Love is the greatest commandment. Remember that one day, someone asked Jesus, what is the greatest of all the commandments? There were some of them in 613 in the Old Testament. They wanted to know which one's the top. And Jesus did not quote from Exodus or Deuteronomy, the 10 commandments, the 10 words that are inscribed on the table. Instead, he gave them the summary of the whole law. which is forever binding. And that is that you should love Yahweh, your God. How? With all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength. And the second is like, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You should love your neighbor to the degree that you love yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

So, love is the greatest commandment. And the New Testament tells us that love is the fulfillment of the law. So that means that whatever all these laws were that God gave to Israel, that at the heart is a way to express love in that context in which they were given, and the way to express love in the context that's universal found in the new covenant scriptures of the New Testament.

But love is not only the greatest of the commandment and the fulfillment of the law, love is the grand goal. It's the grand end, the purpose of the gospel. You see, here's man's ultimate problem. Yes, we are born in sin because of our forefather and all of the line that has come to us. We are born in sin. But you know, the greatest difficulty, the greatest barrier, the greatest result of sin is that we do not love God. And so the great end of the gospel is reconciliation between us and God, initiated by God, and made possible by God, the incarnate Lord, Jesus Christ, through His death on the cross. Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. And we were the enemies of God. And Christ came into the midst of the enemy camp and laid down His life for the enemies that God had chosen to be His children.

So, love is the great goal of the gospel. God, who loves us first, seeks our love, and He finds it. in our faith in Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit that transforms our lives so that we who had no use for God now discovers that He's the most important in all the universe. Even when we struggle in our faith, even when we struggle against sin and lose, a battle It's the fact that God loves us and that we, because of our new nature, love Him, that we seek repentance, confession, and cleansing. We can't leave Him because His love draws us and holds us close to His heart.

If you ask the average person, at least in America. What is the message of Christianity? Most of them will probably say, well, love. What do you associate with Christianity? Except for those fringe groups, the vast majority would say love. Jesus says we're to love one another. God is love. People have heard that. People will say that, but there's a problem with that. The problem is that whenever people say these words, God is love, but they don't know Christ, then their understanding of the love of God is their own understanding of what love is. And that may be far cry from what the biblical definition of love is.

You see, love comes in different flavors. It comes in different relationships. There's different kinds of love. There's minor love. And what do we mean by love? Well, sometimes we just mean like. We like something. And then we abuse the word love so much that we empty it of its meaning. I mean, after all, you love hamburgers, right? And you love ice cream and you love God, you love your neighbor, you love your parents, you love your child, you love your shoes. What? Does this all mean the same thing? Heaven forbid. Heaven forbid that I love my parent like I love my shoes. I mean, these are different categories, right? Love is defined by the object. And love in the biblical sense always involves relationship. And although we may transfer elements of that relationship to activities or even objects, It's a lesser thing. It's sort of like a reverence. It's sort of like holding them in honor. Why? Because of the love I have for the person, the person of God.

So, love is the greatest commandment. It's the greatest fulfillment of the law. And it is the end, the purpose, the goal of the gospel, the good news. is that God loved us before we ever loved Him. He came and sought us in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He drew us to Him by the blessed Holy Spirit, stirring up within us life and a life of love. We're like a young infant. That's a contradiction of terms, isn't it? Obviously, young and infant. An infant is the youngest of the young, but like they're searching for their mother's milk and breast. God loves us. And because of his regenerating grace, the work of the blessed Holy Spirit, who convicts us of our evil and of our sins, and of our need by revealing to us that we are lost, that we are hopeless and bound for eternal destruction unless we are related rightly to God.

God is love, but love is not just a sentiment. Love certainly involves affection, but it's an affection that's rooted in action. action that moves to meet the needs of others. Notice what John says, this is the message that you heard from the beginning. Are you obsessed like our current generation and many times like generations before with, oh, give me something new. You know, oh, that's old. And nowadays old is what, like a few months, a few years. Oh, that was popular a long time ago. And they're talking about the nineties. You know, give me something new. I'm afraid sometimes I even fail to this. I look at the shirts in my closet and I say, I need something new to wear. You know, this obsession for something new. Give me something new. We don't wanna hear the old. And yet, everything we are and have has come from the old. You don't have the new in isolation from the old.

But John's message is, this is a message that you've heard from the beginning. We don't need a new message. The church should not be obsessed with trying to find new messages. or new clothes to put it in. What we need to do is to build on the foundation and we need to constantly repeat the truth because it's the truth, the God and Christ that saves, that rightly relates us to him. We never outgrow the gospel. Our entire church worship experience is built around the gospel Sunday by Sunday. a declaration of who God is, a recognition of our need for Him because of our sin, and the celebration and embracing of faith of God's solution in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and a call to love as God has loved us and to love one another as Christ loves us. We repeat it over and over again. We tell the story in a hundred different ways. We're telling the same story. There is no other story. It's the greatest story ever told. And it's real. It's true. It's changed us and it will change any who believe it. And if one claims they believe it and are not changed, they are liars and know not the truth. That's the message of John. That's why he wrote this letter.

You see, the congregations, the assemblies that John was writing to were very likely Ephesus in all of its different expressions and the sister groups that grew out from that. Now, they didn't have big cathedrals. They didn't have big amphitheaters. They didn't have crowds of thousands. They met in small groups. Maybe they could accommodate 50. I don't know. It depends on how big the house, how big the courtyard. They were multiplied in different locations.

But John, who was the pastor of many of them, the pastor of Ephesus, we know this from church history, He loved his people. It hurt him when they weren't living up to their potential. He pursued them with the pen of truth and a heart of love.

But within the assemblies of believers in that generation, in every generation, there are those who come in or who are raised in it who never come to true faith. They're present. Maybe they're attracted. Maybe it's a social need. Maybe it's a familial need. And perhaps they remember and believe or embrace some part of the story, but their hearts have never been changed. Sometimes they're on the peripheral of the churches. They drop in and out.

But John's concerned because some of those who left the assembly have embraced a new story, a different story, or who live contrary to the truth they heard. So John writes to remind him of this message, and he writes also to expose the spirit of the Antichrist

You know, the greatest danger when you start dealing with antichrist action, it's not the political people outside of the church. It's not those who may make a big mark on history in a negative way. The greatest danger is those who have been in some way associated with the church who leave it, we call that apostasy. Maybe they never truly came into it, but they, having been exposed to the truth, reject it, and then not only reject it, but turn to fight against it. This is the spirit of antichrist. It's a danger in the church in every generation. And that's why John writes his warning.

He is the only biblical author who ever uses the word Antichrist, though we seem to find it all over the place. But John is the one who uses the word, and John needs to be the one who explains what Antichrist is.

I haven't gotten very far, have I?

For this is a message that you heard from the beginning. Well, which beginning? Well, we could talk about the fact that God revealed this in the Old Covenant, right? He revealed it in His actions toward Abraham. He revealed it in His action toward Israel. He chose the descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob to be His special people. He chose them. He set His love upon them, and He led them providentially in their lives. That's the message we had from the beginning.

But that's not really the beginning John's talking about. He's talking about the beginning of the message that Jesus Christ gave. There's an interaction between what John's writing in this epistle and what Christ said that's recorded for us by John in the gospel of John. The gospel of Christ according to John. Not that John made it up. or not that it's his interpretation. It's the words of Jesus that he remembers because after all, he was very close to Jesus. He heard the words. He's an eyewitness. And that's how he began his letter. He began his epistle that way.

We declare to you him whom we touched, whom we heard, whom we saw, who we spent time with, who we saw do all these deeds. This is the one we declare to you. And this is the message we have from the beginning. And from the beginning of your Christian life, from the beginning of your spiritual life, when God brought you to new birth, you heard the message and the truth. God loves you. And you responded with, I love you to help my lack of love. We were taught and instructed by the very words of Jesus, isn't it? He told us that we are to love one another as he has loved us. in preparation for preaching on this, I drew up from the scriptures, a multitude of scriptures in which we're taught about love and the love that we are to have to God and the words that Christ himself said with reference to love. Jesus had these words, we've already read them in the scripture, that we are to love one another as he has loved us. Now, the special reference to that is to the body of believers. You see, there are degrees of love. We're to have love in the sense of care or concern for all people. But you know that if you're, that you have a family, there's a love that you have for family that's different. maybe than the love you have for neighbors. Now there's some penetration of this because people who were not born in the family may become just like a part of the family because of the ties of love. But there's a difference, a degree. There's a difference in expression. And the scriptures lay that difference

There is to be a love for the fellow Christian, for our brother and sister in Christ that exceeds the love we might have for the general population of people. And so he tells us that we are to provide for the family first, speaking about the family of God. I'm getting ahead of myself, but we've heard this message from the beginning that we should love one another. So this is not a new message. It's the old message, the message of the beginning and the message that continues. It never, never runs out.

Now Paul does, John, excuse me, John, sometimes I call you Paul because Paul wrote so many letters, but you wrote a lot yourself. What John often does is he gives negative contrast. So sometimes, you know, if you want to know the real meaning of something, you start by telling what it's not. John's a master at that. He's a master of a few things, others. He's a master of black and white. But here's this thing. He tells us this is the message that we should love one another. We've heard this message from the beginning. We should not be like Cain. It's a negative. We should not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. Brothers? They're birth brothers. Same mother, same father. Now they lived a long, long time in those days, hundreds of years. You need to keep that in mind when you read about it. We don't know at what stage in life these incidences occurs. But this is Cain. He was of the evil one. And the evidence that he's the evil one is that he rose up one day and he murdered his brother.

We read about that, didn't we? Genesis four. I turn your attention to Genesis four. I won't read it all to you again, but it says that in the course of time, Abel and Cain bring their offerings to God, offerings of worship. And they both brought that which was related to them and to what they were doing. Abel brought a sheep. He was a keeper of the sheep. Cain was a worker of the ground. And he brought an offering of fruit. That means the fruit of what he grew, which would be vegetables, et cetera. So they brought from the work of their hand. They brought it to God. But it says that God had regard for the offering of Abel, but none for the offering of Cain.

Now, we can speculate all we want about different things, but I think from the context of Genesis that came before, how did God provide for Adam and Eve when he cast them out of the garden? Well, he killed an animal. And he clothed them with the garments of that slain animal. So Adam, from the very beginning, saw this is how God clothed them and taught them. However, this is a possibility, not a 100%. But Abel brought that same offering.

Now, you say, well, it was easy for him. That was what he was growing. But if Adam taught them how they were to worship God, of how they were to approach God, then that could help explain something with reference to Abel and Cain's offerings. But most important is the attitude in worship between Abel and Cain. We don't know, we don't have access to the mind of Abel and Cain. It wasn't told to us even in the text, but it says that God had regard for Abel and his offering, but not for Cain and his offering.

So, what did God do? Well, evidently he let him know because of the context it says. So how did Cain react to God's not accepting his offering? Cain was very angry. It was manifested physically. His face fell. So what did God do? God addressed it. He said, why are you angry? Why is your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? So he was not doing something well. He was not worshiping well. And then God said, if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. His desire is for you, and you must rule over it. So God is giving him an opportunity to straighten out the situation, straighten out your worship.

But Cain rejected what God said. We know that from his action. The day came when Cain spoke to Abel and his brother, and he said, let's go out to the field. Perhaps he's saying, let's go out and worship. I don't know. It says, they went out to the field, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and he slaughtered him. That's the force of the word kill. How do you slaughter a lamb? How do you slaughter a cow or a pig? I can tell you, you take a knife, run it across the neck and the blood pours out. That's the picture of what Cain did to his brother Abel. He slaughtered him, violently killed him. That's what the scripture is talking about here.

Now, we said that's not love, right? That's right, it's not love. It's the opposite of love. But here's the question. What's the motive? Why did Cain kill Abel, his brother? Well, John tells us, because his own deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous.

The Antichrist spirit, you can find this when, You know what people don't like? If they're outside of Christ, and if they're worldly in their thinking and mind, they don't want Christians who are serving God to hang around them. They might let you be in there at first, but if you don't conform to them, then they don't want you. They're gonna reject you. and you're either going to end up capitulating and sinning with them or you're going to be put down by them, by their words that would cut you or by actions or deeds. They don't want you. Why? Because your righteous behavior you're worshiping God, you're paying attention to his word, you're seeking to speak of Christ, irritates them, stirs up an angry and resentment to you. Now, why? Because John goes from this, because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. That's why Cain killed him. Because Abel's righteous behavior in his worship of God, his service to God, made Cain look worse, made Cain feel shame, made Cain know that he was guilty. And to alleviate this, he rose up to get rid of the one that was causing these pains in him, slaughtered him.

Now, John uses, do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. So he gives an example here, the world hates you. But then he gives us one of his famous test. This is not like a course where you're trying to test, but it's like testing the metal. What is the strength? What is the reality of it? We know that we passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Would you say that verse with me? We know that we pass out of death into life because we love the brothers. Once again, we know that we pass out of death into life because we love the brothers. You could call this the social test of true Christianity. Who do you love? And notice John gives us assurance, but his assurance is not just based on your feeling. And his assurance to you is not just based on some decision you made long ago. And you go maybe, and you pull the car down and look at it every now and then and say, well, I'm a Christian because I did this or that. John's test is always the test of the reality of the life you live, of the relationship you have with God, with other believers, and negatively with sin.

We know that we pass out of death into life because we love. fellow believers. And whoever does not love abides in death. That's how important it is. And then he goes, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Now, before we say, well, I've never actually killed anybody. I've thought about it once or twice, but I've never actually choked anyone to death or slaughtered them with a... No. Remember what Jesus said? That if you hate your brother, you've committed murder before God. Why? Because God judges the intentions and the motives of our hearts.

You see, here's the great danger. What happened with Cain? Cain is our go-to because that's the one John went to, found in Genesis 4. Cain did not like the fact that God showed acceptance of Abel's offering and rejected his. So instead of straightening out his worship to God in his relationship with God by paying attention and doing what he knew to be right and was God's acceptance because they'd been taught it by their father, had been handed down by the faith. He resents his brother. And then he goes into being angry about his brother. And then he goes from anger to hatred of his brother. And then he goes from hatred to seize the opportunity when he can do damage to him. And so he acts on his hate because of his jealousy. God had shown favor to Abel and he didn't like it. He let it stir up within him.

If you have anger in your heart toward anyone, if you have bitterness in your heart to anyone, you need to handle it. Whether you're a Christian or not a Christian, you need to get it out. You need to extract it. Don't hold on to it because it can destroy you as well as destroy another person. Forgive as God has forgiven you. It's the teachings of Jesus. It's for our spiritual health. He rose up and killed his brother. And Jesus goes right to the heart in his Sermon on the Mount and says that if you have these feelings in your heart, then it's as if you had murdered your brother because you're wishing he were dead, that he was out of your life and that you didn't know him.

Now that doesn't mean that that's the same, that equals it, okay? Don't go that way. Some people misinterpret. Like when he says, Jesus says, you shouldn't lust in your heart, you know. Well, if I'm lust, I might as well do it. No. Then you damage more yourself and more other people. And the same is true with hatred. Just because you hate someone doesn't mean, well, I feel hatred. I might as well kill them. I might as well dispatch them. No. If you do, you got even more condemnation, more suffering, more punishment. There are degrees, even in hell.

Well, everyone who likes his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Now, John is easy to understand in some ways. In other ways, he gives us some dilemmas. He's not talking about about someone who's ever committed a murder and therefore can't ever be saved. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about one who is a professing believer or who has struggles with this, he's a true believer, but he he's having a struggle with his sin, of his attitude, because he doesn't handle it right, and that starts moving toward like mental murder.

This is the attitude that we hold on to, because it says abiding, he uses this word abiding, You see, John, like Jesus, is a realist. And Paul says, don't let the sun go down on your wrath. Why? Because you know you have wrath, you have anger, soon get rid of it. Whatever expression, but get rid of it. Don't harbor it. It's dangerous to harbor sin.

Well, John's given us the negative, He's given us the command, we must love one another, but don't love like Cain because that's not love. That's the opposite of love. What's the positive? By this we know love. Ah, where do you think he's gonna point us to? He's gonna point us to Jesus. If you want to know what love is, then look to Jesus. Look to how He treated His beloved disciples. They did all kinds of things that were irritating.

By this we know love. He laid down His life for us. You see, John's writing to these people. He remembers the words of the Lord Jesus. Jesus said to his own disciples in John, it's recorded in John chapter 10, I believe. And then again, it's repeated in his upper room discourse that no one has greater love than this, when a man, a person lays down his life for another person. That's what Jesus did. He laid down his life for his people, for his friends. And John's not here trying to teach us about the doctrine of the atonement. He's just pointing to directly to the fact that where we should have died, Jesus took our place so that we could live.

That causes a lot. He laid down his life for us. So he's writing to these people. He laid down his life for us. The result of this reality is that we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. Now, we might say to ourselves, well, I would die for another Christian. I would die for the faith. That's good that you have that intention and you have that thought in your mind, but you're not likely to be confronted with it, are you? It's easy for it to say, oh, I would die if they came knocking on the door. I die. Don't be too quick. We need to have the intention, but remember, intentions have to become the true action when the time comes. We depend on God. What we do is we pray. We say, God, if I'm ever called upon to do this, if this situation ever arises, give me grace and strength to die.

But you see, John is such a realist. Even though there's persecution against the church there, that's not the likely thing that's gonna happen. The average Christian than the average believer in your lifetime.

So, how do I show my love? How do I know whether my love is real? If anyone has this world's goods, so it's beginning with the point that you have, you have something. God's given you of the world's goods. You might say, well, it's not much. Well, okay. You can compare what you have to those who have less than you. And suddenly you may think you're a rich person

I remember that when we go to India and we were with these people, it made me feel, wow. I mean, I feel I have a hard time struggling paying my bills here or there. I don't have a whole lot to do all the things I want to do, but here I'm struck with poverty. Look at me in the face. be surprised, it may be some in your neighborhood.

But now he's primarily, if anyone has this world goods and sees his brother, notice he's still focusing where? On the Christian community. He's not just talking about anybody and everybody. He says, if anyone has this world goods and he sees his brother in need, So we have to keep the context. That doesn't mean you don't show care for those outside of the family, but his point is that we show care first for those in the family.

But here's what he does. He acts like Cain. In what way? Closing his heart. If anyone has the world's goods, he sees his brother in need. He has something that he can share, something that he can give, but he closes his heart. Then he asks this rhetorical question. How does God's love abide in him? How is that love? He's talking about the Christian family.

Now, think about your own personal family. You're in the small unit of your personal family. You know one has need. They lack. They have something they really need. And you have the capacity to meet some portion of that need. But if you close your heart, refuse to share. How does love abiding in you, it's not. It's not abiding in you. That's his point.

And then he comes, clenches it all. Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. Let us love in truth. That's what John's after. Test the metal of your love. And test the metal of your faith. Is it true? Is it real?

You see, the kind of love that Christ has for us is the kind of love that we have not by self-effort, but we have by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. It's only the born again, those who've had the second birth, those who have their lives invaded by the blessed Holy Spirit who comes to abide within us, who's connected us to Christ, who connects us to one another. who connects us to the Father, and we express our family relationship, our love relationship in many way.

In prayer, we say, our Father. We know God as Father. With reference to Jesus and God, we express it by worship, by praise, by giving our minds and our emotions to Him. by obeying what he's asked us to do because it pleases him, brings joy to his heart and brings spiritual health to our bones. He looks at the needs of others, especially within the family, but not only the family. Remember Jesus's parables about the good Samaritan. And it says, what would Christ do? Well, he would reach his hand of love to heal. He would reach his hand of love to give. He would reach his hand of love to even die.

We don't seek to be martyrs. but we need to be willing, and in God's time, we might be. But you know, love is not miserly. Love has within it abundance. Not holding on and clutching, but sharing. Giving. Giving of ourselves.

This is the old stuff. This is the old stuff. Goes all the way back to the beginning. God's relationship with Abraham, with Israel. But he comes to the head, to the great fruition in Christ himself, who's the incarnate God, the Messiah, the promised one, the Word made flesh, who came, Jesus of Nazareth, and laid down his life for us.

We might know God. We might love him. with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that we might love one another as Christ has loved us. Little children, this is what God calls us to. Don't talk love only. It's good to say I love you, but the reality of the words He's expressed in the reality of the deeds.

If I love God, I'll express it, not just by saying it, but by doing what he asks. I meet with him in worship. I speak of him. I meditate on him on his word. And if I love you, then I'm willing to share my time. My goods, my abilities.

You see, it's the love of Christ in us. You have the great capacity to love because you've been loved. You've been loved by God. And because his love is resonant in you by his spirit, you can love others. You can love them like Christ loves. Believe and act accordingly. This is the word of God.

Father, we admit that underneath the scrutiny of your word, that though we love, sometimes we love too little and that we put brakes on our love. Forgive us and grant us a generous heart, a forgiving heart, a reconciling heart. We rejoice in your love for us, Lord. We want to share it with the world that doesn't know us.

Forgive us when we are reluctant to share the good news because we don't want to be made fun of or thought less of by the world. Lord, they're your enemies, not our friends. Help us to keep our priority right, to love you with all of our heart and to love one another as you've loved us. Spur us on by the knowledge of your love. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.