Sunday
Morning Bible Study
October
28, 2012
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel
preached? Does it speak to the broken hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk
– Meat – Manna Preach for a decision Is the church
loved?
Congrats
to Jake and Amanda on their engagement!
This is a book
about Real Issues
What’s real?
What’s the truth?
We’ve been addressing issues like:
Who is God?
What is He really like?
What is a Christian?
What is a Christian really like?
Today we get more into what a real Christian looks like.
3:10-23 The Obedience of Love
:10 In this the children of God and the children
of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of
God, nor is he who does not love his brother.
:10 manifest – phaneros – apparent, manifest, evident, known
Related to phaneroo, to make manifest or
visible
:10 are – esti – to be
Present indicative
:10 does not practice – poieo – to make;
to do
This is a present tense, continual
action.
Present active participle
:10 does not love – agapao – to feel
and exhibit esteem and goodwill to a person, to prize and delight in a thing.
Present active participle
:10 Whoever does not practice
righteousness
Last week we talked about the issue of sin and the Christian.
(1 Jn 3:9 NKJV) Whoever
has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot
sin, because he has been born of God.
It’s not that a Christian never commits a sin, but that the practice of his life is
aiming towards doing the right things, towards doing “righteousness”.
This week, the issue is not about the general idea of “practicing
righteousness”, but the more
specific idea of practicing love for your fellow Christians.
:11 For this is the message
that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another,
:11 the message – aggelia – message,
announcement, thing announced, news
:11 we should love – agapao – to love,
to feel and exhibit esteem and goodwill to a person, to prize and delight in a
thing.
Present active subjunctive
:11 this is the message
Jesus said that love was the identifying mark of those who follow Him.
(Jn 13:34–35 NKJV) —34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I
have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
:12 not as Cain who
was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him?
Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.
:12 murdered … murder – sphazo
– to slay, slaughter, butcher; to put to death by violence
Aorist active indicative both times
:12 Cain … his works were evil
John has
already made the case that if you are truly born of God, then your life will be
aimed at doing the right thing, not the evil thing.
Now John is going to show that the “right thing” is to love one another, and the “wrong thing” is
to hate others.
John uses Cain as an example of someone whose works were evil. Cain and Abel were the first two children of
Adam and Eve.
(Ge
4:3–8 NKJV) —3 And in the process
of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the
ground to the Lord. 4 Abel also
brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not
respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry,
and his countenance fell. 6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry?
And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be
accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is
for you, but you should rule over it.” 8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and
it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel
his brother and killed him.
For Cain, it
started with being “angry” or hating his brother.
His hatred resulted
in the murder of his brother.
Jesus said that hating another person was the same as murder.
(Mt 5:21–22 NKJV) —21
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not
murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ 22 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.
Cain’s works were evil. Do you want
to know what “evil works” look like?
They look like hatred.
:13 Do not marvel, my
brethren, if the world hates you.
:13 Do not marvel – thaumazo – to wonder, wonder at, marvel
With this word I always
have the picture in my head of someone standing there watching something with
their jaw dropping.
:13 hates – miseo – to hate, pursue with hatred, detest
Present active indicative
John is
contrasting “love” and “hate”.
“Love” is a
characteristic of a person who has been born of God.
“Hate” is a
characteristic of a person who is of the world.
We shouldn’t be so surprised if the
people of the world hate us. Jesus told His disciples,
(Jn 15:18 NKJV) “If the world hates
you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.
:14 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.
:14 We know – oida – to see; to know, understand, perceive
Wuest: “know in an absolute manner”
Perfect active indicative
:14 we have passed – metabaino – to
pass over from one place to another, to remove, depart
Perfect active indicative
:14 we love – agapao – to love, to feel and exhibit esteem
and goodwill to a person, to prize and delight in a thing.
Present active indicative
:14 abides – meno – to remain, abide
Present active indicative
:14 we have passed from death to
life
John will tell his readers later that one of the purposes of writing this
letter is to help his readers know for sure that they are saved
(1 Jn 5:13 NKJV) These
things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that
you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name
of the Son of God.
Here he gives one of the ways in which we can know that we are
saved.
The love we
have for others ought to assure us that our salvation is real.
If we don’t love others, then we’ve never “passed over” into life, and we
remain in a state of spiritual “death”.
Nobody knows more
about the change from hatred to loving than John.
Early on, when he and his brother James had just started following Jesus,
there were still a bit of the old rough edges about them. They were known as the “sons of thunder”, and apparently it was
because of their quick temper.
When Jesus and His disciples experienced some rejection by the Samaritans,
John and his brother James were the ones who came up with the idea of calling down fire
like Elijah did so they could roast those sinners. In fact, if the Lord would let them, they
would like to be the ones that gave the orders to heaven for lightning!
(Lk 9:55 NKJV) But He
turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you
are of.
Within a couple of years, John had gone through quite a dramatic
change. By the end of his life, John was known as the
“apostle of love”. This wasn’t because he had
long hair, used words like “groovy”, and flashed the peace sign everywhere he
went. It was because everywhere he would go
he was telling Christians to love one another.
:15 Whoever hates his
brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding
in him.
:15 hates – miseo – to hate, pursue with hatred, detest
Present active participle
:15 murderer – anthropoktonos (“man” + “killer”) – a manslayer,
murderer
:15 you know – oida – to see; to know, understand, perceive
Wuest: “know in an absolute manner”
Perfect active indicative
:15 abiding – meno – to remain, abide
Present active participle
:15 Whoever hates his brother
Hatred is a dangerous thing.
What do you do with difficult people? Gossips, people who don't respect
your boundaries, who call too often, who stand too close, Who are rude and
obnoxious?
Love isn't easy. There are lots of nuances to learn. But love is a good
thing.
:16 By this we know love,
because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren.
:16 laid down … to lay down – tithemi – to set,
put, place
Aorist active indicative (1st),
Present active indicative (2nd)
:16 life … lives – psuche – breath;
life; the soul
:16 By this we know love
we know – ginosko – to learn to know, come to know;
knowledge by experience
This is that
“perfect” tense, meaning something happened in the past and the results
continue on into the present. You could
translate this phrase…
Perfect active indicative
“We have come into an experience of knowing His
love, and we are still experiencing the results of knowing that love because He
laid down His life for us”
Lesson
Love’s Assurance
There are plenty of times we doubt that God could love us.
It’s hard to believe God loves us when we screw up.
It’s hard to think that God loves us when we go through difficulty.
G. K. Chesterton
wrote, “All men matter. You matter. I matter. It's the hardest thing in
theology to believe.”
For those who have any doubts about whether or not God loves them, God has
one answer: The Cross.
If God didn’t love you, then why did He send His Son to die on the cross
for you?
Illustration
A plane
crashed and burned on a runway in Philadelphia.
The stewardess was Mary Frances Hausley. She stood at the door assisting passengers to
safety. When she thought all were safe, she
heard a woman screaming, “My baby, my baby!” With this prompting she returned to the
flaming plane, never to be seen again.
When the burned wreckage was unsnarled, Miss Hausley’s
body was found draped over the child she tried to save. The caption of Time’s story read, “She Could
Have Jumped.”
-- G. Curtis Jones, 1000 Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Broadman, 1986), p. 88.
Jesus didn’t
have to die for you. He could have
refused.
When Jesus died for you, He didn’t do it because He knew you’d be good
enough to deserve it, He did it despite us being jerks.
(Ro 5:8 NKJV) But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us.
Why did He die
to save us? Because He
loves us.
Please don’t doubt that He loves you.
:17 But whoever has this
world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him,
how does the love of God abide in him?
:17 has – echo – to have, i.e. to hold
Present active subjunctive
:17 goods – bios – life; that by which life is
sustained, resources, wealth, goods
:17 in need – chreia – necessity, need
echo – to have, i.e. to hold
Present active participle
:17 shuts up – kleio – to shut, shut up
Aorist active subjunctive
:17 heart – splagchnon – bowels, intestines
We consider the
“heart” the place where compassion is experienced. The ancients felt that things like kindness and compassion came
from the bowels.
We say, “I love
you with all my heart”.
The ancients
would say, “I love you with all my bowels”
:18 My little children, let
us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
:18 little children – teknion – a little child; in the NT used as a
term of kindly address by teachers to their disciples
:18 let us not love – agapao – to love, to feel and exhibit esteem and goodwill to a person, to
prize and delight in a thing.
Present active subjunctive
:18 word – logos – word
:18 tongue – glossa – tongue
:18 deed – ergon – act, deed, work
:18 truth – aletheia – truth; “not hidden; what is true in
any matter under consideration
:18 in deed and in truth
Lesson
Real Love
Jesus had this splagchnon
kind of love.
(Mt 9:36 NKJV) But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because
they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.
But Jesus’ love for the multitudes didn’t result with Him sending a nice
Valentine’s Day card, it
resulted in action:
(Mt 14:14 NKJV) And when
Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.
When it comes to love, you could say that “talk is cheap”.
Don’t get me wrong, what you say is important, but what you do is just as
important.
Play “Umpire”
video
When Jesus died
on the cross, He was not only paying for our sins, He was not only
demonstrating His love for us, He was also giving us
an example of what real love looks like.
It’s an example that ought to translate into all areas of our lives,
like in our marriages.
(Eph 5:25 NKJV) Husbands, love your
wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her…
The love that we have for one another means
that we put each other’s needs ahead of our own.
Jesus said,
(Jn 15:13
NKJV) Greater
love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
How do I love that person I’m struggling with?
Illustration
I think one of the most heroic examples of loving like God comes from Corrie
Ten Boom in her book, The Hiding Place:
It was a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who
had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I
had seen since that time. And suddenly
it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s
pain-blanched face. He came up to me as
the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he
said. “To think that, as you say, He has
washed my sins away!” His hand was
thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had
preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the
need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of
them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to
ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed,
forgive me and help me to forgive him. I
tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not.
I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your
forgiveness. As I took his hand the most incredible
thing happened. From my shoulder along
my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into
my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our
forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but
on His. When He tells
us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
Take a step. Reach out your hand.
:19 And by this we know that
we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.
:19 we know – ginosko – to learn to know, come to know;
knowledge by experience
Present active indicative
:19 truth – aletheia – truth; “not hidden; what is true in
any matter under consideration
:19 shall assure – peitho – persuade;
to trust, have confidence, be confident
Future active indicative
One of the things it takes to have confidence and peace in God’s presence
is to know that you are doing the right things.
One of the right things we ought to be doing is to love one another.
:20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater
than our heart, and knows all things.
:20 condemns – kataginosko (“against” + “to know”) – to find fault
with, blame; to accuse, condemn
Present active subjunctive
:20 knows – ginosko – to learn to know, come to know;
knowledge by experience
Present active indicative
:20 if our heart condemns us
Lesson
Handling Guilt
Some of us feel guilty about everything.
I caught a minute of a cop show on TV the other day where the cops were interrogating a
prisoner, and one of the observers who was watching
through the one-way mirror said to another, “Well, he sure looks guilty!” The other person replied, “Either that or he
was raised Catholic”. The implication was that Catholics ALWAYS feel guilty about everything. J
There are
things that are very proper to feel condemnation about.
But there are also times when we should stop heaping on the condemnation.
This concept of loving one another ought to help assure
our hearts of the true nature of our salvation.
(1 Jn 3:20 NLT) —20 Even if we feel
guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.
(1 Jn 3:20 The Message) It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even
when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and
knows more about us than we do ourselves.
When our heart is condemning us, we need to trust in God, not our heart.
God is greater than our heart, and it’s what He thinks that counts.
(Ro 8:31–34 NKJV) —31
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us,
who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all
things? 33 Who shall
bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is
he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes
intercession for us.
:21 Beloved, if our heart
does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.
:21 does not condemn – kataginosko
(“against” + “to know”) – to find fault with, blame; to accuse, condemn
Present active subjunctive
:21 confidence – parrhesia
– freedom in speaking, unreservedness in speech; free and fearless
confidence, cheerful courage, boldness, assurance
(1 Jn 2:28 NKJV) —28 And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He
appears, we may have confidence and
not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
(1 Jn 4:17 NKJV) —17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment;
because as He is, so are we in this world.
(1 Jn 5:14 NKJV) —14 Now this is the confidence
that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears
us.
We have confidence in our relationship with God when we are learning to
love others like He loves us.
That confidence translates into an effective prayer life…
:22 And whatever we ask we receive from Him,
because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His
sight.
:22 we ask – aiteo – to ask, beg, call for, crave, desire,
require
Present active subjunctive
:22 we receive – lambano – to take; to receive (what is given),
to gain, get, obtain, to get back
Present active indicative
:22 commandments – entole – an order, command, charge, precept,
injunction
:22 we keep – tereo – to attend to carefully, take care of;
to observe
Present active indicative
:22 pleasing – arestos – pleasing, agreeable
:22 do – poieo – to make; to do
Present active indicative
:22 whatever we ask we receive from
Him
Lesson
Answers to Prayer
If you’re not careful, you can miss the point of this verse.
You might think that John
is saying that if you obey God, then you earn the brownie points necessary for God to answer your prayers. That’s not correct.
Answers to
prayer come from a life that is in harmony with God.
(1 Jn 5:14–15 NKJV) —14 Now this
is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He
hears us. 15 And if we know that
He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have
asked of Him.
Getting the answers to prayer you are looking for comes
from learning to ask for the things that God wants to do.
Prayer is not about twisting God’s arm and persuading Him
to do what I want, it’s about me getting on board with God’s desires and plans
and learning to ask for the best things, His things.
Jesus put it this way:
(Jn 15:7 NKJV) If you
abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask
what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
When I learn to live a life of obedience to God, I’m getting on board with God’s plan for my
life. Obedience looks a lot like loving others. When I love like I’m
supposed to, I’m getting on board with God’s plan for my life.
The more I learn about God’s ways, the better I learn what kinds of things
to ask for.
What if I don’t know what to ask for?
Then talk to God about what you’re struggling with. Keep seeking Him. Be open to God leading you. Put the problem into God’s hands.
Make Him the real desire of your heart (not the “thing”):
(Ps 37:4
NKJV) Delight
yourself also in the Lord, And He
shall give you the desires of your heart.
When He is my greatest delight, I will find a new set of
“desires” forming in my heart, the kinds of things that He also delights in. This verse isn’t about getting my “wish list”
from God, it’s about getting a “new wish list”, God’s wish list. And those are the things I ask for.
:23 And this is His
commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and
love one another, as He gave us commandment.
:23 commandment – entole – an order, command, charge, precept,
injunction
In verse 22 the word was plural.
Here it is singular. The concept
of “believe” and “love” are considered a single commandment.
:23 we should believe – pisteuo – to think to be true, to be persuaded
of, to credit, place confidence in
Aorist active subjunctive
:23 love – agapao – to love, to feel and exhibit esteem
and goodwill to a person, to prize and delight in a thing.
Present active subjunctive
“Believe” is aorist – a point in time, something we have done.
“Love” is continuous, something we are currently doing.
:23 He gave – didomi – to give
Aorist active indicative
:23 this is His commandment
Lesson
Time to Believe
Obedience to God’s commands gives us confidence in prayer, and results in
answered prayer.
What are His commands?
In a sense, God considers it a single command, but a
command with two components.
We
are to believe, and true
belief is shown through our loving one another.
Are you ready to believe in Jesus?
Are you ready to put your life in His hands?