Actions speak louder than words - especially when it comes to love. On this Father's Day, we explore John's powerful challenge to move beyond mere words and love with our lives through sacrifice, generosity, and genuine care for others.
Perfect for fathers wanting to model authentic love for their families, and for anyone tired of superficial expressions of care. Discover how loving "in deed and in truth" rather than just "word and tongue" brings assurance to our hearts and confidence before God.
This Father's Day message challenges us to examine our love - is it just talk, or does it cost us something? Learn practical ways to love sacrificially and how our actions toward others reveal the truth about our relationship with God.
June 15th
1 John 3:11–18 (NIV) 11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. 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. 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? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Real faith is proven by tangible, sacrificial love. 1 John contrasts Cain’s hollow worship with Christ’s self-giving sacrifice and calls the Church to display God’s love through forgiveness and generosity.
1 – Cain: Words without Heart
1 John 3:12-13 (NIV): “Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother… Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.”
2 – Christ: The Greater Abel Who Loved in Deed
3 – Church: Love with Your Life—Forgiveness + Generosity
BBCC Verse of the Week: 1 John 3:18 (NIV) Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Love is the hallmark characteristic of God's children who are walking in the light. But if you asked the person on the street what love is, you might get answers such as, "Love is a feeling." Or, "Love is a commitment." Or, "Love is sacrifice." And almost certainly someone would say, "Love is sex." The ancient Greeks thought love was a madness of the mind. As theologian Jonathan Wilson has said, "Love is a terribly debased term today, almost beyond rescue as a description of the good news of the kingdom come in Jesus Christ." And to make matters worse, as I. Howard Marshall observes, "Most people associate Christianity with the command to love, and so they think that they know all about Christianity when they have understood its teaching in terms of their own concept of love". No wonder John's readers then and now need a lesson on what love is and why it's important.
When Jesus laid down his life on the cross, it was not an arbitrary or irrelevant act of love. One of the questions one could ask about the crucifixion is how the death of one man two thousand years ago could have any relevance for others today. This perception of its irrelevance may be why some might see Jesus' teachings as being of greater relevance for others than his death. The nature of Jesus' death reveals the deep, deep need of humanity for redemption. James Denney explains by analogy:
If I were sitting on the end of the pier on a summer day enjoying the sunshine and the air, and some one came along and jumped into the water and got drowned "to prove his love for me," I should find it quite unintelligible. I might be much in need of love, but an act in no rational relation to any of my necessities could not prove it. But if I had fallen over the pier and were drowning, and some one sprang into the water, and at the cost of making my peril, or what but for him would be my fate, his own, saved me from death, then I should say, "Greater love hath no man than this." I should say it intelligibly, because there would be an intelligent relation between the sacrifice which love had made and the necessity from which it redeemed.
The NT explains how the death of one man two thousand years ago does have relevance for the lives of others. John insists that God's love is most clearly expressed on the cross, because it provided for humanity's deepest need. Jesus' death substitutes for our own. By his death, Jesus saves us from our own. Similarly, love as the Bible defines it is doing what is needed to care for the needs of others. This doesn't exclude warm feelings or commitments, but it means that Christians should live in a way that considerately responds to the needs of those around them. It means making life-sustaining resources available to meet the needs of those in dire circumstances -- providing clean water, food, clothing, shelter, and of greatest importance, the true gospel of Jesus Christ. - Karen Jobes
With this mutual love which is commanded us, John immediately contrasts the behaviour of Cain… And what was the cause of Cain's murder of Abel? John asks. It was not because Abel was wicked, but the reverse: because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. Jealousy lay behind his hatred, not the jealousy which covets another's greater gifts but that which resents another's greater righteousness, the 'envy' which made the Jewish priests demand the death of Jesus. Jealousy-hatred-murder is a natural and terrible sequence. Cain was the prototype of the world, which still manifests the ugly qualities he first displayed. The 'world' is Cain's posterity; so we are not to be surprised if the world hates us. It is only to be expected that the wicked should continue to regard and treat the righteous as Cain regarded and treated his righteous brother Abel. – John Stott
What does the author of 1 John understand by 'eternal life'? He identifies it with, or says it is found in, Jesus Christ: Eternal life is promised to those who believe in him (2:25); it is found in Christ, the Son (5:11), who is the true God and eternal life (5:20); this life was with the Father from the beginning and appeared in the person of Jesus Christ to eyewitnesses (1:2); those who believe in Christ may know that they have eternal life (5:13) because they have the Son, and those who have the Son have eternal life (5:12). As far as the author is concerned, eternal life is not an unending extension of life as we know it; rather, it is 'having' the Son, Jesus Christ, for eternal life is all tied up in him. – Colin Kruse
For next week – Read 1 John 3:19-24 Pastor Samuel Sutter // sam@BBCCOnline.org
