Written by Pastor Jack Wellman– 1 John 3:16
For Others
Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), and for some, that might actually mean laying down their physical lives, but for most of us, it can be laying down our own interests for those of others and putting aside what we want and laying down our own time, talents, and treasures, for the benefit of others who have less.
Denying Self
The Apostle Paul admonishes us to “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil 2:4). In other words, we are to “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Phil 2:3). That sounds great, but as you and I know, it’s not so easy.
Glorifying God
Since Jesus laid down His physical life for us, we also ought to lay down our lives for others, and in this way, we can glorify God because when someone tells us, “Wow, that was so kind of you to help me,” we can point them to God because we can do nothing without Christ (John 15:5) and have nothing that was not given to us (1st Cor 4:7), so Who do you think deserves all the glory. Naturally, it is God! All glory to You oh God, and none to us.
Imitating Christ
The Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus to “be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph 5:10), and in so doing, be “imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1st Cor 11:1). Don’t make the mistake of imitating someone unless they are imitating Christ, but to imitate the best, read the Scriptures, and you’ll find that Christ is infinitely the perfect model for us to follow. If others follow me, I might lead us all into the ditch…but not so with Christ.
Conclusion
The Apostle John gives us a great description of what love is; “Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1st John 3:16), therefore, let us live to serve others, let us deny ourselves, let us glorify God in all we do, and let us imitate Christ, and although we’ll all far infinitely short of God’s glory (Rom 3:23), we can learn to imitate God by imitating Christ, because Jesus is God and there is no better model to follow.
