesus said it like this in John 15:13: “No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.”
Service to Others Always Involves Giving (1 John 3:17-18)
“I would die for you” sounds noble and spiritual. It sounds awesome. But while you are willing to die for me, would you give me something to eat? Could you share an extra shirt or better yet, a coat? Could you let me sleep on your couch until I get back on my feet? Could you help out with my electric bill or a few meds for my sick kids? You see, I don’t need you to die for me. I just need a little help. “Talk is cheap” is a modern axiom, and I suspect that the concept originated in the Bible! In verses 17-18, John gets down where the rubber meets the road and provides some basic, real, and practical advice about love in the context of everyday living.
Verse 17 introduces a negative example using a “greater to lesser” argument based on verse 16. Jesus had a life to give and you have stuff (“this world’s goods”) to give. Jesus saw your need and gave His life. You, however, see your brother’s need and “close your eyes” (lit. “entrails,” i.e., feelings). How then, “can God’s love reside in” you? The obvious and undeniable answer is, “It doesn’t.” It is not there.
John knows that our hearts control our hands. A closed heart will always result in closed hands and is evidence that your heart has never been opened by the “key of the gospel” of God’s grace poured out in Jesus. The brother of Jesus, James, has the same concern as he writes in Jas 2:15-17,
If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead by itself.
Dead faith. Dead love. Neither one does any good to others.
John concludes his argument in verse 18 with a simple maxim that follows a negative-to-positive line of reasoning: “Little children, we must not love with word or speech, but with truth and action.” Love is so much more than making a good profession or a great speech that uses impressive rhetoric (cf. 1 Cor 13:1-3). No, love is an action word that always expresses itself in good deeds done in the context of truth. John adds the word “truth” for a very good reason. Words can be empty and actions can be hypocritical. You may choose to do nothing, though your words promise much. On the other hand, you may do something for someone, but your motives are impure and your intentions evil. We call this manipulation. God cares about both our motives and our actions. He wants us to love and care for others just like we have been loved and cared for by Jesus. Once more, it is clear isn’t it? Do you want to see love in deed and in truth? Just look to the cross.
Conclusion
Living out the gospel means having open ears, open eyes, and open hands for the hurting. It means loving others as we have been loved by Jesus. The late John Stott summarized it so well:
Hatred characterizes the world, whose prototype is Cain. It originates in the Devil, issues in murder, and is evidence of spiritual death. Love characterizes the church, whose prototype is Christ. It originates in God, issues in self-sacrifice, and is evidence of eternal life. (The Letters of John, 148)
So, let us not just talk about love; let us truly demonstrate love. After all, Jesus didn’t just say something. He did something!
Reflect and Discuss