You wish you never sinned, in your heart your greatest desire is to never sin, but so often you find yourself in sin. So often you mess up, and you know that every time you sin, you can go to God in repentance, and receive grace. But don’t you wish you could stop sinning? Well obviously no one can ever be completely free from sin, this side of glory. There is something however, that Scripture reminds us off that will help us put to death that sin that lives in us.

Before we dig into what Scripture tells us on how we can kill sin in our lives, we need to remind ourselves of one thing. When we choose to sin, we are making ourselves a slave to that sin, we are obedient to it rather than God. That is what sin is…

Romans 6v14 says:

“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”

Here it is, here is our motivation to kill the sin in our lives. This is great news; Sin doesn’t have to have dominion over you! Dance, and celebrate, this is amazing! We can please God more often, with this, we can be more joyful with this. This is what can help us in killing sin in our lives.

Why shouldn’t we sin? Because we are not under law, but because we are under grace! Do you see how huge this is? The reason that you don’t look with lust is not because there is a rule that says you mustn’t, but because you live under the grace of God. The reason the we don’t discriminate, is not because the Bible tells us not to, but because God didn’t discriminate against us, He showed us grace. The reason that we shouldn’t sin, is not because there is a rule saying we shouldn’t, but because we live under the grace of God. Christian, you are not under law you are under grace. The reason that we desire to keep God’s moral law, is not because it is a law, but because we are under His grace…

Remember this when you are about to sin, when God provides a way out for you before you sin, take it, not because you’re going to be breaking a rule by sinning, but because you will be abusing His grace by sinning!

His grace is given us freely, but Christ paid a dear price for it on your behalf. Praise God!

Romans 6v14:

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

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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
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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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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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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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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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What a statement, Paul here writing to the Galatians explains the way that he lives. In this part of the letter Paul wrote to the Christians in Galatia, he is speaking about how he challenged his friend Peter on the way that he was living. So Paul is talking here about how we relate to the law of God, and how grace doesn’t cancel out the law, but that we are not saved by observing the law.

When Paul says this statement; “…I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” He is giving us a filter through which we must, as Christians, live our life. The fact that Jesus lives in you is the defining aspect of being a Christian, there is no non-Christian that has Christ living in them, and there is no Christian that does not have Christ living in them. So if the fact is that as Christians we have Christ living in us, why do we not live that differently to non-Christians? Many would say that the primary difference between Christians and non-Christians is that Christians don’t get to sleep in on Sunday morning.

I think that the place where we as Christians miss the mark, in this whole thing is not that we don’t accept the fact that Christ lives in us, but rather that we don’t live out the first part of this statement. “…I no longer live…” if we accept that Jesus lives in us, then we must believe that we have died to ourselves, you cannot be a Christian if you do not desire to die to yourself. It is impossible to live for Christ and to live for yourself, the call that Jesus has on every single Christians life is this; “Die to yourself, live for me, and be truly satisfied.”

So how do you die to yourself? Well this is a road that I want to walk together with you through these next few posts. I feel that this is the place in my own life that I am missing the mark, and as we seek together to die to ourselves, my prayer is that we will be able to live as if we really believed that Christ lives in us. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t intend to pretend that I do, but I want to just share with you what I learn as over the next few weeks we actively begin to seek to live a lifestyle where one day (by the grace of God) we can say with Paul; “…I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

Please feel free to comment, and share any insights that you have in this area of our Christians life, as well as any prayer requests. Pray for us as we pray for you.

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As we have been going through this parable I really hope that you have begun to see how deep these words of Jesus are, and how relevant they are to us today. Isn’t it amazing that these words spoken by a Galilean carpenter more than 2000 years ago still speak directly into our lives today! The Bible is an extraordinary book, Jesus is God! Today as we wrap up this series on the parable of the soils we will have a look at the final type of soil, as Jesus calls is the good soil. Matthew 13v8: “…Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty…” and Matthew 13v23: “…As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” Let’s dig in and see what Jesus is saying.

Christian, are you the good soil? The image is simple, the seed that lands on good soil, grows up and produces a crop more than the seed itself. The one seed produces a whole harvest of other seeds! What are the criteria of this? Well Jesus says that the good soil is like the person who hears the word and understands it. This is a vital element to those who desire to be like this good soil, when we hear the message, or when we read the Bible, we must seek to understand it. Growing in God is like mining for gold, no one walks around and picks up gold off the ground, rather people work hard for it. Therefore, it must be with us, we should strive to know the message of God. We don’t ask others to chew our food for us so that we can just swallow it, so why do we expect others to just tell us what God wants from us without us putting in the hard work.

The big question that we must ask is; “In what way am I like this soil?” This soil produces fruit, the seed that was sown produces a harvest, are you producing fruit? The Biblical idea of salvation is that as Christians we are to be at work for God, wherever He has placed us. So then the question is, are you working to extend the Kingdom of God where you are. What have you done for God in this last year, how have you been deliberate in extending His Kingdom amongst the people you are in contact with. Remember that the reason we desire to do this is because Jesus has paid the price for our sins, and because of Him we have been forgiven by God, therefore we should seek to serve God in this way. Maybe this last wasn’t a good one for you spiritually, then seek to return to Him, and ask Him what He would have you to do for Him. Remember this one awesome fact, the small amount of time that you spend serving God this side of eternity can yield eternal rewards! Because of God’s love for us let’s serve Him with our lives.

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The third type of soil that the seed lands on is soil that is filled with thorns, Jesus said it like this; Matthew 13v7: “…Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them…” and then Jesus explains what it mean; Matthew13v22: “…As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful…” So what is Jesus teaching us here, let’s dig down and see.

This seed landed on soil that already had other seed in it, thorn seeds. As the good seed began to grow up, the thorns just took over, they used all the nutrients, they absorbed all the sunlight, and slowly the good seed began to whither and die. In this parable the thorns represent the things that the world offers us, money, status, fames, etc, etc. What happens to this plant can so easily happen to any one of us, whether we are rich or poor, satan loves to tempt us with the things of this world, to try and slowly draw us away from our relationship with Jesus. This is possibly one of the most difficult soils for us to see within ourselves, so lets ask; “In what way am I like this soil?”

Why is this so difficult for us to see happen to us? Primarily because it is something that happens slowly, and the way in which it happens. There is nothing wrong with having things in and of themselves, it isn’t sinful to be wealthy, fame isn’t evil, but it is our attitude towards these things that draw us away from Jesus.  The seed in the thorny soil is perhaps best illustrated by Jesus talking with the rich young ruler, check out Luke 18v18→23. This guy had it made, he was wealthy, he had status, he was famous, and he was religious; but he valued his wealth above his relationship with God, and at the end of the discussion he walked away sad.

What do you value the most, do you love Jesus more than you love your money, do you love Jesus more than you love your stuff, do you love Jesus more than anything else? The chances are that you said yes to this; then here is the question: What do you think about the most? Do you think more about other things than you do about Jesus? The Bible tells us that where our treasure is there our heart will be also. Are you the seed among the thorns; if Jesus asked you to give up all your stuff and follow Him, would you do it, or would you walk away sad?

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The second soil that the seed lands on in Jesus’ parable of the sower is the rocky soil. This is what Jesus said, recorded in Matthew 13v5+6:  “…Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away…” and the explanation of what this meant is found in Matthew 13v20+21: “…As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away…” Let’s dig in and see what this is all about.

So the seed lands in some soil that has loads of rocks in it, and the seed begins to grow but as it does the roots don’t go down very deep (because there’s rocks in the way) so instead of the plant trying to grow it’s roots deeper, it grows up higher. The plant looks like it is thriving, but then there is a hot dry spell, and the plant can’t get water through its roots, because they’re not deep enough to reach it, and the plant withers and dies.

Here is the question; “In what way am I like this soil?” I think that it is obvious that in this parable the plant is us, and the question must be asked then, how are we living. There was a quote that i heard once, something like: ‘As Christians we must always grow inward and downward, before we grow outward and upward…’ If you know the correct quote please leave a comment. However, the gist of it was exactly what Jesus is talking about here in this parable. When we heard the Gospel, and come to salvation, we need to spend time drawing near to God, and growing in Him. All too often people that have heard to Gospel go about radically changing their outward lives, they become more concerned about looking like a Christian, than they are about their relationship with Christ. How many people have you seen who looked like they were on fire for God, and now they are just like the rest of the world, we need to send our roots down deep!

Psalm 1v3 speaks directly to this, as Christians our inward relationship with Jesus is far more important than our outward appearance to the world. It is true that we need to live righteous lives in this world, but righteousness comes from relationship. Remember God is our Loving Father, not our stern headmaster! So now ask yourself the question, what are you more concerned about, how Christian you look to others, or how deep your relationship is with Jesus. Here is possibly the greatest test, how eager are you to spend time reading the Bible? Spending time alone with God in reading your Bible, is like sending your roots down, when the tough times come (scorching heat) you will be firmly fixed in Him.

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