Podcast: 1 John: Love as the Cure for Fear

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
-1 John 4:14-21

“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” So the writer of Hebrews puts it. For some people, this is a very scary thought. For others, it doesn’t concern them that much at all. Oddly enough, it’s usually the people who should fear the most that are not at all afraid. You go talk to people on the streets, and most of them will be utterly confident that God is okay with them, even though they don’t even bother to consider their own sin and how God will react to it.

I’ve been in a couple of conversations recently about our security in salvation with people whom I believe to be true Christians. Of course, I will not be the one to judge that, but I have confidence in their faith. And they often fear that day, even though they know that Jesus has paid that price for them. I wish I had studied this passage earlier. Maybe I could have given them a better answer.

This section almost seems like a summary of the entire letter so far. It’s true that John tends to write almost in a swirl of thought – he goes through his argument, and then he goes through it again in a slightly different manner, and then again, adding a bit more. So in this way, almost every section of the letter is a summary of everything else, but here he begins again with the reminder that he was a witness. This is HIS testimony, what he knows as truth because he was there.

And the summary of that truth is as simple as we can make it. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”

We should linger here for a little while, because this truth is so simple that we often try to add to it just so that it appears big enough to be real. I am currently reading a supposedly Christian book that is a call to service of the poor and needy. A worthy call that is, and yet that service is constantly spoken of in this book as part of the Gospel. That is the temptation, to see the Gospel as something tangible and generous and charitable on our part, and not just on God’s. That is the result of the Gospel, yes, but it is not the Gospel.

In truth, the charity of the Gospel comes from God and Him alone. We are sinners. We do not deserve eternal life. We blow off our sin because we are so used to it, but God does not. He demands that we be good people, and instead we chase after our own selfish desires. The good news of the Gospel is that the punishment we owe has been paid by Jesus. He died the death that we should have died. When we confess Him (and by confessing, we don’t mean something we merely say, but something we believe in faith, and it is not that we just believe that there was a guy named Jesus, but that He is the Son of God, come from heaven to live as a man, to die on our behalf, to rise on the third day, and who is at the right hand of the Father even now), when we confess Him, we are saved. The good news is that we can never earn God’s favor, but that He gives it to His children without cost or obligation.

This is what shows His love for us. And here’s the cool thing about it, that love is exactly why we should not fear judgment, if we are in Him. God loves us so much that He gave His Son’s life for us. Do you now think that He would withhold that love on the Day of Judgment? John Calvin wrote, “Therefore no one can come with a tranquil mind to God’s tribunal, except he believes that he is freely loved.”

Brothers and sisters, we are freely loved. God the Son died for us. We need not fear His wrath again! It is for those who are outside of God that need to fear this day, but we do not. The love of God, expressed in the Cross, perfected in us, drives away our fear.

Now, that is the good news. Let us add nothing to it. Let us not mistake it again. This good news, once applied within us, now produces its affects in how we love one another. God loves the Church, and God’s children, who have God in them, will love the Church too. It is the natural result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and those who do not produce this natural result of the Gospel may not truly be God’s children.

Jesus uses the analogy of a vine. He is the vine, and we are His branches. Those branches that are in Him will bear fruit. But a branch laying on the ground by itself will have no fruit. God loves the Church, and if we are in Him, then we will love the Church as naturally as a branch of the true vine bears fruit.

We love because He first loved us.

Again, I would like to quote Calvin: “Faith in Christ, makes God to dwell in men, and we are partakers of this grace; but as God is love, no one dwells in him except he loves his brethren. Then love ought to reign in us, since God unites himself to us.”

Do you see? It is not that we are saved by our love. So often is John quoted in an effort to try to tell people that we have to do this and we have to do that. That’s not what John is saying. He never speaks of loving others in any sense except as the natural effect of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He is telling us how we can be sure that we are God’s children, not telling us what we need to do to become God’s children.

This letter is written to reassure Christians of their salvation in Christ, and John uses love as a proof of that. Is God’s indwelling Spirit turning you away from yourself and toward God and others? Do you see the evidence of God’s love in your life? If so, then do not fear. Look to His love, proven by the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, to drive out fear. If His love has had its complete result in us, then we will not fear, for we will be reassured in all times by His love.

If you do not see these evidences of God’s love in your life, then there may be cause for fear. But don’t react to this by running out and trying to love people. This is not a work that will earn us God’s love, but rather it is a natural outgrowth of God’s love. It is God’s saving love for us that must come first. John’s message over and over has been this – look to your heart. Does it testify against you, or do you see the Spirit’s work within it to conform you more to the image of Christ? If it is the former, then turn to the Cross. Repent of your sins. Seek God’s forgiveness and have faith in Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection. We are saved by faith, and not works. It is a free gift that we could never earn.

If your confession and faith are true, you will begin to see fruit of that repentance in your life. It is as natural as good fruit from a good vine.

Podcast: 1 John: All You Need is Love!

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
-1 John 4:7-13

I was just listening to an interview with a woman who claims to be a Christian, but is involved in habitual, unrepentant sexual sin. A pastor was invited into the same interview to try to ask her to turn away from this sin and obey God. I was most interested in what she was saying, because, as we’ve heard a thousand times, she kept falling back on the defense of love. She loves her partner, she said, and God would never command against that. After all, God is love! Besides which, if what she was doing was truly a sin, then God would forgive her, because He is love!

We’re going to be looking today at that very verse, so the timing of that interview was surely providential. I’ve heard this phrase quoted so often, and it is usually by those who are not repentant of their sins. They do not want to submit to God. They want to go about their lives and not be punished for what they have done. So they will say, “God is love, right? Then why would He punish me? Why would He not want me to be happy?”

It’s strange that we don’t accept this definition of love in any other area of life unless it benefits us. If your kids misbehave, we all recognize that the only loving thing to do is to discipline them. If a friend is messing up his life, the only loving thing to do is to try to talk to that friend.

But when you are the one messing up your life, you often think it is mean and hurtful to be confronted. See, we want people to love us in a way that always agrees with us, always stands by us, never confronts, never asks hard questions. We’re like a child who gets mad at his mother for sending him to his room, not understanding that the mother did that because love doesn’t always agree with a selfish and self-absorbed kid.

John talks a lot about love here, and he gives a good definition. See, when we say that God is love, we’re not just saying that God will act lovingly. We’re also saying that the actions of God are, by definition, loving. If your definition of love is such that you don’t think Jesus was loving, then you have a bad definition. If your ideas on love don’t line up with His, then your love isn’t love at all. And the truth is that Jesus was kind, compassionate, giving, and also sometimes harsh, insulting, sarcastic, and very willing to embarrass someone in front of a crowd when necessary.

So when John tells us to love one another, it’s not some touchy-feely warm feeling you have in your heart for someone. He’s not saying, “Oh, just hang out together, watch a movie, and always support each others decisions.” No, this love is wholly different.

Those who do not love but claim to be followers of Christ are not following Christ at all. See, God is love. If He is in you, then you have love. That is foundational. Paul gives us a rather detailed definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Test yourself. Measure yourself against these truths. Are you growing in love since you were saved by Jesus? If not, then were you saved at all?

John, in this text, gives the ultimate example of love in Christ. “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die so that we could live. No, this is not a love as this world thinks of love, which is usually just glorified lust or a subjective affinity with someone. This is love that puts others before life itself. God came from heaven in human form, lived as a poor carpenter and persecuted teacher, then was tortured to death on a Cross, and all because He loved us. That, my friends, is love.

You may wonder why God had to die for us to live. John tells us in the word “propitiation.” You may not know this word, but it is a truly wonderful word. My friends, we are sinners. We are selfish, lustful, hate-filled, ambitious, egotistical sinners whose first instinct is for ourselves rather than for others. We do not love like this! We say we do, but our love is a selfish love that is really no love at all. We love people because what they do for us, how they make us feel. We do not love, and in not loving we prove that we are not of God.

God is love, and His love is one that disciplines, that reproves. It is a love that punishes when someone deserves it, and we deserve it. It is a love that is just, and justice is not on our side.

But it is a love that also sacrifices for us. When Jesus died, what was really happening is that He was taking the punishment upon Himself that we deserved. He was satisfying justice on our behalf. If you are a child of God, then your debt is paid. That is what propitiation means. It is one of the most wonderful words in history, because it means that Jesus died so that I don’t have to. Because of what He did, I do not have to face what I truly deserve.

And it is a free gift. We cannot earn it. When we repent of our sins and believe in Jesus, His Blood saves us. He gives us His Spirit, and with that Holy Spirit in us, we begin to change. God is in us and God is love, and so we begin to love!

It is not a warm and fuzzy feeling in the gut. It’s a love that sacrifices. It is a love that reproves when needed. It is a love that will drive you to beg those around you to repent and believe in Him, no matter what they think of you for it.

No one has ever seen God, but God is love, and so this is our connection to Him. John 1:18 tells us, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.” Notice how the whole Trinity is involved in this. The Father sends the Son out of love. The Son dies for us so that we can become God’s children. The Spirit indwells us. It is through this process that we have are connected back to the Father, and we are connected in love to one another.

Let me stress that, because we so often forget this. We so often take it upon ourselves to be these great moral people, to be generous and loving, and we so often fail, because we’re looking to the wrong source. We are looking to ourselves, but if we could do that, we wouldn’t need Jesus! We don’t earn eternal life by this love, the love is the evidence of the eternal life. What earned it was the Cross, the fiery center of the Christian faith, the Blood that washes sin away. God works this out in us through repentance, through faith, and the indwelling of the Spirit. If you don’t love, then look to the Cross! That propitiation is everything here, not just the thing that gets us started.

God is love. If you don’t love, then go to God in repentance and faith. He is the only true source of love, so your answer must be there, not in your own efforts to be a better person.

Podcast: 1 John: Testing the Spirits

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
-1 John 4:1-6

I have to say, I’ve been frustrated lately. My wife and I are trying to a find a church home near us, so I’ve been going through these websites to get a feel for the different churches before we go and visit. After all, there are hundreds of churches around us, and it would take us a few years to actually visit all of them. We’re trying to narrow things down a little before actually going to visit.

Now, we’ve been able to veto a lot of these churches just based on stuff on their website. So many churches just don’t have the focus that I would like in a church. Either they disagree with us on major doctrine or they are more interested in talking about finances and relationships than in the sovereign God of the universe. They may use the Bible, but their focus is off. They’re more concerned with you, while I want to learn about Him.

A lot of the ones we vetoed right away were churches we would probably say were Christian churches, just with different priorities than we have. I expect to see those pastors and leaders in eternal life. We disagree on major issues, but not foundational issues. Other churches give me a totally different feel. They call themselves Christian, but I look at their doctrine, and I can’t imagine that they actually are Christian.

This passage made me stop and think about this whole debate over doctrines. We have disagreements within Christianity, but when would those disagreement actually rise to the level where we would have to say that a certain personality or church is heretical? In this passage, John refers to this as having the “spirit of the antichrist.” That’s a pretty heavy level to lay, just like it is when we say someone is a heretic. But when would that charge be appropriate?

This passage distinguishes these things rather well. We have two criteria that an orthodox view must have. First, a spirit “that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” Second, “Whoever knows God listens to us,” meaning the Apostles.

Okay, there’s a little more to this than just believing that there was this dude named Jesus once. That’s not what John is saying. There’s a lot here. First of all, John uses Jesus’ title, which is the Christ, which is Greek for Messiah. What this is is a confession that Jesus is the Messiah.

Now we’ve opened this up a bit, because the Messiah is something much more important than a mere person. The Old Testament has many messianic prophecies, prophecies that tell us that the Messiah will carry our sin upon Himself. Isaiah writes of this man, “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-6).

When we confess Him as Christ, we are confessing that He did what we failed to do – lived a life without sin, worthy of eternal life. He alone does not deserve death, because there is no lust, pride, hatred, or ambition in Him. And yet He died anyway, and in that death took our sins upon Himself. He died so that we do not have to.

Confessing Him as Christ cannot be done without confessing ourselves as unworthy, for if we do not believe that we need a Savior, we will not confess that we have one. Confessing Him as Christ cannot be done without resting our entire hope upon Him, for we will have realized that we have no hope without Him.

The second test is whether we believe the Apostles. Now, we as Christians sometimes have honest disagreements about what the Apostles meant. Our disagreements do not usually rise to the level of heresy. But when the Apostles are dismissed, their writings ignored or brushed away, then that is part of the spirit of the antichrist.

I am sympathetic to those “Red Letter Christians” who believe that only Jesus’ words are infallible, and the words of the Apostles could be flawed. I sympathize, but I must call them to repentance. John, James, Jude, Paul, Peter, Mark, Luke, Matthew, and the writer of Hebrews were inspired by the Holy Spirit. All Scripture is God breathed, and we must look to it as the Word of God.

If you come across a teacher who denies the plain words of Paul, then we may be dealing with heresy. Again, I may disagree with an Arminian on predestination, but that does not mean the Arminian is ignoring the Scripture. We have a disagreement, and I would say he is wrong, but I would not call him a heretic. I do not believe in paedobaptism (infant baptism), but I call many Lutherans and Presbyterians my close brothers. We are both studying the Word, and we disagree on this point. It is the rejection of the Word that we must guard against, for that is part of the spirit of the antichrist.

Which means those supposedly Christian leaders who want to call Paul into question. Those who read what the Bible says on homosexuality or fornication and ignore it, teaching others that these activities are okay. Guard against these people.

But above all else, trust God. If you have the Spirit, then you are secured by that Spirit for eternity. You need not fear for your soul. God uses even false teachers for His greater glory and for our good. We may not understand how He does it, but as the sovereign God of the universe, He is more than able.

This is where our security lies. Look, if it were up to me, I may wake up a Buddhist tomorrow, or a Muslim. I have no confidence in my own strength to keep my faith intact. So why should I not worry about the spirit of the antichrist? Tomorrow, that may be something that entices me! But John tells us that we have already overcome these things. How is that so?

“For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” Listen to that answer. It is God who secures me for eternity, not myself. My faith will stand if that faith is from God. Those who leave the church for heresy prove in their leaving that they were never part of the true Church. They never had a faith that is from God. That is what we learned in 1 John 2:19.

We worship a sovereign God, a God that is not tossed about by the winds of history, but the God who causes them to blow, and in what direction. He is the hand that guides our every moment. And so we have overcome the world because HE has overcome the world, and we are in Him.

So test the teachings of every new fad that comes along. Learn of Jesus through the testimony of the Word so you can hold up every spirit against the truth of Him. Read the writings of the Apostles and have confidence that they are from the Father. If there is teaching that outright denies these words, then they are of the spirit of the antichrist. They are heresies. Beware of them.

But also have confidence in your sovereign Father in heaven. It is He who secures His children for eternity. It is He who will draw all of those He will to Himself. When we have faith – true faith – and repentance of our sins, we prove ourselves to be part of that family, forgiven because of the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross, and held for eternity by the power of the Spirit. Have confidence not in yourself, but in the Cross.

Podcast: 1 John: Listening to Your Heart

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.
-1 John 3:19-24

If you ask people, “Are you a good person,” you’ll probably go a long time before finding someone who would say no. I would have answered “Yes” for most of my life. There were two reasons for that. First, I acted better than a lot of people I know, and certainly better than people I saw on daytime talk shows and the news. If you watch either daytime talk or the news, you’ll quickly come away with the impression that you are a very good person. You’ll see a bunch of people committing terrible sexual sins, murdering people, being cruel to others, selfishly suing anyone they can. You sit there and think, well, at least I’m not like THAT!

The other reason I thought I was a good person is because I didn’t actually do all the terrible stuff I wanted to do. My heart was filled with lust, hatred, and pride, but I didn’t act on it. I tried to be good. And that’s really all society asks of us. Just don’t do everything you would want to do. As long as you aren’t killing people or talking in the theater, the world says you’re okay.

But all these two things prove is that I wasn’t as bad as I could have been. If you showed people what was in my heart, everyone would recognize how evil I was.

Some people have gone so astray that they have seared their consciences. Most of us have not, thankfully, and your conscience will tell you the truth – we’re not good people. Just because our evil is restrained a bit by society and the laws does not mean we’re good. It only means we’re not letting our true selves out. The thoughts of your heart – that is the true you. We think and do things and our hearts testify against us.

Do not be fooled – God knows what is in your heart. He will judge you by what you think and say, not just what you do. We can all make up a quick list of things we’ve done that prove that we’re good people, but it’s your heart that will testify against you. What will its testimony be?

This part of John’s letter cannot be understood properly without the Gospel. Please remember that he is writing to Christians, and that he has reassured those same Christians that Jesus will be our advocate if we sin. There is an undercurrent of the Gospel here, and we will go drastically off course if we forget that.

All of our hearts will testify that we are not good enough for a holy and just God. The truth is that we do not deserve eternal life, but instead we deserve death. We are filled with all sorts of terrible desires and thoughts, and those things bear witness against our claims to be good. They tell the truth – if we were not restrained by the law and by society, we would act in atrocious and horrible ways. We hold ourselves back, but that is not the real us.

The question is not whether we are good enough for heaven. We’re not. The question is whether we can be forgiven. God is just, and so He requires a just punishment for sin. But in the death of Jesus, we have that punishment. He took our place in death so that we can live.

If we repent and believe in Him, we will be forgiven. That guilt that is proven by your heart will be lifted and replaced with the Holy Spirit.

So what does your heart say? Has that guilt been taken away, or are you still trying to hide things from God and the world. It won’t work. God created you. He knows your every thought.

If, instead, your heart testifies to the presence of the Holy Spirit, then you can have confidence in your standing with Him. Not by your own doing, but by His. Has your heart been turned away from that evil and toward God? Has your repentance shown up in the way you act and think? Has your heart been changed?

I’m not asking if you are perfect. You are not. I’m asking what is in your heart. Is the Spirit moving you toward obedience and away from rebellion? Is He moving you toward repentance for those sins you do commit and away from trying to justify yourself?

I’m also not suggesting that we are saved by our works. We are not. But it is the testimony of the Scriptures that a faith that saves manifests itself in us.

Please note what John says about the commandment: “And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” This is a COMMANDMENT, not COMMANDMENTS. There is only one, and these two aspects are tied together. If you believe in Jesus, then your heart will be changed, and you will love. If you still only love yourself, if your heart is still filled with the same degree of wickedness, if you have no repentance for what you have done, then you do not truly believe.

It is that Spirit that brings both of these things about – faith and love. These things are spiritual, so without God they are ultimately impossible. Oh, the world may say that it loves, but the people of the world do not know love as God has revealed it – the love that put Jesus on the Cross for a bunch of rebellious, selfish, wicked, greedy, lustful, and prideful brats that have turned away from Him and toward our own petty concerns. That is the way we were, and He died for us anyway. By His Spirit He changes us into something more like Him, and we will begin to reflect that same love.

Look at your heart. Is the Spirit there, working in your life to form you into something better than you were? If so, then have confidence in your faith! If not, then fall upon your knees and seek repentance with everything you have. There is no more important question to have answered in this life.

Finally, if the Spirit is working in you, then have some confidence in your prayers. If your heart reflects God’s own heart, then what concerns Him will concern you also, and you will be of one mind in seeking His will. Pray with passion and confidence for His kingdom, for His will, for forgiveness, for provision, knowing that your Father in Heaven loves you and will provide for you. Let your requests be made from faith, not from selfishness or fear. We are His children, and we will be heard.

Podcast: 1 John: What Is Love?

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
-1 John 3:16-18

Welcome to the Christian Pilgrimage Podcast; I’m your host, Paul Lytle. Today we’ll try to learn “What Is Love?”

I think this is one of the biggest problems facing our culture today. Not as big as, you know, denying God and such, but it’s a pretty big one. That is the complete misunderstanding to what love is.

Love today just refers to some vague feeling that you want to be around someone. We throw it around as though it were some sort of general affection. There is no sacrifice to this sort of love. In fact, it is very often selfish. There is no submission between people who claim to love one another. They just like one another. They will still fight tooth and nail to get their own way, of course. They will still demand their rights and freedoms. But they love one another.

You talk to the normal married couple today, and certainly they will claim to love one another, but ask them about the sacrifices they have made. They are still living their own lives, doing their own thing. The wife does not respect the husband or submit to his leadership. The husband does not live his life for the benefit of the wife. If they have too many conflicts, they will just split up.

There’s something askew there. If you want proof, just try telling people that they are sinners in need of a Savior. There are few more loving acts than to try to save someone from eternal damnation, but see what people think of that. They will call you hateful, judgmental, and extreme.

Love, under this definition, cannot include any sort of correction, confrontation, or conflict. These things are not seen as loving anymore, and yet can we say it is loving to NOT try to save someone’s life, even if it means confrontation?

Jesus died for us. This is how the Bible defines love. He died on our behalf, while we were still sinners. We were in rebellion against God, seeking our own pleasures, our own lusts, pride, and greed, over His glory. Even when we had rejected Him fully, He came to earth in the form of Jesus and died on our behalf.

How does that definition hold up in your life? Let me be frank here. Jesus came to die for me, even though I have spent most of my life disobeying and dishonoring him. That sort of love makes whatever love I claim seem like a middle school romance that will disappear on a whim.

The very fact that we rejected Him was why His death had to take place. In our sin, we had earned for ourselves a punishment of death. It was no minor infraction that we have committed, but crimes worthy of capital punishment. Just because you don’t think you’re so bad doesn’t mean that you haven’t offended a holy and just God.

Jesus took our place in that punishment. He died so that we could live. If we repent and believe, we can be reconciled with the Father, though we don’t deserve it.

When we become Christians, we are given a new heart, and we are given the Spirit to guide us. Encountering Jesus changes us. In the new birth, we are made more like the image of the Son.

That is why John keeps telling us that we can be confident in our salvation by looking at our hearts. Has there been a change in you? Have you turned away from your focus on yourself and toward Him? Look at your heart! Do you love?

We will not have the perfect love that Jesus had, and yet we should be moving in that direction. Of His twelve Apostles, eleven were martyred for the faith. Paul had his head chopped off. Peter was crucified upside-down. Tradition says that John was boiled alive, but he didn’t die, so they imprisoned him on the island of Patmos. Throughout the Bible we find men who died for their faith. They love God and us so much, that the love proved greater than their love for their own lives.

You say you love people. How do you know? Is it something you say, or is it something you do? If it is only words, then you don’t have the foggiest clue as to what love means. Love put Jesus on the Cross for you! That is love! It wasn’t some emotion He felt, but a choice that He made, to love us to death, even while we mocked Him and rebelled against Him. That is love!

It is a love that puts me to shame, but it is a love that also inspires me. God loved me so much that He died so that I could have a place in eternity with Him. What need do I have to fear from this life? What need do I have to count my own life more worthy than the lives of the brothers? He has bought me with His Blood, and He will not let me go.

If you are timid in your faith, if you count our own life more worthy than the spreading of the Gospel, if you are afraid of being rejected and embarrassed because of His name, if you are too worried about money to give to others, then look to the Cross. Look to the Cross and learn what love really means. You have benefited from that great love. That sacrifice has given us freedom to love as we ought. Don’t just try to do better out of your own strong will. That doesn’t come from the heart, and it is not love. First turn to the Cross. Confess your sins and repent of your terrible failure to love. In that repentance and guidance of the Holy Spirit, learn what love is truly about.

The world’s reaction to that love may not be a great one. After all, the world killed Jesus. John warns us in the previous passage that the world will hate us. But let us love in action anyway, because it is no longer our goal to please the world. We are secured in Him. We need not worry about what will be done to us, because it is not our security. He first loved us, and nothing can separate us from that love.

That is a great reason to quit talking about how we love others so much, and get to showing it.

Desire and commandment

“[The commandment is a light] to preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.”
-Proverbs 6:24

When it comes to sex, it seems that more and more people are using the DESIRE as justification for the ACT. When asked why its okay to be in a homosexual relationship, or to sleep around outside of marriage, or to have an affair, or to have multiple partners, people will use a lot of reasons, mostly based on desire – “That’s the way I am,” “You can’t choose who you will love,” “God made me like this,” “I can’t help it,” etc.

I have read on many occasions testimonies from people who grew up in conservative churches who reject the biblical teachings on sex because they like it, or their desires are pulling them in some direction. They reject all those old “rules” because their desires are telling them something else.

Of course this doesn’t work in any other area of life. Everyone agrees that there should be laws against rape and murder, no matter what the criminal’s desires are. We think there is a difference here because there doesn’t seem to be a victim.

Whether or not there is a victim, this one thing should become very clear to us – not all desires are for the good. I can’t help but to think of that truth when someone else tells me that what they are doing must be right because they “love” that other person. Surely God wouldn’t condemn love, right?

Desires are not the best judge of right and wrong. Just because my heart is telling me something doesn’t mean it’s okay. Frankly, the definition that God gives for what is right is a bit different. God tells us that we should love Him above all others. Anything less than that is sin. So we should be looking to God’s Word for guidance on our relationships before we look to our own hearts. The “God wouldn’t condemn love” line isn’t going to work with Him when your love has only been toward your own desires.

Here is the truth of it – God gives us guidance in His rules. He didn’t make them because he’s a sourpuss who needs to lighten up. He didn’t give them to a particular culture and then forget about them today. He gave them to us for our benefit for all time.

The Law is established to convict us of our sin, to drive us repentant to the Cross, where we can obtain the forgiveness of our sins by the Blood of Jesus. He uses it to point us to the greatest good in all of the universe – Himself. We take it and make excuses. “I know the Bible says that, but we live in a different culture, and that was really for a certain people at a certain time, and the Greek word means something different, and Paul wasn’t really inspired at that point anyway.”

In the end, those are excuses, and they will not get you through the Day of Judgment.

Turn away from sinful sex. Sex between a man and his wife was made by God to be enjoyed, but do not take what God has given and drag it through the mud of your own uncontrolled desires. Look to Him for your satisfaction. Look to the Cross for your salvation. In Him you will not be disappointed.

Podcast: 1 John: Love and Hate in Technicolor

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
-1 John 3:11-15

Many of you know this already, but I grew up in the church, and remained there for about twenty years when I realized that I wasn’t a Christian. It wasn’t a bad thing at all to learn, and it’s something that is actually encouraged by the Bible. Paul tells us to “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves” (2 Cor 13:5). This is largely discouraged in the church today. We tell each other that as long as you walked up during an altar call and prayed a prayer then you’re cool with God. The attitude of the New Testament writers was quite the opposite – they really thought it better to realize that you’re not a Christian while there is time to do something about it.

Coming to the understanding that I wasn’t a Christian was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Until I realized that I was not saved, I wouldn’t have been able to be saved, if that makes sense. As long as I thought I was okay, I had no interest in truly becoming okay.

We haven’t reached this passage yet in our study, but John is going to eventually us the reason for his letter. “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).

When I was in the church before I was a Christian, I really didn’t have a concept of Grace. I thought I was fine with God because I was working hard at being a good person. What is so powerful about 1 John is how it rips away that self-righteousness and shows you the truth – that God is looking at your heart, and not just at your actions.

John doesn’t tell us that we can be confident in our salvation because we do the right things. Doing the right things is actually not impossible. You can summon up the will to act well in all sorts of situations. John ignores that sort of thing completely. What John tells you is that you can only be confident in your salvation if you love.

Looking back, I certainly wasn’t loving. I did the right things, but my heart was wicked and dark. Sure, I would claim that I loved everyone, and I probably even believed it at the time. But if I would have been honest, I would have told you that my heart was filled with lust, pride, selfishness, greed, and hatred. If you put me on a crowded highway, I would have proven that hatred really fast.

It is for this reason that John will link hate and murder. Look, human law only really cares about what we actually do. We can hate people so much that we will think about murder all day long, but human law doesn’t care. But God looks to the heart. It is what is within us that He cares about. God is not fooled if we can keep our external behavior in line. He doesn’t reward those who simply have better power of will than others. He’s concerned with who you are.

Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:21-22). This is what John is talking about. It’s not enough to merely refrain from killing someone. We should love that person too.

And here’s where the real issue is. I can force myself by my own will to not kill someone. I’ve actually been doing rather well on this point. But I cannot force myself not to hate them. That is something that only God can do.

The evidence for that is everywhere. Watch television for a while and see what people say about Christianity, and then tell me that John analogy to Cain is not appropriate. In John’s day, Christians were being killed for their faith. John’s own brother was murdered for being a Christian. That still happens today, but in America we don’t see it that much. Still, we can see the hatred in the books being published, the people on talk shows, and the general attitude of people. They see the righteousness of Christ, and that righteousness shines light on their own evil actions, and so they want the light put out.

How many times will you hear these phrases – “Don’t judge me;” “Don’t push your morality on me;” “Stay out of other people’s bedroom;” “Keep your religion in the church”? It is the light of God that exposes all unrighteousness, and the unrighteous do not want their deeds exposed.

We should not be like that. We should not be like Cain, who killed his brother. Do you know this story? It’s in Genesis 4 if you do not. Cain was jealous over his brother’s righteousness, and he killed him. Is your anger sometimes like that? May it not be, for we were reborn in Christ to love. We were not saved in order to walk as the world walks, but as Jesus walks.

Let me stress this point – this is not something you can do out of force of will. Look at what John tells us. He does not tell us, “Love others and you will then pass from death to life.” No, he says, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers.”

Our love is the evidence of our heart. If we still have the worldly heart of stone, we will not love as we should. If that heart of stone has been replaced by a heart of flesh, something that only God can do, then we will no longer be like Cain.

Our love is a barometer of our faith. If you want to know whether you are in the faith, look to your heart. Has it been changed by the Holy Spirit? Is it being formed even now into something that looks more like Christ?

I’m interested that John uses the word “message” here: “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” This passage mirrors something he said before in 1 John 1:5: “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

And that’s really the point. Are we in Him? Then we are in the light, and the darkness is being banished from us. It is not that we will not sin. John is not trying to make that point. It is that before we were in darkness, and now we are in light. It is that before we were like Cain, and now it God has turned our hearts toward love. It is that before we were driven by greed, lust, pride, and selfishness in all ways, but now we have been turned toward the Cross and away from ourselves. We may still fall to those temptations, but our hearts have been basically changed by grace.

This is what John is saying – look to your heart. What is there? Has God changed your focus away from yourself and toward others, not for reasons of ambition or to make a name for yourself, but out of love? Maybe it hasn’t been all that much, but when you look upon your life, you can see the change. Can you trace a distinct movement toward God since the hour you first repented to Him? Do you love when before you hated? Do you have compassion when before you had anger? If not, turn to the Cross. Repent and ask His forgiveness in faith. It is because of Jesus’ sacrifice that we can be changed, not by the power of our own wills.

We have the tendency to believe that we are doing okay on our own. It’s not terribly hard to be a good person according to the world’s standards. For this very reason does John tell us to look within. If your heart has borne fruit in keeping with your repentance, then you can have confidence in your election as a child of God. If not, then go to Him.

Let us not overdo this. Let us not think of every sin as “proof” that we are lost. We will still sin as Christians, but once we are in Christ, we know that, in the words of John, “if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” It is by Him alone that we can be forgiven. Confess to Him in faith and true repentance. We are saved by His righteousness, and not our own. It is that same righteousness that will change us, and one day perfect us.