The Fellowship of the Saints: 1 John 2:7-11

We did have a Palm Sunday message this morning from Acts 2:14-28, where Peter is preaching that great Pentecost gospel sermon. And if you want to know more about that one (an excellent sermon), you can check it out on the Bethany URC Website.

This afternoon's sermon took us back to 1 John 2, where the focus is on the life that is given to the child of God who is living in obedience. Again, John states no specific command here; rather, he tells us how we will live when we know God and walk in the light. This passage follows the passages on knowing and loving God, and this follows the pattern of the Ten Commandments: the first four commandments have to do with our relationship to God, and the last six deal with our relationships with others. When we abide in Him, this will affect our relationships with our brothers and sisters.

People talk about love all the time in our culture today, but usually they are speaking of a perversion of what is genuine, biblical love. One example of this type of perversion occurs when we speak of being in love in terms of the freedom to commit sexual immorality. If we truly love, if we are abiding in Him, we will keep His commandments, and His commandments tell us adultery is sinful. So there can be no genuine love in a sexually immoral relationship. True love is restored in Christ, and this is no emotional response. A description of true love is given in 1 Corinthians 13.

John tells us he is not writing a new command, but rather a command that has been with us from the beginning. The command to love one another is not a brand new command. We see the command to love being disobeyed as early as with Cain and Abel, where Cain hated his brother, with the end result being murder. In Leviticus 19:17-18 we are told not to hate our brothers in our hearts. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. This command to love is continued in the New Testament in John 13:34, where we are told to love one another as Christ has loved us. This is a sacrificial type of love.

If we are abiding in Him, we cannot abandon the love Christ has placed in our hearts. Those who have been transformed by Christ cannot hate their brother and sister and be in the light at the same time. Again, John gives us the test, and this can be summed up with the five D's from last week: 1. Can we discern the difference between love and hate? 2. Do we genuinely desire to love? 3. Are we developing and growing in love? 4. Do we delight in loving others? 5. Do we have a deep dissatisfaction with ourselves when we do not love as we ought?

If we hate, we cannot be in the light; we cannot seek the destruction of another and be a Christian. However, the one who loves his brother abides in the light. He experiences no stumbling. Because he is in the light, he is able to avoid all obstacles that might cause him to stumble. For the Christian, the love that God has poured out on us is His blessing, enabling us to walk in confidence, avoiding all obstacles.