Who is my brother in faith in Christ?

Who is my brother in faith in Christ?

Reminder about Jesus

In very few verses, the apostle John recalled
• the pre-existence,
• the creative capacity of God, of His son,
• the divinity,
• the holiness,
• the transparency,
• the truth
of Jesus Christ, Son of God .

• The greatness of His work of salvation,
compared to the horror of sin that dwells in us.

Reminder about us
The beginning of the epistle invites us to live
• in the light of God,
• in transparency with Him with the help of the Holy Spirit,
• in transparency with all men,
and to leave what is
• trouble,
• obscure,
• hidden,
• concealed (The intangible subjects that we hold dear, but that we have withdrawn from the light of God)

Jesus our defender
If unfortunately we have yielded to what isn’t in the light of God. The work of Christ is constant and present for all His children who return to Him through forgiveness.

To know God is to walk as He loves.
To know what He loves, it’s simple:
•Study the Bible,
• let the Bible act powerfully in our lives by letting the Holy Spirit act in us.

One of the aspects at the heart of God’s recommendations, of Jesus’ commandments, is to love one’s neighbor and more precisely to love one’s brother in faith in Christ.

Who is my brother in faith?

That’s what we’re going to see today.
It’s not just everyone

Characteristics of the brother in faith in Christ

The word of God is clear.
Today, following our journey through the epistle of John, the Bible will clearly show us what characterizes
• the people of the Kingdom of God
• and the people who unfortunately refuse to be part of it.

Text
1 John chapter 2 verse 12 to 17
12 I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you because of his name.
13 I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young people, because you have overcome the evil. I write to you, little children, because you know the Father. 14 I have written to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, the word of God dwells in you, and you have overcome the evil one.15 Do not love the world or what is in the world. If someone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust that is in a man, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of riches—comes not from the Father, but from the world. 17 Now the world is passing away, its lust also, but he who does the will of God remains forever.

Two realities

• Those who sign a life close to God.
Family terms.

Contrarily,
• those who sign a life that meets the codes of our society.

Family terms
The family of God, of Christ consists of little children, fathers, and young people. This family has several characteristics:
• the family bond is the bond of birth by Christ which can no longer be changed;
• not age but maturity in the journey of life with Christ as Lord and Saviour.
The characteristics of this family are magnificent.

Little child – PATERNITY

Your sins are forgiven (1 John chapter 2 verse 12) because of what Christ has done.
What is acquired by what Christ has done.
It is His work that allows us to be brought into the family.
• It is He who has taken our sin into account.
• The judgment that our downfall deserved, it was He who had the victory over the fruit of sin: death.

The result for those who accept His work:
• more judgment,
• member of the family of God,
• children of the heavenly Father.

Father – RETROSPECTIVE ASSESSMENT

From the beginning (1 John chapter 2 verse 13): from the source of life, God is there and has the initiative.
The observation of these believers is to see God as one from the beginning. To see God’s reflection in their lives.
Life is not only in the present moment but it is the observation that God was there, is there and forever.

Young people – FORCE OF AGE

Application

Assets.
The strength of young people does not come
from

• their age,
• that they are in the prime of life,
but that they know the Word of God (1 John chapter 2 verse 14),
That is to say that is incorporated into their daily life.
That their lives are ruled by the Word.

Jesus’ strength in the temptation was the Word, not a vague cultural knowledge but real in the face of what the devil was presenting.
This is why the apostle John, a few sentences earlier in his letter, invited us to really know God, not just
• a religion,
• an aspect of identity,
• traditional,
• cultural,
• family.

“The World”, Society
Today’s text contrasts the family spirit of the children of God through Christ with the logic of the “world”. You could say of our system of society.

This logic has a very different paternity:
• The world refuses Christ and His sacrifice,
• because she finds herself quite content with herself, made up of good, beautiful people who really like the life of a society that knows how to flatter our appetites and our egos.

A fatherhood which refuses Christ indicates that it is God’s enemy, and the devil is its inspirer.

No third solution.

It is a lie, a dreamworld to believe that one is independent and free from all tutorship:
• either it is God,
• or it is the enemy of God.

What characterizes attachment to the system of society is
• the lust that is in man,
• the lust of the eyes,
• pride.

The lust that is in man

“the lust that is in a man” (1 John chapter 2 verse 16)

What does it mean ?
• Responding to the calls of our being,
• being under control,
• being guided by desires,
• the impulses of our being,
• of our body.

Created perfect in the image of God.

The man rocks into binary desires when he frees himself from God:
all marvelous abilities are twisted to serve what is perfect.

Illustration :

Esau.
In terms of the lust of the flesh, it is symbolic, the call of the belly took control of his life, even to sell off the divine blessing which was due to him. (Genesis 25. 27-34).

Lust of the eyes
“the lust of the eyes” (1 John chapter 2 verse 16)
The eyes is a main  bridge between our being and the outside world. It is the eyes that guides the person, that triggers the direction that our life will take.

Illustrations :

Achan (Joshua 7).
Eve: The woman saw that the tree bore good fruit to eat (Genesis 3:6).

Pride
“Pride due to riches” (1 John chapter 2 verse 16)
It is I who am at the center
• of my life.
• and other lives.

Everything must converge to serve what I want:
• relationship,
• confederation,
• work,
• family,
• couple,
• parents.

Illustration 1

When something begins to take everything for itself in a body and everything is enslaved to make it live, it’s a cancer.

On the other hand, an organ that lives with and for others fulfills its function and carries life.

Is my right a tool that I use to serve my ego?

Illustration 2

Adam and Eve were questioned on these three subjects:
• eating the call of the body;
• the appeal of the eyes Eve saw that it was good (even before having tasted it);
• Pride “You will be like gods! « .

Conversely, supreme example with Jesus:
Matthew 4
1 Then Jesus was taken by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil.
2 After fasting for forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
3 The tempter came and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.

The call of the body was more than real, after fasting for 40 days;
however, Jesus does not turn away from His mission.

4 Jesus answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
5 The devil carried him into the holy city, placed him on the top of the temple,
6 and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you; And they will carry you on your hands, Lest your foot strike against a stone.

No selfish experience in Jesus:

7 Jesus said unto him, It is also written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 The devil carried him again to a very high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory,

The lust of the eyes has no held with Jesus:

9 and said unto him, All these things I will give unto thee, if ye bow down and worship me.
10 Jesus said to him, Get out, Satan! For it is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone.
11 So the devil left him. And behold, angels came to Jesus, and ministered to him.

Resisting these aspects has benefited all mankind.

A Source of inspiration for us is to reflect upon all the invitations of our society with the commandments of God.

Am I responding to the call of our society’s standards or what God would like to see in my life?

Conclusion

The incompatibility of saying that we love God:
• yet we do not put His commandments into practice,
• Loving God reflects love for neighbors, it is incompatible with hatred of the brother,
• incompatible with love of foundations and values of the world, of society.

The most beautiful motivation that the apostle could leave to his readers was not so much to tell them “don’t do this or that! although saying it clarifies a great deal:
• what is light from what is darkness,
• what is of God or the enemy of God,
• what is of Christ and from there where Christ has taken us.

It’s not just about exfiltration of sin to join the family of God but to show them the position, the family in which God includes us when He took us out of the beastliness of sin.
The terms that describe the people of the Kingdom of God are family terms.

• Father, youth, children,
• relationships, experiences, exchanges.

Being Governed by Instincts

The terms that describe the environment from which Christ took us are the same terms that we might attribute to what governs the animal world:
• envy that takes control of our person, lust,
• the hormones that control being, feelings, feelings, the flesh,
• the eyes that focus only on the present, the visible, « carpe diem »,
• the pride that makes us believe that we are the authors of our possibilities, whereas the breath of life is a grace of God which completely eludes us.

Human with a capital H
Man is only more
• human with a capital H and
• humanist in the sense that all the value of all human beings finds meaning in life only when it is in the One who created life. Without Christ, it’s a dreamland filled with laws, fences that keep very little man left to himself.

God would like to see him in us.

God would like us to show His love around us.

How to live believing in our society John chapter 17 , verses 1 to 19 . John 17
1 After having thus spoken, Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour has come! Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you,
2 that you have given him authority over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
3 Now, eternal life is that they know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.
4 I glorified you on earth, I finished the work you gave me to do.
5 And now you, Father, glorify me with yourself with the glory that I had with you before the world was.
6 I have made your name known to the men whom you have given me out of the midst of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me; and they have kept your word.
7 Now they have known that everything you have given me comes from you.
8 For I have given them the words which you have given me; and they received them, and they really knew that I came out of you, and they believed that you sent me.
9 For them I pray. I don’t pray for the world, but for those you gave me, because they are yours; –
10 and all that is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine; -and I am glorified in them.
11 I am no longer in the world, and they are in the world, and I am going to you. Holy Father, keep in your name those whom you have given me, so that they may be one like us.
12 When I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. I kept those you gave me, and none of them was lost, except the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13 And now I come unto thee, and say these things in the world, that they may have in them my perfect joy.
14 I have given them your word; and the world hated them, because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world.
15 I do not ask you to remove them from the world, but to preserve them from evil.
16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them through your truth: your word is truth.
18 As you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world.
19 And I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified through the truth