Born to Love: A Sermon From 1 John 3:11-24

This sermon was delivered at Epiphany Fellowship of Camden during Sunday worship on 22 January 2012 (audio here and video here). We meet every Sunday at 12:45pm at the St. Joan of Arc church building at 3107 Alabama Road in the Fairview section of Camden City, NJ. 

Scripture Reading

1 John 3:11 (ESV) For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 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. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 3:16-18 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 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? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 3:19-24 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 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. 24 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.

Introduction

As some of you may know, Oprah Winfrey recently started her own television network.  Many television critics and viewers have been less than satisfied with what they believe is substandard programming on her channel.

So in response to this situation, many suggestions for better shows have been offered up. One such suggestion is a program that would be called “Born With It.” Every week, this show would feature someone who excels in their field or profession due to their natural, God-given gifts and abilities.

On her blog, the woman who is pitching this show gives several examples of who could be featured on the program: top-tier athletes who thrive because of their incredible physical characteristics, people who become cooks because of their ability to identify flavors, and musicians who are gifted to sing and play various instruments in amazing ways. Based on their gifting, it seems like all of these people were simply “born” to do these things. At the end of the sales pitch, the question is asked: “So what were you born to do?”[1]

I firmly believe that this question is answered in John’s first letter. As we walk through our text today in 1 John 3, we will find our answer to the question, “What were you born to do?”

A. Love One Another (3:11-15)

1. Context: The Children of God and the Children of the Devil (3:10)

To a large degree, what we are born to do is dictated by who our parents are. After all, it is from our parents that we get our DNA and physical characteristics. In addition to that, we also adopt (consciously and subconsciously) the social and emotional characteristics of our parents. The saying “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” is filled with much common wisdom and observation of the human condition. With this in mind, let’s look at the context of our Scripture text today,1 John 3:11-15.

This paragraph is set in the context and shadow of 1 John 3:10:

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

Since the time of the Fall of humanity in the Garden, there has existed, side by side, two seeds: the seed of God and the seed of the devil (3:8, 10; Gen. 3:15; John 8:44; cf. 1 John 5:19).[2]

Gen. 3:15 (NASB) And I will put enmity between you and the woman,  and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. 

1 John 3:8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil….

The children of this hostile, rebellious age make it clear who their true father is by their lawless, evil, selfish deeds (3:4). Jesus said that “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). He went on to say that such people belong to their father, the devil (John 8:44).

Because of the Fall of humanity in the Garden, we are all born into this state. According to Eph. 2, we all follow the course of this wicked world system and obey the devil.[3] He is our natural father, according to the flesh. The children of the flesh (i.e., all those who have never been born of the Spirit) do not submit to Christ and His Lordship. In fact, many who belong to the devil sit in church every week and claim to be Christian.

But whatever they may claim to the contrary, their identity is ultimately proven by their conduct: these children do not do the righteousness of the God who they say is their Father.

In other words, their lives lack the kind of works that distinctively mark off born again believers as being children of God in Christ. The Holy Spirit tells us in 1 John 2:6 that “whoever says he abides in [Christ] ought to walk in the same way in which [Christ] walked.”

James comments on this type of “works-less” false religion. He says

What good is it, my brothers [and sisters], if someone says he has faith but does not have works [i.e., but does not practice the righteousness of God]? Can this kind of faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead (Jam. 2:14-17; cf. 1 John 3:17-18). 

Such people say that God is their Father, but they do not do the works of the Father (such as showing love to others; cf. 3:10), because they don’t belong to Him. The lives of such people look nothing like the life of the Christ who they claim is their Lord (cf. 1 John 2:6). Instead, they do the works of the devil; they hate and they murder (cf. 3:12, 15) because the one who has been a hater and a murderer from the beginning is their true father (John 8:44).  

2. Love One Another (3:11-15)

In our day, we have a lot of “rogue Christians.” We have a lot of people going around saying that they love Jesus but they hate the church.

They say things like, “Well, I believe in God, but I just don’t want to go to church. I can stay at home and worship God on my own time. I can read my Bible. I can watch church on TV or the Internet. I don’t have to be in church to worship God.”

This type of hyper-individualistic religion is totally foreign to the New Testament concept of what it means to be a Christian. A lone Christian doesn’t exist on his or her own any more than a toe or a finger or an eyeball can exist and live apart from the rest of the body.

In 1 John 3:11, we see that the “message that [we] have heard from the beginning [i.e., the message that is at the very foundation of our religion, is] that we should love one another” (emphasis added).  

Let me ask you this question: How is it that you are you going to “love” on other Christians without ever seeing them and being with them?

By staying away from church, these people are showing the world who their true father is. By staying away from the brothers and sisters, they are telling them that they hate them. They may not openly say that they hate the brothers and sisters, but they are hating on them all the same.

For instance, I can say that I love my wife. But if my actions don’t line up with the profession I make with my mouth, it means that I don’t really love her. Could you imagine if I said the same thing to my wife that some so-called Christians say to the church? “Hey, I love you and all. I’m just never coming around to see you. I can love you from somewhere else.”

Those who go out from the church and stay away from the church prove that God is not their Father (2:19). In this, they are proving that their father is the devil, who also hates the brethren.  

In 3:11, John is reinforcing a theme that he introduced in 2:7, where he said

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning (cf. 2 John 5-6).

The way John writes this letter is, in many ways, circular. What I mean by this is that he brings up one topic or theme, addresses it, then moves on to another. Then, he comes back around and addresses the first theme again, and so on. Some of the major themes of his letter are: light and darkness, knowing God and abiding in Him, the seed of God and the seed of the devil, the world and idolatry, true and false (antichrist) teachers, and love and hate.

The “old/new commandment” of 3:11 was what Christ preached in John 13:34-35:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples [and all men will know who your true Father is], if you have love for one another.[4]

This kind of love is “not like”[5] the works of Cain, who was “of the evil one.” Cain’s father was the devil. The Greek word that John uses to describe Cain’s deeds in 3:12 (poneros) is the same word that he uses to describe Satan (2:13-14; 3:12; 5:18-19). The word for righteous (dikaios) that John uses to describe Abel’s deeds is a term that he uses to refer to Jesus Christ (1:9; 2:1, 29; 3:7). “In other words, Cain belonged to Satan and Abel belonged to God.”[6]

Jesus states that Satan “was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). And just as a son imitates the deeds of his father, Cain imitates the devil and murders his own brother. Cain murdered his brother because he hated the godly righteousness that Abel showed forth (3:12).

This is the same kind of hatred that the world has for Christians. In light of Cain’s murder of righteous Abel, John says in 3:13, “Do not be surprised brothers [and sisters], that the world hates you.” John last spoke of “the world” in 2:15-17, where he warned Christians against a love of the world or the things in the world. He stated that “if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

In other words, an undisputed and abiding heart attachment for the world proves who that person’s true father really is. It is the ultimate “paternity test.” Those who love the world belong to their father, the devil, whom Jesus describes as “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 16:11). Paul describes Satan as “the god of this world/age [aion]” (2 Cor. 4:4). Those who have a continuing and unfettered attachment to this world system and the things in it are openly displaying that they belong to the “god of this age” and “the ruler of this world,” the devil.

And just as their father hates the Son of God, so also do his children hate the sons of God who are being conformed into His image and likeness through the sanctification of His Spirit. These children are born hating God, born hating His commandments, and born hating His children.

But “we know that we have passed out[7] of” the realm of death of which Satan is so fond (3:14). We have passed out of this present evil age of death and into the life of the age to come in Christ Jesus. We know this because, unlike the children of Satan, “we love the brothers.” We spend time in church (because we want to, not because we have to); we spend time with our small groups; we invest in the lives and souls of our brothers and sisters; we love them sacrificially; we don’t love with our lips and hate with our feet (by staying away from them).

The children of the devil, that “murderer from the beginning,” hate the brothers and, in this hatred, show their murderous likeness to their father. They follow in his footsteps and abide in his likeness. These haters/murderers do not abide in Christ, the life-giving Vine (3:15; John 15:1-11). And such were we, at one time. We all

once walked [according to] the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air [Satan], the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:2-6).

And so we see that we are able to love only because we abide in Christ (2:5-6; 10), who Himself loves the brothers and gave us the commandment to “love one another” as He loves us (John 13:34). Prior to the new birth, we were simply unable to love one another as Christ loved us because we had no life in Him. Instead, we lived in a state of spiritual death (cf. Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13).

It is only when we are born of God, believing in the name of His Son, that His love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). From that time forward, we are then supernaturally empowered to keep the commandment to “love one another” through Him who abides in us (cf. 3:23-24).

What were you born to do?

Truly, and in every sense, we were spiritually born so that we would love. We were born of God so that we would love Him. And we were born of God so that we would love others (cf. Matt. 22:36-40).

B. Love As Christ Loves (3:16-18)

We prove our identity as children of the Father, and prove that we abide in Him, when we love sacrificially, as God has loved in the sending of His Son to die in our place (3:16).

The love of the Father for the Son is the archetype of all love. This love is made visible in the sending and self-sacrifice of the Son.[8] Simply put, we should love one another because it is a visible, tangible display of the glory of God. It is a display of His character and His purpose for this world:

“God’s primary purpose for the world is his compassionate and forgiving love which asserts itself despite the world’s inimical [hostile] rejection of it. In God’s agape [love] his glory (doxa) is simultaneously revealed.”[9]

When we love sacrificially, we give glory to God and reveal our true identity as His children:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt. 5:43-45, emphasis added).

The loving character of the Father, who shows love even to His enemies, has been implanted into the hearts of His children by His Spirit, through the power of the gospel (Rom. 1:16).

At its heart, the gospel is the good news of God’s love toward a wicked and rebellious people who have declared themselves to be His enemies in word, thought, and deed.

In love, the Father sent His divine Son into a hostile world to live the life that we failed to live (a life of sinless obedience to the Father’s will) and to die the death that we deserved to die, substituting Himself for us and paying the penalty that we deserve for our hostility against God.

After three days, the Son rose from the dead and showed Himself alive to many. Forty days later He ascended into heaven, being crowned with all authority, glory, and honor at the right hand of the Father.

He did all of this in love, so that all who would repent of their sins and believe in the name of the Son of God would be saved and receive His Spirit to abide in them and with them forever and ever.

This same love of the Father abides in us (3:17) and will inevitably display itself in sacrificial deeds of love and mercy toward all, even toward those whom the world considers to be “undeserving.”

Those who are born of the God who is love also do the righteousness of the God who is love (3:18; cf. 3:10; 4:7-8).

What were you born to do?

You were born of God so that you would love others, not in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.

C. Abiding in the Truth (3:19-24)

When we do the righteousness of God and walk in the same way in which Christ walked (2:6), we know that we are abiding in the truth (3:19). And this gives us great assurance because, down deep in our hearts, we know how weak and fake and false we really are.

We all put up fronts and we all act like we’re tough. When other people are around, we put on masks and costumes, and place our faith in our own strength and ability and knowledge. But when the lights go down and we are all alone in the dark with nothing but our own hearts and our own thoughts, we begin to understand just how weak and vulnerable and ignorant and foolish and broken we really are.

Your true character, the true you, is who you are when the lights go down.

And an awareness of who we really are in the depths of the blackness of the wickedness of our hearts should cause us to flee to Jesus Christ the Righteous for salvation and security.  

In a context where, because of our indwelling sin, we are so quick to deceive ourselves (1:8-10), it is reassuring to know that we belong to God in Christ, and His Spirit is able to teach us the truth (2:27).

In a context where the world is constantly trying to deceive us and pull us in its wicked direction (2:15-16), it is reassuring to know that it is the Spirit of truth who keeps us safe and secure, firmly rooted in Christ.

In a context where antichrists are “trying to deceive” us with false teaching (2:26), it is reassuring to know that we who have the Spirit are “from God” and are able to discern “the spirit of error” (4:6).

It is the Lord who is triumphant over all things: He triumphs over the wickedness of our sin; He triumphs over this present evil world; He triumphs over the satanic rulers and authorities. He is the One who is “greater” (3:20) than all these things. He is the One who has, since before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4-5), set His affection on us, determining to save us and make us His children.

He is the Unstoppable One, the Almighty.

This is our Father.

The Scripture calls believers “overcomers.” How is it that, as weak, pitiful, sinful, spiritual failures we can possibly be called “overcomers”?

We are “overcomers” not because we have or could ever accomplish anything of value on our own, but because we abide in the Strong One. And He has overcome (cf. 2:13-14; Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21). His powerful Word abides in us and makes us “strong” (2:14). As we rest in the power of His conquering Spirit, it gives us confidence and boldness in His presence (2:28; 3:21). And as we rest confidently in His powerful arms, we know that if we ask anything according to His will, He will hear us and answer us (3:22; 5:14-15; cf. John 14:13-14).[10]

Those who have God’s seed abiding in them (3:9) will keep God’s commandments and do what pleases Him (3:22). John states that the commandment of God is “that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ” (3:23).

In John 6, a crowd asks the Lord,

“What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answers, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him [Christ] whom [the Father] has sent” (John 6:28-29).

Belief in Christ originates in the sovereign will of God the Father, and is dependent on Him alone, and not at all on anything in us. Jesus tells us, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). In Phil. 1:29 we are told that belief in Christ is something that God “grants” to us. In 2 Tim. 2:25 the Scripture indicates that a true repentance is something which God Himself “grants” or “gives.”

We don’t “choose” Christ any more than a dead man “chooses” to get up out of the darkness of his grave and walk around in the light of day (cf. Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13). Jesus tells us clearly,

“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16; cf. 1 John 3:22).

The electing love of the Father, lavished on us in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, inevitably and irresistibly brings forth love for “one another” (3:23).

The abiding presence of the Spirit in us empowers us to “keep his commandments” (3:24) and “walk in the same way in which [Christ] walked” (2:6).

What were you born to do?

You were born of God so that you would be empowered by His Spirit to keep His commandment to believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another.

Conclusion and Exhortation

What is the purpose of your existence? Why are you here?   

You are here to show off the glory of God in Christ.[11]

What does that look like in the here and now?

It looks like love.

It looks like love for God.

And it looks like love for others.

In Matt. 22:36, Jesus is asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” He responds, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (37-40).

When others see us practicing righteousness (3:10) by joyously loving God and others, the Scripture tells us that it brings glory to our Father in heaven (Matt. 5:16).

What were you born to do?

You were born to glorify God, and to love Him forever.

Don’t get sidetracked when the world tries to convince you that you are here for some other reason, or some other purpose.

And why would you listen to those who belong to the world anyway?

The Scripture tells us that the world hates us because we belong to Christ (3:13).

Why, as a child of God in Christ Jesus, would you listen to a child of the devil?

Remember, and do not forget, that you were given the new birth from the Father so that you would love Him and love others in the power of His Spirit.

And when we show off His love in this fallen world, it brings Him glory, which is the reason we draw breath every day.

Let us pray.

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[1] Abigail Green, “What Were You Born to Do?” Abby Off the Record, 6 July 2011, http://www.abbyofftherecord.com/2011/07/06/what-were-you-born-to-do (Accessed 17 January 2012; emphasis in original). 

[2] “John sees only absolutes: light or darkness, truth or the lie, God or the devil, life or death. For him there is no middle ground. There are no alternatives” (Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of James, Epistles of John, Peter, and Jude, in New Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1986], 304). 

[3] Eph. 2:2 (NLT) You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world.

[4]  Cf. Lev. 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

[5] Ou kathos is literally rendered “not as” (KJV, NASB). The NET renders it “not like.” The NIV adds to the simple construction of particle (ou) and conjunction (kathos): “do not be like.” The NLT (“we must not be like”)  and ESV (“we should not be like”) add even more here.

[6] Kistemaker, 306-307. 

[7] Metabebekamen is the second perfect active indicative (first person plural) of metabaino (“depart, go, pass, remove”). The perfect tense expresses a completed action, describing a present state which has resulted from a past action. It implies a proces which has been completed and which now exists in a finished state (Parsing Guide to the Greek text of the KJV, ed. by Stephen Marler, Version 1.0, Accordance Bible Software 8.4.7, Oak Tree Software, Inc., 2010). This verb is directive, in that it indicates moving from one place to another (Kistemaker, 308).

[8] Walther Gunther and Hans-Georg Link, ἀγαπάω, in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. by Colin Brown (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), Version 3.1, Accordance Bible Software 8.4.7, Oak Tree Software, Inc., 2010.

[9] Gunther and Link. 

[10] When we pray in Jesus’ name (John 14:13) and the objective of our prayers is (1) to bring glory and honor to the Father’s name, (2) to promote His rule, and (3) to submit to His will, He will answer us. Does not Christ tell us this very thing in Matt. 6:9-10? “Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, [1] hallowed be your name. [2] Your kingdom come, [3] your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” By the time we come to v. 11 and the first request (“give us this day our daily bread”), we have already laid a proper foundation for the spirit in which we offer prayer. So many times, our prayers are laced through with our own sinfulness and crooked desires. Even when we pray for good things, if we are not praying with the intention to honor the Father, promote His lordship, and submit to His will, we are praying wrongly. On this topic, James states, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (Jam. 4:3).

[11] Question 1 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” The answer: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” http://www.reformed.org/documents/WSC.html.   

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