Whatever You Do, You Have to Love One Another 1 John 3:11-24

What is the church, and what is her message?

“It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.” — Paul Tripp

1. The never changes. (vv. 11-15)

2. We know how to love because of . (vv. 16-22)

• Love is reflected in love for others.

“In some ways we would prefer to hear Jesus’ call to deny father and mother, houses and land for the sake of the gospel than his word to wash feet. Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure. But in service we must experience the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves. Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial.” — Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline

• Love is the for confidence in our faith and devotion to Christ.

3. You can’t like Jesus if you don’t know Jesus. (vv. 23-24)

“The healthy Christian is not necessarily the extrovert, ebullient Christian, but the Christian who has a sense of God’s presence stamped deep on his soul, who trembles at God’s word, who lets it dwell in him richly by constant meditation upon it, and who tests and reforms his life daily in response to it.”  — J.I. Packer, Knowing God

Read for next week: 1 John 4:1-6