Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Thanks for tuning into the Power Walk Ministries broadcast with Pastor Paul Cannings. Today, Pastor Cannings brings Volume 2 in our series, The Measure of Love. We go from the story of Ruth to 1 John, Chapter 2, where we're taught so many aspects of love and what it really consists of.

Pastor Cannings brings several key verses to our attention to share how we can demonstrate love to those around us. Let's listen as he brings us Part 1 of the message, Love in Action.

Dr. Paul Cannings: We live in a time that is very hateful. There's a lot of people who, for different reasons, have distilled hate, dislike, disgust, can't stand people. For some people, there is hatred because relationships went bad and it developed bitterness.

So we have all of these things happening in our world today, and it's a tragedy because that is not the heartbeat of Christ. Christ came and he was loving on people that were, in other people's eyes, so degenerate that they called him a sinner.

Jesus Christ was with a Samaritan woman. There were different ways to get past Samaria; he obviously poignantly went to meet with her. Jesus Christ on the cross, there was a thief, and Jesus Christ still said, "I'll see you in paradise."

God would go love on a person like Rahab, a prostitute on the city gates, and then would include her in the line of Jesus Christ. You have all of these scenarios where we could just go back and go through one thing after the other of the grace of God and how God manifested his love to the worst scenarios that could ever take place.

So when we come to this whole issue and we look at it, the Bible says that how we respond to somebody else is more a definition of how we are in line with him, our relationship with him, than more we are to the other person. Because the Bible says if you love the Lord with all your heart, your soul, and your mind, you will love your neighbor as yourself.

So the person who shapes us to love a neighbor—a neighbor in the Bible is anyone in our proximity. A person at the traffic light is a neighbor. The person that lives next to you is a neighbor. The person that sits next to you in church is a neighbor. The person at the cash register in a grocery store is a neighbor.

And he says how you respond—we're going to look at today and walk our way through the book of 1 John in different capacities centered in Chapter 2, verse 9 through 10—is to crystallize how God views us as a people called unto him based on the nature that he displays.

We could have the best singing choir, we could have the best preacher, we could have the most beautiful building, but if we don't have love, we have nothing. He would literally leave the church of Ephesus. The issue of the church of Ephesus: they had the best preachers, best structure ever, diligent about the work of God, but they lacked loving a person.

They lost their first love, meaning in obeying God relevant to people that came among them that they may not have liked based on background or whatever preferences, they lost their commitment to God to obey God in responding to them.

Obviously, John is writing 1 John, 2 John, 3 John before he writes Revelation and talks about the very thing he's describing in 1 John that tells us they apparently didn't get it. So God now threatens to leave the church because of this critical issue in the church. Why? God is love.

God is not just displaying love. God is not just demonstrating love on Calvary's cross. God is not just providing love to people who are sinners because they accept him into their lives. God by his very nature is love, just like water is wet.

So the very nature of it, no matter how you jump into it with whatever you may have on, we will get wet because the very nature of water is to make us wet. The same thing is taking place with God, and that's why when we come to this book of 1 John, we find a group of people who were called Gnostic philosophers. They believed that they had a special knowledge of God.

And they believed that that knowledge made them so connected to God that there is no way the flesh is sinful and it can't be saved, but the inner person and relationship with God and the emanation of knowledge they receive from God made them so special to God that they can't sin.

There's just no way they can sin from the inside. Now when it comes to secessionists, they decided as a result of that that they needed to remove themselves so they could develop their own Christian community. You see that in Chapter 2, those who were among us but left by going off and creating for themselves what they believe is the best way to do what John was already teaching was the correct way to do it.

But they believed that, so they stepped away. And these people is who John is responding to when he's trying to teach the church of Ephesus in how it should respond to those people.

So when we come to this passage today, we're going to concentrate our efforts in verse 9 and verse 10 of 1 John, Chapter 2. But that spreads our wings out to Chapter 1, verse 5 through verse 7, to Chapter 2, verse 3 through verse 6, and in Chapter 4, verse 7 through verse 16.

So the first thing we would say, he says here in verse 9, "He that saith," in other words, a person that makes it a habit and repetitively say. Like people walk up to you and say, "I love you. Hey man, brother, love you, my brother." It just comes out of their mouth.

It's a nice thing in their minds. They want to communicate a great atmosphere maybe for the church or for the family, or when they meet with other people who say they're Christians. "Love you, brother. You're all right, good to see you." People that repeat things like that, he says, "He that saith he is in the light."

What does that mean? Well, the word "light" here means this is something that never goes off. It is a word in Greek that means this light never goes off, and John hints to that in Chapter 1.

It is a light in a Greek word means it is always on, never turns off, and there is no way you could go turn it off. This is just the nature of what it is. Now, John in 1 John, Chapter 1, is assuming that we've read the first part of the letter, so that when he says it in Chapter 2, we would get it.

So we could learn about how he thinks of this light when he says that if the person saith that he is in the light, then this person is characterizing themselves in a particular nature that is descriptive of Jesus Christ.

So you say, how you know that? Look at verse 5 of 1 John, Chapter 1. He says, "This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare to you that God is light." God never stops being light. This is who he really is. He says, "And in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with one another and walk in darkness, we lie and we do not the truth."

What does he mean by truth? Same writer, John, Chapter 14, verse 6 through 17, will teach us that the Holy Spirit is the truth. He is the truth. Obviously, what he is saying is the very nature of God is displayed by the very power of the Holy Spirit.

So when a person commits to obey God—you see Chapter 2, verse 3—he comes to the truth. Verse 3 says, "And hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandments, if we preserve in his word and see it as an order that he has given. He that saith I know him and experience him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

Watch this carefully. He is saying in Chapter 1, if a person walks in darkness, that person is lying. In other words, that person that does not walk in the very nature of who God is because they're committed to obey the Lord with all their soul, their heart, and their mind—they're not willing to do that.

That person, when they are not committed to constantly obey God and keep his commandments, no matter their feelings, their biases, their prejudices, their past experience, it doesn't matter. They're going to do what the Lord God tell them to do.

Manifested perfectly by Christ. He had Pharisees, Sadducees, all these people hating on him. He had the Romans going to nail him to a cross. It doesn't really matter what he was faced with—sinful persons, tax collectors, all these things.

Jesus Christ said, "For God so loved the world, he came to save the whole world through his Son, Jesus Christ." That was his vision statement. So in the midst of all this hatred that led to this hatred becoming so despicable it will take him to the cross, Jesus Christ still obeyed his Father's will all the way to the cross. "Not my will, but thy will be done."

He is saying that kind of actions stimulate the work of the Holy Spirit who came to guide us into truth, who convicts us when we sin. This Holy Spirit who illuminates the Word of God so we know how to walk in it, this Holy Spirit that reminds us of the Word of God so we know what to do in it.

This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It says this truth that this person claims to have, it cannot exist when they're not keeping God's word. Why? If they're keeping God's word, there's a conviction.

And then God is the one who expects for them to do what he is saying by letting the Holy Spirit empower them. Don't forget, I work out my salvation in fear and trembling, but it is he who is within me both to will and to do for his good purpose.

The Holy Spirit transforms a person as they renew their mind. There is no way they could say that they're in the Holy Spirit and walk in darkness because the Holy Spirit is the light, John is going to say.

So there is absolutely no way that the Holy Spirit is powerfully moving in a person's life when they are saying that they're not going to hold to God's word when somebody comes in front of them and they can't stand the person and don't want to deal with them.

That's why what is powerfully manifested when people hate is their relationship with God is not what they think it is. But whoever, Chapter 2, verse 5 of 1 John, keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected.

The love of God will come to a point where it is so completed in the person's life they could even love an enemy. It doesn't mean a smile or all these different things we want to put love to be because it's defined by Hollywood. It's obedience to the Word of God. John is going to tell us in John, Chapter 1, that Jesus is the light.

So the more I become like Christ, it's impossible to not love a person who hates me. That's why he's saying, the person who saith that he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness until now.

It doesn't matter how many Bible studies they go to, how many small groups they go to. What matters most is that if this person says and keeps saying they love, that love will be tested. And when it is tested, what does it bring out of the person?

I challenge you today, in the times that we live in, this is the time when our light can shine bright. The Bible says in 2 Peter, Chapter 1, verse 3 through 4, "I've given you everything you need for life and godliness through the Word of God. Everything."

We don't lack nothing. So when you're tested, whatever God exposes to you, let your love first shine towards him, and he will shape your heart to love anybody. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Pastor Cannings. It's not always easy to love those who have wronged us, but God will enable us to when we abide in his love.

Now, if you're wondering what God's love is all about and how to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, give us a call and let's talk about it. Our number is 281-260-7402. That's 281-260-7402.

Or visit us online at powerwalkministries.org. And while you're there, look for Pastor Cannings' teaching series, A Call to Active Duty and Don't Despair, which you'll find very helpful in practically applying God's word to your life.

Dr. Paul Cannings: One of the hardest things in ministry is not actually doing ministry when God has blessed you to be this equipped, but it's to get the resources to get it done. Oh folks, that's the hardest. We've stepped out in faith because we believe that.

But we pray that God will touch your heart to partnership with us. And you could do that simply by going to our website—it's a secure website—and pressing the donate button.

And on that button, you will be able to become a partner with us and we will seek to bless you for being a blessing to us. I pray that God would move on your heart to be our partner. God bless you.

Guest (Male): Again, our phone number is 281-260-7402. If you'd prefer to write us, our mailing address is Power Walk Ministries, PO Box 920517, Houston, Texas 77092.

And now as we leave you, remember the love of God is perfected in those who keep God's word. And as we keep his word, we will be able to show his love in practical ways to those around us.