It helps to get some feedback that your actions in life are having the desired effect. When you order something online, you get a message on the screen that says, "Thank you for your order," and within two minutes an email arrives in your inbox to tell you that your order has been received.
Now, I've given up trying to impress anybody that I'm young, so I can remember when Amazon was first starting and the whole world of ordering things online was a new venture. I remember my very first order from Amazon, back in the days when they only sold books. So, you place your order and 10 minutes later an email popped up in my inbox thanking me and telling me it'd be with me within a week. Now, I just—I was—I didn't really know how tech worked in those days. I didn't know the emails were automated, so I was just really impressed because I thought someone in Amazon has received my order and they've gone, "Oh dear Mr Oakley, thank you for your order." It's very impressive—10 minutes and they've already replied to me.
Or you have your mobile phone, and if you touch the screen to put a command in or type something, you get these little tiny vibrations every time you tap. It's called haptic feedback, and the whole point is you're just getting some reassurance that your phone is listening and that the taps you're doing are doing something. It's very frustrating when you don't get that kind of feedback.
So there you are, you're a bit thirsty and you find a vending machine. You put some money in the drinks machine to get a cup of coffee or a can of Coke, or you scan it with your card—tap your card—and no drink comes out. What? What's happening? Is it that—have they charged me and not given me a drink, or did the payment not go through?
Or you book a table at your favourite restaurant or pub online. You type in your details, you click "Reserve now", and it goes back to the homepage of the pub. Have I made a reservation? Have I not? It's really frustrating.
Now, I talked about my kind of age thing, so I'm going to make half of the room feel really nostalgic, and the other half of you are going to think I'm really old. Okay, so this is the difference between a digital camera and a 35mm film camera. Okay, so back in the old days, you put your film in the camera—that's—I'm telling you, it's 'cause some of you have no idea what I'm talking about. Okay, you take your photos and then you take out that little cartridge and you post it off, and a week to two later, back come your photos.
Now, the fun thing at that point is your holiday is finished, the wedding is finished, so if they didn't come out because you were just pointing in the wrong direction—tough. How different it is today, where you can take your photo, look at the screen—no, eyes closed—take it again till you're happy. Much nicer to get that feedback along the way.
How about with God? You become a Christian, you're going to trust God with your life. Maybe you pray a little prayer that says, "Dear Jesus, please can I live the rest of my life with you in charge and under the grace of your forgiveness. Amen." Did it work?
Now, if you are a genuine Christian, what a privilege. So in that reading we had, verse 21:
"Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask."
I mean, all the usual qualifications of that apply. Indeed, just later in 1 John he will stress things like, you need to ask for things according to God's will; God won't give you things that will hurt you—all of that. But just think about it for a moment: if you're a genuine Christian, you can talk to God any place, any time, any prayer—and he hears you. That's amazing.
Or last week in the early part of the chapter, verse 1:
"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God—and that is what we are."
If you are a Christian, you are a child of God.
Let me just say in passing—if you're here this morning and you're not yet a Christian—you want this. This is so, so good. But has it worked? See, when Jesus comes back at the end of history, that's a bit like getting the film back from development. That's when you get to see whether you really were a Christian. But it's kind of a bit late. So you don't want to wait till Jesus comes back to find out whether you're on the right track. You want some feedback along the way so that you can know if there's anything that needs to be fixed or put straight while there's time.
John's whole letter was written to reassure people—to provide Christians with reassurance that they really are Christians, to provide that feedback. And in today's passage, we have two things that we need if we are to have certainty that we are real Christians. And we're going to spend most of our time on the first of these two.
Number one: you need practical love.
Number two: you need a peaceful conscience.
So let's look at those.
1. Practical love (v. 11-18)
Here's verse 11:
"For this is the message you heard from the beginning: we should love one another."
And note there are two paragraphs here—11–15 and 16–18. The first says, "Don't be like Cain." The second says, "Do be like Christ."
(a) Don’t be like Cain
So number one: don't be like Cain.
Here's verse 12:
"Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother."
Here is the example of what not to be like. Now, maybe you're thinking at this point, isn't this a slightly extreme example? We're not likely to be murdering other people in church. Well, let's just read on, because we will find three reasons here why Cain is actually the perfect example for a local church like ours.
So, let's go on:
"Why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous.
Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other.
Anyone who does not love remains in death.
Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him."
So, here are three reasons why Cain is a wonderful example that's really helpful for us.
(i) Murder grows out of hatred
"Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer."
Now, this is straight from the lips of Jesus, isn't it? Matthew 5:21. Jesus says this:
"You have heard that it was said to people long ago, 'You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment."
Murder is what you do with your hands. Hatred is what happens in your heart. But they are basically the same. Now, we may not murder others within church—but we could hate people here. You might think, really? Yes. It's thankfully not that common in any given church, but tragically many churches have a few people within them who cannot stand somebody else in that church.
(ii) Hatred grew out of jealousy
So again, verse 12:
"Why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous."
Abel's sacrifice was accepted, we heard, because he did what was right—and Cain resented that and killed him. This is why they killed Jesus. The religious leaders resented the fact that Jesus was more righteous than them. It's why people today kill Christians in some parts of the world—verse 13:
"Don't be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you."
And it's why you could hate other Christians. Jealousy is a really ugly thing in a church. So, you want the gifts that somebody else has got—or the family circumstances or the job or the opportunities for ministry in the life of the church—and so you resent somebody else because they have something that you need. Or you have those things, but you fear losing them to somebody else, and so you start to see somebody else as a threat to your status and your position. Hatred grows out of jealousy.
(iii) Hatred shows which side you’re on
And then number three, third reason why Cain's a great example is that hatred is a sign of what side you're on.
"We know we've passed from death to life because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death."
John has already used the language of two different realms you could live in. You're either living in the light or living in the dark. Now he does the same thing, but the language changes—it's now living in the realm of death or living in the realm of life. Two different worlds you could live in. And when you become a Christian, you cross over from the death realm to the life realm.
And again, he gets this straight from the teaching of Jesus. This is John 5:24, where Jesus says:
"Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life."
If you change which football team you support—and this is happening across the country as we speak—it changes all kinds of things, because you cross over. It changes where you sit in the game, it changes the kit you wear when you go out to support, the songs you chant. It changes when you cheer and when you stay silent—if you're a gentleman—or boo, if you're not. And John is saying that killing somebody in your heart is the ultimate behaviour that belongs properly on the terraces of death.
But if you've crossed over so that you're now cheering on the side of life, not death—why would you do the hatred-leads-to-death thing? That's not how people live on those terraces.
So don't be like Cain. He's not such a crazy example, is he? Murder flows from hatred, hatred flows from jealousy, and if that becomes us, it shows what side we're on. This is the first little peek that we get at the kind of picture that will come out when Jesus returns—when the film is developed.
Well, that's the first of our two paragraphs.
(b) Do be like Christ
Here's the second one, where he says, "Do be like Christ."
So, verse 16:
"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters."
This is the most loving act there has ever been. Jesus took our sin—ugly, rebellious, painful—he willingly took it on his own shoulders and paid the penalty in full. The judgment of God for eternity—only, he carried it in three hours. Eternity's punishment, concentrated with a magnifying glass into three hours—so that we could go free.
This is the exact opposite of Cain. Cain took somebody else's life to get. Christ laid down his own life in order to give. But this is not just how he loves us—this is the example for us to copy. This is the very definition of love. "This is how we know what love is," he says:
"Jesus Christ laid down his life for us."
Now love needs some defining these days. The world we live in is at sea as to what we mean by the word "love". So much so that the most popular definition in secular culture at the moment for love is really profound. Are you ready? Love is love. You clear now?
I mean, okay, I kind of get what that's saying. What it's actually said is—it's about sin, isn't it? Sin is self-autonomy, and what it's really saying is, "What love means for me is what I choose for it to mean, and nobody else can tell me what I love." That's the very definition of sin, that slogan. So I kind of know what it means and where it's driving at, but it actually just shows that people do not have a clue of any objective standard or benchmark for love.
Now I realise, obviously, there are different kinds of love. There's friendship love, there's affection, there's romantic love—these are not all the same thing, I know all that. When you read people that say that different Greek words mean different things, that's massively over-egged. Just forget that. But love is complex, right? I get all that.
But actually, what John is saying: this is what love is. And he doesn't actually just mean certain kinds of love. All love—even romantic love, even friendship love—traces back to this: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. You want to know what love looks like in any context? It boils down to this.
Now this too, a bit like Cain's murder, could seem out of reach, couldn't it? So you might think, "Well, when am I really going to have the opportunity to lay down my life for somebody else in this church?" I'm pretty safe reading this, because I am not going in the next week to actually ever have to do this, so that's okay. But just like with Cain—you may not murder someone, but you could hate them—so here with Christ, you may not need to lay down your life, but you can help them.
So here's verse 17:
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 he says, "If anyone sees a brother or sister"—singular. It's very easy to like the idea of loving all Christians everywhere. Much harder to love an individual. An individual who has a need, and to help them.
Now what he says here is really specific. Let's just notice this. He does not say: feel guilty if you fail to help everybody in the church. It's much more specific. There are three things to what he's saying, at which point you should realise something's gone wrong.
(i) See the need
You need to see the need. Okay, the exact word here for "see" is intensive and deliberate. It's not just that it happens to be—that you really have noticed, you've clocked it—that there's a specific need.
(ii) Have material possessions
Number two: you have to have material possessions. You have to have the means to help. So it's not saying that someone who is also completely struggling to get by from day to day should feel guilty if they fail to help somebody else who is also struggling to get by. No. If you see a need, and you have the means to meet that need, and then—
(iii) Have zero pity
Number three: you have absolutely zero pity. Those two things come together, and their impact on you is zero compassion. Just utter callousness. And at that point he says, you are showing that you have never known the love of God for yourself, if that is what you do.
How does this appeal (to be like Christ) land for our church? Well, here's three applications for us.
(a) Be encouraged
Be encouraged—this is a church where I see meals cooked for people when they've had children or just moved in, flats furnished, lifts offered, children looked after (sometimes for a week at a time), and so on and so on and so on. Brothers and sisters, be encouraged. What a wonderful family we have here. When he says, "If anyone sees a brother or sister in need and has material possessions and has no pity on them", the reverse story plays out in this church time and time again. What a beautiful thing. Be encouraged.
(b) Don't shut your eyes
So the love of God is shown as you see people's need and act. And some of us just go through church life with our eyes slightly closed into a squint—not really seeing what's in front of us. So do open your eyes.
(c) Don't be invisible
For people to meet a need, they have to see it. And in a church this size, it's so easy to be hidden. You come, maybe you have a quick cup of coffee, and you go. If that's what you do, it would be tragically possible for you to suddenly find you have real, real needs—surrounded by people who would love to help, but no one knows because you've made yourself invisible.
So it doesn't really matter how you do it—join a small group, join a life group, join the women's Bible study, join the men's Bible study. Join one of our many, many service teams—or we can invent new service teams if you've got gifts that none of the current teams let you use them. These are all ways that just get you alongside your church family so that you're not invisible.
So there's the first thing you need if you are to have that feedback: you need to have practical love.
2. Peaceful conscience (v. 19-24)
Remember the question in this passage is: how can I get feedback that my response to Jesus is genuine? And these verses anticipate a problem. Sometimes the voice from your heart gives you feedback that says: you are not okay with God. You feel guilty, you feel inadequate. You look at John's tests for genuine Christianity from his letter, and it feels like you fail them.
So John says: how can you set your heart at rest if that is you? That's verse 19. What do you do if your heart condemns you? That's verse 20. How do you get back to the place of having a heart that does not condemn, so you have confidence before God? That's verse 21.
And the answer is this: trust God's assessment over yours.
Verse 20:
If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and knows everything.
Ask the expert. And the expert for the state of your heart is God.
Imagine you feel ill one day and you go to the doctor. Now the doctor can do various tests. They have all kinds of very clever machines that can see what is going on in all kinds of bits of your body that would be invisible from the surface, and can show what's really going on inside. And it may well be that the report comes back that you are actually fine. There is nothing seriously wrong. They've looked inside and they can see that it's fine.
Now you may not feel fine. There may be something that is wrong. But you can trust the expert. They've looked for the things they know they really need to look at. And on the things that are really scary, you're okay.
So what is God's assessment of our hearts? We need to get God's assessment. This matters, so that we only come away assured if we are okay.
So there is a danger with a passage like this—that the wrong bits of it land on the ears of the wrong people. So there's a danger that the person who has never known Jesus and is really not okay with God comes away from this passage having heard me say, "Be reassured, you're fine", whereas the person who is walking with Jesus and feels guilty comes away still feeling, "I don't think I really meet that."
So we need to know: what is God's assessment? Does God say you're fine?
Or to turn it round—you could go to the doctor feeling basically fine, only for a blood test to show that there is a serious problem that you are unaware of.
So let's listen to exactly what God's assessment of our heart is. It comes in verses 21 to 23:
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
It's back to what John has been saying throughout this letter. Do you keep God's commands? Well actually, God only has one command, and it's this: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ. And if you do that, you will love others. And if that's you—you're a Christian. So set your heart at rest.
And then verse 24 says:
This is how we know that he lives in us: we know it by the Spirit he gives us.
Thank God for the gift of his Spirit. His Spirit is the one who brings about true belief, who brings about obedience, who brings about love. And so the Spirit is ultimately the one who reassures us.
So one of the feedback loops that we have is the way we love our brothers and sisters.
What do you do this morning if you're listening and you think, "I don't think that's true of me"? I'm not convinced that when the pictures come back, the pictures of me will be that of a Christian when Jesus returns.
We need to work out what's going on. Is it that you are a Christian, you're just very aware of your failings? Because actually, one sign of being truly converted and born again is that you become aware of the ways you fall short. If that is what's going on, you need God to speak to your conscience the truth—that he can see that you are indeed a precious child of his.
Or is it that you are not convinced this is true of you because actually, you're not yet a Christian? You've never known Jesus personally. In which case, you need to see this: loving others is the evidence that you've truly known Jesus. It's not how you get right with God. It's the evidence that you've got to know Jesus for yourself.
So John is not simply saying: "Love others and you'll be all right. All nice people are okay with God." No, no. It's the fruit—we talked about this a few weeks ago—it's the fruit, not the root.
So each of our paragraphs gives us that:
- In 11 to 15: love for others shows you've crossed from death to life.
- In 16 to 18: love for others shows that you have the love of God in you—you've received God's love in Christ.
- And in 19 to 24: love for others is the evidence you've kept God's one command, which is to believe in Jesus.
Conclusion
If the digital camera preview of the state of your heart shows that you do not pass John's test of loving other Christians, what you need to do is come to Jesus. And then God's Spirit will work all of this fruit in your life.
But for most of us, John's aim in writing this is to encourage us. And I want to encourage us. This is a very loving church, with lots of people doing deeply self-sacrificial things. This is a church with lots of people who look a lot like Jesus, and who look increasingly like Jesus.
So be encouraged. Enjoy having a heart that is at rest with God. Enjoy having a heart that is not condemned.