Good evening.  As we continue our study on the Book of I John we are going to spend our second night in this last section of chapter 3.

So, we have been looking at the idea of loving others.  What might be some ways that we as Christians can love others?

Well let’s go ahead and review what we looked at last week.  To start let’s look at our text again.  It is in I John 3:11-24.  Here in I John 3:11-24 it says, “1”

Last week we look at three relationships found in this section.  Again, the first level of a relationship is murder found in verses 11-12.  It is the exact opposite of love.  It was brought out in our text when it talked about Cain.  The second level of a relationship is hatred in verses 13-15.  This is murder without action.  In fact we read that Jesus said it was equal to murder if we even had hatred in our heart or mind.  And the third level is indifference and it is found in verses 16-17.  This section focused on the fact that Jesus gave His life up for us. 

And finally, tonight we come to the fourth level of a relationship.  The fourth level of a relationship is love.  This is what Christ calls us all as Christian to do.  Could someone read the rest of this chapter, verses 18-24 please?

When God makes us members of his family he wants us to love others personally and actively.  The apostle John says in verse 18: “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
To love with words is simply to talk about a need.  Jesus’ brother, James, gives us an example of loving with words only.  In James 2:15-16 it says, “2”

The opposite of loving with words is loving with actions.  This is the kind of love to which Jesus calls us.

The world will recognize us as authentic children of God when we love with actions.  “Read Extra Pages”

Love with actions is love that cares, love that supports, love that does something.  It is picking up a telephone and letting someone know that you are thinking about them.  It is writing an email saying that you are praying for him or her.  It is inviting someone over to your home just because you care.  It is rearranging your schedule to help take care of an emergency.

One of my favorite illustrations of loving one another comes from the Special Olympics.  As you know, Special Olympics features mentally and physically disabled athletes from around the world competing in various athletic events.

One of the most memorable events that happened during the Special Olympics was a foot race among a group of athletes, each of whom had Down’s syndrome.  The runners were close together as they came around the track toward the finish line.  One of them stumbled and fell.  When that happened, the rest of the runners stopped. 

They went back as a group, helped the runner who had fallen to stand up, made sure that he was okay, and then they all started running the race again and completing it.

To love with actions means just that: love with actions!  To love with the tongue is the opposite of loving in truth.  To love with the tongue means to love insincerely.  To love in truth means to love a person sincerely, genuinely, from the heart, and not just from the tongue.

In the middle of the 18th century, John Fawcett was preparing to move.  At age 32, he was leaving the small Baptist church in Wainsgate, England for the prestigious Carter’s Lane Church in London.

Fawcett was orphaned at the age of 12.  He was forced to work fourteen hours a day in a sweat shop.  He taught himself to read by candlelight and studied continuously.  When he was ordained at the age of 25, he moved to Wainsgate.  For seven years he served the church of 100 members before receiving the invitation to become the pastor of the prestigious church in London.

The last of his possessions were loaded on to the moving cart as Fawcett began saying his good-byes.  Tearfully, he said farewell to the church family he had loved for the past seven years.  They returned his tears and his love.  However, Fawcett discovered that he couldn’t break “the tie that binds.”

It was too much for the young preacher.  London would have to wait.  Unloading the cart, he decided to stay.  Fawcett never did move to London.  In fact, he never left Wainsgate.  He died there in Wainsgate—54 years later!

It was his love for the family of God and their love for him that kept in Wainsgate.  It also prompted him to write a hymn we sing even to this day and sang at the beginning of our service tonight:

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

Sometimes, our conscience can play tricks on us, but it will be rested if the evidence of actions and truth is obvious, you are shifting the focus to others, and not to yourself.  Whenever you feel condemned you can go back and point to the concrete things you did, the sacrifice you’ve shown, that will put to rest whether you love one another or not.

“19-21”

God knows your conscience better than you do, he knows everything.

Our ultimate goal in life is to glorify God.  We bring glory to God by loving others.  Let us not love one another with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  Let us find practical, sincere, sacrificial, tangible, real ways to love one another.

So let me ask you again, what are some way that we as Christians can love others?

You see this is not a dress rehearsal.  We only get one shot at this, and it all has eternal consequences.

In closing Author Philip Yancey says that he learned an enduring lesson about love from his church’s response to Adolphus, a young black man with a wild, angry look in his eye.  Every inner-city church, he says, has at least one Adolphus.  Adolphus had spent some time in Vietnam, and most likely his troubles started there.  He could never hold a job for long.  His fits of rage and craziness sometimes landed him in an asylum.

If Adolphus took his medication on Sunday, he was manageable.  Otherwise, well, church could be even more exciting than usual.  He might start at the back and high-hurdle his way over the pews down to the altar.  He might raise his hands in the air during a hymn and make obscene gestures.  Or he might wear headphones and tune in music instead of the sermon.

As part of the worship service, LaSalle Church had a time called “Prayers of the People.”  Members would stand and spontaneously call out a prayer—for peace in the world, for healing of the sick, for justice in the community around them, and so on.  “Lord, hear our prayer,” the congregation would respond in unison after each spoken request.
Adolphus soon figured out that Prayers of the People provided an ideal platform for him to air his fantasies and concerns.  “Lord, thank you for creating Whitney Houston and her magnificent body!” he prayed one morning.  After a puzzled pause, a few people chimed in weakly, “Lord, hear our prayer.”

“Lord, thank you for the big recording contract I signed last week, and for all the good things happening to my band!” prayed Adolphus.  Those who knew Adolphus realized he was fantasizing, but others joined in with a heartfelt, “Lord, hear our prayer.”

A group of people in the church, including a doctor and a psychiatrist, took on Adolphus as a special project.  Every time he had an outburst, they pulled him aside and talked it through, using the word “inappropriate” a lot.  Over the course of time the congregation learned that Adolphus sometimes walked five miles to church on Sunday because he could not afford the bus fare.  Members of the congregation began to offer him rides.  Some invited him over for meals.  Most Christmases he spent with the assistant pastor’s family.

Boasting about his musical talent, Adolphus asked to join the music group that sang during Communion services.  After hearing him audition, the leader settled on a compromise: Adolphus could stand with the others and sing, but only if his electric guitar remained unplugged because he had absolutely no music ability.  Each time the group performed thereafter, Adolphus stood with them and sang and played his guitar, which, thankfully, produced no sound.

The day came when Adolphus asked to join the church.  Elders quizzed him on his beliefs, found little by way of encouragement, and decided to put him on a kind of probation.  He could join when he demonstrated that he understood what it meant to be a Christian, they decided, and when he learned to act appropriately around others in church.  Against all odds, Adolphus’s story has a happy ending.  He calmed down.  He started calling people in the church when he felt the craziness coming on.  He even got married.  And eventually, Adolphus was finally accepted for church membership when he finally trusted Christ and embraced the grace of God.

Grace comes to people who do not deserve it, and for many, Adolphus came to represent grace.  In his entire life, no one had ever invested that kind of energy and concern in him.  He had no family, no job, and no stability.  Church became for him the one stable place.  The members of LaSalle Church accepted him and loved him in spite of all that he had done to earn rejection.

The church family of LaSalle Church gave him a second chance, and a third, and a fourth.  Christians who had experienced God’s love transferred it to Adolphus, and that stubborn, unquenchable love is a picture of what God puts up with by choosing to love the likes of us.  Moreover, it is a picture of believers bringing glory to God by loving others.  As we have received the love of God, so we love others with God’s love.

Wrapping things up, could I get someone to read verses 22-24 please?

The command is to love one another as He loved us, and as He commands us.  When we love, He lives in us and we live in Him.  We know that He is in us because we have His Spirit in us.

These verses make me think of I John 4:7-13 where it says, “3”

Verse 7 here again said, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God.

“Our Daily Bread Page 17”

I Peter 4:8 says, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

In closing I will say this one last thing tonight and then we will pray.  Listen closely, you may even want to write this down, because it will make or break every church.  It will determine our impact on our community and will show up 5, 10, 20, even 50 years later.  It doesn’t matter what buildings we have, what minister you have, what people attend the church, what finances you have, or even what programs you offer.  None of that stuff matters.  The only thing that matters is “Do you love God?” and “Do you love people?”

Let’s pray

Invitation