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Title: The Outworking of Love, Part Two
Last week we looked at the example, what God, in his love (action) did for us (the elect). Today we will deal with the “What.” Namely what this means for us. Today we will not be looking at the “What then” question or the “How” question. Those questions we will leave for next week.
Today we will make sure that our lives are in tune with Christ in this sense: are we trying to be like him, do we want to be like him. Today is not easy, folks, it’s not easy at all, there are some textual difficulties and some real challenges for us to overcome in terms of obedience vs. being honest with our own desires.
I toiled with this passage over and over and over again, because
II. Our Call to Imitate
“We also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
Follow my logic, it’s not complex. We are told to emulate Christ. Christ lived sacrificially for those he loved. Therefore, we ought to live sacrificially, for “the Brethren.”
Pragmatically, this is a nightmare to understand.
Listen if I was an normal pastor I would teach you that this passage talks about not putting yourselves first, consider others better than yourself, lay your needs aside in favor of the need for others. Show people the Jesus in you…blah blah blah.
If I was a normal pastor, that is the exact route I’d take. But friends, if we can agree on one thing this morning, it is this: I’m not a normal pastor. (Amen?)
Seriously, I can’t turn my brain off. If I feel like the spirit is burdening me with something, I can’t turn it off. When I wrote this very sermon I stared at a black computer screen for the better part of an hour, muttering arguments and counter arguments back and forth with myself on what this verse means.
The problem is two fold:
1. Defining who “the brethren” are.
2. Is there a peculiar love reserved by us for the brethren that doesn’t apply to everyone?
These are the two questions I hope to answer today.
Who are the brethren? (Take Answers)
1. Professing Christians?
2. Everyone?
3. The Elect? (but how do YOU know who is really saved?)
4. The membership of the church?
You have often heard me talk about “levels” of accountability between Christians:
1. Lost
2. Professing Christian
3. Christian attender of a body
4. Christian of the same denomination
5. Member of the church
6. Pastor, Deacon, Leader of said church
I think the same concept applies here, and speaks deeply as to how important church membership is. When John wrote this everyone was a confirmed member of the church, there were no “attenders” at first church of Rome. You either were or were not. And being part of the church often meant threat of death.
Here is where I think the best definition of “brethren” is:
The makeup of your local church. Not necessarily members, but the people you’d list as part of the church. Those who are part of the church should be members here, because that’s where the two way street of accountability enters in. But I realize, especially with our college students that we’ve got some unique situations.
Moving now to the second question:
Is there a peculiar love reserved by us for the brethren that doesn’t apply to everyone?
This may surprise you, but I think the answer is “yes.”
I’m not saying we’re not called to love the lost, but this passage speaks rather specifically about a peculiar love we are to have for the universal brotherhood of the church.
Listen to Matthew Henry:
It includes a peculiar love to the Christian society, to the catholic church, and that for the sake of her head, as being his body, as being redeemed, justified, and sanctified in and by him; and this love particularly acts and operates towards those of the catholic church that we have opportunity of being personally acquainted with or credibly informed of. They are not so much loved for their own sakes as for the sake of God and Christ, who have loved them. And it is God and Christ, or, if you will, the love of God and grace of Christ, that are beloved and valued in them and towards them.
Close:
So what do I want you to take from today’s sermon? In our emulating Christ to others, I believe there is a particular responsibility we have to other believers. In the name of God, Jesus told Peter to “feed his sheep” he didn’t say “feed the world.”
I also think we do a pretty good job of this at HBC. We seek out another’s needs, we try to meet those needs. I just want you to be challenged with this question before we pray and move to a Q/A session:
Do I have a particular, sacrificial love for the people in my church? Would I lay down my life for them? If my wife needed my kidney I wouldn’t hesitate. What if Homer needed my kidney, would I hesitate? I shouldn’t.