The Test of Discipleship

The Test of Discipleship
1 Jn 2:7-17
I. Link to Discipleship
A. 1 Jn 2:7 Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.
1. V. 7 Old Commandment
B. Mt 22:37-40 And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38“This is the great and foremost commandment. 39“The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40“On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
1. Deu 6:5 and Lev 19:18 - made them center
II. A New Commandment
A. New emphasis
1. Jn 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
2. Love is tell-tale characteristic of disciple
B. Repetition - emphatic - foundation
1. Jn 15:12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
2. Jn 15:17 “This I command you, that you love one another.
3. 1 Jn 3:11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;
C. New quality
1. Not just as love self, but as Christ loved us
2. Selfless, sacrificial, even to point of death
3. Jn 13:34 even as I have loved you
4. Fundamental characteristic of all Christians
III. Hatred Is Darkness
A. 1 Jn 2:9-11 The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. 10The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 11But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
1. Love lights the way to righteous behavior
2. If we love people, we see how to avoid sinning against them
B. V. 11 hatred is darkness which blinds
1. Hatred distorts perspective
2. We don’t even know we are sinning against them because hatred blinds us
C. Social media posts
1. Care more about protecting heritage than people
2. More important to express opinion than avoid division
D. But he’s not my brother
1. Walking in darkness
E. New scope
1. Good Samaritan - anyone in need regardless of race or rank
2. Mt 5:43-46 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
F. I don’t have to like him
1. Don’t want to be around him
2. 1 Co 13:1-3 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
3. 4 patient, kind
4. 5 does not seek its own, Is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
5. 7 bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things

[@romeotalaver1871]

Thanks Bro. for that great message..Very inspirational. God bless and take good care of you..