¹¹From the beginning you were told that we must love each other. ¹²Don’t be like Cain, who belonged to the devil and murdered his own brother. Why did he murder him? He did it because his brother was good, and he was evil. ¹³My friends, don’t be surprised if the people of this world hate you. ¹⁴Our love for each other proves that we have gone from death to life. But if you don’t love each other, you are still under the power of death. ¹⁵If you hate each other, you are murderers, and we know that murderers do not have eternal life.

¹⁶We know what love is because Jesus gave his life for us. That’s why we must give our lives for each other. ¹⁷If we have all we need and see one of our own people in need, we must have pity on that person, or else we cannot say we love God. ¹⁸Children, you show love for others by truly helping them, and not merely by talking about it. ¹⁹When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God. ²⁰But even if we don’t feel at ease, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.

²¹Dear friends, if we feel at ease in the presence of God, we will have the courage to come near him. ²²He will give us whatever we ask, because we obey him and do what pleases him. ²³God wants us to have faith in his Son Jesus Christ and to love each other. This is also what Jesus taught us to do. ²⁴If we obey God’s commandments, we will stay one in our hearts with him, and he will stay one with us. The Spirit that he has given us is proof that we are one with him.

¹Dear friends, don’t believe everyone who claims to have the Spirit of God. Test them all to find out if they really do come from God. Many false prophets have already gone out into the world, ²and you can know which ones come from God. His Spirit says that Jesus Christ had a truly human body. ³But when someone doesn’t say this about Jesus, you know that person has a spirit that doesn’t come from God and is the enemy of Christ. You knew that this enemy was coming into the world and now is already here.

⁴Children, you belong to God, and you have defeated these enemies. God’s Spirit ^[a] is in you and is more powerful than the one that is in the world. ⁵These enemies belong to this world, and the world listens to them, because they speak its language. ⁶We belong to God, and everyone who knows God will listen to us. But the people who don’t know God won’t listen to us. That is how we can tell the Spirit that speaks the truth from the one that tells lies.

⁷My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children, and we know him. ⁸God is love, and anyone who doesn’t love others has never known him. ⁹God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life. ¹⁰Real love isn’t our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. ¹¹Dear friends, since God loved us this much, we must love each other.

¹²No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is truly in our hearts.

¹³God has given us his Spirit. That is how we know that we are one with him, just as he is one with us. ¹⁴God sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. We saw his Son and are now telling others about him. ¹⁵God stays one with everyone who openly says that Jesus is the Son of God. That’s how we stay one with God ¹⁶and are sure that God loves us.

God is love. If we keep on loving others, we will stay one in our hearts with God, and he will stay one with us. ¹⁷If we truly love others and live as Christ did in this world, we won’t be worried about the day of judgment. ¹⁸A real love for others will chase those worries away. The thought of being punished is what makes us afraid. It shows that we have not really learned to love.

¹⁹We love because God loved us first. ²⁰But if we say we love God and don’t love each other, we are liars. We cannot see God. So how can we love God, if we don’t love the people we can see? ²¹The commandment that God has given us is: “Love God and love each other!”

Introduction

Welcome back to our study “A Lifestyle that Transforms” from I John.  John teaches us how to live a genuinely biblical lifestyle that honors God.  Today, we will consider I John 3:11-4:21 and our sixth lifestyle choice: “Your love for God must be expressed by loving your brother.”  John encourages us to love our brothers and, if you do so, this lifestyle will transform your self-image, your family, your church, your co-workers and all relationships that you encounter daily.

John has just taught us that we must live and do right to be a child of God.  In our passage today, John challenges us with the Truth that if we love God then we must love those who He loves.  We will consider why we must love our brothers, whose example we should follow, the rewards, the tests, and that loving our brothers is the proper response to God’s love.  John directs us strongly to love our brothers and, by doing so, to choose a lifestyle that transforms.

Our love for one another proves that we are in Life

John begins today’s passage by teaching us in I John 3:11-15 that our love for one another proves that we are in Life.  Those who do not obey Jesus are serving their self-interests and seek to please themselves.  In doing so, they make themselves the god of their own heart.

Cain was so self-absorbed that he murdered his own brother, his own flesh and blood, because he was jealous of Abel.  People of this mindset cannot understand how Christians can live for Jesus and love others.  They do not understand that love is not self-seeking.  It follows that since they cannot understand genuine love then they cannot tolerate those who do love as Jesus loved.  Some respond with jealousy and even hatred towards those who love because they live under the power of death.  John teaches us that we should not be surprised when they hate us because they do not understand Divine love.

It makes no sense for those who love Jesus not to love their brothers because we are supposed to be living under the power of Life.  If I love Jesus and you love Jesus then we should love each other because we are living to serve and honor Christ.  If we do not love then we are not living under the power of Life and instead have allowed the power of death to intervene.

Jesus is our example

In I John 3:16-20 John reminds us that Jesus gave His life for us because He loved us.  We responded to His love by dedicating our lives to Him and we became members in the family of God.  It is because of His love that we must love each other.  Help goes beyond mere words.  Helping means that we do whatever we can to help our family, even to the point of sacrificing of our time, finances, and comforts of life.  I Timothy 5:4 tells us, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  But, when we do love our brothers in practical ways then we know that we belong to the Truth and that God is pleased.

Obeying Christ’s commands results in rewards

There are rewards for loving one another!  In I John 3:21-24, we learn that when we love then we are honoring Christ.  We then are at ease in God’s presence and have courage to approach Him.  Jesus said that if we love Him then we will obey His commands (John 14:15) and that the greatest commandment is to love God with the entirety of our being and to love others (Matthew 22:37-40).  So, when we obey and love then we are acting like Jesus.  The rewards of loving are that we are like Jesus, that God is pleased, that our hearts are united with God, that He will stay with us, and that His Holy Spirit is given to us.  In other words, the rewards of putting others first and loving them is that we are in right relationship with God.  There is no greater reward!

We are to test the spirits in order to stay true to God

We must never forget that we live in a spiritual battle for our souls and that our enemy the devil “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8b).  He will do whatever he can to kill, to destroy, and to rob God’s children of their joy.  Those who live under the power of death will not only hate us, as John wrote earlier, but they will do whatever they can to cause division, strife, and spiritual death in the Church.  The devil will try to get a foothold in your heart by causing doubt, fear, anxiety, and by directing you to be self-centered and selfish.  While you may not murder someone, your words of gossip and slander are equally as devastating to relationships within God’s family.

In I John 4:1-6, we are taught how to respond to those who bring teachings into the church.  John writes that we are to test all the spirits.  Those who are from God will seek to honor God’s Word, to glorify Christ, and to love and serve others.  Those who are not from God teach heresy that is not aligned with the Truth of God’s Word, they promote themselves, and they cause division in the church.  John says that they are enemies of Christ.  While they claim to teach us “truth” and to have our best interests in mind, they are liars.

While we must be aware of their tactics, we must not be defeated by these false prophets.  Jesus died and rose again to defeat their master, the devil.  God’s Spirit lives in us and is greater than the spirit that is in the world. We belong to God and are in right relationship with Him.  Our future is secure in Christ as we walk daily with Him.

We must love one another because love comes from God

The remaining portion of our passage today is in I John 4:7-21 and that loving our brothers is the proper response to God’s love.  We love because God is love.  Jesus showed us Divine Love by giving His life for our sins so that we might have life.  If we want to be like Jesus then we must love for Christ is love.

Love means that we give the entirety of our being to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  If we are living in love then love must impact all our relationships, especially the relationships in the family of God.

There is no fear in love.  John wrote that, “But, perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (I John 4:18).  There are no divisions, factions, or condemnation in love.  These behaviors are not from God or found in God.

I will close with John’s words at the end of this passage: “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

Application

The application of John’s teaching is clear.  We must love our brothers.  The first way to grow in your love for the Lord is to spend time with Him.  The second way is then to love those whom He loves.  It was Love that brought us from living under the power of death to living under the power of Life.  It is Love that keeps us running the race of life with focused determination.  It is Love that will give us eternal life.  May the love of Christ fill our hearts and lives and pour out from us onto everyone we encounter so that Jesus Christ will be glorified in all the earth.  When our love for God is expressed by loving our brother then we are living a lifestyle that transforms!

Prayer

Dear Jesus, I thank you that you first loved me.  Teach me to walk in your love.  Please help me to love others as you love me.  May you be honored and glorified in all that I do.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

For You to Consider

1. How can you love your brother in Christ?
2. How are you to respond to people who bring a new “truth” or “teaching” into the church?
3. What are the rewards to loving your brother?
4. What can you do when you are not feeling like responding to others in love?
5. How do you respond to people who say that they love God but do not love the Church?