Transcription
Welcome to Southgate. Thank you so much for joining us today. I just want to make sure that if you're joining in with us today that you're connected with a local church. We hope and we pray that if you're in the North Granville or North Dundas area, you're connected to Sgate in a physical way, that you're coming out to services and joining in on the events that are happening in person. We value community and if you're interested in joining ours in a greater way, you can sign up for the email that goes out bi-weekly. You can follow us on our socials and check in on the website to see what's going on in person and in our community. If you want to participate in what we're doing by giving financially, follow the links below. We hope and we pray that this service is a benefit to you and your walk with Jesus.
Oh, for the last couple of weeks. Um, many of you may know that uh my wife is a social worker with uh the Ottawa school board and uh there was a a tragic loss over the last uh couple of weeks and uh it happened at one of the schools under her care. And so this meant that she went from uh a school of zero case loads to 150 case loads in a day. And uh what that meant for her was extra phone calls, uh booking extra meetings, being available more often, uh actually spending a ton of extra time at this particular school. And and I think one of the things that that that was so wonderful for me to see was how much love and care was put into this school in a time of tragedy. She gave so much of herself. She drained herself of of her own energy. And uh it was it was an incredible act of love to witness.
And and this is the thing about love is that love when it is real, it rearranges your life. And so for the past couple of weeks, our lives have been rearranged for the sake of love. And as we jump into the text today, surprise surprise, uh we need to kind of understand some context here. But but largely what I want you to understand is that this entire passage is connecting this idea of true and genuine love rearranging one's life. And so we're looking at a large chunk of scripture. First John 3:11 all the way to the end of chapter 4 4:21. And to be honest, as you read it on its own, as I did numerous times, you're going to think that John is kind of jumping all over the place. So, if I were to give it a little bit of a a kind of skeleton here, it it begins uh 3:11-5, we're talking about Cain and murder. And then we move into uh 3:16-18. We're talking about Jesus and sacrifice. And then we move into 3:19- 24. We're talking about the assurance of faith. And then we talk about testing the spirits or uh and he talks about the spirit of the antichrist which we've talked about is is not necessarily a particular future being or anything like that but rather those who are opposed anti to the messiah Christ. So that happens in 4 1-3. And then that's that's being compared to the spirit of God in 44-6. And then lastly, we talk about God's love for us in 4 7-18 and our love for God and one another in 4:19-21.
A and it can be it can be hard when you when you read this as a whole and void of context to see the thread that puts this thought all together. And this is why I I always will come back to context. We have to understand what John's goal is here. Then we can see what his message to the early house churches was and ultimately determine what his message to our church is today. And and the last time I preached in this series, I gave some context and we're going to build off of that. We're going to use some of the same context again. So John is writing to a community of house churches who are confused because a set of beliefs that we now call uhnosticism was creeping into the church and a bunch of people had actually left the church. Some had even been kicked out of their community for believing thisnosticism. And so John is writing largely the the whole letter is is kind of an appeal and a a reasoning behind whynosticism is so deadly for this early church. He's reminding them of why not to believe the Gnostics is important. And we talked a few weeks ago about how this relates to truth and confession, but today John's primary focus is going to be how it relates to love.
And so if if you want a little bit of a look or a window into like a definition of whatnosticism is, uh James Boyce says this, the Gnostics put themselves forward as the knowing ones. uh which is the essential meaning of the word gnostic to know while at the same time insisting that salvation was primary primarily by knowledge. That is by initiation into the mystical and allegedly superior knowledge which they possessed. In most forms ofnosticism, this meant that the importance of moral conduct was denied. And and and if you unpack some of this definition, you can see how this has made its way even into the modern church and why John's words are so relevant to us today. The Gnostics believed that it was only important to have knowledge. It's all about what you know. It's all about making the right confession. Uh do you know that Jesus Christ is Lord? Do you have some kind of head knowledge about that? It doesn't matter how you act or behave. It's just about what you know. And so the Gnostics, they've they like it says, they've positioned themselves as the knowing ones and they've got this superior knowledge and they've asserted some kind of special anointing of the Holy Spirit that that granted them true knowledge of God. And so they will always look to their knowledge, their knowledge, their knowledge, their knowledge. We know better than you. Gnostics believed that matter was inherently evil while spirit alone was good with no possibility of reconciling the two. The physical world itself was a product of an evil power. And since matter was evil, the real incarnation of God was impossible. So this is where we get, you know, some of the things that we've been talking about. The Gnostics uh did not believe that that God could be uh both a spiritual being and a human being. And so the incarnation must have been an appearance only. This was the heretical doctrine of dosatism we talked about uh the last time I was here.
And so what John is going uh to go on to do is go to great lengths to encourage the church that Jesus love for us is real. It's tangible and it's incarnate. It's not just knowledge. The love that Jesus gives to you and I today is not some kind of abstract knowledge void of any kind of action. It wasn't some kind of secret knowledge. It was something that can and has been embodied. And and you can kind of think of it this way. there's a lot of uh these kind of fitness programs and trends you know like I when I was going through a lot of my kind of health uh reclaiming of my health uh there were all sorts of different health trends and uh and different health systems and things like that. And what they do is they talk about it as if it's some kind of secret knowledge that if you pay a monthly subscription, you can have access to the knowledge to the secret knowledge. And at the end of the day, they're all the same. Take down your caloric intake and exercise. This is the secret knowledge behind weight loss. And and here's here's kind of what the Gnostic take on weight loss would be. Gnostics would say you can just know these things and that's all you need. But what John is saying is you actually have to put it into action. It doesn't help if you know, oh, I need to lower my daily calorie intake in order to actually lose some weight. You actually have to lower it. It's not about just having knowledge. And what John is trying to say here is the same thing applies to love. It's not just about knowing about love. We have to actually put it into action. 1 John 3:16 says this. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. It was an embodied action. This was something that happened and it's important. It matters. And so the proper response he will go on to say is found in the rest of that verse. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. It's not just about headnowledge. It's not just about knowing what it is that we are to do.
And and and here's the other thing. I think that when we hear that God is love, as as John will repeatedly say throughout this letter, we hear that God is love. A a and that we are to love as well. We often over sentiment sentimentalize it. We often over sentimentalize it. And what I mean by that is that we we think that it's about just having emotions towards someone else. It's about the way that I feel about you. That's that's love. When in reality, all that that is is that's that's the knowledge of love. And we think that when we talk about God being love, we maybe just think that God God kind of gets the warm fuzzies when he thinks about us. Now, now don't get me wrong, that is a part of love. That should be a part of what moves us to love, but that is not love in and of itself. I think that love encompasses emotions that we feel towards someone, but it actually goes beyond that. This is why John is going to emphasize that God actually became incarnate. It's not just that he felt something towards us. It's that he did something about it. God actually suffered. God actually sought out the welfare of us as people. Love is not just a welling up of emotions and sentimentality and good intentions towards someone. It is intensely practical. For John, he would go on to say that it involves sharing possessions and giving to those in need. 3:17-18 goes on to say, "If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need, but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?" Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth.
Now, here's here's the thing about seeking someone else's welfare. Much of the time, it it does it feels good to show someone love, to see their needs being met. And and and we we know that this is kind of a universal feeling. We can see it in viral videos, people being given money and seeing the joy on their face like that. These things explode. Oh, we just love somebody who, you know, on the street gives out a thousand dollars. What John is getting at here is the love, true love, genuine embodied love, will often actually require sacrifice. Because here's what we don't see behind the scenes of some of these viral videos and some of the things that we think are love in our world is that that person handing out $1,000 is going to gain $10,000 because of the viral views that are going on and the monetization of that particular video. It was not done out of love. It was actually done out of greed. And often that thousand dollars may a may actually have done more harm than good because no one sat down with that person and sacrificed some real tangible time and made a plan and said, "What are your what are your actual needs here? Let me let me sacrifice some of my time and get to know you as a person and to understand your genuine needs and come and actually be incarnate love, be present with you."
I think if we were to distill what John is trying to define as love here because he says that that love will ultimately end up requiring sacrifice from us. I think that John would say it this way. Love is the deliberate commitment to seek and act for another's genuine welfare rooted in having an experienced or sorry in having experienced God's sacrificial love for yourself. And so what this means is that like I it's not about the emotional high. It's it's not about the warm fuzzies. It's not about the feelings that you have towards someone. What this actually means is that often times love will be painful. It may mean being brutally honest and having a conversation with someone that you don't want to have. I have received those kinds of conversations. People have had to sit me down and say, "Kevin, you're not going to like this." But here is the truth. And I've had to give those conversations. You're not going to like this, but here is the truth. And here's the reason why I'm telling you the truth. It's because I love you. And true love takes action and sacrifice. Love might even be denying someone something that they want. Just because they want the $1,000 doesn't mean that it will actually be good for them. Just because they want the candy doesn't mean that it will actually be good for them. I can't help but think of the the many decisions that I make when it comes to my children and the things that they want. And I have to say no. Why? Because I love you. If I didn't love you, I would just say yes to all of it. You know, I I I even I even say no to some of the things that I'm like, "Oh, man. I want that for you, too." But I just in this moment I think that that's not going to be helpful for you. I think of like the example of like video games. I love playing video games. They're so much fun. They they bring uh they they bring entertainment. They give us an escape, a place to go, but they can also be frustrating and they can be consuming. And they they can they can do some pretty negative things. And so at our house, we we often have times where it's okay to play video games and then times where it's not okay to play video games. And sometimes those those times where it's not okay to play video games, I have to have the honest conversation with my kids. Listen, if I just let this run rampant for you, it it's going to destroy you. You're going to you're going to lose yourself in it. And so if I were to take a lot of what what John is saying here and we had that kind of big description of of what we see in the text and the different things that are happening. If I were to break it down to to the points that that we are actually looking at here, it's number one, love is not just sentimentality. Number two, love will often hurt before it rewards. And lastly, this is this is the the kind of point that that John actually starts with. And so sometimes it seems like it's out of the blue, but but he begins with this one. Lack of love will kill. A lack of love will kill.
See, see, love is incarnate. And this is why John is speaking out against the Gnostic teaching. He says that love is incarnate. And we know this and we can see it in the example that God sets through Christ. But John doesn't just give us his thesis here. He also gives us the anti-thesis or the antithesis. And this is where the whole conversation about Cain comes in. It's John's way of saying, "Here's what's at stake. Here's what's at stake. If love does not take root in the form of action, if love does not become incarnate, if love is not embodied, hate will. Hatred will become embodied and hatred embodied leads to violence and death. 1 John 3:14 he says this, "We know that we have passed from death to life because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death." And and this is why John would go on to conclude by saying in 1 John 4:18, there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. What John is trying to do here is he is and he's been saying it throughout the letter. There's there's light and there's darkness. There's life and there's death. There is uh there there is all sorts of different opposing ideas here. And what he is trying to say is that love and hatred do not coexist. You cannot be seeking out the welfare of another while hating them. And so what John says is it's not just important to be filled with love because that's going to create an amazing world for one another, but what it will do is it will empty us of the hatred that would come in to replace love. He says, "What's what is really at stake is if love's not there, hate will be." And so, if I were to take what what John is ultimately saying to the Gnostics here, it would be this. Love is not some kind of secret knowledge that can just be acknowledged and then moved on from. It is an embodied reality that requires our commitment and sacrifice. And the stakes are high because if we do not embody love, hate will replace it. And embodied hate leads to death and destruction. The stakes are very high is what John says. What we believe is important.
And so now the question becomes, what does this mean for us? What does this mean for us today? And so as we move into some next steps here, I I want to I want to take some time and and say let's let's dig out hatred and fear and replace it with love. Because the reality is when we can acknowledge, hey, there's fear and there's hate here, it means that we are lacking in love. That that that place that I have hatred towards someone, I I need to have love because the reality is my my hatred will embody itself in some way, shape, or form. And so I need to have it replaced with love. Second thing would be don't just think about it. Act on it. Don't just think about loving someone. Find a way to act on it. Find a way to actually show someone love. And number three, take some time to understand your love language and the language of others around you. Like I was saying before, you know, maybe giving someone $1,000 isn't actually a loving thing to do. Same thing goes for some of our loving actions. I I I'll give you a bit of an example with this. I would say that one of my love languages is quality time, which is why I'm like always going over on sermons. I'm like, I love you, so I'm going to give you all the time in the world. But that's not always how some people will receive it because some people's love language is not the same. And so for for me, one of my things is quality time. We go on a road trip and I'm so excited because it means I've got like six hours next to my wife, but her love language is not necessarily quality time. And so she's, you know, reading a book or something like that. And I'm like, "Oh man, I really want this quality time with you." But one of the things is her love language is acts of service. And so she's constantly running around our house. If anything's going to get done in our house, it's going to get done by GAP. So, she's always doing all these kinds of things and and one of the things is we are both trying to communicate love to one another, but we're not speaking each other's language. So, often the way that we give love is also the way that we receive love. And so, one of the things I've learned in my marriage is that uh giving my wife quality time is not necessarily the thing that that she is going to most likely receive love from. Instead, when I do something for her, that's when she feels loved. And so, although it's not it's not my primary means of showing love, I have to sacrificially embody love and I have to go, okay, how can I give something over to to show my wife that I love her? And we we can do this with all of our relationships. It will take time. It will take love and it will take attention and it will take sacrifice. But I promise you it is worth it. And I promise you that the stakes are very high because if we do not embody love, we will embody hatred which leads to death.
And so God, we thank you that you have embodied love. that as John says, we we do not love you first. We love because you loved us first. You have shown us what it means to sacrifice and embody love. And so I pray God that we would take after your example, that we would follow after you, and that we would learn, as John says, to empty ourselves, to give ourselves over sacrificially to others, to love one another as you have first loved us. And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. You love me. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. You feel you.