I John 3:16-18 Intro: What is love? How...

I John 3:16-18

Intro: What is love? How did you learn what love is? It the description of some sort of action, whether the sacrifice of another or the internal chemical reaction that creates a “feeling”. Ultimately we know love by what it does

Lets meditate together on this passage and allow God to speak through His word to each of us this morning

I. The Definition of Love

1. By This we know love: What he is about to say will tell us how we can know love. What kind of love is he talking about here? There are all sorts of different types of love. I love soccer, I love pizza, I love my dog, I love my friends, I love my family, - what type of love is he talking about? Context tells us it is the love that indicates that we are true Christians - it is the love of Christ in us - not any sort of natural love, So how do we learn this type of “unnatural love?” That’s what he is about to tell us

2. Because He laid down His life for us.

- We must study the example to understand this perfect love.

- The words “we know” describe a knowledge that comes from diligent study. Not like lying, walking. Like alegrebra or spanish - you can’t “know” it without diligent study.

- What do we know about His death? Describe Christ’s death to me - voluntary, purposeful, premeditated, substitionary, unselfish - 1st law of physical life ‘self-preservation’ you are your most precious possesion.

- If your like me you struggle to fully appreciate the awesome significance of the death of Christ - we don’t know it well enough.

- This is dificult for us because we are dealing with unseen spiritual realities, we don’t meditate enough on the awefulness of Hell and the awefulness of what Christ went through to save us from the penalty of our sins.

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3. And we ought to lay down our lives for others

- “and” connects Christ example to our lives

- ‘ought’ not ‘must’ moral obligation versus logical necessity.

- It is in the present tense - continuing obligation - all the way to the ultimate sacrifice of literall death just like Chirst. “The ultimate sacrifice” read story of soldier and note the responses of those saved.

- If that is the response of unsaved temporal man how much more should we respond to the eternally significant death of Chirst for us.

- Christ’s love was supreme over the soldiers love:

- It was premeditated, not an inst. Flash choice without full knowledge of the consequences

- It was for those who hated Him - not his closest comrades who loved him. Picture a Jewish prisoner at Dachua having been beaten by Nazis when the allies arive. . .

- Christ had power to stop it - soldiers were powerless to stop incoming grenades

- continue to describe the death of Christ - lift up the cross!

- How should we respond to such self sacrificing love on our behalf? How does the soldier respond to the needs of the family of the one killed? Would he hesitate to give him a ride when he had the opportunity or to help him roof his house - these would seem but mere trivialities

- So to our love for the family of Christ is but mere trivilities when compared to the sacrifice of Christ - even if we do end up dying for our brother or sister in Christ. John is not seeking to stimulate a spirit of martyrdom in his readers, but he is stressing that this is the extent to which Christian love should be willing to go. This type of love does not depend on them loving or even liking me back. . . . “You love God as much as the person you dislike the most.”

- So how can you show this love - and demonstate that the love of Christ is in you?

II. The description of Love: Account is negative, I will give the positive

1. Ability (17a): “Whoever has this worlds goods” present tense

2. Knowledge and Opportunity (17b): “And sees his brother in need”1 to be a spectator, look at, behold. 1a to view attentively, take a view of, survey. 1a1 to view mentally, consider. 2 to see. 2a to perceive with the eyes, to enjoy the presence of one. 2b to discern, descry. 2c to ascertain, find out by seeing.

What needs have you observed? Are you looking? Love others as yourself - do you like encouragement, friendship, we all have the ability to give friendship even to the unlovely

3. Compassion (17c): “And shuts up his heart from him” to close or lock a door/gate This is a deliberate barrier that prevents him from meeting the needs of his brother

4. Action (18): “not in word and in tongue but in deed and in truth”

Review with their situation in mind - can they see a need that they can meet?

Conclusion: How can you show love: at home, at church, at sports practice, at work, at school, at lunch, in class,

Army Staff Sgt. Ian Newland spotted the enemy grenade inside the Humvee. Almost simultaneously, he saw Spc. Ross McGinnis, 19 — a gunner standing in the turret of the vehicle — lower himself onto it.

1. "I saw him jam it with his elbow up underneath him," says Newland, who was sitting inches away. "He pressed his whole body with his back (armor) plate to smother it up against the radios."

The heat and flash of an explosion followed, and McGinnis was killed. Hours later, after surgery for shrapnel wounds, Newland realized the enormity of what happened: McGinnis had sacrificed himself to save four other soldiers in the Humvee on Dec. 4. "Why he did it? Because we were his brothers. He loved us," Newland says.

McGinnis’ father says he does not want his son depicted as larger-than-life. The father says his son loved rebuilding car engines, worked at McDonald's and had a gift for making people laugh. But he was a disinterested student and barely graduated from high school.

"He wasn't exceptional. He was just like you and me," Tom McGinnis says.

"He just made a split-second decision (to fall on the grenade). He did what he thought was right. That doesn't make him extraordinary. He just did an extraordinary thing."

Since the Iraq war began, at least five Americans — two soldiers; two Marines, including one stationed at Kane'ohe; and a Navy SEAL — are believed to have thrown themselves on grenades to save comrades. Each time, the service member died from massive wounds.

Heroic acts mark every war; among the most remarkable involve self-sacrifice. "What a decision that is," says Frank Farley, a Temple University psychologist who studies bravery. "I can't think of anything more profound in human nature."

Survivors, while deeply grateful for their lives, find the aftermath complicated. According to interviews with a dozen surviving soldiers, sailors and Marines, there remains an overpowering sense of guilt and an unspoken feeling that they need to be worthy of the sacrifice.

"There's always talk (in the Army) about being the hero," says Newland, 27, now in Schweinfurt, Germany. He has been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury from the December blast and post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the military, "everyone always tells their friends, 'I'd take a bullet for you,' " Newland says. "I've read books and seen plenty of movies about it. But to actually live through a situation like that, have someone do that, is just — there's nothing else more courageous that a person can do in their entire life. ... So basically, I try not to live my life in vain for what he's done."

A HEAVY BURDEN

Anyone who wraps himself around an explosive charge cannot block all of its destructive power.

Survivors caught nearby describe intense heat, a shattering pressure wave, dazed awareness, ears ringing or even burst eardrums and a world around them that sounds for several seconds as if it's underwater. Then there's the blood, from muscles, nerves or arteries slashed by shrapnel.

That's just the physical harm.

Emotional damage surfaces later when a survivor tries to square his life with his friend's death, says Navy Lt. Cmdr. Shannon Johnson, who counsels frontline combat soldiers in Baghdad.

"The guilt that those left behind have is sometimes compounded by a sense of unworthiness," she says. "They cannot accept that their lives were worth more than the life of their loved comrade. They are left with the heavy burden of trying to measure up to the great sacrifice so that they could live on. For some, the burden is too much."

Last September, Petty Officer Michael Monsoor, 25, of Garden Grove, Calif., fell on a grenade that landed on a rooftop in Ramadi, where he and two other Navy SEALs were stationed as part of a sniper team. Monsoor saved the lives of the other two.

"You think about him everyday. And everything pretty much revolves around what he did," says a 29-year-old Navy lieutenant with the SEALs, married and the father of one."You'd like to tell yourself that you'd do what Mikey did. But until you're faced with that situation, you really don't know."

Marine Sgt. Nicholas Jones still questions his own worth after a nearly identical experience two years before in Fallujah.

Jones entered a house defended by insurgents when his best friend, Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a Marine, fell in front of him with a gunshot wound to the neck. Seconds later, an enemy grenade landed near Peralta, who grabbed it and pulled it underneath his chest. The blast killed Peralta immediately. Four other Marines, including Jones, were wounded.

"It's weird to think you get a second chance on life because of someone's unselfishness," says Jones, 24, of Ontario, Calif., who suffered shrapnel wounds in the explosion.

"It almost makes you feel less, you know? Less of a person. It's like: Why did somebody go out and do something so unselfish just so that I could have the rest of my life?"

On the battlefield, the military tries to provide counseling for survivors whenever lives are lost.

At home, therapists with the Department of Veterans Affairs say survivor's guilt is among the common issues soldiers and Marines bring home from war.

"Being saved by someone from heroics could lead to a sort of (emotional crisis)," says Ira Katz, head of mental health for the VA. " 'He died for me. I really have to prove myself worthy.' And that's probably a very natural response."