Who do you look like?

I John 3:11-24

KV 1 John 3:16 “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.”

Good morning. As you all know, almost 2 months ago my wife delivered our son Nathanael. Many people came to visit him, they were eager to see what he looked like. It seemed like it was an important question for people to figure out. Everybody had an opinion as to who he looked like, at first some said he looked like me but now after some time has passed others say he looks more like my wife. Some say he is the perfect mixture of both of us. At the summer conference you were told to look at yourself in the mirror. What did you see? In today’s passage we will learn what the children of God should look like. I pray through this message that we may examine our hearts and come to confidence that what we see in that mirror is indeed a child of God. 

(The characteristics of the evil one, verses 11-15)

John begins this passage in verse 11 by saying “This is the message you have heard from the beginning: You should love one another.” This is also the message that we have heard for seemingly the last 6 weeks. You may ask yourself why does John keep talking about love, can’t we have a different topic? John will answer this question later in the passage by telling us that without sincere love for our brothers we cannot be assured that we do indeed belong to God. If I want to be assured of getting a high grade in a class, I must be careful to understand how I will be graded. Jesus said the greatest commandments are to love your God with all your soul and with all your strength and the next was to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus is not our professor but he is the judge, what judgment do you think you will get if you miss this point? 

A good teacher will always make his instructions clear by giving a positive example or the best thing we can do as well as a negative example or the worst thing we can do. In verses 12-15 John shows us what children of God are not like by using Cain as an example. Let us read verse 12 together “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.” 

Cain was the father of all murderers. According to Genesis 4, Cain offered God some of the fruits of the soil as an offering but God was not pleased with his offering. However, his brother Abel offered fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock and the bible tells us that God looked with favor on him and his offering. After hearing about this Cain became very angry and his face was downcast. Here we find that Cain was not a true worshipper, though he offered an offering he had no desire to please God. If he did he would have asked God or his brother Abel for wisdom or more faith to give an offering that was pleasing to God. 

How did God respond to Cain’s anger? He said in Genesis 4:6 “Why are you angry? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door, it desires to have you but you must master it.” In the previous passage John wrote in verse 10 “Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother.” Nobody can do what is right all of the time for the Bible says that no one is righteous not even one. However, if we are his children we should have a desire to please him by striving to do what is right. Cain’s anger toward God and lack of repentance showed he didn’t have the desire to do what was right. Instead he invited sin in and eventually murdered his own brother. 

Verse 13 reads “Do not be surprised my brothers if the world hates you.” Able did the right thing before God but his brother Cain hated him and murdered him as a result. Jesus said in John 15:19 reads “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” Here we see that if we are of the world then the world should love us but if we belong to God the world will hate us. Does the world love you or hate you? 

Verses 14 and 15 tell us that if we love our brothers we have passed from death to life but if we hate our brothers we are a murderer and have no eternal life in us. From this verse we are reminded that we all began in a state of death or darkness. We all have the blood of Cain. If someone bothers us or hurts us, we don’t like him or her and want to take action. According to the dictionary the meaning of hate is an intense dislike for someone that compels us to take action. If we are treated well then we will treat the other person well, if we are treated badly or with hatred likely we’ll also treat the other person the same way. However, verse 15 says “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer.” This sounds like a strong statement but I believe and most governments in the world believe that if nobody would find out about it and we could get away with it, our hatred would eventually lead us to murder one of these people. That’s why the punishments for murder are so severe. Everyone has a certain type of person they hate. I found the people I hate are those who never have anything positive to say, the people who only criticize and talk about others weaknesses and shortcomings in order to bring them down. The way I want to deal with these people is just to avoid them but as soon as I get rid of one of them, another one suddenly appears in my life who was worse than the first one. By just avoiding them, nothing changes…. the problem only gets worse. We must accept that God’s ways are higher than our ways. If we are truly children of God we have to learn from the Bible about how to deal with those we naturally want to hate. Jesus didn’t say “avoid your enemies” but he said we should love our enemies. Why? If we don’t love them we make room for all kinds of sin which can consume us. Genesis 4:6b said that our sin desires to have us but we must master it. The only way we can master the realm of death which is the root of all of our hatred is by believing in the name of Jesus and remain in him by obeying his commands. 

Part 2 (The characteristics of the children of God)

We’ve been taught since the beginning to love one another. But what is love? Someone said that love is that feeling you get when you meet the right person. Another said that it’s the sparkle in a couple’s eyes. When people think about love today they automatically think about relationships, dating and marriage. Most people in this world go through their entire life believing that this is the only type of love out there with the possible exception of their parents’ love. I personally never saw or experienced another kind of love until I was a freshman in college when I met a brother by the name of Brian Brooks. I was amazed by this man because he got absolutely nothing out of serving me (giving me rides, inviting me to his church and bible studies, buying me meals and showing me parts of the big city). He was the weirdest person I had ever met in my life. I came up with several theories as to why he might be doing these things. I thought he was either a distant cousin or that my parents must have paid him to watch after me. We eventually lost touch but I’ll never forget him because he was a true child of God. Though I didn’t personally know God at that time from him I came to realize that there was definitely another type of love out there, one which I wanted to know and have. 

How did Brian and children of God know what love is? Let’s read verse 16a “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” We can only come to know what true love is through Jesus. Jesus’ love is different from any kind of love in the world because of two things. First, his love seeks the benefit of others and not himself. The world tells us to be careful whom you love for they might not love you back. When the people of this world love, we expect something back. I found that by showing love through actions to my wife, I can have a peaceful and enjoyable time at home. If I don’t, I can expect misery and torture so it is good for me if I have show her love in action. It is beneficial for us to love our classmates or colleagues; if we do then we can have a good environment in which to study or work and perhaps they can help us with a project or deadline later. However, throughout Jesus’ life on this Earth there were many times where it wasn’t beneficial for Jesus to show love. Jesus showed his love to a crippled woman and a paralyzed man by healing them on the Sabbath day knowing the religious leaders would kill him as a result. He could have easily waited until Monday or Tuesday to heal and perhaps saved his own life but out of his love and compassion he healed them when they were in need. True Christian love seeks the benefit of others and not our own. Is your love seeking others benefits or your own? 

2nd, Jesus love is unconditional. You don’t have to be good to gain Jesus’ love. Jesus loves you as you are. When we were still sinners, when we still hated him and didn’t understand him Jesus laid down his life for us. Another translation of verse 16 is this :

We understand what love is when we realize that Christ gave his life for us. That means we must give our lives for other believers. God’s word translation. 

To lay down your life for another person doesn’t mean to just physically die for that person but to live for that person by dying to our own selfish desires. Jesus came to this world so that we may pass from the state of death to the state of life by believing in his name. That’s the only thing he lived for and what he ultimately died for. He came to save us from death by laying down his life for us.  What do you live for? Do you live for the day the Redskins win the Super Bowl? Do you live for the day you get married or have children? Do you live for your next raise or next vacation or the day you can retire? If you look like a child of God you should live for Him by faithfully serving him to the end. 

Verse 16b says “and we ought to also lay down our lives for our brothers.” If we belong to Jesus then we should do as Jesus did. My wife says she knows that Nathanael is my son because he does some of the same things I do. He shows some of the same expressions. As children of God we should have the same attitude of Jesus. We should be willing to die to our own sinful desires and selfish ways in order to help our brothers. One reason I have stayed in UBF for the past 7 years is because I’ve seen real shepherds and missionaries actively laying down their lives for their sheep and each other. I’ve been to other churches but I’ve never seen the sacrifice that shepherds and missionaries in UBF make and have made toward helping their brothers. Once I heard about a shepherd couple in UBF who shared a common life with 7 sheep. They gave up their comfortable family life and all privacy in order to practically show Jesus love to these 7 strangers. Many others have given up lucrative careers and comfortable lives in their home country to suffer abroad for the sake of sharing Jesus’ word. Almost all members have given up their free time after work or school to come and study the bible and teach it to others. Nobody likes to lay down their life and give up things for others, we just want to lay down on the sofa or bed and relax. If you try to teach people to lay down their life for others the world will definitely hate you but Jesus said if the world hates you keep in mind it hated me first. It is by this that we can have confidence that we are doing what is right and following Jesus. 

Verses 17-18 show us that we should love in action and not with words and tongue. If someone told you they loved you but yet never did a thing for you, you would have to question their love. In fact, you would be a fool to believe that person really loved you. Lets read verse 17 together. Ok, lets go. “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?” As believers, we should always look out and take care of those in need. We often make excuses as to why we don’t help someone who we know is in need. We usually think either they don’t deserve it or we think we can’t really help them. But if we understand the Bible correctly we realize that nobody ever deserved to be helped by Jesus. Jesus never thought anyone was beyond help. Many people came to Jesus in need of help, many with physical and practical needs. Indeed a lot of the people that came to Jesus were the most helpless and hopeless people imaginable. They are the kind of people the world says to stay away from and don’t make eye contact with. A 38 year paralytic, the demon possessed, a woman who had been crippled for 18 years, a woman who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years, the lepers, the blind and the greedy tax collectors. We never saw Jesus turn any of them away. He was always willing to and able to help, no matter how bad their situation was. Notice 18b says “let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. He didn’t just help them physically but also spiritually by planting faith in them all. The fall semester will soon begin. Thousands of students will enter the University of Maryland in need of God’s word and a bible teacher. They are suffering in the realm of death like you and I were. Will you love them by looking towards their need? I pray God would help each of us to turn from our selfishness and sacrificially love at least one person by giving them the word of God. 

Part 3 (Love and generosity leads to peace and confidence before God, verses 19-24)

In verses 19 and 20 John brings up the point that sometimes as children of God our hearts may condemn us. We may feel totally unworthy and doubt whether we belong to the truth or not. But in these verses John reminds us that God is greater than our hearts so we shouldn’t focus on our feelings but on the truth of God. I was once told a story. It was the story of three people walking on a wall. Their names were Fact, Faith, and Feeling. And they were walking along the wall in that order. Fact was first. Faith was walking behind Fact. And finally, Feeling came along last. Everything went along fine until Faith looked back to see where Feeling was. Every time Faith did this, he fell off the wall. As long as Faith kept his eyes on Fact, he did fine. The moral of the story is that we need to keep our eyes on Fact and let Feeling take care of himself. The man who focuses on his feeling is unstable in all he does and continues to fall off that wall. It may not always feel good or even right to love some brothers and it certainly doesn’t feel good to lay down our life for our brother. But the fact is the Bible teaches us that we should love our brothers and we ought to lay down our lives for them. It is by doing this that we know we have passed from death to life. It is by this that we have peace and confidence before God. 

Verse 21 and 22 says “If our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.” Our feelings are often misleading but his truth and commands are not. You might say confidence is also a feeling. But real confidence is based on truth not on feeling or hope. Do you have confidence before God? If so, what is it based on? If we are focusing on the facts of God and his truth then we receive from him anything we ask because we are obeying his commands and doing what pleases him. Many of us have needs that we want God to meet. Msn Joshua Kim had a need for a job and a visa last year. He and asked for it and got it not because he desired to live comfortably in America but because he was obeying Jesus command to love his brothers by giving the word of God to them. Are you asking something from God? Try obeying his commands by loving your brothers and see if you don’t get it!

Verse 24 concludes “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.” When we accepted Jesus as our personal savior he poured out his love into our hearts. It is the love that enables us to love our brothers and sisters. Without Jesus we are all still like Cain. We are still in death but by believing that Jesus came to save us we passed from death to life. Jesus is not just a good example of how we should love but he is the reason why we can love our brothers. We can love because he gave us his spirit. If we have believed in his name we must now just remain in him by obeying his commands. 

As we leave today, we should ask ourselves again who do we look like? Do you have hatred toward our brothers? Do you sincerely seek to please God? Does your love seek your own benefit or does it seek others benefit? Is your love based on conditions or is it unconditional? Are you really laying down our life for others? Are you helping all of those you see in need or just a couple whom you’d like to help? Is your confidence before God based on fact and obedience to the fact? Laying down our life to love our brothers is not an ideal life but it’s a life that is possible because of Jesus Christ. May we come to Jesus as we are and ask him for strength to carry it out.