Shepherd the Flock

I’ve never done this before, but because of a few requests, and in hopes that a few family and friends will benefit from a sermon that I benefited from myself, below I’m going to place a few excerpts from a sermon I preached this past Lord’s Day evening. If you’ve never heard me preach (trust me, you haven’t missed anything), here is a sample of what I recently presented.The text was 1st John 3:16-18, which had hit me like a ton of bricks a few weeks earlier, and proved very profitable to me as I meditated on it in preparation to preach.

“By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.”

[These are a few random notes contained within my sermon; this is not a presentation or outline of my thesis]

“Love is defined and bound up in the person of Christ and His laying down His life for us; And it is His work, on the cross, that teaches to love, motivates us to love, and binds us up in duty to love.”

“We offended God through our sin, failure to worship, failure to give thanks, our failure to walk righteously, and our abuse of His gracious gifts of life and liberty. And though God is the one offended, HE is the one who stoops to reconcile with us, though we were yet enemies and fully guilty under Divine justice. And not only does He stoop down to reconcile with His enemies, in order to satisfy His Divine justice and demonstrate His righteousness, He sends that which is most precious to Him, His own Son.”

“God is holy, righteous, and just, and He cannot overlook sin and remain a just being. And to satisfy His divine justice and yet still redeem fallen man from sin and our misery, the holy and righteous God in the Person of Christ descended and became sin for us on the cross.”

“Have you considered how vile it was for Christ to submit to death, and to bear our sins on the cross? Let me give you an example: think of an upright, chaste woman being propositioned by a filthy pervert on the street. See how she recoils at the thought of such vileness! Infinitely more so, see the Son of God, perfect and holy, upright to a measure we can never understand, having our sins placed upon His back. The scripture says He BECAME sin for us. All manner of wickedness, adultery, murder, lying, stealing, blaspheming, hate, rebellion, homosexuality, uncleaness – things that EVEN WE SINNERS utterly abhor and recoil at, He became…in our place…there is no greater evidence of God’s love for us than His becoming sin on our behalf, and His death on the cross.”

“The apostle here is stirring our affections and our DEVOTION to Christ because of HIS love towards us. Because of His great love, we love. Because of His great service, we serve. Because of His great humbling and submission to both God and man, we are to be humble and submissive. As chapter 2 verse 6 says, we are to ‘walk just as He walked’.”

“‘laying down our lives’, is not in the heroic, battlefield type of ‘laying down your life’. Sure, there are many stories of bravery where soldiers forfeit their lives for the sake of their fellow soldiers. This is a wonderful and commendable thing, no doubt. But just because someone lays down their life doesn’t mean that they have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them. What we see in the text, however, is that John goes on to give an example of the point he just made (READ 17-19). This is a level of extreme care/concern/love. It means that we deny others nothing, even if it costs us our life! We hold back no material good or service to those in need, even to the point of our death.”

“Brethren, consider this deeply: the opposite of Love is NOT hate as we understand it; rather, it is indifference. It is selfishness. It is only noticing your own personal needs, not even paying attention to the needs of others.”

“The Law says ‘love your neighbor as yourself’? And how do we love ourselves?–by clothing, feeding, nourishing, watching our diet and health, exercising, making every effort to live as long as possible and in the best means possible. So obedience to this command is: though it cost you life, liberty, house and home to care for a brother in need, the prospect of death does not hinder you from loving others as yourself.”

“It is the cross is what motivates us to love, springing us into action, and binds us to love others. And the gospel does this in several ways:

1) Loving others gives us a picture of Christ. It is not simply a duty or an obligation (though it is) to love because He loved, but it is a communion with Him through a more deeper appreciation and understanding of His glory in the gospel. Loving leads to adoring, to worship, to greater communion with God, which is the highest, chiefest good. In contrast, NOT loving others diminishes our capacity to see Christ, know the gospel by experience, love Him, commune with Him. Failing to love alienates us from the gospel and what Christ saved us to do, and it brings God’s displeasure upon us.

2) The cross is the attraction that fuels our love for others by pulling us away from ourselves. What should consume our thoughts and affections is not following a list for how to ‘love’, but the glory and grace of God revealed at the cross! Christ GAVE HIMSELF, to the point of death, FOR SINNERS! This thought, properly and consistently meditated on, forces us to look outside of ourselves to something greater.

In contrast, NOT loving others; not mimicking Christ, leaves us vulnerable to being seduced by selfish ambitions and self-righteousness. When we lose the foundation, the cross, and yet still try to love, we will be seduced by our own corruptions and desire to please the flesh. A natural man may yet love, but not out of any beauty that he sees in it, not out of and love for Christ and a desire to glorify Him, but for his own self-righteousness, or because he sees them to be a bridge to heaven and he cannot get there without it. The gospel as the foundation for our love pulls us out of ourselves, our work, and our self-righteousness by declaring that we were enemies of God until Christ was formed in us.

“Our infatuation with the cross should lead us to love, and to love deeply. When we do not love, we declare that we have MISSED THE MESSAGE of the gospel. [Repeat] WE have MISUNDERSTOOD THE GOSPEL, its purpose, its power, its implications, if we fail to love. And what could be more frightening? This is the most important message of all.”

“An inference of application that we can infer from this text is that, understanding the providence of God, the reason we have been given extra food/drink in this life is precisely to care for others. God uses, in His providence, your graces and your abundance to feed/clothe/preach to others. If we think that the stuff in this life is ours for our own wantonness, our own comforts or selfish pleasure, we have misunderstood the gospel and the Christian duty of love.”

“Another application could be considering the hindrances of our love in relation to the gospel. What usually hinders us from loving? Is it not when we see pride in others, a lack of appreciation? Basically, isn’t it when we see the sin in others that we tend to pull back and be indifferent to their needs? But the gospel reminds us that we are to love what God in Christ loves; because He loves, He gives, serves, and is patient despite sin, we are to be as well. Loving our neighbor is not predicated on their receiving it with thanksgiving, or upon them being in some way righteous enough to receive it. If we love how Christ loved, seeing their sin will cause us to love them even more.”

“This passage ends with ‘the truth’: And what is the ultimate truth? Is not Christ the way the truth and the life? Brethren, again, we must run back to Christ and the gospel! To love in the truth is to love and speak the truth. Our deeds are to be such that they adorn the gospel, and are in step with what Christ has done on our behalf. We are to love by deed and by declaring the truth!

“I say this as carefully and sincerely as possible, but serving and loving without bringing the gospel IS NOT truly LOVE. People need the gospel, they need ‘the power of God unto salvation’ more than anything, whether they’re saved or lost. So when you serve, do not assume the gospel; Do not assume that that people know it already. Even if they’re in church; under sound preaching; Don’t assume that they know it or at least don’t need to be reminded of it.”