This article on 1 John 3:14 is about loving one another in the communion of saints. By nature we are dead in our sin, incapable of love, but Christ has brought us into life and love. Toward the end of the article the author offers ten challenges to working out love practically.

2013. 11 pages. Transcribed by Ineke van der Linden. Transcription stopped at 46:37.

Love One Another Marks of a Healthy Church 8

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.

1 John 3:14

Have you ever woken up in a bed in a strange place and wondered: Where am I? You look around and you don’t recognize the surroundings. You begin to look for clues – you look at the fixtures and the fittings and the furniture to try and figure out where you are – until eventually it dawns on you that you are in a hotel, or at some friend’s home. Well, have you ever maybe also woken up spiritually and wondered: Where am I? Where am I spiritually? You maybe want to look around and see if there are any fixtures, any fittings, any furniture in your life, any signs that would help you discern and help you to figure out: Where am I spiritually? What state am I in? Where am I in my spiritual journey? Are there any clues that can help us answer that question “Where am I spiritually?”

Well, that is one of the reasons (probably the major reason, in fact) why the first letter of John was written. It was to help God’s people understand and figure out: Where am I spiritually? There are number of clues scattered throughout this book. We would like to just look at one of them today – the mark given to us in verse 14. “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren.” Here John really depicts that there is somebody on a journey, going from a starting point to a finished point. Going from one place to another. Going from death to life, and being transported there. And he is saying: We can know if we have been on that journey, and we can know if we have been transported from death to life, because God has given us a big clue to look for. One of the fixtures, one of the fittings, one of the pieces of spiritual furniture in a person’s life who has made that journey is this mark: we love other Christians. We have arrived at life if we have love for our Christian brothers and sisters.

We have been looking at the various marks of a healthy church. We have looked at verity/truthfulness. We have looked at purity/holiness. Now we come to charity; that is, love. And that is actually a very important order to observe. We can get into very serious problems if we put love at the very top. If we start with love, then we can go very wrong, because that becomes the controlling factor of all others. Love is certainly very important, but unless we put truth and holiness (veracity and purity) first, then our love will really just be jelly. It will be just wishy-washy. It will be indefinable. It will have no substance and no guidelines to it. Therefore, we come to this mark thirdly.

And in doing so, we are looking at Lord’s Day 21, Question 55:

What do you understand by the communion of saints?

First, that all and everyone who believes, being members of Christ, are in common partakers of Him and of all His riches and gifts. Secondly, that everyone must know it to be his duty readily and cheerfully to employ his gifts for the advantage and salvation of other members.Heidelberg Catechism, 1563.

We would like to look at this journey. We would like first of all to look at our home, then we would like to look at this journey, and then we would like to look at the destination (which is where we will spend most of our time). In that last section, as we look at where we want to be, I am going to give you ten “love challenges.”

Our Home🔗

First of all, let’s look at our home. Our home here is made very clear: our home is death! “We know that we have passed from death to life.” This is where we start. We start at death. What kind of death is being spoken of here? Well, it is spiritual death, but we really understand spiritual death only by understanding physical death. What is physical death? At its core, it is separation. Physical death is separation of the soul from the body. The soul and the body, which had been together in union, is then ripped apart and separated by God. And that results, of course, in death and in decay of the body. It results in the bodily senses ceasing to work: there is no thought left in the body; there is no feeling left in the body; there is no communication. And it is humanly impossible to reunite that soul and body again. That is what physical death is. It is a separation that results in decay, that results in a loss of our senses, our thoughts, and our feelings, that we cannot bring back together again ever (humanly speaking).

With that insight into physical death, we can better understand spiritual death, because at its heart it too is about separation. Death is separation. And if it is spiritual death, it is spiritual separation, meaning the soul is separated from God, its Lifegiver. And being separated from God, alienated from God, and disconnected from God results in decay. Death and decay in the soul. It means that the soul has no spiritual senses. It cannot see; it cannot hear; it cannot savour; it cannot smell; it cannot taste; it cannot touch. None of its spiritual senses are functional. It cannot think. It is disconnected from God, and it is humanly impossible to bring that soul and God back together again. This is what is meant here when it speaks of death.

That is how we are born. We are born in this state. We are physically alive, but spiritually dead. This is how we come into this world. As soon as we were conceived, as soon as we were given physical life, there was spiritual death. We are born dead in trespasses and sins. This is our home. This is our natural habitat as human beings. And this is an ugly home to live in. The fixtures and fittings and furniture are hideous – ill will is over there, up on the wall there is malice, desire to see others fail is the oxygen in this home. It is cold and it is loveless. Vengeance often erupts in it. It is an ugly home.

Maybe you recognize this home as you look in your own heart and your own soul. God has given you some clues to tell you where you are spiritually. If you look in you and you feel in general, as you look around you, if you look around even in this church, that you don’t really feel goodwill to people, you don’t really want people to succeed, you enjoy hearing when people fail or fall, you bear malice, you desire vengeance, you really have no great passion to do good or rejoice in the good of others, then you are still where you were born. This is still your home.

Our Journey🔗

But thankfully, we are told here it is possible to make a journey. The apostle says: “We know that we have passed from death...” So this is not a home from which there are no roads. No, there is a road! There is a road out of this ugly, hideous, broken down, dead home. The word here for ‘passed’ is a word for transport – “We know that we have been transported.” And that really tells us that this is not a journey we make ourselves; it is a journey that somebody makes for us and carries us along and transports us. People can try to make this journey themselves, and many still do. Maybe you are! Maybe you think that you can get from death to life by being good and doing good, and yet you know that in your heart it does not match. You may even be doing good to another person, and yet you do not really have love in your heart towards them. You cannot get yourself out of this home. You cannot make this journey yourself. And if you try, you will end up broken down or lost and no nearer spiritual life at the end of your life than you were at the beginning.

Maybe others will come along and say, “We can help you make this journey. We can take you from death to life.” Maybe liberal Christianity will come along and say, “We can give you a cheap ticket. It won’t cost you much. You don’t have to believe a lot. You don’t have to do a lot.” Maybe the cults will come along and say, “We have a short cut, a quicker way.” Others might come along and say, “We got a more exciting way, a more glamorous way, a more popular way.” But all of them end in death. None of them can move you out of this house and towards life. All of these methods of transport ultimately break down. They have never gotten anyone from death to life!

There is only one way to get from death to life, to move from this home to another happier home: and that is through Jesus Christ, the great embodiment of love, who died such a death so full of love in order that He could impart and communicate and fill others with His love. He alone can re-join the soul with God. What is humanly impossible and what is religiously impossible is possible in Christ. He is your only hope of getting from death to life. He is the transport that is being spoken of here. He is tried, He is tested, and He is successful. He has never tried to get someone out of death into life and failed. And no one in death in this home has ever asked Him, “Get me out of here” and He has turned a deaf ear. Never!

Commit you soul to Him and Him alone, and He can get you (and He will get you) from death to life. He carries you. He reunites you with God, who is life and love, pouring life and love into your own heart through trust in Him, and especially in His death. He has never taken a wrong turn with a soul that He has carried – with a soul that has committed itself to Him. Here is your transport.

Our Destination🔗

Where does He take us? As John says here, He takes us to life! “We know that we have passed from death to life”, where the soul is no longer separated and alienated, but united with God. There is union and communion. There is communication. There is expansion. There is growth. There is development. The soul is now characterized by life, and one special mark of that life: which is love. John says here: “We know.” We know. It is not, “We can be fairly sure” or “We can have a good hope” – no, it is not that. It is: “We know that we have passed from death to life.” And here is the fixture/fitting/furniture that gives us the clue, that gives us this assurance, that gives us this knowledge: “because we love the brothers.” We love the family of God! It is such a beautiful mark. What a different home this is to the home of death and hatred and malice! Here is a home that is full of life and full of light and full of love.

So what can we say about this love and this home that the Lord takes us to?

Secondary Love🔗

First of all, this love is secondary. As we said at the beginning, it is important not to put love primary. Love is a consequence of life. That is where we must start – life! We do not get spiritual life by loving; we get spiritual life in order that we can love. And we will never truly, properly love the brothers without that spiritual life. Love is secondary to life.

Reasonable Love🔗

Secondly, this love is reasonable. It should be sort of normal or automatic. Why is that? Why do we say it is reasonable? Well, just the very fact that it is called love of the brethren, of the brothers, of people within the same family. There are many, many reasons why this love should be in the heart and soul of somebody who does have spiritual life:

Firstly, we all have the same Father. If we are brothers in Christ, then we have a common holy and heavenly Father. Secondly, as brothers and sisters we are members of the same family and household. Thirdly, we bear the same image and likeness. There is a similarity. And it really does not matter what social class we come from, what age we are, what colour we are, what nationality we are, etc. There are huge differences in all these areas in how we look and appear, and yet where there is spiritual life and spiritual love there is a similarity. There is a fundamental likeness-sharing.

And we know this, don’t we? We can meet somebody who is very different to us – maybe from a very different culture, or a very different socio-economic background, or a very different age, very old to us or very young to us – and however much we differ, yet we sense an identity, a unity, a likeness. There are things that we just connect with. Perhaps it is when we travel abroad that we see this most, or we meet somebody who has travelled here from abroad. The differences are vast, and yet we feel there is that connection. It is family! It is a family likeness; it is a family similarity. Our spirits are the same. They bear witness. They connect at a deep level – not at a surface level, but a very deep spiritual level.

Fourthly, it is reasonable because we bear the same name: Christians! “Christ’s ones.” Fifthly, we have the same privileges in this family – everyone equally. Equally sons and daughters, equally privileged, with all the possessions of Christ being ours. We are joint heirs with Him. Sixthly, we are all going to live together forever, so it is reasonable that we get on a bit while we are down here below. Seventhly, it is reasonable because we have enough quarrels with people outside the family, never mind starting to add quarrels from within the family. There are enough enemies without; we need therefore to cultivate friendships within. So this love is secondary and this love is reasonable.

Practical Love🔗

Thirdly, this love is practical. This love is not just a feeling. Yes, there should be a feeling and there should be an emotional component to this. And when it is at its height, yes there should be wonderful emotion and affection and enjoyment in it. But it is not always the case. Love is first and foremost practical. Just do it, in other words. That is what love is. It is a doing. And often in the doing the affections and the emotions can grow and develop and strengthen. But they certainly won’t unless our love is being practical and is resulting in loving deeds. It is like God’s love. “God so loved the world that…” He did something! He “gave His only begotten Son”!

This is of tremendous help to us, especially when there are Christians in the family that we do not particularly like. And that is to be expected. We are very different in our backgrounds, in our personalities, in our characters, and our ways of speech. And therefore, there are very many natural barriers to actually liking some people. But the wonderful thing about Christian love is that we can love even those we do not like. The people that we are not naturally drawn to and attracted to. Because Christian love is doing. And also, as many of you know, in the doing – in seeking to practically love people we do not particularly like – it is amazing how much liking can grow in the doing of it.

Ten Love Challenges🔗

This is where I would like to give you ten love challenges – ten practical ways in which we can grow our love, show our love, and demonstrate our love. We would love for this church to be known for the love we have one for the other. Is that not how the disciples of Christ were distinguished from other people? John 13:35: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples: If you love one another.” One of the most powerful witnesses is a church that full of love. Yes, we need to reach out, but what happens when people come within these walls? What do they sense? What do they detect? Is it obvious, is it clear, is it demonstrable, and is it provable that we love one another?

There is much love in this congregation – of course there is. I felt it; you felt it. But we can still grow it and develop it. There is much room left for this, even amongst the most loving. But there are also conflicts in this congregation, as in every congregation. There are disagreements and there are divisions. What are we doing to try and bridge these and bring these back together again?

In these areas I would like to give you ten challenges. I think by the end of it you will see that this is very doable. I am not putting the bar out of reach here. It is actually ten very small steps that I am asking you, with the authority of God’s Word, to start to put into practice. And in some ways you might say at the end, “Well, there is not much there”, but little multiplied by much can become a lot! In other words, if we do put these little things into practice, it is amazing what the cumulative effect will be.

Pray for One Family🔗

Pray for one family for one month. Pray for one family. It is good to pray, of course, for the whole congregation each day. It is good to pray for families, especially those with specific sufferings or with special needs. But all I am asking you to do here is pick one family – not your own. Go to the membership directory, pick a family and just make them a matter of prayer – for yourself personally and also in your family worship. Just one family for one month. Maybe not every day, but regularly for one month, pray for one family. Is there any more loving thing we can do for anyone else other than pray for them? There isn’t, is there? We just cannot express love in a greater way than prayer. I am sure we do pray for families from time to time, but make it structured and make it systematic. Make it a discipline so that it is done, because it so easily becomes undone. Do you think you can manage that? One family for one month? Imagine what that might produce within the congregation if everybody did that! We would all feel it. It will be noticeable, I believe. It would be evident. Pray.

Speak to One Person🔗

Speak to one person in the course of the next month. It doesn’t sound like a lot, does it? You might say, “I do speak to people.” Yes, but it is usually the same people, isn’t it? We come in the same door, we sit in the same place, we go out the same way, we park in the same part of the car park, and therefore we meet the same people every week! So why not come in a different door? Why not sit in a different place? Why not go out by a different door? Why not park in a different place in the car park? Why not stand in a different place in the foyer or outside? Maximize your chances to meet the person you have never met or not spoken to for a very long time!

Again, you might say, “One person…I can do that.” Well, let’s see it! Let’s do it! And again, somebody might say, “Well, that is not an awful lot”, but if this is multiplied by the whole congregation, that makes a lot of new contacts! A lot of new, budding friendships! A lot of extra demonstrations of love! Just say hello. Just ask how they are doing. Just say, “What can I pray for for you?” Just find a way to speak to one person in the month, and maybe in the next month another person. Who knows? By the end of the year, you could have another twelve people in your circles of love! Pray for one person and speak to one person.

Encourage One Person🔗

Encourage one person in the course of the next month. If you look around you here, you will see people with multiple gifts and graces. You do not need to look far. You can see Christians here who you are so thankful for and you are so grateful for. Maybe they are an inspiration to you and they have been an encouragement to you in the past – but they do not know it. You never told them. Maybe you assumed that they know, but they probably don’t. Therefore, why not seek that one person out, face to face or by email or a phone call. Get in touch with them and just say, “Brother (or sister, or friend), I am so thankful to God for you, because of…. You are an example and a model to me.” Just pick out a grace, pick out a gift, pick out one Christian characteristic and just say to him, “I am so grateful to God for His work in you in the way you display and demonstrate this characteristic.”

It is amazing! You just do not know how much that could inspire and motivate and spur that person on. Lots of people are downcast and we do not know it. They feel they really do not have gifts or graces, and it might just be the very thing they need to make them keep going and persevere in this area of strength. We are so good at telling one another our weaknesses – where we fail, where we lack! Let’s try and highlight in one another’s lives where there is abundance, where there is overflow, where there is fullness. Encourage one person over the course of the next month.

Carry One Burden🔗

Carry one burden in the course of the next month. There are people here carrying burdens. Some you know of, and some you do not. It might be the burden of sickness, in themselves or a family member. It might be a wayward child, or an unloving husband or wife. It might be financially – somebody really struggling to make ends meet or find work. We all have a burden to one degree or another, in one area of our lives or another. There is nobody here that does not even have one small burden. And most of them are much bigger than that. You might say, “How can I get a burden off somebody onto me?” Well, Scripture commands us to bear one another’s burdens, so it must be possible. How can we do it? We can do it very simply by asking, by listening and by expressing sympathy.

It is amazing what happens when you do that! As you genuinely ask after a person’s welfare, as you sincerely listen, and as you express heartfelt sympathy, understanding, and commit to pray for them, do you know what happens? Unseen, invisible, but very tangibly, that person’s burden lightens. They feel it. They walk away lighter. True, yours has increased a little, but surely you can carry one more burden. It does cost to listen, to understand, and to sympathize. It does. It puts a burden on you. You do not walk away from a suffering person the same. It does weigh you down a bit. It does drain you. There is an emotional cost. But it is just one burden we are asking you to carry. Just one slightly greater weight and one slightly lighter person. Carry one burden.

Visit One Person🔗

Visit one person in the next month. In our congregation there are sick people. There are seniors and those that are housebound. There are also people with special needs of different kinds. There are young mothers who are caring for multiple children – and it does not have to be multiple children, [it could be just] those very stressful early years of mothering. There are many needs in the congregation. There are many people who would just love a visit. Just one. How long would it take? Maybe an hour? Maybe one evening? Or half of an evening? Or a lunch you could arrange to meet with somebody? Or if you are immobile and you cannot get out of the house to do that (if you are that young mother or you are that senior or you are that housebound person), you could visit by phone. You can pick up the phone and make contact and start conversation and express interest. That person can feel, even via phone, visited by you.

Imagine if a couple of hundred people do a couple of hundred visits! Maybe the children are thinking, “How can I do that?” Well, you can as well. In your school or amongst your friends. Just make a point of going and talking to somebody that you do not usually talk to. Express an interest. Or go along with your mum or dad as they visit an older person. They love to see kids! It is a tonic! It is probably some of the best medicine they could have! Visit one person in the course of the next month.

Give One Gift🔗

Give one gift. There are people in the congregation that they cannot afford to even go out for a coffee once a month. They cannot afford to buy one book a month. They cannot afford to go out for a meal a month. They cannot afford to go camping, even for a day in the year. Or they cannot afford even to put together the family budget each month. Can we not spare a couple of dollars? Maybe ten dollars to buy them a good Christian book? Maybe twenty dollars to give a husband and a wife a night out? Fifty dollars to give them a night and day away camping as a family in the summer? A hundred dollars? What a difference that would make to some family budgets! Just one gift. Not all of us can afford a hundred or a fifty out of our budget each month, but maybe ten in the course of a month? A couple of dollars a week you could save and buy another Christian a helpful Christian book. Give one gift. Imagine if that was multiplied among us! It is not a lot, but multiplied it is huge!

Forgive One Person🔗

Forgive one person. In every gathering of sinful human beings, there is trouble, there is disagreement, there is argument. We have been going through The Peacemaker. Put that into practice with one person. Seek out that one person you have fallen out with. Leave a door open to them. Say, “I would love to talk anytime.” It may not produce immediate results, but make it possible. Even if it does not express interest in them, express good will towards them (maybe do one of these other things), but begin this process of biblical reconciliation. Forgive one person. Again, multiply that by a couple of hundred and it is amazing how much gospel enjoyment there would be among us! How much difference would it make if 250 of us forgave 250 others! There will be an outbreak of remarkable grace and love in our midst! And I think if you do it once, you will want to do it again. It is so enjoyable, so satisfying, so rewarding.

Welcome One Person🔗

Welcome one person. There are people who come to our church; almost every Sunday there is a visitor here. It may be a friend of a family in the church or another family member come to visit them, or maybe just a stranger from the neighbourhood, people passing through, vacationers, complete strangers. Do not always leave it to someone else to welcome them. “Somebody else will do it” – no, look out for them! Make contact. Just exchange names, even contact details. It is amazing! You know what it is like, having visited other churches, what difference it makes when one or two or more people come up and make you feel “I have a family. It is not a bunch of strangers! They do show the communion of saints, the holy catholic church!” Welcome one person.

Share One Meal🔗

Share one meal in the next thirty days coming up as a congregation. Commit as families to take one other family, or one other person, or a couple in your congregation to your own homes for a meal. It does not need to be complicated and elaborate. Keep it simple, keep it informal, and keep it straight forward. If you don’t, you won’t do it again! Just keep it basic and make the focus not the food and all the things around it, but the fellowship, the friendship, and the communion with one another. Share one meal.

Submit One Preference🔗

Submit one preference. This is a bit more difficult to explain. All of us believe there are biblical principles and personal preferences. There are things that are biblically provable, demonstrable and arguable – we must not give up one iota of this. But quite a lot of our lives is of a personal preference as well. And one of the greatest barrier builders is when we take personal preferences and treat them like biblical principles. When we make a personal preference into a biblical principle – whether it is in the area of clothes or hobbies or leisure or whatever – we have built barriers between us and other Christians.

So I challenge you to look at your lives and look at the things that divide you from others, and seriously and honest and biblically examine yourselves to see: Is this really a biblical principle? Can I really argue that this is demonstrable and approvable from the Bible? Or is it just the way I have been brought up? Is it just the way I like things to be? Is it just a personal preference? And if it is, then work to demote it. Work to put it into the preference column. And as you do, you will notice the barrier reducing. You will notice that your relationship with others [improves] and that [the differences] in these areas of personal preference begin to disappear. Submit personal preference. Demote one personal preference. Work hard at finding one (we have plenty!) and notice the difference it will make in your relationships.

Ten love challenges over the course of the next month. Even if you do one a month for the next ten months, it will make a huge difference. If you did all ten each month, imagine where we will be in a year! Love is practical. He goes on to say here:

But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.  1 John 3:17-18, KJV.

He is saying: Make this sincere. Make this real. Make this practical. Just do it! Make it “in deed and in truth.”

Conclusion🔗

By this we can “know that we have passed from death to life”: if we love the brothers. When we see this kind of furniture, these kinds of fixtures and fittings in our spiritual lives, assurance grows! You see that, for example, in verse 19: “And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.” The Lord is saying: Take this, practice it, and then look at it and use it to build your assurance, to strengthen your confidence, to remove doubts. “By this we know that we have passed from death to life: if we love the brothers.” By this we can “assure our hearts before Him.” We take our hearts before Him, and then we start looking at these evidences, these clues, these fixtures and fittings, and we can justifiably and biblically build confidence and assurance of faith in our own hearts.

And if we do not have assurance, maybe one of the reasons is because we do not love one another – we do not have this kind of practical love. Notice here what it says in verse 20. We can have assurance through this, but “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart.” What is it saying? It is saying that if you look for life and love and it is not there, and your heart condemns you, do not just shrug it off! This is a serious problem. In fact, it is far more serious than just your heart condemning you – God is greater than your heart. God is far more holy. God is far more knowledgeable. God is a far greater judge. “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” Don’t rest with this! Don’t just let it go like water off a duck’s back – “Some people are more loving; I am just a harder, tougher person.” This is serious stuff! It is saying you are still in death, perhaps.

Make this a matter of prayer and practice until you too can say, “I know I have passed from death to life” – I have made this wonderful, blessed, greatest of all journeys – because I love these brothers and sisters in Christ!

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