Good morning, everyone. We've been singing all morning about the victory we have in Jesus, the fact that Jesus has paid it all and made us free. And it's just important that we understand we go over and over in this church and our preaching about the fact that we are new creations in Christ, that God has done an amazing work in the man who believes Jesus and changed Him completely. 

And it's important that we understand the freedom that we have in Christ, that Christ has made us free. We're going to talk about that this morning. And really, that freedom is to obey Him, to love one another. The manifestation of that is love, agape love poured out to others. Love for God and love for the brethren and love for the lost. We're going to get to that. 

We're going to spend probably three-fourths of our message talking about hatred and the world's hatred for Christ and His people. Well, it seems to me that there's always a desire among men to come up with something new. Some new way, some new thing. It's the innovator in us. It's the desire to invent and to make a name for ourselves. 

And this is very often a good thing and has led to all kinds of life-changing developments and improvements for mankind. However, concerning biblical truth, the adage is true that if it is new, it is not true. The desire to come up with something new or to be relevant or to make some sort of name for ourselves among Bible teachers and preachers and church leaders has done a lot of damage in the evangelical church. 

The call of the Scriptures is not to come up with something new, but to renew our minds to that which is truth. The struggle for us really is to keep our minds focused on that which we heard from the beginning. To keep a hold on what Paul called the simplicity that is in Christ. We need to remember, we need to renew our minds to the truth, to the Gospel. We don't need something new, but we need a laser focus, a firm grasp on that which is clear and true and simple concerning the Gospel. 

Vance Habner said we don't need something new, we need something so old it would be new if someone would try it. And that, my brothers and sisters, is really the core message of the first epistle of John. He's very fond of this phrase in our first verse this morning, that which you heard from the beginning. 

He starts the epistle in verse 1 of chapter 1 saying, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. That which was from the beginning is Jesus. They had heard, they had looked intently and believed and had handled with their own hands the word of life, Jesus Christ. 

In 1 John 2.7, John said, Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. 1 John 2.13, I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. 1 John 2.24, therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 

In verse 11 of our text today, for this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. When we get to 2 John, we're going to see in verse 5, And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we should love one another. In 2 John 1.6, this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment that you have heard from the beginning. You should walk in it. 

When we began our study of 1 John, I gave you a chart showing you the New Covenant framework of this epistle. I put some extra ones out on the table this morning if you need one of those. This epistle is really built around the New Covenant, the promises of the New Covenant, the truth of Jesus Christ coming to earth as a man to condemn sin in the flesh, to conquer sin and death and hell by His death, burial, and resurrection, and to give us life, new life, an internal regeneration, a new heart and a new spirit, and the very life of Jesus Christ living in us. 

Christ now lives in us if we believe Him. He empowers us to live a new life. Jesus is the center. He is the focus of this New Covenant life. And we will see again today that what we can now do under grace in Christ that we could not do under Adam, under the law, is to love, to love one another, to exercise agape, self-sacrificial love toward one another. 

This is the contrast that John will establish in our text today. Hate and love. The unbeliever in Adam is filled with hate and is a murderer at heart. But the believer in Jesus, the one who has taken hold of the gospel truth and believed, he now loves. He loves God. He loves his brother. This is the mark of the true Christian, the character of the Christ life. And John says this is the commandment which we have had from the beginning. 

We need to go back to the beginning, my friends. We need to go back to Jesus, to the gospel, to the simplicity in Christ, to the fruit of the Spirit, love. This is the new covenant command to believe Jesus and to love one another. And this is where our focus needs to be. Don't listen to false teachers like John was dealing with in his day who tell the brethren that you need something more. That you need anything more. What we need is what we have. What we have heard from the beginning. 

Let's look at our text together in 1 John 3.11. I've kind of extended the message through verse 18. 1 John 3.11 For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous. 

Do not marvel, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 

But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brethren in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 

Well, I've given you four points on your outline this morning. First, the hatred of the world, where we're going to spend most of our time, and then we're going to look at freedom to love, agape love, and love manifest. Kind of a love theme there in our last three points. 

Well, from the very beginning in the garden, God has given to man a choice. He's given to man a capacity, a will to choose to believe, to love, to trust God, or to go his own way. And from the beginning, man has chosen to go his own way, to reject God and to take matters into his own hands. But God in His grace and mercy still offers man, even sinful man, the man in Adam, the man who is at enmity with God, redemption and salvation, a new relationship with Him. 

One of my favorite passages is in John 10, where Jesus describes Himself as the true shepherd and how His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. Every morning and every evening we have to put the sheep out and bring the sheep in. And last night we're standing out there a little bit too late and the mosquitoes are swarming us about 9.30 and we're yelling, here, nanny, nanny, here, nanny, nanny. And when they hear our voice, they all come running. Most of them. So, we get all the sheep across. 

But I always think of this passage in John 10 where Jesus says, I am the true shepherd and my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. And in that passage, Jesus claims to be God, to be one with the Father. And it says at the end of the chapter that they took up stones to stone Him. But then the last verse says, but many believed on Him there. And that's the part that I like. This so describes our world, our ministry, our purpose on this earth in our time. 

We preach Christ crucified. And mostly the world of man rejects this truth, rejects the gospel, rejects the person of Christ. The vast majority of people do not want Christ and will not believe. But many do believe. Do receive the gift of salvation by grace through faith. And that is our joy. That is our privilege. 

But it is important to know and understand that most men, the great majority of men, will pick up stones. They have hatred in their hearts for the truth. We're in the midst of a study of the book of the Revelation on Thursday nights and we're presently in chapter 17. And this is a chapter that describes the judgment of the great harlot Babylon representing the religions of men. And this takes us all the way back to Babel, to Genesis 10 and 11, to a man named Nimrod who was a rebel against God. He became a mighty man and a leader and an originator of false pagan religion. 

At the top of that tower that they built, that ziggurat, there was a zodiac sign. And priests were appointed to read the stars and the signs of the heaven to divine truth. So much of what exists in pagan religion came from Babel, later called Babylon. What I want you to hear is what the Scripture says in Genesis 11-4. Listen to these words. And they said, the men, following Nimrod, the men of Babel, they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. 

Man's desire has always been to make a name for himself. To come up with something new. Something he could create and claim for himself. Something he could boast in and foster his pride. The heart of the sin that is in him. And notice the open rebellion. They said, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. What was God's command to those people? His will for the people of that time was to populate the earth. To multiply and scatter and fill the face of the earth. And what we see in the beginning of false religion is sin and pride and rebellion. Man's great desire to invent his own way and make it by his own power. 

The Gospel works totally contrary to this idea. Because it eliminates works. It eliminates man's efforts. It eliminates all pride and boasting. I'd like for you to turn to Romans 3.21 and just look at a passage that Paul wrote that's so clear. Contrasting the Gospel with religion. Romans 3.21 This follows verses 19-20 obviously where Paul tells us that the law was given to show us our sin. Not for us to keep to earn our righteousness but to show us our need. In verse 21 he gives the contrast but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed. Being witnessed by the law and the prophets the scriptures. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there's no difference. 

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God set forth as a propitiation a full satisfactory payment by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed. To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness look at this in order that He might be just punishing all sin and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Now look at verse 27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law of works? No. But by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is made right with God is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. 

Man wants to make a name for himself. He wants to boast. But the gospel tells us that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone with no room for boasting. The man in Adam is self-centered but the man in Christ is filled with agape love. He's centered on God and others manifesting this love in his life. This is the contrast that John wants to establish in our text today. And he's done this throughout the epistle. 

To teach and make clear his points he makes clear contrasts between the unbeliever and the believer. And here he says, it is the unbeliever who hates. It is the unbeliever who murders. Who will not sacrifice himself for the sake of his brother. But it is the believer who loves. Who has a new capacity in Christ. Who has a deep desire to let that love pour out to others for their good and for God's glory. 

John wants us to see the hatred of the world. The man in Adam. He says in verse 12, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous. And then he says, do not marvel my brethren if the world hates you. I don't know about you, but I have a really hard time when someone is upset with me. When somebody doesn't like me. I want to have a positive relationship with people. To have people think favorably of me. 

But what we see from the words of Jesus in the Gospels all the way through the end of the book of Revelation is that the world will hate the believer in Jesus Christ. If you confess Jesus Christ and believe Him, and if you are willing to speak the truth in love, to stand for the truth, to proclaim the good news gospel in this world, the men of this world will despise and hate you. What we see in the flow of our text, as well as in our experience in this world, is that there are degrees of hate. 

All men are not the same in their reaction to the truth and to God's people. But in their hearts, they hate the truth, and they hate those who believe the truth. Some murder. Some hate. Some are just apathetic. But the truth is that in the heart of the man and Adam, in his sinful, wicked heart, there is a hatred for the truth, for God and for Jesus and for those who believe Him. And this goes all the way back to the beginning. To Cain and Abel. 

What is the essence of the hatred of Cain? It is the same as the hatred of Nimrod. It's the same as the hatred of Isis today or of the religious leaders of all times or of your neighbor or of your co-worker. Man wants to make a name for himself. Man is filled with sinful pride and he will not admit that he is a sinner. That he deserves God's wrath and eternal hell for his sin. And that there's nothing that he can do to save himself, to fix his situation. 

But he is wholly and totally dependent on God to save him. Man will not come to that point because it kills his pride. It kills his desire to do it his way, to stand on his own two feet. This is the basis of it all, my friends. Man's pride. Man's desire to come to God his own way and not to submit to God's truth, God's will. 

Paul captures this well in Romans 9 at verse 30 when he says, What shall we say then? The Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith. But Israel pursuing the law of righteousness has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at the stumbling stone. 

As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense. And whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. Listen to this. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, not according to truth. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Man is willfully ignorant of God's righteousness. And he has this overpowering, overwhelming desire to establish his own righteousness. And my friends, the gospel, Jesus Christ, is a stumbling block. It offends him because it destroys any hope that he has of establishing his own righteousness. It exposes the false nature of his religion, whatever that might be, and shows him to be wanting, lost, destined for hell, in fact, an enemy of God. 

And this causes man to hate the truth, to hate the gospel, to hate Jesus Christ, and therefore to hate those who are righteous by faith. And that is why Cain killed Abel. Because Abel believed God. He trusted him by faith and manifest that faith by offering a sacrifice as God had prescribed. But Cain didn't want to submit to the righteousness of God. He sought to establish his own righteousness in his own way by his own works, the works of his hand. 

And he did not bring an acceptable sacrifice. Not because it was not beautiful and wonderful and impressive. I'm sure that it was. But because it was, in its essence, a rebellion. A willful choice to reject God and His prescribed way of worship. Let's go back to Genesis 4 and look at that account. Genesis 4, verse 1. 

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering. 

But he did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry. And his countenance fell. So the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. Now Cain talked with Abel, his brother. And it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. 

God had taught Adam and Eve how to worship. We see the first death recorded in the Bible when God killed an animal and made clothes of skin for Adam and Eve, a covering for their sin, of the sacrifice that God would provide in Christ. It was a picture. And this was God's prescribed method of worship. Certainly Cain and Abel would have known this, been taught this, and perhaps practiced it many times with their parents. 

And we see that Abel knew this, and he brought an acceptable sacrifice of worship to God, of the firstborn of his flock and the fat. But Cain rebelled. He would not come in faith, would not come God's way, but tried to invent his own method of worship and brought fruit from the ground, fruit of his labor, to establish his own righteousness before God. Sin was in Cain, like a beast crouching at the door, ready to pounce, and it ruled Cain. It dominated him, and he submitted to it, and he chose his own way to make a name for himself. 

Now the word used in Genesis 4-8 when it says that Cain rose up against Abel and killed him is very interesting. I was reading about this word this week. At this time, the only death recorded in the Bible is the sacrifice of the animal that God had made. And now Abel is bringing a sacrifice in this instance. 

And it's most likely that Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel made similar sacrifices as God had demonstrated and prescribed in worshiping God. But the only method of killing that they knew, the only death they had seen, was the sacrifice of animals in worship. The word for killed in Genesis 4-8 means literally to slaughter by slitting the throat. We see later in Jewish custom that this was the method prescribed for sacrifice for worship. 

And this I think is profound because it captures the magnitude of Cain's rebellion and hatred. God said, bring me an animal sacrificed. Jewish tradition says that the animal should be slaughtered by letting the blood from the neck, slicing the jugular. Cain would not follow God's way, submit in faith, but in his hatred and anger, he rose up against Abel and made a sacrifice of him, slitting his throat. 

Cain was a murderer. He hated Abel because he was righteous. Righteous by God's grace through faith. And his faith was made manifest by his deeds in his worship of God in his sacrifice. This has been true ever since Cain and Abel. The world hates truth. The world hates Jesus. And the world hates God's people. 

Do not marvel that the world hates you because you are righteous by God's grace through faith in Jesus. And this truth exposes the pagan nature of man's religions and his unrighteousness and unacceptability before God. It strikes at the very core of his pride-filled, sinful heart. And that is why men, especially religious men, have murdered the saints all through time. 

But not all men in Adam murder. Not all men take the hatred they have to extreme and exercise murder, but all men in Adam do hate the truth. In 1 John 3.15, he says, whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. In Matthew 5.21, Jesus said, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry, whoever hates in his heart, hates his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of judgment. 

Jesus shows the full extent of the law, that being angry in your heart towards your brother, hating your brother, is the same as murder. Whether the act is carried out or not is not so much the issue, but it is the hatred in the heart that is the same in either case. And this is what we see in the men of this world. A deep-down despising of the truth, hatred for Jesus and his people. It's manifest in different ways. Some murder, some hate, some ridicule, some are seemingly apathetic. 

But if you press a man concerning the gospel, if you make the issue clear, if you make manifest his need and his sin, you will either see repentance and faith, or you will see this hatred in his heart rise up, in one form or another. John wants us to know that the characterization of the man in Adam is hatred. Hatred for the truth, for Jesus, and for his people. He will not love. He cannot love. He has no ability to love because that sin beast in him, dominating him, controls him. And he will not come in faith. He will not submit to the righteousness of God, but seeks to establish his own righteousness in his own way. 

Now we see the great contrast in the believer. And this is where John gives us assurance of our salvation. Remember his primary purpose in this epistle is to write to those who believe Jesus. That we might know that we have eternal life. He gives us assurance over and over through these contrasts because when we look at our lives, when we look into our hearts, we know that God has changed us. 

God has given us a new heart and now we have this love for God and love for men that we did not have before. We have Christ's love in us and manifest in our lives. And this is really John's message to us in this passage today. We are the ones who have a new desire, who have a new heart. 

I'd like to kind of wrap these last three points together. What we see in our text here is true of the believer. And that is that he has a new freedom to love with an agape, self-sacrificial love. This is in the believer. God's love poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has given to us. It is who we are and it's how we live. We see this love manifest through our lives. 

Look at verse 14 of our text, please. John says, John says that we have passed from death to life. This is regeneration. This is the new birth. We now, because of what Jesus did in us, because of the new birth, have a new freedom to love. The man in Adam is dominated and controlled by sin, lives continually in sin and selfishness, but we have died. We've died to sin. We're no longer controlled by indwelling sin. 

Romans 6.6 says, Indwelling sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for he who has died has been freed from sin. In Romans 8.2, it says, For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh, God did. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh. 

Why? For what purpose? Romans 8.4, That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. And Romans 13.8 tells us that the righteous requirement, the fulfillment of the law is love. 

When we believe Jesus, when we turn from idols to serve the living God, God did something profound in our lives. He crucified our old man with Christ. We died with Him. We were buried with Him. And we were raised to newness of life with Him. And now we are dead to sin. We are dead to the law. It no longer has dominion over us. It no longer dominates and controls us. We are free from the law of sin and death. We have a new freedom. 

And the effect of this new birth, this regeneration, is that now we can do what we could not do before. We can love. We can exercise agape love in a self-sacrificial way. The natural man cannot do this. Cannot practice agape love. Everything that man does, he does with a selfish motive. He is utterly sinful and utterly self-centered. 

And this is how all men in Adam are. They are dead in trespasses and sins. They are unable to obey Christ. They are unable to love. Even when a farmer puts a plow in the ground, he commits sin because he does not trust God. He does not believe God. He does not glorify God in what he does. A man in Christ has passed from death unto life. Jesus said in John 5.24, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death unto life. 

In verse 14 of our text, John tells us that we see this truth manifest in our lives by the fact that we love the brethren. I don't know if you've traveled much or maybe in the course of your lives gone somewhere and you've met someone, maybe witnessed to someone, and they said, oh, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ. There's an immediate bond. There's an immediate fellowship. There's an immediate love because we both are regenerated. We both are made new. We both have the Holy Spirit. And we have a great love for the brethren. 

And we love the lost as well, my friends. Let me ask you, when a lost man meets another lost man, what does he think? What does he see? What does he want from this other man? 2 Corinthians 5 tells us that the carnal men regard men according to the flesh, concerning their looks, their wealth, their belongings, their potential for doing something good for me. But we no longer see the world, see men this way. 

Now for us, the believer, all things are of God. When we meet a man, our first thought is his spiritual state. Is this man saved? How can I witness to him? How can I help him or minister to him? What need does he have? That love is something that God has put in us. In our hearts, my friends. Because we want most of all for men to be saved. 

This desire, that passion is evidence that we have passed from death unto life. In v. 16, John says that we know true love because we know Jesus. We know that He has laid down His life for us and now we are willing to lay down our very lives for the sake of the salvation of men and the edification of the brethren. This speaks of agape love. The love that we see at the cross. 

And we are willing to really give of ourselves. Of our time, of our money, our resources, our genuine love, because Christ has loved us in this way. Because of Jesus, we know love. We know what real love is. And it is not eros, the erotic kind of love. It is not just phileo, a brotherly kind of love. It is agape. A self-sacrificial love that we see at the cross. 

At last, in v. 18, we see that we love not in word only. Not in pious platitudes or good intentions. But we love in deed and in truth. We are willing to give to Him who has need. God has given to us what we have by His grace. Freely He has given to us, and thus we are free to share what we have with those who are in need. 

John says in v. 17 that the one who sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him does not have the love of Christ abiding in him. James says the same thing in James 2. But we who have believed, we who have the love of God poured out into our hearts are looking to help. We're looking to minister to those in need. And we do not shut up our hearts. Our hearts are open to all men. 

My brothers and sisters, agape love is the mark of the true Christian. Something that the man in Adam cannot do. It characterizes who we are. The ones in Christ. And because we have that love, that desire for men, for them to be saved and to walk in the truth, because we love God and we love men, John tells us in this passage that we can have assurance that we have passed from death unto life. And that the love of God abides in us. And that we have eternal life. 

John wants us to see the contrast again between believer and unbeliever. Between love and hate. Selflessness and selfishness. And he wants you to look at your heart. He wants you to look at your heart, my brother, my sister in Christ. And what is in your heart? What is your deep desire? What is it you want most? Is it to serve God? To live in thankfulness for all that Jesus has done for you and in you? Is it to bring men to faith? To see them saved? 

Are you willing to give of yourself and minister to others? Is this your privilege and your joy? When you look into your heart, if you're a believer, when you look into your heart, you know that God has changed you. You know that He has given you a new heart. And this assures you, assures us, my brothers and sisters, that we are in Christ, that we have passed from death unto life, that we have eternal life. And this is because of what God has done. By His grace. 

We have found salvation in Christ. And all we can say to Him is thank You. Thank You, Jesus. Every day, that's our life. Living in thankfulness for what He has done. Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we're so thankful for Your Word that You systematically teach us through Your Word, verse by verse, that You've written these things, Lord, that we can have assurance, and also that we can live out who we are by Your power in us through faith. Help us to understand, Lord, what You've done in salvation. Help us to understand who we are in Christ. And help us for the purpose of Your glory to live in consistency with who we are. In Jesus' name, amen.