Love in Word, Deed & Truth—by Faith | 1 John 3:16-18

Lord's Day: April 27, 2025  Preacher: Carlos Montijo  Series: First John  Topic: The Christian Life  Scripture: 1 John 3:14–18, 1 Corinthians 15:16–18, Romans 5:9–10, Romans 9:16, James 2:14–26, Ephesians 2:10, Galatians 5:6, Hebrews 11:6, Matthew 12:26–37, Colossians 4:6, Titus 1:9, Matthew 7:17–20, Ephesians 4:32– 5:2 16 By this we have known love, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.17 But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. 1 John 3:16-18 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Romans 5:9–10 I.  When judging false doctrine, we must discern primary, secondary, tertiary issues Primary: God, man, salvation, and His Word, some of which have been central to controversies in the early church (God, Trinity, Christology, Man / Pelagianism) and into the Reformation (Salvation, Man, Bible) and beyond II.  The beloved apostle continues admonishing us onto the next verse from the last part of verse 16 III. “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” This hypocritical dead faith is not regenerated by the Spirit of God, who grants us repentance and faith, and works in us to perform good works. IV. We must always remember the other side of this coin (faith without works is dead), that we cannot do good works unless we first have saving faith V.  How much love for the brothers is required of us, to assure us that “we have passed out of death into life”? W. Arnot: “It is a straitening about [choking] that upper spring of faith that makes the [outflowing] streams of love fail in their channels.” VI. Love in Word, Deed & Truth 2 John 3: “Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.” You cannot divorce love from truth, because you cannot love apart from the truth True love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth” (1Co 13:6) VI. The Bible nowhere contrasts the head and the heart Instead, it contrasts other types of hypocrisy: Heart vs Mouth, Lips (Matt 15:7-9) Mouth vs Works, Actions (James 2:14ff., Titus 1:16) Heart vs Actions (James 2:14ff.) Inner Man vs Outer Man (Rom 7) Flesh vs Spirit (Gal 5, Rom 6-8) We meet on Sundays for worship at 10:00am: ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church4712 Montana AveEl Paso, Texas 79903 Contact us at: web: ThornCrownCovenant.Churchcall/text: (915) 843-8088email: [email protected] Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com ‘@nocoradio True love refutes those who contradict sound doctrine Ti 1:9, which requires sound doctrine, which is Reformed theology. True love rejoices in truth 1Co 13.6, which requires—and is grounded by—the truth of sound doctrine to love biblically. You can’t love aright without doctrine’, Twitter, 20 April 2025 <https://x.com/cemontijo/status/1913750145381830905>.