In Lewis Kiger's sermon titled 'Love The Brethren,' based on 1 John 3:14-18, the speaker highlights the importance of loving fellow believers as a fundamental mark of true Christian conversion. The sermon examines the epistle of 1 John, emphasizing that love for the brethren not only assures believers of their salvation but also distinguishes genuine Christians from false converts. Kiger stresses that biblical love is an actionable choice rather than merely an emotional feeling, aligning with the sacrificial nature of Christ's love demonstrated through His death on the cross. The sermon urges believers to express love through tangible actions such as helping those in need, asserting that love is a key identifier of one's faith. Kiger also challenges listeners to love all brethren, transcending denominational and cultural boundaries, reflecting the unity that should exist within the body of Christ. The sermon concludes with a call for self-examination and a prayer for God's help in loving others as Christ loved us.

Now, 1 John chapter number 3, if you would turn with me in your copy of God's Word, 1 John chapter number 3. I want to read in your hearing verses 14 through 18. Through 18. Verse John 3, 14 through 18. Here the Apostle writes, we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brother.

He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby do we perceive the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brother. But whoso hath this world's good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his heart, his tenderness, his boughs of compassion for him or from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

I have been asked today to preach on the subject of love the brethren. As many of you are aware, I am sure one of the main things, primary themes of 1st John is finding assurance of salvation and really tagged along with that is identifying true believers from false converts. And we know that this is one of John's primary reasons for writing the book because he tells us that very thing near the end of the book chapter 5 verse 13. He says, I've written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. So if today you're searching for assurance of your salvation, I highly recommend that you read this little book of 1 John.

It details clearly and again many of the fundamental attributes of those who have indeed been saved. So what are some of these attributes? How do we recognize those of the Christian faith? How do we identify ourselves or others as genuine believers? Not by what we wear, not by how we dress, but by what we believe and how we live.

And These, our behavior and our belief, these indicative characteristics are peppered all throughout this little epistle. In this letter, the author lists several identifying marks of conversion, Or if I may say it this way, there are convictions of belief and there are patterns of life that are true of every single person who has been born again by the Spirit of God. These qualities are how we identify and recognize whether we are in the faith or others are believers or Christians. These beliefs and these behaviors are indelible features, if you will, of every single person who is saved. And in fact, the late pastor, preacher, the great orator, Adrian Rogers, called these attributes from 1 John, both marks of the believer.

Rogers believed, as I do, that these beliefs and behaviors listed in 1 John are like permanent marks on a person that helps to identify who they are or who they are not. Probably most of us have seen some law and order type television show in which the detectives are interviewing either a victim or a witness and they will ask, did the criminal have any distinguishing marks or features that would help us identify them, birthmark or tattoo if you will. Our own granddaughter Addie, Beautiful little Addie was born with a bright red spot spot on one of her arms, a birthmark. And although it has faded over time and is really is now it is completely gone for a long time, you could identify her just by that birthmark. And the Apostle John here says every Christian has some birthmarks.

Birthmarks that are permanently embedded on them from the very moment of regeneration. And these beliefs and behaviors are so much a part of them that it identifies them as God's children. And one of the most prominent and distinguishing birthmarks is love for the brethren. Love for the people of God. I am told according to the American Academy of Dermatology that some 10% of children are born with a birthmark.

I have no idea about that statistic I found it from their website, but this much I can tell you, 100% of those who are born again enter this life with numerous birthmarks that make them easily identifiable as believers, not the least of which is love for the brethren. In fact, John in this epistle declares that loving one another is one of the most prominent marks of the Christian. And he repeats this often. If you're interested and you're someone who highlights things in your Bible, you might look there at chapter 3, the close of verse 11 says, love one another. Chapter 3 verse 23, we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another.

Chapter 4 verse 7, beloved, let us love one another. Chapter 4 verse 11, beloved, if God so loved us we ought also to love one another. Chapter 4 verse 12, no one has seen God at any time if we love one another. It doesn't take a seminary education to get to John's point here. Christians ought to love one another.

Not only does he say this is something that we ought to do, John will insist this is what we will do if we are indeed believers. And that really shouldn't surprise us, because this is the very same thing that Jesus himself said, to quote the same passage that my brother just quoted, by this, John 13 35, by this, shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Not if you have your doctrine right. Not if you have your liturgy right. Not if you have your ecclesiology right.

But the way this world will know, the way that others will know that you are a child of God is that you will love the children of God. As a side note, doctrine and liturgy and ecclesiology and all of that is important. But you can have all of that right and if you don't have love, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, you're nothing but a noisy nuisance. And in this passage we learn that One of the most distinguishing marks of every Christian is their love for one another, love for the brethren. In the most candid, clear language, the inspired writer declares, you cannot be a child of God and not love the children of God.

You cannot love God and not love all God's children. God is love, and one of the most distinctive marks of his children are their love for one another. In fact, I think John is just this plain. If you don't love people of the Christian faith, you're not a Christian. Simply as it can be stated, you cannot be a follower of Christ if you do not love the family of God.

So unless we think that this is just a sermon for everyone else, we need to stop and ask ourselves, do I, do we truly love our brothers and sisters in Christ? I'm not saying, do we love them perfectly because we don't. And we all know that there are some people like me that are easier to love than others. And to be honest, there are some people that we don't necessarily like, but we must love them. But to rightly understand what John is saying here, we must be clear about what biblical love is and isn't, because it is certainly possible that we have deceived ourselves.

And we're not loving one another the way the Bible defines love. And at best we are living in rebellion if we are not unbelievers altogether. So may God use this passage to cause every one of us to examine ourselves in the light of this very clear both mark. Am I a true believer that is known by my love for the brethren. By this shall all men know that you are my disciple if you have love one for another." I have two simple thoughts from this passage today.

The first thing I want you to notice from verse number 14, love for the brethren as an affirmation of conversion. Love for the brethren, an affirmation of conversion. Look with me if you would there at verse number 14, we know that we have passed from death under life because we love the brethren. Without any hesitation, John is adamantly asserting that we can know that we are Christian. In a world of people that says, well you can't know, you can't be sure, you can't be certain that you are indeed headed to heaven, John says yes you can.

You can know, And one of the ways that you can know, one of the primary ways that you can know is that you love the people of God. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. And just to be clear here, the word that John employs for brethren should not be considered as gender specific. It just implies people who are related to one another. And if you are a Christian, we are kin, we're family.

And I want you to take notice really of this very beautiful language that John employs here as he is describing conversion from verse 14 we know we are sure we're certain we are confident that we have passed from death to life listen to that language John says we have we have passed we have This has already been done in us and through us and to us. We have passed. And that word passed right there, strong little word that carries the idea of changing place or position. It needs to be put into a different location. Quite literally, John is saying, we know that we have been moved from death and into life because we love the brethren.

This is a vivid portrait, language portrait of what happens when someone is saved. They pass, they are taken from the place and position of death, and they pass over into life. Folks, This is the very language of salvation and regeneration. That is the language here of the new birth that we are brought from spiritual death to spiritual life by the power and grace of Almighty God. I can just say it like this, John is using resurrection language.

We have passed from death to life. The Holy Spirit empowers and employs the gospel message and quickens the dead sinner and transitions them, moves them from death to life. And one of the chief evidences that this new birth has taken place in you is that this new born believer will bear the birthmark of love for the family of God. This forces me to ask what John describes here in verse 14. Does it describe you?

Have you passed from death unto life? Have you passed from the rightness and depravity of this old life and been placed into a new wonderful life in Christ alone? Has the Holy Spirit revealed to you your sin, your deadness, your depravity, and brought you from death to life? Has He brought you from the rottenness of your past to walking newness of life? Have you been brought from the place of death to the place of Christ in his cross and embraced him in saving faith.

According to this passage, one of the main ways, one of the primary ways that you can tell whether or not this has happened to you, do you love the people of God? Can I just very quickly flip this over for just a moment? John also states here at the close of verse 14, he that loveth not his brother. You're still in death. You have not passed over into life.

If you do not love your Christian family, you've not been saved. You're not redeemed. In fact, John is so emphatic about this. In verse 15 he says whoever hates his brother is a murderer. I don't have time to get into it, but it really connects to verse 11 and 12 where he's talking about how Cain conducted himself towards Abel.

He did not act lovingly towards him, still he hated him and he killed him. In verse 15, whoever hates his brother is a murderer. But in 1 John 2 verse 9, he says, John says, that he that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother is in darkness. 1 John 2 verse 11, he that hateth his brother is in darkness. 1 John 4 verse 20, 21, if a man say I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar.

For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? In this commandment we have from him, that he that loveth God his brother, he must love his brother also." Pretty candidly, friends, you cannot love God and not love God's children. So whether or not someone is saved can be confirmed by their love for the brethren or their testimony could be rejected by their lack of love for the brethren. So I ask, do you love the people of God? The only person that can answer that is you.

Do you love God's children? Do you love God's people? Do you love the brethren? Do you love all the brethren? I want you to look with me.

I will ask you if you will, look carefully with me in your Bible right now at verse 14. We know that we have passed from death, unto life, because we love thee. Is there any kind of qualifying adjective right there before the word brethren? Oh, we're going to dig right here a minute and you might as well get comfortable or get uncomfortable. Is there a modifying descriptor that tells us which brethren we are to love?

No, of course, no. There is no supplemental attribute that John includes here that limits the scope of the brethren to whom we are to love. We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. And that includes all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Every single one of them.

Every single one of them. There is nothing in this passage or any other passage of scripture that offers you an exception clause. There's not a verse anywhere that says, well, love this group of Christians, but not that group of Christians. There's not a verse that says we're to love this bunch of believers, but not that much of believers. No, friends, I think the same Lord that inspired these words could see down through the annals of time, and the diversity of denominations that exist, and still the book says, love the brethren.

And I'm emphasizing this point because I think it needs to be emphasized especially especially for those of us who come from a certain background, a certain system, certain ideology which causes us to look at every other brother and sister who ain't just like us as not being one of us. When we look at our brothers and sisters with an eye of suspicion rather than with a heart of love. We need to be examining ourselves. So that means, dear friends, John says we know that we're passed from death and to life because we love all God's people. Whether they're Methodist, or Moravian, Presbyterian, or Pentecostal, whether they're Anglican, or Episcopalian, and there's really not much difference in that, by the way, whether they're Lutheran or Armenian Baptist or reformed Baptist or general Baptist or particular Baptist or free will Baptist or Walmart Baptist or missionary Baptist, whether they're white or black or brown, whether they're rich or they're poor, whether they're Jewish or they're Gentile, whether they're weak Christians or strong Christians whether they're from America or Zambia I hope you get my drift we are to love all the brethren.

Every single blood-bought saint should be someone that you love. And if that does not describe you, it would be very wise for you to make your calling and election sure. Those of us who come from a particular ecclesiastical background in particular, we need to hear this. And it's sad, but it's necessary. Then we remind ourselves of this.

Listen, everyone who shares our faith is family. Everyone who is redeemed is your relative. Everyone who is born again is your brother or sister in Christ. Everyone who is saved is your sister or brother in Christ. Everyone that has been washed in the blood is your flesh and blood.

Every member of Christ's kingdom is your kinfolk. If Christ is their king, then you are their kin. And we ought to treat one another like family. Now let me put my disclaimer out here. Don't go putting words in my mouth and say that I'm saying something I'm not saying.

I said what I said I did not say anything more. I'm not saying when I say we ought to live our brotherhood. We need to draw some ecclesiastical lines. We need to make some decisions about how far, to what extent, we open up our pulpits, communion tables, membership rolls, all of these things. Who we fellowship with individually, I think should be much broader than who we fellowship with corporately.

But my subject is not, who should Sovereign Grace Baptist Church fellowship with my subject is love the brother. And folks this must extend to all, to all, to every single Christian. You cannot love God and not love God's children. And I mean regardless of their denomination, political affiliation, skin tone, education, financial status, or anything else, if this person has been born again, they are part of the brethren that we have been called upon to love. So love for the brethren is an affirmation of conversion.

But that should force us to ask if we're commanded over and again to love one another, What is love? That leads me to my second point, love for the brethren as defined by Scripture. We'll find this in verses 16 through 18, love for the brethren as defined by Scripture. Friend, if you don't get anything else I've said, please get this. There is no way we will ever ever understand what the Spirit intends for us to learn from this passage unless and until we define love the way God defines love.

Hear me and hear me well. True love is not merely some warm fuzzy feeling that makes you see stars and get butterflies in your stomach. True love, biblical love, is an action. It is a choice. I like to say it is a verb.

It is us doing something. Love is an emotion, but it is not merely an emotion. So let's be clear, if we allow anything or anyone to define love other than God and God through His Word, because He is love, If we let anyone or anything define love other than God, we will have a distorted understanding of what love is. I mean, Look around at our society and what it calls love today. Love is either confused or conflated with lust, or love is defined as something God clearly condemns in His work.

Yet at the same time, We Christians are prone to sentimentalize love. To act like love is something that we read about in a Harlequin romance novel. Now some of you don't know what that is. You got to have a little gray beard to know what that is. Some of us want to try and define love off of what we get from a Disney Princess movie.

But love, true biblical love, is not just some sentimental feeling, it is not lust, and it is not sinful, rather it is a loving action, a loving choice. It is an action word. Love is intentionally doing good to another. In fact, I'm going to define love this way. This is my definition.

Love is promoting the well-being of another by sacrificial acts. Lord is promoting the well-being of another by acts of sacrifice. And I think I can back this up, Just look at verse 16. Hereby perceive we... And I don't know why.

Look, I'm not a Greek guy. I can just tell you what the Greek guys tell me. I don't know why our translators do this to us, but here in verse 16 that word perceive is the exact same Greek word is translated as no, K-N-O-W, 24 other times in 1 John. But nonetheless, hereby we know or perceive the love of God because He laid down His life for us. We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

This is how we know what love looks like. Look at God. You want to know what love looks like? Look at Jesus. You want to know what love looks like?

See through Scripture the work of the Holy Spirit of God. We know that God loved, and so God promoted the well-being of another through a sacrificial act. For God, I don't want to get too far on somebody's sermon, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Love gives. Love sacrifices.

Love endures. Read 1 Corinthians 13, you wanted to find love. Here we read that we can know what love is like by looking at what God did to demonstrate his love. In fact, there's really some very rich theology in verse number 16. I sort of like what Warren Riesby said.

He said, most every Christian knows John 3.16. How many know first John 3.16? I think that's a pretty good little reminder there. Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us. There is a declaration there that John is making of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, identifying him as God who laid down his life for us.

But we know what love looks like because of what Jesus has done. You want to know what real love is? Look to the cross. There you can see love. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for us.

You see Jesus didn't just have warm fuzzy, sentimental feelings for us. He loved us, so he sacrificed for us. He promoted our well-being through a sacrificial act. And now John says, like him, the second half of verse 16, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. We, which brethren?

All the brethren. We ought to lay down our lives. We ought to be willing to sacrifice for them. Sometimes those deeds that laying down of our life is sacrificial. That means it costs.

It hurts. I've said this upteen times. We Americans want to sacrifice as long as it doesn't cost sacrifice. But it's not a sacrifice if it doesn't hurt. That's the very different definition of sacrifice.

It cost, it hurts. And if you want to know how that's fleshed out, just look at verse 17. Whoever has this world's goods and see your brother have a need and you refuse to help them, you shut down your heart towards them, John asked a rhetorical question that really isn't all that rhetorical. How can the love of God dwell in that person? And the answer is it doesn't.

You see your brother or sister in need and you have the capacity to help them and you refuse to do it, you need to find out whether or not the love of God dwells in you. Sacrificial love. Listen, we can't do what Jesus did and lay down our lives as an atonement for another, but we can sacrifice ourselves, sacrifice our time, sacrifice our resources. We can lay down our lives in that way, one for another. And just very quickly, verse 18 says, you ought to express it in words, but it can't be just words.

You ought to say I love you, but it can't be just vocalizing love. It has to be in what indeed and in truth. So biblical love defined is doing what Jesus did in sacrificing for another. So are we willing To show love, express love the way that Jesus did, the way that God has. Are we willing to promote the well-being of another through an act of sacrifice?

You know sometimes that means, you ready? That this is the beauty of preaching and getting in my car and going home. Sometimes that means getting up and coming to church when you don't feel like it. You know why? Because you want to sacrifice what feels good for you for the good of the people that are at that building.

Sometimes that means going to the nursing home. Say I can preach all this and go home. You know what I mean? Hey, sometimes that means going to go visit that widow. Going to go see that Chuddy.

It means volunteering down at the soup kitchen. It means sacrificing our comfort, our resources, what makes us feel very secure, willing to give that up on behalf of another brother or sister. That means praying for one another, encouraging one another. Matter of fact, you want to know how to love one another? Look at the one another's of the New Testament.

That's how. Sometimes love means bearing one another's burdens, and that means you've got to carry some weight. Giving to those who are in need. Sometimes love means humbly confronting wrong. Sometimes love means setting some boundaries.

Sometimes the best way you can love somebody is putting some fences up. Sometimes love means discipline. I think I got some proverbs to back that up, don't you? So true love in our Christian life takes many different forms, but we cannot, according to John, claim that we love God if we do not love God's children. And again, that's not just some sentimental feeling, it means intentionally doing things that promote the health, whether that is physical, emotional, or spiritual, that promotes the well-being of another.

After years of ministry and pastoring, our failure, our failure to love one another as we ought because we don't. And man, do we need forgiving grace for this. I'm glad that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from the sin of failing to love one another like we all do. But our failure in this area and our tendency to fight, scratch, bite, and devour one another, Our tendency towards that reminds me of a story that I've read recently in which there was an English war vessel that was about to enter into a sea battle. The kitchens were running high, and on deck, two officers were quarreling with each other, and they were about to come to blows when the captain jumped in between them and pointed across the water and said, gentlemen, the enemy is out there.

Sometimes I want to stand up at church and shout, the enemy is out there. He has come to kill and steal and destroy. And we have got to learn to recognize family from foe. Friend from foe. And friend, if you are a born again believer, you're family.

You're not the enemy. The guy down the street that is rightly preaching Jesus is not my enemy, even if he doesn't use enough water to baptize somebody. Even if he doesn't have the same traditions I do and preferences that I do. The enemy is out there. We need to learn to recognize one of the things I can't preach to you.

Listen, one, there's a huge, Huge thank God for the blessing of living in America But I'm convinced one of the drawbacks of the religious liberties that we have enjoyed so wrong Is we don't know who the enemy is anymore Too many good men and women Christian men and women have died on the spiritual battlefield from friendly fire. You would think Jesus had said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you bite and devour one another. Too many Christians need to get off the couch, stop being keyboard commandos and social media soldiers and get in the war and fight the real enemy and love the brethren in the process. So I ask are you are you actively seeking the welfare of other Christians to the best of your ability. We're not part of it.

We need forgiving grace. We fail as husbands, we fail as wives, we fail as children, as parents, as church members, as pastors. And we need the bread of Jesus to cleanse us. But John here says, we know that our lives have been radically transformed by the gospel when we love God's children. Does that describe you?

We know that we belong to God when we actively seek the welfare of the people of God. Does that describe you? We know that we have passed from death into life because we love the brethren. Do you bear that birthmark? A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another that you love one another as I have loved you.

By this shall all men know that you are my disciples when you have love one for another. That is a sincere, sacrificial, and unconditional love for the brother. If I could sing, and I cannot, But if I could sing, I would close this out by singing, and they will know we are Christians by our love. Look up at him. They will know we are Christians.

We are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord. Father, help us. Help us to love the brethren. You loved your people so much that you willingly gave your son to die on their behalf.

Help us to love one another as we should. And thank you for Jesus who showed, revealed, demonstrated your love. Help us to follow him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. And where we have failed, we ask that you would cleanse us from all of our sin. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.