Prepared by Rev. D.K. Harden April 5, 2010
Love Within the Community (Standard Publishing)
Living In The Light Of Love (Union Gospel Press)
April 11, 2010

Lesson 6: 1 John 2:9-11, 15-17
9He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. 11But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
- If every believer has the True Light shining in them, then the person who continually hates his brother is still in darkness and I believe is not a true believer at all.
- Just the opposite in vs. 10, the person who’s life is characterized by love and light is a true believer.
- Vs. 11 John emphasize that hatred creeps in over one’s life like darkness. It affect’s one’s walk, and even his knowledge (knoweth not whither he goeth…) making him spiritually “blind” (2 Peter 1:9) “But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.”
- What is the quickest way to identify a great city?
Answer----By it’s Landmark’s......
So what is it that identifies the Christian community (the church) as such?
What is the landmark that makes us recognizable to the world?
It is our loyalty to Christ, but that is not all. Jesus himself said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).
Therefore, an identifying landmark in the church must be
LOVE
- When the apostle John (the author of the Scripture text) and his brother James left their nets to follow Jesus, they were not yet at the point of embracing the kind of love that Jesus was teaching.
1) For instance, on one occasion they voiced hostility toward certain Samaritans, even offering to call down fire from Heaven to destroy them (Luke 9:54).
(CEV) When the disciples James and John saw what was happening, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy these people?"
2) On another occasion, those two tried to get ahead of their fellow apostles by asking for the choicest seats in the coming kingdom (Mark 10:35–41).
- John had to learn his lesson of love, even when he showed such hostility and selfishness early on!!
· Yet we have come to know John as “the apostle of love.”
· Once he finally accepted what Jesus was trying to teach him, he wrote letters to teach these lessons to others.
· His first letter, known to us as 1 John, sharply contrasts the life of love with the life of hatred or indifference. It is the contrast of light versus darkness, the contrast of living as children of God versus living as children of the world.
Therefore it is incumbent on every local church to have the distinguishing mark of love. It is not the sign out front by which a church is known; rather, it is the demonstration of love. Since this is true, it is vital that every individual Christian ask himself or herself what specific act of love he or she should do.
Where is the specific need that love can address?
Where is the specific hurt that love can heal?
Christian love will seek out those needs and move vigorously to meet them.
