1 John 3:11-24

Love One Another
11 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.
16 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.
19 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.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the hymn, "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love" or not, but I'd imagine this particular passage along with a few others were inspiration for that song.  If you are not familiar with the account of Cain and Abel, the first two sons of Adam and Eve, you can find it in Genesis 4--immediately after The Fall when sin entered the world in Genesis 3.  I do want to pull out verse 7 from Genesis 4 as something for us to memorize from that account, " 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”  This is the Lord talking to Cain right before Cain kills Abel.  God knew what was going to happen and He knew Cain's life would be ruined because of the sin that he was letting take over in his heart and mind, and God gave Cain a chance to repent.  Why was Cain angry, because God had accepted his brother's worship as an acceptable, pleasing sacrifice, but had not accepted Cain's worship--because He came to God with an offering that cost him nothing and which was all about him.  He came the wrong way and with the wrong heart.

Back to today's text....the world is going to hate us, especially when they see God's presence and favor on us and when they see us worshiping God in all that we say and do and refusing to accept the idea of some part of our life being "secular" that belongs to us and another part being "sacred" which belongs to God--100% of you, all that you are and all that you do, belongs to God.  Paul tells us "we have been bought with a price" and we are now slaves to God instead of slaves of sin.  We however must not act like the world and we must show love to each other because God is love, and His love must live in and through us.  We do not love the world or the things of the world, or the lies that it spreads, but if we love God, then we must love God's people, and John will continue to tell us that we must also love God's Word--specifically His commandments.

How far does this love go?  John tells us that we should be willing to give up our material possessions to help a brother in need and we should be willing to go as far as to die for one another, because Jesus died for us when we were still enemies of God, so this is the least we can do for those that have been brought near to Him and which He now chooses to call "friends of God." Our actions should speak as loud or louder than our words.  We cannot simply claim to love someone and then refuse them help (the book of James will talk about this later and how faith without works is dead just like the tree that bears no fruit is a dead tree).

The Holy Spirit will convict us of sin and let us know when we are not in a right relationship with God and we will know we are out of fellowship with Him and with other believers as well.  This is one of our assurances that we are truly saved.  Those who are of the world aren't convicted of their sin in the same way.  They may be afraid of getting caught and the consequences if they are, but usually they don't think about how their actions hurt God and their ability to have a relationship with Him and experience His presence and blessings in our lives because the world doesn't have a relationship with God.  Because of the relationship that we have with Him--He is a good Father, we know that everything we ask in His name (that is in accordance with His will and is good for us to have) is something that He desires to give us already and is a prayer that will be heard and answered--just maybe not in the way that we expect it to be answered or in the time we expect it to be answered.

Last, but certainly not least is the fact that it is not our righteousness--our adherence to God's laws and commandments--that makes God love us or find us acceptable.  That is because of the love that He has for His one and only Son, Jesus and when we by faith accept the blood of Jesus as the propitiation for our sins, repent form sin and allow Jesus to reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords in our lives now and forevermore, God sees His Son when He looks at us, and every good work we do is because of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus told us that all we needed to do was abide in Him because, "apart form me, you can do nothing."  Thanks be to God for the forgiveness of sin through the cross and the victory over death by way of the Resurrection, and for every spiritual blessing that we need to be equipped for every good work that He has prepared for us to do by the work the Holy Spirit.