We are making a big deal about this whole love thing, but how much of an issue is it really to the Christian life, how important is it that we understand this, and live it?

Firstly, let’s have a look at one of the most famous scriptures on love, 1Corinthians 13:

1Corinthians 13v1→3: ¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

1Corinthians 13v13: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Does God take love seriously? YES!!!

In the letter that John wrote called 1John, John lays out several tests that one can do in order to check your spiritual health. He says in 1John 5v13: I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. You see his desire is that we know that we are saved, if you ever question your salvation; “Am I really a Christian?” go and have a good honest read through the book of 1John and compare yourself to the questions that he asks.

One of the tests that John puts forward is this; Do you love other Christians? John sets out to polarize people, he makes it a black and white issue, a light and dark issue.

1John 2v9+10: ⁹Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.

John lays it out like this; if you do not love other Christians, you are not a Christian. If you hate other Christians, then you are not saved yourself. What we tend to do is we look on a macro scale, and we say, I do not hate all Christians, in fact I really get on with most of them, as long as they don’t irritate me… But this is not what it is about here, John isn’t talking about just getting along, or liking most other Christians, he is rather asking; “Do you have a deep compassion, love, and connection with other Christians?” and “Are other Christians really like brothers and sisters to you?”

Do you love other Christian? Is this issue important? Yes, it is a litmus test for your salvation, no love, no salvation!

1John 3v14: We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

If we get back to our key scripture, we read that Jesus said: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” So is loving each other important? Yes it is, not only is it a litmus test of our salvation, it is a demonstration of who we are. Do Christians really look all that different from the rest of the world? The divorce rate is essentially the same among Christians as among the rest of the world, how can the world know that we are Jesus’ disciples? We must demonstrate the love of Christ to each other, that the world may look and see!

1John 4v19→20: ¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. ²¹And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

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1. Love each other – Intro
2. Love each other… How – Servant…
3. Love each other… How – Grace…

The third example of Jesus’ love that we will look at in this series is how He loved in grace. Jesus’ example –  2Thessaloians 2v16+17: ¹⁶May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, ¹⁷encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

Jesus came and demonstrated His love for us in showing us grace, and giving us mercy. It was through Jesus that we have access to God. Jesus demonstrated grace to many on earth, think of the woman caught in adultery; she was about to be stoned by the crowd (and rightly so, by the law of that day), yet Christ comes, and reveals every single persons sin to them and then shows the woman grace. This is just how Jesus operated, He demonstrated His love to us by showing us grace.

And us – how can we copy Jesus in this area? We need to show each other grace, this is a demonstration of our love for each other. This doesn’t mean that we never confront each other about issues, or that we never have a disagreement. But rather, that when we do have disagreements that we are quick to show each other grace. When we love each other in grace, this means that we don’t love because we are loved back, no rather we love each other whether it is reciprocated or not. This ought to be our aim, this is the model of love that God has set out for us:

1John 4v19: We love because he first loved us.

God has loved us before we loved Him, He was the one that initiated this love. He loved us even when we hated Him, He loved us when we ignored Him, He loved us when we loved sin, He loved us first. Take this example as you love one another, loved gracefully, show love even if it is not returned.

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1. Love each other… How – Servant…
2. Love each other… Is it that important?
3. Love each other – Intro

This week we will have a look at how Jesus came as a servant, the King of kings came to earth and served. Jesus’ example – Mark 10v43→45: ⁴³Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus here is teaching those that will be leaders the manner in which they are to lead, that being servant like. Again Jesus came and gave the example of His love, when God referred to Christ during His time on earth He called Him as servant. This is the attitude that Jesus came with, His very attitude was that of a servant. Jesus was the highest authority ever to walk the earth, He was the single person that was most worthy of respect, He deserved to be worshiped whilst on earth (an indeed was worshiped), yet whilst Jesus was on earth here He demonstrated His love by washing His disciples feet (John 13)!

And us – How can we follow Jesus’ example in this and love each other with the attitude of a servant? You need to look around and seek out opportunities where you can serve each other in love. Jesus didn’t wait until someone gave Him a suggestion, He sought out the opportunities to demonstrate His love in service. We need to do the same; is there someone who is always serving, how about you serve them for a while. Is there a need that no one wants to do because it is not very glamorous, or not seen, why not be a servant and fulfil that need. Do you think of yourself higher than Jesus, or are you more worthy of being served than Jesus was? Remember Jesus example:

Philippians 2v5→8: ⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: ⁶Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ⁷but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!

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1. Love each other… Is it that important?
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3. Love each other – Intro

Last week we saw that as Christians we should love other Christians, the reason tat we should love other Christians is because God loves us. Now over the next few weeks we are going try and get very practical in how we should love each other, as Christians. We are going to look at three ways that we should love each other, each week we will first look to Jesus’ example (how He loved like this), and then we will focus in on some of the ways that we can begin to love like this, following Jesus’ example.

The fist way that we get to love other Christians is through sacrifice. Sacrifice is a taboo word in our culture today, to most people it is the opposite of success. Yet Jesus, the single most well known figure of all history, not only spoke of sacrifice, He lived it, and loved through it. Let’s have a look:

Jesus’ example – Ephesians 5v1+2: ¹Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children ²and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Jesus laid down His life as a ransom for you and for all those who call on His name, He suffered at the hands of the Romans, He endured the wrath of God that should have been poured out on you, He took it on your behalf. Jesus sacrificed His very own self for you, He stepped down from eternity in time, He constrained Himself to time and space, the very King of all of everything clothed Himself as a human, He lived among us, and then died for us. Jesus knew what it was to sacrifice in the name of love. That is the example that He has set for us.

And us – How then can we imitate Jesus’ example in sacrificial love? We can give, our time, our talents, our money to others. If Christ sacrificed His very own self in love for you, is it then too much to ask that you sacrifice some of yourself for your fellow believers? You have been given so much, can you not sacrifice some of it for those that you love?

1John 3v17+18: ¹⁷If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? ¹⁸Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

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1. Love each other – Intro
2. Love each other… How – Grace…
3. Love each other… Is it that important?

John 13v34+35: ³⁴“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This is the Scripture that we are going to focus on for the next few weeks, the main topic surrounding it is the whole idea of loving other Christians.

“Christians should love each other.” Is this true? And if it is true, why should Christians love each other?

If we begin in John 13v34 we see that Jesus said; “A new command I give you: Love one another…” So obviously it is true that as Christians we must love other Christians. The question then remains; Why should we love each other?

Simplicity would tell us that we must love each other because Jesus told us to, but we are given more motivation than that in the Bible, let’s have a look at some of the reasons that we as Christians should love one another.

The first and primary reason that we love each other is because we are loved. Understand this, make sure that this makes sense to you, your whole Christian life very well depends on you understanding this fact: God loves you.

1John 3v1: How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.

1John 4v10: This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God loves you; in the cross we learn many things, one of these things that we learn is that we are loved by God. If God never loved us He would never have sent His Son to die for us. If you ever doubt that you are truly loved, look to the cross; see how much you really are loved. God loves you!

Only once you understand and believe that you are loved by God can you ever hope to begin to love others. We do not love other Christians so that God will love us, we know that God loves us therefore we love other Christians.

1John 4v11+12: ¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

So therefore the answer to the question why should we love each other is this; we should love each other because we are loved by God.

1John 4v19→21: ¹⁹We love because He first loved us. ²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. ²¹And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

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1. Love each other… Is it that important?
2. Love each other… How – Sacrifice…
3. Love each other… How – Grace…