Marbury Church of God

Text:  1 John 3:16-24

3:16 We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us–and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

3:17 How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

3:18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

3:19 And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him

3:20 whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

3:21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God;

3:22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

3:23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

3:24 All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

Key verse:  1 John 3:18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

How do we define love?

1.    John talks a lot about love.  One problem:  Love is often whatever we want it to be.  Is it a warm feeling?  An emotional attraction?  A desire?  A chemical, sexual urge to procreate?  Is it romance?  Understanding?  Trust?  All of these have been suggested, and all have some validity.  All, however, fall short.  For John, love is the defining evidence  of new life in Christ (v.14), so this question is of utmost importance.  John starts by making a contrast (v. 15) between love and hate.  He draws, no doubt, from his wealth of exposure to the teaching of Jesus to point out that hatred and murder are the same (v.15; compare Matthew 5:21-22 and Matthew 5:43ff), when he makes the equation between hate and murder. With this stark picture in mind, he draws the ultimate contrast, illustrating Matthew 4:44 with the example of Christ himself, and defines love not in any of these fuzzy ways, but by a particular kind of action.

2.    Verse 16:  This is how we know what love is, that he laid down his life for us.  We could stop there, as much of the world does, and say, “Thank God that the unique, eternal, Son of God laid down His life for us!  Thank God that because He did that, we never have to repeat such an action!   Thank God that Christ is so unlike us”, says even much of the Church, “that we should not ever be so arrogant as to think that we could or should act as He did.“  After all, as John 10:17-18 clearly says, he has power to lay down His life, as well as to take it up again.  We could go on and on in this vein, separating what is true of Christ from what is possible for us, as much of Christendom does, if it were not that John gives us no time, no room, to develop such an argument, comforting though  it may be; instead, he keeps going, and in the same sentence, he says:  —and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

3.    To see a need and refuse to do something about it:  v.17 suggests that this is clear evidence that the love of God is not present.

4.    V. 18 — Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.  Truth is a matter of the heart, and action is, well, action.  One runs deeper than mere words, and the other is more visibly effective.   Here John is substantially in agreement with James, who says, ”Be doers of the word, not merely hearers“ — but he goes further in saying that the ”doing“ is ”action“ not just ”speech.“
⁃    It’s important to express love in words, but mere words are not enough.

⁃    Has God called you to action?  Yes he has.

There is someone God has appointed you to love.  Action is love demonstrated.  Remember that action is not just any activity, but sacrificial action, action that is described as ”laying down one’s life.“  What have you actively laid down for your beloved?  What have you done to demonstrate it?  As Paul says in Romans 5:8—”God proves [“demonstrates”] his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.“  This is pre-emptive love, love which does not wait to be reciprocated, love which is a demonstration of a power greater than the powers of this world. ”I have power to lay it down“ — thus Jesus — ”and I have power to take it up again.“   Has not God given you the power to lay down your privilege, lay down your authority, lay down your comfort, lay down your right, lay down your prerogative, not to make you a helpless victim of an unjust situation (though that’s what Jesus looked like also) but already knowing that you have “power to take it up again.”  That is the power of love in action.

5.     When we demonstrate such power, a spiritual witness, the very presence of the Holy Spirit which Jesus himself promised, “the Spirit of truth” John 14:17, is so present that we will “know we are of the truth” {v. 19), and “assure our hearts before him”

6.    “whenever our hearts condemn us”….. why does he include this?  John knows by long experience the same thing that is obvious to you and me:  you can never love enough, you can never do enough, there is only so much action that can be taken, and some needs still seem to remain unmet; there is a limit to what we can physically do.  It is a normal human response that even good, faithful, obedient saints of God will feel, from time to time, like we have fallen short.  But here’s the good news:  at such times, “God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (v. 20).  He knows our intent, our effort, our weakness; he knows also the circumstances we can’t see, the hidden resources he can bring to bear, the others who also in their faithfulness can come alongside us to help.  Thus he, by his Spirit can remind us that for those who walk in this way, who take upon themselves the very cross of Christ, not as a burden to bear with quiet suffering but as a privilege to take on the challenge such as he took with the strength such as was supplied to him:   that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

7.     With our hearts thus assured, (v. 21), we can come back to the place where “our hearts do not condemn us”  — if indeed we had departed from it — and experience again “boldness before God.”  Faith now is expressed as obedience, and results in miraculous answers to prayer (v. 22).

8.   Summary:  Believe, love, be faithful, and experience the presence of the Spirit (v. 23-24).